Mars mission delayed 2 years – CNN.com

Something about a conflict of interest…hmmmm. Hope I hear some gossip about this.

Yesssss! I finally defended my dissertation proposal. I’m all done with classes, too!

Now, I just need to study for comps, take comps, do field work, conduct experiments, run statistics, write up results, write dissertation, and defend dissertation. Uggghhh! It never ends. It’s a sickness.

Hal, Ian, and I are off to Flagstaff this weekend so I can attend the 8th Mars Crater Consortium. I’ve never been to this conference before. I’m a crater newbie trying to take a “crash course” this fall. Attendees will be taking a tour of the rim of Meteor Crater on Sunday. It should be fun.

Galactic survey reveals a new look for the Milky Way

MADISON: With the help of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have conducted the most comprehensive structural analysis of our galaxy and have found tantalizing new evidence that the Milky Way is much different from your ordinary spiral galaxy. …

From SpaceRef

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Friday, August 12, 2005
Source: NASA HQ

NASA’s Multipurpose Mars Mission Successfully Launched

A seven-month flight to Mars began this morning for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It will inspect the red planet in fine detail and assist future landers.

An Atlas V launch vehicle, 19 stories tall with the two-ton spacecraft on top, roared away from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:43 a.m. EDT. Its powerful first stage consumed about 200 tons of fuel and oxygen in just over four minutes, then dropped away to let the upper stage finish the job of putting the spacecraft on a path toward Mars. This was the first launch of an interplanetary mission on an Atlas V.

via marstoday.com

MRO postponed again due to software glitch.

NASA has postponed the launch of the MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter).

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will be launched tomorrow!

The Discovery and her crew are home!

I just got back from NASA Planetary Science Summer School at JPL. It was an amazing, life-changing experience. I will never be the same again. I’ll post some photos and more information later in the week.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Mars rovers have found fresh evidence that water was plentiful in both the hills and plains of the now-barren Red Planet, scientists at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Thursday.

Here’s an article from www.MantlePlumes.org on mantle plumes, or the lack thereof, on Venus.