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NASA

NASA

] The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which was established in 1958, is the agency responsible for the public space program of the United States of America. It is also responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research.

Vision and mission

NASA's vision is "to improve life here, extend life to there, and to find life beyond." Its mission is "to understand and protect our home planet; to explore the Universe and search for life; and to inspire the next generation of explorers."

History

Space Race

:For additional background, please see the Space Race article Space Race launch of Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury 3 capsule Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard Jr. on the United States' first human flight into sub-orbital space. (Atlas rockets were used to launch Mercury's orbital missions.)]] Following the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first man-made satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The U.S. Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to U.S. security and technological leadership, urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his advisers counseled more deliberate measures. Several months of debate produced agreement that a new federal agency was needed to conduct all nonmilitary activity in space. On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA consisted mainly of the four laboratories and some 8,000 employees of the government's 46-year-old research agency for aeronautics, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), though the probably most important contribution actually had its roots in the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who is today regarded as the father of the United States space program. NASA's early programs were research into human spaceflight, and were conducted under the pressure of the competition between the USA and the USSR (the Space Race) that existed during the Cold War. The Mercury program, initiated in 1958, started NASA down the path of human space exploration with missions designed to discover simply if man could survive in space. Representatives from the U.S. Army (M.L. Raines, LTC, USA), Navy (P.L. Havenstein, CDR, USN) and Air Force (K.G. Lindell, COL, USAF) were selected/requested to provide assistance to the NASA Space Task Group through coordination with the existing U.S. military research and defense contracting infrastructure, and technical assistance resulting from experimental aircraft (and the associated military test pilot pool) development in the 1950s. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15-minute suborbital flight. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962 during the 5-hour flight of Friendship 7. Once the Mercury project proved that human spaceflight was possible, project Gemini was launched to conduct experiments and work out issues relating to a moon mission. The first Gemini flight with astronauts on board, Gemini III, was flown by Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John W. Young on March 23, 1965. Nine other missions followed, showing that long-duration human space flight was possible, proving that rendezvous and docking with another vehicle in space was possible, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on humans.

Apollo program

Following the success of the Mercury and Gemini programs, the Apollo program was launched to try to do interesting work in space and possibly put men around (but not on) the Moon. The direction of the Apollo program was radically altered following President John F. Kennedy's announcement on May 25, 1961 that the United States should commit itself to "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by 1970. Thus Apollo became a program to land men on the Moon. The Gemini program was started shortly thereafter to provide an interim spacecraft to prove techniques needed for the now much more complicated Apollo missions. Gemini program.]] After eight years of preliminary missions, including NASA's first loss of astronauts with the Apollo 1 launch pad fire, and the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon (Apollo 8) at the end of 1968, the Apollo program achieved its goals with Apollo 11 which landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon's surface on July 20, 1969 and returned them to Earth safely on July 24. Armstrong's first words upon stepping out of the Eagle lander captured the momentousness of the occasion: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Twelve men would set foot on the Moon by the end of the Apollo program in December 1972. NASA had won the moon race, and in some senses this left it without direction, or at the very least without the public attention and interest that was necessary to guarantee large budgets from Congress. After President Lyndon Johnson left office, NASA lost its main political supporter, and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was moved to a position lobbying in Washington. Plans for ambitious follow-on projects to construct a space station, establish a lunar base and launch a human mission to Mars by 1990 were proposed but with the end to procurement of Saturn and Apollo hardware, there was no capability to support these. The near-disaster of Apollo 13, where an oxygen tank explosion nearly doomed all three astronauts, helped to recapture national attention and concern. Although missions up to Apollo 20 were planned, Apollo 17 was the last mission to fly under the Apollo banner. The program ended because of budget cuts (in part due to the Vietnam War) and the desire to develop a reusable space vehicle.

Other early missions

Although the vast majority of NASA's budget has been spent on human spaceflight, there have been many robotic missions instigated by the space agency. In 1962 the Mariner 2 mission was launched and became the first spacecraft to make a flyby of another planet – in this case Venus. The Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter missions were essential to assessing lunar conditions before attempting Apollo landings with humans on board. Later, the two Viking probes landed on the surface of Mars and sent color images back to Earth, but perhaps more impressive were the Pioneer and particularly Voyager missions that visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune sending back scientific information and color images. Having lost the moon race, the Soviet Union had, along with the USA, changed its approach. On July 17, 1975 an Apollo craft (finding a new use after the cancelling of planned lunar flights) was docked to the Soviet Soyuz 19 spacecraft, in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Although the Cold War would last many more years, this was a critical point in NASA's history and much of the international co-operation in space exploration that exists today has its genesis with this mission. America's first space station, Skylab, occupied NASA from the end of Apollo until the late 1970s.

Shuttle era

Skylab 1981 ]] The space shuttle became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Planned to be a frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicle, four space shuttles were built by 1985. The first to launch, Columbia did so on April 12, 1981. The shuttle was not all good news for NASA – flights were much more expensive than initially projected, and even after the 1986 Challenger disaster highlighted the risks of space flight, the public again lost interest as missions appeared to become mundane. Work began on Space Station Freedom as a focus for the manned space programme but within NASA there was argument that these projects came at the expense of more inspiring unmanned missions such as the Voyager probes. The Challenger disaster aside the late 1980s marked a low point for NASA. Nonetheless, the shuttle has been used to launch milestone projects like the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST was created with a relatively small budget of $2 billion but has continued operation since 1990 and has delighted both scientists and the public. Some of the images it has returned have become near-legendary, such as the groundbreaking Hubble Deep Field images. The HST is a joint project between ESA and NASA, and its success has paved the way for greater collaboration between the agencies. In 1995 Russian-American interaction would again be achieved as the Shuttle-Mir missions began, and once more a Russian craft (this time a full-fledged space station) docked with an American vehicle. This cooperation continues to the present day, with Russia and America the two biggest partners in the largest space station ever built – the International Space Station (ISS). The strength of their cooperation on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS following the 2003 Columbia disaster, which grounded the shuttle fleet for well over two years. Costing over one hundred billion dollars, it has been difficult at times for NASA to justify the ISS. The population at large have historically been hard to impress with details of scientific experiments in space, preferring news of grand projects to exotic locations. Even now, the ISS cannot accommodate as many scientists as planned. During much of the 1990s, NASA was faced with shrinking annual budgets due to Congressional belt-tightening in Washington, DC. In response, NASA's ninth administrator, Daniel S. Goldin, pioneered the "faster, better, cheaper" approach that enabled NASA to cut costs while still delivering a wide variety of aerospace programs (Discovery Program). That method was criticized and re-evaluated following the twin losses of Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander in 1999.

