Category Archives: Space Travel

THE GREAT WALL FROM SPACE

No, you cant see the Great Wall of China from outer space Buzz Aldrin repeatedly tried to end this urban myth. Only from a few hundred kilometres above Earth can shuttle astronauts see the Great Wall when the sun hits it at the right angle. You can see plenty of other objects from low orbit, such as airports, dams, bridges, big highways and Dubais reclaimed Palm Islands. See

Do the Yupik and Inuit have exceptional numbers of words to describe snow? Thats debatable, because it depends how you define a word. Eskimo-Aleut languages, like German, create compound words, for example for snow that is falling or snow suitable for sleds that are short phrases but still shared concepts in English. English incidentally has 30-something words for snow and ice. See

No, not that one. Its the Great Pyramid of Cholula near Puebla in Mexico, whose volume of 3.3 million cubic metres is almost 50 per cent greater than that of Egypts largest pyramid. Its base is four times larger. The Mexican pyramid can probably claim to be the largest monument ever built. However, much of it remains buried, and its now topped with a church. See

Your parents probably warned you about swimming right after lunch; the theory is that blood rushes to your stomach so your limbs just flop, and youll drown. Actually, normal meals create no problem for swimmers, although heavy meals can cause discomfort after any vigorous exercise. Just before they set off, marathon swimmers tuck into meals high in carbohydrates without sinking to the bottom. See

Ships and aircraft are said to mysteriously vanish into this section of the North Atlantic in a myth that can be traced back to American newspaper and magazine articles from the 1950s. Credible research from the likes of the US Coast Guard, Lloyds shipping insurers and scientific investigators have found no disproportionate disappearances within the Bermuda Triangle, only plenty of inaccurate, exaggerated and inventive reporting. See

Many people assume the famous Cape of Good Hope is Africas southernmost point. In fact, the less-well-known Cape Agulhas is 55 kilometres further south and the geographic tip of Africa, as well as the official divider between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The name means Cape of Needles in Portuguese and its a notorious shipping hazard thanks to storms and rogue waves. See

This legend arose when the Earl of Carnarvon, who financed the discovery of King Tuts tomb in 1923, died shortly afterwards. The death rate of others associated with the discovery was no more than normal. Archaeologist Howard Carter lived another 16 years and tomb guard Richard Adamson survived until 1982. Arthur Conan Doyle was a prominent voice in promoting the curse, but he also believed in fairies. See

Marco Polo didnt introduce pasta from China in the thirteenth century. His book never mentions noodles, and writing about pasta in Italy predates his return from China. This myth has been traced to an article in the American Macaroni Journal in the 1920s. Pasta almost certainly originated in Sicily under its ninth-century Islamic rulers, likely thanks to the influence of Persian and Arab cuisine. See

Its frequently said that medieval Europeans and even 1492 explorer Christopher Columbus feared falling off the Earth. Rubbish. The ancient Greeks knew the Earth was spherical Aristotle proved it in 330 BCE and so did early Christians and early Muslim scholars. This myth was promoted in the nineteenth century by prominent writers such as Washington Irving, often in an attempt to discredit the Catholic Church. See

Okay, this wont be a myth until mid-2023, but it will be an ongoing one if we dont update our general knowledge. The United Nations says India will soon have a population of 1.42 billion, three million more than Chinas. The figures are inexact, since no Indian census has been carried out since 2011, but Indias population continues to rise, while Chinas is shrinking. See

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Dont be fooled: 10 of the biggest travel myths, busted - Sydney Morning Herald

On Friday, A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket completed a successful launch from Cape Canaveral, carrying commercial communications equipment as well as NASAs TEMPO earth observation instrument. It was the 23rd launch of the year by Elon Musks spacefaring organization, which is by far the most popular owner of satellites in Earths orbit. While the launch went off without a hitch, SpaceX has not always been so lucky. Two Falcon 9s have been lost during missions, the last being in 2016. But the explosions and breakups of unmanned commercial craft are far from the worst thing to happen in the history of mankinds ventures into space.

To find the worst disasters in space flight history, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed various media outlets. We included events and explosions from multiple space agencies. Many of the disasters listed ended in the deaths of astronauts, and all resulted in a substantial loss of investment and assets and represented major setbacks in the advancement of spaceflight. The events are listed in chronological order.

Space travel, and the preparations for it, is an extremely dangerous undertaking. Space travelers can face extreme temperatures because of a lack of oxygen, lack of gravity, the loss of cabin pressure. On the ground, personnel working on the rocket at the launch pad are handling highly flammable materials. (Also see, the largest spacecraft to crash back to Earth.)

Many of the tragedies occurred during training incidents in high-oxygen environments where a single spark can ignite a fire. Others happened at launches or on reentry back into Earths atmosphere. Not all of the aircraft involved were designed for going into outer space. Some, such as the X-15, were used in sub-orbital or atmospheric flights. Even so, crew members of such aircraft fly at high Mach speeds and are subject to high gravitational forces (g-forces).

With the end of the Cold War, we have more information about the extent of Soviet space tragedies as well as the success and reliability of its technology. Yet even today, we still do not know the full human cost of Chinese space mishaps.

Click here to see 20 of the worst disasters in space flight history.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

1. Vanguard TV-3>Date: Dec. 6, 1957>Agency: NASA>Mission: Satellite launch

In the wake of the successful launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in October 1957, the U.S. supercharged its two space programs: the National Academy of Sciences, and the joint U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency-Jet Propulsion Laboratory project. Two months later, the Vanguard Test Vehicle 3, developed by the Naval Research Laboratory and led by the National Academy of Sciences, lifted off to about a height of 4 feet, then the engine thrust gave out and it fell back onto the pad and exploded.

The press called the failed attempt Flopnik and Kaputnik. The result of the fiasco and the inefficiency of different organizations pushed the U.S. government to create a single space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in 1958.

The Vanguard satellite, the 6-inch 3-pound satellite which was thrown away from the explosion and damaged, was recovered and is on display at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Source: sdasmarchives / Flickr

2. Juno II rocket>Date: July 16, 1959>Agency: NASA>Mission: Satellite launch

On July 16, 1959, NASA launched the Juno II rocket carrying the Explorer S1 satellite. During takeoff at Cape Canaveral, Florida, the four-stage rocket veered off course toward the Florida mainland and was ordered to self-destruct by the launch sites safety officer at a height of 100 feet. This was the third Juno II mission, and the first to fail during launch. No one was hurt.

The Juno II rocket was developed for lifting relatively heavy payloads. Of the 10 rocket launches between Dec. 6, 1958 and May 24, 1961, five missions failed because of rocket malfunctions during launch.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

3. Titan I>Date: Dec. 12, 1959>Agency: NASA>Mission: Test flight

At the dawn of intercontinental ballistic missiles, Titan I exploded during a test on Dec. 12, 1959. The 100-ton Titan, the first multistage ICBM and already considered to be the nations most powerful weapon at that point, explodedwas torn apart on the launching pad four seconds after launchas the countdown neared zero. The missiles first-stage destruct section ruptured the fuel tank, and the second stage fell back on the pad and exploded. No one was injured.

