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Great views of the continental US at night are at the link. Then choose the size image you want. Note North Dakota!

President Trump raised eyebrows earlier this year when he announced plans to create a “Space Force,” which would become the sixth branch of the military. Vice President Mike Pence later announced in a speech that the branch was needed in order for the US to maintain military dominance in space. The proposed Space Force is estimated to cost $13 billion in its first five years. And despite some snickers among political observers, renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t think the Space Force is that crazy of an idea. But Tyson, one of the authors of “Accessory to War: The Unspoken...

Two astronauts are alive after dramatically aborting their voyage to the International Space Station when their Russian Soyuz rocket malfunctioned while it carried them into orbit at 4,970mph. American Nick Hague and Russian Aleksey Ovchinin were forced to abort their mission on the cusp of space, at an altitude of approximately 50km (164,000ft). They landed safely in Kazakhstan after a 'ballistic re-entry', during which they experienced forces of up to 7G. Video footage from the launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome shows a large plume of smoke coming from the rocket at the moment it failed and footage from inside the...

All rocket launches are spectacular, but SpaceX took things to another level over the weekend. On Sunday night (Oct. 7), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the SAOCOM 1A Earth-observation satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California's Central Coast. And the two-stage booster's first stage landed back at Vandenberg less than 8 minutes after liftoff, pulling off SpaceX's first-ever terra-firma touchdown on California soil. As it rose into the sky, the Falcon 9 spawned a gigantic, gorgeous, glowing cloud that wowed folks throughout the Golden State. The twilight plume had an otherworldly feel, so some observers made a point of stressing the...

NASA is working to resume science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope after the spacecraft entered safe mode on Friday, October 5, shortly after 6:00 p.m. EDT. Hubble’s instruments still are fully operational and are expected to produce excellent science for years to come. Hubble entered safe mode after one of the three gyroscopes (gyros) actively being used to point and steady the telescope failed. Safe mode puts the telescope into a stable configuration until ground control can correct the issue and return the mission to normal operation. Built with multiple redundancies, Hubble had six new gyros installed during Servicing...

The Rosetta spacecraft may have crashed in 2016, but it still has secrets to share. The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released breathtaking images that the craft took in 2014 as it orbited just 16 miles above the surface of Comet 67P. The image was put together by amateur astronomer Jacint Roger Perez using three separate photos taken by Rosetta during the flyby. Comet 67P is approximately 2.7 by 2.5 miles at its longest and widest dimensions, and is made up of 26 unique regions, each named after an Egyptian deity. The photo captures four regions of the comet....

Flight attendants are professionals whose expertise is essential to in-flight safety. Without their help, passengers could jeopardize their health and risk their lives by flying the not-so-friendly skies. For example, passengers would not necessarily know where to find or how to use safety equipment like oxygen masks and flotation devices in case of an emergency... Excellent flight crews make both spaceflight and ordinary airplane flights possible both before and after a spacecraft or an airplane leaves the ground. For example, the Delta Air Lines Flight Attendant Training Center has a 1 percent acceptance rate for new flight attendants. In six...

TOKYO (AP) — A German-French observation device safely landed on an asteroid on Wednesday after a Japanese spacecraft released it as part of a research effort that could find clues about the origin of the solar system, Japanese space officials said. The Japan Space Exploration Agency said the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, was released from the unmanned spacecraft Hayabusa2 and successfully landed on the asteroid Ryugu. The spacecraft went as close as about 50 meters (160 feet) to the asteroid’s surface to release the box-shaped lander.

The head of Russia’s space agency has accused tech billionaire Elon Musk of trying to squeeze Moscow out of the carrier rockets market by lowballing prices for commercial space flights. SpaceX has upended the space industry with its relatively low-cost Falcon 9 rockets. The company has completed more than 50 successful Falcon launches and snagged billions of dollars' worth of contracts, including deals with NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos Federal Space Agency, told state-run television on Monday that Musk sells launches from $40 million to $60 million “to squeeze Russia out...

A 'death comet' will pass earth November 11 about 24million miles away It last showed itself on Halloween 2015 about 302,000 miles away from earth The comet has a human skull face and has been dubbed the Halloween asteroid The comet's next closest visit will occur on November 1, 2088 A 'death comet' will be zipping passed earth just after Halloween this year. The asteroid with a skull-like face will make its second trip near earth in three years after flying a worrisome 302,000 miles from our planet on October 31, 2015. This year, the comet will be a much...