NASA's future

Mars Polar Lander and the planned crew and heavy lift launch vehicles]] NASA's most publicly-inspiring mission of recent years has probably been the Mars Pathfinder mission of 1997. Newspapers around the world carried images of the lander dispatching its own rover, Sojourner, to explore the surface of Mars in a way never done before at any extra-terrestrial location. Less publicly acclaimed but performing science from 1997 to date (2005) has been the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Since 2001, the orbiting Mars Odyssey has been searching for evidence of past or present water and volcanic activity on the red planet. NASA expects to continue exploring the Red Planet with more spacecraft such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will reach Mars in 2006. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, which killed the crew of six American and one Israeli astronaut, and caused a 29-month hiatus in space shuttle flights, triggered a serious re-examination of NASA's priorities. The U.S. government, various scientists, and the public all considered the future of the space program. On January 14, 2004, ten days after the landing of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, President George W. Bush announced a new plan for NASA's future, dubbed the Vision for Space Exploration. According to this plan, humankind will return to the moon by 2020, and set up outposts as a testbed and potential resource for future missions. The space shuttle will be retired in 2010 and the Crew Exploration Vehicle will replace it by 2014, capable of both docking with the ISS and leaving the Earth's orbit. The future of the ISS is somewhat uncertain – construction will be completed, but beyond that is less clear. Although the plan initially met with skepticism from Congress, in late 2004 Congress agreed to provide start-up funds for the first year's worth of the new space vision. Hoping to spur innovation from the private sector, NASA established a series of Centennial Challenges, technology prizes for non-government teams, in 2004. The Challenges include tasks that will be useful for implementing the Vision for Space Exploration, such as building more efficient astronaut gloves.

Criticisms

Some commentators, such as Mark Wade, note that NASA has suffered from a 'stop-start' approach to its human spaceflight programs. The Apollo spacecraft and Saturn family of launch vehicles were abandoned in 1970 after billions of dollars had been spent on their development. In 2004 the U.S. Government proposed eventually replacing the Shuttle with a Crew Exploration Vehicle that would allow the agency to again send astronauts to the Moon. Despite the reduction of its budget following project Apollo, NASA has maintained a top-heavy bureaucracy resulting in inflated costs and compromised hardware. Crew Exploration Vehicle on October 31, 1998.]] Currently, the ISS relies on the Shuttle fleet for all major construction shipments. The Shuttle fleet has lost two spacecraft and fourteen astronauts in two disasters in 1986 and 2003. While the 1986 loss was made up with a Shuttle built from replacement parts, NASA does not plan to build another shuttle to replace the second loss. (But see also CEV.) The ISS, which was intended to have a crew of seven as of 2005, now has a skeleton crew of two, causing many intended research projects to be delayed. Other nations that have invested heavily in the space station's construction, such as the members of the European Space Agency, are fearful that the ISS's fate will soon match the fate of Skylab. As of 2005, however, all of the European and Japanese contributions to the ISS are years behind development schedule themselves.

NASA spaceflight missions

Human spaceflight

- Mercury program
- Gemini program
- Apollo program
- Skylab
- Space Shuttle
- International Space Station (working together with ESA, Rosviakosmos and JAXA)
- Project Constellation

Robotic space missions

- Earth Observing
- Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite
- TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics)
- Lunar missions
- Ranger
- Surveyor
- Lunar Orbiter
- Clementine
- Lunar Prospector
- Mercury missions
- Mariner 10
- MESSENGER
- Venus missions
- Mariner 2, 5 and 10
- Pioneer Venus
- Magellan
- Mars missions
- Mariner 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9
- Viking 1 and 2
- Mars Observer
- Mars Pathfinder
- Mars Climate Orbiter
- Mars Polar Lander
- Mars Global Surveyor
- 2001 Mars Odyssey
- Mars Exploration Rovers
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Phoenix Lander (Planned for 2007)
- Mars Science Laboratory (Planned for 2009)
- Jupiter missions
- Pioneer 10
- Galileo
- Juno
- Saturn missions
- Cassini-Huygens together with ESA
- Multi-planet missions
- Pioneer 11 – Jupiter and Saturn
- Mariner 10 – Venus and Mercury
- Voyager 1 – Jupiter and Saturn
- Voyager 2 – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
- New Horizons (Planned for 2006) – Jupiter, Pluto and Kuiper Belt
- Asteroidal/cometary missions
- NEAR Shoemaker
- Deep Space 1
- Stardust
- Deep Impact
- Dawn (Planned for 2006)
- Proposed or canceled planetary-asteroid missions
- JIMO (cancelled)
- CRAF (cancelled)
- NetLanders (cancelled)
- Pluto Kuiper Express (cancelled; New Horizons is replacement)
- Titan Explorer (proposed)
- Neptune Orbiter (proposed)
- Sun observing missions
- SOHO – ESA partnership
- Ulysses – ESA partnership
- Great Observatories for Space Astrophysics
- Hubble Space Telescope – ESA partnership
- Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
- Chandra X-ray Observatory
- Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, SIRTF)
- Other observatories
- COBE
- FUSE
- Infrared Astronomical Satellite
- James Webb Space Telescope – ESA partnership
- WMAP

