Obama axes NASA moon plan in new budget

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - President Barack Obama wants to end NASA's moon program, turn over space transportation to commercial companies and jump-start technologies needed for future human exploration of Mars and other destinations, officials said on Monday.

The plan is part Obama's budget for the fiscal year to September 30, 2011, which was unveiled on Monday and must be approved by the Congress.

NASA, which currently receives about $18 billion a year, has been working to develop a replacement for the space shuttles, which are being retired this year after five more missions to complete construction of the orbiting International Space Station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations.

NASA currently spends more than half of its budget on human space programs.

Obama's budget ends work on the shuttle follow-on vehicle, known as Orion, as well as a pair of rockets developed to fly astronauts to the space station, the moon and other destinations in the solar system.

"We are proposing canceling the program, not delaying it," Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters during a conference call.

Funds previously earmarked for the Constellation program, initially intended to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020, instead would be used for research projects that include robotics and other technologies needed to prepare for an eventual human mission to Mars, Orszag added.

NASA already has spent $9 billion on Constellation and likely would owe millions more to cancel existing contracts. Prime contractors on the Ares rocket program include ATK Launch Systems, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Boeing Co.

Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor on the Orion capsule.

A space advisory panel, tapped by Obama to review the Constellation program, determined that without a $3 billion-a-year budget boost, the program was doomed.

The board also recommended NASA help commercial firms develop space taxis to ferry crewmembers to and from the space station, a service the United States currently is paying Russia to provide at a cost of $50 million a seat. Obama apparently has decided to take its advice.

Advocates say turning over space transportation to the private sector will create more jobs per dollar because the government's investment would be leveraged by millions of dollars in private investments.

"NASA investment in the commercial spaceflight industry is a win-win decision," Bretton Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said in a statement. "Commercial crew will create thousands of high-tech jobs in the United States, especially in Florida, while reducing the spaceflight gap and preventing us from sending billions to Russia.'

NASA already has contacts with Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp. to deliver cargo to the station. SpaceX and other firms also are developing spaceships that can carry passengers to orbit and back.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35182959/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Indian Scientists discover signs of organic life on the moon

Bangalore: Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) are on the brink of a path-breaking discovery. They may have found signs of life in some form or the other on the Moon.

They believe so because scientific instruments on India's first unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, picked up signatures of organic matter on parts of the Moon's surface, Surendra Pal, associate director, Isro Satellite Centre (Isac), said at the international radar symposium here on Friday.

Organic matter consists of organic compounds, which consists of carbon -- the building block of life.

It indicates the formation of life or decay of a once-living matter.

Pal said the signatures were relayed back to the Bylalu deep space network station near Bangalore by the mass spectrometer on board the Indian payload, the moon impact probe (MIP), on November 14, 2008.

The relay of data happened moments before it crashed near the Moon's south pole. The MIP was the first experiment of the Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was launched on October 22, 2008.

Pal, however, did not elaborate, but concluded saying "the findings are being analysed and scrutinised for validation by Isro scientists and peer reviewers".

"It is too early to say anything," said the director of Isro's space physics laboratory R Sridharan, who is heading the team of MIP data analysis and study. He, however, did not deny the finding.

DNA later inquired with other senior Chandrayaan-1 mission scientists, who not only confirmed the finding, but gave further details.

"Certain atomic numbers were observed that indicated the presence of carbon components. This indicates the possibility of the presence of organic matter (on the Moon)," a senior scientist told DNA.

Interestingly, similar observations were made by the US's first manned Moon landing mission, the Apollo-11, in July 1969, which brought lunar soil samples back to Earth. But due to a lack of sophisticated equipment then, the scientists could not confirm the finding.

However, traces of amino acids, which are basic to life, were found in the soil retrieved by the Apollo-11 astronauts.

The Chandrayaan-1 scientists, at present, are analysing the source of origin of the Moon's organic matter. "It could be comets or meteorites which have deposited the matter on the Moon's surface; or the instrument that landed on the Moon could have left traces," a senior space scientist said.

"But the presence of large sheets of ice in the polar regions of the Moon, and the discovery of water molecules there, lend credence to the possibility of organic matter there," he said.

Article Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_indian-scientists-detect-signs-of-life-on-moon_1322785