Lifeboat Foundation

It won’t be cheap, but your holiday plans could include a trip to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere or beyond—before the end of this year. Several space tourism companies are zeroing in on their first launch.

Bob Smith, CEO of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, told CNBC: “We think we still have that possibility of getting that done this year.”

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson shared similar sentiments, revealing that the thing he was most excited about in 2018 was “hopefully going into space,” presumably in one of his own company’s ships. The news follows a recently restarted series of test flights after a tragic test flight crash in 2014.

Continue reading “5 Space Companies Zeroing in on First Launch of Tourists Into Orbit and Beyond” »

Launching the same rocket to orbit twice in 24 hours has never been done before. But Elon Musk says the newest version of his Falcon 9 rocket will accomplish the feat in 2019.

“This is a ridiculously hard thing that has taken us…16 years of extreme effort and many, many iterations,” the serial entrepreneur told reporters, after warning them “we’re definitely going to stay on space, don’t even try.” SpaceX is debuting the new rocket today with the launch of Bangladesh’s first satellite.

Musk said this is intended to be the final version of the SpaceX workhorse Falcon 9, allowing his engineers to focus on a larger interplanetary rocket called the BFR. In the meantime, Block 5, as the final iteration is known, could fly as many as 300 missions into space. “If things go well, SpaceX will launch more rockets than any other country in 2018,” Musk predicted.

Continue reading “Elon Musk wants to launch the same rocket to orbit twice in a single day” »

Astronomers have accomplished a difficult feat: determining the 3D structure of an interstellar cloud, where stars are born.

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a plan allowing SpaceX to build and operate a facility at the Port of L.A., where the Hawthorne space company will produce its next-generation BFR rockets and spacecraft.

Manned, long-term, deep space missions are an exciting prospect, but one that remains in the realm of distant possibilities–particularly because we don’t have all the technological innovations needed to make it happen.

One major consideration is the time it takes to reach the destination. Mars, which is at the top of various space programs’ go-to destinations for manned missions, is about six months if travel time away from Earth. If we wanted to explore even further, keep in mind that New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft to leave Earth, took nine and a half years to reach Pluto.

Science fiction conveniently sidesteps this challenge by putting the space explorers into deep sleep–a state of suspended animation. But slowing the human metabolism down while ensuring that a person will stay alive for extended periods is a lot easier said than done.

Continue reading “A Real Life ‘Hibernation Chamber’ is Being Made For Deep Space Travel” »

A high-energy survey of the early Universe, an infrared observatory to study the formation of stars, planets and galaxies, and a Venus orbiter are to be considered for ESA’s fifth medium class mission in its Cosmic Vision science programme, with a planned launch date in 2032.

The three candidates, the Transient High Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (Theseus), the SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (Spica), and the EnVision mission to Venus were selected from 25 proposals put forward by the scientific community.

Theseus, Spica and EnVision will be studied in parallel and a final decision is expected in 2021.

Continue reading “ESA selects three new mission concepts for study” »

This could be the key to exploring space at a low cost.

This pioneering mission to the farthest planet was done with 20% of the (inflation-adjusted) budget as the storied Voyager exploration, writes Alan Stern, the man who led the project.

The Dragon cargo ship made it back home on the same day NASA launched the InShight Mars lander, after its return to Earth was delayed for three days.

After a month of preparation, SpaceX’s unmanned Dragon capsule has finally returned to Earth on May 5, safely delivering its precious cargo, Space.com reports.

Continue reading “SpaceX Dragon Capsule Returns To Earth With 2 Tons Of Science Gear” »

NASA’s next Red Planet explorer has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California — a big step forward in the countdown to T-zero. The spacecraft is called InSight — short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — and it’s being tested, fueled and encapsulated for launch aboard the powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The upcoming liftoff will mark the first time an interplanetary mission has launched from the West Coast.