Monthly Archives: June 2021

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced he'll be on board a spaceflight next month in a capsule attached to a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin. Bezos is seen here in 2019.

Jeff Bezos has already selected a hobby for his post-CEO life: space travel.

Just two weeks after he steps down as CEO of Amazon, Bezos will climb aboard a rocket made by his space exploration company Blue Origin.

"If you see the earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It's one earth," Bezos said in a video posted to Instagram on Monday morning.

"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space."

Blue Origin's rocket is called New Shepard, and it's reusable the idea being that reusing rockets will lower the cost of going to space and make it more accessible. The pressurized capsule has space for six passengers. There are no pilots.

This will be the first time a crew will be aboard the New Shepard, in a capsule attached to the rocket.

And it won't just be Bezos: He invited his brother Mark, too.

Want to join the Bezos brothers?

You can bid on a seat on the flight in an auction that benefits Blue Origin's foundation, which has the mission of inspiring future generations to pursue careers in STEM. The current high bid is $2.8 million.

The flight is scheduled for July 20 the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Bezos gives up his CEO title on July 5, when he'll pass the reins to Andy Jassy, who currently leads Amazon's cloud computing division.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is seen here launching with a capsule attached in 2019. Blue Origin hide caption

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is seen here launching with a capsule attached in 2019.

Bezos ended his Instagram post with Blue Origin's Latin motto, gradatim ferociter which the company translates as "step by step ferociously."

Technically, the Karman line is the altitude at which space begins about 62 miles above sea level.

But Bezos won't be above that line for long. The flight is expected to last about 11 minutes, and only a small portion of that time is above the Karman line, according to a graphic of the flight trajectory on Blue Origin's website.

The New Shepard's journey is called suborbital flight, meaning the rocket isn't powerful enough to enter Earth's orbit.

Bezos isn't alone in spending some of his enormous wealth on space exploration.

Elon Musk's SpaceX Crew Dragon now regularly carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station. And in May, a test flight by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic reached an altitude of 55 miles, marking its third human spaceflight.

But neither Musk nor Branson has traveled to space yet in their companies' aircrafts.

In 2014, two pilots were aboard a Virgin Galactic test flight that crashed in California's Mojave Desert, killing one of them. An investigation found that pilot error and design problems were to blame in the crash.

A test dummy rides on board the New Shepard crew capsule in January. Blue Origin hide caption

A test dummy rides on board the New Shepard crew capsule in January.

Four employees of Virgin Galactic are expected to join the company's next test flight, and Branson is to go on the flight after that, the BBC reported. Branson said last month that he is actively preparing his body for spaceflight.

Virgin Galactic's design looks light-years different from Blue Origin's New Shepard. Virgin's craft resembles an airplane, while the New Shepard is an actual rocket.

But Bezos says Virgin Galactic's flights don't really reach space.

"One of the issues that Virgin Galactic will have to address, eventually, is that they are not flying above the Karman Line, not yet," Bezos told SpaceNews in 2019. "I think one of the things they will have to figure out how to get above the Karman Line."

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel contributed to this report.

Originally posted here:

Jeff Bezos Is Going To Space (For A Few Minutes) - NPR

Human space travel is 60 years old this year, and in those six decades it has helped us discover much about the universe. But it has also delivered many practical benefits back home.

From monitoring climate change to connecting people through satellites, space exploration has created solutions to some very down-to-Earth problems. Space technology is vital to global security and even helps to stop illegal logging, illegal fishing and illegal wildlife trade.

Space is also a vital part of the global economy, accounting for $366 billion of economic activity every year, data from the World Economic Forums 2020 briefing paper, Six ways space technologies benefit life on Earth, shows.

Six ways space technologies benefit life on Earth.

Image: World Economic Forum

Here are 15 images that show the history of those six decades in space.

1. The first man in space

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space.

Image: Arto Jousi/Wikimedia Commons

On 12 April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space. His single orbit of the Earth ushered in a new age of human space travel. Tragically he was killed in a plane crash just seven years after his pioneering space mission.

