SpaceX is the first private company to attempt such a feat: the first commercial cargo delivery into the cosmos.

"Just awesome," said SpaceX's billionaire maestro, Elon Musk, of PayPal fame.

U.S. astronaut Donald Pettit used the space station's 58-foot robot arm to snare the gleaming white Dragon after a few hours of extra checks and maneuvers. The two vessels came together while sailing above Australia.

"Looks like we've got us a dragon by the tail," Pettit announced from 250 miles up once he locked onto Dragon's docking mechanism.

"You've made a lot of folks happy down here over in Hawthorne and right here in Houston," radioed NASA's Mission Control. "Great job guys."

NASA controllers clapped as their counterparts at SpaceX's control center in Hawthorne, Calif. — including Musk — lifted their arms in triumph and jumped out of their seats to exchange high fives. The two control rooms worked together, as equal partners, to pull off the feat.

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If they're real, they were plucked from the lunar surface by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, given by then-President Richard Nixon to former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, pilfered by a Costa Rican mercenary soldier-turned Contra rebel, traded to a Baptist missionary for unknown items, then sold to a flamboyant Las Vegas casino owner who squirreled them away in a safety deposit box.

Now, more than 2½ years after Bob Stupak's death, an attorney for his estate has sent to NASA officials in Houston a tabletop display featuring the four gray chips the size of grains of rice. They're magnified in a Lucite dome about as big around as a U.S. 50-cent piece set with a small blue and white Nicaraguan flag. Combined, the chips weigh 0.05 grams.

Renee Juhans, NASA inspector general executive officer, confirmed Tuesday that the agency was "taking steps to authenticate" the display it received from attorney Richard Wright. Juhans declined to say what would happen after that.

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Chances are excellent that you don’t have to worry, nor most likely will any of the next hundred generations. But we can be absolutely sure that another big impact of the dinosaur-killing variety is coming someday, somewhere. In the next fifty million years, Earth will suffer at least one big hit, maybe more. It’s all a matter of time and probability.

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Life is extremely resilient once it takes hold, but it requires rich chemistry, large energy sources, and stability, right from the beginning. The comparative planetology of our Solar System makes it seem like those initial conditions are hard to come by. Earth seems perfect, whereas the rest have obvious defects. Mars is on the smallish side, lacks a substantial atmosphere and water, and is very cold (although we still hope to find life there). Jupiter is too big; its crushing pressures and element-poor environment make interesting chemistry impossible. The trouble with such a comparative analysis, however, is that it leaves out a crucial class of planets that, purely by happenstance, doesn’t occur in our Solar System.

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In their new book, “Time Travel and Warp Drives,” Tufts physics professor Allen Everett and University of Central Connecticut math professor Thomas Roman explain the science behind the fiction of time travel, and tackle the question: Is it even possible? The authors delve into the lore of sci-fi shows and books to explain how wormholes, warp drives, and parallel universes work; and what Einstein’s theory of relativity is and its relevance to time travel. They also parse through all those pesky paradoxes that arise when one tries to go back in time.

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It may seem strange to think of the Web as part of the process of natural selection, but Raymond Neubauer, a professor at the University of Texas, doesn't think so. In his far-reaching new book, "Evolution and the Emergent Self," he argues that technology should be seen as part of our planet's grand evolutionary narrative. He claims that two evolutionary strategies -- one, emphasizing simplicity and rapid reproduction (as in bacteria), and the other, emphasizing complexity and hyper-intelligence (as in humans) -- have been hugely successful in dominating the planet. The book charts the ways those strategies have managed to pop up everywhere from the animal kingdom to cellphones.

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The activists, most of them in their 30s and 40s, expected the climb to the top of the smokestack would take less than three hours. Instead, scaling a narrow metal ladder inside took nine. "It was the most physically exhausting thing I have ever done," 35-year-old Ben Stewart said later. "It was like climbing through a huge radiator -- the hottest, dirtiest place you could imagine."

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The other evening, I was listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR. Robert Siegel was interviewing Dr. Hal Levison, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., about the king-size comet that slammed into Jupiter a few weeks ago.

The comet's impact -- it punched a hole the size of the Pacific Ocean, and would have annihilated a lesser planet, like Earth -- was discovered by an amateur astronomer in Australia. Siegel asked how such an event escaped the notice of the world's great observatories.

"There are only a few really large telescopes," Levison explained. "They're hard to get time on, and so they're dedicated to particular projects. And the amateurs really are the only ones that have time just to monitor things to see what's happening."

"Part of the Neighborhood Watch looking out the front door," Siegel suggested.

Neighborhood Watch. Dr. Levison liked that analogy and so do I. Combined with the recent passing of space enthusiast Walter Cronkite and the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, it got me thinking about the value of exploring the cosmos at a time of economic destitution on the ground and a national deficit that makes the word "astronomical" seem inadequate.

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Today marks the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's momentous declaration upon first setting foot on the moon. While debate still rages about Armstrong's words were actually the first spoken on the moon, the moon landing of Apollo 11 remains one of the most indelible moments in recent American history. In honor of the event, NASA recently released the clearest images yet of the impact astronauts left on the moon's surface, video of which can be viewed below.

What became of the astronauts on that fateful mission? Buzz Aldrin became a unsuccessful car salesman and now has a new book out about his years struggling with alcoholism, depression and infidelity. Armstrong largely shied away from the media spotlight after returning to earth and worked at an aviation software company for over a decade. Michael Collins, who stayed on Apollo 11 and orbited while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, became the forgotten man on the mission, but he was the director of the National Air and Space Museum after he returned.

