NASA bulldozed two spacecraft into the lunar south pole Friday morning in a search for hidden ice. Instruments confirm that a large empty rocket hull barreled into the moon at 7:31 a.m., followed four minutes later by a probe with cameras taking pictures of the first crash.

Growing up in Richmond, Joseph Purcell had a dream to lead a small group of men to a goal. “He had a lifelong dream to go to the [U.S.] Naval Academy,“ said a son, Craig Nunnally Purcell of Baltimore. After graduating as captain of the Cadet Corps at John Marshall High School, he entered the academy in 1947. The next year he was medically discharged from school after suffering a head injury during battalion football play.

An independent panel of experts has reviewed America’s muddled policy on space exploration and come to the dismaying conclusion that current resources cannot match the nation’s lofty goals. It’s all very well to talk of returning man to the moon, as George W. Bush promised to do by 2020—but that is not going to happen under current budgetary constraints. Nor does it make much sense to shut down the International Space Station after it has been operational for just a few years, the panel says.

From the outside, Building 643 is not remarkable. A six-story, sea gull-colored warehouse, it blends into the patchwork of World War II-era structures at NASA Langley Research Center. Inside is another matter. A steel door opens into a cavernous room that hums with electricity. The faint smell of burnt circuits drifts in the air. Above, a pair of enormous fans rest opposite what appears to be a giant, pill-shaped void.

NASA will try to launch space shuttle Discovery next week.

Forty-one rising high school seniors from Virginia recently spent a week planning a mission to Mars as part of the Virginia Aerospace Science and Technology Scholars academy at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton. The VASTS academy, held July 11-17, was hosted by NASA Langley in a partnership with the Virginia Space Grant Consortium.

NASA launched an astronaut escape system test from its Eastern Shore space center today.

The nation’s turbulent space program will be run by one of its own, a calming well-liked former space shuttle commander

ATLANTIC—NASA has again scrubbed the launch of a rocket from Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Previous attempts to launch the rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility had been scrubbed every day since Monday because of bad weather. This time the launch was aborted with the countdown clock at just over two minutes because of a technical problem.

NASA has again scrubbed the launch of a rocket from Virginia’s Eastern Shore

ATLANTIC—Stormy weather has forced NASA to scrub its second scheduled launch of a rocket carrying several satellites, including one designed to detect hidden enemy weapons. The Minotaur I rocket carrying the 880-pound Air Force TacSet-3 satellite was scheduled to blast off last night from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The original launch was scheduled for Tuesday, but rainy weather forced NASA to postpone.

A Northern Virginia aerospace company won a $1.9 billion contract from NASA yesterday to fly cargo missions to the space station from a launch site on Virginia’s Wallops Island.

“Houston, we’ve had a problem here.“ Seconds after that often-misquoted Apollo 13 radio message reached Mission Control, the call went out: “Call everybody that worked on this thing and let’s see what we can do.“ William R. Keyser Jr., who worked with the Sperry Corp. on motors and gyroscopes for Apollo 13, was one of those to get the call.