Hasta La Gadget!

Back in 2004, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft passed right by Comet Wild 2’s nucleus and collected samples of the dense gas and dust material surrounding the icy center; two years later, a capsule containing those samples separated from the craft and returned to Earth.

Now scientists have discovered a fundamental building block for life–glycine–in those samples, according to NASA. “The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare,” said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which co-funded the research.

It’s taken this long because researchers spent two years developing the tools necessary to analyze the tiny sample, and to rule out (via isotopic analysis) that the glycine was from Earth and somehow contaminated the samples. (Image credit: NASA/Stardust rendering)

It’s been a long time coming: NASA has completed the first new test rocket in over a quarter century, in an effort to replace the aging Space Shuttle fleet, according to Space.com.

The new Ares I rockets will eventually take humans back to the moon; this first one will launch on October 31st in a maiden test flight designed to show that the rocket is capable of carrying astronauts inside an Orion spacecraft into orbit. Ares I is a two-stage rocket that consists of a solid-fueled first stage and a larger, liquid-fueled upper stage, the report said.

The rocket stands at 327 feet high, which is about 14 stories taller than a launch-ready shuttle with all rockets attached, according to the article.

NASA plans to retire the shuttle fleet by 2011, replace them with a system of Ares rockets and Orion craft by 2015, and return astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Hey buddy, need a ride to the moon? NASA plans to invest in the development of commercial passenger transportation services to space, using $50 million of federal economic stimulus funds, according to Reuters.

Agency officials said Monday that aspiring spaceship entrepreneurs will have 45 days to submit proposals, ahead of award announcements before the end of September.

Currently, NASA is spending $500 million to help Space Exploration Technologies and Oribtal Sciences Corp, two U.S. companies, develop rockets and capsules to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, the article said.

Not everyone is happy with the new plan, though. “It’s a little disappointing that (the new program) is only $50 million,” SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said in the report. “Fifty million is what it costs for one seat on the (Russian) Soyuz.” (Image: NASA/Hubble repair mission)

On my eclipse tour’s last night in Xi’an, an ancient capitol of China that was once the world’s largest city, our leader told us that he had come across a man with a telescope showing people the planet Jupiter near the Drum Tower, a few blocks from our hotel. My curiosity piqued, I went for a walk through the city’s Muslim quarter where the Drum Tower stands, and eventually found a whole fleet of telescopes and a few other surprises.

After months of circling the planet and getting ever closer, a lost tool bag that belonged to one of NASA’s astronauts vaporized in a fiery burst as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up Monday, according to Space.com.

Last November, the astronaut accidentally lost the tool bag during a spacewalk. At the time, it slowly drifted away from the International Space Station, forever out of reach. Ever since, the tool bag has been orbiting earth–and monitored by the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Center, which tracks over 19,000 other pieces of space junk in orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the report said.

The tool bag weighed about 30 pounds and contained a scraper tool, grease guns, and trash bags. It was about the size of a small backpack, according to the article. This would have been a perfect video clip for YouTube, if someone could have, well, orbited the Earth and filmed it before burning up with the bag. Guess that wouldn’t have worked out.

(Another pic after the break.)