[NASA Press Release - 19.05.2009]
NASA will hold a briefing about two upcoming lunar missions scheduled to launch in June that will begin a journey to better understand the moon. A briefing with members of the mission and science teams will be held Thursday, May 21, at 4 p.m. EDT, in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street, SW, in Washington. The briefing will air live on NASA Television and the agency's Web site.

[NASA Press Release - 18.05.2009]
"Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts" is a new book produced by NASA and Abrams Books that provides a unique perspective of the historic program that took people to the moon nearly four decades ago. The publication chronicles Apollo missions 7 through 17 using photographs of the flights selected by each of the surviving Apollo astronauts.

Between 1967 and 1972, 29 astronauts left Earth to explore the nearest celestial body, our moon. To celebrate that achievement, NASA and Abrams will publish "Apollo" in June, in advance of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's first lunar landing on July 20, 1969.

[White Label Space Press Release - 08.05.2009]
Team White Label Space was formed back in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE. With a strong background in space engineering and knowledge of the costs involved, the group realized that there were numerous global companies that could finance a Google Lunar X PRIZE mission with less than 10% of their yearly advertising expenditure.

[NASA Press Release - 16.04.2009]
Space seems exotic, forbidding, and remote, but imagine trying to survive winter without a heated shelter or warm clothing. Our ancestors developed these technologies because they needed room to grow; without them, we would still be confined to narrow areas along the equator, but with them, we could live anywhere in the world. With the right technology, space is just another place for people to live.

[NASA Press Release - 09.04.2009]
Two places on opposite sides of Earth may hold the secret to how the moon was born. NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft are about to enter these zones, known as the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points, each centered about 93 million miles away along Earth's orbit.

As rare as free parking in New York City, L4 and L5 are among the special points in our solar system around which spacecraft and other objects can loiter. They are where the gravitational pull of a nearby planet or the sun balances the forces from the object's orbital motion. Such points closer to Earth are sometimes used as spaceship "parking lots", like the L1 point a million miles away in the direction of the sun. They are officially called Libration points or Lagrangian points after Joseph-Louis Lagrange, an Italian-French mathematician who helped discover them.

[Science@NASA Release - 04.04.2009]
The flight computer onboard the Lunar Excursion Module, which landed on the Moon during the Apollo program, had a whopping 4 kilobytes of RAM and a 74 KB "hard drive." In places, the craft's outer skin was as thin as two sheets of aluminum foil.

It worked well enough for Apollo. Back then, astronauts stayed on the lunar surface for only a few days at a time. But when NASA sends people back to the Moon starting around 2020, the plan will be much more ambitious — and the hardware is going to need a major upgrade.

[NASA Press Release - 03.04.2009]
"It's very fine but angular – the sharp edges make it feel gritty and abrasive."

"It can cause short circuits and failure of electronic components ... and physical damage to equipment."

"It's much more abrasive than sand....scratches anything that comes in contact...."

"...a real nuisance....stuck to everything – equipment, instruments,...likely to penetrate seals,....plugs bolt holes, fouls tools, ....."

[LOIRP Press Release - 21.03.2009]
The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) has released another iconic image taken during the Lunar Orbiter program in the 1960's. This image, which shows the dramatic landscape within the crater Copernicus was often referred to as the "picture of the century" by many people at the time of its original public release in 1966.

This image was taken by the Lunar Orbiter 2 spacecraft at 7:05 p.m. EST on 24 November 1966 from an altitude of 28.4 miles above the lunar surface, 150 miles due south of Copernicus. At the time this image was originally released most views of the lunar surface involved looking straight down. Little, if any, sense of the true elevation of lunar surface features was usually available. This photo changed that perception by showing the Moon to be a world with tremendous topography - some of it Earth-like, much of it decidedly un-earth-like.

[NASA Press Release - 26.03.2009]
NASA is planning a number of activities and events in 2009 as America nears the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20. The events will celebrate the Apollo Program, its accomplishments, and the benefits to our lives today.

"Celebrate Apollo: Exploring the Moon, Discovering Earth" is an effort to engage the public and disseminate information about NASA's historic, current and future missions. Several items have been developed to aid the celebration, including an Apollo 40th anniversary logo, calendar of events and Web site.

[NASA Press Release - 17.03.2009]
Growing up in the rural Appalachian foothills of the Ohio Valley, John Marmie developed a passion for music. When he combined that passion with his enthusiasm for space exploration, he was inspired to write an original song, 'Water on the Moon.'

As the deputy project manager for the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., Marmie is helping spearhead America's return to the moon. Scheduled to launch later this year, the LCROSS mission is designed to search for water by impacting one of the moon's permanently shadowed craters. Marmie's goal is to not only help write history with LCROSS, but also to inspire others.