Space travel is inherently risky, so it shouldn't be too surprising that spacecraft missions to Mars haven't all been successful. Sending people inside metal cans aimed at Mars isn't an easy task -- especially if those people want to return to Earth alive. But as more and more space programs target Mars as a destination, it looks increasingly likely that humans will make it there someday. Here are just a few milestones on the road to Mars.

• The Inspiration Mars Foundation is planning a roundtrip manned mission to Mars (non-stop, so no landing) that would last about 501 days, launching in 2018. A press conference to announce the details will be held on Feb 27th. [url]
• When the Phobos-Grunt mission failed to reach Mars orbit, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested some severe punishments (but no death penalty!) for whoever was to blame. The mission had planned to return soil samples from Phobos (one of Mars' moons), but the spacecraft never left Earth orbit due to a computer programming error. [url]
• Valery V. Polyakov spent 438 continuous days in space aboard Mir and returned to Earth in 1995. That is the longest anyone has stayed in space in a single trip (others have been in space for more time, but over multiple trips), and it demonstrates that it's possible to survive in microgravity for the approximate amount of time it might take to go to Mars. [url]
• Elon Musk has a vision of a public-private joint venture to establish a human colony on Mars. Musk is obviously promoting the SpaceX brand with this kind of public statement, but he also says that a viable Mars mission would need about $36 billion to get off the ground. [url]

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Apollo 17 launched in December 1972, and it was the last time a human being went to the moon -- or even traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Since then, there have been several plans to return to the moon (or to skip it and go straight to Mars). Plenty of other countries (and even corporations) are now looking to land spacecraft on the moon again, and here are just a few of these competitors in the post-Apollo space race.

• Speculation on China's rocket technology suggests the country's Long March 9 rocket will be more than capable for sending astronauts to the moon, Mars, and perhaps other distant destinations within our solar system. The Long March 9 is expected to be in service around 2020-2025. [url]
• Google's Lunar X Prize is closed to new participants, but there are about 25 teams still competing for rewards totaling $30 million -- for these privately funded teams to send robots to the moon. The deadline for these teams is the end of 2015. Hopefully at least one team will succeed in its mission, and we'll have mini moon bases sending back all kinds of data before the end of the decade. [url]
• The Soyuz spacecraft has been a workhorse for decades, but Russia has recently announced plans for its next generation spaceship design that could be used for manned missions to the moon (or possibly Mars). Test flights are scheduled to begin in 2017, and this Prospective Piloted Transport System (PPTS) could also service the International Space Station (creating another backup solution to supply the ISS). [url]

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Over the next few years, we should be learning quite a bit more about our Martian neighbors. The Curiosity Rover is just starting out, but if it performs as well as its predecessors, then it should provide tons of interesting data about Mars and its geological history. When Curiosity ceases to function, maybe we'll be more willing to send manned missions, but robots seem to be doing a pretty good job so far. Here are just a few interesting tidbits on the red planet.

• Analysis of two Martian meteorites suggests that Mars may have contained much more water than previous estimates. During the formation of Mars, water was likely to be present in the Martian mantle in similar proportions as the Earth's mantle. [url]
• The Mars Curiosity Rover isn't the only spacecraft to try to land on an astronomical object in our solar system. At least twelve other unmanned crafts have hit moons, asteroids or other planets: the Soviet Union's Luna 9, NASA'a Surveyor 1 on the moon, the Lunokhod 1 on the moon, Russia's Venera 7 on Venus, Soviet Mars 3, the Viking 1 and Viking 2 spacecrafts on Mars, the Mars Pathfinder, the NEAR Shoemaker on an asteroid, Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Huygens probe of Titan, Japan's Hayabusa probe, and the Mars Phoenix lander. [url]
• The 11-year-old Mars Odyssey probe is serving as a "real time" communications relay for Curiosity, allowing Curiosity to focus more of its energy on exploring Mars. Two other Mars satellites (NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency's Mars Express) are also re-transmitting signals from Curiosity, but with delays of several hours. [url]

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The Space Shuttle program is retired, but we still have the Soyuz (and maybe a mysterious secret mini-shuttle) to get people into space. On top of that, though, the private space industry is starting to kick in with more and more ambitious plans to offer rides into space -- or at least to the edge of space. Here are just a few more examples of these private efforts.