List of NASA administrators

# T. Keith Glennan (1958–1961) # James E. Webb (1961–1968) # Thomas O. Paine (1969–1970) # James C. Fletcher (1971–1977) # Robert A. Frosch (1977–1981) # James M. Beggs (1981–1985) # James C. Fletcher (1986–1989) # Richard H. Truly (1989–1992) # Daniel S. Goldin (1992–2001) # Sean O'Keefe (2001–2005) # Michael Griffin (2005–)

Field installations

In addition to headquarters in Washington, D.C., NASA has field installations at:
- Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
- Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
- John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, Ohio
- Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
- Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York
- Independent Verification and Validation Facility, Fairmont, West Virginia
- Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, near Pasadena, California
- Deep Space Network stations:
- Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, Barstow, California
- Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, Madrid, Spain
- Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
- Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
- White Sands Test Facility, Las Cruces, New Mexico
- John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida
- Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
- George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
- Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans, Louisiana
- John C. Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

Awards and decorations

NASA presently bestows a number of medals and decorations to astronauts and other NASA personnel. Some awards are authorized for wear on active duty military uniforms. Current NASA awards are as follows:
- Congressional Space Medal of Honor
- NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal
- NASA Distinguished Service Medal
- NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal
- NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Administrative Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Bravery Medal
- NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal
- NASA Exceptional Service Medal
- NASA Exceptional Technological Achievement Medal
- NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal
- NASA Public Service Medal
- NASA Space Flight Medal

Related legislation

- 1958 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration PL 85-568 (passed on July 29)
- 1961 – Apollo mission funding PL 87-98 A
- 1970 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Research and Development Act PL 91-119
- 1984 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 98-361
- 1988 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act PL 100-685
- NASA Budget 1958–2005 in 1996 Constant Year Dollars

External links

General

- [http://www.nasa.gov NASA Home Page]
- [http://www.nasawatch.com NASA Watch]
-

Further research

- [http://history.nasa.gov/series95.html NASA History Series Publications]
- [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/cover.html NASA Historical Data Books (SP-4012)]
- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/hhrhist.pdf Research in NASA History: A Guide to the NASA History Program (large PDF – over 1,012 kb)]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/ NTRS: NASA Technical Reports Server]
- [http://www.eventscope.org Eventscope] Category:Independent Agencies of the United States Government ko:미국항공우주국 ja:アメリカ航空宇宙局 simple:NASA th:องค์การนาซา

1958

1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

- January 1 - Treaty of Rome founding the EU is implemented
- January 4 - Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from its orbit (launched on October 4 1957)
- January 8 - 14 year old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship
- January 13 - 9235 scientists publish a plea to stop nuclear bomb tests
- January 18 - Armed Lumbee Native Americans chase off an estimated 5,000 Klansmen and supporters at the town of Maxton, North Carolina.
- January 23 - Following a two-day general strike, dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez was overthrown by a militar-popular uprising.
- January 28 - Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate begin their murder spree with the killings of her parents and infant sister
- January 29 - Police capture Charles Starkweather in Wyoming
- January 31 - The first successful American satellite, Explorer I, is launched into orbit
- January 31 - James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt

February

- February 1 - Egypt and Syria unite to form the United Arab Republic
- February 5 - Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic
- February 6 - Munich air disaster - 21 dead, including 7 players for Manchester United
- February 11 - Marshal Chen Yi succeeds Zhou Enlai as Chinese Minister of Foreign affairs.
- February 11 - Ruth Carol Taylor is 1st African American woman hired as a flight attendant
- February 17 - Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare the patron saint of television
- February 20 - Test rocket explodes in Cape Canaveral
- February 23 - Cuban rebels kidnap 5-time world driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio. They release him 28 hours later
- February 23 - Arturo Frondizi wins presidential elections in Argentina
- February 24 - In Cuba, Radio Rebelde, radio of rebels of Fidel Castro, begins broadcasting from Sierra Maestra
- February 25 - Bertrand Russell launches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- February 28 - One of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history occurred at Prestonsburg, Kentucky, killing 27.

March-April

- March 1 - Samuel Alphonsus Stritch, ninth bishop (fourth archbishop) of the Roman Catholic diocese of Chicago, appointed Pro-Perfect of the Propagaion of Faith and thus becomes the first American member of the Roman Curia
- March 2 - A British team led by Sir Vivian Fuchs completes the first crossing of the Antarctic in Snow-cat caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams in 99 days
- March 8 - USS Wisconsin is decomissioned, leaving the United States Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1896.
- March 11 - The US B-47 bomber drops a nuclear bomb in the Mars Bluff, South Carolina
- March 17 - The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite
- March 26 - The United States Army launches Explorer III
- March 27 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union
- April 3 - Castro's revolutionary army begins its attacks on Havana
- April 4-April 7 - The first protest march for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from Hyde Park, London to Aldermarston, Berkshire. Demonstrators demand ban of nuclear weapons
- April 4 - The daughter of the actress Lana Turner stabs her mother's gangster lover to death (eventually ruled self defence)
- April 6 - Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari divorces the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after she is unable to produce any children.
- April 17 - King Baudouin of Belgium officially opens the World Fair in Brussels, also known as Expo '58.

May-June

- May 1 - Arturo Frondizi becomes President of Argentina
- May 2 - A State of Emergency is declared in Aden
- May 12 - A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada
- May 13 - During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard M. Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators
- May 15 - The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3
- May 16 - Short-lived outburst of friendship between Arabs and Europeans in Algiers
- May 18 - An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph
- May 20 - Batista's government launches counteroffensive against Castro's rebels
- May 21 - United Kingdom Postmaster General Ernest Marples announces that from December, Subscriber Trunk Dialling will be introduced in the Bristol area. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/21/newsid_2510000/2510289.stm]
- May 23 - Explorer I ceased transmission
- May 30 - The bodies of unidentified soldiers killed in action during World War II and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.
- June 1 - Charles De Gaulle is brought out of retirement to lead France by decree for six months
- June 1 - Iceland extends its fishing limits to 12 miles
- June 4 - Charles De Gaulle visits Algeria
- June 16 - Imre Nagy is hanged for treason in Hungary
- June 27 - Peronist party becomes legal again in Argentina
- June 29 - Brazil beat Sweden 5-2 to win the 1958 World Cup