4. Soviet R-16 ICBM>Date: Oct. 24, 1960>Agency: Soviet Space Program>Mission: Test flight

The Soviet Union had its own problems developing an ICBM. In 1960, an incident called the Nedelin catastrophe named after the Soviet officer supervising the rocket launch claimed the lives of 100 Soviet engineers, technicians, and military personnel.

Nedelin was impatient following delays in launching the rocket and ordered technicians to fix a problem. They proceeded without defueling the rockets booster. An errant radio signal triggered the firing of the second stage, causing the rocket to explode. Nedelin was among the fatalities. The rockets designer, Mikhail Yangel, survived only because he had gone into a bunker to smoke a cigarette.

Source: sdasmarchives / Flickr

5. Atlas Centaur 5>Date: March 2, 1965>Agency: NASA>Mission: Test flight

The Atlas-Centaur AC-5 vehicle was launched on March 2, 1965. Within about one second after launch, the thrust of the Atlas booster engine decayed and the vehicle collapsed onto the launch pad and was consumed by fire and an explosion. The loss of booster engine thrust was due to fuel depletion from the turbopump inlets. This was attributed to the closing of the fuel staging valve.

To prevent such a guidance system failure on future flights, some redundant circuitry was eliminated and more thorough checkout procedures adopted.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

6. Apollo 1>Date: Jan. 27, 1967>Agency: NASA>Mission: Apollo 1

The first fatalities for NASA occurred on Jan. 27, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee, the first crew members of the Apollo program, were killed after a fire engulfed their command module during a launch rehearsal. A NASA review board found that a stray spark ignited the fire in the pure oxygen environment. Flammable features such as nylon netting and foam pads fueled the inferno. To make matters worse, pressure inside the spacecraft sealed the hatch door and the astronauts could not open it.

The Apollo program was designed to take astronauts to the moon for orbital and landing missions. The tragedy set back the American space program, and it would take more than 18 months of delays and redesigns before NASA astronauts returned to space.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

7. Soyuz 7K-OK>Date: April 23, 1967>Agency: Soviet Space Program>Mission: Soyuz 1

The first crewed Soviet Soyuz spacecraft ended in disaster. The main braking parachute failed to deploy, which caused the vehicle to hit the ground at a speed of 50 meters per second. Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed, the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight. The tragedy occurred just three months after the Apollo catastrophe in which three American astronauts died. After the accident of Soyuz 1, the spaceship was redesigned.

Source: nasacommons / Flickr

8. X-15>Date: Nov. 15, 1967>Agency: NASA>Mission: X-15 Flight 191

The X-15 was a joint research program that NASA conducted with the Air Force, the Navy, and North American Aviation Inc. The X-15 was an experimental aircraft that set unofficial speed and altitude records for crewed flight. Because of how hot aircraft get upon entering the atmosphere, the program was set specifically to investigate piloted hypersonic flight in the areas of aerodynamic performance, structural behavior, and pilot performance and physiology during high heating, among other things. Information from the program contributed to the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle piloted space flight programs.

The overall program was a success but not without tragedy. On Nov. 15, 1967, during pilot Michael Adams seventh flight, he could not bring the aircraft out of an inverted dive because of a technical problem with the adaptive flight control system. The plane crashed, killing him.

Source: Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

9. Soyuz 7K-OKS>Date: June 30, 1971>Agency: Soviet Space Program>Mission: Soyuz 11

Cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev died in space on June 30, 1971. The crew had set a record for time in space at 23 days. During that time, the Soyuz 11 spacecraft docked with the Soviet Salyut-1 orbital station. The three were heroes in the Soviet Union.

When the capsule returned to Earth, it appeared to land without a problem in what is now Kazakhstan. But when rescue teams arrived, they found all three crew members dead. All had suffocated. The cause was traced to a defective breathing ventilation valve, which had come open too early and depressurized the spacecraft. The crew ran out of air and suffocated before they could close the valve. The three cosmonauts were buried underneath the Kremlin Wall. After the Soyuz-11 tragedy, Soviet crewed flights were suspended for two years.

10. Kosmos 3M>Date: June 26, 1973>Agency: Soviet Space Program>Mission: Satellite launch

With the Cold War heating up, a search team of the Soviet Ministry of Defense chose the village of Plesetsk in the Archangel region, about 500 miles north of Moscow, as the first operational base for the R-7 missile. Plesetsk would be one of the sites under surveillance by Francis Gary Powers, the U.S. pilot shot down by the Soviet Union on a reconnaissance flight in 1960.

It was at Plesetsk that tragedy occurred in 1973. The Soviets were preparing to use the missile launcher Kosmos-3M, which had been in use for about six years at that point. Trouble started when a sensor malfunction indicated the fuel tank was overfilled. Launcher personnel drained some of the fuel and refueled the launcher, but the fuel tank started leaking and the launch sequence was stopped. The launch was canceled and the launch team tried to deactivate the vehicle. A few minutes later, two explosions occurred followed by fire. Nine people died.

Source: Space Frontiers / Archive Photos via Getty Images

11. Space Shuttle Challenger>Date: Jan. 28, 1986>Agency: NASA>Mission: STS-51-L

With a crew of seven, including New Hampshire school teacher Christa McAuliffe, the Challenger space shuttle was intended to orbit Earth while the astronauts deployed a satellite and studied Halleys Comet. A minute after takeoff, the spacecraft was ripped apart. Faulty seals in one of the rocket boosters had led to an explosion. All crew members perished. It was the first time NASA had lost astronauts in flight.

The tragedy immediately grounded the shuttle program. The report from the Rogers Commission report faulted NASA, its Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and contractor Morton Thiokol Inc. in Ogden, Utah, for poor engineering and management.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

12. Titan 34D-9s>Date: April 18, 1986>Agency: NASA>Mission: Satellite launch

A Titan rocket carrying a secret military payload exploded at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The blast released a cloud of poisonous fumes and damaged the launching pad and 200 acres surrounding it. At least 58 people were treated at the base hospital for skin and eye irritations. Children at a school nearby were ordered to remain indoors until the cloud dissipated.

The $65 million Titan 34D was the largest of Americas uncrewed rockets and could carry large military satellites into orbit.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

13. Intelsat VII-A>Date: Feb. 15, 1996>Agency: China Great Wall Industry Corporation>Mission: Satellite launch

Probably the worst known accident involving spacecraft during the space age occurred on Feb. 15, 1996 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, about 50 miles northwest of Xichang City in the Chinese province of Sichuan. A Chinese Long March 3B rocket launched, carrying the American communications satellite Intelsat 708. It almost immediately veered off course and slammed into the Chinese mainland, to a nearby village. Chinese authorities said six people were killed, but Western experts judging video of the devastated landscape believe hundreds perished.

An investigation of the accident determined that there was a failure in the guidance system of the Long March 3B. The involvement of American companies in the launch caused political controversy in the United States about the use of U.S. technology for the Chinese space program.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

14. Delta II>Date: Jan. 17, 1997>Agency: NASA>Mission: Satellite launch

The Delta II rocket was first launched in 1989 from Cape Canaveral and would eventually fly 155 missions until it would be taken out of service after its last flight on Sept. 15, 2018. During its service, the Delta II launched NASA probes to Mars, Mercury, the moon, and asteroids, as well as 48 global positioning system navigation satellites.

