TO THE MOON, MARS, AND BEYOND

Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Twilight for Tiangong

In keeping up with the news, some information on Tiangong 1.
- LRK -

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Twilight for Tiangong
by Morris JonesSydney, Australia (SPX) Jun 28, 2013


How long will Tiangong 1 remain in orbit? There's probably no urgent need to terminate its mission. While it remains aloft, the cameras can still be used and engineering studies can be performed. This is icing on the cake for the mission, providing more data for little extra investment

The return to Earth of China's Shenzhou 10 spacecraft has wrapped up an important chapter in spaceflight. China has now completed all crewed activity with Tiangong 1, the nation's first space laboratory. Tiangong 1 has had a long and busy service record since its launch in 2011, and the laboratory has now completed all of the major tasks assigned to it. Tiangong 1 is now in its twilight phase, but this does not mean that its story is complete.

Tiangong 1 is the first step in a long-term program to build a large Chinese space station. It has demonstrated critical tasks such as rendezvous and docking with Shenzhou spacecraft. Tiangong has received dockings from three missions, Shenzhous 8, 9 and 10.

The last two missions both carried astronauts to occupy the laboratory. It has shown that China can support astronauts in comfort for extended periods. There have also been experiments with manual dockings and different approach patterns for dockings. This rather small module has achieved a lot over its lifetime.

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Dr Morris Jones is an Australian space analyst who has reported on China's space program for SpaceDaily.com since 1999. Email morrisjonesNOSPAMhotmail.com. Replace NOSPAM with @ to send email
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Tiangong 1 information on spaceflight 101
- LRK -

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http://www.spaceflight101.com/tiangong-1-info.html
Tiangong 1 - Spacecraft Information

Tiangong 1 is China's first Space Station Module that is the nation's first step towards its ultimate goal of developing, building, and operating a large Space Station as a permanent human presence in Low Earth Orbit. The vehicle was launched on September 29, 2012 aboard a Long March 2F Launch Vehicle. The Space Station Module is planned to welcome 3 visiting vehicles, the unmanned Shenzhou 8 test flight to demonstrate Rendezvous and Docking technology and the manned Shenzhou 9 and 10 missions that will utilize Tiangong 1 for experiments and tests associated with 'living in space'. Tiangong 1 is planned to be deorbited in 2013 and replaced by Tiangong 2, a larger, more sophisticated Space Laboratory. Tiangong 3 will follow by 2016 to prepare the final steps on the way to a large Station in Low Earth Orbit. Chinese Officials have indicated that their new space station will be as big as the US Skylab Space Station that orbited Earth in the 1970s. This large station is expected to open for business by 2020 - according to Chinese sources. Tiangong means Heavenly Palace. Tiangong-1 orbits Earth at 330 to 370 Kilometers with an inclination of 42 degrees.

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Images and information on CNTV
- LRK -

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Tiangong 1 China's First Space Rendezvous and Docking Task

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Other news that has happened.
- LRK -

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News Archive: July 2012 - April 2013
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Thanks for looking up with me.
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China launches three-person crew to visit Tiangong 1 space station

Posted By Jason Davis
2013/06/11 03:38 CDT

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Tiangong-1 (Chinese: 天宫一号; pinyin: Tiāngōng yīhào; literally "Heavenly Palace 1") is China's first space station,[7] an experimental testbedto demonstrate orbital rendezvous and docking capabilities.[8] Launched unmanned aboard a Long March 2F/G rocket[1] on 29 September 2011,[9] it is the first operational component of the Tiangong program, which aims to place a larger, modular station into orbit by 2020.[8] As of September 2011, Tiangong-1 was projected to be deorbited in 2013,[10] and replaced over the following decade by the larger Tiangong-2 andTiangong-3 modules.[11]
Tiangong-1 will be visited by a series of Shenzhou spacecraft during its two-year operational lifetime. The first of these, the unmanned Shenzhou 8, successfully docked with the module in November 2011,[12][13] while the manned Shenzhou 9 mission docked in June 2012.[14][15][16] A third and final mission to Tiangong-1, the manned Shenzhou 10, docked in June 2013.[17][18][19] The manned missions to Tiangong-1 were notable for including China's first female astronauts, Liu Yang and Wang Yaping.[20][18]
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Mission accomplished as Chinese astronauts return to Earth