2. The first Black astronaut

US Air Force captain Robert H Lawrence Jnr was chosen as the nations first African American astronaut in 1967.

Image: NASA/Flickr

US Air Force captain Robert H Lawrence Jnr was chosen as the nations first African American astronaut in 1967 but he died in a fighter plane crash before he could make his first space flight.

3. The first US space walk

In 1965, Ed White became the first American to walk in space.

Image: NASA/Flickr

Thats one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind - Neil Armstrong

Image: NASA/Flickr

Neil Armstrong, who stepped off the Apollo lunar lander on 20 July 1969 with the famous words Thats one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind, took this shot of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin walking on the lunar surface shortly afterwards.

The Apollo 11 astronauts were the first to see this spectacle.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The Apollo 11 astronauts were the first people to see the Earth rise over the Moons horizon a striking reminder that they were far from home.

A welcome parade for Apollo 11 after their first Moon landing.

Image: NASA/Flickr

New York laid on one of its trademark ticker-tape welcomes for the crew of Apollo 11 after the first Moon landing. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins led the parade.

7. International collaboration in action

The US Space Shuttle Atlantis docking with Russias Mir space station.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The US Space Shuttle Atlantis docking with Russias Mir space station. By July 1995, when this picture was taken, the former space race rivals were collaborating in space exploration. The shuttle ferried two Russian cosmonauts to the space station.

The Space Shuttle Challenger explosion resulted in the tragic loss of seven crew members.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The dangers associated with space travel were tragically highlighted by the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger and its seven crew members on 28 January 1986. TV audiences watched in horror as the spacecraft exploded shortly after launch. Failed seals on a rocket booster were blamed for the accident.

9. The first Black woman in space

Mae Jemison - the first Black woman to fly in space on the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

Image: NASA Flickr

In September 1992, Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to fly in space on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Dr Jemison, a physician with a degree in chemical engineering, worked as a general medical practitioner before joining NASA as a Mission Specialist.

10. Uncovering the secrets of the universe

The Hubble Space Telescope.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit by space shuttle Discovery in April 1990. In this picture, taken in 1993, NASA astronauts work on upgrades to Hubble, which has a better view of the universe than Earth-based telescopes.

Two galaxies grazing each others orbits.

Image: NASA/Flickr

This remarkable image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows two galaxies grazing each others orbits. The gravitational forces of the galaxy on the left are distorting its neighbour, flinging stars and gas hundreds of thousands of light years across space.

12. The development that revolutionized space travel

The Space Shuttle Columbia broke when re-entering the earth's atmosphere, killing everyone on board.

Image: NASA/Flickr

The reusable US Space Shuttle not only simplified human space travel, its payload bay was used to deliver and recover satellites. But this was not without great risks. This image shows Space Shuttle Columbia lifting off on what would be its last mission in January 2003. The spacecraft broke up on re-entry to the Earths atmosphere, killing all on board.

The International Space Station.

Image: NASA/Flickr

Built in space from components flown into orbit, the International Space Station was completed between 1998 and 2011 with contributions from 15 nations. The 67 metre-long pressurised section has been continuously occupied since November 2000.

NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was the first powered, controlled flight in any world beyond Earth IN 2021.

Image: NASA

NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter rode to the surface of Mars attached to the Perseverance rover and made its first flight in the thin Martian atmosphere in April 2021. It was the first powered, controlled flight in any world beyond Earth.

15. The future of human space flight?

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft .

Image: NASA/Flickr

After the Space Shuttle programme ended in July 2011, the US partnered with Boeing and Elon Musks SpaceX for the Commercial Crew Programme to develop reusable craft to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. This image shows the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft making a soft landing in New Mexico in December 2019.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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The history of space exploration in 15 images - World Economic Forum

Venus is getting some long-overdue love.

On Wednesday (June 2), NASA announced that it will launch two missions to Earth's hellishly hot sister planet by 2030 an orbiter called VERITAS and an atmospheric probe known as DAVINCI+.

