On March 30th NASA began giving visitors to the National Mall in Washington D.C. a peek at a full-size mock-up of the U.S. Navy-built spacecraft Orion designed to carry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), back to the moon and then on to Mars one day. The Orion (see headline image) will be NASA’s cornerstone craft for its upcoming Constellation Program, the new era created to replace the 20-plus year old Space Shuttle program. The Space Shuttle will go into retirement sometime in 2010 after its last mission to the ISS.

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According to Space.com there is a new technique that can reveal extrasolar planets hidden in Hubble Space Telescope images taken as long as 11 years ago. The same method was used to find an exoplanet that went undetected in Hubble images taken in 1998 with its Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS).

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With each new passing day, which began on May 25, 2008, more evidence is accumulating that indicate NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander sat down on a microbe-enriched habitat on the Red Planet. While there still isn’t “firm” evidence of current existing life on Mars, the Lander has found all the necessary ingredients to support such life, including life’s most crucial element – liquid water.

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How close are we to an actual manned space flight to Mars? Perhaps sooner than one might expect. In Moscow an international team of researchers have placed themselves into a mockup of a spacecraft to spend 105 days in isolation to simulate conditions on a flight to Mars. A one-way trip to the Red Planet would take a little over 6 months, so the nearly 4 month isolation is just a test-run.

The crew will consist of all men from Russia, France and Germany. Except for 20-minute delay conversations with basecamp, they will be totally cut-off from the outside world while experiencing the real-time psychological and physical effects of extended space travel to our nearest neighbor other than the Moon. One of the biggest issues being monitored will be the types of shielding that will be needed to protect a crew traveling in deep space from deadly radiation effects.

The crew will also need to tackle problems with equipment breakdowns using only what is on their craft for repairs. They will be expected to meet almost every possible scenario that could occur during a 6 month flight to Mars. Of course, the one thing this experiment cannot prepare them for is actually living on the surface of Mars for a year once real astronauts arrive on its surface.

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The inhabitants of the ISS come from various countries and get along just fine. They would get along even better if their bosses on the ground would just let them. According to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, the morale among those stationed on the ISS gets low sometime, not because they are orbiting 200 miles above the Earth away from family and friends, but due to some of the ridiculous restrictions placed on them by their ground-control overlords in Russia, the United States and other participating countries. While the latest inhabitant from Japan was able to bring a Japanese cuisine to share with his commrades in space, things are normally a lot more restrictive when it comes to sharing dietary and tolietry space. Ground-control has rules that require astronauts to normally eat their own food and follow stringent rules on access to other facilities, such as the toilets.

Padalka also says that his country’s habit of charging another country when one of their astronauts uses some of the Russian resources on the ISS is ridiculous and needs to stop. And, the new rules preventing the sharing of meals together is a cause of much grieve among a band of professionals who need to work closely together each minute just to survive in the harsh climate of space. He believes that allowing all members of the station to share meals and simple functions like using the toilet would truly bring an attitude of internationalism to the station. All the current inhabitants of the station feel the same as Padalka and hope those making the rules on the ground in all countries will also see the wisdom of loosening some of those restrictions.