Four years ago, President Bush decided to give NASA a billion dollars in funding over the next five years to get the United States to return to the Moon by 2020. The first step in all of this is to create a rocket to take the astronauts there, so it's up to a new generation of engineers to create these machines to send people to the Moon. Their new rockets are called Ares, and they've got just one little flaw: the rocket could shake violently during the first few minutes of flight, possibly destroying the entire vehicle.

I find it interesting that 30 years ago, we were able to build rockets with 60s/70s era parts that were durable enough to withstand launch, yet with modern technology, blasting-off may as well be blasting apart.

Early this morning, there was a lunar eclipse. I awoke, went outside and took pictures.

Things that I learned from this little adventure. I need a better tripod and a nice high-powered telescope that I can slap my DSLR onto the next time I try this. A remote timer is likely going to be next on my list, as self-timer + mirror lockup is only a 2 second delay, which isn't nearly enough time to stop the vibration on the tripod.

Flickr: Lunar Eclipse

A new sea urchin from Antarctica:

New marine species in Antarctica discovered:

Carnivorous sponges, 585 new species of crustaceans and hundreds of new worms have been discovered in the dark waters around Antarctica, suggesting these depths may have been the source of much marine life, European researchers reported on Wednesday.

The team, who scooped samples from as deep as 20,000 feet , found unexpectedly rich diversity of animal life.

Many belong to species found around the world, notably in the Arctic, while others appear to be unique to the deepest Antarctic waters, the researchers reported in the journal Nature.

This morning's edition of Forum on KQED featured John P. Holdren, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science focused mainly on climate change, in which he mentioned two excellent websites to visit:

• RealClimate.Org: Climate Science from climate scientists
  
• Steve Schneider's Climate Change Website