The duo will break a long Venus drought for the space agency, which hasn't launched a dedicated mission to the second rock from the sun since the Magellan radar-mapping orbiter in 1989.

Related: Photos of Venus, the mysterious planet next door

Other organizations are putting Venus in the crosshairs as well. For example, the space agencies of Europe, India and Russia are all developing Venus mission concepts for potential launch in the next decade or so. And the California-based company Rocket Lab aims to send a life-hunting mission to the planet in 2023.

Indeed, we may well be witnessing the start of a bona fide Venus exploration campaign.

"My sense is that people are going to be surprised by how interesting [Venus] is," said planetary scientist David Grinspoon, a member of the DAVINCI+ team and a longtime advocate for more in-depth study of Venus.

"And if that is the case, then the results of the early missions will also feed a desire for more missions, because it's a very complex and vibrant and interesting place," Grinspoon, who's based at the Planetary Science Institute, told Space.com.

Venus has been in the limelight before. The Soviet Union targeted the planet frequently from the 1960s through the mid-1980s with its Venera and Vega programs, notching a variety of exploration milestones along the way (despite a number of launch failures).

In October 1967, for instance, Venera 4 became the first probe ever to beam data home from the atmosphere of another world, finding that Venus' surface is incredibly hot and its air surprisingly thick. Three years later, Venera 7 performed the first successful soft landing on a planet other than Earth.

In 1982, the Venera 13 lander recorded the first-ever audio on the surface of another world (an accomplishment recently mirrored on Mars by NASA's Perseverance rover). And in the mid-1980s, the Vega 1 and Vega 2 missions successfully deployed balloon probes in the thick Venusian atmosphere, another off-Earth first.

The United States mounted some Venus missions during this stretch as well, though not nearly as many as its Cold War rival did. NASA's Mariner 2, Mariner 5 and Mariner 10 spacecraft performed flybys of the planet in 1962, 1967 and 1974, respectively. And in 1978, the space agency launched both the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. The multiprobe sent four instrument-laden entry craft into Venus' atmosphere in December of that year, and the orbiter studied Venus from above until 1992.

Then there was Magellan, which was the first interplanetary mission ever to launch from the space shuttle. The probe mapped Venus in detail using synthetic-aperture radar until October 1994, when its handlers sent Magellan down to its death in the Venusian atmosphere.

The list gets pretty thin after that. Europe's Venus Express orbiter studied the planet, with a focus on its atmosphere, from 2006 to 2014. And Japan's Akatsuki orbiter has been doing its own atmospheric investigations since arriving at Venus, after some tenacious troubleshooting, in December 2015.

Related: Here's every successful Venus mission humanity has ever launched

Venus faded as an exploration target for several reasons. The decline of the Soviet Union and its eventual collapse in the early 1990s had a chilling effect, for example; Vega 2 remains the last successful fully homegrown interplanetary mission launched by the Soviet Union or its successor state, Russia. (Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, and the European Space Agency are working together on the ExoMars project, which launched an orbiter to the Red Planet in 2016 and plans to send a life-hunting rover there in 2022.)

In addition, throughout the 1990s and beyond, NASA increasingly focused its robotic exploration efforts on Mars, whose surface bears unmistakable signs of past water activity and is much more welcoming to landers and rovers. Even the most successful Venus landers have survived for mere hours on the planet's surface, which is hot enough to melt lead.

"It's sort of understandable why Venus wasn't picked for a while [by NASA], because Venus is a hard place to explore," Grinspoon said. "You're never going to get the same data return, in terms of megabits of data, from a Venus mission as you would from a Mars mission."

But the pendulum could swing only so far from Venus before heading back the planet's way. For starters, as scientists have gathered more and more detailed knowledge about other solar system bodies such as Mars, Mercury and Pluto, the gaps in our understanding of Venus, which is similar to Earth in size and mass, became increasingly obvious.

Venus has "been so neglected that now the mysteries it's almost an embarrassment, or certainly an impediment, to our fully understanding our solar system," Grinspoon said.

