Category Archives: Space Travel

To travel into the unknown of space is a dream for so many children and adults alike, although one that very few will ever reach.

Throughout time so many countries, and now private companies, across the world have tried to create a method of getting in amongst the stars.

Its even united countries that previously had such strong conflict.

Here were going to go through a timeline of the significant moments in the history of space travel, starting way back in the 1940s.

In 1942 the German V2 rocket, designed by Wernher Von Braun, was the first to reach 100km (62 miles) from the Earths surface.

Also known as the boundary of space.

Braun later worked with NASA on the rockets that went to the moon.

In 1947, the first animals went into space.

Fruit flies were used to study the effects of space travel on animals as theyre very similar to humans.

The flies traveled with a supply of corn to eat on the flight.

Albert II was the first monkey in space.

Albert II was a Rhesus monkey and boldly went where no primate had been before on June 14, 1949, in a specially adapted US V2 rocket, that flew 83 miles from Earth.

On October 4, 1957, Russia launched the first space satellite (or sputnik in Russian) named Sputnik 1.

Sputnik 1 was the first satellite in orbit around the earth.

In November the same year, Laika the Russian dog became the first animal to orbit the earth. Laika is Russian for Barker.

She traveled in Sputnik 2 and helped understand whether people could survive in space.

By 1959 Both US and Russian scientists were in a race to get a craft to the Moon; the Russians won.

Space-probe Luna 2 crash-landed into the moon at fatal speeds.

Ten years later, the first human visited the surface.

On April 12, 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

Traveling in Vostok 1 he completed one orbit of the earth, landing about two hours after launch.

Gagarin had to eject and use a parachute to land as the craft was designed to crash land.

John Glenn became the first US man to orbit the Earth aboard the Friendship 7.

John actually chose this name; officially the craft is called the Mercury-Atlas 6, for the mission Mercury and it being the 6th flight to use the faster Atlas rocket.

Valentina Tereshkova, a Russian cosmonaut, became the first woman in space.

After her mission, she had a crater on the far side of the Moon is named after her.

Who could believe, after just sending men to the moon, NASA managed to successfully conduct the first Mars flyby with their Mariner 4 craft.

In 1963 John F. Kennedy promised that by 1970 the US would have put men on the moon.

NASA firstly sent a robot spaceship called Surveyor 1, to make sure they could safely land.

It reached the moon on May 30, 1966, just after the Russian probe Luna 9.

Once Surveyor 1 landed it took photographs and sent them back to eagerly awaiting scientists who used them to visualize the terrain and work out a plan to land people on the moon safely.

On July 20, 1969, the famous one small step was taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and the first words were spoken, the Eagle has landed.

This iconic phrase confirmed them as the first men on the moon.

The Apollo 11 craft flew them 250,000 miles to the moon and back.

Apollo 13 on April 13, 1970, the second day of its trip to the moon, suffered a wiring fault causing an explosion.

Using what was on board, NASA and the astronauts on board made repairs to bring the damaged craft back to Earth.

This saw the first use of the Lunar Rover, an electric vehicle with a top speed of 8 mph (13 kph), to explore the moon on the fourth, fifth and sixth Apollo missions.

The rover took Boeing 17 months to design and develop.

The first-ever space station was launched in 1971, the Russian Salyut 1, and was launched from an unmanned rocket.

In 1973 Mars 2, a 2-part Russian probe explored Mars.

One part was to stay in orbit for the whole year sending pictures back to earth and the other was to land and explore Mars surface.

It was destroyed when a parachute failed.

The US launched their Voyager 1 deep space probe.

Voyager 1, on February 17, 1998, became the most distant human-made object in space after it passed the previous title holder; Pioneer 10.

From April 12, 1981, saw the idea of reusable space crafts, prior to this they were a one-hit-wonder.

The Space Shuttle was designed to lower costs and could be used up to 100 times.

With five rocket motors, it reached 17,000+ mph (27,350+ Kph). Six were built and 2011 saw their last use.

The first craft to start the Space Shuttle era was called Columbia.

On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger exploded due to a fuel system failure just after launch.

All seven astronauts were killed.

After this tragedy, all shuttles were grounded for almost three years.

In the same year, Construction started on the MIR space station, the first consistently inhabited long-term space station.

It was built in sections, taking 10 years, with each bit rocket-launched and combined in orbit.

In 2001 it was destroyed on its descent to earth. The ISS or International Space station also started construction in this year designed for research and space exploration.

The final major module of the ISS didnt arrive until 2010.

The shuttle Discovery was launched to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope into Earths Orbit.

The telescope is able to lock onto a target without moving to about the width of a human hair seen a mile away, or more scientifically, more than 7/1000th of an arcsecond.

Just like there are 60 minutes in an hour, there are 60 arcminutes in 1 degree, and 60 arcseconds in an arcminute.

In 1989, Helen Sharman won a competition to become the first British astronaut in space, she previously worked for Mars Bar.

After 18 months of harsh training, she joined a Russian mission to the MIR space station.

After all their problems, the US and Russia finally start working together, or at least in space terms they were.

This year saw the US shuttle Atlantis dock at the Russian MIR space station.

The first look at mars occurred when Sojourner, A U.S rover, travels onto Mars to explore the planets geology.

In 2000 the first permanent crew inhabited the International Space Station (ISS), and have been there ever since.