HYDRO, Okla. — It’s apt that a maze cut into an Oklahoma cornfield featuring the likeness of a former NASA astronaut can be seen from space — and has been photographed by a satellite orbiting Earth. The image of Oklahoma-born Thomas P. Stafford is cut into a 10-acre field at P Bar Farms in Hydro, about 60 miles west of Oklahoma City. The maze was created in partnership with the Stafford Air and Space Museum, named for the astronaut, in nearby Weatherford. A satellite photographed the tribute from its orbit 400 miles away.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell speaks to audiences around the world and gets lots of questions. During  at the Air Force Association's annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: "Would SpaceX launch military weapons?" "I've never been asked that question," Shotwell said somewhat surprised. Her response: "If it's for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would." The room packed with Air Force service members and military contractors burst into applause. They seemed impressed that SpaceX is one of the world's coolest companies and also...

Establishing President Donald Trump's sought-after Space Force could cost $12.9 billion over its first five years, according to an Air Force document obtained by CNN. The Air Force estimates that the first year "additive costs" associated with establishing the new military branch in the 2020 fiscal year, including the creation of a headquarters, would amount to $3.32 billion. The document also estimates that the Space Force will oversee some 13,000 personnel when it is officially launched. In a memo accompanying the proposal, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson calls on Congress to authorize and fund the establishment of a Space Force...

It's going to be a big night for space tourism. The private spaceflight company SpaceX will reveal its first passenger for a trip around the moon on the company's massive BFR rocket and you can watch it all live online. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has even dropped tantalizing previews of the BFR's new rocket design on Twitter. SpaceX will unveil its BFR rocket passenger (the name stands for Big Falcon Rocket) in a webcast tonight (Sept. 17) at its Hawthorne, California headquarters. You can watch it live here, courtesy of SpaceX, beginning at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 Sept. 18 GMT)....

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday said his state will launch its own satellite in a bid to combat climate change, following up on a promise he made after the election of President Trump. “We’re going to launch our own satellite — our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is and how we’re going to end it,” Brown told the audience at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. The Golden State will work with San Francisco-based Planet Labs to launch a satellite that would track climate-change-causing pollutants. The company has already launched 150 satellites, Brown...

Reports that a Blackhawk helicopter and federal agents swooped in and inexplicably evacuated a remote part of New Mexico, including a prominent solar observatory, has some corners of the internet predictably atwitter about a possible alien coverup.

Soldiers from a Colorado National Guard space battalion who visited the Pentagon on Sept. 5 said they have no idea what role, if any, they would have in the Space Force that President Trump has proposed. But they did provide a glimpse into the daily grind of space warfare. When they are called up for duty, soldiers from the 117th Space Battalion go to war zones to help commanders on the ground get what they need from space: satellite imagery, weather analysis, early warning of a missile launch, communications and navigation. A space team includes six soldiers — two officers...

When American astronaut Neil Armstrong, a devout Christian, visited Israel after his trip to the moon, he was taken on a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem by Israeli archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov. When they got to the Hulda Gate, which is at the top of the stairs leading to the Temple Mount, Armstrong asked Ben-Dov whether Jesus had stepped anywhere around there. “I told him, ‘Look, Jesus was a Jew,'” recalled Ben-Dov. “These are the steps that lead to the Temple, so he must have walked here many times.” Armstrong then asked if these were the original steps, and...

Buzz Aldrin appeared to criticize Neil Armstrong biopic First Man for leaving out the planting of the American flag on the Moon. The 88-year-old, who was the second man to set foot on the Moon, on Sunday tweeted a picture of the flag planted after their landing in 1969. He captioned the photo: 'Proud to be an American.' Aldrin also re-tweeted a photo of him saluting next to the same picture. It is an apparent dig at Oscar-winning director Damian Chazelle's decision not to include the planting of the flag on the Moon at the end of his critically acclaimed...

by Jeff Foust — August 30, 2018 Soyuz MS-09 The ISS crew traced the leak to a small hole in the orbital module, the top section of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft. Credit: NASA WASHINGTON — As the crew of the International Space Station worked Aug. 30 to fix, at least temporarily, a minor air leak, the incident illustrated the growing orbital debris risk to the outpost and strains in American and Russian approaches to ISS operations. NASA, in a statement early Aug. 30, said that controllers first noticed a minor drop in air pressure within the station at around 7...