steve barrett

at least they were smart enough to put a helmet on him.

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That was the launch of the Pheonix Mars Lander in August of 2007. In mid May the lander will reach Mars and land on its polar ice cap. The purpose of the mission is to directly sample water or ice on the martian surface.

The process of slowing the lander from 12,500 mph to a soft landing at the surface is quite the task. Watch these engineers explain the lengthy process.

The lander will be a stationary one, unlike the current rovers Spirit & Opportunity which have been on the surface roaming around for a couple of years now. The advantages of being a stationary lander include a greater payload of instruments and measuring devices and a much lower cost of development and execution.

The photos and data from the mission should be something truly unique and with less than 2 months to go I’m starting to get excited.

If you’d like to see more here’s a longer and more boring overview of the entire mission.

Awesome imagery, I can’t wait for Orion.

This will be the replacement for the current Shuttle fleet. The turnaround time after launches, overall quality and safety, as well as gross capacity have all been significantly improved. With a test launch scheduled for 2009 the Ares and Altair are well on their way to becoming the space cruiser that’ll take us to the Moon in 12 years or so.

More info at NASA

This one of a kind piece is the work of Billy Chasen. I wish the blood was thicker but its pretty wicked.

via boingboing

Incredible to think of how other worldly it would be to gaze upon a lake of methane.

I wish I had a trunk.

has there ever been a better video?

So that’s what that plate they pass around is for…

Watch this thing barely make it into the air, I can only imagine the feeling of being in the cockpit of this beast.

Check out the way that small hawk rolls onto its back mid-flight.