A work in progress.
- LRK -

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Mission accomplished as Chinese astronauts return to Earth
By Tim Hume, CNN
updated 4:29 AM EDT, Thu June 27, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Three Chinese astronauts return after their country's longest manned space voyage
  • Zhang Xiaoguang: "We are dreamers, and we have now fulfilled our dream"
  • Shenzhou-10 twice docked with the orbiting space station Tiangong-1
  • Part of ambitious multi-billion dollar program to establish manned space station by 2020
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Hong Kong (CNN) -- Three Chinese astronauts have returned safely to Earth after completing their country's longest manned space voyage, with their mission hailed by their bosses as a "complete success."

Nie Haisheng, commander of the Shenzhou-10 crew, was the first to emerge from the descent module after it touched down by parachute in an expanse of Inner Mongolian grasslands on Wednesday morning after 15 days in space. He was followed by Wang Yaping, the only female astronaut of the mission, and Zhang Xiaoguang.

"We are dreamers, and we have now fulfilled our dream," Zhang was quoted as saying by the state media China Daily as saying. "Our space dream knows no boundary, and our hard work will never cease."

Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, watching a broadcast of the descent from the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, congratulated the astronauts on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

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More pictures and information.
- LRK -

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Mission accomplished! Chinese astronauts return from historic trip to their space station... and plan permanent base by 2020

The Shenzhou 10 capsule landed safely in Inner Mongolia after 15 days aboard the Tiangong 1 space station

The station is a prototype with China hoping to launch a permanent version by 2020
The mission is the longest a manned Chinese spacecraft has been in orbit - beating Shenzhou 9 by two days
During the mission, the three astronauts beamed a live physics class to 60 million school children

PUBLISHED: 04:06 EST, 26 June 2013 | UPDATED: 10:22 EST, 26 June 2013

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2348729/Chinese-astronauts-return-safely-experimental-mission-China-ramps-plans-launch-permanent-space-station-2020.html#ixzz2XdOOxu10
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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Many topics that might be of interest.
- LRK -

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News Archive: July 2012 - April 2013
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Thanks for looking up with me.
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Shenzhou spacecraft arrives at Chinese launch base
The spacecraft that will carry three Chinese astronauts into orbit in June arrived at the country's remote desert launch base Sunday for final testing and flight preparations, state media reported. 
   FULL STORY

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Power Surge - NOVA Special

Just watched a PBS NOVA program on how we can help decrease the warming of our global climate.
It was refreshing to see the excitement from those that are making a difference.

If you check out the PBS website there is button where you can watch the show if you missed it. (53 min.)
Originally aired back in 2011. Transcript and other related links available there as well.
- LRK -

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Power Surge

Power Surge

Are we finally on the brink of a clean energy revolution? Aired April 20, 2011 on PBS

Program Description

Can emerging technology defeat global warming? The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in clean energy projects as our leaders try to save our crumbling economy and our poisoned planet in one bold, green stroke. Are we finally on the brink of a green-energy "power surge," or is it all a case of too little, too late?

From solar panel factories in China to a carbon capture-and-storage facility in the Sahara desert to massive wind and solar installations in the United States, NOVA travels the globe to reveal the surprising technologies that just might turn back the clock on climate change. NOVA will focus on the latest and greatest innovations, including everything from artificial trees to green reboots of familiar technologies like coal and nuclear energy. Can our technology, which helped create this problem, now solve it?

Learn more about the "carbon calculator" discussed in the program at this site from the Cool Climate Network.
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And what about a Fusion Power generator?