• Travel agents are already booking seats on Virgin Galactic -- for $200,000 (including a $20,000 upfront deposit). Over 450 passengers have already bought tickets. [url]
• Mars One is aiming for human settlement on our neighboring planet around 2023. It'll be a one-way trip, so plan accordingly. [url]
• The Hermes spacecraft received some Kickstarter funding to build its next test rocket. It's still far from developing a rocket system ready for humans, but it's still cool to see more engineers trying to re-invent space travel. [url]
• Alliant Techsystems (aka ATK), which manufactured the Space Shuttle's booster rockets, is developing a rocket system it calls Liberty. This Liberty rocket system is designed to hold 7 passengers and reach destinations like the International Space Station. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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For some people, NASA's Space Shuttle program was almost a complete boondoggle. The shuttles never fully lived up to their original promises, and they were far more expensive than planned. But the design of a reusable space plane captures the imagination in a way that an acorn-shaped capsule doesn't. Here are just a few stories about the Space Shuttle that you might have missed.

• Wayne Hale, a retired Space Shuttle Flight Director, explains how Columbia was damaged by the loss of insulation foam -- by finding out that Discovery was almost damaged in the same way. It wasn't due to improper foam installation, but instead thermal cycling from filling and re-filling the cryogenic fuel. [url]
• On its way to a museum, Enterprise sustains damage to its wingtip after hitting a bridge. The NASA prototype spacecraft never flew in space, and it suffered only cosmetic damage while being transported to its final destination at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan. [url]
• Caenorhabditis elegans worms actually survived the Columbia disaster, and their descendants flew into space in 2011 on the Endeavour. Worms on a m*********ing spaceplane! [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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International space races don't quite inspire the same awe or fear as they did in the 1960s. There are a bunch of countries still trying to launch rockets into orbit for various reasons, but there are also quite a few commercial and amateur organizations working on space-worthy rockets. Here are just a few examples.

• North Korea tried to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of its national founder Kim Il-sung with a big rocket launch. The rocket was also a thinly-disguised test for a long-range missile, but it failed by blowing up a little over a minute after launching. [url]
• The world’s first student-made rocket to hit space hasn't quite succeeded in reaching an altitude of 100 km, but there are a number of schools working on it. A pass or fail grade for this project seems like tough grading... [url]
• SpaceX is working on designing safer and cheaper manned spacecraft, anticipating an upcoming boom in commercial space ventures. For example, its launch abort system has integrated escape thrusters mounted to the side of the crew capsule, and these engines aren't jettisoned or wasted if the mission goes as planned. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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The satellites we've been sending up into space are getting more advanced all the time. Even some of the really old spacecraft we launched in the 1970s have surprisingly continued to operate and perform useful tasks. Here are just a few more examples of space gear that hopefully won't become space junk anytime soon.

• Voyager 2 is about 14 BILLION kilometers from earth now, but it's still getting software upgrades after 34 years in service. Even with its plutonium batteries, it'll cease to function in the mid-2020s. And unlike the Terminator, it won't be back (hopefully). [url]
• A 3m-by-1m spacecraft weighing about 400kg will relatively cheaply collect medium-resolution images of the earth using radar. The radar sensors will be able to see the the earth's surface in any weather -- and a series of these satellites would be able to image any location on earth within 24 hours. [url]
• A robotic arm with a sticky hand will grab onto objects in space with the help of electrostatic forces. This robot arm could help clean up space junk or launch/retrieve nanosatellites. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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Now that the Space Shuttle has been retired, NASA temporarily has no vehicle of its own to send astronauts into space. The plan is to encourage commercial entities to be more interested in manned spaceflight, and there are a handful of companies that are taking a shot at putting people on rocketships. Here are just a few interesting links on the future of commercial space missions.

• NASA is handing off low-Earth orbit to commercial enterprises and taking a look at longer-range missions for itself. The space race has essentially turned into America's Next Top Space Model... or American Space Idol... [url]
• Paul Allen and Burt Rutan have developed an enormous mothership that will launch rockets from the stratosphere. Stratolaunch Systems hasn't built it yet, but they plan to launch the first rocket in 2016. [url]
• So far, SpaceX is the only commercial company to successfully return a spacecraft from orbit. This capability is only shared by five nations and the European Space Agency. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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