In its nearly 20 years of service, the rocket only failed once. That was on Jan. 17, 1997. As a Delta II attempted to launch the first GPS II-R satellite from Cape Canaveral, 13 seconds into the flight, a solid rocket motor exploded, triggering a blast that dropped debris around the launch complex and set several employee vehicles on fire.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

15. Titan IV 4A-20>Date: Aug. 12, 1998>Agency: NASA>Mission: Satellite launch

A Titan IV-A rocket exploded on the morning of Aug. 12, 1998, carrying a $1 billion, Mercury spy satellite. The blast occurred just 40 seconds after liftoff at an altitude of about 20,000 feet when the rocket veered off by about 11 to 13 degrees from its planned path. At that point, the rocket could not sustain aerodynamic stresses. An automatic destruct sequence was activated by mission flight control officers 45 seconds into the rockets flight. There were no injuries or damage to property on the ground as a result of the mishap.

A review of spacelift operations by the Air Forces ordered by President Bill Clinton and Defense Department officials determined that engineering and workmanship-related deficiencies contributed to three Titan IV-related space launch misfires within the past year and a half, costing nearly $3 billion.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

16. Soyuz-U>Date: Oct. 15, 2002>Agency: Russian Federal Space Agency>Mission: Satellite launch

A Soyuz rocket carrying a research satellite exploded on Oct. 15, 2002, just 29 seconds after takeoff from Russias Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome. One person was killed and eight others injured. The rocket carried a satellite with European research equipment and was not connected with the orbiting International Space Station.

Soyuz boosters had been involved in 1,586 missions by the end of 1999 and were considered very reliable. The rockets mission reliability at one point was about 98%, among the best in the world. However, Russias space program had been hamstrung by underfunding since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the financing shortfalls have been blamed for a series of Russian rocket mishaps in the 1990s.

Source: Getty Images / Getty Images News via Getty Images

17. Space Shuttle Columbia>Date: Feb. 1, 2003>Agency: NASA>Mission: STS-107

The problems of the Space Shuttle Columbia began when it launched on Jan. 16, 2003. During liftoff, the space shuttle was damaged when a section of foam from its tank sheared off and hit the thermal covering on its left wing. Cameras focused on the launch sequence showed the foam collision, but engineers could not nail down the exact location and extent of the damage.

The seven-member crew completed a 15-day mission in orbit. During reentry, the extent of the damage became apparent as heat melted through the wing and caused a loss of control that led to the disintegration of the orbiter at 40 miles altitude over Texas. All crew members were killed. Debris and the remains of the crew were found in locations across east Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

Source: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

18. Intelsat 27>Date: Feb. 1, 2013>Agency: Sea Launch>Mission: Satellite launch

A commercial Sea Launch rocket failed 40 seconds after liftoff from its floating launch facility a converted oil platform in the Pacific Ocean, destroying its cargo, the Intelsat IS-27 telecommunications satellite. The Intelsat 27 satellite was designed to provide 15 or more years of satellite service. It would have completed Intelsats global broadband mobility platform, which was to consist of 10 beams on seven satellites. IS-27 was insured for about $400 million.

The failure of the launch set back the Sea Launchs recovery from its previous failure in January 2007. The Bern, Switzerland-based company is owned by an affiliate of Russias RSC Energia space-hardware manufacturer. Sea Launch had emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2010. The reorganization was an indirect result of the 2007 failure.

19. Antares rocket>Date: Oct. 28, 2014>Agency: NASA>Mission: Orb-3 resupply

On Oct. 28, 2014, a commercial Antares rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp. exploded in a spectacular fireball just after liftoff at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Orbitals uncrewed Antares rocket tumbled back into the launch pad. NASA officials reported no injuries, and Orbital Sciences representatives said property damage was limited to the south end of Wallops Island.

NASA chose Orbital Sciences to provide eight cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station. The Virginia-based company launched its first official cargo mission to the space station in January 2014, with a second mission following in July. Both missions, as well as two test flights in 2013, were successful.

Source: David McNew / Getty Images News via Getty Images

20. SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise>Date: Oct. 31, 2014>Agency: Virgin Galactic>Mission: Test flight

SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital space plane for space tourism. During a test flight over the Mojave Desert in California conducted with its partner, Scaled Composites, the first SpaceShipTwo was climbing when a descent mechanism deployed prematurely, causing the ship to break apart in mid-air. The disintegration killed pilot Michael Alsbury and seriously injured the other crewperson, who was able to escape the wreckage and deploy his parachute.

The flight was intended to test a new hybrid rocket engine powered by a polyamide-based fuel instead of the rubber-based fuel HTPB that was previously used in the other tests of SpaceShipTwo. A National Transport Safety Board investigation said an analysis of telemetry and video recorded aboard the SpaceShipTwo showed its aero-braking device deployed earlier than designed, and two seconds after it was deployed, the VSS Enterprise disintegrated.

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20 of the Worst Disasters in Space Flight History - 24/7 Wall St.

Alan Shepard Jr., a Navy Commander and one of NASA's first seven astronauts, became the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961.Watch the video above to learn more.Shepard was launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, which only had enough room for one person.The flight, which did not orbit Earth, lasted about 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was a success.Shortly after NASA was established in 1958, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to become the first country to put a person in space and return them to Earth. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, put in orbit around the planet and safely returned to Earth.One month later, Shepard's successful suborbital flight helped to restore faith in the U.S. space program.Shepard went on to take part in several other NASA missions, including Apollo 14, which landed on the moon in 1971. He became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon and the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.Shepard left NASA in 1974. He died in 1998 at the age of 74.

Alan Shepard Jr., a Navy Commander and one of NASA's first seven astronauts, became the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961.

Watch the video above to learn more.

Shepard was launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, which only had enough room for one person.

The flight, which did not orbit Earth, lasted about 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was a success.

Shortly after NASA was established in 1958, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to become the first country to put a person in space and return them to Earth. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, put in orbit around the planet and safely returned to Earth.

One month later, Shepard's successful suborbital flight helped to restore faith in the U.S. space program.

Shepard went on to take part in several other NASA missions, including Apollo 14, which landed on the moon in 1971. He became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon and the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.

Shepard left NASA in 1974. He died in 1998 at the age of 74.

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This Day in History: Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space - WESH 2 Orlando

Science fiction movies are known for having futuristic and sometimes impossible plots, but some films have scientific accuracy that makes them more realistic than they seem. As the name of the genre implies, science fiction films combine factually scientific evidence with fictionalized storylines. Movies like Armageddon feature likely circumstances, but aren't based on real scientific principles.

Luckily, there are plenty of instances in the genre where sci-fi films have gotten the science right. For decades now, movies and TV shows have warned of the dangers of technology through dystopian stories that depict robots ruling over humans. While they weren't always taken seriously, society has since seen computers take over jobs that have belonged to people. Newer films have explored how much further technology could go and how it could impact the human race. Some space movies also have been commended by scientists for their impressive accuracy. Here are a few films that prioritized their real-life plausibility and worked it into a fictional character story.