And this from the comments section of E-Cat World
- LRK -

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The lead scientist Tom McGuire mentioned in the presentation did his Phd on “Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Devices” – you can read all 250+ pages of it at http://ssl.mit.edu/publications/theses/PhD-2007-McGuireThomas.pdf

Talk-Polywell.org a discussion forum for Polywell fusion

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Thanks for looking up with me.
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Cellana Cuts Algae Biofuel Deal with Finland Oil Giant
Luke Timmerman 6/6/13

Algae biofuel was hot, then cold. Now it looks to be warming up again—kinda, sorta, maybe.
San Diego-based Cellana is the latest example of an aspiring algae biofuel company that has been given a chance to turn things around, after the hype of the past few years died down. The company (previously known as HR BioPetroleum) is announcing today that it has struck a multi-year, non-exclusive agreement with Finland-basedNeste Oil, in which Neste has agreed to purchase large volumes of Cellana’s algae-based crude oil if Cellana can scale up.
That’s always a big “if” in the algae biofuel business, where most ideas never make it beyond the laboratory bench, but if Cellana can pull off that feat, it could end up selling $75 million to $100 million of algae crude oil for refining to Neste, says Michael Kamdar, a veteran biotech executive who was named as president of Cellana last month. Neste generated about 18 billion euros of revenue last year.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

NASA ADMINISTRATOR MEDIA AVAILABILITY AT KENNEDY JUNE 28

Maybe the media will tell us what happens here.
- LRK -

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June 27, 2013

David Weaver
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
david.s.weaver@nasa.gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-101

NASA ADMINISTRATOR MEDIA AVAILABILITY AT KENNEDY JUNE 28

WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will hold a media
availability at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida
at 1 p.m. EDT Friday, June 28.

Bolden, Kennedy Center Director Robert Cabana and officials from the
state of Florida will discuss NASA's future spaceflight programs and
initiatives. These include plans to launch astronauts from Kennedy to
study an asteroid and work with commercial companies to send crew to
low Earth orbit and the International Space Station from Florida's
Space Coast in the next four years. They also will provide updates
about ongoing progress to transform Kennedy into a multi-user
spaceport for both government and commercial clients.

The event will not be broadcast on NASA Television or online. Media
interested in participating in the availability and other events at
the visitor complex June 28 should contact Nancy Glasgow at
nancy@bitner.com or 407-375-2433.

For information about the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, visit:
http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com

For more information about NASA's missions and programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

To subscribe to the list, send a message to:
hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
To remove your address from the list, send a message to:
hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov
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"The event will not be broadcast on NASA Television or online."

I guess we won't watch this meeting.

Hmmm. - "Bolden, Kennedy Center Director Robert Cabana and officials from the state of Florida will discuss NASA's future spaceflight programs and initiatives"

Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
 
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Redirecting an asteroid mission
by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 24, 2013
 
When NASA released its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal two and a half months ago, a key element of it was a new “asteroid initiative” that called for $105 million for various asteroid search and technology development efforts. The centerpiece of that plan was a robotic mission to capture a small near Earth asteroid, no more than about ten meters across, and move it into cislunar space, where it could potentially be visited by astronauts on the first crewed Orion mission, slated for 2021 (see “To catch a planetoid”, The Space Review, April 22, 2013).

That proposed mission—called at the time the Asteroid Retrieval Mission, or ARM—raised more than a few eyebrows when NASA announced it in April. Some questioned the technical feasibility of the concept (which is based on a 2012 study by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech) while others wondered how useful it would be for science or human exploration. Now, with some members of Congress making moves to block the effort, NASA is showing signs of subtly shifting the focus of the proposed mission, and the overall initiative, more towards the less controversial role planetary defense.
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Download: Space Policy and the Constitution
By Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt. Prologue: (“Is there a path forward for United States’ space policy? When a new President takes office in 2013, he or she should propose to Congress that we start space policy and its administration from scratch. A new agency, the National Space Exploration Administration (NSEA), should be charged with specifically enabling America’s and its partners’ exploration of deep space, inherently stimulating education, technology, and national focus. The existing component parts of NASA should be spread among other agencies with the only exception being activities related to U.S. obligations to its partners in the International Space Station (ISS).” — HHS). The Foreword was written by Michael D. Griffin, noted physicist, aerospace engineer and NASA Administrator (2005-2009): (“Jack makes the case for space as no one else can, and he shows how and why we are on the wrong path— leaving the rest of us with the question: what can we do to obtain the leadership we need instead of the leadership we have?”— MDG).
Download Full PDF Booklet (~7.1 Mb)Download Full PRC File for Kindle (~1.0 Mb)
Download_PDFDownload_Kindle
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Asteroids in our Future

I would recommend reading Paul Gilster's recent blog on the topic of asteroids in our future.
He has many other interesting blogs as well. 

