HOUSTON – NASA announced that its sending humans to Mars… and Venus!

NASA announced the design of the Space Launch System, or SLS (V&M), two rockets that will carry humans to and Mars and Venus.  The rockets will launch simultaneously.

“These new, heavy-lift rockets will be America’s most powerful since the Saturn V rockets that carried Apollo astronauts to the moon,” NASA Administrator Sam Wyckoff said in a video released before the announcement.

The idea is to launch two unmanned test flights to Venus and Mars in 2017 with the first crews flying in 2021 and astronauts heading to a nearby asteroid in 2025, the officials said. From there, NASA hopes to send the rocket and astronauts to Mars and Venus – at first just to circle, but then later landing on the planets – in the 2030s.

The rockets will be 34 stories tall and take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA said in a statement that the SLS will initially carry payloads of between 70 and 100 metric tons with plans to later carry up to 130 metric tons. By comparison, the space shuttle that was retired in July could carry about 27 tons.

Why are they sending both rockets up at once?  “Basically, its a cost issue.  We can duplicate our manufacturing processes and build the two ships together. And we can see which planet is better for humans – Venus or Mars.  It’ll be fun, too.”

The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV, a six-person capsule aboard the rocket, will be used to carry astronauts.

NASA said that in an effort to reduce cost, the rocket will use the same fuel system — liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen — for both the core and the upper stage propulsion.

Each ship will cost around $18 billion over the next five years.

This month, four bright planets will engage in a fascinating dance with each other in the morning sky.

Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter will be involved in a series of conjunctions, joined at the end of the month by a very thin, waning crescent moon.  We could even refer to this as a “celestial summit meeting,” or more precisely, a series of summit meetings during May 2011.

Twice during May three planets will converge to form a “trio.”

According to Belgian calculator Jean Meeus, a trio is when three planets fit within a circle with a minimum diameter of 5 degrees.  Such a limit was one that Meeus chose more or less arbitrarily, but as he notes, “We have to make a choice.”

On Wednesday (May 11), Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will converge within 2.05-degrees of each other, followed just 10 days later by another trio, this time formed by Mercury, Venus and Mars, which will crowd within a 2.13-degree circle.  Then late in the month, on three successive mornings, May 29th, 30th, and 31st, the waning crescent moon will arrive, sweeping past Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury stretched out across the eastern sky from upper right to lower left.

What might ancient sky watchers from 500 or 1,000 years ago have ascribed to such a series of gatherings as this?

Most likely, they would have felt a mixture of fear and wonder.  A fine example was a case in 1186 A.D. when an unusual gathering of the five planets visible to the naked eye resulted in a near-panic across the whole of Europe after religious leaders predicted that worldwide disasters would result!

Even today, in our modern world, similar fears sometimes arise.

You need only Google-search the date May 5, 2000, and you will find a number of different websites that predicted a variety of disasters attributed to the combined gravitational and tidal forces associated with a gathering of the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

One website proclaimed that it would be “one of the most exciting, powerful and transformative celestial events of our millennium according to astronomy and astrology experts.”

In many ways, these words sound all too similar to the hype and tripe that has been bandied about during these past few years concerning the Mayan Long Count calendar in 2012.

Needless to say, we all survived the recent 2000 celestial summit and despite what you might hear or read in the coming days ahead, absolutely nothing cataclysmic will take place (at least nothing that can be directly attributed to this impending dawn gathering of the moon and planets).

Tough to see

The only tragedy regarding this display is that those living north of the equator will have a difficult time seeing it.

At first glance there doesn’t appear to be any problem concerning the visibility of these objects.  Their elongations from the sun will range from 18 degrees to 26 degrees, which should place them all in dark skies.  Unfortunately, during May, as seen especially from mid-northern latitudes, the ecliptic is oriented at a shallow angle relative to the eastern horizon at dawn.

As a result, the moon and planets will rise into view during late twilight and will lie very low to the east-northeast horizon by sunrise. To see them, you’ll have to make sure not to have any potential obstructions to your visibility such as trees or buildings in that direction.

But coming above the horizon so near to sunrise will also mean that you’ll have a fighting chance of catching only Venus (magnitude -4) and Jupiter (magnitude -2) with unaided eyes.  Whether you will be able to glimpse zero-magnitude Mercury is debatable, and certainly binoculars will be needed if you have any hope of seeing Mars (magnitude +1).

The crescent moon will also prove to be a visual challenge, being only 2 percent illuminated on May 31.  Low-lying clouds or haze near the horizon on any given morning will only reduce your chances of success.

In contrast, those of our SPACE.com readers in the Southern Hemisphere, where the ecliptic at dawn appears at a somewhat steeper angle, will see this ever-changing array somewhat higher and in a somewhat darker sky; more like mid-twilight as opposed to late twilight in the north.

Indeed, those living in far southern locations such as Cape Town, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; or Dunedin, New Zealand, will have a much better chance of seeing and enjoying this month-long dance of the planets.

Joe Rao from Space.com

WASHINGTON, DC – Bernanke finally admits how he predicted the end of the recession: Astrology!

Critics and economists have hounded Ben Bernanke since his report on Tuesday, wondering how he could say the recession would be over this year, and 2010 would be a “year of recovery.”  Last night, the Federal Reserve Chairman revealed that his predictions came from a combination of applied economic theory and consulting ancient star charts.

While making no promises, Bernanke said that if the Obama administration and the Fed are able to stabilize the financial markets, the planets are in alignment for the recession to end this year.

“Mercury is in retrograde, likely to stop by the end of the year.  That is when Jupiter and Venus will take over as the dominant planetary influences, which is a condition we haven’t seen since 1997.”

Until now, Bernanke has used a star-sign mood pocket watch to determine how interest rates should be adjusted with the Federal Reserve.  The pocket watch was given to him by Alan Greenspan and has played a key role in determining US economic policy for decades.

This is not the first time clairvoyance has influenced national politics.  President George Bush went to war with Iraq only after being told they had WMDs by an old gypsy woman in Crawford, Texas.  It was later discovered the gypsy woman was a prominent stockholder with Halliburton.

Bernanke has been a longtime believer in the power of the stars, and used astrology to get a near perfect score on the SAT and graduate valedictorian.  At age eleven, he won the state spelling bee by wearing an energy harnessing pyramid on his head for a week.  After losing the helmet in the raucous spelling bee after-party, he only ranked 23rd in the nationals.

Economic markets, domestic and abroad, are closely tied to the movements of the Federal Reserve.  Last week the Dow Jones jumped 500 points when Bernanke said he “had an itchy money finger.”  News that it was just allergies sent the Japanese markets to near bankruptcy.

Bernanke went on to say “In these difficult times, no stone can be left unturned in finding a way to get our country back on track.”  He then threw salt over his shoulder, picked up his rabbit’s foot, and left the meeting.

NEW HAVEN, CT – Astronomers have announced that Jupiter and Venus will shine unusually brightly during a conjunction tonight.

But Weekly World News has discovered that the shine will be from residents of both planets mooning Earth.

Jupiterians and Venusians will come together, and millions of of aliens living on both planets will in unison expose their pale backsides towards us.  Nations of life forms will work in shifts to coincide with the revolution of each planet.

The reasoning behind this interplanetary prank yields many questions.  Why have residents of two planets coordinated such a grand effort to moon our own?  And why are Earth’s governments covering it up?  Weekly World News reporters will continue to investigate.