Advances here will inform the more scifi-ish imponderables like a space elevator, and asteroid- or moon-mining.
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Flying in formation, they could map the gravitational field of an asteroid or moon by monitoring tiny changes in their relative positions.
Then they dissolve into nothing, only to form as if by stealth on a different horizon, dancing across the sky in the shape of a sea horse or crescent moon.
The other way of doing things is for the company to retrieve smaller asteroids, put them into orbit around Earth or the moon, and then dissect them at its leisure.
The movie then jumps ahead to 2089, when two archeologists, Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend, Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), discover some cave paintings with figures pointing to a planet or a moon.
Some say all amavasyas - or new moon nights - are auspicious for bathing in the Ganges, but Mauni (silent) Amavasya is also special as many pilgrims do not speak until they have had their bath.
It's hard to see any particular reason or purpose in going back to the moon or indeed sending people into space at all.
It is much more massive than the moon or Earth but also much farther away.
There aren't colonies on the Moon or Mars right now for a reason: the challenges and costs are huge.
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We may discover resources on the moon or Mars that will boggle the imagination, that will test our limits to dream.
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"It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, pink, purple, orange, polka-dotted, from Mars, from the moon or any other place, " Wing-Kovarik said.
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It has also acquired for the ISS two microscopes and a centrifuge that can simulate the gravity on, say, the moon or Mars.
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Lasers beamed from landing craft could, he says, power rovers in sunless areas of the moon or Mars, such as craters where water might be found.
Moon or Mars bases will have to be carefully designed shelters, and astronauts will need very good advice before deciding to venture too far from such protection.
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While it may not sound as epic as a manned trip to the Moon or to Mars, the horizons for science and technology will be expanding in 2017.
The lab has run contests for software to automatically identify craters on the moon or monitor the health of astronauts via tablets, using TopCoder to run the competitions.
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It's often said that we know more about the surface of the Moon or even of Mars than we do about the two-thirds of our planet covered by water.
Some have even suggested the loose rock regolith on the surface of the moon or Mars as a growing medium, although additional minerals would need to be brought from Earth.
As long as President George W. Bush does not lose sight of that reality, he will be remembered for his transforming vision long before any American takes up residence on the Moon or steps foot on Mars.
But what's novel about the CEAC design is that it incorporates a bio-regenerative life-support system -- the kind of technology that could one day not only feed an outpost on the moon or Mars, but also provide it with oxygen and recycle its water.
And longer lines would be able to send payloads to the moon, or even Mars.
Should they chase after the yellow metal all the way to the moon, or should reach for bargains in stocks?
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Only days earlier, the courtroom had seen humor in the question of whether jurors would understand references to a "waning" or "waxing" moon.
Space station programme manager Bill Gerstenmaier said extending astronauts' time aboard the station could help lay the groundwork for eventual Moon missions or Mars trips.
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"Random Access Memories" almost became an opus along the lines of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" or Prince's "LoveSexy, " the latter formatted as one long track.
Let me be clear about what is happening at NASA. The Constellation program, which is over budget and behind schedule, was intended to do what we've already done, which is return a man or woman to the moon.
There was always a sleepwalker edging along the parapet of a skyscraper with his arms reaching toward the moon, or a werewolf starting to howl in the middle of Times Square, or a pyromaniac setting fire to the dock warehouses.
Eventually, a moon base could let explorers live on the moon for weeks or months.
Would Everest have been scaled, the Moon walked upon or the north and south poles reached without footwear?
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