NASA

President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.'s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

Obama's transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency's planned launch vehicle, which isn't slated to fly until 2015, according to people who've discussed the idea with the Obama team.

NASA seems thrilled.

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour recently returned to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, after its successful mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle, being a reusable spacecraft, has a cycle of preparation, execution and recovery - Endeavour has been through this cycle 22 times now, since 1992. Here is a look at one full cycle for one space shuttle, starting with the landing of Endeavour from its previous mission (STS-123) on March 26th, and ending with its return to Florida 9 months (and 6.6 million miles) later, after mission STS-126. (31 photos total)

Members of the House of Representatives recently disobeyed the White House and gave NASA an additional $2.9 billion for its yearly budget. The House approved $20.2 billion for the U.S. space agency for the fiscal year starting in October.

Two-thirds majority was needed, but the spending bill received an overwhelming 409-15 vote that helped send a "strong message" to the next president of the United States.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

It could be something else, but ice sounds like a pretty good guess.

The report of NASA's Office of the Inspector General on the clumsy attempts to censoring climate science makes for a most enjoyable read. We can laugh now that it's over, I mean. There are lots of gems among the overall finding the a small cabal of political appointees in the public affairs office tried to delay or bury new findings on climate change. Here, then are some of my favorites:

...we believe that many of these scientists (and the majority of career Public Affairs Officers interviewed) would argue that the actions of NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs -- in delaying, unduly editing, canceling, or converting to lesser media their news releases related to climate change -- were not in keeping with the mandates of the Space Act. In particular, that the Space Act required the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs to disseminate this information to the widest extent possible, but they did not.

All of the NASA climate change scientists and career civil service Public Affairs Officers who were interviewed agreed that some form of political vetting or censorship or suppression existed within the climate change news release process.

Local mirror of NASA's Inspector General's report on censorship of climate studies

NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed in the northern polar region of Mars today to begin three months of examining a site chosen for its likelihood of having frozen water within reach of the lander's robotic arm.

Radio signals received at 4:53:44 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53:44 p.m. Eastern Time) confirmed the Phoenix Mars Lander had survived its difficult final descent and touchdown 15 minutes earlier. The signals took that long to travel from Mars to Earth at the speed of light.

Hooray!

Senior Review and rankings for the ten missions under evaluation for NASA Astrophysics in 2008 have been published.

1. Swift
2. Chandra
3. GALEX
4. Suzaku
5. (Warm) Spitzer
6. WMAP
7. XMM
8. INTEGRAL
9. RXTE
10. Gravity Probe-B

Bottom line here is that NASA funds are too tight, so some operating missions are being reviewed for descoping or shut down.

Will humans ever really go to Mars? Let's face it, the obstacles are quite daunting. Not only are there numerous, difficult, technical issues to overcome, but the political will and perseverance of any one nation to undertake such an arduous task just can't be counted on. However, one former NASA engineer believes a human mission to Mars is quite doable, and such an event would unify the world as never before. But Jim McLane's proposal includes a couple of major caveats: the trip to Mars should be one-way, and have a crew of only one person.

As a step toward returning to the moon, NASA announced last week that Boeing will be the lead contractor for the Ares I rocket. Interestingly, Popular Mechanics reports that the system's specifications will be "open-source and non-proprietary" to encourage competition on future contracts.

So I'm all set for school next semester. You know, that bachelors of science in physics that I've been working on for the past three years, I'm going to try to finish it. Partially because I think I'll get further in life with a degree than without, partially because I think a lot of people won't view me the same without one and partially because I'd like to have a job that I love and that excites me.

But it seems the more I read, the more I don't know what I'm going to do with this. For the past year, I was in a bit of a funk, and wasn't quite sure I loved it as much as I used to. I'm reading Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and a few other books and liking it a lot. But what about when I graduate? What's the job market look like? Well, I'e been reading a lot of the Uncertain Principles blog (physics, politics, pop culture, hooray) and a few entries stand out. The Job Hunt goes on to say, in part:

I don't know how it is in other fields, but in math/physics, this generally involves three to four letters of recommendation, a CV, a research statement, sometimes a teaching statement and maybe an annotated bibliography. In high energy physics, we have the Theoretical Particle Physics Job Rumor Mill run by the now nonymous John Terning. In addition to listing offers and educated guesses at short lists, it also serves as a nice clearinghouse of positions. SPIRES, the APS, Physics Today and I'm sure many others offer job listings, too.

This is one situation where the math world definitely has the physics world beat, however. The AMS runs a site called MathJobs which is completely brilliant. There's a searchable database of jobs which I've configured to send me newly listed relevant offers daily. You can upload all the relevant documentation, and it will automatically send an e-mail to your recommenders so that they can upload their letters. The application then becomes a simple matter of ensuring that the relevant files are available and clicking away. It's easy, efficient, and it saves countless manila envelopes.

The Academic Physics Job Market goes on about how "the academic job market in physics sucks." Which, given the rest of the post, seems accurate. The Academic Physics Job Market, Part 2 goes on a bit more with some statistics as to "the actual suckitude of the job market in physics."

Is this what I'm going to bust my ass for? I feel like giving up already. OK, so maybe I should just forget about getting a research career and just teach at my local community college? Or maybe I should just leave academia all together? I mean, I could go work for NASA, Goddard is right in the city, which is what I should aim for, I guess, if I wanted to work for NASA. I don't feel like moving all around the country, even if I was hired to do something a little better than mop the floors at JPL.

I just don't know what I'm doing, but I guess I should at least finish the bachelors degree and then think if I want to pursue more school or not. There's someone my mom knows personally who I want to go talk to because I know that speaking to my professors about this will give me information from an academic slant. I want to see all of the points of view and then decide.