July-August

- July 5 - First ascent of Gasherbrum I, 11th highest mountain in the world
- July 7 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law
- July 8 - 7.5 Richter scale earthquake in Lituya Bay, Alaska, causes a landslide that produces a huge 520 meter high wave
- July 10 - First parking meters installed in Britain
- July 14 - Iraqi Revolution: In Iraq the monarchy is overthrown by Arab nationalists and Abdul Karim Qassim becomes the nation's new leader
- July 14 - A left wing military coup in Iraq leads to the murder of the king, Faisal II
- July 15 - In Lebanon, 5,000 United States Marines land in the capital Beirut in order to protect the pro-Western government there
- July 17 - British paratroopers arrive in Jordania; king Hussein has asked help against pressure from Iraq
- July 20 - Various rebel groups in Cuba join forces but communists do not join the deal
- July 24 - The first life peerage is created in Britain
- July 26 - Explorer program: Explorer IV is launched
- July 29 - The U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- August 3 - The nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus (SSN-571) became the first vessel to cross the North Pole under water
- August 23 - Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.
- August 30-September 1 - Riots between blacks and whites in Notting Hill, London

September-October

- September 14 - Two rockets of the German engineer Ernst Mohr reach as first German post-war rockets the upper atmosphere
- September 27 - Hurricane Vera in Honshu, Japan, kills 615
- September 28 - In France, a majority of 79% says yes to the constitution of the Fifth Republic.
- October 1 - Tunisia and Morocco join the Arab League
- October 1 - NASA starts operations and replaces the NACA
- October 2 - Guinea declares itself independent from France
- October 4 - BOAC uses new Comet jets to become the first airline to fly jet passenger services across the Atlantic.
- October 9 - Pope Pius XII dies.
- October 11 - Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up)
- October 24 - Soviet Union loans Egypt 400 million rubles for the Aswan dam
- October 27 - Gen Ayub Khan succeeds Iskander Mirza as president of Pakistan
- October 28 - Boris Pasternak is expelled from soviet author's society
- October 28 - Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli becomes Pope and takes the name Pope John XXIII.

November-December

- November 3 - New UNESCO building inaugurated in Paris
- November 22 - Menzies Government re-elected for a 5th Term
- November 23 - Have Gun, Will Travel debuts on radio
- November 25 - French Sudan gains autonomy as a self-governing member of the French Community
- November 28 - Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community
- November 30 - Gaullists win parliamentary elections in France
- December 1 - Central African Republic becomes independent from France
- December 5 - Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by the Queen when she dials a call from Bristol to Edinburgh and speaks to the Lord Provost. [http://www.bt.com/archives/history/19461959.htm#1958]
- December 9 - The John Birch Society is formed in the USA
- December 14 - The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first ever to reach The Pole of Relative Inaccessibility
- December 21 - General Charles de Gaulle is elected president of France with 78.5% of the votes.
- December 28 - The Baltimore Colts beat The New York Giants 23-17 in overtime to win The NFL Championship.
- December 29 - Rebel troops under Che Guevara begin to invade Santa Clara in Cuba

unknown date

- The First Cod War between UK and Iceland
- BBC Radiophonic Workshop created
- During the International Geophysical Year, Earth's magnetosphere is discovered
- The United States conducts Operation Argus during August and September
- Foundation of Amirkabir University of Technology
- Based on birth rates (per 1,000 population), the post-war baby boom ended in the United States as an eleven-year decline in the birth rate began - the longest on record in that country
- Last legal female circumcision in the United States.
- Denatonium, the bitterest substance known is discovered. It is used as an aversive agent in products such as bleach to reduce the risk of children drinking them.
- Van Cliburn wins the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in the USSR, breaking cold war tensions.
- The Jim Henson Company founded
- Andorra declared peace with Germany, having been forgotten on the Treaty of Versailles and remaining legally at war.

Births

January-March

- January 20 - Lorenzo Lamas, American actor
- January 24 - Jools Holland, British musician
- January 26 - Ellen DeGeneres, American actress and comedienne
- February 4 - Tomasz Pacyński, Polish writer (d. 2005)
- February 11 - Michael Jackson, British broadcast executive
- February 11 - Regina Marsikova, Czechoslovakian tennis player
- February 13 - Pernilla August, Swedish actress
- February 16 - Ice-T, American singer, songwriter, and actor
- February 21 - Mary Chapin Carpenter, American singer
- February 22 - Jake Burns, Irish musician
- February 24 - Sammy Kershaw, American musician
- February 28 - Michael Kennedy, son of Robert F Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy and nephew of John F Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy and Edward M Kennedy (d. 1997)
- March 3 - Miranda Richardson, English actress
- March 4 - Patricia Heaton, American actress
- March 5 - Andy Gibb, English-born singer (d. 1988)
- March 8 - Gary Numan, British singer
- March 10 - Sharon Stone, American actress
- March 14 - Albert II, Prince of Monaco
- March 18 - Kayo Hatta, American film director (d. 2005)
- March 20 - Holly Hunter, American actress
- March 21 - Gary Oldman, English actor