On April 28, 2001, US millionaire Dennis Tito spent around $20,000,000 and had 900 hours of training to be the first space tourist for a ride in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

He spent one week in orbit and of this time he spent most visiting the ISS.

This symbolized the hopes for space travel, for it to become a normal venture one day for everyone.

On June 21, 2004, the first privately funded manned space flight happened with the craft SpaceShipOne.

An adaptation of this technology is being used by Virgin Galactic, a company offering private tourist flights into space.

Even though in 2014 it crashed during testing, flights are still happening.

In this year, the European Space Agency launched their Rosetta probe hoping to reach Comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko.

SpaceX, a private company that built a craft to replace the newly retired Space Shuttle, became the first to launch a privately funded liquid-fueled rocket into Orbit, the Falcon 1.

These rockets are used to launch their Dragon capsule, a remote-controlled capsule that takes supplies to the ISS.

The U.S Messenger mission to Mercury, launched in 2004, made its journey successfully traveling 48 million miles (77 million km), to begin its yearlong orbit of the mysterious planet.

Russia launched the largest space telescope to date named Spekt-R beating the Hubble.

The device is built to study astronomical objects with an angular resolution of a few millionths of an arcsecond.

The colossal telescope weighed 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms).

A major moment for commercial space travel started on May 22nd, SpaceX launched another Dragon C2+ powered by their Falcon 9 rocket to deliver a resupplying capsule to the ISS.

The capsule was caught by the ISSs robotic arm and docked for nearly six days while astronauts removed cargo and loaded that destined for Earth, a trip it made with no real complications.

NASAs Curiosity rover, a piece of equipment the size of a car, landed on Mars on August 6th.

Its the largest and most advanced rover ever to land on the red planet.

On August 25th, Voyager 1, launched in the late 70s, became the first man-made spacecraft to cross into interstellar space.

The Rosetta probe, launched in 2004, finally reached Comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko after a 4 billion-mile journey.

Whilst on the comet, the lander sent data and high-resolution images from the Comets surface back to earth including 490-foot cliffs and house-sized boulders.

The Philae lander made a soft landing on November 12th after a perilous 7-hour descent.

Harpoons designed to attach to the comet failed, and the lander bounced twice before landing successfully.

On March 6th, NASAs Dawn spacecraft entered an orbit around a dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

With a 590 mile (950 km) diameter, it makes up a quarter of the mass of the belt.

July 14th saw NASAs New Horizons spacecraft arrive at Pluto after traveling 9 years and 4.6 billion miles.

It passes, during its closest approach, only 7,750 miles from the surface and took high-resolution photos of Pluto and Charon, the largest moon.

Pluto is said to be about 50 miles larger than thought.

See more here:

The History of Space Travel Timeline | The Fact Site

For perhaps the first time, the humans inside a spacecraft will in a strict financial sense be worth more than the vehicle itself, as billionaires take to the skies this month in a pair of historic suborbital spaceflights that mark a dramatic change in what it takes to become an astronaut.

On July 11, British business magnate Richard Branson will strap himself into the cabin of the spaceplane VSS Unity, along with three employees of his space tourism company Virgin Galactic. Just over a week later, on July 20, in a move timed to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of Americans first landing on the moon, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will climb into a New Shepard capsule as a passenger on the first crewed flight conducted by his company, Blue Origin.

Neither flight will last long each billionaire will slip out of gravity's clutches for a scant handful of minutes. But taken together, the two jaunts into suborbital space may usher in a new era of spaceflight and spaceflyers alike.

"I think the definition of 'astronaut' is up for grabs again right now," Jordan Bimm, a space historian at the University of Chicago and the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, told Space.com. "What isn't changing is that space remains an incredibly elite space. It's just a different pathway there."

And however the idea of an astronaut changes moving forward, the role will retain flavors of the astronauts who have flown to date, affected by both the military aura of the Cold War astronaut and the scientific agenda of the space station researcher, he said. "It's not like it sheds those identities each time," Bimm said. "It builds on them, like an extra coat of paint on an old wall."

Related: How to watch Virgin Galactic launch Richard Branson to spacePhotos: The first space tourists

For both billionaires, the path to space began more than a decade ago, when each already-established entrepreneur founded a company aimed at spaceflight.

Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, and the company has always focused on suborbital passenger flights of a piloted space plane launched from a larger carrier plane. The first commercial flight was originally targeted to occur as early as 2008, but the company faced a host of delays, including a fatal accident in 2014.

Virgin Galactic only flew its first passenger, the company's chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses, in 2019. Since then, the company's plans for launching a full cabin of passengers have again faced delays. But Branson has made no bones about planning to be on Virgin Galactic's first operational trip, saying as early as 2013 that he intended to be on the flight.

Bezos kept his flight intentions quieter, although he's long spoken publicly about watching the Apollo moon landing in 1969 and wanting to visit space himself. He founded Blue Origin in 2000, and the company's vision began with vertical launches on a reusable rocket to suborbital space. (The company has since announced a planned orbital system as well.)

Blue Origin had dreams of launching commercial suborbital flights perhaps as early as 2010, but has so far stuck to 15 uncrewed launches, including one during which company employees rehearsed entering and exiting the capsule but were not on board during the flight.