In addition, scientists think that Venus was once very different a balmy, temperate world with oceans, rivers and streams. Recent research even suggests that the planet's surface was habitable for Earth-like life for several billion years, until a runaway greenhouse effect took hold around 700 million years ago.

And parts of Venus may still be habitable today. About 30 miles (50 kilometers) above the planet's scorching surface, temperatures and pressures are quite Earth-like, so it's possible that microbes even now reside in the Venusian skies, wafting about with the sulfuric-acid clouds.

Intriguingly, those skies feature mysterious dark patches where ultraviolet radiation is absorbed perhaps by a sulfur-based pigment that microbes produce to protect against sunburn, some scientists have speculated. And one team of researchers recently announced that they'd spotted the signature of phosphine, a possible biosignature gas, around that 30-mile altitude. The apparent phosphine find has not been confirmed by other teams, however, and remains the topic of considerable discussion and debate.

Related: 6 most likely places for alien life in the solar system

So Venus has become a more attractive astrobiological target in recent years, just as the search for alien life has increasingly moved from the scientific fringes into the mainstream.

That transition has been helped along by the ongoing exoplanet revolution, which has revealed that the universe is teeming with potentially habitable worlds. And exoplanet scientists are keen to learn more about Venus, adding to the planet's accruing allure.

"There's a lot of interest from the exoplanet community in exploring Venus, because it's obvious to anybody that sort of thinks about solar systems, planetary systems, systematically that understanding the Venus-Earth difference is really key to understanding how planets evolve in general, and how habitable conditions evolve," Grinspoon said.

There's also a more practical reason to learn exactly how Venus became a scorching hellscape. Humanity is pushing Earth in that dangerous direction via deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, after all, and Venus can be a natural laboratory in addition to a cautionary tale.

"There's a lot that we still need to learn about climate and how it changes on Earth-like planets, and Venus being sort of an extreme case can really push our models to the limit," Grinspoon said. "There's a value to the comparative study of similar planets that makes you wiser about how your own operates and changes, and I think that Venus is just too valuable in that regard for us to ignore any longer."

VERITAS and DAVINCI+ were selected by NASA's Discovery program, which develops relatively low-cost exploration projects. The price tag of each mission is capped at around $500 million, and each is expected to launch between 2028 and 2030.

VERITAS (short for "Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy") will map Venus' surface in detail from orbit using radar and monitor infrared surface emissions, which will reveal how rock type varies from place to place. Such observations will shed light on Venus' geologic history and climate evolution and help researchers determine if the planet hosts active plate tectonics and volcanism today, NASA officials said.

DAVINCI+ ("Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging") will send a "descent sphere" through Venus' thick air. The probe will measure atmospheric composition as it falls, returning data that will teach scientists more about how the planet went hothouse. The DAVINCI+ team also plans to look for phosphine, Grinspoon said.

"It is astounding how little we know about Venus, but the combined results of these missions will tell us about the planet from the clouds in its sky through the volcanoes on its surface all the way down to its very core," NASA Discovery Program scientist Tom Wagner said in a statement on Wednesday. "It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet."

The two NASA missions will follow on the heels of a privately funded Venus effort, if all goes according to plan: Rocket Lab aims to launch a Venus mission in 2023 using its Electron rocket and Photon satellite bus. Details are still being worked out, but the goal is to use an atmospheric probe to hunt for signs of life in the balmy patch of Venus' skies.

"We're going to learn a lot on the way there, and we're going to have a crack at seeing if we can discover what's in that atmospheric zone," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said last summer when announcing the project. "And who knows? You may hit the jackpot."

That initial mission could even kick off an extended Rocket Lab Venus campaign, Beck has said.

Related: The 10 weirdest facts about Venus

Those private missions could in turn be part of a larger, global exploration effort, for there are other Venus plans afoot as well. For example, a Venus orbiter concept called EnVision is one of three medium-class missions that the European Space Agency is considering for launch in 2032. The winner is expected to be announced this month, perhaps as soon as this week.

