Last week we brought you the sad news that despite the millions and millions of miles between it and the Capitol Building, the Mars Curiosity rover couldn’t be saved from the federal shutdown, and is currently operating on standby. Fortunately, there’s hope for our Mars efforts yet: the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution probe (MAVEN), which could potentially have been delayed, will launch on schedule next month, whether or not the federal government is back online by then.
MAVEN is “is tasked with investigating how the carbon-dioxide-heavy atmosphere of Mars has changed over time, and what those changes say about the planet’s ability to support life,” according to the Verge, and the mission will be allowed to go on largely because of timing: it depends on a particular alignment of Earth and Mars, one that wouldn’t happen again until 2016 if NASA misses its date.
You may be aware that NASA is one of the federal agencies being affected by the government shutdown; 18,000 workers, 97% of NASA's employees, will not be reporting to work until Congress works out a solution. But perhaps the most notable furlough isn't even a human: the Curiosity rover, all…
Fox News published a story on its website Monday about the government shutdown that reeks of The Onion. "How to visit national parks during the partial gov't shutdown," reads the headline. And then they go there: National parks were not exempt from the government shutdown but that does not mean…
NASA's next rover to Mars, launching in 2020, will pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transform it into breathable oxygen. "When we have humans exploring Mars, they can make great use of the oxygen," Michael Meyer of NASA's Mars Exploration Program told the press. "We all love that stuff." NASA will…