This quote from his Charter - "In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities."

Paul should help your looking up experience.
- LRK -

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Asteroids in our Future

by PAUL GILSTER on JUNE 27, 2013

NASA has released an Asteroid Initiative Request for Information on the issue of asteroid retrieval. It’s an interesting document both in its audience — the agency is making a point about soliciting comments not only from academics, scientists and engineers but the general public — but also because of the issues it explores. Being sought are ideas on how best to capture an asteroid, land an astronaut on one, and change its orbit, not necessarily in that order. The Los Angeles Times quotes NASA associate director Robert Lightfoot on the public component of NASA’s initiative:
“Too often, by the time we present a mission to the public, it has already been baked, and there’s not much we can change. This is your chance to present your ideas to us before the mission is baked.”
If you’re interested in contributing, move quickly, for the deadline for responses is July 18, with a workshop to follow in September.
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After you read Paul Gilster's blog you may want to be entertained by listening to Phil Plait, if you haven't already done so.
- LRK -

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How Can We Defend Earth From Asteroids?
"When I go outside and it's clear? Yeah, I look up. It's a habit. It's something I wish more people did. You may seem something that will profoundly affect you."— Phil Plait
Gazing up at the night sky is simultaneously humbling and utterly thrilling. This hour, we'll hear from TED speakers who share an infectious sense of wonder and curiosity about our place in the universe and what lies beyond our skies.
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Will continue to watch along with you.
Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
 
NASA’s Proposed Asteroid Capture Mission 
Animation By Jeffrey Kluger June 27, 2013
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The best two things  you can say about this video NASA just posted of its proposed asteroid capture mission is that it’s insanely cool to watch and it will cost you only 4 minutes and 42 seconds of your life. The worst you can say is that it will cost taxpayers billions of dollars in development costs before it is ultimately discarded as unworkable, impractical and—not to put too fine a point on it—ridiculous.
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The unlikely plan, announced in April by Fla. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and said to be included in a $100 million appropriation in President Obama’s 2014 budget, is for an unmanned spaecraft to be launched by 2017 to capture a 25-ft., 500-ton asteroid with, yes, a giant drawstring bag. The rock would then be towed back to the vicinity of the moon where it would be safely parked in space. In 2021, astronauts would travel out to the asteroid in a brand new Apollo-like spacecraft lofted by a brand-new heavy-lift rocket. Once there, they would land, prospect for metals and learn more about both living off the cosmic land and deflecting rogue asteroids that might threaten Earth.

Read more: http://science.time.com/2013/06/27/nasas-proposed-asteroid-capture-mission-animation/#ixzz2XR1RtjFp
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Redirecting an asteroid mission
by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 24, 2013
 
When NASA released its fiscal year 2014 budget proposal two and a half months ago, a key element of it was a new “asteroid initiative” that called for $105 million for various asteroid search and technology development efforts. The centerpiece of that plan was a robotic mission to capture a small near Earth asteroid, no more than about ten meters across, and move it into cislunar space, where it could potentially be visited by astronauts on the first crewed Orion mission, slated for 2021 (see “To catch a planetoid”, The Space Review, April 22, 2013).

That proposed mission—called at the time the Asteroid Retrieval Mission, or ARM—raised more than a few eyebrows when NASA announced it in April. Some questioned the technical feasibility of the concept (which is based on a 2012 study by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech) while others wondered how useful it would be for science or human exploration. Now, with some members of Congress making moves to block the effort, NASA is showing signs of subtly shifting the focus of the proposed mission, and the overall initiative, more towards the less controversial role planetary defense.
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NASA's proposed asteroid-snaring mission would ride on Glenn ion engines (video)
By John Mangels, The Plain Dealer 
on April 20, 2013 at 6:00 PM, updated May 03, 2013 at 9:47 AM

Inside cavernous "Tank 5," a vacuum chamber as big as a subway tunnel at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center, a soft sapphire glow spilled from the nozzle of an odd-looking spacecraft engine earlier this month.