The Indian Space Research Organisation is developing a potential Venus mission of its own, called Shukrayaan-1, which would launch in 2024 or 2026. That project would include an orbiter and an atmospheric balloon probe.

And Russia aims to go back to Venus at long last, with an ambitious mission called Venera-D that would feature an orbiter, a lander and atmospheric balloons. Venera-D will launch in 2029, if all goes according to plan.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Why Venus is back in the exploration limelight - Space.com

Russia's space chief is threatening to leave the International Space Station (ISS) program in 2025 unless the United States lifts sanctions against the Russian space sector.

"If the sanctions remain and are not lifted in the near future, the issue of Russia's withdrawal from the ISS will be the responsibility of the American partners," Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said during a Russian parliament hearing on Monday (June 7), according to NBC News.

"Either we work together, in which case the sanctions are lifted immediately, or we will not work together and we will deploy our own station," Rogozin added. Russia is about to launch a new docking module to the ISS this summer that could serve as the hub of an independent complex.

Related: The International Space Station: Inside and out (infographic)

Rogozin also claimed that Russia cannot launch some satellites because the U.S. sanctions forbid his country from importing some microchips required for the Russian program, Reuters reported. (There is also a global shortage of microchips associated with manufacturing shutdowns amid the coronavirus pandemic.)

"We have more than enough rockets but nothing to launch them with," Rogozin said, according to Reuters. "We have spacecraft that are nearly assembled, but they lack one specific microchip set that we have no way of purchasing because of the sanctions."

In 2014, Rogozin famously remarked that NASA should use trampolines instead of Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to the ISS. The comments came after the United States and other Western countries imposed sanctions on Russian officials including Rogozin himself related to Russian military actions in Crimea. (After NASA's space shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011, the Soyuz was the only orbital astronaut taxi available. That situation changed last year, however, when SpaceX began flying crews to and from the ISS.)

Other recent sanctions came in the wake of what U.S. officials described as Russian-led cyberattacks and election interference a claim Russia has denied, Reuters noted. In December, the administration of President Donald Trump alleged that Russian space entities TsNIIMash (the Central Research Institute of Machine Building) and the Rocket and Space Center Progress have ties to the nation's military, NBC reported. Such a designation means that U.S. companies need to acquire licenses before selling to these organizations.

These entities were among dozens that came under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Commerce during Trump's tenure, in both Russia and China. Fresh tensions came after new U.S. President Joe Biden called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "killer" earlier this year, according to Reuters, while imposing more sanctions on Russia.

Rogozin had an "introductory phone call" with new NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Friday (June 4), NASA said that same day in a statement, framing the conversation as a "productive discussion about continued cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos." The statement, quoting Nelson, also said that NASA is "committed to continuing that very effective ISS partnership."

Yet a statement by Roscosmos on Friday said that the sanctions and a lack of official information about the future of the ISS are "substantially hindering the cooperation" between Russia and the U.S. in the space realm, which extends back to 1975's Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. The current ISS agreement is set to end in 2024, although numerous partners are negotiating an extension until at least 2028.

Russia indicated that it needs more assurances to move forward after 2024. "This is about the sanctions introduced by the American administration against the enterprises of the Russian space industry, as well as the absence of any official information in Roscosmos from the U.S. partners on the plans to further control and operate the ISS," Roscosmos said in Friday's statement.

Related: Building the International Space Station (photos)

Both NASA and Roscosmos said they do plan to continue discussions, including face-to-face. Nelson is expected to come to Russia soon, and negotiations will be ongoing with the Europeans until "end of June 2021," Roscosmos said.

One opportunity for discussion is the Global Space Exploration Conference, which will be held in St. Petersburg from June 14 to June 18. That meeting is co-hosted by Roscosmos and the International Astronautical Federation.

The Americans and the Russians have been the major partners in the ISS program since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, when the space station agreement was modified to bring in Russian participation in part due to international concerns about where Russian space engineers would go amid the collapse of the Soviet Union. Getting ready for ISS long-duration missions was also one of the reasons NASA offered to ferry Americans to the Soviet-Russian Mir space station in the 1990s.

