Get ready to blast off.
The aerospace experts at NASA are helping everyone socially distancing at home to pass the time.
NASA is ready to entertain and educate you all weekend long.
The aerospace experts are pulling out all the stops to help everyone pass the time home socially distancing. That includes releasing some seriously cool virtual tours and highlighting a few of its coolest places. Check out a selection of seven tours available from NASA below.
Glamping in zero gravity will cost a few millions bucks at least.
Have you always dreamt of leaving Earth? Are you a member of the two, or better yet three commas club? Well it’s a great time to be alive because after decades of delays, the space tourism industry may finally be taking off. Not just the kind Dennis Tito pioneered in 2001, where you buy a ticket from the Russian government to visit the International Space Station (ISS), but real honest-to-goodness free market tourism with multiple private companies vying to turn your hard-earned millions into an out-of-this-world experience.
SpaceX, which is preparing to launch astronauts to the ISS any month now in its newly human-rated Crew Dragon capsule, announced last week that NASA won’t be the only paying customer for its new vehicle. The private company is also offering to launch up to four private citizens into orbit in late 2021 or 2022. And SpaceX is far from the only company on the verge of starting space tourism operations. Here’s a primer to where and when you can go, and how much it might cost you.
Continue reading… “Here are all the ways to visit space this decade (if you’re extremely rich)”
SpaceX is poised to launch its first astronauts into space this spring: Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
Their flight on the company’s Crew Dragon spaceship will mark the first time an American spacecraft has carried NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
Behnken and Hurley’s liftoff is expected to launch a new era of US spaceflight, since it will allow NASA to stop relying on Russian launch systems to get astronauts into space. It will probably also make the two astronauts the first to ever fly a commercial spacecraft.
“Bob and I were lucky enough to be selected together,” Hurley told The Atlantic in September. “As we get closer to launch, things in the last year have actually been pretty hectic. We’ve been spending increasing amounts of time in California, because that’s where most of the work is being done for Dragon.”
In preparation, they have run through emergency procedures, undergone extensive training the Crew Dragon’s mechanisms, worn their new spacesuits, and met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Aurora Station plans to become the first hotel in space. But how likely is it we’ll be able to holiday in orbit around the Earth?
It was intended to set the travel world on fire: Aurora Station, the world’s first in-orbit hotel. The official announcement took place last April during the Space 2.0 Conference in San Jose, California. Housed aboard a structure about the size of a large private jet, guests would soar 200 miles above the Earth’s surface, enjoying epic views of the planet and the northern and southern lights.
A jaunt won’t be cheap: the 12-day-journey aboard Aurora Station, scheduled to be in orbit by 2022, starts at a cool $9.5m (£7.3m) per person. Nevertheless, the company says the waiting list is booked nearly seven months ahead.
“Part of our experience is to give people the taste of the life of a professional astronaut,” says Frank Bunger, founder and chief executive officer of Orion Span, the firm which is behind Aurora Station. “But we expect most guests will be looking out the window, calling everyone they know, and should guests get bored, we have what we call the ‘holodeck,’ a virtual reality experience. In it you can do anything you want; you can float in space, you can walk on the Moon, you can play golf.”
Continue reading… “Would you want to stay in a space hotel?”
The bacteria were brought to the space station accidentally on tablet PCs together with various materials that are placed aboard the ISS for long time to study the materials’ behavior in outer space
Continue reading… “Scientists find living bacteria from outer space on ISS surface”
The Silicon Valley startup, Made in Space made the 3D printer that’s been installed on the International Space Station. After four months, the printer has finished its first round of objects.
Continue reading… “Made in Space finishes first round of 3D printing on International Space Station”
Cosmonauts found traces of sea plankton and microscopic particles on outside of ISS.
ITAR-TASS, a Russian press agency, is reporting something so surprising that it’s hard to believe: Cosmonauts have found microorganisms on the exterior of the International Space Station. Russian scientists are shocked by this discovery and can’t really explain how it is possible.
Continue reading… “Cosmonauts find sea plankton on outside of International Space Station”
Astronaut/scientist Don Petit conducts experiments in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station to demonstrate physics on video…
Continue reading… “Water drops orbiting a knitting needle”
On December 21, 2011, International Space Station Commander Dan Burbank captured the spectacular sight of Comet Lovejoy as seen from 240 miles above the Earth.
Continue reading… “Comet Lovejoy, as seen from space”
This weekend NASA published an awesome time-lapse flyby of planet Earth taken from the International Space Station. Awesome, but jerky—until now. Someone interpolated the original frames to achieve this smooth as silk motion film. It’ll leave you stupefied…
Continue reading… “This fluid fly-by video shows astonishing view of Earth”
International Space Station
It’s never happened, and NASA feels confident that it never will. For one thing, astronauts generally don’t float free. Outside the ISS, they’re always attached to the spacecraft with a braided steel tether, which has a tensile strength of 1,100 pounds. If it’s a two-person spacewalk, oftentimes the astronauts are also hooked to each other.
Continue reading… “How Would NASA Rescue an Astronaut Who Floated Away From the ISS”
Sexual intercourse not allowed on the International Space Station.
Commanders do not allow sexual intercourse on the International Space Station, it has been disclosed. “We are a group of professionals,” said Alan Poindexter, a NASA commander, during a visit to Tokyo, when asked about the consequences if astronauts boldly went where no others have been.
