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Space: Final Frontier

Started by Imperator; Last updated May 4, 08 11:00 AM CDT by SeacoastNH | View history

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Space: Final Frontier

"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever." -Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Nearly four decades after Neil Armstrong took his giant leap for mankind, the race is on—again. And this time, the course has expanded, with government scientists reaching outward towards Mars, and private entrepreneurs, from Amazon's Jeff Bezos to Virgin's Richard Branson, jumping in to open up the wonders of the universe to anyone who's got the cash. Branson's Virgin Galactic aims to launch in 2009 with $200K orbits, but the wealthy and willing can already pony up $25 mil for a journey to the Russian space station. Too bad PanAm didn't hang around for the second act—they once had a waiting list of 93,000 for travel to the moon.

Stories

Stories 221 - 240 of 276

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August 2007
- NASA Eyes Endeavor Damage
  
  newser | Associated Press | Aug 11, 07 4:01 PM CDT
  
  Endeavour's astronauts finished their first spacewalk today by installing a 2-ton beam on the back of the international space station, the AP reports. Meanwhile NASA engineers inspected troubling images of a gash in shuttle Endeavour’s heat shield caused, they believe, by an ice chunk that flew off the fuel tank. More »
- Comet Dust Will Light Sky
  
  newser | Discovery Channel | Aug 11, 07 1:46 PM CDT
  
  Comet debris will light up the sky tomorrow night and Monday morning with shooting stars as Earth passes through the Perseid meteor shower. For the best view, pick a dark spot away from city lights and look east, says the Discovery Channel. "It's going to be a great show," a NASA expert advises. The showers will start around 9 PM EDT tomorrow night and peak at 2 AM Monday morning. More »
- Shuttle Docks With Space Station
  
  newser | Associated Press | Aug 10, 07 4:12 PM CDT
  
  Shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station today after executing an orbital flip to allow the exterior of the craft to be photographed and examined for any damage sustained during liftoff. Three foam chunks detached from the shuttle during launch, and although some damage remains possible, mission managers say they don't believe there's cause for alarm, the AP reports. More »
- Shuttle to Dock With Station
  
  newser | Associated Press | Aug 10, 07 8:18 AM CDT
  
  The crew of the Endeavour spent most of yesterday checking their vessel for damage from insulation that broke off the fuel tank during the launch; today they will dock the shuttle with the International Space Station. First, the shuttle will flip around in front of the ISS so that the station's cameras can inspect further for damage. Then Endeavour will deliver a two-ton truss to be added to the station. More »
- First Teacher Rockets to Space
  
  newser | Orlando Sentinel | Aug 9, 07 4:42 AM CDT
  
  Former schoolteacher Barbara Morgan safely reached space last night when the shuttle Endeavour rocketed through a problem-free launch. Ten minutes after its evening blastoff, the shuttle was orbiting 140 miles above the Earth in preparation for docking with the International Space Station tomorrow. Morgan is the first astronaut teacher since Christa McAuliffe, who died seconds after liftoff in 1986 when the Challenger exploded. More »
- All Systems Go for Teacher
  
  newser | Orlando Sentinel | Aug 8, 07 1:48 PM CDT
  
  Countdown is continuing in Florida toward blastoff for the space shuttle Endeavour, the Orlando Sentinel reports, with an 80% chance of favorable conditions at tonight's scheduled launch time of 6:36pm Eastern. Teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan, a backup to the educator killed in the 1986 Challenger disaster, has brought national attention to the mission. More »
- Largest Planet Ever Discovered
  
  newser | Space.com | Aug 7, 07 1:53 PM CDT
  
  Forget Jupiter. Scientists have discovered the largest planet out there—a "puffy" space mass almost twice the size of our solar system's gas giant. But the find is posing more questions than answers, Space.com reports: TrES-4’s mass is large but its density is about the same as balsa wood, which has confounded astronomers' theoretical models. More »
- US Teacher Headed for Space
  
  newser | Reuters | Aug 6, 07 8:02 AM CDT
  
  NASA is sending another schoolteacher into space, 21 years after the Challenger disaster killed educator Christa McAuliffe. Barbara Morgan, a former Idaho schoolteacher and now a fully trained astronaut, will spend most of the trip transferring cargo to the International Space Station and about six hours on educational pursuits. When she returns, she'll develop a curriculum based on her experience. More »
- Robot Geologist Heads to Mars
  
