We're going to infinity, and beyond with our list of the best space exploration games out there.

Its a big universe out there, and video games have made traversing star systems a common activity. There was a time when space exploration games were limited to certain genres, but now its more of a theme, a core idea that defines the philosophies of wildly different titles. In this article, our aim is to showcase some of the biggest and best space exploration games out there. This is not a ranking, and all of the titles mentioned have something interesting and unique to offer despite sharing a common goal: making us feel closer to the stars.

But, what makes a good space exploration game? Well, we like to think they dont have to be realistic experiences all the time. Its all about the wonder of going out there and uncovering the cosmos secrets. Maybe the task is simply to abandon Earth, or maybe space is simply defining an otherwise simple adventure or tales of conquest. The journey is what matters, and outer space is inherently the most unpredictable setting we can wish for.

If youre looking for something more peculiar, you might want to check out our list of the best PSVR space games, or the best Star Wars games. The somewhat extensive list well be exploring in this article isnt bound to certain franchises or platforms, and weve tried to include something for everyone. Now, lets blast off into the unknown.

An open-world game on the surface, Outer Wilds takes flight and sends players on a timed adventure across a solar system stuck in a 22-minute loop which ends with the sun going bye-bye. Its all about the freedom of exploration and figuring out the systems secrets each planet is strange in its own way, and an extinct alien race might hold the key to breaking the time loop and stopping the sun from going supernova.

This ones an easy recommendation for almost anyone looking for a compelling and emotional non-linear adventure that doesnt overstay its welcome and is filled with interesting characters. Of course, its jam-packed with puzzles and situations that make your head spin. Take that into account before putting on your space suit.

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We promised you a bit of space conquest, and Endless Space 2 is the best turn-based, space-set strategy title that you can find right now. It completely behaves like a normal 4X game (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate), but the path to victory is never the same. This sci-fi universe is vast and rich, and so are its possibilities, but one thing always remains true: reaching new systems and colonizing their planets never gets old.

Build an isolated empire, expand your borders across the stars through diplomacy, or let money do the talking to keep your enemies away. Its expansion packs make things weirder and more unpredictable, as if sentient trees which colonize worlds with celestial vines werent strange enough.

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Space flight simulation aficionados are familiar with this one, as its been dominating that genre for years now, and with good reason. In spite of its steep learning curve, few games are as massive and rewarding as Elite Dangerous the persistent online universe and a 1:1 scale representation of the Milky Way galaxy houses many gameplay possibilities that move at their own pace.

Elite Dangerous certainly isnt for everyone, and is more of a lived-in experience that grows with you. Dont expect to get a lot done in one hour. The journey matters here way more than crossing off tasks. Still, the number of different occupations (from space trucker to pirate) guarantee more than enough variety to keep patient players entertained for hundreds of hours. Furthermore, the Odyssey expansion (released May 19, 2021) introduces an on-foot FPS element to the game, although the community doesnt seem to be vibing with it.

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Faster Than Light aint a looker, but its got it where it counts. It can be largely described as a procedurally generated roguelite, and the goal is to reach an allied fleet in order to deliver a package of critical information. The problem is that there are a bunch of dangerous space sectors between your single spacecraft and the bulk of your allies. Plus, a massive rebel fleet is also chasing you.

The game focuses on managing the ships systems and your crew, who are the blood that keep the entire thing working. Its profoundly stressful but highly addictive, and remains one of the most unique space-related indie titles available. Moreover, you get to make some hard decisions as you push forward through the cosmos in a piece of junk, so its not all about battling pirates and fixing your ship with little to no resources.

Everyone remembers how much of a disaster the launch of No Mans Sky was, but Hello Games turned the ship around in spectacular fashion around a year and a half into post-launch development. With a few more years of massive updates, it now packs an absurd amount of content, so youll never be at a loss for anything to do. And, in case you didnt know, its procedurally generated universe is practically endless and can be fully explored with friends and/or random players.

As stated by the developers, No Mans Sky captures a sense of exploration and optimism typically seen in the sci-fi literature of the 1970s. That promise was always there, but the original experience was extremely shallow. Now, it feels like one of the liveliest universes weve explored in a video game. The first couple of hours might be rough, but it quickly picks up and goes where no game has gone before.

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Squads Kerbal Space Program (KPS) is another game that may not seem very enticing at first, but contains lots of absorbing ideas and executes most of them in an engrossing and charming manner. It took a while to get KSP out of Steams early access program, but the final result has captured countless players minds for years, and user-created mods might have something to do with that.

The player controls a space program operated by small humanoids called Kerbals, and the goal is simple: come up with vehicles and plans to explore their star system while avoiding catastrophic failures. KSP plays out like a comedy based on the history of space exploration, and its slowly gained a cult following that is now eagerly awaiting the sequel, which launches in 2022.

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We know this is an odd pick, but hear us out. Spore: Galactic Adventures was a great expansion pack that turned the basic Spore late-game experience (uneven and mostly shallow) into an exciting set of space adventures. Jumping from one planet to another and exploring every corner of the galaxy became more than just a chore, and the extensive adventure and planet creators gave users even more tools to come up with fun content.

Spore hasnt aged that well overall, but its Complete Collection is, in our humble opinion, worth revisiting even now. Maxis threw lots of exciting ideas into it, and many of them still havent been successfully replicated by more modern titles. We wouldnt reject a reboot either.

Relic Entertainments Homeworld games are landmarks of the real-time strategy genre, and even bigger triumphs for lovers of good, meaty science fiction. Gearbox Softwares substantial remaster of both titles only solidified their legendary status and made them relevant again. The series has now started to grow past the classic games, but theyre still must-play releases.

As in most RTS titles, the Homeworld games focus on gathering resources to build military forces to crush your opponents, but the plot and worldbuilding that hold everything together make them stand out: the Kushan exiles of the planet Kharak set out on a mission to reclaim their ancient homeworld of Hiigara from the Taiidan Empire. Its a sprawling epic about space nomads with really cool ships. Whats not to love?

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Best space exploration games | Space

Although the possibility of exploring space has long excited people in many walks of life, for most of the latter 20th century and into the early 21st century, only national governments could afford the very high costs of launching people and machines into space. This reality meant that space exploration had to serve very broad interests, and it indeed has done so in a variety of ways. Government space programs have increased knowledge, served as indicators of national prestige and power, enhanced national security and military strength, and provided significant benefits to the general public. In areas where the private sector could profit from activities in space, most notably the use of satellites as telecommunication relays, commercial space activity has flourished without government funding. In the early 21st century, entrepreneurs believed that there were several other areas of commercial potential in space, most notably privately funded space travel.

In the years after World War II, governments assumed a leading role in the support of research that increased fundamental knowledge about nature, a role that earlier had been played by universities, private foundations, and other nongovernmental supporters. This change came for two reasons. First, the need for complex equipment to carry out many scientific experiments and for the large teams of researchers to use that equipment led to costs that only governments could afford. Second, governments were willing to take on this responsibility because of the belief that fundamental research would produce new knowledge essential to the health, the security, and the quality of life of their citizens. Thus, when scientists sought government support for early space experiments, it was forthcoming. Since the start of space efforts in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe, national governments have given high priority to the support of science done in and from space. From modest beginnings, space science has expanded under government support to include multibillion-dollar exploratory missions in the solar system. Examples of such efforts include the development of the Curiosity Mars rover, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons, and the development of major space-based astronomical observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957 used the fact that his country had been first to launch a satellite as evidence of the technological power of the Soviet Union and of the superiority of communism. He repeated these claims after Yuri Gagarins orbital flight in 1961. Although U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had decided not to compete for prestige with the Soviet Union in a space race, his successor, John F. Kennedy, had a different view. On April 20, 1961, in the aftermath of the Gagarin flight, he asked his advisers to identify a space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win. The response came in a May 8, 1961, memorandum recommending that the United States commit to sending people to the Moon, because dramatic achievements in spacesymbolize the technological power and organizing capacity of a nation and because the ensuing prestige would be part of the battle along the fluid front of the cold war. From 1961 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was a major influence on the pace and content of their space programs. Other countries also viewed having a successful space program as an important indicator of national strength.

Even before the first satellite was launched, U.S. leaders recognized that the ability to observe military activities around the world from space would be an asset to national security. Following on the success of its photoreconnaissance satellites, which began operation in 1960, the United States built increasingly complex observation and electronic-intercept intelligence satellites. The Soviet Union also quickly developed an array of intelligence satellites, and later a few other countries instituted their own satellite observation programs. Intelligence-gathering satellites have been used to verify arms-control agreements, provide warnings of military threats, and identify targets during military operations, among other uses.

In addition to providing security benefits, satellites offered military forces the potential for improved communications, weather observation, navigation, timing, and position location. This led to significant government funding for military space programs in the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the advantages and disadvantages of stationing force-delivery weapons in space have been debated, as of the early 21st century, such weapons had not been deployed, nor had space-based antisatellite systemsthat is, systems that can attack or interfere with orbiting satellites. The stationing of weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies is prohibited by international law.

Governments realized early on that the ability to observe Earth from space could provide significant benefits to the general public apart from security and military uses. The first application to be pursued was the development of satellites for assisting in weather forecasting. A second application involved remote observation of land and sea surfaces to gather imagery and other data of value in crop forecasting, resource management, environmental monitoring, and other applications. The U.S., the Soviet Union, Europe, and China also developed their own satellite-based global positioning systems, originally for military purposes, that could pinpoint a users exact location, help in navigating from one point to another, and provide very precise time signals. These satellites quickly found numerous civilian uses in such areas as personal navigation, surveying and cartography, geology, air-traffic control, and the operation of information-transfer networks. They illustrate a reality that has remained constant for a half centuryas space capabilities are developed, they often can be used for both military and civilian purposes.

