Iran Aims to Put a Man in Space

Mission 'lands' without ever leaving planet

(NEWSER) - They’re free—and they don’t appear to have gone crazy. The crew of Russia’s simulated Mars mission has landed, by which we mean, been released from the narrow confines of the “spaceship” they’ve been trapped in for 520 days . The six men, ages 27 to 38, grinned widely as they greeted the crowd outside the capsule. “We hope that we can help in designing the future missions to Mars,” Frenchman Romain Charles said, according to the AP . More»

...without actually leaving the planet

(NEWSER) - A crew of cosmonauts has broken the record for longest space mission, having spent 438 days in a 12-foot-wide capsule. But they'll also break another record when their mission is up—the record for shortest distance traveled on a space mission—because they've never actually left Moscow in all that time. The Mars500 crew has 82 days left of a 520-day simulated mission to Mars, meant to test the psychological and physical impact of a long-distance space flight. The record for actual time in space is 437 days, set in 2005 by Valeri Polyakov, the Daily Mail reports. More»

Second Iranian satellite successfully launched

(NEWSER) - Iran launched its second satellite into space this week and it plans to follow up by sending a live monkey this summer. The head of Iran's space organization says a capsule containing the monkey will be sent to an altitude of 74 miles by the Kavoshgar-5 rocket, AOL reports. The Kavoshgar-3 sent up a rat, a turtle, some worms, and a monkey doll last year. Iran aims to send a person into space by 2020 . More»

Endeavour headed for construction work at space station

(NEWSER) - The shuttle Endeavour lifted off early this morning from Cape Canaveral in what will likely be the last nighttime launch of the soon-to-end space shuttle program. The six astronauts on board are hauling a new room and observation deck up to the International Space Station, where they are set to arrive early Wednesday, AP reports. More»

Space explorers have access to some high-test drugs, man

(NEWSER) - Space is full of unique challenges, and astronauts use contemporary pharmacology to meet them. Discovery News compiles a list of the drugs our ambassadors to space could be on right now:

• Modafinil. A strong stimulant taken by astronauts when the mission calls for unnaturally long periods of wakefulness.
• Scopolamine. Crew members suffering from zero-gravity nausea turn to ScopeDex, a mixture of scopolamine and the stimulant dexedrine. In large doses, scopolamine is a full-on mind-control hallucinogen .