NASA satellites reveal that the surface of Greenland’s massive ice sheet has melted this month over an unusually large area. NASA has been monitoring the Greenland melt for 30 years, and they’re calling this one "unprecedented," partly because it’s so large and also because it occurred at the COLDEST part of the country, Summit station. The thawed area went from 40% of the ice sheet to 97% in just four days, starting on July 8th.
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A team of amateur astronomers have tracked down the X-37B spacecraft, launched on a 15-month clandestine mission by NASA in April ril from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This unmanned, reusable spacecraft has been developed by the US military. But why is it a secret? In 2010, an identical unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth after 7 months in orbit.
Precise objectives and cost of the program are classified, and some astronomers have speculated that it could be part of a new generation of spy satellites, or a step towards weaponizing space.
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NASA may return to space after all–but not to explore, to MINE the valuable minerals that are on asteroids, in a NEW TYPE of "Gold Rush." And we may use robots to do the dirty work.
Space scientists think that robots will be the astronauts of the future. They’ll explore the universe, find and identify extraterrestrial life and even clean up space debris in the process. In the April 24th edition of the New York Times, Kenneth Chang writes: "Perhaps it will be a platinum rush that finally opens up the final frontier."
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Just as NASA was about to solve the mystery of whether or not there is life on Mars, the world went broke and both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) had to back off on their plans to send astronauts and rovers there to find out. Two NASA missions to Mars–one in 2016 and another in 2018–have been canceled.
In the March 13 edition of the New York Times, Kenneth Chang quotes Planetary Society director Bill Nye as saying, "The pipeline is being shut off, and that’s not what anyone wants. We are closer than anyone has ever been to discovering life on another world."
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