Andrew Cheng, project scientist for the Eros probe NEAR-Shoemaker, said the big question facing commercial space ventures remains what it will cost to get their equipment off Earth.
For example, instead of the lunar rendezvous method that NASA chose for the Apollo program, the player can opt for Earth-orbit rendezvous or even direct-ascent where a single giant spacecraft lifts off from Earth and lands on the Moon.
The space shuttle uses ATK's four-segment solid rocket boosters (SRBs) to do the major part of lifting the shuttle stack off the Earth.
There was a ripple of fear in Britain when test-drilling for shale gas in north-west England set off small earth tremors, but the evidence so far suggests that earthquakes should not be a worry.
ECONOMIST: Shale gas��s poor image in Europe is largely unjustified
Further, study of the captured space rock could teach researchers how to efficiently extract water from asteroids a resource that could be an off-Earth source of radiation shielding and rocket fuel for journeying spacecraft.
MSN: NASA might lasso an asteroid and drag it to orbit near moon
To calculate this, the team took data from patches of forest studied on the ground, in which every tree's diameter has been recorded, and combined them with images from MODIS and with data from an instrument called GLAS, which bounced laser beams off the Earth's surface between 2003 and 2009.
ECONOMIST: Monitoring forests: Seeing the world for the trees | The
Dr Chatterjee therefore suggests that an object 40km in diameter hit the Earth off the coast of India and forced vast quantities of lava out of the Deccan Traps.
First and foremost, that Baumgartner could pull his stunt off and land on earth with his head still firmly stitched to his shoulders.
Its texture and chemistry set it apart from all previous objects picked up off the surface of Earth but known to originate on the Red Planet.
All life as we know it on Earth trades off a source of complex carbon molecules, such as amino acids - just as it needs water and energy.
In the summertime the pumped water starts off warmer than the earth, but the warmth is absorbed by the earth, and the water comes back up at 57 degrees and is used as an air-conditioning refrigerant.
The highly anticipated return of Torchwood: Children of Earth will kick off the first of BBC AMERICA's HD offerings.
In December former Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said the Paralympic Games would "disappear off the face of the earth" if a merger took place.
The former Paralympic medal winner said the Paralympics would "disappear off the face of the earth" if a merger with the Olympic Games took place.
This fabulous value starts things off hints of tobacco and earth, then things start to warm up with notes of bright red raspberry and cherry fruit.
At dawn, he could see that but for the roadside oaks everything was gone, burned off the face of the earth as if by a powerful beam of light, the house standing naked and singed in a field of white ash.
But despite being vanished off the face of the Earth, there were times when the walls around us would dissolve and I could see, with perfect blue-sky clarity, that everything I needed to know about the world was immediately available to me.
Kind of the final one is kind of when you do return to Earth and kick off all those relationships that, whether they were two weeks or six months later, have -- time has passed and you have to kind of rebuild them a little bit.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama's call to the International Space Station
The man portrayed in the Rolling Stone article as arrogant comes off as far more down to earth in the book.
And this week it appeared, as reported in the New York Times, that China cut off the exports of certain rare earth minerals to Japan.
Along with key landmarks such as Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and The London Eye going dark, the quadrocopters will turn off their glow in support of Earth Hour.
ENGADGET: Quadrocopter fleet stuns Londoners with giant hovering Star Trek logo (video)
On March 23, millions of people around the world will be asked again to mark Earth Hour by switching off their lights and non-essential appliances for an hour in symbolic support for climate change mitigation.
In Avatar, indigenous groups gather with the help of a handful of foreigners (from Earth) to fight off a marauding mining corporation looking to develop a strip of land on a site holy to the locals.
FORBES: Brazil's "Pandora Dam" Gets Final Portion of Bridge Loan
We know that Earth, which was spun off from the sun, is a planet with a beginning.
"This will be one step in the long road to human expansion off of the planet into low-Earth orbit and beyond, " NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, one of Burbank's crewmates aboard the station, said Friday.
On the Burke-Gilman Trail, you will see a melange of biker species that comprise Seattle's teeming cycling community: competitive roadies suctioned head-to-toe in matching lycra, lay-cyclists out for the views, aloof bike messengers pierced in double-take places, downtown commuters bedazzled with blinky lights and reflectors, students getting somewhere fast and cheaply, weekend warrior dads working off the muffin-top, vegan earth-lovers determined to live sustainably and any mix thereof.
Clementine's radio beam was bounced off the moon to a receiving dish on earth.
The plant is finally operating, but prices for some rare-earth elements are now 80% off their peaks.
应用推荐