Collaborate Disseminate
The billionaire hotelier announced the formation of a new space company today, and why he thinks NASA and China are the biggest threats to LEO commercial space stations. Continue reading Bigelow’s New Company Wants to Build a Space Station to Compete with China
A proposal to cut federal support for the ISS in the 2020s amplifies the wider debate over the interplay between the public and private space spheres. Continue reading Trump’s Plan to Privatize the ISS Exposes Rifts in Spaceflight Community
When you think about space stations, which ones come to mind first? You might think Skylab, the International Space Station (ISS), or maybe Russia’s Mir. But before any of those took to the heavens, there was Salyut.
Russia’s Salyut 1 was humankind’s first space station. The ensuing Salyut program lasted fifteen years, from 1971 to 1986, and the lessons learned from this remarkable series of experiments are still in use today in the International Space Station (ISS). The program was so successful at a time when the US manned space program was dormant that one could say that the Russians …read more
Continue reading Salyut: How We Learned To Make Space Stations
When you think about space stations, which ones come to mind first? You might think Skylab, the International Space Station (ISS), or maybe Russia’s Mir. But before any of those took to the heavens, there was Salyut.
Russia’s Salyut 1 was humankind’s first space station. The ensuing Salyut program lasted fifteen years, from 1971 to 1986, and the lessons learned from this remarkable series of experiments are still in use today in the International Space Station (ISS). The program was so successful at a time when the US manned space program was dormant that one could say that the Russians …read more
Continue reading Salyut: How We Learned To Make Space Stations
Orbital commutes made easy. Continue reading Russian Scientists Have Been Trying to Make a ‘Space Motorcycle’ for Decades
On February 1st, 2003 at eighteen seconds past 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up during atmospheric entry over Texas. Still traveling at approximately Mach 18.3, the disintegration of Columbia was complete and nearly instantaneous. According to the official accident investigation, the crew had at most one minute from realizing they were in a desperate situation to complete destruction of the spacecraft. Due to the design of the Space Shuttle, no contingency plan or emergency procedure could have saved the crew at this point in the mission: all seven crew members were lost in this tragedy. …read more
Continue reading The Hard-Learned Lessons of the Columbia Disaster
Alia Almansoori won a competition to have her experiment sent to the International Space Station, but she’s not capping her ambitions at low Earth orbit. Continue reading The Teenager Who Sent An Experiment to Space and Dreams of Visiting Mars
“Just as on Earth, our feelings about Thanksgiving in space weren’t determined by the quality or the appearance of the meal—but by the people we shared it with.” Continue reading Happy Space Thanksgiving: How the Food-Stuffed Holiday Went Orbital
“I think the appropriate reaction is ‘mild curiosity’ rather than ‘worry.'” Continue reading This Strange Sensor Russia Sent to the ISS Is Baffling US Military Experts
“We are planning to try to get our yeast to the International Space Station in next couple of years.” Continue reading Yeast Can Be Engineered to Turn Astronaut Pee Into Spaceflight Materials