Related: The 10 Most Important Science Fiction Movies Ever Made

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey combines facts about space travel with the anticipated dangers of technology. Curiously, Kubrick's film was released in 1968, one year before the United States would land on the moon. Kubrick's film was notably accurate in its portrayal of space, which remains one of the most critically-acclaimed elements of the movie. Several NASA engineers praised the filmmaker for its approach to aerospace engineering, as well its portrayal of the silence of space, while other films have erred in this regard by featuring loud explosions.

Spike Jonze's film Her explores loneliness and the complexities of using technology as the cure. Joaquin Phoenix's character Theodore falls in love with an AI woman named Samantha after his wife Catherine divorces him. While this premise sounds ridiculous, it's not so far off. Recently Snapchat launched a new AI bot for users to communicate with. The app enables them to design their AI's appearance and talk to them whenever they want. The new feature, as well as some other AI chat programs floating around on the web, are eerily similar to the program in Her. With these sorts of developments, Her's plot looks more realistic than silly.

Another film that plays around with the dangers of technology is Alex Garland's Ex Machina. The film shares themes with Her as it explores the relationship between a robot and a human. In Ex Machina, Caleb is hired as a test subject to see if robots can demonstrate consciousness. This is proven true when the android Ava manipulates Caleb into thinking she loves him and wants to run away with him when she ultimately locks him up and escapes in the helicopter that was meant to take him home.

All the real-life advancements in artificial intelligence make Ex Machina a particularly poignant film. The most realistic part is Caleb, as a human, was feeling emotions for Ava, who he had come to treat as a real person. But as a computer, even with a consciousness of sorts, she couldn't reciprocate his feelings, which is in sharp contrast to all the movies that show androids developing the capacity for emotions.

Children of Men screenwriter David Arata believed the film to be a warning about the future when he wrote it. The movie takes place in a society where women have become infertile, and humanity is at risk of going extinct. The film also explores anti-immigration hysteria, and while it did poorly upon its 2006 release, its message is more relevant now. With birth rates declining, Children of Men feels awfully familiar.

There are countless online videos of people claiming to have spotted UFOs in the sky or to have encountered aliens. There are also conspiracy theories convinced the government has proof that extraterrestrial life exists in space but is hiding it from the public, possibly somewhere at Area 51. The 1997 film Contact explores the possibility of aliens, and while there's still no concrete evidence that aliens exist, the story still comes across as a grounded take on the search for alien life. Based on a book by real-life astronomer Carl Sagan, Contact has been praised for its portrayal of the SETI Institute.

Minority Report, based on Phillip K Dick's Novella, follows a group of people with psychic abilities hired to catch murderers before they've committed their crimes. This may sound like something that could never work in real life, but there are many elements of the film that either exist in current society or could one day in the future. The film came out in 2002, and while the FBI isn't necessarily using psychics to predict murders, there have been many cases of law enforcement using them to catch those who have committed crimes or reveal previously unknown information.

In 2019, Forbes shared a story about how psychic Fionna Johansson works with law enforcement to solve crimes. The film was also accurate with technology like self-driving cars, which Tesla has accomplished with its auto-pilot mode.

Gattaca explores the possibility and effects of genetic engineering. The film's society splits people into groups of "valid" and "invalids" based on how valuable they believe their DNA to be. Scientists are currently able to genetically alter the DNA of plants, animals, bacteria, and other small organisms, but humans are not out of the question. They have been able to use gene editing on some human cells to help with HIV and sickle cell disease. In 2020, Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna predicted in about 30 years, scientists will be able to make significant changes to human genes.

The Martian follows Mark Watney's attempt to stay alive on Mars after his crew abandoned him because they thought he had died in a dust storm. The dust storm that leaves Mark stranded was confirmed unrealistic as Mars dust storms aren't that intense. However, some other aspects are realistic, like Mark transmuting rocket fuel into water and the eight-month time period it took to travel to Mars, which lined up with what technology in 2015 was capable of.

Arrival is another film that explores the possibility of aliens, with a heavy focus on communication between humans and extraterrestrial life. The film's language deciphering is meticulously well done, and one part of the film even shows the miscommunication between aliens and China, causing the country to believe the aliens want to harm them. Another accurate aspect of the film is that the aliens live in a different atmosphere than humans on Earth, which is only logical, considering that Mars' atmosphere is not at all similar to Earth's.

Related: 1 Arrival Opening Sequence Detail Revealed Its Twist Ending

Interstellar was directed by acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan and took home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 2015. The film's storyline, directing, and accuracy regarding space travel have been heavily praised. The movie's interpretation of a black hole, for example, was deemed very close to what scientists have learned about them and is counted as one of the most painstakingly accurate portrayals of a black hole in science fiction movies. Interstellar also hit the nail on the head with its depiction of gravity and its effect on time. Time moves slower when gravity is stronger, and because of the black hole's gravitational pull, every hour is seven years on Earth.

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10 Wildest Science Fiction Movies That Could Actually Happen - Screen Rant

Harry Styles' new music video for Satellite shows a robot getting its fill of US travel. Photo / Lloyd Wakefield

The robot star of Harry Styles latest music video embarks on a journey across the US for love - and that cinematic trip could inspire the travels of keen fans.

In the video for Satellite, a song from the British pop musicians album Harrys House, a tiny robot vacuum cleaner is awakened by the power of love, after hearing that the Mars Curiosity rover has been living alone on the faraway planet for 10 years.

In an effort to reach Curiosity, the anthropomorphised robot starts on a journey across the US. It starts its trip at a (secretly filmed) Love on Tour Show, before grinding to a halt next to the pop star while stargazing. Along the way, the robot stops at some notable US destinations - heres the itinerary to see key spots in its journey.

Love on Tour Show at the Kia Forum LA

In the first section of the video, the small robot comes to life backstage at one of Styles shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, where the musician played 15 times to sold-out crowds. It moves into the arena itself, gliding across the stage and navigating the crowds and discarded feather boas once the show wraps up. The music video was filmed secretly, with fans in the background unknowingly playing roles as background extras.

The Kia Forum (previously called The Forum) is a huge multi-use space in California, that hosts concerts, basketball, ice hockey, boxing matches, tennis and political events. Its known for its unique architectural structure, with huge, recognisable columns lining the outside of the venue. The robot is seen leaving the venue, with the columns and Harrys House sign lit behind them.

Las Vegas Boulevard

After navigating the LA freeways, petrol stations and truck stops, the little robot starts to head east. It stops for a glance at the neon lights of the bright Las Vegas boulevard, marvelling at the colours of the Pink Flamingo hotel and casino sign.

The Pink Flamingo, which was opened in 1946, was also a filming location for the 1960 and 2001 Oceans 11 films, and Elvis 1964 Viva Las Vegas musical. The flashing lights of Las Vegas itself make for a bewildering road trip stop and are certainly worth a picture.

Monument Valley

A large part of the robots trek sees it driving through the stunning red sands desert of Monument Valley, which stretches across the Utah-Arizona state line. Its characterised by the sandstone buttes, the steep pillars that reach up to 300 metres above the deeper parts of the valley. The robot also takes Route 163 along this journey, the scenic road that takes travellers through the picturesque Southwest.

Monument Valley has also been featured in classic John Ford and Clint Eastwood cowboy flicks but is perhaps more famous for its starring role in Forrest Gump.