Another space application that began under government sponsorship but quickly moved into the private sector is the relay of voice, video, and data via orbiting satellites. Satellite telecommunications has developed into a multibillion-dollar business and is the one clearly successful area of commercial space activity. A related, but economically much smaller, commercial space business is the provision of launches for private and government satellites. In 2004 a privately financed venture sent a piloted spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, to the lower edge of space for three brief suborbital flights. Although it was technically a much less challenging achievement than carrying humans into orbit, its success was seen as an important step toward opening up space to commercial travel and eventually to tourism. More than 15 years after SpaceShipOne reached space, several firms began to carry out such suborbital flights. Companies have arisen that also use satellite imagery to provide data for business about economic trends. Suggestions have been made that in the future other areas of space activity, including using resources found on the Moon and near-Earth asteroids and the capture of solar energy to provide electric power on Earth, could become successful businesses.

Most space activities have been pursued because they serve some utilitarian purpose, whether increasing knowledge, adding to national power, or making a profit. Nevertheless, there remains a powerful underlying sense that it is important for humans to explore space for its own sake, to see what is there. Although the only voyages that humans have made away from the near vicinity of Earththe Apollo flights to the Moonwere motivated by Cold War competition, there have been recurrent calls for humans to return to the Moon, travel to Mars, and visit other locations in the solar system and beyond. Until humans resume such journeys of exploration, robotic spacecraft will continue to serve in their stead to explore the solar system and probe the mysteries of the universe.

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Space exploration | History, Definition, & Facts | Britannica

A Rare Find

A TV documentary crew of divers who were looking for the wreckage of a World War II aircraft off the Florida Space Coast made a startling and unexpected discovery: the heat shield remains of NASA's space shuttle Challenger.

It's an incredibly rare space artifact that acts a somber reminder of the deadly 1986 disaster, a dark chapter in the history of space exploration.

"While it has been nearly 37 years since seven daring and brave explorers lost their lives aboard Challenger, this tragedy will forever be seared in the collective memory of our country," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. "This discovery gives us an opportunity to pause once again, to uplift the legacies of the seven pioneers we lost, and to reflect on how this tragedy changed us."

What they uncover off the coast of Florida, outside of the Triangle, marks the first discovery of wreckage from the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger in more than 25 years. Don’t miss the premiere of The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters on Tuesday, November 22 at 10/9C. pic.twitter.com/LWUoFXxEnK

— HISTORY (@HISTORY) November 10, 2022

Challenger Discovery

According to the TV network History, it's the first Challenger wreckage to have been discovered in more than 25 years. Footage shared by the network show divers examining small eight-inch tiles making up a large mosaic.

NASA now has to decide whether it wants to recover the wreckage. Other pieces of the Challenger spacecraft were put on display to the public for the first time back in 2015 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

The fateful 1986 launch was NASA's 25th Shuttle mission, but 73 seconds after liftoff, it disintegrated at 46,000 feet, a tragedy watched live by countless people around the world on TV.

"Challenger and her crew live on in the hearts and memories of both NASA and the nation," said Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro in the statement.

"Today, as we turn our sights again toward the Moon and Mars, we see that the same love of exploration that drove the Challenger crew is still inspiring the astronauts of today’s Artemis Generation," she added, "calling them to build on the legacy of knowledge and discovery for the benefit of all humanity."

The History Channel will air its documentary about the rare find on November 22.

READ MORE: NASA Views Images, Confirms Discovery of Shuttle Challenger Artifact [NASA]

More on NASA: NASA Inspecting Moon Rocket for Damage From Hurricane Nicole

The post Divers Discover Fragment of Challenger Space Shuttle Under Ocean appeared first on Futurism.

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Divers Discover Fragment of Challenger Space Shuttle Under Ocean

Welcome to Space Exploration![edit]

Space Exploration is a mod for Factorio.

If you are looking to start playing, check out the Getting Started page!

Join us on Discord to discuss, report bugs, or get help.

If you're looking for documentation on other Earendel mods they can be found on Earendel's Factorio Mods official wiki.

Updating to Space Exploration v0.6.x

The content of this wiki is to help users navigate the mod by providing information on mod-specific things such as structures, recipes, and strategies.

Unless otherwise specified, all information will assume that only the core space exploration mods are installed:Base (Factorio) version 1.0 Alien Biomes Robot Attrition Space Exploration Space Exploration Graphics Space Exploration Postprocess AAI Industry AAI Signal Transmission Grappling Gun (optional) Jetpack Informatron

Feel free to add stuff to the wiki yourself but try to make sure it is accurate.

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Space Exploration

Sunday Unity 22 will launch a full crew for the first time into space at Spaceport America. The launch was originally scheduled for 7 a.m., but was pushed back by 90 minutes due to overnight weather at Spaceport America. The updated launch time is now at 8:30 a.m..The flight has been years in the making for Virgin Group CEO Sir Richard Branson and the state of New Mexico. Going to space has been a lifelong dream for Sir Richard Branson. "We've had 800 engineers working for 17 years. They now have ticked every single box and now we're ready for ourselves to go, said Branson. On Sunday morning that dream will be met, as Unity 22 will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico. "It makes me feel very excited and honored for New Mexico, for New Mexico's economy, for space tourism," said Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico. Richardson worked with Branson to lay the foundation for Spaceport America, the first step in making this launch possible. The partnership is now bringing the space tourism market to the Land of Enchantment. "It's going to be a lot of jobs for those little counties around the spaceport. Sierra County, Dona Anna County, Las Cruces, Truth or Consequences," said Richardson. An industry the state of New Mexico estimates can bring in around 8 billion dollars by the year 2030. "This was a gamble. We had a budget surplus and I wanted to plan for the future. And I said, well, this better work. Branson came through, the New Mexico legislature came through. We took a risk and now it's paying off," said Richardson. It's a risk that could help the economy of New Mexico boom and achieve the dreams of a visionary. "I've had to wait almost a lifetime to be able to go into space. Hopefully we can speed that process up for many, many others," said Branson. Former Gov. Bill Richardson will not be attending the launch Sunday. Instead he is in Las Vegas, Nevada this weekend to watch Carlos Condit, his former chief of staffs son, fight in the UFC.

Sunday Unity 22 will launch a full crew for the first time into space at Spaceport America.

The launch was originally scheduled for 7 a.m., but was pushed back by 90 minutes due to overnight weather at Spaceport America. The updated launch time is now at 8:30 a.m..

The flight has been years in the making for Virgin Group CEO Sir Richard Branson and the state of New Mexico.

Going to space has been a lifelong dream for Sir Richard Branson.

"We've had 800 engineers working for 17 years. They now have ticked every single box and now we're ready for ourselves to go, said Branson.

On Sunday morning that dream will be met, as Unity 22 will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

"It makes me feel very excited and honored for New Mexico, for New Mexico's economy, for space tourism," said Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico.

Richardson worked with Branson to lay the foundation for Spaceport America, the first step in making this launch possible. The partnership is now bringing the space tourism market to the Land of Enchantment.

"It's going to be a lot of jobs for those little counties around the spaceport. Sierra County, Dona Anna County, Las Cruces, Truth or Consequences," said Richardson.

An industry the state of New Mexico estimates can bring in around 8 billion dollars by the year 2030.

"This was a gamble. We had a budget surplus and I wanted to plan for the future. And I said, well, this better work. Branson came through, the New Mexico legislature came through. We took a risk and now it's paying off," said Richardson.

It's a risk that could help the economy of New Mexico boom and achieve the dreams of a visionary.

"I've had to wait almost a lifetime to be able to go into space. Hopefully we can speed that process up for many, many others," said Branson.

Former Gov. Bill Richardson will not be attending the launch Sunday.

Instead he is in Las Vegas, Nevada this weekend to watch Carlos Condit, his former chief of staffs son, fight in the UFC.

Read more:

Unity 22 launch could change the future of space exploration and economy of New Mexico - KOAT New Mexico

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from historic launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., February 6, 2018. (Thom Baur/Reuters)

NASA may not like the competition, but its how well beat China in the new space race.

As Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man on the planet, readies to launch himself into space aboard one of his own rockets, the world is watching the birth of a new dawn in space. Previously, America relied on its government agency, NASA, to propel it to the cosmos during the last space race with the Soviet Union. Today, Americas greatest hopes are with its private sector.

Jeff Bezos is not engaging in such risky behavior simply because hes an adrenaline junky. No, hes launching himself into orbit because his Blue Origins is in a titanic struggle with Elon Musks SpaceX and Bezoss firm is losing.

Whatever happens, the American people will benefit from the competition that is shaping up between Americas space entrepreneurs. This has always been how innovation occurs: through the dynamic, often cutthroat competition between actors in the private sector. While money is their ultimate prize, fame and fortune are also alluring temptations to make men like Musk and Bezos risk much of their wealth to change the world.

The private space race among these entrepreneurs is part of a far more important marathon between Red China and the United States. Whichever nation wins the new space race will determine the future of the earth below.

