This online article, produced by NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research, discusses the research initiative to develop membranes that could solve some of the problems associated with traveling to and from Mars. With the help of a comprehensible explanation and a diagram, visitors can learn how NASA is planning to extract CO2 from the Martian atmosphere to propel rockets and rovers. The...

Aelita: Queen of Mars, shot and released in 1924 by the great Soviet filmmaker Yakov Protazanov, was the first - and some would say the greatest - Russian science fiction film produced. This silent, black-and-white film tells the story of a young man who travels in a rocket ship to Mars and, with the help of Aelita, the queen of the planet, leads a righteous uprising against the ruling elite. On...

This Passport to Knowledge website presents fun, educational materials on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission. Users can find information on Mars, the MER mission, and the research team. The website features many hands-on activities designed for the home or school including Rocket Science 101 and Solar System Distance Activity. Students can find interactive puzzles, concentration games,...

Passport to Knowledge created this website to present the cutting edge research and new discoveries made possible by the Mars Exploration Rovers. Students can find general information and a history of the exploration of the Red Planet. The site features biographies and interviews with many of the exploration researchers. Educators can discover many fun, hands-on activities that can be added to...

Offered by the National Space Science Data Center of NASA, the Planetary Fact Sheets Web site contains helpful information for students studying astronomy. The site lists links to all of the planets, their satellites, and their rings, as well as to tables comparing all the planets. The planet pages contain a photograph and a simple list of dozens of facts such as mass, volume, distance to the...

The latest release from the Space Telescope Science Institute's site (last reviewed in the August 3, 2001 Scout Report) provides a unique look at a global dust storm on Mars using images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Hubble Space Telescope. Offerings include photographs, illustrations, and animations of the dust storm as well as a press release, background information, fast facts, and...

"December 4, 2000 -- In what ultimately may be their most significant discovery yet, Mars scientists say high-resolution pictures showing layers of sedimentary rock paint a portrait of ancient Mars that long ago may have featured numerous lakes and shallow seas." This exciting news comes from a recent NASA news article detailing the latest finds from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global...

Angelo Vermeulen is a space researcher, a biologist, and an artist. He was also crew commander of a NASA-funded Mars simulation, in which six crew members spent four months locked away together in a dome in the crater of the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii. The crew was conducting a food study, but the experiment gave Vermeulen other ideas. He started encouraging artists from around the world to build...

NASA's Spaceplace Web site (last mentioned in the August 14, 1998 Scout Report) has several new activities including the Let's Go to Mars interactive game. Kids learn what astronauts would need to take on the nine month mission to the red planet by choosing various items and reading why each may be good or bad in space. After loading all of your items, the spacecraft launches and then gives a...