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Former NASA controller supports mission to Mars

On July 20, Americans marked the 40th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon — this country's triumph in the space race launched by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. However, the Apollo 11 crew that executed that historic mission — Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon, and Michael Collins — spent more time talking about the future than past glories in an appearance July 19 at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. They called for a mission to Mars to revive interest in the U.S. space program, to the point of placing a colony on the red planet. Bob Carlton, one of the men behind that successful moon landing in 1969, agrees with that goal, but is pessimistic about whether it can be achieved. "It would be worthwhile to go to Mars, but it probably won't be us that does it because we're no longer motivated," said Carlton, who grew up in Rainbow City and served as flight controller in charge of guidance, navigation and control systems f...
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This week in space history: Vikings explore, photograph Mars

Viking 2 entered Mars orbit on Aug. 7, 1976, and set about separating fact from fiction surrounding the red planet. In 1906, "Mars and its Mystery" (Little, Brown and Co.) theorized that a "large, irregular, dark region" contained "bodies of waters, or seas. Š From remote times it has been taken for granted by the best of minds that other worlds besides ours sustain life." Wernher von Braun, the German scientist who developed the Saturn V that launched Americans to the moon, and Willy Ley discussed long-held theories in "The Exploration of Mars," (The Viking Press/1956). They wrote: "This was the picture of Mars at mid-century: a small planet of which three-quarters is cold desert, with the rest covered with a sort of plant life that our biological knowledge cannot quite encompass." In the mid-1890s, astronomer Percival Lowell was lecturing on Martian features he called canals, Mark Littman stated in "Planets Beyond" (Wiley Sc...
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It's time for NASA to get back on track

The Review of the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee is expected to publish its report at the end of the month. It is charged with the thankless task of reaffirming or redirecting NASA's vision for space exploration. What should the agency be doing with its existing hardware and its plans for the future? The real catch is the part of their charter that reads, “fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities.” Money isn't NASA's only problem, but it has been its biggest problem for decades. NASA is one of the most successful agencies in history, providing the best return on investment of any government agency in my lifetime. My main concerns with NASA's plans going forward include the decision to ground the space shuttle, the woefully inadequate funding for the last several decades and the absence of a space program that will restore the sense of wonder and adventure to space exploration that we knew in the 1960s. The continuing debate for ...
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