The turquoise plume was a familiar sight to the engineers running the test. Ion engines, which spout bluish jets of electrically excited atoms rather than chemical flames like a traditional rocket, have been a Glenn specialty for more than 40 years. Their gentle, continuous push produces astounding speeds, using only tiny sips of xenon fuel.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

What goes on behind the foot lights?

In the last post I said, 'And the hands are raised and you hear the shouts, "Fund me, fund me!"'
Kendall noted that I was getting good at being cynical about the space program in general, and funding in particular.

I mentioned that I should sit with the audience and see what it is I am saying behind the foot lights.  
Maybe I wave my arms too much and come across with an attitude that says,.
 "SEE ME, SEE ME, HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY AND BE AMAZED!"  :-)

Sorry about that. Looking at how missions do finally get implemented is worth noting but takes more research to uncover.
(All those negative sound bites are so easy to copy.)   

Does one report it took a long time to get the mission approved or that dedication and persistence, with the ability to adapt to changing requirements, triumphs?.

Many years were spent getting NASA to okay the Kepler mission but Bill Borucki wouldn't give up.
- LRK -

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The idea of using transits to detect extrasolar planets was first published in 1971 by computer scientist Frank Rosenblatt. Kepler’s principal investigator, William Borucki, expanded on that idea in 1984 with Audrey Summers, proposing that transits could be detected using high-precision photometry. The next sixteen years were spent proving to others—and to NASA—that this idea could work.
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After revising, testing, publishing, and proposing for nearly twenty years, Kepler was finally approved as a Discovery mission in 2001

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Had Bill not kept up the good fight I wouldn't have gotten to write a bit of LabView code to control some of the components on the tester that was built to show you could extract information about the slight dimming that would be caused by a transiting planet.
- LRK -

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“To prove we could reliably detect a brightness change of 84 ppm, we needed a method to reduce the light by that amount. If a piece of glass is slid over a hole, the glass will reduce the flux by 8 percent—about one thousand times too much,” Borucki explained. “Adding antireflection coatings helped by a factor of sixteen, but the reduction was still sixty times too large. How do you make the light change by 0.01 percent?

“There really wasn’t anything that could do the job for us, so we had to invent something,” said Borucki. “Dave Koch realized that if you put a fine wire across an aperture—one of the drilled holes—it would block a small amount of light. When a tiny current is run through the wire, it expands and blocks slightly more light. Very clever. But it didn’t work.”

With a current, the wire not only expanded, it also curved. As it curved, it moved away from the center of a hole, thereby allowing more light to come through, not less.

“So Dave had square holes drilled,” said Borucki. “With a square hole, when the wire moves off center, it doesn’t change the amount of light. To keep the wire from bending, we flattened it.” The results demonstrated that transits could be detected at the precision needed even in the presence of on-orbit noise.

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The Mars rovers might not have ever made it to Mars if Steve Squyres hadn't persisted and found ways to overcome the obstacles.
- LRK -

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http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/reviews/roving-mars-spirit-opportunity-and-exploration-red-planet/
Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet
By Steve Squyres
Scribe
422 pages
ISBN 1401301495
1401301495
AUD$49.95
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington is one of the great museums of the world. It is awe-inspiring to see artefacts from the 1903 Wright Flyer to the original Apollo 11 command module. They demonstrate a tradition of brilliant, painstaking design and engineering in the face of environments hostile to man and machine.
Steve Squyres, the scientific principal investigator of the team that proposed, designed and built the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, is proud to be part of that tradition. But there were plenty of problems along the way. Before the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project, Squyres had painful years of rejected proposals, starting with one in 1993 for a camera to go on the Mars Environmental Survey Pathfinder. When the MER team finally did receive approval from NASA to construct the rovers, the time frame was almost impossibly brief, with immense technical problems to surmount.
Then, in 2003, when a lastminute problem emerged just before the start of the launch window, it looked as though the launch of Spirit and Opportunity might be delayed until the next good window in 2005, or even permanently. And while Squyres was arguing for the launch to go ahead, an important NASA official told him, depressingly, “I think they’d look pretty damn good over in the Air and Space Museum.” That particular problem – as with all those that had preceded it – was finally solved by the hardworking team, but more just kept on coming.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover

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I would imagine that most missions have their own set of problems and that solving them is what engineers like to do.