Consider this: Since winning its initial contracts to launch sensitive U.S. military satellites into orbit, SpaceX has lowered the cost of military satellite launches on taxpayers by over a million dollars less than what bigger defense contractors can do. Elon Musk is convinced that he can bring these costs down even more, thanks to his reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

The competition between the private space start-ups is fierce just as the competition between Edison and Westinghouse was but the upshot is ultimately greater innovation and lower costs for you and me. In fact, Elon Musk insists that if NASA gives SpaceX the contract for building the Human Landing System for the Artemis mission, NASA would return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024 four years before NASA believes it will do so. (Incidentally, 2024 is also when China anticipates having a functional base on the moons southern pole.)

Whereas China has an all-of-society approach to its space race with the United States, Washington has yet to fully galvanize the country in the way that John F. Kennedy rallied America to wage and win the space race in the Cold War. Americas private sector, therefore, is the silver bullet against Chinas quest for total space dominance. If left unrestricted by meddlesome Washington bureaucrats, these companies will ensure that the United States retains its overall competitive advantage over China and all other challengers, for that matter.

Indeed, the next four years could prove decisive in who will be victorious.

Enter the newly minted NASA director, Bill Nelson, whose station at the agency has effectively poured cold water on the private sectors ambitious space plans. Space is not going to be the Wild West for billionaires or anyone else looking to blast off, Nelson admonished an inquiring reporter.

Why not?

Americas actions during its western expansion created a dynamic and advanced nation that was well-positioned to dominate the world for the next century. Should we not attempt to emulate this in order to remain dominant in the next century?

More important, this is precisely how China treats space: as a new Wild West . . . but one in which Beijings forces will dominate. China takes a leap-without-looking approach to space development everything that can be done to further its grand ambition of becoming the worlds most dominant power by 2049 will be done. Meanwhile, the Biden administration wants to prevent Americas greatest strength, the free market, from helping to beat its foremost geopolitical competitor.

Nelsons comments are fundamentally at odds with Americas spirit and animating principles. Whatever ones opinion about Bezos or Musk, the fact is that their private space companies are inspiring greater innovation today in the space sector after years of its being left in the sclerotic hands of the U.S. government.

Sensing that the federal governments dominance of U.S. space policy is waning, the Biden administration would rather cede the strategic high ground of space to China than let wildcatting innovators do the hard work. Today, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and NASA are contriving new ways for strangling the budding private space sector, just as it is taking flight.

Risk aversion is not how one innovates. Risk is what led Americans to the moon just 66 years after the Wright brothers flew their first airplane. A willingness for risk doesnt exist today in the federal government which is why the feds shouldnt be running space policy.

The U.S. government should be partnering with the new space start-ups, not shunning them. The FAA should be automatically approving SpaceX launches, not stymying them. The federal government will not win space any more than it could win the West or build the locomotive. It takes strong-willed, brilliant individuals of a rare caliber to do that. All government can do is to give the resources and support to private-sector innovators and let them make history for us.

The next decade will decide who wins space. Let it be America and let Americas dynamic start-ups win that race, not Chinas state capitalism.

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The Future of Space Exploration Depends on the Private Sector - National Review

A new out-of-this-world documentary, "Last Exit: Space," is coming to Discovery+ from legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog.

The new documentary is set to look at humanity's push for space exploration and colonization. There are more than 100 billion planets in the Milky Way alone; could one of them be our new home?

Available to stream later this year, "Last Exit: Space" will take viewers on a galactic journey across our planet, up into the night sky and beyond. Monthly subscriptions to Discovery Plus start from $4.99 a month, but you can also start a seven-day free trial of the service.

Related: Discovery Channel's 'Who Wants To Be An Astronaut' will launch a contest winner into orbit with Axiom Space

This latest documentary is an exciting addition to an already strong commitment to space programming from the network. For example, Discovery's coverage of SpaceX's historic Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station won the 2021 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Special Event.

"Mankind's quest to become space colonists has always been a fascination the cutting-edge technology it requires, and the geniuses, dreamers and mavericks who lead this ambition," said the documentary's director, Rudolph Herzog, who is Werner's son. (Werner Herzog is the film's executive producer and narrator.).

"Last Exit is a brand-new creative collaboration for my father and me, and we are thrilled to be doing it with such forward-thinking partners," he added.

Discovery airs over 8,000 hours of original programming each year and is shown in nearly 50 languages and in 220 countries around the world.

"We are honored to work with Werner and Rudolph Herzog, who are uniquely suited to tell a story of such grand ambition and scale," said Lisa Holme, Group SVP of Content and Commercial Strategy at Discovery.

"With Discovery's strong history of creative leadership for stories covering exploration, space and science, Discovery Plus is the perfect streaming home for 'Last Exit: Space.'"

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Werner Herzog documentary 'Last Exit: Space' coming to Discovery+ this year - Space.com

The thousands of space travellers were in suspended animation and nestled together on their ship, which was about to land on the Moon. But something was wrong.

The ships computer initiated a series of commands that accidentally shut down its engines. As the craft careered towards the lunar surface, its passengers lay silent and still, oblivious. The impact was powerful. Dust scattered. And yet, they may have survived.

The creatures on board that doomed vehicle were tardigrades, also known as water bears micro-animals that can endure extreme temperatures, pressures and even radiation, among other harsh conditions. If they did make it alive, they would have achieved something rather special. Hardly any animal species has ever made it so far from Earth.

The botched landing, which happened in 2019, was not necessarily catastrophic enough to destroy the tardigrades, according to the Arch Mission Foundation, the non-profit that decided to send the tardigrades to space. The organisation had attached the creatures to a stack of discs containing information about human civilisation, which was aboard the lunar lander.

But unless humans or perhaps robots can investigate the crash site, potentially many years from now, we wont know for sure, says Doug Freeman, a spokesperson for the foundation. Its actually unlikely that the disc would have been destroyed, he adds.

Crucially, the tardigrades were in a state of dehydration, which suspended their metabolisms. In theory, the creatures could be reanimated years after the crash, should they have survived intact. The mission, called Beresheet, was the first Israeli mission to land on the Moon. No other animals, as far as we know, have spent so long on the lunar surface.

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In the past, many people assumed that the Moon was populated with creatures, like the Earth was. Theres an old folk belief that the woodcock, a rarely seen ground-nesting bird, spent its summers on the lunar surface because it always returned from migration on the first full Moon of November. And the Greek philosopher Philolaus was among those who thought lunar animals must be 15 times larger than those on Earth. For some reason he also argued that they did not produce poo.

Today, we think of the landscape of the Moon very differently. It is considered more or less barren. But that could change. As humans establish outposts, bases or research stations on the Moon, we might bring with us life forms other than ourselves (and the microbes that live on and in our bodies).

In other words, the tardigrades could soon have company. From providing food toacting as our personal companions, animals could have important roles to play on the final frontier. And we might even find novel ways of benefitting or safeguarding the nature of planet Earth as we explore the Solar System and beyond.

My feeling is that we cant go into space alone, says Cyrille Przybyla, a researcher at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea. We have to keep with us our environment.

Przybyla is one of a few researchers who are convinced that the future of human spaceflight will feature plants, animals and other organisms. He points to the 1972 film Silent Running, in which giant spaceships with greenhouse-like domes preserve a collection of plant and animal species in a future era when Earths forests have almost gone extinct. The films story is not the most compelling, argues Przybyla, but the idea of taking this bounty of biological life with us into space, is. My vision is close to this bad movie, he says.

Przybylas current project, the Lunar Hatch Programme, involves fish eggs. In a series of experiments, he and his colleagues have shaken, vibrated and accelerated fish eggs (from sea bass) to great extremes to see whether larvae will still hatch from them after enduring such punishment. The idea is to simulate the effects of a rocket launch and spaceflight.

Astronauts on the ISS already grow fresh salad leaves to supplement their diet. Here, Serena Aun-Chancellor harvests kale and lettuce for Thanksgiving ESA/Alexander Gerst

In some of the latest experiments, the results of which have not yet been peer-reviewed, the eggs were exposed to acceleration up to 5g using a rapidly spinning machine. A separate machine was used to expose the eggs to simulated microgravity, such as they might experience on a voyage to the Moon in the future.

Should fish eggs be able to withstand the mechanical stresses of spaceflight, they could one day be conceivably delivered to a future Moon base, and hatched in an aquaculture system using water retrieved from below the lunar surface. Przybyla argues that fish could be a vital source of protein for lunar residents and a reminder of the appetising food they must leave behind on Earth.

So far, the fish eggs appear robust enough to survive the physical strain of flying to the Moon. But the next step, says Przybyla, is to expose them to radiation to see whether that reduces the hatching rate. Hes reasonably confident that the eggs will survive. If so, it might be thanks to evolutionary toughness. Przybyla points out that when the first aquatic life evolved on Earth more than three billion years ago, there was little or no atmosphere and so those early organisms might have been exposed to more cosmic radiation than terrestrial species today.

Should the Lunar Hatch Programme continue to prove successful, the project might become part of the European Space Agencys (ESA) Moon Village in the coming decades, potentially paving the way for fish farming on the Moon. There are no guarantees, though. The proposal is currently one of around 300 vying for inclusion in the Moon Village programme.

Read more about leaving Earth:

Przybyla says he decided to focus on fish partly because they are relatively small animals that dont produce excessive amounts of CO2. Waste products would have to be disposed of or recycled on an ultra-efficient Moon base, since space will be so limited and the environment will have to be kept clean and safe.

For similar reasons, insects could also be part of a lunar farm one day, argue the authors of a 2020 report from the University of Australia and the International Space University. Insect farms require relatively small amounts of space and lower water usage when compared with conventional meat protein sources on Earth, they write, before suggesting some specific candidates crickets, silkworm pupae or palm weevil larvae.