Kennedy Space Centre

The robots journey comes to an end at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida and sits next to Harry Styles gazing up at the sky, as its battery finally runs out. The Space Centre is the main launch site for NASA, and has been in use since 1968. The Space Centre also has a visitor complex, which offers further opportunities to learn about space travel, historically significant missions and engage with actual astronauts.

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Harry Styles new road trip music video Satellite is full of US travel ... - New Zealand Herald

Human or robotic space exploration?

We asked two of our astronomers: should we be spending our money on human or robotic space exploration?

The Cold War 'Space Race' between the USA and Soviet Union ended in the 1970s. Today the landscape is very different, with multiple countries engaged in current and future space missions.

"Make no mistake about it: we're in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s, and the stakes are even higher," US Vice President Mike Pence said during a speech in March 2019.

Currently there are over 70 different government and intergovernmental space agencies. Thirteen of these have space launch capabilities, including NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

However, government space agencies are only part of the story when it comes to 21st century space travel. A number of commercial companies are also developing spaceflight capabilities, including SpaceX founded by Elon Musk, Blue Origin established by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. By 2030, it has been estimated that the global space market could be worth 400 billion.

Both space agencies and commercial companies have a number of different objectives for the next 50 years, including:

As the closest celestial body to Earth, missions to the Moon are seen by many scientists and engineers as an essential starting point for voyages to more distant planets. The Moon may prove useful as a space station or testing ground for humans to learn how to replenish supplies, before looking to settle on distant planets such as Mars.

NASA has been set the ambitious goal of returning humans to the Moon by 2024 and establishing a sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2028. The US space agency is working with a number of international and commercial partners, including the European Space Agency, in order to achieve this. The mission is called Project Artemis: the goddess Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. Among the stated goals of the NASA mission is an aim to land the first woman on the Moon.

However, the United States is not the only country with lunar ambitions. China is planning a crewed mission to the Moon's south pole by 2030, and has already successfully landed a robotic rover on the Moon's far side.

India meanwhile launched a combined lunar orbiter, lander and rover on 22 July 2019, in a mission known asChandrayaan-2. On 7 September 2019, the ISRO space station lost contact with the Vikram lunar lander, as it was just 2km from the lunar surface.

In September 2019 Elon Musk revealed a prototype of his Starship rocket, claiming it would be ready to take off in one to two months, reaching 19,800 metres before returning to Earth.

Organisations both public and private are looking to develop more sustainable ways of building and launching spacecraft for future missions, in order to overcome the major obstacle in space exploration: the astronomical costs involved.

One example of these innovations is the development of a new space capsule called Orion, managed by both NASA and the European Space Agency. The flexibility of the vehicle is designed to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station and also enable repeat landings on the Moon's surface. The Orion spacecraft was first launched in an uncrewed flight in December 2014, and it is intended to be the craft used during the Artemis missions to the Moon scheduled from 2020.

As machines become increasingly capable of independently performing tasks, many organisations are looking to prioritise robotic over human spaceflight. These machines are designed for specific tasks and can withstand the extreme conditions of space.

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover is a prime example of this. Launched on 26 November 2011, the robotic vehicle landed on the surface of Mars on 5 August 2012 and has been exploring the Martian landscape ever since. It even has its own Twitter account, keeping millions of followers up to date with its latest scientific observations.

Something in the air tonight

I detected the largest amount of methane ever during my mission: ~21 parts per billion by volume. While microbial life can be a source of methane on Earth, methane can also be made by interaction between rocks and water. https://t.co/CPEpxsspR2 pic.twitter.com/uk2mjV7OeE

In the last decade, companies such as Virgin Galactic, Airbus and Blue Origin have begun developing commercial spacecraft to send private customers into space. Currently, businesses are taking reservations for trips into the upper atmosphere, where patrons can experience zero-gravity and observe the curvature of the Earth. NASA has also announced plans to allow private individuals to visit the International Space Station, with the first flights scheduled for 2020.

Name: Parker Solar Probe

Type: Probe

Launched: 12 August 2018

Operator: NASA

The Parker Solar Probe is named after astrophysicist Eugene Parker. While already launched, the probe wont reach its objective - the Sun - until 2025. Its mission is to obtain observations of the Sun and provide accurate data on solar winds (charged particles that escape from the Sun) and why they exist. The probe is built to withstand the 1377C heat from the Sun at a distance of almost 95 million miles, seven times closer than any spacecraft before it.

Name: Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover (known as HX-1)

Type: Robotic rover

Launch: July 2020

Operator: CASC

This planned Chinese project aims to follow-up on its success of landing a probe on the far side of the Moon with its second mission to Mars in 2020. The stated objective of the HX-1 rover project is to land on Mars and search for the presence and potential for life on the Martian planet. It could also provide essential information as to the potential for crewed flights to Mars in the future.

Name:James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Type: Telescope

Launch: March 2021

Operator: NASA, ESA & CSA

Named after James Webb, the administrator at NASA during the Mercury and Gemini space programmes, this telescope will search for the first galaxies after the Big Bang. Furthermore, the use of infrared imaging will aid scientists in understanding the physical and chemical properties of these star systems, including the observation of some of the most distant events and objects in the universe.

Name:Starship

Type: Rocket

Launch: First commercial missions scheduled for 2021

Operator: SpaceX

The private company, SpaceX, is developing a powerful spacecraft and rocket system that could eventually be used to take humans to the Moon and Mars. With a potential carrying capacity of 100,000 kilograms, the rocket is designed to carry much larger payloads and crew numbers into space. Originally known as the Big Falcon Rocket, founder Elon Musk renamed the craft in November 2018, calling the transportation part of the vehicle 'Starship' and the rocket section 'Super Heavy'. Along with other SpaceX spacecraft and rocket systems, the project is aiming to be reusable, reducing the costs of future space exploration.

Name:Breakthrough Starshot

Type: Spacecraft

Operator: Breakthrough Initiatives

Breakthrough Starshot is a bold engineering project aiming to send 1000 tiny spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in a journey lasting 20 years. The mission intends to test the possibility of ultra-fast space travel (15-20 per cent of the speed of light), and achieve interstellar travel. However, the project is still very much in its infancy.

US astronaut Eugene Cernan is the last human to have walked on the Moon. He and fellow Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt left the lunar surface on 14 December 1972. Since then, human crews have not returned.

However, many probes have been sent to the Moon in the decades since, including missions by Indian, Chinese and European space agencies.

One of the main reasons for the lack of crewed missions to the Moon is the cost. The Apollo missions cost roughly $200 billion (160bn) in today's money. Even following a funding boost, NASA's annual budget for 2019 was $21.5 billion (17.25bn).

Commercial space companies have changed the economics of space exploration, but for both private companies and national agencies the long-term objectives of future space missions need to be more innovative than simply repeating a historical mission. Current missions to the Moon are aiming to explore new regions of the lunar surface, including its far side and its south pole. Crewed missions are also designed to be part of a longer term process of exploring further into space, beginning with Mars.

The high cost of leaving the Earth is the major obstacle to further exploration of space. Currently for example, only the Russian Soyuz rocket is able to transport astronauts to the International Space Station, with NASA paying a reported $75 million (60m) per seat in 2017.