Although Branson and Bezos will be the first to have funded the vehicle they will fly on, they won't be the first to buy their way into space. Seven passengers hitched rides to the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz capsules in the 2000s on flights booked through Space Adventures, a Virginia-based space tourism company. The trips, which cost tens of millions of dollars, included a weeklong stay on the orbiting laboratory and meant facing the indignities of trying to sleep and use the toilet without the help of gravity.

Branson's and Bezos' brief suborbital jaunts will be very different, but they'll need to contend with some of the same hubbub that surrounded those tourism flights about who gets to be an astronaut and what makes an astronaut.

Related: Richard Branson says he isn't racing Jeff Bezos into space with Virgin Galactic launch

Americans have loved astronauts for almost as long as there have been American astronauts, and our idea of an astronaut begins with human spaceflight itself, in the era of the American-Soviet race to space in the late 1950s.

As the United States began its astronaut program, leaders considered a few different models of astronaut. When the Air Force was briefly in charge, it considered sending desk jockeys into orbit, Bimm said, and even NASA briefly opened astronaut applications to everyone, according to Matthew Hersch, a space historian at Harvard University, before limiting the role to military aviators.

And in that first group of astronaut selections, NASA had to face the reality that it didn't know what characteristics would make a successful astronaut.

Related: Will Richard Branson actually reach space on Virgin Galactic launch?

"One of the dirty little secrets of the Project Mercury selection is that the examinations that were undertaken of prospective astronauts were invented just for that selection," Hersch said. "Mostly, the purpose that they served was to test people's willingness to put up with a lot of nonsense in order to be an astronaut."

Once selected, that first corps of test-pilots-turned-astronauts found themselves, with NASA's help, with the power to shape American perception of spaceflight. And they used that power to cling to the position, Hersch said, "recognizing that if anyone can be an astronaut, being an astronaut doesn't really mean anything anymore," and fearing that the public would realize the astronauts "had been lucky enough to be selected, but they weren't particularly special."

As part of the effort to retain their position, the early astronauts fought for NASA to give pilots more control of the spacecraft, rather than taking advantage of opportunities offered by automation. "Having average people flying into space was completely unthinkable, and astronauts were horrified by the thought that the future iterations of human space vehicles in the United States might be so completely automated that the pilot wouldn't really have anything to do at all," Hersch said.

Meanwhile, NASA and the rest of the government was also doing image work for the astronauts within the Cold War context of the space race, identifying them with "a particular kind of American masculinity that was to do with families, it was to do with patriotism, to do with belief in God," Dario Llinares, a cultural theorist at the University of Brighton in the U.K. who has analyzed the portrayal of early astronauts, told Space.com.

The stars-and-stripes, all-American vision was key, he added. "The kind of narrative that you see in the Western media is this antagonism between the way of life of Soviet communism and how that was portrayed negatively even in terms of being evil in comparison to Western freedom, and all of that kind of thing."

Related: From Yuri Gagarin's launch to today, human spaceflight has always been political

Take their military backgrounds, add the active spaceflight role they insisted upon, then consider NASA's careful media management strategy, and you get the astronaut recipe referred to as "the right stuff": a vision of a down-to-Earth yet swashbuckling, mythologized, middle-class American man triumphant in the face of possible death.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that the Cold War space race fostered such a powerful vision of the astronaut, since the entire endeavor was about perception, according to Teasel Muir-Harmony, a space historian and curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

"One of the very essential parts of the early space race was this idea that sending humans to the moon or setting that type of goal would win the hearts and minds of the world, and that this was essential for geopolitical power," she said. "The audience was such an essential piece of that puzzle."

But spaceflight today isn't quite trapped in the 1960s. By the end of the Apollo moon missions in 1972, the astronaut program was beginning to shift its focus to science, and NASA sent a geologist to the moon on the final flight.

As the agency prioritized long-duration spaceflight in low Earth orbit over exploration, NASA continued to broaden the role of an astronaut, recruiting a range of scientists to join the aviators. The space shuttle program that flew from 1981 to 2011 in particular allowed those with minimal flight training even a precious few non-agency personnel, such as Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is now NASA administrator to fly and widened the perception of who could reach space, even as astronauts remained an elite corps.

"One thing that sustained the space shuttle program was, because it was a U.S. government-run space vehicle, it was plausible for people to believe that no matter who they are and how much money they had, they might themselves have an opportunity to fly in space in some kind of context," Hersch said.

It's into that landscape that business models of private spaceflight and the figure of the space tourist launched in the early 2000s. When those seven wealthy individuals made their way to the space station, their flights spurred additional controversy about what it meant to be an astronaut.

"There was a lot of debate about whether they should be called astronauts or space tourists and as a group, they all really rejected the term space tourist," Erika Nesvold, an astrophysicist and co-founder of the advocacy group the JustSpace Alliance, told Space.com.

"I think that's because the term astronaut has such an elite position, but in a really beloved sort of way, which is kind of unique in our society," she said. "There's a certain amount of anti-elitism such that people don't all uniformly love celebrities, or athletes, or whatnot, or politicians certainly but a lot of people just love astronauts."

The terminology of astronaut is still contentious, as is the difference that private companies will truly make when it comes to access to space. Tickets for Virgin Galactic flights have sold most recently for $250,000; Blue Origin has yet to announce a list price, but the one seat on the July 20 flight it sold went for $28 million at auction.

"While space billionaires often try to sell their efforts as 'making space more accessible' to people, they aren't really changing anything about accessibility," Lucianne Walkowicz, an astrophysicist at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and co-founder of the JustSpace Alliance, told Space.com in an email.

