Occasionally I get a call from ABC News 24 – our 24 hour television news channel. I’m ‘on call’ to talk about science, but most of it seems to be about space and astronomy. Here’s one of my most recent chats.
P.S. I enjoy really doing this and hope I get a call more often. 
Step aside NASA; it’s time to let private enterprise take hold of the wheel. That’s the message US President Barack Obama delivered when he handed down NASA’s budget.The US President has put the brakes on the space agency’s ambition to return to the Moon – a goal set by his predecessor George W Bush – and set in train the biggest fundamental change in space exploration in half a century.
Read more at ABC The Drum.
Spoke to Richard Glover on ABC 702 about NASA’s plan to ‘auction’ off its excess artefacts.
It’s based on this story I published on our website.
As NASA prepares the move from using the space shuttle to renting space vehicles from private industry, artefacts of the nearly three decade-old program are being distributed online.
With the shuttle program ending this year after nearly three decades of flying, the agency is turning to an eBay-style online service to find homes for surplus and historically significant wares.
Read more at ABC Science or listen to the interview.
Want to travel to Mars in in the next year or two? Well maybe you can’t go, but NASA is happy to take your name there instead.
The Mars Science Laboratory rover will leave Earth in 2011 and landing on Mars, driving and looking for signs of life and water.
On board will be a microchip full of names of people from planet Earth. To add your name to the microchip, visit the ‘Send Your Name to Mars’ web page (http://bit.ly/martianname) and enter your name, country and postcode.
You can print a certificate of participation to put on your wall and look at a map showing where other names are from.
Spoke to Richard Glover on ABC702 Sydney about NASA’s LCROSS spacecraft is preparing a violent return to the moon later today as part of a mission to send a satellite and a rocket booster crashing into the lunar surface to look for water.
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and astronaut John Phillips, on board the International Space Station (ISS), received a welcome visitor to their home, but no one was onboard.
A robotic spacecraft, named Progress 18, docked with the ISS, with more than 1000 kilograms of oxygen, water, food and equipment. The cargo also included a new digital camera, which the crew will use to photograph the Space Shuttle Discovery when it visit in July.
Progress spacecraft are sent every few months to the ISS, which orbits 400 kilometres above the Earth. The supplies ensure that the crew have enough oxygen, water, food and supplies to survive in outer space.
Sergei and John arrived on the ISS on 16 April and will travel back to Earth on 7 October. When they return, Sergei will have completed his sixth mission and hold the record for the most time in space – 747 days.
The Mars rovers were launched from Earth on 10 June and 7 July 2003. It took them nearly six months to reach Mars. The first rover, named Spirit, landed on 4 January 2004. Three weeks later, on 25 January 2004, the second rover, Opportunity landed on Mars.
This picture shows the heat shield that Opportunity used to help land.
This is one of the first images captured by Opportunity. It showed scientists that they had landed in the middle of a small crater. Scientists were very excited and said it was like scoring a ‘hole-in-one’. The hole that formed the this crater allowed the rover and its scientists to see rocks that they would normally have to dig for.
Spirit and Opportunity were designed to last a total of 90 sols. It was thought that dust landing on the rover’s solar panels would block out the Sun, and because Mars is colder than your freezer, it computers may be frozen. Amazingly, both rovers have survived much longer.
If you landed on Mars and looked out from the top of a hill, this is what you may see. The Spirit rover took three days to take this 360 degree panorama.
Tracks in the sand
Late last year the Mars rovers completed one Martian year on the red planet and have each travelled more than five kilometres. This may not seem very far, but remember, they both drive themselves and have no one to help them if they get stuck or break down.
A view from the ridge
After its long climb up ‘Husband Hill’, the Spirit rover turned around to llok back at where it came from. Scientists have named the region below ‘Tennessee Valley’
This synthetic (made-up) image, shows the Spirit rover as it would appear when it took the Tennessee Valley photo.
Earth from Mars
What would Earth look like to a ‘Martian’? The Opportunity rover took this photo of our tiny blue planet in the evening sky. Isn’t it amazing that more than six billion people fit on that tiny blue dot?
How long is a Martian year?
A year is the time it takes for a planet to complete one orbit (lap) around the Sun. On Earth this is 365 (and a quarter) days. Because Mars is further away from the Sun than the Earth, it takes 668.5 days to complete an orbit. A Martian year is 668.5 sols.
A sol? What is a sol?
A sol is another word for a Martian day. A day is the time it takes for a planet to rotate. On Earth it is close to 24 hours. On Mars it is 24 hours and 39 minutes.
The Spirit rover took this view of a Martian sunset. Unlike a sunset on Earth, the sky appears blue close to the Sun.