When NASA's space shuttle programme was in operation between the 1980s and mid-2000s, it could carry a payload of 27,500 kilograms for an average cost per flight of $1.5 billion (1.2bn). This cost has reduced with the collaboration of private companies: a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can launch 22,800kg into low Earth orbit for a published cost of $62 million (50m).

Once in space, the costs remain high. The International Space Station has been dubbed the most expensive machine ever constructed, with an estimated total cost since since its first launch in 1998 of $150 billion (120bn).

Depending on where in space you're going, a ticket aboard a commercial spacecraft could cost from $250,000 to tens of millions of dollars.

Private company Virgin Galactic is offering 'space tourists' the chance to cross the boundary between the upper atmosphere and outer space (known as the Karman Line at 62 miles above the Earth). A place on the flight costs a reported $250,000 (200,600), and more than 600 people are said to have bought tickets.

NASA announced in 2019 that it would be opening up the International Space Station to private individuals from 2020, with an estimated cost of $35,000 (28,000) per day. However, this does not include the cost of the spaceflight itself, which is set to be run by private companies SpaceX and Boeing and could cost over $60 million (48m) per flight.

The world's first private astronaut Dennis Tito paid a reported $20 million (16m) to join the Soyuz TM-32 mission on 28 April 2001. The American businessman spent nearly eight days in space aboard the International Space Station. The trip was booked with a space tourism company called Space Adventures Ltd.

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What is the future of space travel? | Royal Museums Greenwich - Cutty Sark

On Oct. 4, 2007, the Space Age celebrated the 50th anniversary of the historic launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, by the former Soviet Union.

The space shot also launched the Space Race to the moon between the United States and the Soviet Union. But despite that turbulent beginning, the initial launch has led to five decades of triumphs and tragedies in space science and exploration.

Below is a timeline by Space News and SPACE.com chronicling the first 50 years of spaceflight. You are invited to walk through the half century of space exploration and click related links for more in depth information:

Sometime in the 11th century: China combines sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter (potassium nitrate) to make gunpowder, the first fuel used to propel early rockets in Chinese warfare.

July 4, 1054: Chinese astronomers observe the supernova in Taurus that formed the Crab Nebula.

Mid-1700s: Hyder Ali, the Sultan of Mysome in India, begins manufacturing rockets sheathed in iron, not cardboard or paper, to improve their range and stability.

March 16, 1926: Robert Goddard, sometimes referred to as the "Father of Modern Rocketry," launches the first successful liquid-fueled rocket.

July 17, 1929: Robert Goddard launches a rocket that carries with it the first set of scientific tools a barometer and a camera in Auburn, Mass. The launch was Goddard's fourth.

Feb. 18, 1930: The dwarf planet Pluto is discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Oct. 3, 1942: Germany successfully test launches the first ballistic missile, the A4, more commonly known as the V-2, and later uses it near the end of European combat in World War II.

Sep. 29, 1945: Wernher von Braun arrives at Ft. Bliss, Texas, with six other German rocket specialists.

Oct. 14, 1947: American test pilot Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier for the first time in the X-1, also known as Glamorous Glennis.

Oct. 4, 1957: A modified R-7 two-stage ICBM launches the satellite Sputnik 1 from Tyuratam. The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States begins.

Nov. 3, 1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2 with the first living passenger, the dog Laika, aboard.

Dec. 6, 1957: A Vanguard TV-3 carrying a grapefruit-sized satellite explodes at launch; a failed response to the Sputnik launch by the United States.

Jan. 31, 1958: Explorer 1, the first satellite with an onboard telemetry system, is launched by the United States into orbit aboard a Juno rocket and returns data from space.

Oct. 7, 1958: NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan publicly announces NASA's manned spaceflight program along with the formation of the Space Task Group, a panel of scientist and engineers from space-policy organizations absorbed by NASA. The announcement came just six days after NASA was founded.

Jan. 2, 1959: The U.S.S.R. launches Luna 1, which misses the moon but becomes the first artificial object to leave Earth orbit.

Jan. 12, 1959: NASA awards McDonnell Corp. the contract to manufacture the Mercury capsules.

Feb. 28, 1959: NASA launches Discover 1, the U.S. first spy satellite, but it is not until the Aug. 11, 1960, launch of Discover 13 that film is recovered successfully.

May 28, 1959: The United States launches the first primates in space, Able and Baker, on a suborbital flight.

Aug. 7, 1959: NASA's Explorer 6 launches and provides the first photographs of the Earth from space.

Sept. 12, 1959: The Soviet Union's Luna 2 is launched and two days later is intentionally crashed into the Moon.

Sept. 17, 1959: NASA's X-15 hypersonic research plane, capable of speeds to Mach 6.7, makes its first powered flight.

Oct. 24, 1960: To rush the launch of a Mars probe before the Nov. 7 anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin ignored several safety protocols and 126 people are killed when the R-16 ICBM explodes at the Baikonur Cosmodrome during launch preparations.

Feb. 12, 1961: The Soviet Union launches Venera to Venus, but the probe stops responding after a week.

April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space with a 108-minute flight on Vostok 1 in which he completed one orbit.

May 5, 1961: Mercury Freedom 7 launches on a Redstone rocket for a 15-minute suborbital flight, making Alan Shepard the first American in space.

May 25, 1961: In a speech before Congress, President John Kennedy announces that an American will land on the moon and be returned safely to Earth before the end of the decade.

Oct. 27, 1961: Saturn 1, the rocket for the initial Apollo missions, is tested for the first time.

Feb. 20, 1962: John Glenn makes the first U.S. manned orbital flight aboard Mercury 6.

June 7, 1962: Wernher von Braun backs the idea of a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mission.

July 10, 1962: The United States launches Telstar 1, which enables the trans-Atlantic transmission of television signals.

June 14, 1962: Agreements are signed establishing the European Space Research Organisation and the European Launcher Development Organisation. Both eventually were dissolved.

July 28, 1962: The U.S.S.R launches its first successful spy satellite, designated Cosmos 7.

Aug. 27, 1962: Mariner 2 launches and eventually performs the first successful interplanetary flyby when it passes by Venus.

Sept. 29, 1962: Canada's Alouette 1 launches aboard a NASA Thor-Agena B rocket, becoming the first satellite from a country other than the United States or Soviet Union.

June 16, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to fly into space.

July 28, 1964: Ranger 7 launches and is the Ranger series' first success, taking photographs of the moon until it crashes into its surface four days later.

April 8, 1964: Gemini 1, a two-seat spacecraft system, launches in an unmanned flight.

Aug. 19, 1964: NASA's Syncom 3 launches aboard a Thor-Delta rocket, becoming the first geostationary telecommunications satellite.

Oct. 12, 1964: The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1, a modified Vostok orbiter with a three-person crew.

March 18, 1965: Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov makes the first spacewalk from the Voskhod 2 orbiter.

March 23, 1965: Gemini 3, the first of the manned Gemini missions, launches with a two-person crew on a Titan 2 rocket, making astronaut Gus Grissom the first man to travel in space twice.

June 3, 1965: Ed White, during the Gemini 4 mission, becomes the first American to walk in space.

July 14, 1965: Mariner 4 executes the first successful Mars flyby.

Aug. 21, 1965: Gemini 5 launches on an eight-day mission.

