NASA

Soprano Sarah Brightman, believed to be one of the world's wealthiest classical crossover performers, has booked a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a 10-day visit to the International Space Station.

The launch schedule has not been announced, but the first available flight is believed to be in mid- to late-2015.

"As I'm sure you may know, I'm planning to become a spaceflight participant and have been recently approved to begin my spaceflight training by the Russian space federation, having passed the necessary medical and physical tests," she said today, reading prepared remarks at … Read more

Much like a toddler in a sandbox, the Curiosity rover has been busy scooping up the Martian soil lately. All that digging around was brought to a halt by the discovery of a small, bright object. NASA is currently trying to sort out what it is.

According to NASA, "Curiosity's first scooping activity appeared to go well on October 7. Subsequently, the rover team decided to refrain from using the rover's robotic arm on October 8 due to the detection of a bright object on the ground that might be a piece from the rover."… Read more

Columbus Day has attracted its share of detractors in recent years among indigenous peoples' groups and others. That's not to mention the widening recognition that Christopher Columbus ended up in the Americas through some remarkably bad navigational skills and then set about conquering its people through slavery, disease, and other little bits of nastiness.

Suburban St. Louis business owner Karl Frank Jr. has always had similar sentiments. While taking in media reports on the death of Neil Armstrong that compared the shy moonwalker to Columbus, Frank says a light bulb went off. He contacted a few nerdy friends and soon a petition was drafted to re-dedicate Columbus Day as "Exploration Day." … Read more

An unmanned cargo ship loaded with spare parts, science equipment, and crew supplies -- including ice cream treats -- rocketed into orbit Sunday and set off after the International Space Station, kicking off a new era of commercial resupply flights intended to restore a U.S. supply chain that was crippled by the shuttle's retirement.

The Dragon capsule and its Falcon 9 rocket, both built by Space Exploration Technologies, took off with a rush of fiery exhaust at 8:35:07 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), quickly climbing away from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.… Read more

After creeping about 500 yards across the rocky floor of Gale Crater on the way to an intriguing intersection of different terrain types, the Mars Curiosity rover is pausing for a few weeks near fine-grained sand dunes to scoop up soil and run it through the vehicle's sample acquisition system to clean out any lingering traces of Earth's environment.

After three such "rinse and repeat" cycles, a scoop on the end of the rover's robot arm will deposit small samples into a pair of sophisticated laboratory instruments, the Chemistry and Mineralogy experiment, or CheMin, and … Read more

I know that some people adore Foursquare.

They have a dominant need to become the mayor of their local laundromat and fishmonger.

However, others feel safer when others don't know where they are. Indeed, last night I saw several attendees of Oracle OpenWorld wandering around a part of San Francisco's North Beach and entering places from which I feel confident they would not have checked-in.

NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, has no fears however.

It is unconcerned about broadcasting its precise whereabouts. It has no worries that by doing so it might be vulnerable to a Mars attack.… Read more

There's a hierarchy of "Star Trek" inventions we would like to see become reality. We already have voice-controlled computers and communicators in the form of smartphones. A working Holodeck is under development. Now, how about we get some impulse engines for our starships?

The University of Alabama in Huntsville's Aerophysics Research Center, NASA, Boeing, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are collaborating on a project to produce nuclear fusion impulse rocket engines. It's no warp drive, but it would get us around the galaxy a lot quicker than current technologies.… Read more

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, slowly nearing its initial science destination where multiple types of terrain come together, has found outcrops of conglomerate rocks made up of eroded gravels that scientists believe were transported across the floor of Gale Crater by a "vigorous" flow of ankle- to hip-deep water in the distant past, scientists said today.

It's the first observation of its kind on Mars, showing that an alluvial fan photographed from orbit was, as suspected, formed by the action of flowing water that entered the crater through a 100-foot-deep, 2,000-foot-wide channel dubbed Peace Vallis that … Read more