"For middle-to-upper-class white men, space has always been relatively accessible (after all, that's who the original astronaut selections were meant to target, to the exclusion of everyone else)," they wrote. "Wealthy people paying their way into exclusive, difficult-to-access spaces is as old as time. Tying spaceflight to wealth further emphasizes that space is yet another playground of the rich."

And while Bezos perhaps set out to right an old wrong by offering a seat to aviator Wally Funk, one of the so-called "Mercury 13" women who passed the same qualifying exams as the first American astronauts but were excluded from the corps, the JustSpace co-founders say gestures like this don't address the core issue.

"That just puts us in a world where we poor people, we non-billionaires, only get to go to space at the pleasure of the rich," Nesvold said. "That's not a solution, either."

Just as the perception of who can become an astronaut is perhaps expanding faster than spaceflight opportunities, grazing space will perhaps do more to society's view of Branson and Bezos than the flights will do to increase access to space.

"Space became a place where the astronauts were able to craft and hone their public image, and their celebrity was a chance to create a persona," Bimm said of the Mercury astronauts, and he suspects the same will be true for the space barons.

"I believe they are going to kind of bask in a bit of that aura that isn't really applicable to them," he said. "It's going to be a bit of a crucible moment where they can kind of burn away some stuff they don't want and sort of reinvent themselves. Will the Jeff Bezos that comes back from his six minutes in space be the same Jeff Bezos that went up? Of course, but he might be telling a different story, or he might be focusing on new things and claiming a transformation."

That said, the Mercury astronauts earned their celebrity through their spaceflight, whereas for Branson and Bezos one brief spaceflight can only go so far to change existing public images, Llinares said. "They already have a narrative that is non-astronaut-based; how we conceive of Branson and Bezos and [SpaceX founder Elon] Musk has to be seen through that first."

Bezos' announcement that he would fly was, notably, met with a host of quips about how perhaps he could simply stay in space if he wanted to go there so badly. Branson, meanwhile, has a long history of taking on adventurous attempts at firsts and records in his own activities, even as he has overseen the Virgin business empire.

And it's difficult to imagine seeing either man after spaceflight without considering how they built the commercial empires that have funded their paths to launch. Of course, that too has deep roots in the space race, itself a would-be allegory for political and economic systems.

"The space feats were supposed to symbolize not only the strength of a democratic society, but also the robustness of the American capitalist system in opposition to the Soviet communist system," Muir-Harmony said. "I think that today it's part of what these flights symbolize as well, and perhaps in a less shiny way."

And even as Branson and Bezos race each other to the edge of space, it's worth noting that neither man's company is quite doing something unprecedented, historians said. "Sixty years ago, without the benefit of tech entrepreneurs and without the benefit of computers, Americans organized to accomplish this feat and did so marvelously," Hersch said, referencing Alan Shepard's own suborbital flight in 1961, which occurred just weeks after the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin made the first-ever spaceflight and which is, of course, the namesake of the Blue Origin suborbital program.

"The United States has a tremendous tradition of people taking their money and doing really inventive, interesting things with it, and I really support that," Hersch said. "But as a historian, I always try to put these sorts of things into perspective, and I think, well, it's great that people are spending a ton of money to do something that NASA did in 1961."

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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As space billionaires take flight, 'the right stuff' for space travel enters a new era - Space.com

Wally Funk is one of the Mercury 13, a group of women who trained to be astronauts in the 1960s. Wally Funk hide caption

Wally Funk is one of the Mercury 13, a group of women who trained to be astronauts in the 1960s.

Wally Funk has been hoping for a long time to go to space. Later this month, the 82-year-old pilot and flight instructor will finally head there.

In 1961, Funk was among a group of female pilots testing whether women were fit for space travel. They became known as the Mercury 13, and they passed many of the same tests as the men. But the program was canceled, and Funk was never accepted by NASA.

On July 20, she'll join the crew on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. She's expected to break John Glenn's record as the oldest person to reach space.

In this 2019 NASA photo, Mercury 13 astronaut trainee Wally Funk visits the Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio. AP hide caption

In this 2019 NASA photo, Mercury 13 astronaut trainee Wally Funk visits the Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cheering Funk on at the West Texas launch is her friend and former flight student, Mary Holsenbeck. The two visited StoryCorps in Dallas in 2017, where Funk described the tests she took for the Mercury 13 program.

"I had needles stuck on every part of my body. Tubes running up my bottom. So I went along with it. It didn't bother me," Funk told Holsenbeck. "And then they said, 'We want you to come with a swimsuit; you're going to go into the isolation tank.' Well, I didn't know what that was. The lights come down, they said try not to move. Well, I didn't have a whole lot to think about. I'm 20, I had $10 in my pocket. And then finally they said: 'Wally, you were outstanding. You stayed in 10 hours and 35 minutes. You did the best of the guys that we've had and of the girls.' "

But then she was notified by telegram that the program had been shut down. She said she didn't pine. She applied to NASA four times, though she got turned down, she said, because she didn't have an engineering degree.

She made clear then that she had not given up on space.

I never let anything stop me. I know that my body and my mind can take anything that any space outfit wants to give me.

Wally Funk in 2017

"I never let anything stop me," she said. "I know that my body and my mind can take anything that any space outfit wants to give me high altitude chamber test, which is fine; centrifuge test, which I know I can do five and six G's. These things are easy for me."

