A White House directive has NASA recalculating the route toward human exploration of the solar system, starting with returning humans to the Moon.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Moonstruck

Tags: Aerospace, ASEE Prism magazine, manned missions, Mars, Mining, Moon, NASA, Public Policy, space exploration, spacecraft, Thomas K. Grose, Videos

NASA’s latest Mars lander, which executed a perfect touchdown November 25 after a six-month journey of 91 million miles, is unlike previous robotic explorers. The InSight rover is larded with sensitive instruments designed to dig deep below the surface and investigate the Red Planet’s core, crust, and seismic activity.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Beeline for Mars

Tags: Aerospace, Engineering, InSight, Mars, Marsbees, NASA, rover, space exploration

If NASA loves the The Martian, it may be because the 21st Century Fox film starring Matt Damon draws on real-life technologies the U.S. space agency already has or is developing for a manned mission to Mars.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on NASA’s Real-Life Martian Sfx

Tags: 21st Century Fox, Aerospace, manned mission to Mars, Mars, Matt Damon, movie, NASA, NASA education, space exploration, STEM, STEM education, Technology, The Martian

The year is 2032 and your middle-school explorers have successfully achieved a manned mission to Mars! After establishing criteria to help look for signs of life, they conduct a scientific experiment in which they evaluate three “Martian” soil samples and determine if any contains life.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Are We Alone?

Tags: Aerospace, astronaut, Bioscience, Chemistry, Class Activities, exploration, Grades 6-8, Lesson Plan, life, manned mission to Mars, Mars, NASA, Space

In this lesson to teach middle school students how a spacecraft gets from the surface of the Earth to Mars, students first investigate rockets and how they are able to get us into space, then discuss the nature of an orbit as well as how orbits enable us to get from planet to planet.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Get Me Off This Planet!

Tags: Aerospace, astronauts, calculations, Class Activities, forces, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Humans in Space, Lesson Plans, Mars, motions, NASA, Physics, trajectory