At the time that Russia was invited to join the ISS project, Europe, Japan and Canada had been working on another NASA-led program called Space Station Freedom. Freedom never got off the ground due to complex technical, funding and policy problems during its development.

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

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Russia threatens to leave International Space Station program over US sanctions: reports - Space.com

The Gaganyaan Mission, India's foray into independent human space exploration, is moving ahead with plans to send an uncrewed mission into orbit. Scheduled for December, a final call on the launch will be taken post-assessment of the situation once lockdown is lifted in Bengaluru. The mission is part of the three-stage Gaganyaan project.

While the first unmanned flight is likely to be launched this year, the second demonstration launch could happen in 2022-23 before the astronauts finally take to the skies in a full-scale, crewed mission.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic impacting the pace of the mission, the Defence Research and Development (DRDO) organisation and the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) are now conducting impact studies on the crew module.

Being developed by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the Gaganyaan crew module will be the first indigenous spacecraft to take Indian astronauts into space and return them safely to Earth.

Gaganyaan is a three stage project that was proposed in 2018. (Photo: Getty)

The Rs 10,000-crore mission aims to send a three-member Indian crew to space for a period of five to seven days and safely return them to Earth. Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Republic Day speech from the Red Fort in 2018, the Gaganyaan mission was initially scheduled for 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence. However, several delays have led to the deferment of the final crew mission.

The initial timeline was set for 40 months since the date of rbefore which two uncrewed launches are to take place to demonstrate and test key technologies and capabilities.

"The human spaceflight programme will provide a unique micro-gravity platform in space for conducting experiments and test-bed for future technologies," the Union Cabinet had said in a statement while approving the project.

Even before the Gaganyaan mission was announced, Isro had been busy with developing technologies to support a human spaceflight. (Photo: Isro)

After land, sea and air, the next frontier of global dominance is space as countries rush to explore the vastness of the cosmos, discover new resources on the Moon, and look for signs of microbial life beyond our orbit. With the US and Russia dominating space exploration, China is slowly cruising ahead with plans to build its own space station, return samples from asteroids, and trundle on the surface of the Red Planet. An indigenous crew mission will put India at the centre of this race, shaping the already changing geopolitics.

India so far has reached the Moon and Mars with extremely cost-efficient missions apart from its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) catering to the global demand of putting satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Even before the Gaganyaan mission was announced, Isro had been busy with developing technologies to support a human spaceflight mission and had tested several key technologies critical for such a mission. These include a re-entry and recovery technology for the module, a cryogenic engine to carry the payload, and critical life support systems. The airdrop test of the Space-capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) was successfully conducted way back in 2004.

Isro will also launch a data relay satellite that will help maintain contact with the Gagangyaan mission ahead of the final manned flight.

India has managed to bring together countries for its ambitious plans to send humans to space. Russia and France are providing key training and equipment needed to carry out the mission. Four Indian Air Force pilots underwent training in Russia with the Russian space agency. While the names of the selected pilots are yet to be released, the Russian space agency ROSCOSMOS had in August said that the astronauts were doing well and determined to continue with their training. The training had been earlier impacted due to the Covid-19 induced global lockdown.

The initial timeline was set for 40 months since the date of announcement of the mammoth undertaking. (Photo: Getty)

Apart from imparting training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Zvezda, a Russian company is also manufacturing space suits for Indian astronauts. The astronauts had in September visited the facility, where their anthropometric parameters were measured to begin designing the customised spacesuits. The company will also be providing individual seats for the astronauts and custom-made couch liners.

Also Read: ISRO to launch data relay satellite to track Gaganyaan

India recently signed an agreement with the French space agency National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) to provide equipment it has developed for the International Space Station. The agency will supply fireproof carry bags made in France to shield equipment from shocks and radiation. "Under the terms of the agreement, CNES will train India's flight physicians and CAPCOM mission control teams in France at the CADMOS centre for the development of microgravity applications and space operations at CNES in Toulouse and at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany," the CNES had said.