Even the small environmental footprint of these animals makes the idea of rearing them on the Moon problematic, at least in the near future, argues Dr Christophe Lasseur, from ESAs Life Support and Physical Sciences Instrumentation Section.

Animals will consume oxygen, they will produce CO2 they will produce faecal matter, he says. We are more looking to plants, bacteria and microalgae.

ESAs Melissa programme is working on the design of a closed-loop system to provide lunar inhabitants with food, perhaps in the form of spirulina, a blue-green algae that has long been harvested as a food source in Africa and Latin America, and which turns carbon dioxide into oxygen.

With a growing population on the Moon, it would not be feasible to ship food from Earth. There are plans to test how plants fare when grown in space, as seen in this illustration NASA

The debate on whether it will be necessary to raise animals on the Moon to provide food rests on factors such as whether protein will be more easily obtained from other sources and whether it might just be easier to ship food directly from Earth. That is how the International Space Station (ISS) occupants get their food save for a few salad leaves grown in space.

But Dr Martina Heer, professor in nutrition physiology at the University of Bonn, points out that human beings need a few kilograms of food per day. Supplying a cadre of lunar residents with constant deliveries might actually be prohibitively expensive. Thats a lot of weight you have to take to the Moon, she says.

So while delivering food direct from Earth might suit at first, its not something that would be practical indefinitely, especially once the number of people living on the Moon grows, says Dr Mike Dixon, professor and director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility at the University of Guelph in Canada.

Dixon has spent years researching how well plants can grow in space. Shortly, he hopes to monitor an experiment on the ISS to see whether barley will grow when exposed to cosmic radiation. And he also has plans to grow barley on a lunar lander in the future, too.

The psychological appeal of the food you eat is not to be discounted, Dixon says, arguing that fish and insects are among the top candidates for lunar livestock. While some may not leap at the chance to gulp down a bowl of crickets, its possible to grind dried insects into powder and use them in various recipes that have no hint of antennae or spiny legs.

Will all lunar animals just end up being eaten by humans? Not necessarily. Dr Nancy Gee, professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, argues that any human who stays on the Moon for more than a few days will have to battle feelings of loneliness, being so far from their home planet and in such a desolate place.

In the film Silent Running, plant and animal life from Earth is safeguarded in space. Similarly, some scientists have hypothesised that lava tubes on the Moon could store seeds, spores and eggs to rebuild Earths ecosystems Shutterstock

I imagine that it might feel very dislocating, very isolating, she says. To remedy this, companionship in the form of animal pets could help boost the wellbeing of people housed in a tiny Moon base. Theres lots of research to suggest that interacting with animals such as dogs can improve peoples moods and lower stress levels, says Gee.

If Fido is too big an animal to accommodate on the first Moon bases, even insects could help, potentially. One randomised, controlled trial in South Korea found that looking after crickets resulted in significantly lower feelings associated with depression in older people, compared with not having the insects to tend to at all.

Ultimately, taking animals on long voyages into space to sterile environments will be an ordeal. Gee argues that we should do our best to ensure that such activity is ethical. But incorporating animals and nature more widely into space exploration need not only be about serving human needs. It might just be possible to give something back to nature too, by finding ways of preserving or protecting it in space.

As if in further homage to Silent Running, there are plans afoot to safeguard fragments of the natural world in space, for real. Dr Jekan Thanga, assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona, says that lava tubes, formed billions of years ago when the Moon was volcanically active, could provide the perfect storage space for millions of seeds, spores, sperm and eggs a lunar ark that would act as a stockpile of the basic materials wed need for rebuilding Earths ecosystems from scratch.

It could be a site for backups backups of the stuff that we most value, says Thanga. From our point of view, that would be the biodiversity of Earth.

It would take around 250 rocket launches, given the size of current vehicles, to transport all the required biological material to the Moon for storage. And once there, it would have to be placed into the lava tubes and refrigerated to a temperature of -180C or lower.

Scientists at ESAs Melissa programme are developing a closed-loop system where waste is recycled and astronauts are provided with food and oxygen University Autonoma Barcelona/ESA

Thanga says the value of this wouldnt just be in having backups from which to replenish life on Earth, should it disappear, but this material could also potentially be used to populate other celestial bodies with life from Earth, as human beings travel further into space and establish themselves on other worlds.

This all brings gigantic challenges. Seeds and eggs arent the only things required for establishing an ecosystem. Any off-world replica of Earth would also need suitable growing media for plants, enough water, oxygen, light and heat and the materials that plants and animals need to grow or reproduce. These details are yet to be sketched out in full, says Thanga.

But the basic principle that human space exploration ought not to be a totally sterile endeavour could lead to this project and others becoming reality one day from fish farms on the Moon to pet dogs travelling with us across the stars.

As Lasseur says, bringing lots of animals with us will not be realistic at first. Humans on the Moon, Mars or further afield will be like those stationed at Antarctica today more or less cut off from much of the environment that they are used to. But after that, who knows?

Researchers like Przybyla argue that maintaining a link with the biodiversity of Earth, the planet we came from, will be crucial for future explorers and space pioneers. Gee makes a similar point, suggesting that its now time for us to start asking questions about how we could take animals with us.

How can we continue to keep animals as part of our lives, even when were no longer on Earth how can we continue to include them? Because they are so important to so many people, she says.

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Animal astronauts: Why other lifeforms will be crucial to humans living off Earth - BBC Science Focus Magazine

It takes energy to travel to, in, and around space. It also takes energy to act, live, and grow. Consequently, the establishment and sustaining of a permanent human presence in space will require a resilient, long-lasting, and secure source of energy.

Of the options we have, solar is a popular one given our familiarity with the technology here on Earth and its demonstrated in-space capabilities. It is relatively cheap, proven, and has seen deployment on the vast majority of missions into the solar system. However, the farther we journey from the sun and deeper we travel into space, the less sunlight we have to convert into energy. Unfortunately, even many of the places close to us that we are most interested in exploring (such as the permanently shadowed regions of the moon) have limited or no sunlight. To explore where sunlight is not always a constant, we need an alternative energy source.

Fission surface power (FSP) can reliably provide us with the energy needed in all of these different contexts. A fission-powered reactor can provide 150 kilowatts of electrical power and support a small lunar base for at least 10 years. This would allow NASA astronauts to create oxygen from regolith, provide electricity for other life-support systems, and enable any number of scientific missions. That same system could be scaled up to produce megawatts of electrical power for a large base capable of producing propellant, providing for increasingly larger crews, and enabling ambitious technology demonstrations and groundbreaking science missions.

Nuclear reactors designed for operation in space are well suited for these longer journeys as they are compact, energy dense, and scalable due to their modularity. However, what makes nuclear reactors an ideal power source for deep space exploration is their resilience. Space is the harshest environment known to humanity, but reactors designed for the lunar surface are capable of operating anywhere, at any time, for months and years on end.

The idea of sending a nuclear power system into space might sound fantastical, but its already more routine than many people realize. Nuclear power has been part of the United States space program since 1961, and since then, nuclear power systems have been incorporated into more than two dozen missions. The Voyager 2 probe launched by NASA in 1977 to study the outer planets and beyond famously carries a radioisotope thermoelectric generator that has allowed it to continue sending data back to Earth to this day. Most recently, NASAs Perseverance rover has been partly powered by a similar but more modern radioisotope power system as it explores the surface of Mars.

As these new space nuclear technologies are being developed by the government and companies like USNC-Tech, we have to rigorously adhere to regulations related to the use of nuclear material. Part of this is ensuring our systems are proliferation resistant and the use of high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) is the first step to doing so. HALEU is an internationally recognized, proliferation-resistant form of nuclear fuel, far less capable of being diverted to illicit nuclear weapons programs, but which can still provide plenty of power efficiently over a long period of time. This capability has been proven by private industry, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Energy in the context of feasibility work showing similar or equivalent performance with systems that use weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

All of this will culminate in an exciting moment when American astronauts will be able to spend weeks or even months at a time on the moon. It is vital that we do so, not just for science, but also to ensure our continued presence in the solar system follows the principles for a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future detailed in the Artemis Accords. A permanent presence on the moon will put the United States and its allies in a position of strength to set the terms and conditions for that future. The U.S. and its allies, signatories to the Artemis Accords, are committed to these values, and must create conditions where those values can thrive and prevent other nations with different priorities from doing so for their own.

As Congress prepares NASAs budget for fiscal year 2022, it has a valuable opportunity to ensure that America remains the worlds leader in sustainable space exploration by continuing to fund the development of advanced space nuclear technology. In recent years, Congress has supported and funded the development of nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), a vital technology that would ferry astronauts to Mars in half the time of conventional propulsion systems, and I believe I speak for many in the space nuclear industry when I say that I am hopeful that this financial support for NTP development continues.

However, as nuclear propulsion systems become a reality, it is absolutely crucial that we also fund and develop the FSP systems that will enable humans to stay on the moon long-term once they arrive. With a relatively modest appropriation this year, NASA can seed the development of an FSP program that would result in a functional reactor demonstration on the moon within five or six years. When we combine this with the capabilities of the new launch vehicles and lunar landers being developed by companies in the United States and the prospect of delivering more than 5,000 kilograms to the lunar surface, we are looking at the ability to develop and deploy a game-changing capability, one that will enshrine the United States as the dominant spacefaring nation for decades to come.

This is an ambitious, but realistic timeline given the maturity of existing terrestrial reactor technology, and the meaningful progress already being made to adapt and advance that technology for use in space. Where previous lunar visits were measured in hours and days, investing in FSP now will give the next humans on the moon, including the first woman to walk on its surface, the energy required to survive, thrive, and build a permanent American presence on the moon.