April-August

- April 3 - Alec Baldwin, American actor
- April 10 - Yefim Bronfman, Russian-born pianist
- April 10 - Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, American musician and record producer
- April 15 - Benjamin Zephaniah, British writer and musician
- April 21 - Andie MacDowell, American actress
- April 22 - Ken Olandt, American actor
- April 25 - Fish, Scottish singer
- April 28 - Hal Sutton, American golfer
- April 29 - Michelle Pfeiffer, American actress
- May 23 - Mitch Albom, American author
- May 23 - Drew Carey, American comedian and actor
- May 27 - Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
- May 28 - Annette Bening, American actress
- June 7 - Prince, American musician
- June 8 - Keenen Ivory Wayans, American comedian, actor, and director
- June 12 - Rebecca Holden, American actress, singer, and entertainer
- June 17 - Jello Biafra, American musician and activist
- June 20 - Chuck Wagner, American actor
- June 27 - Magnus Lindberg, Finnish composer
- June 30 - Esa-Pekka Salonen, Finnish conductor and composer
- July 2 - Thomas Bickerton, American Methodist bishop
- July 7 - Michala Petri, Danish recorder player
- July 15 - Mac Thornberry, American politician
- July 28 - Terry Fox, Canadian athlete and cancer activist (d. 1981)
- July 30 - Kate Bush, British singer and songwriter
- July 31 - Mark Cuban, American entrepreneur and basketball team owner
- August 7 - Bruce Dickinson, English musician
- August 15 - Victor Shenderovich, Russian writer
- August 16 - Madonna, American musician, songwriter, and actress
- August 19 - Anthony Muñoz, American football player
- August 22 - Colm Feore, American-born actor
- August 29 - Michael Jackson, American singer

September-December

- September 10 - Dan Castellaneta, American voice actor
- September 14 - Jeff Crowe, New Zealand cricket captains
- September 16 - Orel Hershiser, baseball player
- September 19 - Azumah Nelson, Ghanaian boxer
- September 22 - Andrea Bocelli, Italian tenor
- September 23 - Marvin Lewis, American football coach
- September 23 - Scott Shaw, Author, Actor, Filmmaker
- October 5 - Bernie Mac, American actor and comedian
- October 13 - Derri Daugherty, American musician (The Choir and The Lost Dogs)
- October 14 - Thomas Dolby, English musician
- October 16 - Tim Robbins, American actor
- October 17 - Alan Jackson, American singer and songwriter
- October 20 - Viggo Mortensen, American actor
- October 27 - Simon Le Bon, English musician (Duran Duran)
- November 2 - Willie McGee, baseball player
- November 18 - Laura Miller, Mayor of Dallas, Texas
- November 22 - Jamie Lee Curtis, American actress
- November 25 - Kim Ashfield, British model
- November 28 - Dave Righetti, baseball player
- November 30 - Juliette Bergmann, Dutch bodybuilder
- December 1 - Charlene Tilton, American actress
- December 6 - Nick Park, English filmmaker and animator
- December 11 - Nikki Sixx, American musician, Motley Crue
- December 25 - Hanford Dixon, American football player
- December 25 - Rickey Henderson, baseball player
- December 31 - Bebe Neuwirth, American actress

Deaths

- January 1 - Edward Weston, American photographer (b. 1886)
- January 8 - Paul Pilgrim, American athlete (b. 1883)
- January 11 - Edna Purviance, American actress (b. 1895)
- January 30 - Jean Crotti, Swiss artist (b. 1878)
- February 1 - Clinton Davisson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
- February 4 - Henry Kuttner, American author (b. 1915)
- February 13 - Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragette (b. 1880)
- March 21 - Cyril M. Kornbluth, American writer (b. 1923)
- March 22 - Mike Todd, American film producer (b. 1909)
- March 25 - Tom Brown, American musician (b. 1888)
- March 26 - Phil Mead, English cricketer (b. 1887)
- March 28 - W.C. Handy, American composer (b. 1873)
- April 16 - Rosalind Franklin, British crystallographer (b. 1920)
- April 19 - Billy Meredith, Welsh footballer (b. 1874)
- May 3 - Frank Foster, English cricketer (b. 1889)
- May 19 - Ronald Colman, English actor (b. 1891)
- May 29 - Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- June 20 - Kurt Alder, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
- June 26 - George Orton, Canadian athlete (b. 1876)
- June 28 - Alfred Noyes, English poet [b. 1880)
- July 14 - King Faisal II of Iraq (b. 1935)
- August 14 - Frédéric Joliot, French physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1900)
- August 22 - Roger Martin du Gard, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
- August 27 - Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
- October 9 - Pope Pius XII (b. 1876)
- October 17 - Charlie Townsend, English cricketer (b. 1876)
- November 24 - Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, English politician and diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1864)
- November 27 - Artur Rodzinski, Croatian conductor (b. 1892)
- December 8 - Tris Speaker, baseball player (b. 1888)
- December 15 - Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)

Nobel Prizes

- Physics - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm
- Chemistry - Frederick Sanger
- Medicine - George Wells Beadle, Edward Lawrie Tatum, Joshua Lederberg
- Literature - Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
- Peace - Georges Pire

Fields Medalists

- Klaus Roth, Rene Thom
- ko:1958년 ja:1958年 simple:1958 th:พ.ศ. 2501

Aerospace

:This article is about the field of research and industry; for the corporation, see The Aerospace Corporation Aerospace refers to the broad field of air and space travel and the associated research. Aerospace is a very diverse industry, which has an immediate impact on the lives of almost everyone. space]

Overview

In most industrial countries, the aerospace industry is a cooperation of public and private industries. For example, several countries have a space program under the command of the government, such as NASA in the United States, ESA in Europe, the Canadian Space Agency in Canada, RKA in Russia and China National Space Administration in China. Along with these public space programs, many companies produce technical tools and components such as spaceships and satellites. Some known companies involved in space programs include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Airbus and Boeing. These companies are also involved in other areas of aerospace such as the construction of aircraft. Many countries have air transport companies, such as Air France and Air India.

History

The field of aerospace got its beginning with the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903, by the Wright brothers. From there, aerospace has grown to be one of the most exciting, diverse, and fast paced fields of today. From the first wood-and-cloth plane of Wilbur and Orville Wright to the first trip to the moon on Apollo 11 to the new and exciting aircraft being developed by companies like Boeing, Airbus, or Bombardier, aerospace has come a long way in a little over a century.