India is also in talks with Australia to set up a ground station at Cocos Island for smooth monitoring of the mission.

While the Gaganyaan plans are to be relooked once Karnataka reopens, the manned missions will push India further in exploration beyond Earth's orbit as countries vie to control the next space race, which has the potential to trigger major changes in the global order.

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Gaganyaan mission: The why and how of Isro's ambitious project to send Indians to space - India Today

While the space race of the 1950s and 1960s was an exciting time to be alive, humanity has never lived through a more fast-paced period of space exploration and human spaceflight. It seems almost impossible to catch up on the news without seeing a headline about a new Mars Rover, space telescope or astronomical event and the public clamors for all of it.

We're finally on the cusp of a huge leap in space exploration: commercial spaceflight, also known as space tourism. But advances in space tourism are mostly due to billionaires and private development, and tickets have been primarily bought by the ultra-wealthy for instance, it costs $250,000 to book a seat on Virgin Galactic for a trip to space. And when NASA said in 2019 that it would allow private citizens to fly to the International Space Station (ISS), it put the cost to stay there at $35,000 a night, and the price to get there at around $50 million.

However, while we wait for prices to come down, there are still ways to experience space tourism on Earth. These earthly adventures cover the range of experiences you could have in space, while still fitting the budget many people have for other "bucket list" travel, like visiting Antarctica.

If there's one constant force on Earth, it's gravity. Our measure of gravity on Earth forms the basis for our understanding of gravity elsewhere in the solar system. But gravity doesn't feel the same everywhere. The experience changes whether you're traveling through space (zero Gs) or visiting another celestial body like Mars (one-third of the gravity on Earth) or the moon (one-sixth the gravity). To simulate the differences in gravity, there are two companies that offer "zero-G" flights.

These companies, including American Zero-G and AirZeroG in Europe, use modified planes to simulate different gravitational forces through a series of parabolic flights. Over the course of a flight, the pilots take the plane through maneuvers that simulate Martian gravity, lunar gravity and zero gravity. Of course, this isn't really zero gravity it's actually weightlessness as you fall back toward Earth. But try not to think about that too much as it's a bit disconcerting to imagine!

Zero-G flights range in cost from $6,700 to $9,500. Flights are offered in different states and cities throughout the year.

Ever wondered what life on Mars is really like? Astroland can answer that question. As one might expect, this is a more challenging mission physically and psychologically. Astroland is similar to the NASA HI-SEAS program, but is aimed at a wider tourist base. The company operating Astroland is based in Spain, expanding the access in space tourism on Earth to more of Europe.

The main experience at Astroland is Ares Station, a realistic habitat built into a cave to simulate one possible settlement plan for Mars. While details on how to join an Astroland mission are currently limited, the idea is that each person will pay for a place on a team; you'll then go through advanced training to determine your role on the team. Following that, you'll spend a designated time in Ares Station living and working full time including conducting research projects and providing data about the psychological impact of living in isolation.

Initial pricing for Astroland was reported in the range of 6,000 euros ($7,000) for a month of training plus a three-day, three-night stay in Ares Station.

If you'd rather keep your feet firmly on planet Earth but still experience a bit of outer space, there's nowhere quite like space camp. Made famous by the "Space Camp" family film of the 1980s, children have been attending space camp in Huntsville, Alabama, for generations. There's also a program for adults both for those who went as kids and those who missed out.

The weekend-long Adult Astronaut Training program gives grown-ups the chance to get hands-on learning about planetary science, orbital mechanics and NASA missions past, present and future. Space camp is housed at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, part of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and all programming is designed in coordination with actual NASA missions. This means you can spend time in simulations piloting the Orion Capsule, working in mission control, and doing a "spacewalk" to work on International Space Station modules. And before or after your adult space camp, you can add on training as an underwater astronaut!

Cost is $199-$299 per person for space camp and $150 per person for the underwater program.

You can follow in the footsteps of real astronauts and cosmonauts by participating in astronaut training through a company called Space Adventures, which offers space tourism experiences ranging from watching rocket launches in Kazakhstan to actually launching tourists to the International Space Station.

