I'm pretty sure we're going to have a Mars colony one day. In fact, my retirement plans kind of hinge on it. I'm not so deluded that I think I'll be able to ship my beloved Beetle and Scimitar over with me, so I'm going to have to pick up a new car when I get to Mars.

Cars –- they aren't just for Earth anymore! Proving that America still has mad space exploration skills, NASA sent a highly advanced roving vehicle to Mars last week to research conditions on the Red Planet. But while the Curiosity has gotten a great deal of attention in the news lately, it isn't the first time we've…

As a nice counterpoint to the Curiosity landing, NASA today demonstrated they have the capacity to fail spectacularly as well. A prototype lander, Morpheus, designed as a testbed for greener fuels, crashed today during a test flight.

On September 20th, the 26th and final mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavour will be a perilous journey to that most strange region of space, Los Angeles.

If there was the fun, cool uncle of government agencies, NASA would have to be it. Not only does he have an amazing job (landing robots on Mars), but Uncle Nasa also gives us cool gifts. Not like stupid Uncle Department of Agriculture, who's always trying to pawn off corn husk dolls and garden trowels. Uncle Nasa gives …

While Curiosity was still flying through space, way before it landed on Mars, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were busy working with a clone rover back on earth. In a simulation area called the Mars Yard, scientists put the duplicate Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) through a series of experiments to perfect…

While I was live-blogging the spectacular landing of Curiosity on Mars last night, I knew in the back of my head at some point there would be a particular comment posted. It's a comment that gets posted any time there's an article about space exploration anywhere. It may be trolling, but it's consistent and common…

We're hours away from humanity's most advanced robot explorer ever landing on another planet. Curiosity, the car-sized, six-wheeled mobile laboratory, will very soon slam into the Martian atmosphere, then be placed on the surface of the planet in a way never before tried. This rover has the potential to change…

Ford has released this very helpful guide comparing the new 2013 Ford Raptor to the 2012 model NASA Curiosity Mars Rover, for those of you comparison shopping. Both are impressive vehicles, and this nice, tall-format chart really takes the guesswork out of a complex evaluation.

If there's anyone reading this who hasn't pretended their car was a spaceship on a long, boring night drive in the middle of nowhere, then click that close box now. A dark road, the glow of your instruments, stars in the sky — why wouldn't you pretend to be in a spaceship?

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner just accomplished a feat that adds to Red Bull's ever growing arsenal of extreme sports accomplishments.

From Kottke comes this spectacular video from McLean Fahnestock showing all 135 of NASA's Space Shuttle launches simultaneously. It ably captures the drama, power, and danger of our ascent into space.

We love our supercars to death. We obsess over their top speeds and great power. But what is it like to actually use one? Over 500 miles of European motorway, we discover an inconvenient truth.

These days, photos of Space Shuttles piggybacking on 747’s tend to signal their last trips. For Enterprise, the prototype Shuttle used by NASA to test the concept, one of those last trips came almost thirty years ago.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory held its annual open house earlier this month, and like any good space dork I was there. There, of course, was all manner of exciting and interesting stuff to see, tended by scientists who seemed genuinely surprised and delighted by the fact that so many locals want to come gawk at…

Sometime very soon, China will be launching three Taikonauts to their new space station, making them only the third country ever to accomplish such a feat. The station, Tiangong 1 (it means Heavenly Palace, which sounds like a place I have a take-out menu from) was launched back in late September of last year. If you…

NASA is no longer flying space shuttles, but when the cameras turn away from the breathtaking 747 carrier flyovers or flotillas the real heavy lifting begins. Massive cranes have to delicately lift the shuttle from place to place.

Jeezis. This is why we can't have nice things. After the prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise was flown spectacularly into New York a bit over a month ago, yesterday it was just a touch less spectacularly floated on a barge through New York Harbor for temporary storage in New Jersey.

The deliveries of the real Space Shuttles to their final resting places were grand events that created amazing images. Houston, which deserved a real damn shuttle, is getting a replica.

Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk must be pretty happy right now. His other major venture, SpaceX, has just succeeded in a monumental first: the first docking of a private spacecraft, the Dragon, to the International Space Station. Up to now, docking a craft, even an unmanned one, has only been accomplished by some big…