The next time you look at the full moon on a clear night and if memories of horror films, zombies and ghosts grip and send chills down your spine, you should be. Thanks to some enterprising US firms, the moon can now be used as a graveyard. Yes, that rock that orbits the our planet that has spawned countless tales of horror will once more live up to that reputation.

A US firm specializing in sending people’s cremated ashes into orbit is going to turn the moon into a graveyard for earthlings beginning next year.

Instead of caskets or urns, ashes of the dearly departed will be sealed in capsules built into lunar landing modules, which will serve as communal crypts on the moon’s surface.

Celestis Inc. will charge about 10,000 dollars (US) to send a single gram of human remains to the moon and plans a deal for couples — 14 grams of ashes from two people for approximately 30,000 dollars.

Celestis confirmed on Friday that it has deals with private firms Odyssey Moon Limited and Astrobotic Technology Inc. to send cremated human remains to the lunar surface via private rocket flights by the end of 2009.

Luna Service missions will be a “special honor available to all who share the vision of extending humanity’s reach to the stars,” the company said in a written release.

It may not be Halloween season yet, but if you’re crazy enough interested to have your deceased loved ones to make history and push the boundaries of human exploration, and have his/her remains buried on the moon you should start saving up money right now.

$10K per gram of cremated human remains?! Last I heard, there was an ambitious plan to colonize the Moon and make it an outpost of humanity’s reach into space, I never thought that the dead would be the ‘scouting’ party.

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Space junkies would find this news from Reuters interesting; U.S. urged to keep space shuttle flying past 2010.

The United States should keep flying the space shuttles past their 2010 retirement date to avoid depending on Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, a U.S. congressman said on Monday.

U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, a Republican whose Florida district includes the Kennedy Space Center, proposed extending the shuttles’ lifetime to close the gap until their replacement ships, called Orion, are ready for their first manned flights in 2015.

His proposal, which would cost about $10 billion, would have the shuttles make six or seven additional flights between 2010 and 2013 and speed up development of the Orion ships to be ready by then.

A second proposal would keep the shuttles flying until 2015 and leave Orion’s schedule alone.

Almost everyone in this generation knows or is familiar about the Space Shuttle. Heck, I’ve been wanting to have a toy space shuttle back when I was a kid. But the spacecraft, it’s technology and design is now outdated, costly to maintain and let’s not forget the tragedies of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, that’s why they have been scheduled to retire come 2010.

To replace the shuttle, NASA is building and developing the Orion and Ares spacecrafts to continue the exploration of space, with ultimate goal of landing humans on Mars. However, these won’t be ready to fly astronauts until 2015 so there’s a 5-year gap in following the shuttle’s scheduled retirement.

With the completion of the International Space Station still in its task list, NASA will have to find alternatives to continue sending parts and men to space to complete the job. Paying the Russians to ferry astronauts back and forth from space is an option but Florida’s Rep. Dave Weldon, a Republican, says otherwise and instead proposes to extend the lifespan of the shuttles.

NASA however is not warm to the idea. For them, it would too costly to keep shuttles flying. It could also be a waste of time, efforts and resources as they are currently working on the shuttle’s replacement. With deadlines to be met, they don’t want to be distracted.

So the option of Russia taxiing US astronauts while Orion gets ready is not really that bad. It would boost closer ties and cooperation between the two former Cold War rivals which could then seep into non-space international issues. The world would be a safer place then, hopefully.

But what could’ve prompted Rep. Dave Weldon to propose the extension of the shuttle’s lifespan? Well it could be US patriotism and national pride that drove him but let’s recall what Obi Wan once told Anakin in Star Wars Episode 2; “Palpatine is a politician and they are not to be trusted.”

I don’t know if Weldon is someone like Palpatine, (I sure hope not!), then again he is from Florida where the Kennedy Space Center is located where the shuttles are based. If the shuttles are grounded for good, people in Florida could loose their jobs and with elections coming up in the US, jobless Americans could become unhappy voters.

My stars! Who said space exploration was a neutral or apolitical endeavor!

