Getting Real - On Mars

Congress Instructs NASA to Build a Space Habitat by 2018

Some of NASA’s successes in 2015 include finding liquid water on Mars and icy mountains on Pluto. In fact, the agency has been making so much waves that the US Congress has decided to give it a raise.

However, there’s a catch.

http://futurism.com/links/congress-instructs-nasa-build-space-habitat-2018/

We’re With You When You Fly

Did you know that “We’re With You When You Fly”? Thanks to our advancements in aeronautics, today’s aviation industry is better equipped than ever to safely and efficiently transport millions of passengers and billions of dollars worth of freight to their destinations. In fact, every U.S. Aircraft flying today and every U.S. air traffic control tower uses NASA-developed technology in some way. Here are some of our objectives in aeronautics:

Making Flight Greener

From reducing fuel emissions to making more efficient flight routes, we’re working to make flight greener. We are dedicated to improving the design of airplanes so they are more Earth friendly by using less fuel, generating less pollution and reducing noise levels far below where they are today.

Getting you safely home faster

We work with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide air traffic controllers with new tools for safely managing the expected growth in air traffic across the nation. For example, testing continues on a tool that controllers and pilots can use to find a more efficient way around bad weather, saving thousands of pounds of fuel and an average of 27 minutes flying time per tested flight. These and other NASA-developed tools help get you home faster and support a safe, efficient airspace.

Seeing Aviation’s Future

Here at NASA, we’re committed to transforming aviation through cutting edge research and development. From potential airplanes that could be the first to fly on Mars, to testing a concept of a battery-powered plane, we’re always thinking of what the future of aviation will look like.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

This is the spaceship that could bring humans to Mars

Follow @the-future-now

The Detection of Gravitational Waves, Evidence of the “Impossible Particle” – it has been a fantastic week in science. 

Clickable image with links to the stories: http://tinyurl.com/jqhz76o

Australia’s using drones to protect its coasts from sharks

Robots Able to Learn Like Babies

Now a collaboration between University of Washington developmental psychologists and computer scientists has demonstrated that robots can “learn” much like kids – by amassing data through exploration, watching a human perform a task and determining how best to carry out that task on its own.

The research is in PLOS ONE. (full open access)

The techniques used to find and study exoplanets

A New Era in Astronomy: The James Webb Space Telescope is One Step Closer to Completion

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was just seen the installation of the first of its eighteen flight mirrors, marking the beginning of the final assembly phase of the successor to the 25-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.

The significance of this project cannot be overstated, as Hubble is arguably one of mankind’s greatest inventions, and the James Webb is set to be 100 times more powerful.

Indeed, this telescope will be more sensitive by a factor of about 100, than all the other telescopes that came before it. It could help us see some of the first stars forming in the universe. It could allow us to image planets orbiting alien stars. It will open up a world (a universe) of possibilities.

We will be able to see farther and deeper than ever before, and completion is coming ever closer.

Know more at: http://futurism.com/links/a-new-era-in-astronomy-the-james-webb-space-telescope-is-one-step-closer-to-completion/