Paolo Venneri is executive vice president of USNC-Tech, a technology development company established in 2019 as an independent subsidiary of Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp.

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Op-ed | America's permanent and resilient presence in space will be nuclear powered - SpaceNews

The big news on the spaceflight front last week was the announcement by billionaire Richard Branson that he would ride his Virgin Galactic spacecraft aloft on July 11, beating fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to the edge of space by nine days.

Big news, that is, for anyone mourning the demise of the TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, which ran out its string more than 15 years ago.

For anyone else anchored here on planet Earth, the competition to be the first billionaire in space should mark a milestone in the towering vanity of the wealthy.

Everybody says that when you go to space, it changes you.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, promoting his Blue Origin space tourism venture in 2017

Both billionaires place their ventures in the context of the need to test humans resilience to spaceflight, establish the safety of their craft, and expand humankinds reach beyond our home planet.

Thats also a theme of the third billionaire engaged in this plutocrats space race, Elon Musk. He hasnt been talking about taking a flight himself but does say the goal of his company, SpaceX, is to give humankind a foothold on other planets, specifically Mars.

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Lets promptly dispense with the notion that any of these flights will add anything to our scientific knowledge, unless its the establishment of a new metric for how long it takes for money to burn a hole in your pocket when you have more than you could possibly need.

Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, told a news conference in 2017 that he was cashing in about $1 billion in Amazon stock every year to invest in his spaceflight company, Blue Origin. At his current net worth, he could continue that practice for another 200 years.

As has been the case virtually since the dawn of the Space Age, crewed spaceflight is all about public relations. I can say this from personal experience; as a schoolboy in the 1960s I knew the names and vital statistics of every one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, retailed as they were by Life magazine, which had reached an exclusive publicity deal with NASA.

The arrangement was the first step in a PR blitz that kept the space program at the forefront of American voters consciousness through successes and failures, right up to the moon landing of July 20, 1969. After that, anomie set in, broken now and then by upsurges in talk of further crewed voyages to the moon and a new quest to place astronauts on Mars.

The space shuttle, NASAs follow-up to projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, never seemed to capture the public imagination as did those earlier programs aimed at landing on the moon.

The suborbital, up-and-then-back-down-again flights scheduled by Blue Origin will just barely reach the altitude generally regarded as the edge of space, 100 kilometers or about 62 miles; Virgins will fall about 12 miles short of that point.

As for advancing the science of spaceflight, its proper to note that the achievement of suborbital spaceflight was reached by the first launch of Project Mercury, with Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7 capsule 60 years ago. (By then, of course, the Soviet Union had already sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit.)

Since then, the practical rationale for human spaceflight has only receded. As physicist Steven Weinberg observed way back in 2004, NASA administrators, astronauts, aerospace contractors, and politicians typically find manned space flight just wonderful.

Thats still the case in 2017, the theme was picked up by Donald Trump, though it suffered the fate of so many other ventures of the Trump White House, subsumed into Trumps usual miasma of boredom.

The Bezos and Branson flights are quite evidently designed to pump up the appeal of their companies nascent space tourism businesses.

Blue Origin says its ultimate goal is to support millions of people ... living and working in space, but its shorter-term goal is to ferry passengers on flights of 10 minutes or so, during which they can experience about three minutes of weightlessness and perhaps get an inspiring glimpse of Earth from afar.

Everybody says that when you go to space, it changes you, Bezos said at that 2017 event. All the astronauts come back with stories like that. Its very emotional to see this Earth, to see the thin limit of the atmosphere.

The glamour of life in space has been part of popular culture for the better part of a century. In recent decades it has been fostered by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek and Star Wars, and The Martian.

The real danger of thrill-seeking via spaceship is that it distracts from problems here on the ground. Its become a bit of a cliche to say that we should be spending more on the fight against global warming, but NASA projects have contributed immeasurably to Earth science at least until congressional conservatives steered the agency away from those projects so it could spend more on interplanetary exploration.

Almost every goal cited for crewed spaceflight, Weinberg observed, could be performed today more efficiently and more cheaply by uncrewed flights.

The most spectacular gains in knowledge about Mars, for instance, have been provided by by robots. They include NASAs Perseverance rover, which landed on the red planet on Feb. 18, about seven months after its uncrewed launch, and Curiosity, which landed in 2012 and is still sending photographs our way. They were preceded by Spirit and Opportunity, which were launched in 2003 and landed the following year.

Those projects cost a mere fraction of what it would have taken to send humans to Mars, even if that were technically possible. The reason is that once humans are aboard, their safety becomes the paramount concern of the mission, driving up its cost exponentially.

As I observed after Trumps Feb. 28, 2017, address to Congress in which he hinted at a resumption of crewed space exploration, the public obviously considers human participants to be indispensable, so much so that a loss of life can almost destroy a space program, as happened with the space shuttle program after two human catastrophes.

One example of the wastefulness of crewed missions is the Hubble Space Telescope, which was placed into orbit in 1990 by the space shuttle. But the Hubble could just as easily have been launched by an uncrewed mission indeed, as Riccardo Giacconi, the former director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, estimated, doing so would have allowed seven Hubbles to be launched for the same price as the single shuttle-launched telescope.

Crewed space missions are customarily justified by the advances in science and technological know-how thrown off by the space race. That notion has an enduring allure. Two Trump advisors writing just before the 2016 election promoted the notion of renewed crewed exploration by citing the brilliant returns for our economy, our security, and our sense of national destiny produced by past investments in space exploration.

They didnt mention any specific economic returns, brilliant or otherwise, perhaps because they couldnt identify any that would not have been produced by an uncrewed moon program. (One of the authors was Peter Navarro, then of UC Irvine, whose later promotion of a useless remedy for COVID-19 should put his expertise in perspective.)

The vanity projects of the billionaire astronauts are endowed with a science-y veneer. Larry Connor, an Ohio apartment tycoon who put up a reported $55 million for an eight-day stay on the International Space Station, ferried there by Musks SpaceX, told the Washington Post hes collaborating with the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic on research projects and will give classes on his experience to students at a Dayton charter school. (Connors firm says the price tag reported by the Post is incorrect, but wont divulge the real figure.)

Perhaps these projects will have genuine scientific value. If so, however, they would be conducted by experienced scientists, not a 71-year-old Dayton real estate man. More likely, theyll be like other science projects sent aloft on the space shuttle, which Weinberg acerbically dismissed as having the flavor of projects done for a high school science talent contest.

What about the prospects of humans colonizing or even conducting research on Mars? This has the flavor of popular science fiction. The truth is that Mars is a place irredeemably hostile to human life. The planets atmosphere is unbreathably thin and lacks a global magnetic field, which means that human residents would be inundated with cosmic and UV rays.

Its surface temperatures fall as low as minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, a level approaching that of Antarctica. At the poles, temperatures can reach as low as minus 200 degrees F. The planets gravitational pull is about one-third that of Earth.

Mars aficionados like Musk counter these facts with hand-waving. It is a little cold, but we can warm it up, SpaceX says. Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around. Never mind that low gravity, as experienced by astronauts on long missions, wreaks havoc with human biological systems including the heart, bones and muscles.

One underlying theme of space travel enthusiasts like Musk and Bezos is that humans need a Plan B. The assumption is weve screwed up Earth so badly that theres little point in trying to fix what we broke. They have the wrong end of the stick. Answers to global warming and disease are still much more accessible than fleeing Earth for space. The dream of interplanetary travel and colonization is the dream of schoolchildren, and its time that the billionaires grew up.

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Space race for Bezos, Branson, Musk is a mere vanity project - Los Angeles Times

In 2009, using NASAs Interstellar Boundary Explorer, also known as IBEX, astronomers spied a strange ribbon-like structure dancing between our solar system and the rest of interstellar space.

The discovery of the IBEX Ribbon, which is invisible to both telescopes and the human eye, was one of scientists first forays into understanding more about our heliospherea bubble-like shield made up of solar winds.

A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal maps the entire boundary of this shield, and the data collected may be used to usher in a new era of heliophysics exploration.

Most instruments that detect particles in space are detecting charged particles, says Daniel Reisenfeld, a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and lead author of the study. But IBEX is unique.

It detects energetic neutral atoms, or ENAsions that originally come off the sun but collide with interstellar electrons, neutralizing them. These atoms can be found everywhere in space, and observing ENA fluxes across time can be a powerful imaging tool.

So what exactly was that mysterious ribbon? Scientists have since determined that what they were seeing was a giant swath of ENAs lighting up the night sky.

Using data IBEX collected on ENAs as it charted just one 11-year solar cycle, the time between shifts in the suns magnetic field, researchers built a three-dimensional map of the entire heliosphere, which Reisenfeld says shields Earth and other planets from harmful radiation.

Our Earth gets bombarded by cosmic rays, galactic cosmic rays all the time, he says. These rays can subtly affect airplanes that fly near the poles, often on trips between Europe or Asia and the US.

Scientists say that to study other planets astrospheres, which is what heliospheres are called when they surround other stars, we must first understand our own.

A lot of physical models which are being developed right now are based on the discoveries of the IBEX mission, says Nikolai Pogorelov, a professor of space science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Its not only experimental, he says, adding that it will be used for [a] real purpose.

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The solar wind bubble that protects Earth has been mapped for the first time - MIT Technology Review

With the proliferation of human activity in space, humanity risks repeating the mistakes that saw unbridled competition over scarce resources lead to wars, former U.S. Ambassador W. Robert Pearson told a Duke panel on space diplomacy.

