Grace Maps the Earth's Gravitational Field.

Image credit: NASA

The US-German gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission (aka Grace) has taken the last two weeks to produce the most detailed map of the Earth's gravitational field - lumps and all. Launched in March, the twin spacecraft have been orbiting the planet 16 times a day, 220 km apart from one another. A ground-based microwave ranging system measures the distance between them to see how they speed up and slow down due to changes in gravity. And this is just the low res version; scientists hope to have even more detailed maps by the end of the year.

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Sep 9, 2002, 10:34pm

NASA Highlights New Ways to Journey Through Space

Image credit: NASA

As everybody knows, chemical rockets are too slow for space exploration. So, to speed up voyages around our Solar System, NASA is working on some new kinds of propulsion: ion engines, solar and plasma sails. Perhaps the most efficient will be hybrid systems, with different kinds of propulsion used at different points of a journey. This article gives you a breakdown of the technologies NASA's currently working on.

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Sep 9, 2002, 6:21pm

Bass Ejected from Space Mission

Russian space officials sent a letter to their partners today, announcing that Astronaut candidate, and 'N Sync member, Lance Bass was kicked off October's Soyuz mission to the International Space Station. Apparently the sponsors for the trip were unable to raise the $20 million required to finance the mission, so the Russians finally pulled the plug. Of course, the trip promoters are optimistic; if they can find a sponsor for the trip, and convince Russian officials that Bass can still sneak on board then maybe, just maybe, the 23 year old singer will get his shot into space. (MSNBC story)

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Sep 9, 2002, 6:07pm