Dec. 15, 1965: Gemini 6 launches and performs a rendezvous with Gemini 7.

Jan. 14, 1966: The Soviet Union's chief designer, Sergei Korolev, dies from complications stemming from routine surgery, leaving the Soviet space program without its most influential leader of the preceding 20 years.

Feb. 3, 1966: The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 makes the first soft landing on the Moon.

March 1, 1966: The Soviet Union's Venera 3 probe becomes the first spacecraft to land on the planetVenus, but its communications system failed before data could be returned.

March 16, 1966: Gemini 8 launches on a Titan 2 rocket and later docks with a previously launched Agena rocket the first docking between two orbiting spacecraft.

April 3, 1966: The Soviet Luna 10 space probe enters lunar orbit, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon.

June 2, 1966: Surveyor 1, a lunar lander, performs the first successful U.S. soft landing on the Moon.

Jan. 27, 1967: All three astronauts for NASA's Apollo 1 mission suffocate from smoke inhalationin a cabin fire during a launch pad test.

April 5, 1967: A review board delivers a damning report to NASA Administrator James Webb about problem areas in the Apollo spacecraft. The recommended modifications are completed by Oct. 9, 1968.

April 23, 1967: Soyuz 1 launches but myriad problems surface. The solar panels do not unfold, there are stability problems and the parachute fails to open on descent causing the death of Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.

Oct. 11, 1968: Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, launches on a Saturn 1 for an 11-day mission in Earth orbit. The mission also featured the first live TV broadcast of humans in space.

Dec. 21, 1968: Apollo 8 launches on a Saturn V and becomes the first manned mission to orbit the moon.

Jan. 16, 1969: Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 rendezvous and dock and perform the first in-orbit crew transfer.

March 3, 1969: Apollo 9 launches. During the mission, tests of the lunar module are conducted in Earth orbit.

May 22, 1969: Apollo 10's Lunar Module Snoopy comes within 8.6 miles (14 kilometers) of the moon's surface.

July 20, 1969: Six years after U.S. President John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Apollo 11 crew lands on the Moon, fulfilling his promise to put an American there by the end of the decade and return him safely to Earth.

Nov. 26, 1965: France launches its first satellite, Astrix, on a Diamant A rocket, becoming the third nation to do so.

Feb. 11, 1970: Japan's Lambda 4 rocket launches a Japanese test satellite, Ohsumi into orbit.

April 13, 1970: An explosion ruptures thecommand module of Apollo 13, days after launch and within reach of the moon. Abandoning the mission to save their lives, the astronauts climb into the Lunar Module and slingshot around the Moon to speed their return back to Earth.

April 24, 1970: The People's Republic of China launches its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong-1, on a Long March 1 rocket, becoming the fifth nation capable of launching its own satellites into space.

Sept. 12: 1970: The Soviet Union launches Luna 16, the first successful automated lunar sample retrieval mission.

April 19, 1971: A Proton rocket launches thefirst space station, Salyut 1, from Baikonur.

June 6, 1971: Soyuz 11 launches successfully, docking with Salyut 1. The three cosmonauts are killed during re-entry from a pressure leak in the cabin.

July 26, 1971: Apollo 15 launches with a Boeing-built Lunar Roving Vehicle and better life-support equipment to explore the Moon.

Oct. 28, 1971: The United Kingdom successfully launches its Prospero satellite into orbit on a Black Arrow rocket, becoming the sixth nation capable of launching its own satellites into space.

Nov. 13, 1971: Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to orbit Mars and provides the first complete map of the planet's surface.

Jan. 5, 1972: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that NASA is developing a reusable launch vehicle, the space shuttle.

March 3, 1972: Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, launches from Cape Kennedy, Fla.

Dec. 19, 1972: Apollo 17, the last mission to the moon, returns to Earth.

May 14, 1973: A Saturn V rocket launches Skylab, the United States' first space station.

March 29, 1974: Mariner 10 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Mercury.

April 19, 1975: The Soviet Union launches India's first satellite, Aryabhata.

May 31, 1975: The European Space Agency is formed.

July 17 1975: Soyuz-19 and Apollo 18 dock.

Aug. 9, 1975: ESA launches its first satellite, Cos-B, aboard a Thor-Delta rocket.

Sept. 9, 1975: Viking 2, composed of a lander and an orbiter, launches for Mars.

July 20, 1976: The U.S. Viking 1 lands on Mars, becoming the first successful Mars lander.

Aug. 20, 1977: Voyager 2 is launched on a course toward Uranus and Neptune.

Sept. 5, 1977: Voyager 1 is launched to perform flybys of Jupiter and Saturn.

Sept. 29, 1977: Salyut 6 reaches orbit. It is the first space station equipped with docking stations on either end, which allow for two vehicles to dock at once, including the Progress supply ship.

Feb. 22, 1978: The first GPS satellite, Navstar 1, launches aboard an Atlas F rocket.

July 11, 1979: Skylab, the first American space station, crashes back to Earth in the sparsely populated grasslands of western Australia.

Sept. 1, 1979: Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to fly past Saturn.

Dec. 24, 1979: The French-built Ariane rocket, Europe's first launch vehicle, launches successfully.

July 18 1980: India launches its Rohini 1 satellite. By using its domestically developed SLV-3 rocket, India becomes the seventh nation capable of sending objects into space by itself.

April 12, 1981: Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off from Cape Canaveral, beginning the first space mission for NASA's new astronaut transportation system.

June 24, 1982: French air force test pilot Jean-Loup Chrtien launches to the Soviet Union's Salyut 7 aboard Soyuz T-6.

Nov. 11, 1982: Shuttle Columbia launches. During its mission, it deploys two commercial communications satellites.

June 18, 1983: Sally Ride aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger becomes the first American woman in space.

Feb. 7, 1984: Astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart maneuver as many as 328 feet (100 meters) from the Space Shuttle Challenger using the Manned Maneuvering Unit, which contains small thrusters, in the first ever untethered spacewalks.

April 8, 1984: Challenger crew repairs the Solar Max satellite during a spacewalk.

Sept. 11: 1985: The International Cometary Explorer, launched by NASAin 1978, performs the first comet flyby.

Jan. 24, 1986: Voyager 2 completes the first and only spacecraft flyby of Uranus.

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Timeline: 50 Years of Spaceflight | Space

JWST's first deep field image. Image:Xinhua News Agency/Contributor via Getty Images

ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs.

Scientists have proposed a dazzling new mission to travel to the stars that is inspired by the elegant flights of seabirds, such as albatrosses, reports a new study. The interstellar concept mission would harness shifting winds generated by the Sun in order to accelerate a spacecraft to as much as 2 percent the speed of light within two years, allowing it to soar into the vast expanse beyond our solar system.

Humans have dreamed about leaving the solar system for thousands of years, but the mind-boggling distances between stars present major challenges to this goal. NASAs Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977, are the first probes to enter interstellar space, but it will still take them tens of thousands of years to reach another star system.

Now, scientists led by Mathias Larrouturou, a spaceflight researcher at McGill University, have envisioned a much faster spacecraft that would mimic the dynamic soaring maneuvers of seabirds by gaining momentum from the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun that creates a bubble around the solar system called the heliosphere.