  newser | Associated Press | Aug 4, 07 7:05 AM CDT
  
  An unmanned rocket carrying a robotic excavation machine is on its way to Mars following a successful launch from Cape Canaveral this morning. The AP reports that the Phoenix Mars Lander should arrive on Mars in May, 2008, when it will collect and analyze soil and ice in search of organic compounds on the red planet. More »
July 2007
- NASA Admits Sabotage, Drunk Astronauts
  
  newser | CNN | Jul 27, 07 3:20 PM CDT
  
  NASA promised immediate action today on embarrassing reports of an intentionally damaged computer and inebriated astronauts. An administrator said an internal safety review, staff briefing on new policy, and official 12-hour pre-flight ban on alcohol would follow an independent panel’s finding of “heavy” alcohol use by astronauts before flights. More »
- Mojave Spaceport Blast Kills 2
  
  newser | Associated Press | Jul 26, 07 10:24 PM CDT
  
  An explosion killed at least two people at a remote desert plant attempting to develop billionaire Richard Branson's space tourism program. The blast at Mojave Air and Space Port was in part of the facility where SpaceShipTwo is being built for Virgin Galactic—to be used for $200,000 trips into Space. More »
- Astronauts Drunk on the Job: Panel
  
  newser | Aviation Week | Jul 26, 07 5:53 PM CDT
  
  NASA astronauts were permitted to fly while intoxicated on at least two occasions, an independent review has found. A aerospace trade journal published the findings on its website, revealing that astronauts engaged in "heavy use of alcohol" within the prohibited 12-hour "bottle to throttle" time before launch. More »
- Citizens Book Tickets to Moon
  
  newser | Christian Science Monitor | Jul 26, 07 3:03 PM CDT
  
  A citizen spaceflight company has two passengers willing to pay $100 million each for a flight around the moon. Tickets aboard Virgin’s future suborbital flights are flying out the door. The civilian aeronautics industry finds itself better funded every day, as would-be astronauts and backers alike are rushing to get on board, the Christian Science Monitor reports. More »
- MIT Slims Down the Space Suit
  
  newser | Time | Jul 24, 07 1:05 PM CDT
  
  When NASA astronauts are suited up for space heroics they're more Marshmallow Man than Spider-Man, but that could change with a sleek new space suit designed by MIT aeronautics professor Dava Newman. The revolutionary BioSuit is lightweight and form-fitting, allowing physical feats not possible in the current bulky gear. More »
- Astronaut Takes Out the Trash, Into Space
  
  newser | Reuters | Jul 23, 07 4:46 PM CDT
  
  A NASA astronaut hurled two large pieces of space junk—a 1,400-pound reservoir filled with ammonia and a 212-pound piece of video equipment—off the International Space Station and into the Earth's orbit today. NASA does not approve of space littering, Reuters reports, but the agency had no other option. More »
- Martian Dust Imperils Rover Mission
  
  newser | Reuters | Jul 22, 07 9:20 AM CDT
  
  The violent dust storm that has immobilized NASA's Mars rovers for three weeks shows no signs of letting up, and is now threatening the future of the mission. "This is by far the worst storm the rovers have ever seen," the rovers project manager told reporters. "Now it's all about saving power." More »
- Meet Frank, Saturn's 60th Moon
  
  newser | BBC | Jul 20, 07 1:09 PM CDT
  
  Scientists have discovered Saturn’s 60th moon, and are hinting that more could exist. In May, cameras aboard the Cassini spacecraft captured the “extremely faint object,” which scientists have officially designated a moon and tentatively named Frank. Composed mostly of ice and rock, Frank is about a mile wide and orbits between two other Saturnian moons, Methone and Pallene. More »
- World's largest optical telescope to see first light
  