But let's get back to learning how to be an astronaut for real. Spaceflight training through Space Adventures takes place in Star City, Russia, outside of Moscow. During the experience, participants learn how to fly Russian Soyuz spacecraft through a simulator, get to try spacewalk training, and ride the centrifuge to get a better understanding of the gravitational forces experienced during launch and landing. This experience offers a different perspective than others on this list as it focuses on the Russian space program, Roscosmos, rather than NASA.

Space Adventures' Spaceflight Training is a bespoke experience, and pricing is available on request.

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4 Ways to Experience Outer Space Right Here on Earth - HowStuffWorks

RIAU24.COM National Aeronautics and Space Administration USA (NASA) In conjunction with SpaceX recently launched the 128 Baptile Squid with 5,000 micro-organisms for a series of experiments on the effects of space travel to the International Space Station (ISS).

According to the BBC, the animals were inside the rocket Falcon 9 Space X It was launched by ISS on Thursday (June 3, 2021) as part of a cargo delivery mission to support NASA space research.

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The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft carried a total of 3311 kg of cargo from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 13:29 local time on Thursday.

Furthermore, ABC News reports that the microbial animal and baby squid (Ubrimna scolops) are part of a NASA experiment known as umami or understanding of microgravity in animal-microbial interactions.

In particular, the experiment sought to explore the effects of space travel on molecular and chemical interactions between beneficial microorganisms and their animal hosts.

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Jamie Foster, a leading researcher at UMAMI, commented: Animals, including humans, rely on our microbes to maintain healthy digestive and immune systems. We do not fully understand how space travel changes these beneficial interactions.

This space research is expected to give a better understanding of the complex relationships between beneficial animals and microorganisms. In addition, it will help to develop safety measures for the health of astronauts on long-distance space missions.

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128 Baby Squid in space for SpaceX and NASA space exploration - The Press Stories

While the hotel never came to fruition, the push for the commercialization of space continues to live on.

A hotel on the Moon. It's a concept that was once far-fetched, but with the advancements and commercialization of space exploration, now 50+ years later, is more of a potential reality.

Ideas, while "symbolic," for Americans to kick back and relax or grab a drink at a hotel in space were around two years before astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were forever etched in history.

It all dates back to 1967 when, then president of Hilton Hotels, Barron Hilton, spoke to astronomers and space lovers at an American Astronomical Society meeting.

Scarcely a day goes by that someone doesnt ask me, jovially, when the Lunar Hilton is going to be opened. They're joking, of course. But I don't see it as a joke at all I firmly believe that we are going to have Hiltons in outer space, perhaps even soon enough for me to officiate at the formal opening of the first," Hilton said, according to archives.

At the event, Hilton shared his conceptual vision for a space hotel called the Orbiter Hilton or Lunar Hilton with large rooms, carpets, drapes, wall-to-wall TVs and plants. The food guests would have access to during their stay, according to Barron, would "be as good as those on Earth."

If you think we're not going to have a cocktail lounge you don't know Hilton or travelers. Enter the Galaxy Lounge. Enjoy a martini and see the stars," he added.

And while the plans were grand, they never came to be a reality in the more than 50 years since. Archivists refer to the space hotel talks as a mix of "honest speculation and playful humor."

Fast forward to 2021 and space agencies and companies' interest in a more permanent space on the Moon continues to grow.

In 2019, CNNreported The Gateway Foundation was working to construct the Von Braun Station with the goal of it being fully operational by 2027. NBC News added the spacecraft will be large enough to hold a pair of hotels and house 100 guests -- along with possibly three times as many crew members.

Then there's the upcoming Artemis mission looking to take the next man and first woman to the Moon since 1972. To do that, several elements and contracts still need to fall into place.

The Artemis program is inspired by NASA's Apollo program and how it proved it was possible to land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth safely. In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo.

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A glimpse at the plans for Hilton's 1967 space hotel that never was - WTSP.com