A growing number of national and private actors are staking a claim on resources that need to operate within a more robust regulatory framework, according to the panel. The event, co-sponsored by Duke in DC, was the first in a new series on space diplomacy organized by the DUCIGS Rethinking Diplomacy program.

Whether this unmanaged competition will lead to future conflicts or to an agreed set of international norms will depend on how quickly diplomacy is able to gather enough consensus, panelists said.

At the event, astrophysicist Benjamin Schmitt said current norms are lacking. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 doesnt cover many of the elements of the commercial activity of private enterprises or conventional weapons in space, among other issues, Schmitt said.

UNC Ashevilles astronomer Prof. Britt Lundgren moderated the event with Schmitt and Pearson, both fellows of the DUCIGS/Rethinking Diplomacy Program.

Pearson said three truths from the European age of global exploration from the 15th century offer lessons for regulating space exploration today: Those countries with access to the new territory became substantial players in global affairs over the next 500 years; conflicts in the new territories did not remain there, but reverberated to come back to produce wars at home; and private enterprise played an enormous role in shaping trade and international relations realities.

Now as then, he said, unmanaged competition can easily lead to conflict.

The unprecedented escalation of activities, players, and deployment of technologies in lower earth orbit and deeper space upend the order that we have seen since the end of the Apollo program, said Benjamin Schmitt, a postdoctoral research fellow and project development scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

This expanding space race features both commercial companies investing in space projects Elon Musks Space X, for one and nation-state programs like the U.S.-led Artemis Accords. This alliance of Western-leaning countries plans to bring humans back to the moon by 2024. It also aims to set regulatory norms that recognize the right of private companies to profit from space resources. Russia and China have announced plans to pursue a competing space program.

This is going to put to the test the international agreements written way back including the moon agreement of the late 70s--that really haven't been put to the test in a real, meaningful way because there has been no human activity on the moon to test it, Schmitt added.

International agreements and treaties take time, Pearson said, easily a decade or more, and in the meantime we need a set of norms of behavior to address the most urgent issues in space, such as preventing the accumulation of orbiting debris from spacecraft parts or defunct satellites posing risk of collisions both in space and on earth (as discussed by Schmitt and Pearson in a recent article in Foreign Policy).

Setting rules and best practices on such issues would create what we call transparent and confidence-building measures that might help frame the norms of behavior that would guide us, Pearson said.

Among the emerging issues that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 essentially an arms control treaty did not cover is the placement or use of non-nuclear weapons in space.

NATO may be helping to set the stage for productive talks in three ways: NATOs space policy states that the Alliance has no intention to put weapons in space; it includes space within its defense and deterrence doctrine, placing the issue clearly in the political realm; and it offers the prospect for a collective of NATO, the EU, Japan, South Korea and Australia to take the lead in setting new approaches to space issues. Such an effort could help potentially build consensus at the U.N. level and spearhead new space laws and regulations.

As an astronomer, Prof. Lundgren voiced the concerns of other important stakeholders: peoples on Earth for whom the night sky is central to their cultural heritage, as well as the scientific community that relies on clear skies for ground-based observation through telescopes. For example, astronomers research devoted to answering essential questions for the whole of humankind and their technological investments are being threatened by satellite trails which are increasingly problematic, she said.

These kinds of concerns reflect an approach to space as part of the global commons. In this regard, Pearson urged a close look at the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, designed to prevent a colonialism-like fight for new territory, which also became the progenitor of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 in regulating the use of common resources declared outside of states sovereignty claims.

Russia, China, the U.S. and Japan have policies that recognize the right to exclusive use of discovered resources.

On April 6, 2020, the Trump administration issued an executive order denying there were any space commons at all, and said that to admit that would be to fail to support private enterprise, Pearson said.

To date, the Biden administration hasnt overturned the executive order. The U.S.-led Artemis Accords also recognize the right of private companies to profit from space resources.

In talking about history, Pearson said, I ran across a quote allegedly from Mark Twain in which he said that history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes. And this time, history is certainly rhyming.

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Why We Need International Norms to Regulate the Space Race - Duke Today

Per aspera ad astra. This is the phrase adopted as a statement of intent by space agencies, both real and fictional, that originates in Virgils Aeneid. But exactly what kinds of hardship will the human body have to endure to colonise the cosmos?

When Scott Kelly came back to Earth after 340 days in space, it felt like his skin was on fire. Not on re-entry, but later, when he tried to sit down, get dressed or move. Spending close to a year in microgravity will do that to you; aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Kellys skin got used to feeling no weight and having nothing touching it.

Like other astronauts, he floated around the ISS with little need for furniture. He didnt wear shoes and even his clothes drifted around his body instead of hanging from it. So when he came home, a shirt sleeve bearing down on his arm under the pull of Earths gravity was alien, painful even. As Kelly himself said in a post-flight press conference: Adjusting to space is easier than adjusting to Earth

Since the year-long mission ended in 2016, Kelly has become a guinea pig for scientists studying what happens to the human body when it ventures beyond Earths atmosphere. Even among astronauts hes a rare case. Not only did he spend the best part of a year in orbit, but Kelly has an identical twin brother, Mark. It gave NASA an unprecedented opportunity to study the physiological, molecular and cognitive effects of long-term spaceflight.

Scott went to space. Mark, the perfect control subject, stayed on Earth. The brothers are both retired astronauts now, but their contributions to the landmark Twins Study continue and have produced a wealth of information about how space affects the heart, the microbiome, the immune system and more.

Learning about the challenges of spending prolonged periods in microgravity is vital as space agencies and private companies get serious about sending humans back to the Moon and even to Mars. A mission to the Red Planet is potentially a three-year trip, so we need to understand what might happen to anyone trying to make it.

Read more about the future of space exploration:

One of the scientists prodding and poking the Kelly brothers is Prof Christopher E Mason, the lead geneticist on the Twins Study. Masons lab at Cornell University is nothing if not ambitious. Its work centres on a 500-year plan for the survival of the human species on Earth, in space, and on other planets.

As well as studying what happens to astronauts, it involves laying the genetic groundwork for humans to live among the stars. Mason envisions a future in which the human genome can be bioengineered to adapt to almost any environment, augmented with genes from other species that allow us to explore and settle the farthest corners of the Universe.

Mason is serious. His new book, The Next 500 Years, maps out in detail how well do it. Here, he gives us a sneak peek

So, 500 years from now, well have two key things. I call these the twin engines of discovery. [The first is] a good list of candidate exoplanets to go to. In the past 10 years, thousands have been catalogued, including several hundred Goldilocks planets that are probably not too hot, not too cold and that we could possibly survive on.

In the next 500 years well have, Im sure, thousands or tens of thousands of other candidates. We could use the intervening time to get better spectroscopy and imaging of the atmospheres to figure out whats there and then pick the best ones.

The second thing thatll happen is that well discover a number of genes in the human genome and other genomes, that we could use to regulate our health, design medical treatments or engineer organisms that could survive a long space flight to another planet and survive on it.

And its not just for human cells. Microbial cells, of course, would be engineered to produce products, as they do for us now therapeutically. Well have a genetic tool kit that will let us counteract the ill effects of long-term space travel, and produce the things we need like food and fuel. And, obviously, the more genomes we have in our kit, the more tools we can make.

Astronauts Scott (right) and Mark Kelly are identical twins, but also astronauts. Mark stayed on Earth while Scott spent nearly a year in space Getty Images

At that time, 500 years from now, lets propose that we have generation ships and people could live and die in the same spacecraft as they make their way towards one of the new planets. Then we would have humans in more than one Solar System. It would probably take about 20 generations to get there with current propulsion methods.

Nowhere in the book do I presume anything new is developed that doesnt already exist today. Im hoping thatll be wrong. Maybe well have a new fusion propulsion that makes it much faster or some way to fold space-time. Thatd be fantastic.

Yeah, Id say its even hitting a nice acceleration point. If you look at the number of objects that have been sent into space in the past 60 years, its reached a super exponential pace in the past two years, for sure.

Reduced gravity wreaks havoc with the immune and vascular systems. Thats a challenge and theres not much we can do about it. We could have rotating space platforms or magnetic boots like in [the sci-fi show] The Expanse, but those arent really deployed yet. So, theres no way around it.

The body does what it can to respond in the short term, though. A lot of [astronauts] have spikes in cortisol, or immune stress signatures. They get up [into space] and their bodies are really reacting. Its very uncomfortable. For the first few days, they often have really sensitive skin. But within a few days they adapt.

Maybe the most important thing, in terms of health, is radiation not just in low Earth orbit, but when you get farther out to Mars or on lunar missions. Thats really the biggest risk and its something we can see in the molecular data.

We can see indications of the damaged DNA coming out in the urine and we can see it in the blood. You see telomeres [essentially caps that protect the ends of chromosomes from degradation and unnecessary repair] and DNA getting broken. Its the equivalent of about five or six X-rays per day. You can survive it, obviously, because people have been coming back, but, you know, you probably shouldnt have five X-rays a day.

So thats the biggest hazard, the one that NASA and our staff are most worried about. Thats why were spending so much time thinking about pharmaceutical ways to boost radiation-repair mechanisms or even ways of using genes from other organisms that have already adapted to radiation.

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For a long time, they were research subjects. During the mission and immediately after, when we were doing a lot of sampling, it was very hands-off. If youre researching subjects youre not supposed to grab a beer with them, much as you might like to.

