Expect a lot of heat and smoke, but not much in the way of substance when President Bush announces his new "bold agenda" for space exploration. So says the Orlando Sentinel. NASA documents obtained by the newspaper, as well as interviews it's conducted, indicate the new agenda will look an awfully lot like the old one. But it's designed to sound good. One internal NASA document written as a talking-points paper for the White House puts it like this: "A house with no foundation falls, and a journey without a plan traps us in the wilderness. To move America and the world boldly into our greatest frontier we must build the foundations of mind, technology and experience. Without them, our journey into space would be only a visit. With them, we can stay. Our childr

The Van Allen Belt is described by some as a magnetic shield, standing between Earth and the harm it might be caused by magnetic storms on the surface of the sun. But the shield is porous and often, huge amounts of solar wind seep through, causing problems for astronauts and their vehicles, aircraft on the move and even powerplants on the ground. Those findings came from scientists last week in the wake of the biggest solar storm ever recorded. Published in the journal Nature, lead researcher Harald Frey of the University of California's Berkeley campus, says this new information "will help us to make more accurate space weather predictions."