Drill Here? NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Inspects Site http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/curiosity-20140425/
Target on Mars Looks Good for NASA Rover Drilling http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/martian-sandstone-dust-removal-20140429/#.U2KnJoFdWQ4
NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Sandstone Slab on Mars http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/msl/drill-hole-20140506/index.html#.U2p5VYFdWQ5
Planck Takes Magnetic Fingerprint of Our Galaxy http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/planck/milky-way-20140506/index.html#.U2p5o4FdWQ4
Reason they chose that spot to drill: Carbon is destroyed by cosmic radiation, if in the top meter of the ground, because wind erosion churns the soil and exposes it. The rover doesn't have a drill that long. This location is shielded from such erosion, so carbon (necessary to life as we know it) would survive longer and be detected now. Reason for 2 holes: The 1st is a test by a short drill to verify rock hardness and composition. The 2nd is the long drill which sucks out dirt and shoots it up a pipe for analysis inside the rover. https://twitter.com/elakdawalla/status/463673349063704576
It was bound to happen. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ing-Space-Station-over-Ukraine-sanctions.html
I had read it here earlier in the day. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1405/13rogozin/#.U3MfSZUU_IU 11 minutes before you posted, Soyuz landed with a Russian, American, and Japanese. None had exited the spacecraft yet. I was watching. I didn't post it because, no one cares, and, it's a 2-hour live show so few will read the post in time and none will then go to NASA-TV.
The space station has 6 years left to live, now that it's been cancelled as of 2020. Here is a short list of the 4 or 5 current ongoing (not including past) experiments which will die. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/experiments_by_partners.html
Russian Space Program Gets $52Bln Boost http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russian-space-program-gets-52bln-boost/500157.html
That was disclosed 20-30 years ago. Very old news. The dog was intended to die. Read the news more often, Denny. The first animals launched bigger than a mouse were 2 American monkeys named Albert (died). Then more American monkeys (2/3 died). Then 2 Soviet dogs (lived). Then finally, the dog named Laika (died by design, no heat shield) in your post where you were sneaking politics into the thread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_space
Space-X is a commercial company that praises itself ad nauseam. It has flown 4 Dragon cargo spacecraft to the space station. The first was just practice, with worthless cargo. Of the 3 with real cargo, 2 have flooded during the water landings. They contained freezers full of blood, urine, and saliva samples, easily ruined if the freezers shorted out. Astronauts poke themselves with needles every day, and a private company losing samples pisses off NASA. The news is that it happened the 2nd time out of 3 splashdowns, when Dragon landed Sunday. Supposedly, Space-X had redesigned the capsule's waterproofing after the first fiasco. This proves that privatization sucks, right, Denny? http://aviationweek.com/space/water-found-inside-dragon-after-splashdown