But Scott and Mark are both retired now. Theyre no longer NASA employees, theyre just retired dudes walking around the planet. So weve started to do more together, were talking about what weve learnt.

Yeah, very much. And theyre very competitive because theyre brothers and astronauts. When we got some of the first genetic sequencing data back, they were emailing me and saying, Okay, whos got more mutations? Whos got the longest telomeres? Theyre competing down to the molecular level.

Some features changed within a matter of hours and days. For example, his telomeres got longer in space, but got shorter within days [of being back on Earth]. He got 5cm taller in space because of the lack of compression of his spinal column. That was gone within minutes.

Other measures like metabolites pretty small molecules in the blood that can indicate inflammation some of them were spiking extremely high, like thousands of per cent higher than his baseline before the flight. After two or three days, they went back down again, but it was very painful his ankles swelled up to the size of basketballs for a little while. Really painful.

I think we have to use the evolutionary lessons that every creature has learned as part of our own lesson plan, if you will, for humanity. What I mean by that is other creatures have been surviving in harsh environments.

So these different organisms on Earth have found interesting ways to deal with high amounts of radiation, high and low temperatures, salinity. And they serve as, I think, a field guide of adaptations that we can deploy. Say its a protein thats made by an organism thats resistant to radiation. You can use that as a therapeutic, like the way you grow insulin now. Some cancer therapies and antibody therapies are done this way too.

Yes. Human genome editing is something you want to do very slowly and very carefully, ideally over multiple generations. I write in my book that theres never been a clinical trial going across many generations.

There have been observational studies that have done this. But if we ever do anything to the human genome, really, it would require probably a three-generation study to make sure we didnt screw anything up.

Prof Christopher E Mason

I would think that if after two generations there are no obvious signs of changes in longevity or disease, or obvious deformities, I would feel at least reasonably safe that we can deploy it for more individuals. This is not something were going to do in the next five years or even 10 years, although we are engineering cells and infusing them into many patients as we speak.

Were in the middle of screening lots of organisms to see which extremophiles can survive either in space on the ISS, we published the papers of organisms that have adapted there or just in places on Earth.

We have something called the Extreme Microbiome Project. Were working to categorise all these different sites where we see extreme organisms, like nuclear power reactor cooling water, strange places like that. Were still discovering so many organisms. Its a continual process of discovery and the accretion of possible genes.

For some genes weve already shown that its working. We have a paper in review now where weve shown it works well with immune cells, at least with genes from tardigrades. But these alien genes being put into humans has not been tried outside of cell cultures, to my knowledge.

What has been done, though, is weve also looked at engineered T cells [T cells are a type of white blood cell and are important in the immune system]. Youre not modifying all the cells in a person, but youre basically taking out T cells, genetically modifying them and putting them back in for therapeutic purposes. This is actually an extremely common feature of a lot of immunotherapies now.

Yes. I just got the book. I wanted to watch the show first, but I havent read the books yet.

Off-world settlements, as portrayed in The Expanse, will only be feasible if our bodies can withstand the journey to reach them Shutterstock

I love the concept that humans have a capacity and almost this inevitable future in which weve settled the Solar System. The word colony has fallen out of favour because of all the historical baggage. But I love the concept because I really hope and believe that it will come to pass.

The thing I take some issue with is this: it still seems theres been no sociological or intergovernmental advance, were just as petty and tribal and backstabbing as we are, as we always have been. Maybe its more accurate. If you look back thousands of years, theres never been a case where cultures have expanded and had a Kumbaya moment and everythings been fine.

But I would hope that if we reached that stage [wed also have] a more advanced philosophical and sociological framework for people. But I might be too optimistic there.

Yeah, and you get something like Star Trek, where all of humanitys united and were all exploring together. In Star Trek, it wasnt until [humans] encountered aliens that humanity kind of nucleated together and said, Well, were all in this together.

Yeah, something I talk about in the book is this idea of cellular liberty or even planetary liberty. If youre engineering cells you should make it so they can go anywhere you want in the Solar System, or eventually in the Universe. You want to be able to turn on facets of biology that can enable you to live in different places.

Yeah, making it more modular, so youve got that capacity to go places as needed.

Well, you know, theres the Revive and Restore project where were cloning the woolly mammoth and putting it in elephant embryos. Were working with George Church on that. So thats happening.

In that case, we have fully preserved, whole blood cells with a completely intact genome. So if you can get the same thing for a dinosaur, you can give it a shot. In the absence of that, its going to be really hard. Even with that, its really hard. I think Id put it in the unlikely category. But interesting.

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Christopher is a geneticist and computational biologist who has been a principal investigator and co-investigator of seven NASA missions and projects. He is a professor at Weill Cornell Medicine. As well as preparing human beings for space travel, his research interests include novel techniques for next-generation genome sequencing and editing.

His book,The Next 500 Years (MIT Press), is out now.

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Biological space race: NASA doctor reveals the future of genetically edited astronauts - BBC Science Focus Magazine

Chinese tech giant Tencent has joined forces with the nations National Astronomical Observatories to journey into AI space exploration, CEO Pony Ma told the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Thursday.

The forward-looking announcement came during a tough week for Chinese tech companies, as Beijing tightened data security and antitrust regulations.

Tencent is best known for its WeChat messaging service and very healthy gaming arm, but also operates a decent cloud and increasingly invests in AI through its in-house AI research division YouTu Lab.

The company will leverage the latter two capabilities to conduct AI analysis in hopes of finding evidence of pulsars among the 30 million signal images collected each week by Chinas 500-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST).

Tencent Vice-President Zhang Lijun reckons use of his companys facilities will reduce the time to process a weeks worth of images from one year to three days.

Tencent CEO Pony Ma, who has not been seen publicly since March, spoke remotely at the conference albeit over a voice link.

Tencent was fined earlier this week by the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR), alongside DiDi Chuxing and Alibaba, for failing to report merger and acquisition deals for approval.

This is not the first time SAMR has cracked down on Tencent. the government regulatory body fined the tech giant last March for violating anti-trust laws, and since then has repeatedly warned the company to comply with local laws.

In April, Tencent was one of 13 web giants ordered to attend supervision interviews and in May, Beijing identified the company as one of 33 illegally collecting data. The Administration gave Tencent ten days to rectify the behaviour.

The story of CEO Pony Ma vanishing from the public eye amid a government tightening on his company echoes the story of another Ma: Alibaba co-founder and former executive chairman Jack Ma. He mysteriously went silent for three months after criticising Chinas interference in the companys attempt to float financial services arm Ant Group.

Jack Ma seems to be back in Beijings graces, as the government has granted Ant Group approval to operate a consumer finance company. However Jack Ma, a regular speaker at the AI conference, was absent this year.

Also absent was DiDi Global CEO Cheng Wei, perhaps off licking wounds following a tough week in which DiDi stock fell 5.1 per cent in its fifth day of trading as a US-listed company. The company copped fines for poorly reporting merger and acquisition deals, and was booted from Chinese app stores.

More crackdowns are expected on Chinese tech companies as SAMR announced Thursday new rules for fair competition reviews including increased monitoring of local regulators to make sure they are holding companies accountable and playing by antitrust rules.

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Tencent to put AI to work exploring space not ways to extend its monopolies - The Register

Britain and Germany, alongside France, are the major players in the EU space market. Will the UK become a leader in this competition?

Public Opinion About the UK Space Industry vs German Space Programmes

The UK space industry has a somewhat unique standing among other space programmes in the EU. Additionally, notable European countries that are interested in rocket launching include Germany and France. These countries are the three engines of the continent. They have always supported each other in terms of science and technology, despite all political misunderstandings. Still, several years ago, Britain decided to leave the Union, and Brexit became a significant political event in Europe. Since then, Germany and France are facing a new rival in space exploration and rocket launching.

Each of these countries has its interests in building satellites and rockets to advance technologically and economically. Germany was the most prominent space player before Great Britain stepped in. There is no secret that these two have a long history of competition between them. Such politics have been quite typical for both countries even after World Wars I and II ended. So, what happens next, and who will become a new space leader of the 21st century?

Ongoing Rivalry For Leadership in EU Rocket Launching Between The UK and Germany

The commercial space race is rapidly moving forward as more countries explore space technology and its benefits. Europe is no exception, of course. However, its prominent space countries have different opinions about where to move further. The UK is already a leading satellite manufacturer that recently turned its attention to spaceport construction. The UK Space Agency and government are funding several local launchpads, both for vertical and horizontal launches. When these spaceports are commissioned, the UK will become the first space-faring nation in Europe. More importantly, it will be able to offer a full cycle of space services, from building satellites to placing them in required orbits. Eventually, the UK may even turn its gaze to space tourism and exploration.

As for Germanys space industry, it seems to be less innovative and advanced. Despite governmental financial support, fewer citizens are interested in German space programmes. Besides, German politicians are more into exploring the healthcare benefits of space tech. And such needs require a lot more funding to be successful.

However, allocating large budgets to space tech could destroy Germans public faith in this field whatsoever. Most Germans believe that they have plenty of more acute issues to solve with the governments money. Indeed, the country faces a considerable amount of social and economic problems that are not so crucial for Great Britain. Massive immigration, lack of natural resources, and other burdens imposed on it by the EU leave no time and effort to develop its space industry on a decent level. So, there is no doubt that Germany is quite successful in space tech, but local problems are not helping German scientists reach their heights.

