Editorial: Who wouldn't want to go to Mars these days? - Los Angeles Times
Who hasn't thought that at some point in the past four months, as we hunkered down in our homes, brooding and restless but with no place to go? The pandemic shuttered our offices and made the idea of venturing anywhere more ambitious than a grocery store seem like a perilous journey. Any trip that required a flight or a stroll among the masses — even masked — seemed an unreasonable risk.
Suddenly a planet that is forbidding — with its frigid minus-80 degree temperature and thin, unbreathable atmosphere — seems more inviting than our pandemic-wracked Earth. And while our entire planet put their plans on hold, this was one trip that could not be postponed. The orbits of Earth and Mars align only once every 26 months. If scientists miss their shot this time, they will have to wait two years before trying again.
And here's another article:
Space Business: Planet Pickers — Space Business — Quartz
NASA Just Launched Its New Perseverance Rover to Mars | WIRED
On Thursday morning, NASA launched its new Mars rover, Perseverance, on a six-month journey to the Red Planet. The car-sized rover was boosted into space atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that departed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It's the third and final Mars mission to depart Earth this summer; earlier in July, China and the United Arab Emirates also launched their first Martian explorers.
Perseverance will enter the tenuous Martian atmosphere going more than 10,000 miles per hour, which means that as it slices through the air it will experience temperatures of nearly 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. "The heat shield really takes the brunt of hitting the atmosphere," says Tice of the lander's protective structure.
A Helicopter Ride Over Mars? NASA's About to Give It a Shot | WIRED
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"I see it as kind of a Wright brothers moment on another planet," says Bob Balaram, the chief engineer for the Mars helicopter project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's a high-risk, high-reward mission that could enable us to go to lots of places we haven't been able to go before."
Satellites are good at getting a global understanding of a planet, and the rovers are great at exploring a relatively small amount of terrain in minute detail. For everything in between, it helps to have an airborne system. A rover can only cover a few dozen kilometers over the course of several years, but future extraterrestrial drones could easily cover that in a day.
In case you are keeping track:
Riz Ahmed to star in Invasion | People | oanow.com
The 37-year-old actor is attached to appear alongside Octavia Spencer in the sci-fi film, which is being directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Michael Pearce.
Amazon Studios have acquired the rights to the project, which follows two young brothers who go on the run with their father (Ahmed), who needs to protect them from an extraterrestrial threat.
As the journey becomes increasingly dangerous, the boys are forced to face hard truths and leave their childhood behind.
Saddle up for a ride through the cosmos, partner, Space Force has horses | News | dothaneagle.com
The military's newest and most continually bewildering service branch shared a video last week welcoming the addition of a military working horse — a mustang named Ghost — to the ranks of the 30th Space Wing.
The 5-year-old horse, acquired through the Bureau of Land Management, is part of a team at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base that carries out tasks ranging from conservation efforts to the enforcement of hunting and fishing laws.
And while no one can fault the service members involved for landing perhaps the most enjoyable gig in the entire U.S. military, the notion that these tasks A) are even performed by a military unit, and B) once fell under the command of the U.S. Air Force remains perplexing.
'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,' Better Known as UFOs, Deserve Scientific Investigation -
UFOs have been back in the news because of videos initially leaked , and later confirmed , by the U.S. Navy and officially released by Pentagon that purportedly show "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) in our skies. Speculations about their nature have run the gamut from mundane objects like birds or balloons to visitors from outer space.
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say what these actually are, however, without context. What happened before and after these video snippets? Were there any simultaneous observations from other instruments, or sightings by pilots?
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