Holsenbeck called Funk "the most fearless person" she's ever known and remembered how, when she was going through a divorce, her friend and mentor saved her life.

Wally Funk (left) and her friend and flight student, Mary Holsenbeck, circa 1993. Mary Holsenbeck hide caption

Wally Funk (left) and her friend and flight student, Mary Holsenbeck, circa 1993.

"You said, 'Mary, let's go flying' and I said, 'Wally, I can't afford to go flying.' And you said, 'I didn't ask you that meet me at the airport,' " Holsenbeck said. They went flying, and Funk told her to point the nose of the airplane toward a cloud and then fly to it.

"And it was the most freeing feeling," Holsenbeck says. "I felt like I was in charge of something when I was in that airplane, and that helped me to put myself back in charge of my own life. So yeah, you fixed the problem."

For years to this day the two women talk every evening at 10 p.m., telling one another about their days. They call it their 10 o'clock flight.

"So we go up into the clouds together because Wally, you've always told me, 'When you have problems? Go to the clouds.' "

Audio produced for Morning Edition by John White. NPR's Heidi Glenn adapted it for the web.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

See the rest here:

Wally Funk, A Lifelong Aspiring Astronaut, Will Finally Head To Space At 82 - NPR

Why billionaires going to space is a big deal, and not just costly joy rides.

A leading aerospace association has opted to register a lobbyist for the first time.

The last three Apollo missions to the moon were more revolutionary than you might think.

WELCOME BACK TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at [emailprotected] with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @bryandbender. And dont forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As and more.

A NEW TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM: The long and at-times bumpy journey of the space tourism industry is poised to reach a major milestone beginning Sunday when the first of two space flights are set to carry Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos above the Earth.

Branson will be aboard VSS Unity when the crew takes off for the edge of space from New Mexico on Sunday. Bezos is set to be among the crew of the New Shepard on its maiden flight carrying humans into space from West Texas on July 20. They are the culmination of the 17-year odyssey of private space travel that began with the first flight of Virgins SpaceShipOne in 2004.

The flights will mark a major achievement for the expanding private space industry. But Karina Drees, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a leading industry association in Washington, maintains they are about far more than joy rides for the rich and famous.

The push to take private citizens to orbit is to really perfect the technology, perfect vehicles and then be able to manufacture those vehicles en masse as a new transportation system, which will be significant to people around the world, she told us Thursday. When we think about transporting not only people in an emergency situation, or organs, things that dont have the luxury of time when it comes to transporting around the world.

But is Washington ready to regulate this industry? As a comparison to commercial aviation, I think theres a pretty significant difference, Drees said, pointing out that fewer than 10 commercial space flights in the past 17 years have carried people. I feel like as a comparison we are at a faster pace than commercial aviation because it took decades to iron out a lot of those regulations back then.

The biggest concern: Yet one fear is that the government will adopt regulations based on old data on earlier spaceflight. The fear is if we are writing regulations based on old vehicles that werent very safe, then theres a potential implication here that these vehicles will also not be safe because the regulations are also not safe. We are still very much in data collection mode.

The industry is not concerned about regulation, she added. We want regulation. We just want safe regulation. The vehicles are just now coming online. How does anyone in government know how to regulate those vehicles when they are brand new?

Drees, the former CEO and general manager of Mojave Air & Space Port in California, believes better regulation also means enlisting more knowledgeable government personnel, particularly in the FAAs Office of Commercial Space Transportation, to design and execute those regulations.

Only 100 people: Theres so much talk about how we need more regulation, but our regulator is a team of 100 people, Drees said. They have not grown, they have not been able to keep up with industry, they do not have the expertise in-house to be able to regulate what the industry is doing, let alone keep up with the amount of launches they need to license.

Theyve got folks that are doing a lot of different things, she added. They are doing environmental reviews to process applications for spaceports and launch companies. Theyve got a pretty heavy workload in addition to being under pressure to write regulations.

I see that as by far the biggest concern we have and one of the key things we want from Congress, Drees said of the FAAs space work force.

Nevertheless, there is also a simmering backlash over what many see as not-so-simple publicity stunts, given the litany of Earth-bound problems to be tackled. Could there be a worse time for two ber-rich rocket owners to take a quick jaunt toward the dark? asked one commentator this week in The Atlantic.

We will be tuning in at 6 a.m. on Sunday when the Virgin Galactic launch window opens.

Related: The future of space exploration depends on the private sector, via National Review.

And: Mercury 13 legend Wally Funk will ride with Jeff Bezos to the edge of space, via The Verge

GETTING AROUND ON THE MOON: Apollo 11 gets most of the limelight when it comes to Americas Cold War race to the moon. But in his new book, Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings, Earl Swift rediscovers the final three moon landings, focusing on the revolutionary vehicles used to roam around the lunar surface (once again relevant as NASA plans to return to the moon to maintain a long-term presence).

Some fun facts: The footprints left by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin after the Apollo 11 moon landing would fit inside the area of a football field. By contrast, the Apollo 15 astronauts, Dave Scott and Jim Irwin, covered 6.3 miles on just their first excursion in the lunar rover more than all the travel achieved by the first three Apollo landing crews combined. All told, astronauts on the last three lunar visits drove more than 56 miles.

Also: Examining the life of John Glenn, via The Space Review.