The team found that their new concept for spacecraft propulsion that invokes dynamic soaring appears feasible for a vehicle to achieve velocities approaching 2 percent of [the speed of light] after a year and a half or 0.5 percent of [the speed of light] after 1 month, depending on its trajectory through the solar system, according to a recent study published in Frontiers of Space Technologies.

Inspired by the dynamic soaring maneuvers performed by seabirds and gliders in which differences in wind speed are exploited to gain velocity, in the proposed technique a lift-generating spacecraft circles between regions of the heliosphere that have different wind speeds, gaining energy in the process without the use of propellant and only modest onboard power requirements, Larrouturou and his colleagues said in the study.

The technique may comprise the first stage for a multistage mission to achieve true interstellar flight to other solar systems, the researchers added.

Many interstellar concept missions have been proposed over the years, from tiny chips that use high-powered lasers to propel them to the stars, to hulking generation ships that carry humans across the galaxy. Larrouturou and his colleagues imagine a different kind of architecture centered around a magnetohydrodynamic wing, which is an invisible structure made of magnetic fields that is somewhat analogous to the physical wing of a bird or plane, according to the study.

This spectral wing could theoretically be produced by two plasma magnets placed along an antenna measuring several feet in length. In the right parts of the solar system, the field created by the magnets could interact with solar wind flows in different directions in much the same way that birds exploit wind turbulence to create lift.

The result is a type of lift-generating wing, but without a physical structure, the team explained in the study. In dynamic soaring as practiced terrestrially, a lift-generating vehicle executes a maneuver that exploits the difference in wind speeds between two different regions of air, for example, the wind blowing over a hilltop and the quiescent air on the leeward side of the hill.

If a probe of this kind was placed at the heliopause, the tumultuous boundary to the heliosphere, it could leverage these mixed wind flows to accelerate to speeds of around 3,720 miles per second in a matter of years. In other parts of the solar system, the spacecraft could reach a quarter of that speed in only a month, according to the teams calculations.

A mission that hit the gas in this way could reach Jupiter in months, not years, and could potentially reach other stars in a matter of centuries. While this is still well beyond a human lifetime, it is a substantial improvement over the multi-millennia trips of slower spacecraft, like the Voyagers.

To that end, Larrouturou and his colleagues conclude their study with a technology roadmap for plasma magnet technology in practice. The team highlights two other concept missions, the Jupiter Observing Velocity Experiment (JOVE) and the Wind Rider Pathfinder Mission, as potential trailblazers of this novel approach to spaceflight.

These groundbreaking missions would provide validation that meaningful propulsive power could be extracted from the solar wind, providing a foundation for the more advanced concept of extracting electrical power from the wind for lift-generation, the researchers said.

The ability to generate large values of lift-to-drag ratio via interaction with the flow of interplanetary and interstellar medium over a spacecraft is found to be feasible, at least from the perspective of the physical principles involved, they concluded.

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Scientists Propose New, Faster Method of Interstellar Space Travel

GEORGE WHITESIDES

SPACE ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR

George T. Whitesides is the Chair of the Space Advisory Board, where he is responsible for bringing together aerospace leaders to advise the Virgin Galactic senior management team on the journey towards regular commercial spaceflight, developing the next generation vehicles and exploring new opportunities. Previously, George served as the Chief Space Officer of Virgin Galactic, spearheading the development of future technologies, including high speed, point-to-point travel and orbital flight, after stepping down as CEO in 2020.

George joined Virgin Galactic in 2010 as Chief Executive Officer. During Georges 10 years with the Company, he built the company from 30 people to a workforce of over 900, successfully guiding Virgin Galactic through its human space flight R&D and flight test program, culminating in two space flights. These historic flights saw the first humans launched into space from US soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle, as well as the first woman to fly on a commercial space vehicle. George led the transition of operations from Mojave, California to Spaceport America, New Mexico, and oversaw the companys successful public listing making it a multi-billion dollar company and creating the worlds first publicly traded human spaceflight venture.

Prior to Virgin Galactic, George served as Chief of Staff for NASA. Upon departure from the American space agency, he received the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award the agency confers.

Georges volunteer service includes Caltechs Space Innovation Council, Princeton Universitys Advisory Council for Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and the Antelope Valley Economic Development & Growth Enterprise. He is a fellow of the UK Royal Aeronautical Society and an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

He previously served as Vice Chair of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, chair of the Reusable Launch Vehicle Working Group for the FAAs Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, a member of the Board of Directors of Virgin Galactic, a member of the Board of Trustees of Princeton University, co-chair of the World Economic Forums Global Future Council on Space Technologies, and the Board of Virgin Unite USA. George has testified on American space policy before the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and the Presidents Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy. An honors graduate of Princeton Universitys School of Public and International Affairs, George later earned a masters degree in geographic information systems and remote sensing from the University of Cambridge, and a Fulbright Scholarship to Tunisia. George is a licensed private pilot and certified parabolic flight coach.

He resides in California with his wife Loretta and two children.

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In 1961, President John F. Kennedy began a dramatic expansion of the U.S. space program and committed the nation to the ambitious goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satelliteSputnik,and the space race was on. The Soviets' triumph jarred the American people and sparked a vigorous response in the federal government to make sure the United States did not fall behind its Communist rival.

A new space program, Project Mercury, was initiated two years later, during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. Seven men were selected to take part in the program: Scott Carpenter, Leroy Gordon Cooper, John Glenn Jr., Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., and Donald "Deke" Slayton. Project Mercury's goals were to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, investigate the ability of astronauts to function in space, and recover astronauts and spacecraft safely.

Then, in 1961, the nation suffered another shock when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. The United States, it seemed, was still falling behind.

President Kennedy understood the need to restore America's confidence and intended not merely to match the Soviets, but surpass them. On May 25, 1961, he stood before Congress to deliver a special message on "urgent national needs." He asked for an additional $7 billion to $9 billion over the next five years for the space program, proclaiming that "this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth." President Kennedy settled upon this dramatic goal as a means of focusing and mobilizing the nation's lagging space efforts.

Skeptics questioned the ability of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to meet the president's timetable. Within a year, however, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom became the first two Americans to travel into space.

On February 20, 1962, John Glenn Jr. became the first American to orbit Earth. Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, theFriendship 7capsule carrying Glenn reached a maximum altitude of 162 miles and an orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour. After more than four hours in space, having circled the earth three times, Glenn piloted the Friendship 7 back into the atmosphere and landed in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda.

Glenn's success helped inspire the great army of people working to reach the Moon. Medical researchers, engineers, test pilots, machinists, factory workers, businessmen, and industrialists from across the country worked together to achieve this goal. By May 1963, astronauts Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra Jr., and L. Gordon Cooper had also orbited Earth. Each mission lasted longer than the one before and gathered more data.

As space exploration continued through the 1960s, the United States was on its way to the Moon. Project Gemini was the second NASA spaceflight program. Its goals were to perfect the entry and re-entry maneuvers of a spacecraft and conduct further tests on how individuals are affected by long periods of space travel.The Apollo Program followed Project Gemini. Its goal was to land humans on the Moon and assure their safe return to Earth. On July 20, 1969, theApollo 11astronautsNeil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr.realized President Kennedy's dream.

Originally posted here:

Space Program | JFK Library