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But incredibly expensive efforts like a manned space program can be sustained only by a very rich country that doesn't have desperate Earth-based missions for its scientific and engineering talent -- and for the tens of billions of dollars such a program requires. You can reach for the stars, but only when you have everything else you need firmly in your grasp.

In 2004, President Bush announced his plan for sending humans back to the moon and eventually Mars. Last week, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, proposed a manned mission to "Mars by the 60th anniversary year of our Apollo 11 flight," in part to study geologic-time-scale climate change on the red planet. Long before then, however, our struggle to deal with rapid, human-caused climate change here on Earth will overwhelm even a modest effort to put humans beyond planetary orbit again.

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From the Sentinel's report:

NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said...

Chris Shank, NASA’s Chief of Strategic Communications, denied that Griffin is trying to keep information from the team... However, Shank acknowledged Griffin was concerned that the six-member team -- all with space policy backgrounds -- lack the engineering expertise to properly assess some of the information they have been given...

Said John Logsdon, a George Washington University professor who co-wrote the book honored at the NASA party, "There is a natural tension built into this situation... Mike is dead-on convinced that the current approach to the program is the right one. And Lori’s job is to question that for Mr. Obama. The Obama team is not going to walk in and take Mike’s word for it.”

...

According to industry officials, Griffin started calling heads of companies working for NASA, demanding that they either tell the Obama team that they support Constellation or refrain from talking about alternatives.

The companies, worried that Griffin may remain and somehow punish them if they ignore his wishes, have by and large complied...

Tensions were on public display last week at the NASA library, as overheard by guests at a book party.

According to people who were present, Logsdon, a space historian, told a group of about 50 people he had just learned that President John F. Kennedy’s transition team had completely ignored NASA.

Griffin responded, in a loud voice, “I wish the Obama team would come and talk to me.”

Alan Ladwig, a transition team member who was at the party with Garver, shouted out: “Well, we’re here now, Mike.”

Soon after, Garver and Griffin engaged in what witnesses said was an animated conversation. Some overheard parts of it.

“Mike, I don’t understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood,” Garver said.

“If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar,” Griffin replied. “Because it means you don’t trust what I say is under the hood."

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The Brits are jittery, and not entirely without reason. The 2006 liquid bomb cabal (daft as its scheme may have been) was organized here, and it wasn't that long ago that Pan Am 103 lifted off from Heathrow with its deadly Toshiba radio. I'm willing to grant some slack, but I draw the line at seizing empty containers from pilots.

"Why are you taking that?" I ask the guard. "There's almost nothing in there."

"I don't know that for sure," she replies. "I can't tell how much is inside."

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This is not something that was planned or orchestrated in any way ... There are enough women in the program that coincidentally this can happen, and that is a wonderful thing. It says a lot about the first 50 years of spaceflight that this is where we're at.

-- Melroy on this coincidental milestone.

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Acclaimed science writer Timothy Ferris says that the discovery is significant -- and could support the prospect of as many as 500 million people one day living on Mars. Ferris, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, has written 11 books, including "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," which was awarded the American Institute of Physics Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer. He spoke to Salon by phone from his office in San Francisco.

Why is finding water on Mars significant?

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All across America, people are witnessing a remarkable transformation. You can see it in the crowding of a school, feel it in the crumbling of a bridge, and smell it in the water from a drinking fountain. It's a new era for a new land, and it's headed your way.

As the poet Walt Whitman might have blogged, "I hear America cringing." Welcome to America Lite. Now with 3,700 percent more deficit!

In America Lite, cutbacks run free and contractors ride off into the sunset. And seldom is heard a discouraging word in the wide open spaces of your retiring TV news anchor. Good morning, America Lite! Join us as we gloss over the results of your Extreme Makeover. Lady Liberty has had the principles liposuctioned right out of her, Uncle Sam is on steroids, and the biggest enemy of the United Nations just got nominated as ambassador to the United Nations. What's next? Lizzie Borden for secretary of health and human services? MC Hammer for secretary of the treasury? Donald Rumsfeld for secretary of defense? But enough about that. We now return you to our regularly scheduled Martha Marathon, already in progress.

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Bigelow, who made his fortune running Budget Suites, may be the United States' largest funder of research into the paranormal. The owner of a chain of hotels in Nevada, Texas and Arizona, Bigelow bought a ranch in Utah where residents had reported unearthly lights and other strange occurrences and staffed it with a full-time veterinarian and two scientists to monitor any alienlike activity. He founded the National Institute for Discovery Science, which sponsors research into UFOs and other paranormal phenomena and collects accounts of sightings and other unexplained events from the public.

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Which only proves to me that NASA has become the worst advocate for space travel. Now, I'm no astrophysicist, Air Force test pilot or satellite communications specialist. Hell, my cellphone barely works. My problem with "space tourism" is my own bitter jealousy. Otherwise, I rank Tito with John Glenn. He's a pioneer. It's time to bring space down to earth.

Much of the criticism of Tito's flight is the danger his visit presents to the fledgling space station. He has to pay for anything he breaks (or stains, I guess); NASA is confining him solely to the Russian section of the ISS; and all experiments on the station are going on hiatus for Tito's stay. He must sleep in the Russian "Space Taxi" that's bringing him there, and he can't move around -- not even to the little billionaire's room -- without an escort.

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