External link

- [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aerospace Aerospace definition], from Dictionary.com Category:Space exploration

Extraterrestrial life

:This article is about the scientific study of extraterrestrial life; for treatment in popular culture, see Extraterrestrial life in popular culture. Extraterrestrial life in popular culture Extraterrestrial life is life that may exist and originate outside the planet Earth. Its existence is currently hypothetical: there is as yet no evidence of extraterrestrial life that has been widely accepted by scientists. Most scientists hold that if extraterrestial life exists, its evolution would have occurred independently in different places in the universe. An alternative hypothesis, held by a minority, is panspermia, which suggests that life in the universe could have stemmed from a single initial distribution of spores that provide the basis for living beings to develop. If true, this theory would suggest that life in various forms might exist throughout the universe. Speculative forms of extraterrestrial life range from humanoid and monstrous beings seen in works of science fiction to life at the much smaller scale of bacteria and viruses. Extraterrestrial life forms, especially intelligent ones, are often referred to in popular culture as aliens or ETs. The putative study and theorisation of ET life is known as astrobiology or xenobiology.
Possible basis of extraterrestrial life

Biochemistry
All life on Earth is based on the building block element carbon with water as the solution in which bio-chemical reactions take place. Given their relative abundance and usefulness in sustaining life it has long been assumed that life forms elsewhere in the universe will also utilize these basic components. However, other elements and solvents might be capable of providing a basis for life (Main article: Alternative biochemistry). Silicon is usually considered the most likely alternative to carbon, though this remains improbable. Life forms based in ammonia rather than water are also considered, though less frequently. Nor can the possibility be rejected that a completely new substance may be found that may react in a similar way to carbon or that wholly unique, non-chemical life-forms may possibly flourish through exotic physics. Along with a building block element and a solvent life also requires an energy source. Energy from a parent star is the most obvious source for extraterrestrial life but this is not the only possibility, as the example of terrestrial extremophiles shows. Geothermal energy from a planet's interior, for instance, may drive sub-surface or oceanic life, while tidal flexing (e.g., for bodies orbiting a gas giant) provides another possible motor to sustain living things. The scientific study of the possible biochemical basis for extraterrestrial life is often called xenobiology.
Theoretical Evolution and Morphology
Along with the biochemical basis of extraterrestrial life, there remains a broader consideration of evolution and morphology. What might an alien look like? Science fiction has long shown a bias towards humanoid or (often in the case of villains) reptilian forms. The classical alien is light green or grey skinned, with an enormous head, small body, and the typical four limb and two to five digit structure—i.e., it is fundamentally humanoid with a large brain to indicate great intelligence. Other subjects from our animal mythos (felines, insects) have also featured strongly in fictional representations of aliens. While such bias is predictable, it is also curiously unimaginative and almost certain to be proven wrong should human beings encounter extraterrestrials. In considering the subject more seriously, a useful division has been suggested between universal and parochial characteristics. Universals are features which have evolved independently more than once on Earth (and thus presumably are not difficult to develop) and are so intrinsically useful that species will inevitably tend towards them. These include flight, sight, photosynthesis and limbs, all of which have evolved several times here on Earth with differing materialization. There are a huge variety of eyes, for example, many of which have radically different working schematics as well as different visual foci: the visual spectrum, infrared, polarity and echolocation. Parochials, by contrast, are essentially arbitrary evolutionary forms which often serve little utility (or at least have a function which can be equally served by dissimilar morphology) and probably will not be replicated. Parochials include the five digits of mammals, the genitalia and sexual mechanics of animals, as well as the curious and often fatal conjunction of the feeding and breathing passages found within many animals. A consideration of which features are ultimately parochial challenges many taken for granted notions about morphological necessity. Skeletons, in some form, are likely to be replicated elsewhere, yet the vertebrate spine—while a profound development on Earth—is just as likely to be unique. Similarly, it is reasonable to expect some type of egg laying amongst off-Earth creatures but the mammary glands which set apart mammals may be a singular case. The assumption of radical diversity amongst putative extraterrestrials is by no means settled. While many exobiologists do stress that the enormously heterogeneous nature of Earth life foregrounds even greater variety in space, others point out that convergent evolution dictates substantial similarities between Earth and off-Earth life. These two schools of thought are called "divergionism" and "convergionism", respectively [http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/E/etlifevar.html].
Beliefs in extraterrestrial life

