National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By Al Jazeera Staff in Americas on January 26th, 2012
Four Republican presidential candidates are facing off in their 19th debate [EPA]

Our producer in Florida, Roza Kazan, keeps you up to date with the latest from the debate and ensuing reactions.

11:25pm: Jennifer S Korn, the Executive Director of the Hispanic Leadership Network told Al Jazeera that she too thinks the economy remains very important to Latino voters. “It's the number one issue, whether you are Hispanic or not,” Korn said. 

She said illegal immigration is a “huge problem” for the US and won't just go away. But the way to solve it, she said, is to solve the problems of legal immigration in order to “eliminate” illegal immigration. “Most people would love to come to work here in a legal way, but right now it practically does not exist," Korn said. 

By John Terrett in Americas on August 1st, 2011
Photo by NASA/JPL

The second most massive resident of the asteroid belt, almost 200 million kilometres from the Earth between Mars and Jupiter, is the Vesta asteroid.

On Monday - thanks to NASA's Dawn spacecraft - the world got its first glance of the giant spinning ball that Mission Director Marc Rayman compared to a large U.S. state.

"At three hundred and thirty miles in diameter it has twice the surface area of California - this is a big place."

Dawn - the largest interplanetary probe ever launched by NASA - arrived at Vesta last month after a four year journey. 

"We believe this goes back to the first five million years of the solar system", said Chris Russell, Dawn Principle Investigator. Analysing the surface, "enables us to determine what has happened to Vesta over the eons."

By Al Jazeera Staff in Americas on July 21st, 2011
Reuters photo

By Stephen Witt at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida

A thunderous sonic boom marked the end of NASA’s space shuttle programme on Thursday, as the orbital spacecraft Atlantis descended through the atmosphere to land at the Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coast of Florida.

The Atlantis touched down at 5:57am under clear pre-dawn skies, marking the end of the final space shuttle mission. At Mission Control in Houston, NASA staffers applauded and shook hands.

The overall mood, however, was less celebratory. With no replacement vehicle planned for years, and thousands of job layoffs looming, the future of US space flight is unmistakably cloudy.

By Scott Heidler in Americas on July 6th, 2011
Photo by GALLO/GETTY

The final preparations for the final launch of NASA's space shuttle programme have created a mood nearly as heavy as the 80 per cent humidity here at the Kennedy Space Centre on Florida's east coast.

This is my fourth trip here in 10 months and the vibe is distinctly different.

There are more TV satellite trucks parked in front of the press centre just off from the famous launch countdown clock, and some of the NASA staff are clearly overwhelmed.

But I imagine their less-than-jovial mood is not solely based on the fact that 2,500 journalists are here to cover the last launch, but because this is "it".

After Shuttle Atlantis blasts off on a pillar of flame, no more shuttle launches, no more steady and regular media attention on NASA and the splendour of its regular rocket launches into space.

And there is a huge question mark hanging over the future of US spaceflight.  For the foreseeable future, US astronauts will be r

By John Terrett in Business on October 28th, 2009
Photo by AFP

That is what one leading aerospace expert said to me at his office in old town Alexandria in Virginia.

He was speaking as the U.S. space agency NASA launched a prototype rocket designed to replace the aging Shuttle fleet and one day to carry men back to the Moon.

The Ares 1-X blasted off from Cape Canaveral in the southern U.S. state of Florida for a journey that lasted just two minutes before it came down in the Atlantic Ocean.

The flight may have been a short one but there was a lot riding on Ares 1-X including nothing less than the future of NASA itself.

By Abid Ali in Business on October 28th, 2009
Photo by Getty Images

Nasa’s plans to send men back to the moon “appears to be on a unsustainable trajectory”. The cost of the Constellation programme has soared to $44 billion from $28 billion. And an independent panel of experts says NASA will need an additional $3 billion a year in extra funding.

It’s always alarming when an independent panel of experts casts doubt on the space programme, although I’m sure they know more than I do. But the spinoffs are endless. I’ll leave you to click through NASA’s own spinoff sites. I guess space exploration is a bit like Formula One – the geeks and petrol heads love it but the public has long lost interest.

By Rob Reynolds in Americas on July 17th, 2009

The grainy footage still makes me gasp with astonishment.

The famous black-and-white images of a spindly lunar module setting down on the Moon on July 20th, 1969, represent the improbable trajectory from dream to the reality that was Apollo 11.

It leaves one wondering, even today: How did humans travel so far, in so frail a ship, through such a still, stark void?

An estimated 600 million people watched the live television broadcast of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon that day.

They huddled around flickering TV sets in living rooms and public squares, in offices and schoolrooms. 

I was 12 in 1969, but the memory is vivid.

I remember being allowed to stay up late for the occasion, and the cheering and excitement.

For a kid, it was a marvel to think that “we” - humanity, not just America - had achieved the seemingly impossible.

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