And if you read Alan Binder's book you will note other kinds of problems, not so easily fixed by engineers..
- LRK -

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http://www.amazon.com/Lunar-Prospector-Against-All-Odds/dp/1928771319
Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds [Paperback]Alan B. Binder (Author)

Lunar Prospector, Against all Odds is the Principal Investigator’s highly personal account of the triumphs, defeats, dirty politics, and ultimate success enjoyed and endured during the 13 years it took to accomplish the Lunar Prospector mission. Like the mission, Lunar Prospector, Against all Odds answers to the American taxpayer, but this time spotlighting the incompetence and self-serving activities of the NASA bureaucracy and accompanying aerospace industries. Together, they waste a large portion of the $13 billion yearly federal government budget to execute America’s space program.
The Lunar Prospector mission was the only NASA funded space project that was conceived and managed by a scientist rather than a NASA bureaucrat or engineer — a venture initially developed outside NASA that proved when missions are properly conceived and managed, the cost of space exploration can be cut by a factor of 10.

Lunar Prospector, Against all Odds shines light on the faltering American space program, however, it also provides new hope and vision — one for transforming the tired space industry into an efficient, commercially based, and profit-driven program that eliminates the federal government handouts which so lucratively line the pockets of the huge aerospace industry.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Prospector
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunarprosp.html

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Having played a small part in helping NASA Ames Research Center provide Lunar Prospector data to be displayed on a web site and being a passive watcher of the daily goings on, I would beg to differ with some of Alan Binder's portrayal of the Lunar Prospector mission.
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/resources/credits.htm
http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/project/mission.htm

As I mentioned, maybe I should sit with you and see what it is I am saying behind those foot lights.  
Please feel free to give me a nudge, nudge, and let me know what kind of arm waving you would like to see.

Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -

This list of manned Mars mission plans in the 20th century is a listing of formal proposals, studies, and plans for a human manned mission to Mars during the 20th century. It is limited to serious studies done with engineering and scientific knowledge about the capabilities of then current technology, typically for high-budget space agencies like NASA. Mission profiles included manned flybys, manned landers, or other types of Mars system encounter strategies. For later plans see Manned mission to Mars.
Many mission concepts for expeditions to Mars were proposed in the late 1900s. David Portree's history volume Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950—2000 discusses many of these.[1] Portee notes, every 26 Earth months a lower energy Earth to Mars transfer opportunity opens,[1] so missions typically coincide with one of these windows. In addition, the lowest available transfer energy varies on a roughly 16 year cycle, with a minimum in the 1969 and 1971 launch windows, rising to a peak in the late 70s, and hitting another low in 1986 and 1988.[1] Also of note, the Mariner 4 Mars flyby in 1965 provided radically more accurate data about the planet; a surface atmospheric pressure of about 1% of Earth's and daytime temperatures of -100 degrees Celsius (-148 degrees Fahrenheit) were estimated. No magnetic field[2][3] or Martian radiation belts[4] were detected. The new data meant redesigns for planned Martian landers, and showed life would have a more difficult time surviving there than previously anticipated.[5][6][7][8] Later NASA probes in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s confirmed the findings about Mars environmental conditions.
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Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950—2000
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List of proposed missions to the Moon
There are several future lunar missions scheduled or proposed by various nations or organisations.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_the_Moon
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NASA Ames Academy for Space Exploration

The 10-week summer Academy runs from the 2nd week of June through the third week of August. Transportation and housing will be provided by NASA in addition to a $4k stipend from your Space Grant for the summer.

NASA Ames Academy is a Diverse Summer Program that Focuses on Leadership, Team Building, and Provides Direct Contact with NASA Research in Advanced Science and Engineering.

Applications are accepted October through January for the following summer's Academy Program.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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