Space News Headlines for November 17, 2004

NASA 'Scramjet' Travels Almost 7,000 Mph

The unmanned NASA X-43A supersonic combustion ramjet roared into speeds of almost 7,000 mph, shattering the record books. ABC says the flight of the 12 foot craft at nearly 10 times the speed of sound increases hope that one day passengers might fly across a continent in minutes instead of hours.

"We've given industry and government a lot of confidence to go forward with hypersonic flight," said Joel Sitz, the X-43A project manager at Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base. "I think that technology definitely has a future."

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Saturn's Rings Hint at Undiscovered Moons

MSNBC reports that recent observations point to the possibility of several tiny, unseen moons orbiting Saturn and controling the shape of its rings.

"In other research, scientists spotted clumps the size of football fields embedded in the rings. Nothing so small has ever been seen before around Saturn, but the two-dimensional images don't reveal whether the clumps are solid objects or cloudlike gatherings of particles. This work also revealed that Saturn's myriad ringlets have surprisingly sharp edges, suggesting they are sculpted by tiny, undiscovered moons."

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China Plans to Have Over 100 Eyes in the Sky by 2020


The newest country in the international club of nations which have sent humans into space plans to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020. Yahoo! News says China wants to watch every corner of the country.

"The aim is that, at any time and any place, we can obtain necessary data on any event through watching the Earth from space," said Shao Liqin, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology.

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New Images Reveal Clouds on Planet Uranus

Space.com says that recently taken pictures of Uranus show a more diverse cloud system than ever seen before.

"The cloud features range from small to large, from dim and diffuse to sharp and bright, from rapidly evolving systems to stable features that last for years," said Lawrence Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center.

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Mining the Moon, the Gateway to Mars

President Bush outlined his plan for space earlier this year and it included a return to the moon before making a manned attempt at Mars. Space.com says that "any high hopes of sustaining expeditions on the Moon, Mars or beyond will depend on getting "down and dirty" on those worlds -- in the form of using on-the-spot resources.

"Propellant, energy, water and oxygen, building materials -- all these ISRU products were the topic of discussion at the Space Resources Utilization Roundtable, held here November 1-3 at the Colorado School of Mines."

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