Ancient and Early Modern ideas
Belief in extraterrestrial life may have been present in ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Sumer, although in these societies, cosmology was fundamentally supernatural and the notion of aliens is difficult to distinguish from that of gods, demons, and such. The first important Western thinkers to argue systematically for a universe full of other planets and, therefore, possible extraterrestrial life were the ancient Greek writers Thales and his student Anaximander in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C.E. The atomists of Greece took up the idea, arguing that an infinite universe ought to have an infinity of populated worlds. Ancient Greek cosmology worked against the idea of extraterrestrial life in one critical respect, however: the geocentric universe, championed by Aristotle and codified by Ptolemy, privileged the Earth and Earth-life (Aristotle denied there could be a plurality of worlds) and seemingly rendered extraterrestrial life impossible. Ptolemy Ancient Jewish sources also considered extraterrestrial life. The Talmud suggests that there are at least 18,000 other worlds, but provides little eloboration. The book Sefer Habrit (Book of the Covenant) writes that extraterrestrial creatures exist but that they have no free will (and are thus equivalent to animal life). It adds that human beings should not expect creatures from another world to resemble earthly life, any more than sea creatures resemble land animals. [http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/318/Q1/] [http://www.torah.org/features/secondlook/extraterrestrial.html] When Christianity spread through the West the Ptolemaic system became dogma and although the Church never issued any formal pronouncement on the question of alien life [http://www.crisismagazine.com/november2002/feature7.htm], at least tacitly the idea was heretical. In 1277 the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier did overturn Aristotle on one point: God could have created more than one world (given His omnipotence) yet we know by revelation he only made one. To take a further step and argue that aliens actually existed remained dangerous. The best known early-modern proponent of extra-solar planets and widespread life off Earth was Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for this and other unorthodox ideas in 1600. The Church, however, could not contain the storm that accompanied the invention of the telescope and the Copernican assault on geocentric cosmology. Once it became clear that the Earth was merely one planet amongst countless bodies in the universe the extraterrestrial idea moved towards the scientific mainstream. In the early 17th century the Czech astronomer Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita mused that "if Jupiter has…inhabitants…they must be larger and more beautiful than the inhabitants of the Earth, in proportion to the [size] of the two spheres;" he did not dare to confirm the existence of Jovian beings due to potential theological difficulties. Later, this bold step would be taken. William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus, was one of many 18th-19th century astronomers convinced that our Solar System, and perhaps others, would be well populated by alien life. Other luminaries of the period who championed "cosmic pluralism" included Immanuel Kant and Benjamin Franklin. At the height of the Enlightenment even the Sun and Moon were considered candidates for hosting aliens. The Christian attitude towards extraterrestrials turned from denial to ambivalence. Theological criticisms had been partially stalemated by a critical counter-argument that had remained in the background since the pronouncements of 1277: God's omnipotence not only allowed for other worlds and other life, on some level it necessitated them.
Extraterrestrials and the Modern era
This enthusiasm towards the possibility of alien life continued well into the 20th century. Indeed, the roughly three centuries from the Scientific Revolution through the beginning of the modern era of solar system probes were essentially the highpoint for belief in extraterrestrials in the West: many astronomers and other secular thinkers, at least some religious thinkers, and much of the general public were largely satisfied that aliens were a reality. This trend was finally tempered as actual probes visited potential alien abodes in the solar system. The moon was decisively ruled out as a possibility, while Venus and Mars—long the two main candidates for extraterrestrials—showed no obvious evidence of current life. The other large moons of our system which have been visited appear similarly lifeless, though interesting geothermic forces observed (Io's volcanism, Europa's ocean, Titan's thick atmosphere) has underscored how broad the range of potentially habitable environments may be. Finally, the failure of NASA's SETI program to detect anything resembling an intelligent radio signal after four decades of effort has partially dimmed the optimism that prevailed at the beginning of the space age and emboldened critics who view the search for extraterrestrials as unscientific. [http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html] Thus, the three decades preceding the turn of the second millenium saw a crossroads reached in beliefs in alien life. The prospect of ubiquitous, intelligent, space-faring civilizations in our solar system appears increasingly dubious to many scientists ("All we know for sure is that the sky is not littered with powerful microwave transmitters" in the words of SETI's Frank Drake). At the same time, the data returned by space probes and giant strides in detection methods have allowed science to begin delineating habitability criteria on other worlds and to confirm that, at least, other planets are plentiful though aliens remain a question mark. Amongst the general public belief and interest in extraterrestrials remains high and skepticism towards galaxy-exploring alien civilizations is not shared by many individuals. At present, some enthusiasts in the topic believe that extraterrestrial beings regularly visit or have visited the Earth. Some think that unidentified flying objects observed in the skies are in fact sightings of the spacecraft of intelligent extraterrestrials, and even claim to have met such beings. Crop circle patterns have also been attributed to the actions of extraterrestrials, although many were later found to be hoaxes. While at least one recent scientific paper published in a respected, peer-reviewed journal has urged a re-evaluation of the UFO phenomenon (Deardorff et al., 2005) [http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf], as of this time mainstream scientific opinion holds that such claims are unsupportable by the evidence currently available and unlikely to be true. The possible existence of primitive (microbial) life outside of Earth is much less controversial to mainstream scientists although at present no direct evidence of such life has been found. Indirect evidence has been offered for the current existence of primitive life on the planet Mars; however, the conclusions that should be drawn from such evidence remain in debate.
Scientific search for extraterrestrial life
The scientific search for extraterrestrial life is being carried out in two different ways, directly and indirectly.
Direct search
Scientists are directly searching for evidence of unicellular life within the solar system, carrying out studies on the surface of Mars and examining meteors that have fallen to Earth. A mission is also proposed to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons with a liquid water layer under its surface, which might contain life. There is some limited evidence that microbial life might possibly exist or have existed on Mars. An experiment on the Viking Mars lander reported gas emissions from heated Martian soil that some argue are consistent with the presence of microbes. However, the lack of corroborating evidence from other experiments on the Viking indicates that a non-biological reaction is a more likely hypothesis. Independently in 1996 structures resembling bacteria were reportedly discovered in a meteorite, ALH84001, known to be formed of rock ejected from Mars. Again, this report is vigorously disputed. In February 2005, NASA scientists reported that they had found strong evidence of present life on Mars (Berger, 2005). The two scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center, based their claims on methane signatures found in Mars’ atmosphere that resemble the methane production of some forms of primitive life on Earth, as well as their own study of primitive life near the Rio Tinto river in Spain. NASA officials soon denied the scientists’ claims, and Stoker herself backed off from her initial assertions (spacetoday.net, 2005). However, only a few days after Stoker and Lemke made their claims, scientists from the European Space Agency reported that their own measurements of methane on Mars suggested an organic origin (Michelson, 2005). Though such findings are still very much in debate, support among scientists for the belief in the existence of life on Mars seems to be growing. In an informal survey of scientists attending the conference at which the European Space Agency presented its findings, 75 percent of the scientists at the conference reported to believe that life once existed on Mars; 25 percent reported a belief that life currently exists there (Michelson, 2005).
Indirect search
It is theorised that any technological society in space will be transmitting information. Projects such as SETI are conducting an astronomical search for radioactivity that would confirm the presence of intelligent life. A related suggestion is that aliens might broadcast pulsed and continuous laser signals in the optical as well as infrared spectrum [http://www.coseti.org/]; laser signals have the advantage of not "smearing" in the interstellar medium and may prove more conducive to communication between the stars. Astronomers also search for extrasolar planets that would be conducive to life. Current radiodetection methods have been inadequate for such a search, as the resolution afforded by recent technology is inadequate for detailed study of extrasolar planetary objects. Future telescopes should be able to image planets around nearby stars, which may reveal the presence of life (either directly or through spectrography which would reveal key information such as the presence of free oxygen in a planet's atmosphere). The Terrestrial Planet Finder is one NASA programme on the horizon that has generated optimism over the potential discovery of habitable planets. It has been argued that one of the best candidates for the discovery of life-supporting planets may be Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth, given that two of the three stars in the system are broadly sun-like.
Extraterrestrial life in the Solar System
Many bodies in the Solar System have been suggested as being likely to contain life. The most commonly suggested ones are listed below; of these, four of the five are moons thought to have large bodies of underground liquid, and life may have evolved there in a similar fashion to deep sea vents.
- Mars - The best known of the other planets and moons in the Solar system. There was liquid water on Mars in the past and there may be liquid water beneath the surface. Recently, methane was found in the atmosphere of Mars.
- Titan - Saturn's largest moon, and the only known moon with a significant atmosphere. Recently visited by the Huygens probe. Latest discoveries indicate that there is no global or widespread ocean, but small and/or seasonal liquid hydrocarbon [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1577 lakes] are still possible.
- Europa - probably has a salt ocean under a thick ice crust.
- Ganymede - Jupiter's largest moon, and indeed the largest moon in the entire solar system
- Enceladus - Another one of Saturn's moons, may have liquid water beneath its surface. [http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7159] Numerous other bodies have been suggested as potentially life-bearing. For example, atmospheric life has been hypothesised on Venus and the gas giants. Fred Hoyle also proposed that microbial life might exist on comets. Some Earth microbes also managed to survive on a lunar probe for some years. It is considered highly unlikely that complex multicellular organisms exist in any of these places.
Dealing with extraterrestrial life
If intelligent extraterrestrial life is found and it is possible to communicate with it, the people of the world and their governments will need to determine how to manage those interactions. The development of policy guidelines for dealing with extraterrestrial beings and territory has been considered by authors such as Michael Salla and Alfred Webre and termed exopolitics.
See also

