1st Clown in Space Blasts Off

Firm says 'comfortable' space station will be up by 2016

(NEWSER) - A Russian firm has good news for would-be space tourists worried about lousy food or getting cramped by astronauts performing experiments. Orbital Technologies says it aims to have a "comfortable" space hotel circling the Earth by 2016, the BBC reports. Chief exec Sergei Kostenko says the hotel will have four cabins—complete with portholes—and the company is thinking about having celebrity chefs on the ground prepare meals for guests. More»

(NEWSER) - A Russian spacecraft carrying a cosmonaut, an astronaut, and the first two-time space tourist has docked with the International Space Station, the CBC reports. The Soyuz capsule will soon offload the two crew members and US billionaire Charles Simonyi. Simonyi will return to Earth in the same capsule on April 7 with two crew members leaving the station. The visit will cost the software executive $35 million. More»

10-day trip will set you back $35 million

(USER SUBMITTED) - If you happen to have tens of millions of dollars burning a hole in your pocket, Virginia-based Space Adventures has vacation plans for you. It can arrange a spaceflight via a Russian Soyuz rocket in which you will not only leave the boundaries of our atmosphere, but spend 10 days aboard the International Space Station, reports Discovery News . More»

'A giant leap forward for tinmankind'

(NEWSER) - International Space Station astronauts won't need to worry about the newest crew member hogging the oxygen or clogging the toilet. Robonaut 2 will become the first humanoid robot in space when he heads to the station this week on the space shuttle Discovery's final mission, AP reports. "R2" will be put through a series of tests before being put to work helping astronauts with chores inside and outside the station. More»

Despite earlier glitch, landing goes flawlessly

(NEWSER) - Russia's Soyuz space capsule safely touched down in a Kazakhstan steppe this morning, reports the AP, landing flawlessly a day after being delayed by an undocking glitch with the International Space Station. "That was almost a bull's-eye landing," said a NASA spokesman as Russian officials swarmed the landing site to pull astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson and cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko from the Soyuz. More»