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One Giant Delay For Mankind

With President Obama cancelling America's plans to return to the Moon by 2020, is the era of publicly-funded human spaceflight drawing to a close as far as the U.S is concerned?  What will be NASA's role in the new era, and how will the cancellation affect Russia and Europe's own plans for space exploration?

If you have any views about the cancellation of America's manned spaceflight program, we'd love to hear from you - we are planning an article about the issue and would like to gather as many opinions as we can. We will publish any comments we consider suitable for the article. Just mail your thoughts to editorial(at)sciencefile.org. And thank you. 

Read All About It

View the UK's largest science events calendar here. You can add your own events to the calendar too!

In April 2009, the 100 Hours of Astronomy (100HA) Cornerstone Project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) showed what the astronomy community can do when working together. As the first truly global outreach event, amateur astronomers, clubs, science centers and others held events by the thousands around the world, attracting the largest public audience ever. The excitement was contagious as this unified global event, encouraging everyone to look skyward, swept the world.

Everyone wanted the excitement to continue, and now it will. Not just repeating 100HA, but something even bigger, built on 2009's global success.

Global Astronomy Month (GAM 2010) is Astronomers Without Borders' response. New ideas, new opportunities and more participation. Connecting people around the world in these events will create an even greater sense of sharing, just as in AWB’s motto and the slogan for GAM – One People, One Sky.

The global outreach community's enthusiasm and innovation was critical in making 100 Hours of Astronomy successful, and GAM will continue to bring together all that tens of thousands of enthusiasts worldwide have to offer. GAM2010 includes the most popular events for both astronomers and the public: telescopes will be available for the viewing of the Moon, Saturn and other objects, not only at observatories and planetariums, but also in public locations; dark sky observing of distant objects, Messier marathon, Lyrid Meteor Shower observing parties and events for the annual celebration of Astronomy Day (April, 24) are just some of the activities planned; special events by IYA2009-created global programs, observing with telescopes controlled over the Internet, webcasts and podcasts of special presentations, exhibitions, public competitions, astrophotography contests and workshops and much more will ensure that there is something for everyone.

Science File will be posting details of GAM2010 in the Events Calendar, as soon as they become available.

The Global Astronomy Month logo is based on an original concept by Azhy Hasan (Iraq) and was created by Jessi Kingan (USA/Thailand) with significant input from many AWB leaders from around the world.