EXPANDING OUR EFFORTS: The Air Force Association, which describes itself as a nonprofit, independent, professional military and aerospace education association, is diving into the lobbying game.

William Castle, a former Pentagon and Senate Armed Services Committee lawyer who was named AFAs director of legislative affairs last month, officially registered as a lobbyist last week, according to a new disclosure.

The association, which is supported by leading defense and space contractors, has a broad lobbying agenda, in ensuring a dominant U.S. Air and Space Force, as the disclosure notes. Specific legislation includes the yearly National Defense Authorization Act and the Defense Appropriations Act.

Bridget Dongu, a spokesperson for AFA, said it marks the first time the organization has registered to lobby and comes as AFA seeks to raise its profile. We are expanding our efforts, not necessarily becoming a lobbying organization, she said. We want to invigorate our efforts on Capitol Hill.

Dongu also pointed out that AFA is just following the lead of similar organizations such the Association of the United States Army, which has been lobbying for years.

But it will have to tread carefully to keep its tax-exempt status as a 501 (c)(3). In general, no organization may qualify for section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying), according to the IRS. A 501(c)(3) organization may engage in some lobbying, but too much lobbying activity risks loss of tax-exempt status.

Congrats to David Kettelhut at the FAA for correctly answering that Jupiters moon Ganymede is named for the Trojan prince in Greek mythology regarded for his beauty and made immortal by Zeus and the cupbearer of the gods.

This weeks question: What space mission took humans the farthest distance from Earth?

The first person to email [emailprotected] with the correct answer gets bragging rights and a shoutout in the next newsletter!

NOAA to take first step toward a small satellite constellation: Space News

Satellite imagery provider Planet to go public: C4ISRNet

Radio telescope faces extremely concerning threat from satellite constellations: Space News

Huge leap for NASAs Mars helicopter ushers new mission support role: The Verge

China's Chang'e 6 mission will collect lunar samples from the far side of the moon by 2024: Space.com

Chinas moon samples could revise lunar chronology: Scientific American

MONDAY: The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies will mark up a bill to fund NASA and NOAA at 3 p.m.

MONDAY: A House Appropriations Subcommittee also marks up the transportation bill at 5 p.m.

TUESDAY: The Astronautical Society convenes its John Glenn Memorial Symposium.

THURSDAY: The Washington Space Business Roundtable holds a webinar with Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado at noon.

THURSDAY: The Aerospace Corp.s Space Policy Show podcast tackles norms of behavior in space at 1 p.m.

THURSDAY: The Space Force Association holds a discussion with Brian "Beam" Maue, a member of the Air Force chief of staffs Strategic Studies Group, at 2 p.m.

THURSDAY: Spacefest kicks off in Tucson, Ariz.

Read more from the original source:

Are we ready for space tourism? - POLITICO - Politico

ROCHESTER N.Y. (WROC) A local travel agent has a front row seat to Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic flight to space this weekend.

Chosen from a lottery, Craig Curran will fly to Spaceport America in New Mexico to see the launch.

Its history, and Im going to be there and Ive got my small contribution to it in terms of being a future astronaut, being part of the comradery, said Curran.

Curran has had a ticket to fly to space since 2011. Hes still waiting for space travel to open commercially, but the time is nearing.

But, tickets to space are not cheap. Right now, they cost upwards of $250,000. Curran said similar to commercial air travel, prices should reduce over time.

It will come down it will be democratized and available for a wide array of people. But initially yes, its going to be quite expensive to do this. This is rocket science after all, said Curran.

But you dont need spacecraft, to have a space experience. In September, Curran is chartering a Zero G flight from the Rochester airport.

This is the same aircraft thats used for NASA research [and] training for astronauts. People will have the chance to actually experience weightlessness, said Curran.

Curran said experiences like the Zero G flight will help him be as prepared as possible for his future trip.

I want to make the most of my flight to space with Virgin Galactic. So, the more acclimated I am to weightlessness, the more I can take advantage of the time that Im weightless 55 miles above the earth, said Curran.

While Curran doesnt know the exact date hell get to travel to space, he estimates 2023 or 2024.

See the original post here:

Local Travel Agent: Space Tourism is the Future - RochesterFirst

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.

Read the original here:

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

As billionairesfight it out to be king of the current space race, a parallelgold rush is taking place in the stock markets.Investors have spied an opportunity to send their money to the moon, andarebuying into the still relatively young space sector.And with Seraphim Capitals space investment fund blasting off onto the London Stock Exchangenextweek,interplanetary investments just got more accessible to UK investors.

Seraphim Space Investment Trust is targetingannualisednet asset value return of at least 20 per cent in the long term, through its stakes in space tech companies including British encryption companyArqitand satellite weather forecaster Spire Global.

Itsreally excitingtimes for the space sector in the UK, and its an exciting time for investors, says James Bruegger, chief investment officer of Seraphim.

Get financial advice and industry news, to you help manage your money

Theres athrivingtech ecosystem, and the UK punches above its weight in terms of the space sector.

He points to businesses likeArqit, which was founded in London in 2017 and isnowexpected to be valued at $1.4bn(1bn)atthe end of August, as an example of where the UK tech sector is producing its own major players.

Meanwhile, on the investor side, individuals are excited by the prospectputting their money into space. As a sci-fi nerd,I can sayit really is an inspirational area,MrBruegger says.Its one that captures the imagination,andits one that brings the best out of humanity.

