New Space Vision

On Thursday Obama spoke about his new space vision. I'm not going to go into it cause it's been all over the web for the past three days, but if you've read some of my other space-related posts you'll know I totally agree with it.

Let the private companies deal with shuttling people to and from low Earth orbit and let the big government funds take us to more distant locations. Will it work? Probably not, but we know the old way wasn't working cause we haven't gone anywhere in some 30 years. At least this has a chance.

If it works, I envision privately built ships taking us to privately built stations and bases in orbit and on the moon with NASA ships exploring asteroids and Mars and other far-off targets. If it doesn't work we'll be exactly where we are now so no harm no foul.

Some links:
http://www.space.com/news/obama-speech-nasa-plans-reaction-100415.html

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/04/15/2271747.aspx

Life on Mars

Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Martian meteorite surrenders new secrets of possible life

This is fantastic news. Ever since they discovered the bacteria-like remains in this Martian rock I knew it had to be alien life from Mars' wetter past. I'm really glad that continued scrutiny has strengthened the evidence. For me this bring up two questions.

1) Is there still life on Mars today... maybe deep in underground caves? Life, especially bacterial life, is almost impossible to get rid of. Even LYSOL only kills 99.9% of germs and that surviving .1% will multiply. If life evolved on Mars, it's probably still clinging there.

2) Are we descended from this Martian life? We know bacteria have these magnetite crystals. Bees, fish and birds also use magnetite to navigate and we humans have magnetite in our brains. So do we all spring from these tiny Martians that traveled here millions of years ago on rocks?

Can't wait to learn more!

Update! Here are a few links provided by Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log:

Times Online (quotes McKay plus peer reviewer saying it's not a "smoking gun." Amen to that.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
news/science/space/article6934078.ece

Scientific American (quotes Colin Pillinger of Beagle 2 fame)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?
id=ancient-martians-were-carried-to-ea-2009-11

Research from the ALH84001 team, via NASA Watch:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_
udi=B6V66-4WJ3DX3-1&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F01%
2F2009&_alid=1110069163&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_
cdi=5806&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=120&_
acct=C000050221&_version=
1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5
=16ee9b784c5954b574478541063feb26

NASA Watch
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/11/more-mars-meteo.html

More discussion from BAUT Forum:
http://www.bautforum.com/life-space/97218-martian
-meteorite-alh-84001-revisited-new-evidence-martian-biology.html

Updated Again! Discovery News:

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-meteorite-life-magnetites.html