For the "RealScience" file:  NASA has had to scrub a test launch of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator due to weather conditions at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawai'i.  The system will send a saucer-shaped landing unit up on a balloon, then deploy a rocket to raise it to where Earth's atmosphere approximates that of Mars, in order to test whether the new braking syatem will work for vehicles bringing multiple-ton payloads to Mars.

At 11:27 PM September 6, a five stage Minotaur rocket carrying the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was launched from NASA's facility on Wallops Island in Virginia.

I remembered that it was scheduled to launch tonight...at 11.31 PM.

This weekend marks the 44th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, America's greatest achievement...well, next to, y'know, the whole democracy thing, and the winning World War II thing, and stuff.  Still, to date, of the twelve men who walked on the moon, all of them were Americans.

So Saturday night, go outside and gaze up at the moon, and try to imagine what life would be like today, if Apollo 11 hadn't been the beginning of the end of America's manned lunar missions.

A couple of months ago, we posted an article about a contest to select a team of "gastronauts" to spend a few months cooped up in a habitat on the Big Island of Hawaii, trying out sample menus for a prospective trip to Mars.

Well, here's an update on how that's working out:

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/24/18475167-aloha-mars-what-w...