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SpaceX's new Crew Dragon capsule may be reserved for astronauts traveling to and from the International Space Station — but now you can take a virtual tour of the vehicle's insides. The company just released interior photos of the spacecraft, as well as a video showing closeups of its control panels and crew seats. The images offer our first glimpse at what the finished Crew Dragon will look like. The photos show an interior that is sleek and smooth, with mostly black and white hardware. It gives off the vibe of a luxury sports car (which makes sense, given CEO...

ULA was formed in 2006 as a 50:50 joint venture between aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing that combined their existing expendable rocket fleet families – the Atlas V and Delta IV – under one roof. According to Reuters, Aerojet Rocketdyne recently proffered a $2 billion cash offer to buy ULA from Lockheed Martin and Boeing. “Aerojet Rocketdyne board member Warren Lichtenstein, the chairman and chief executive of Steel Partners LLC, approached ULA President Tory Bruno and senior Lockheed and Boeing executives about the bid in early August,” sources told Reuters. ULA’s Bruno declined to comment on the story via...

Full Title: Buzz Aldrin developing 'master plan' to begin colonies on Mars by 2040 as he launches partnership with university Buzz Aldrin, 85, is partnering with Florida Institute of Technology. The Buzz Aldrin Space Institute will open in The Fall and focus on Mars Astronaut, the second man to walk on the Moon, has devised plan to get to the red planet using 'cycling pathways' and base on Mars's moon Phobos The second man to walk on the Moon is teaming up with Florida Institute of Technology to develop 'a master plan' for colonizing Mars within 25 years. Buzz Aldrin,...

Senator Hutchison cool to SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch; concerns remain about Obama NASA policy June 5, 8:25 AMHouston Space News ExaminerMark Whittington Falcon 9 Courtesy NASA The near universal acclaim that SpaceX has acquired for the successful launch of the first Falcon 9 is not shared within the United States Congress, which is still skeptical of many aspects of the Obama space plan, which includes reliance on companies like SpaceX for Earth to Low Earth Orbit transportation. The reaction illustrates for all the technical triumph that SpaceX has accomplished with the Falcon 9 launch, it still faces political problems. Typical...

Barry Matsumori, formerly the senior vice president of sales and business development at SpaceX, has joined Virgin Galactic's satellite launch team. With Virgin Galactic, Matsumori holds the title of senior vice president of business development and advanced concepts for LauncherOne, the company's small satellite launch vehicle. Prior to SpaceX, Matsumori held a leadership role at Qualcomm as vice president of wireless connectivity where he was responsible for the development of mobile telecom module products as well as satellite communication infrastructure and terminals. He has held positions at Space Systems Loral (SSL) and General Dynamics, and has experience with early-stage technology...

One day 3D printers will be able to churn out working electronics and fully-functional machines, instead of just plastic parts. And that day is now slightly closer with MIT CSAIL’s MultiFab 3D printer that can use ten different materials to build working devices in a single print run. For 3D printers to fully realize their Star Trek ‘replicator’ potential they can’t just be one part of the manufacturing process, they need to do it all. The holy grail of 3D printing is to one day let anyone recreate any device with a simple button press. We want to be able...

A global robotic arms race "is virtually inevitable" unless a ban is imposed on autonomous weapons, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and 1,000 academics, researchers and public figures have warned. In an open letter presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aries, the Future of Life Institute signatories caution that "starting a military AI arms race is a bad idea, and should be prevented by a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control". Although the letter, first reported by the Guardian, notes that "we believe that AI has great potential to benefit humanity in many...

Transcend Lighting, one of the more unconventional startups accepted into Y Combinator’s latest cohort, is launching out of beta today to bring its energy-saving LED lights to indoor farmers everywhere. Founder Brian Bennett, an optical engineer by training, invented the first Transcend prototype after his father challenged him to build some LED lights for the family farm in upstate New York. When the lights he designed were successful, Bennett entered a business plan competition at Columbia, won some money to continue developing the idea, and was accepted into Y Combinator’s Spring 2015 class. “Farms today, generally speaking, use high pressure...

The problem of limited range has been an important factor curbing the wide-spread adoption of electric cars. But scientists in South Korea have developed a new technology which could solve the problem. The lithium-ion batteries used in most of the current generation of electric cars have limitations. They are expensive and store insufficient power for the needs of many drivers, requiring frequent top-ups. And when they have to be recharged the charging process is time consuming. The technological breakthrough could solve these problems. And in the process, Dr Lu Wu of the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South...

