At this point, the space policy positions being taken by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are probably a great deal more relevant for the long term future of human space exploration than those offered by the U.S. presidential candidates, but for what it is worth, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have op/eds in Space […]
On Sunday, China launched a two person crew to its newly orbited Tiangong-2 space station. The launch, labelled Shenzhou-11, took place aboard a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the Gobi desert, lifting off at 7:30 PM EDT, which was 7:30 AM local. The crew of the Shenzhou-11 carrier […]
Coming right on the heels of the announcement by Moon Express that it has received clearance for a historic first commercial trip to the Moon, Deep Space Industries is officially announcing plans to send the first private mission to an asteroid. Notably, while the company’s long term goal is asteroid mining, its first mission […]
NASA has chosen six companies for further evaluation of potential deep space habitat modules as part of the agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships initiative. The selected companies are: Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas Boeing of Pasadena, Texas Lockheed Martin of Denver Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Space Systems of Louisville, […]
Yesterday, Google Lunar X Prize competitor Moon Express announced that it has received approval for what will be the first purely commercial mission to go beyond Earth’s immediate orbit. If all goes according to plan, and that is a pretty big if considering the variables involved, ME’s MX-1 lander will launch out of New Zealand […]
One of the very best things about the NewSpace age is the fact that it is no longer necessary, or at times even useful, to listen patiently for a call to action from a State of the Union Address, or from a candidate or party platform to engage the United States in human space exploration […]
What a week in space. It began of course, with SpaceX launching a Dragon spacecraft to ISS for the 9th time, and landing a Falcon 9 first stage at Cape Canaveral for only the second time. It also featured a speech and curious non-endorsement by former astronaut and first female Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins at […]
Space is rarely an important topic during most presidential election, but at least this year it is being mentioned. Former astronaut Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission is scheduled to speak on Wednesday evening. It will be interesting to see if her comments match the tone towards public/private partnerships the […]
One of the more noticeable themes in planetary science over the last few years has been the discovery that our solar solar system, and presumably many others as well, is a very wet place, brimming with water, ice and snow in some of the most unexpected locations, such as possible subsurface ocean on Pluto. But […]
Its not warp drives or jump gates, but a form of in-space propulsion many regard as just as improbable, the EM Drive, is managing to remain in the news. Billed as possibly reducing travel times to Mars in half, the EM Drive holds the potential to change how we view access to the rest of […]
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