A 10-person committee charged with reviewing the future of U.S. human spaceflight will hold its first public meeting today, beginning a process that must cover a lot of territory in very little time.

The independent panel of experts will examine NASA’s Constellation Program, which plans to send humans to the International Space Station (ISS), the moon, and possibly Mars, and will consider alternatives to options already on the table.

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If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over. This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say goodbye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.

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Fans of extraterrestrial life may have been disappointed when Internet-fed rumors of Martian life ended in a NASA press conference on soil composition. But they can take solace in a newly popular theory that suggests the rest of space may teem with microbes.

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In yet another powerful showcase of Twitter’s potential power as a disseminator of information, today several people received the first information via the service that NASA has confirmed that its Phoenix Mars Lander has, in fact, found water on Mars. It’s still not on CNN.com, not on MSNBC.com, not on Fox.com. But a Twitter search query reveals it’s all over Twitter.

As a result of the news spreading quickly through Twitter, it’s also now all over FriendFeed, where some discussions are taking place on the subject. This is the kind of stuff these services are built for.

The water was found in ice-rich soil. Tests confirmed the ice was water-based.

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People got very excited in 2004 when NASA’s rover Opportunity discovered evidence that Mars had once been wet. Where there is water, there may be life. … What could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on Earth? Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast, cold cosmos. But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.

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