The retail offering for the Seraphim trust closes on Friday,with a minimum investment of 1,000 at 1 a share. The trustwill launch onto the stock exchange on Wednesday.

The nature of the industry means the businesses it will invest in are small cap companies with less mature businesses so the risk profile will be higher than more established companies,saysSusannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

But the prospectus highlights huge potential in the $366bn(265.5bn)industry, as the race to space heats up, anda new eco-system is created for the new era ofdriverless cars, robotics, smart cities and the internet of things.

It comes hot on the heels of the Procure Space Ucits ETF, which launched onto the London market in June using the ticker symbol YODAand was the first space exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Europe.ETFs are different to investment trusts like Seraphim, as they invest in companies that are already publicly traded.

Procure already had another ETF listed in the US, wherea series of high-profilefundshave beencapitalisingon the strong interest in space generated byprojects like Elon Musks SpaceX, Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic,and Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin.

From a retail investorsperspectivewhats attractive about our IPO its allowing them to follow in thefootstepsof some of the biggestentrepreneurs in the world, saysMrBruegger of Seraphim.

He also pushes back on the idea that this may be a moment of hype.This isnt just the latest plaything for Bezos, Musk and Branson. Each of themhavebeen at their respective space projects for the best part of two decades all while building the businessestheyre more well-known for.

Thanks to the dramatically reduced costs of sending things into space, for whichMrBruegger partially credits Elon Musk, he says thisperiodcould be the beginning of a huge opportunity.

We see this as analogous to where the internet was in the late 90s.

Investing in space goes beyond the rockets themselves, and can also includesatellite companies, broadcasters, aerospace anddefenceplayers, andother businesses that are now or may in future be linked to the space boom.

ARKInvestsspace fund, run by well-known USfund manager Cathie Wood and her team, evenhas stakes in companies like Amazon and Netflix. Thats because the fund includes companies which are likely to benefit from the technological advances of space and aerospace innovation, which could include faster internet, drones, and air taxis.

Yet part of what gets people excited about the current iteration of space technologyis theromanticidea that we mightsoon be able to leave Earth with the same easewith whichwe can take an international flight.

Although the first space tourism trip took place in 2001, whenengineerDennis Tito paida reported $20m for just over a week orbiting the earth,the interest of deep-pocketed entrepreneurs in the sector has given it new life in recent years. Itwill take a step forward on Sunday,when Virgin Galactic is due to launchits firstfullymanned flightwithMrBranson himself on board.

The flight was the latest step in the companys mission ofrunning trips for paying passengers, many of whom have already paid $250,000 apiecefor their place. Meanwhile Blue Originwill launch its first human flight on 20 July, with founder Jeff Bezos and his brother on board, alongside invited guest Wally Funk and a mystery bidder whohas paid $28m for the privilege.

This is an inflection point, saysBen Laidler, global markets strategist at trading platformeToro. He expects to see the market grow in the next few years, and points to the amounts people are willing to pay to go into space.Theres definitely interest there.

Offering civilians holidays in space will only be one part of this pie, he says, with the technological advancements that can come out of space travel a huge part of why it might be attractive to investors.

What space has done is had a completely different impact on tech development, explainsMr Laider. He would expect to see all kinds of technology coming out of this latest wave in space exploration, and more companiesand investment vehiclescoming to market as a result.

The most important thing foraspiringinvestors right now, saysMr Laidler, isnot to put all their eggs in one basketnotleast because, withonly a handful ofspace-focused trusts and funds currently available,other options are bound to appear soon. Be diversified,if only for the fact that there will be more.

Continued here:

The space race investing gold rush comes to Britain - iNews

Issued on: 28/06/2021 - 14:28

Ever thought about going on vacation in space? Your dream may come true in just a couple of months, as dozens of space travel ventures are launching. However, whether it's aboard a spacecraft or a balloon, they all come at a hefty price.

2021 looks to be the first year that commercial tourists will travel to space. It's a childhood dream come true for some,a scientific and commercial miracle for others.In any case, it's a lucrative business asthe space travel industry is expected to reach $8 billion by 2030.

We tell you about the latest space travel ventures by Blue Origin, Space X andVirgin Galactic.

We also talk toNicolas Gaume, the co-founder and executive chairman of Orbite. The French-born, US-incorporated company is preparing people for these spatial expeditions.

But first, a video game in Iraq has an entire generation hooked.The mobile version of the game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds or PUBG has become so popular in Iraq that the country's youth has been dubbed the "PUBG generation". Iraqis across the country are spending hours every day on the game's virtual battleground, socialising via its live chat, playing competitively or even falling in love. We tell you more.

And in Test 24, weshowcasea French startup from Grenoble called BeFC or Bioenzymatic Fuel Cells. These have the potential to be revolutionarybecause they generate electricity using simply paper and enzymes.

See the article here:

Tech 24 - Heading to space on vacation? - FRANCE 24

To infinity and beyond! The world's first tourism agency that wants to send you to space now has a terrestrial settlement - and it's in the United Kingdom.

Launched by London-based RocketBreaks, the agency has a full service to offer to prospective travellers, including coordinating flights, accommodation, meals and dedicated training programmes to be in space.

The package also includes day trips into space, weightlessness experiences and the chance to board on the Aurora Station.

Fed up with 5 star hotels? What if you could enjoy a room with a view... of over a million stars? That's the aim of the Aurora Station, the first luxury hotel currently being built for the sole purpose of space accommodation.