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While on the subject of national pride, space race and dealing with the Russians, I’d like to share an anecdote I once read in the internets;

When NASA sent off astronauts to space, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens wouldn’t work in zero gravity. They spent $12 billion dollars and 10 years developing a pen that would work in zero gravity, write on almost any surface including glass, with temperatures from below freezing up to 300 C. On the other hand, facing the same problem, the Russians came up with an ingenious solution, they used pencils!

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Last year, I heard on the news that the US is planning to return to the moon by sending another space mission to it. Also China is planning to send its first space explorers to the moon. It may not be this year, but I reckon it will be in the 20 years. For those who are used to instant messaging, fast internet speed and latest tweets, that is an insanely long time to wait.

So you’ve been to the moon, or you’re going to the moon. In today’s times, that is like web 1.0. Man has already been on the moon, or so the common belief says. Today, when mention space exploration, people are no longer interested in the moon. We are now interested in other planets.

Don’t show any pictures or satellite images of planets’ surfaces, we want the real deal. Mars has always been the focus of space exploration ever since fossils of microbes have been discovered on pieces of meteorites from Mars that have fallen in Antarctica.

Movies and TV series have been created further feeding the curiosity and excitement of landing a human on the Red Planet. It is obvious that the world now wants a human walking on one of the planets other than the Earth. Mars, of course is the most obvious target but here’s another destination.

Gliese 581 C

Gliese 581 C is the latest extrasolar planet to be discovered by scientists. The new planet is about 50 percent bigger than Earth and about five times more massive. The new “super-Earth” is called Gliese 581 C, after its star, Gliese 581, a diminutive red dwarf star located 20.5 light-years away that is about one-third as massive as the Sun.

Smallest to date

Gliese 581 C is the smallest extrasolar planet, or “exoplanet,” discovered to date. It is located about 15 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun; one year on the planet is equal to 13 Earth days. Because red dwarfs, also known as M dwarfs, are about 50 times dimmer than the Sun and much cooler, their planets can orbit much closer to them while still remaining within their habitable zones, the spherical region around a star within which a planet’s temperature can sustain liquid water on its surface.

This new discovery is a cause for great excitement because whenever there is liquid water, the possibility of life to exist in that place is very very great. We may be closer to discovering the first living extra-terrestrial life in our recorded history. Mars may be the next most obvious destination for human space explorers, but now that Gliese 581 C has been found, I imagine Mars would now be a training ground for more planetary explorations and that Earth-like watery planet is destination.

Happy Birthday Hubble! (the telescope)

Back in 1946, astronomer Lyman Spitzer first suggested the idea of a space-based telescope. 17 years and a day ago, on April 24, 1990 this became a reality when the Hubble Space Telescope was placed in orbit. Named after the pioneering astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, it promised to overcome distortions caused by the earth’s atmosphere. The forty-three-foot-long telescope could look seven times farther into space than the most powerful terrestrial observatories.

Hubble’s impact on astronomy and science has been priceless. With over 4,000 papers based on Hubble data published the space telescope has earned its place in history and science. On its 17th birthday, it has given us a wonderful photo of the a big present—a 29,566 x 14,321 pixel image (500 MB TIFF image) of the Carina Nebula.

Note: Think twice before clicking on the link above as the image of Carina Nebula is a whopping 500MB image. Unless you’re an uber geek, give it a download, but for those who not but still interested in astronomy, you can get a smaller-scale version of the image here. It’s a 250MB jpeg image but for an even more lighter version, click on the image below.

The Carina Nebula is located a mere 7,500 light years away in the southern constellation Carina, the keel of the old southern constellation Argo Navis. The Carina Nebula is a stunning view of a birthplace of new stars, there are more than a dozen stars present in the nebula that are estimated to have a mass of greater than 50 to 100 times the mass of the Sun. The unreal landscape began its formation around 3 million years ago when the first stars in the nebula ignited amid a cloud of molecular hydrogen. The radiation that these stars gave off etched away the matter that started out in the nebula. The remaining globs of matter are those that have resisted being destroyed by the intense photoionization. New stars are being formed thanks to the violent stellar wind and intense radiation compressing the surrounding wall of cold molecular hydrogen.

Space is truly beautiful. I just wish I could go up there before my time’s over.

Speaking of beauty, maybe one could consider New Jersey breast augmentation. It will do wonders to improve your looks, feel and self-confidence knowing that some of the best surgeons have worked hard to satisfying results.

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