Government Patronage and Public Support of the UK Space Industry Might Leave Germany Behind

The British have always been known for their national spirit. These people are famous for following all progressive modern tendencies their nation could improve on and benefit from. A similar trend is now evident in the public perception of the UK space industry development. Since the beginning of the space programmes development, most Brits seemed to be quite optimistic about it. What is more important, such a positive attitude is still prevalent today.

In a way, Great Britain is a country where a mere thought of space exploration has become a national idea. They have always been considered the major contributor to satellite manufacture, so the UKs experience is already valuable. But now, the British governments main ambition is to develop a stable infrastructure for horizontal and vertical launches. To do so, the UK space industry is going to keep its focus on launching rockets from local spaceports. Right now, it is hard to say which facility will be commissioned first. Still, two Scottish spaceports at Shetland and Sutherland do stand out when it comes to vertical rocket launches.

By leaving the EU, Great Britain got rid of many problems that burdened it. So, they managed to allocate more time and resources to work on their national interests and, among those, the UK space industry. As a result, the UK has all the chances to beat Germany in the new space especially if it manages to build its spaceports and gain space independence. But since no launchpad is commissioned as of now, we will have to wait and see what happens next.

Can Proper Funding and a Positive Public Opinion Help Britain Become the EU Space Leader

In general, one can hardly predict which of the two countries will win in the new space race. It is evident that by 2021 Great Britain achieved a lot more progress than Germany. The British government is certainly focused on using very convenient and cheap methods of delivering satellites into space. Even though Germany invests more money into space technologies and rocket building, the country lacks dedication and public support of the space sector.

Great Britain has made more progress because of the route theyve chosen. The country is striving to build an independent space industry, which seems a wise choice after Brexit. On the other hand, the UK and Germany focus on different space industry segments, all of which are essential. So, it seems like the best results can be achieved in a collaboration between rival countries. But, it wont happen any time soon since Britain seems to stick to its progressive agenda, trying to get maximum profit while using minimum effort and funding. It is hard to tell what this space race will result in, but Britains space industry is definitely on the rise now. Soon, well see if the UK manages to strengthen its already impressive position.

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German and British Space Industry: Public Opinion About Their Space Race - Net Newsledger

"When we open that hatch, we will open a new chapter and raise the flag on a new era of space exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

BOULDER, Colo. (PRWEB) July 08, 2021

A decade ago, NASA Astronauts Ron Garan and Mike Fossum, conducted the sole spacewalk of the STS-135 mission. That mission was the last flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the last flight of the Space Shuttle Program. The spacewalk was a significant event as it signified not only the closing of one chapter of our nations space program but also the opening of a new chapter that will see astronauts leave Low Earth Orbit to explore the moon, Mars, and beyond.

In a televised speech from the International Space Station commemorating the last flight of a space shuttle, Ron Garan shared these words,

Behind us right now is the hatch that leads to Atlantis. Thirty-five space shuttles have docked to the mating adapter that is just beyond that hatch. During the course of the International Space Station construction, all those space shuttles left behind the legacy of this incredible orbiting research facility that not only is a stepping stone toward the exploration of the rest of the solar system, but its also improving life on our planet. When we close the hatch, we will close a chapter in the history of our nation. But in the future, when another spacecraft with crew members on board docks to that hatch and when we open that hatch, we will open a new chapter and raise the flag on a new era of space exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit.

We have begun this new chapter!

In the Livestream event, Ron will:

During the Livestream, Ron will also mark the launch of his latest book Floating In Darkness: A Journey of Evolution which will be published the same day. https://www.floatingindarkness.com/

Floating in Darkness is the true story of the life journey of a combat fighter pilot and astronaut. An adventure that illuminates a path toward understanding the meaning of life and our place in the universe.

Humanity faces an unprecedented crisis that threatens all life on Earth. Desert Storm fighter pilot and NASA astronaut Ron Garan addresses this head-on in Floating in Darkness: A Journey of Evolution, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed first book, The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles.

Ron takes us on an extraordinary journey through outer space and inner space. He explores the dancing, intersecting orbits of religion, spirituality, and science while grappling with his own role in the violence of combat and the effects of war on all aspects of human life. We witness Ron struggling with mortality while also basking in the sheer wonder and beauty of our world and beyond.

From this perspective, Ron maps out a viable path forward--to solve our crisis, we need a giant leap in humanity's evolutionary process. We must transcend individual and collective ego and embrace the true nature of our interdependence with this fragile planet and all life within its biosphere. Ron shows us how to discover our purpose, detoxify our divisive culture, and become a "white blood cell" in a growing immune response to heal our world.

Floating in Darkness is a blueprint to build a restorative and positive future for all.

To register for the Livestream go here: https://www.rongaran.com/the-last-spacewalk-event-july-12-2021/

Based out of Boulder, Colorado, Ron Garan is a former NASA astronaut, author, and keynote speaker. Ron left space with a call to actionto share a perspective of our world that has profound implications for how we solve problems, how we treat our planet, and how we treat each other. https://www.rongaran.com/

For media inquiries and interviews please contact Tarver Lowe 770-315-2117 tarver@rongaran.com

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NASA Astronaut Ron Garan Marks 10-year Anniversary of Last Spacewalk of the Space Shuttle Era - PR Web

The Biden administration's crucial first 100 days in office now includes a big human spaceflight pledge.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday (Feb. 4) that President Joe Biden will carry on the Artemis program to land humans on the moon in the coming years. Artemis began under Biden's predecessor, then-President Donald Trump.

"Through the Artemis program, the United States government will work with industry and international partners to send astronauts to the surface of the moon another man and a woman to the moon," Psaki told reporters in a White House press briefing Thursday.

"Certainly, we support this effort and endeavor," she added.

Related: Presidential visions for space exploration from Ike to Biden

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Discover the story of how and why NASA was created, its greatest triumphs, darkest days, and of the times it exceeded all possible hopes. A tale of adventure, heroism and resourcefulness, learn of the space agency's greatest achievements and how over six decades the organization has consistently and tirelessly devoted itself to its founding principle: that "activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humankind". View Deal

Psaki's comments, which were in answer to a reporter's question, did not mention NASA's 2024 target for the first crewed Artemis moon landing, a deadline set by the Trump administration. Last year, a bipartisan effort in the U.S. House of Representatives sought to push that landing mission to 2028 instead, in line with NASA's previous goals.

NASA ended up sticking with the 2024 deadline for the time being, but this year there is a new U.S. president as well as a new acting NASA administrator, Steve Jurczyk, who took the agency's reins just two weeks ago.

As Psaki noted, NASA intends to accomplish its Artemis goals with the help of industry and international partners, including the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency. In her comments, she also mentioned NASA's aims of producing new science in the effort.

Psaki's reference to "another man and a woman" on the moon echoes language often used by former NASA chief Jim Bridenstine at media events in the past few years.

All 12 people who walked on the moon during NASA's Apollo program between 1969 and 1972 were men. "The Artemis program, a waypoint to Mars, provides exactly the opportunity to add numbers to that," Psaki noted of the number of moonwalkers. (NASA views Artemis as a steppingstone toward crewed Red Planet missions, which the agency aims to start flying in the 2030s.) "Lunar exploration has broad and bicameral support in Congress."

In December, before Biden took office, NASA named an "Artemis team" of 18 astronauts who are eligible for flight assignments, including the Artemis 2 flight around the moon that's currently scheduled for 2023, the Artemis 3 landing mission slated for 2024, and future opportunities in Artemis. (Artemis 1, which is scheduled to launch late this year, will be an uncrewed test flight around the moon.)

NASA astronaut Anne McClain, a member of the Artemis team, said of Psaki's words on Twitter: "We'll be ready."

Related: What is NASA's Artemis Program?

The Trump administration announced its 2024 moon-landing goal in March 2019, with then-Vice President Mike Pence stressing that a swift landing was required because the U.S. is in a "space race" with China and Russia. His words echoed what historians sometimes call the 1960s-era "space race," when NASA and the Soviet Union sent the first few human missions to space.

In July 2019, four months after the 2024 deadline announcement, NASA saw a major shakeup of its human spaceflight leadership to in Bridenstine's words at the time address cost and schedule issues with Artemis.

"We're moving to a new era in human spaceflight where the administration is interested in going fast, we're interested in doing things in a different way, and I believed it was important to have new leadership at the top of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate," Bridenstine said in July 2019. "I just thought it was important to make this decision, make this change at this time."

A few days after the leadership reorganization, Bridenstine told Space.com that safety would be paramount even with the acceleration. "Just know, in no way does NASA intend to mitigate safety at all when it comes to meeting the objective," he said. "I want to get that back to a day where we have realistic cost and schedule plans and we meet those plans."

Yet the 2024 deadline still put pressure on NASA to ready numerous major systems not least the Space Launch System rocket, still undergoing delayed final testing this month ahead of its shipment to Florida for the Artemis 1 mission later this year.

The agency also tried to finish components such as spacesuits and human landers safely but swiftly to reduce political risk in waiting, Bridenstine stressed repeatedly when he was administrator. Late in his tenure, Bridenstine said full funding for NASA's human landing systems would be "needed to achieve a 2024 moon landing," and meeting that goal would become "more and more difficult" with less money. Congress ultimately allotted less than NASA's request in a 2021 spending bill.

Prior to the 2024 moon-landing deadline announcement, NASA had planned a 2028 lunar landing effort in line with the moon-oriented Space Policy Directive 1, which President Donald Trump signed in December 2017. But "that's just not good enough," Pence said during the fifth meeting of the National Space Council in March 2019, when announcing the 2024 deadline. "We're better than that."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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US still committed to landing Artemis astronauts on the moon, White House says - Space.com