Moscow - May 1, 2001 - People are the most vulnerable chain in long-term space expedition. How numerous should a crew be? What are the principles of a crew selection? What should be made to protect people during a flight and on some other planet?
Cameron Park - May 1, 2001 - The 32nd Annual Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference -- held in Houston from March 12 through 16 -- like all the LPSCs before it, was a major scientific powwow at which scientists from the world over presented hundreds of papers and posters on the geology, meteorology and chemistry of the other worlds and objects in our Solar System, from giant planets down to meteorites.
Cameron Park - May 1, 2001 - In short, this year's LPSC papers on Mars make it abundantly clear that a new paradigm has become extremely important in understanding the strange and puzzling history of Mars: the idea that the planet's geology has been radically affected by the fact that -- unlike Earth -- it's cold enough for great amounts of carbon dioxide to get into its subsurface.
New York - April 4, 2001 - If astronauts ever make it to Mars, they'll need a roof over their heads. Bricks are too heavy to lug all the way from Earth, but with just a few bucket-loads of polyethylene powder, they could rustle them up when they get there.
Tucson - April 4, 2001 - What scientists suspect might be ancient ocean shorelines on the northern plains of Mars is actually a network of tectonic ridges related to dramatic martian volcanism, a University of Arizona planetary sciences graduate student and a collaborating post-doctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in the April 5 issue of Nature.
Tucson - April 2, 2001 - Last June scientists announced that gullies seen on some martian cliffs and crater walls suggest that liquid water has seeped down the slopes in the geologically recent past. Researchers found small channels on slopes facing away from mid-day sunlight, with most channels occurring at high latitudes, near Mars' south pole.
Huntsville - March 28, 2001 - Scientists think Mars has a bad case of rust. Martian soil is full of iron-bearing compounds that, over the eons, have reacted with trace amounts of oxygen and water vapor in Mars' atmosphere to form iron oxide -- the same chemical that covers innumerable rusty nails in garages and workshops on Earth.
Miami - March 28, 2001 - If you like TV, you'll love the Mars Channel. Take your seats for the network premiere of interplanetary telly.
Washington - March 26, 2001 - NASA and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) today said researchers from the two agencies will continue a joint review of the initial results of NIMA's search for the missing Mars Polar Lander. This analysis is extremely challenging, and has thus far produced no definitive conclusions.
St. Louis - March 15, 2001 - Planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and various collaborators have concluded that the Tharsis rise in Mars' Western Hemisphere is key to many of the Red Planet's mysteries, including its large-scale shape and gravity field, and its early climate and water distribution.
Houston - March 12, 2001 - Two of the oldest volcanoes on Mars, which have been active for 3.5 billion years, are providing clues to the possibility of life on the planet, according to preliminary analysis by University at Buffalo geologists of new data from the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), currently orbiting the planet.
Huntsville - January 26, 2001 - Although Mars may once have been warm and wet, the Red Planet today is a frozen wasteland. Most scientists agree, it's highly unlikely that any living creature --even a microbe-- could survive for long on the surface of Mars.
Berkeley - Dec 18, 2000 - Though Mars lacks a global protective magnetic shield like that of the Earth, strong localized magnetic fields embedded in the crust appear to be a significant barrier to erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind.
Ames - Dec 12, 2000 - An Iowa State University professor is part of a research team that has found compelling evidence that Mars once supported primitive life.
Paris - Nov 22, 2000 - Starting with Mars Express and Beagle 2 and ending with a possible Sample Return Mission, Europe will be making a major contribution to Mars exploration over the next two decades. Europe's plans complement the new programme recently announced by NASA in the wake of last year's mission losses.
Pasadena - Nov 6, 2000 - Then, in August 2005, the U.S. will launch the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was first proposed for the 2003 opportunity but passed over then for the rovers. This new mission is a virtual certainty; its startup funds will come out of the current FY 2000 budget.