  New Scientist | Jul 13, 07
  
  A huge new observatory, called the Great Canary Telescope, is set to open its eye to the sky on Friday. With a main mirror 10.4 metres across, it will effectively be the largest telescope for visible and infrared light in the world. The next largest are the twin Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, US, which have main mirrors 10 metres across.New
- Planet with Water Discovered
  
  newser | Yahoo! | Jul 11, 07 3:57 PM CDT
  
  Astronomers located the first planet beyond our solar system that hosts water—a giant gas ball bigger than Jupiter and named HD 189733b. Its sizzling climate, which can reach upwards of 3,600 degrees, renders it uninhabitable to any extraterrestrials, but the discovery shows that water is more common in outer space than previously thought. More »
- ET is 60
  
  newser | Newsweek | Jul 7, 07 10:06 PM CDT
  
  Sixty years ago something happened in the godforsaken town of Roswell, New Mexico. Now the town has two competing, yet complementary, festivals celebrating either the first recovery of an alien spacecraft or the routine crash of a weather balloon. The festivals have attracted a diverse crowd of scientists, purported alien abductees, minor celebrities, and wingnuts. More »

Stories 221 - 240 of 276

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Images (31)
Videos (7)

A film still from %u201CVoyage to the Moon,%u201D aka %u201CA Trip to the Moon%u201D (Le Voyage dans la lune; 1902). 35mm film, black and white, silent, 13 minutes (approx.). Directed by George Melies (Scene360.com)

Cover of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (Scribner, Armstrong & Company, 1874)

Cover of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (Scribner, Armstrong & Company, 1874)

This handout image obtained 19 February (Getty Images)

This photo released by NASA shows a sunburst view of the Space Shuttle's robot arm over a cloudy Earth taken June 1,1996, during the flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Earth Sciences... (Associated Press)

Space Shuttle Atlantis streaks into the sky on mission STS-106 after a perfect on-time launch from Kennedy Space Center in this file photo from Sept. 8, 2000. NASA will try to launch Atlantis on the... (Associated Press)

In this Dec. 19, 2006 file photo, a view of the international space station is seen from the space shuttle Discovery. Astronaut Suni Williams, who is registered for the Boston Marathon, will run the equivalent... (Associated Press)

solar_system3 ((c) Royalty-free image collection)

%u20AC%u2122s first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen.The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern... (Associated Press)

This photo from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope shows a pillar of gas and dust called the Cone Nebula which resides in a turbulent star-forming region. (KRT Photos)

Hubble Captures Image Of Merging Galaxies (Getty Images)

Scientists Capture Deep Space Image Of Early Universe (Getty Images)

Hubble Captures Images of Hoag's Object (Getty Images)

Gamma-Ray Burst From Chandra X-Ray Observatory (Getty Images)

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL -- The 2001 Mars Odyssey is launched on a Delta II rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Saturday, April 7, 2001. (KRT Photos)

-July 22 NASA's rover Sojourner is photographed next to the boulder dubbed "Barnacle Bill" on the planet Mars on July 22. The rover used its spectrometer to study the rock's chemical makeup. (KRT Photos)

Martian Landscape (Archive Photos)

Mercury Astronaut Gordon Cooper Dies at 77 (Getty Images)

Mercury 6 Booster Rocket (Archive Photos)

(FILES) Mercury program astronauts pose (Getty Images)

John Glenn (Archive Photos)

Alan Shepard (Archive Photos)

Virgil 'Gus' Grissom (Archive Photos)

Scott Carpenter (Archive Photos)

Astronaut Deke Slayton (NASA)

First Man In Space (Archive Photos)

Space Tourist Returns To Earth (Getty Images)

The Great Canary Telescope is a seen on a mountaintop of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, Friday, July 13, 2007. The Great Canary Telescope is among the world's largest telescopes. The... (Associated Press)

The Martian moon Phobos is seen in an image released by NASA Wednesday April 9, 2008. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the image... (AP Photo)

The International Space Station with the Space Shuttle Discovery docked to it, is seen from the ground in Tyler, Texas, Thursday Oct. 25, 2007. The ISS & Discovery are on orbit, approximately 200 miles... (AP Photo)

The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-115 is shown in this Sept. 9, 2006 photo. An experiment on that flight involving salmonella, best known as a culprit of food poisoning is reported in Tuesday's... (AP Photo)

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STS-114 space shuttle discovery return to space launch (anyhandleleft (YouTube))

v2 rocket launch explosions (aussiestormer (YouTube))

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (ei2232 (YouTube))

First Step on the Moon 1969 (InternetTim (YouTube))

BBC Horizon lord of the rings Saturn (hitmanllcn (YouTube))

Early U.S. rocket and space launch failures and explosion