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Topic: Manned Space Flight

  

Undead Tech: Space Tourism

Recently, Virgin mogul Richard Branson unveiled the SpaceShipTwo, the world's first commercial space-plane. With three bodies, five hybrid rocket engines, and (apparently) zero room for spaces in its title, the SpaceShipTwo will ...READ MORE

The Race for Space

Kudos to the team behind SpaceShipOne, the first private-enterprise manned rocket to make it to the boundary of Earth's atmosphere and outer space. Whether the three-seat rocket and its backers, who include Paul Allen, will qualify ...READ MORE

Moon Men to Obama: Your NASA Plans Suck Asteroids

Not everyone's pleased with NASA's future, as defined by the Obama-led new fiscal plans for the space agency...and three particularly significant chaps would just assume tell him to shove it up Uranus. They're names are Armstrong, ...READ MORE

NASA Gets a $6 Billion Booster for Mars and Beyond

  Find hope in this, NASA, science and Mars fans: President Obama's new stance on NASA's funding will likely pump no less than $6 billion into the agency to create a new heavy rocket sooner than we'd hoped. Mars is its ...READ MORE

Fish on Friday: 'I want to get some stardust on me'

Next Wednesday, if everything goes according to plan, NASA will launch a teacher into space. Not just any teacher: the woman who was the backup for Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher headed for space, who was killed in the ...READ MORE

Desirable Rumor: The Space Shuttle May Still Have a Future

Here's a tantalizing but hugely exciting rumor for human spaceflight geeks: NASA and the government are rumored to be talking quietly about extending the Shuttle's technology into the future.The news has popped up on Spaceref.com as a ...READ MORE

Space Shuttle: No iPad, but Still Awesome

Just a few hours ago NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery sprang from its launch pad on legs of fire, bound for space--for the very final time at night. It's a mark of the end of an era in space discovery...and it'll sadly go unnoticed by ...READ MORE

Han Solo and Chewbacca Consult on International Space Station Observation Deck

NASA astronauts, spacewalking outside the International Space Station, have just finished installing what's likely to be the best viewing platform ever: A multi-windowed observation deck that offers Earth views from low Earth orbit. ...READ MORE

China Plans Its Own Space Station, Starting Next Year

That China has plans for a space station is not much of a surprise--the nation's space tech has been steadily advancing since its first satellite Dong Fang Hong 1 launched in 1970. But the fact that it's planning to launch the first ...READ MORE

Astronaut Will Upstage Ashton Kutcher by Tweeting from Space

A mission specialist on the space shuttle Atlantis announced this week that he will use Twitter from space during the shuttle's next mission in May. If you're wondering whether NASA has some kind of built-in tweet software on ...READ MORE

Obama Team to Revise NASA Moon-Shot Program, May Delay Shuttle Launches

NASA's plan to replace the Space Shuttle and return astronauts to the Moon and possibly Mars has been controversial right from the start. And now there's a strong hint that the Obama administration will directly intervene and ...READ MORE

The Tools You Need to Fix the Hubble Telescope

Today, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis spacewalked to the Hubble Telescope and kitted it with a new camera. Should everything go right--and so far, the mission has been a success--the Hubble should be good until ...READ MORE

SpaceX Falcon 9 Successfully Launched Into Orbit [video]

Falcon 9 is SpaceX's flagship rocket, and a great leap forward for President Obama's plans to diversify the space industry (video of launch below). The vehicle will help ferry cargo up to the International Space Station in the ...READ MORE

Performance Anxiety

The report from the commission investigating the space shuttle Columbia accident is a classic autopsy of workplace delusion. It's not just that NASA played self-defeating budget and bureaucratic games, management at the space program ...READ MORE

Astronauts Enter Round Two of Ammonia Wrestling in Space

Astronauts will try again Wednesday to fix the cooling system on $100 billion International Space Station. READ MORE

Government Wants Astronauts on Commercial Rides, Orders NASA's New Big Rocket Too

The Science and Technology Chairman written has just written $1.2 billion for commercial rockets for astronauts into a new version of NASA's next funding bill. A new giant Shuttle-derived rocket is also ordered, to be ready within six years.READ MORE

Space Shuttle Winds Down, Project Orion Winds Up

Just two scheduled Space Shuttle flights remain before the most complex machine ever made is grounded, and support companies are now restructuring their staffing levels. Good thing, then, that Orion is on track. The United Space ...READ MORE

First Images From Revamped Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope has always been an amazing machine, but it was recently made even more amazing with some repairs and optical upgrades in daring spacewalks. The first pics are out now, and they're stunning. The HST was ...READ MORE

To The Moon! (In a Minivan)

How NASA and Lockheed Martin are building a successor to the Space Shuttle--using off-the-shelf technology and plain old pragmatism.READ MORE

Virgin Galactic Planetary

Earlier this year, SpaceShipOne, a commercial space flight venture backed by Paul Allen, tried for the skies, aiming to qualify for the Ansari X prize. The team is trying again early tomorrow -- and now they're joined by a leader who ...READ MORE

First Satellite Fender-Bender Shows Why Space Needs a Clean-Up

Tuesday saw a strangely historic event occur--the first accidental collision in space of two orbiting satellites: a 1,200-pound communications satellite in full-working order, and a 1-ton aging Russian satellite that's been presumed ...READ MORE

NASA's First Obama-Enforced Commercial Space Spend Includes Bezos' Blue Origin

We'd heard that the budget trims would force NASA to include commercial space companies in its operating budget, and the agency has wasted no time at all: It's announced a $50 million investment to boost commercial astronaut ...READ MORE

Will NASA Reinvent Its Lunar Rocket Program?

NASA's ambitious design to return humans to the lunar surface has been controversial right from the get-go. It calls for ditching the Space Shuttle entirely and abandoning nearly all of its technology except for the solid rocket ...READ MORE

Exciting Commercial Space Units to Watch: SpaceX and Copenhagen Suborbital

As SpaceX completes safety tests on its potential human space capsule, and a European outfit preps its innovative rocket for a test launch, it's obvious that some of the most exciting space news at the moment is coming from folks other than NASA.READ MORE

The Space Station Race

Two Russian companies have announced plans for a commercial space station to launch in 2015 -- and they already have competition from an American company.READ MORE