Traveling to the Moon just got a whole lot cheaper. A NASA-funded study (PDF) has found that the cost of lunar missions could be reduced by a factor of 10 using a number of techniques – and it could also have implications for getting humans to Mars. The extensive NexGen Space study by the National Space Society (NSS) and the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) said that partnerships with private companies could return humans to the Moon for $10 billion (£6.4 billion), rather than the previosuly estimated $100 billion (£64 billion) that had turned off potential suitors. Utilizing fuel sourced from...

On June 28, 2015, following a nominal liftoff, Falcon 9 experienced an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight, resulting in loss of mission. This summary represents an initial assessment, but further investigation may reveal more over time. Prior to the mishap, the first stage of the vehicle, including all nine Merlin 1D engines, operated nominally; the first stage actually continued to power through the overpressure event on the second stage for several seconds following the mishap. In addition, the Dragon spacecraft not only survived the second stage event, but also continued to...

Self-repairing pipes. Printed organs. Bulletproof t-shirts. Seriously?In April I was asked to speak at the annual TED conference in Vancouver (following Bill Gates…gulp) on the topic of 3D printing production and its implications. I have detailed my thoughts on why the shift to 3D printing production is not only likely but inevitable in articles one, two and three in this series for Forbes. Now, let’s take a step into a fascinating future, where daily life will be shaped by several powerful forces directly related to 3D printing production. What it will be like to live in a 3D-printed world? Imagine...

As of early Monday morning, founder Elon Musk tweeted, no cause had been determined after ”several thousand engineering-hours” of review, meaning more than 100 engineers were working to investigate the problem. Investigators were using software to recover the "final milliseconds" before the explosion, he tweeted. Officials have said that all nine of the rocket’s engines had fired normally and that the rocket's trajectory was “right on target.” The Dragon capsule, which contained the cargo, was “healthy” and sending data back for “some time” after the incident, officials said. The rocket was about 28 miles above Earth when it broke up....

During recent meetings with Chinese officials, Secretary of State John Kerry agreed to establish a "U.S.-China Civil Space Cooperation Dialogue." A State Department spokesman says the first meeting will be held before the end of October, but could not provide any other details. The lengthy list of "outcomes" from the seventh round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held in Washington, DC June 22-24, 2015, includes a section on cooperation in science, technology and agriculture. Under that heading, the two countries agreed as follows: "101. Space: The United States and China decided to establish regular bilateral government-to-government consultations...

An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket traveling at 2,900 mph, about 27 miles above the earth disintegrated 2 minutes and 19 seconds into its flight from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station. It was a severe blow to NASA, still reeling from two previous failed Space Station resupply missions. The SpaceX failure is a reprieve for Russia’s Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft that will remain the prime Space Station servicer, despite recently renewed US sanctions against Russia. The SpaceX launch, its seventh robotic cargo mission to the International Space Station, was running at what NASA called “on course, on track” before...

SpaceX just failed at its third attempt..

Once again, SpaceX will try to recover a very expensive part of its rocket after launching it into space. If SpaceX succeeds in recovering the first stage of its rocket after its 10:21 a.m. ET launch on Sunday at Florida's Cape Canaveral, it will be a historical achievement. It will push space travel further toward a future in which people, satellites and other items can be inexpensively launched into orbit.

Besides food and experiments, the Dragon cargo ship ordered up by NASA holds a new docking port, or parking place, for future commercial crew capsules. Liftoff is scheduled for 10:21 a.m. Sunday. Good flying weather is forecast for SpaceX's unmanned Falcon rocket. This shipment is especially critical because the space station has lost two deliveries since fall. A Russian supply ship spun out of control shortly after liftoff in April and burned up on re-entry with all its contents. In October, an Orbital Sciences Corp. cargo carrier was destroyed in a Virginia launch explosion. Once again, SpaceX is picking up...

n an op-ed published in Florida Today on Wednesday, Jeff Kottkamp, a former lieutenant governor of Florida, and Rich Ramos, a Florida businessman, proposed a new justification for sending humans to Mars. A Mars program would serve, in their view, as a means to foster national unity of the sort that is rarely achieved outside times of war. Some recent polling data suggests that they may be on to something.