The California-based aerospace company Orion Span is behind the idea, with Aurora Station scheduled to open in 2022. The luxury space hotel has been developed to orbit the Earth, and will be able to accommodate four guests and two crew for a 12-day holiday.

There, you will be able to witness the sunrise 16 times a day, and see land and oceans from a whole new perspective.

Astronauts commonly talk about the overview effect, which offers the world on a silver plate and allows people to see the Earth as a whole.

Travelling to space will undoubtedly change your perspective.

But Aurora Station is not the only possible destination. Companies such as SpaceX are also developing opportunities for Mars travel.

First, you will need to join one of the training centres in partnership with RocketBreaks, in order to enhance your body to optimal conditions for space travel.

Future space tourists can join RocketBreaks' waitlist to be one of the first to contact when reservations open.

Without a doubt, space is the future of the travel industry, RocketBreaks' founder David Doughty says.

We have seen a gap in the market, and by entering early, we aim to make RocketBreaks one of the most respected agencies in the space travel world, " he adds.

"We know for sure that there is enough excitement and demand for space travel, whether on a day trip, to experience the absence of gravity, to see the world from a completely new way, or to stay in space."

Virgin Galactic, founded by Sir Richard Branson, is expected to enter commercial service in 2022, with its founder planning to make the first flight at the end of 2021.

The company recently announced the development of more spacecraft, in addition to them.

As for the COVID-19 pass, nothing has been specified so far.

Read the original post:

The UK's first space tourism travel agency has opened - and it's a world first - Euronews

The brainchild of space travel experts Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, Space Perspective wants more people to experience the life-changing views from space that to date have only been accessible to astronauts making it possible by applying flight technology used extensively by NASA for many years.

This transformative opportunity, taking reservations now for flights as soon as late 2024, extends the possibility of exploring space to a wider audience than has historically been possible. The space curious who would have considered it too risky or expensive can now experience the exhilaration of traveling to space with a safe and gentle ascent. The ground-breaking pressurized Spaceship Neptune gently lifts passengers to space to be immersed in breath-taking views of the curvature of Earth.

History-making Space Explorerswill ascend in Spaceship Neptune from a launch pad at the iconic Kennedy Space Center. Eight guests, accompanied by a pilot, will soar above 99% of Earth's atmosphere and then glide for two hours to uniquely enjoy our planet's biosphere from the comfortable capsule's vast viewingwindows.

Unlike grueling, expensive space rockets, Spaceship Neptune rewrites the engineering playbook: it doesn't use rocket propulsion nor engender g-force acceleration. Exhilarating in its own right, this experience invites a profoundly different perspective through atmospheric layers, framed by the thin blue line below and the blackness of space above. This visceral reminder of how interconnected we are with all living organism is - according to most astronauts who have experienced it - profoundly life-changing; boundaries and differences disappear.

Each flight will be personally curated with end-to-end bespoke experiences, from meeting Hall of Fame astronauts to taking nuptials to new heights.

Space Perspective is the first space launch operator to fly from Space Coast Air and Spaceport, located adjacent to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Their Neptune One inaugural Test Flight kicks off an extensive testing program that makes Spaceship Neptune an extremely safe way to go to space. Space Perspective ensures safety by applying flight technology used for decades by NASA and global government entities, supported by a world class, hand-picked crew integral to all human spaceballoon flights for the last 50 years.

Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, the husband-and-wife team behind Space Perspective, are on a mission to invite more people- including scientists and artists-to ride the wave of space history and be transformed by seeing our beautiful Earth from space.

The couple has been responsible for some of the most remarkable breakthroughs in space innovation and exploration in the last 20 years: perfecting technologies seen on the International Space Station, acting as technical advisors in human spaceflight to Elon Musk pre-SpaceX, and Google executive Alan Eustace's world record for human spaceflight- 136,000 ft propelled by a spaceballoon in 2014.

Traveling where few have gone before in an entirely accessible format, Space Perspective sets a new bar in out-of-this-world luxury experiences. Please visit http://www.spaceperspective.com to reserve your seat.

Instagram @thespaceperspective Twitter @SpacePerspectiv Facebook @TheSpacePerspective

Space Perspective

Space Perspective is the world's first luxury spaceflight experience. It invites more people than has historically been possible to experience a thrillingly new and visceral perspective that expands the human consciousness the incredibly exhilarating panoramas and scale of Earth in space. Our atmosphere stretches for hundreds of miles into space, Spaceship Neptune flies above 99% of it.

Setting a new bar in out-of-this-world thrilling experiences, as soon as late 2024 Space Perspective will escort Space Explorers gently to space inside Spaceship Neptune's pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance spaceballoon that doesn't use rocket fuel and Explorers see the world anew through its vast windows. The ultra-comfortable, accessible, and six-hour journey redefines what space and wonder travel means for the modern traveler.

Based out of Kennedy Space Center, Space Perspective is led by industry luminaries Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, and their expert crew who have been integral to all human spaceballoon flights in the last 50 years. Poynter and MacCallum have been dubbed "masters of the stratosphere" by Bloomberg Businessweek, and MacCallum served as Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1538674/Space_Perspective.jpgLogo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1538675/Space_Perspective_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Space Perspective

https://www.spaceperspective.com

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The world's first luxury spaceflight experience from pioneering Space Perspective reimagines the thrill of space exploration - PRNewswire