The Washington University professor who spent several years as deputy principal coordinator for the Mars rover Opportunity was recently selected to contribute to a new rover mission.

Senior Kaitlin Burlingame, a mechanical engineering student who has done extensive research while at Washington University, received a $10,000 award from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Thursday afternoon. Retired NASA astronaut Walt Cunningham presented it to her in a ceremony on campus.

Mars exploration is a specialty at Washington University. If President Obama’s proposal for NASA to aim for a human landing on Mars by 2030 is enacted, University scientists would be part of this grand endeavor. Ray Arvidson, the James S.

In recent days, the proposed budget for the U.S. government has begun to undergo public scrutiny, with many parts drawing notice from all corners of the nation. Amongst the proposed changes lies the fate of NASA’s Constellation Program, as funding for the project will be cut off in 2011. This willful destruction of America’s manned spaceflight heritage is inexplicable and should not be overlooked.

NASA announced that mission MoonRise, a proposal to send a lander to collect samples from the Moon for analysis, is one of three finalists in the New Frontiers Program. Bradley Jolliff, a Washington University research professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, is the principal investigator of this mission.

NASA’s Spirit rover, part of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission, is currently spinning its wheels on Mars in an area scientists have named “Troy” after the besieged city in Homer’s Iliad. Spirit landed on Mars on Jan. 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity. Each rover had an anticipated mission span of 90 [...]

The NASA-operated C-9 reduced gravity aircraft, better known as a “Vomit Comet,” acquired its nickname for a good reason. Flying in six-mile-long parabolic arcs, the plane first ascends in altitude before falling with a particular combination of dive-position and propulsion that eliminates all air resistance. The result is a 25-second period of near-perfect weightlessness—an environment [...]

McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, publisher of over 100 scientific papers, friend of Bill Nye, member of almost every mission that has involved both NASA and Mars, my four-year advisor: this is just a sparknotes version of the endless accomplishments of Wash. U.’s own Ray Arvidson. He is usually seen haunting the southwest corridor of the [...]