PASADENA, Calif. — NASA received data from the Spirit rover Friday morning for the first time in two days, easing scientists’ anxiety that the Mars mission had come to a calamitous halt. The first X-43A flight ended in failure June 2, 2001, after the modified Pegasus rocket used to accelerate the plane veered off course and was detonated. But, in 2001, all that changed. But, he added, the technicians could see that at least one of the more than 250 solar wind collectors was still intact, raising hopes of salvaging at least some of the mission. Then the helicopter will take off again with the capsule, resuming its flight to a clean room at an Army airfield in Utah, where technicians will prepare the samples for transport to their final destination at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Space Center Houston is the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center, which is home to Mission Control. One lucky recipient was the Myers Dance Studio in Schenectady, N.Y., where a Lockheed Martin robotics engineer from Houston volunteered to improve the studio’s acoustics with custom designed sound dampeners. I’m kind of surprised that the program didn’t end when Columbia crashed,” said Hale. “Before, I would have told you one more shuttle accident and we’ll be done.

Rockwell Scientific considered using an Apollo command module as a space shuttle escape capsule at the dawn of the shuttle era, but the idea wasn’t adopted. Some other cons cited by Gerstenmaier: Space station assembly will heat up next year with the resumption of shuttle flights, and a new unmanned cargo ship is scheduled to make its debut. In the 1950s, physicists drew up plans for Orion, a 4,000-ton ship propelled by controlled nuclear explosions. The Chinese space agency already has plans to send two males into space on the country’s second manned mission sometime in the second half of 2005. And Hu Shixiang, deputy chief commander of China’s manned space program, was quoted by Xinhua in March as saying that female astronauts would be ideal for performing research work. The chances of a buttoned-down foundation or government agency funding such research were so slim, Hoffman didn’t even bother to ask. Easier access to the ISS means furthering the scientific research that is done up there and will some day provide us with the data we need to allow human beings to survive in space for long periods of time and do cool things like colonize other planets. Unveiled in a speech at NASA headquarters on Jan. 14, the President’s vision entails creating a permanent base on the moon and a new manned launch vehicle that can travel from there to Mars.

Dr. Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, said his group’s simulated Mars outpost in the Utah desert runs on only 12 kilowatts. Steve Eisenhart, senior vice president of policy and public affairs. To ensure that the mission goes as planned, NASA has hired two Hollywood stunt pilots to fly the helicopters. There, a pilot in one of two NASA helicopters will have just minutes to snag the parasail on a long hook extended from the bottom of the helicopter. Friday, about 90 minutes after it “woke up” for the day, officials said. 20 minutes about an hour later, officials said in statements early Friday. NASA spaceflight officials never used to worry about the emotional ramifications of their actions or fear among the working masses — “the working-level devils,” as Kranz affectionately calls them. Astronomers, government officials and space enthusiasts have since pressured the space agency into considering robotic options. But the private owner would have a strong incentive to use the shuttles — when they’re not carrying NASA cargo or passengers — for other commercial uses, for example, carrying paid passengers or other private cargoes.

You know the department doesn’t use University candidates, so where does it find recruits? Braukus said he didn’t yet know which programs were being considered for cuts. If two or three workers had the same hunch — even without data to back it up — then that would be enough for Kranz to call a halt and investigate, and to collect more data. The remaining portion of the Genesis spacecraft will undergo a series of maneuvers that will take it back into a solar orbit, its mission complete. The spacecraft collected the particles — made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, oxygen and other trace gases — on a series of diamond, gold, sapphire and silicon wafers, which it safely stowed in a capsule last week for the trip home. Snoddy noted, however, that the technology is limited to spacecraft built with reflectors on them or that could be modified to have them.