- Alien invasion
- Anomalous phenomenon
- Are We Alone?
- Astrobiology
- Astrosociobiology
- Back-contamination
- Drake equation
- Extraterrestrial life in popular culture
- Fermi paradox
- First contact
- Frank Drake
- The Galactic Federation
- Habitable zone
- Kardashev scale
- List of space aliens in fiction
- Panspermia
- Planetary habitability
- Rare Earth hypothesis
- Scientific skepticism
- Sentience Quotient
- Seth Shostak
- SETI
- Greys
- The Galactic Empire
References

- Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart (2002): Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life, Ebury Press, ISBN 0-091-87927-2
- [http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf (pdf file)]
- Berger, Brian (2005). [http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars]. Posted Feb. 16, 2005.
- spacetoday.net (2005). [http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2804 NASA denies Mars life reports]. Posted Feb 19, 2005.
- Michelson, Marcel (2005). [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/space_mars_dc European Scientists Believe in Life on Mars]. Posted Feb 25, 2005.
- John C. Baird. 1987. The Inner Limits of Outer Space: A Psychologist Critiques Our Efforts to Communicate With Extraterrestrial Beings. Hanover: University Press of New England. ISBN 0-87451-406-1
- Donald Goldsmith. 1997. The Hunt for Life on Mars. New York: A Dutton Book. ISBN 0525943366
- Michael T. Lemnick. 1998. Other Worlds: The Search for Life in the Universe. New York: A Touchstone Book.
- Cliff Pickover. 2003 The Science of Aliens New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-07315-8
Related books and media

- Sagan, Carl and I.S. Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe. Random House, 1966
- Sagan, Carl, Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. MIT Press, 1973
External links

- [http://www.paranormalnetwork.net/wiki/index.php/Star_cruiser Possible Extraterrestrial Ships Spotted by SOHO]
- [http://www.mysterymap.com MysteryMap.com Extra Terrestrial Sightings]
- [http://www.exopolitics.com Exopolitics.com by Alfred Webre]
- [http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/siliconlife.html Silicon-based life by David Darling]
- [http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ammonialife.html Ammonia-based life by David Darling]
- [http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/index.html PBS: Life Beyond Earth a film by Timothy Ferris]
- [http://www.ufoskeptic.org ufoskeptic.org by Bernard Haisch]
- [http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/Xenopsychology.htm Xenopsychology by Robert A. Freitas Jr.]
- [http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html Let's Build an Extraterrestrial]
- [http://www.ufocasebook.com UFO Casebook]
- [http://www.maar.us Malevolent Alien Abduction Research]
- [http://www.answersdepot.com/doaliensexist.html A Christian view on the possibility of aliens existing] Category:Astrobiology
- ja:地球外生命

Exploration

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown regions, including space (space exploration), or oil, gas, coal, ores, water (also known as prospecting), or information. Exploration has existed as long as human beings, but its peak is seen as being during the Age of Exploration when European navigators travelled around the world. In scientific research, exploration is one of three purposes of research (the other two being description and explanation). Exploration is the attempt to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon.

Main Explorers Since 1 AD

Erik the Red (950 - 1003) - Viking explorer. After being cast out from

NASA

Vision and mission

History

Space Race

Apollo program

Other early missions

Shuttle era

NASA's future

Criticisms

NASA spaceflight missions

Human spaceflight

Robotic space missions

List of NASA administrators

Field installations

Awards and decorations

Related legislation

See also

Other space agencies

External links

General

Further research

1958

Events

January

February

March-April

May-June

July-August

September-October

November-December

unknown date

Births

January-March

April-August

September-December

Deaths

Nobel Prizes

Fields Medalists

Aerospace

Overview

History

See also

External link

Extraterrestrial life

Possible basis of extraterrestrial life

Biochemistry

Theoretical Evolution and Morphology

Beliefs in extraterrestrial life

Ancient and Early Modern ideas

Extraterrestrials and the Modern era

Scientific search for extraterrestrial life

Direct search

Indirect search

Extraterrestrial life in the Solar System

Dealing with extraterrestrial life

See also

References

Related books and media

External links

Exploration

Main Explorers Since 1 AD