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Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies (USNC-Tech) has developed a concept for a new Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engine and delivered it to NASA. Claimed to be safer and more reliable than previous NTP designs and with far greater efficiency than a chemical rocket, the concept could help realize the goal of using nuclear propulsion to revolutionize deep space travel, reducing Earth-Mars travel time to just three months. Because chemical rockets are already near their theoretical limits and electric space propulsion systems have such low thrust, rocket engineers continue to seek ways to build more efficient, more powerful engines using some...

Two days after touching down on asteroid Bennu, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission team received on Thursday, Oct. 22, images that confirm the spacecraft has collected more than enough material to meet one of its main mission requirements -- acquiring at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of the asteroid's surface material.

"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," stated Astronaut Neil Armstrong, JULY 20, 1969, as he became the f irst man to walk on the moon, almost 238,900 miles away from the Earth. The second man on the moon was Colonel Buzz Aldrin, who described it as "magnificent desolation." Aldrin earned a Ph.D. from M.I.T. and helped develop the technology necessary for the mission, especially the complicated lunar module rendezvous with the command module. Buzz Aldrin's popularity was the inspiration for the character "Buzz Lightyear" in Pixar's animated movie Toy Story (1995). Buzz Aldrin shared a...

Today, our Nation celebrates the essential role that American space exploration plays in the history and character of our country.  We honor our brave astronauts and space industry professionals—both past and present—and we pledge to continue to lead the world in pioneering deeper into space, the stars, and beyond.This year’s observation of Space Exploration Day comes as we commence a new era of human space exploration.  Following a nine-year hiatus, American astronauts once again launched into space from American soil on rockets proudly built by American workers.  Furthermore, SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2 was the first crewed launch of the...

NASA says that astronauts can be exposed to doses of radiation ranging from 50 to 2,000 Milli-Sieverts (mSv). Researchers already know that melanin has potential to protect astronauts from radiation. But there are different types of melanins. The one being tested on the ISS is actually a composite of fungal melanin and polymers. The lead researcher on that work is Radamés J.B. Cordero from Johns Hopkins. But this new research is going in a slightly different direction, by looking at melanin enriched with selenium. Selenium has an interesting relationship with light, and is used as a pigment, in glassmaking, in...

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has been attached to the top of the rocket that will send it toward the Red Planet this summer. Encased in the nose cone that will protect it during launch, the rover and the rest of the Mars 2020 spacecraft – the aeroshell, cruise stage, and descent stage – were affixed to a United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster on Tuesday, July 7, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Central Florida. The process began when a 60-ton hoist on the roof of the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 lifted the nose cone,...

NASA is about to take to the air on another planet. As part of its next mission to Mars, leaving Earth this summer, the space agency will attempt to do something that has never been done before: fly a helicopter through the rarefied atmosphere of Mars. If it works, the small helicopter, named Ingenuity, will open a new way for future robotic explorers to get a bird’s-eye view of Mars and other worlds in the solar system. “This is very analogous to the Wright brothers moment, but on another planet,” said MiMi Aung, the project manager of the Mars helicopter...

By harnessing the innovation unleashed by the free enterprise system, private space enterprise is ready to explore the next untapped horizon: asteroids. We’re going to the moon. We’re going to Mars. And, before you know it, we’ll be going to the asteroid belt.Space is back, baby. It’s back in the news, back in our thoughts, and back in the culture. America, and the world, are better for it.Over the past few years, space exploration has returned to public consciousness in ways not since the first shuttle mission in 1981, or even since Americans landed men on the moon then brought...

VIDEO There was very much of a "2001: A Space Odyssey" vibe when the SpaceX Crew Dragon docked with the International Space Station (ISS). Therefore it just had to be done. Setting that docking event to the tune of the Blue Danube. Welcome to "2020: A Space Odyssey." No Stanley Kubricks were harmed in the making of this video.

NASA and SpaceX launched the first space exploration from American soil in nearly a decade, from the Kennedy Space Center, after the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs were retired under the Obama administration. The latter program was created in hopes of sending Americans to the moon by the year 2020, but President Obama canceled the effort during his first term in office.  Restoring American space exploration was a key campaign goal of President Trump’s, and Saturday’s launch is years in the making. President Trump re-established the National Space Council, created the Space Force as the official sixth branch of...

Crew ingress in progress. Second time is the charm. The hell with bad news. Onward, forward, skyward and spaceward! Godspeed Bob and Dough! And all ya'alls, take the red pill.

Amid the pandemic, the SpaceX launch should inspire us to be risk-takers, trying new things and starting new ventures. We can only achieve great things if we don't let fear dictate how we live our lives. Two American astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, will strap themselves in the Dragon capsule, which sits on top of the Falcon 9 rocket — both built by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX — and depart for the International Space Station on May 27.This extraordinary event embodies much historic significance. The Falcon 9 rocket will be launched from the same launch pad at the Kennedy...

NASA’s top executive concentrating on human spaceflight, Doug Loverro, has resigned just a week before the scheduled start of a milestone space mission. Loverro became NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations last December, and was playing a leading role in NASA’s Artemis moon program as well as preparations for next week’s launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station. That mission, set for liftoff on May 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is due to send NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the station for a stay that could last...

I never have posted an original thread or vanity, but I thought some might be interested in following the mission of Apollo 13 in real time. https://apolloinrealtime.org/13

Perseverance's descent stage was also fueled up last weekend, just before the helicopter integration, NASA officials said. The descent stage is the rocket-powered sky crane that will lower Perseverance onto the Martian dirt via cables in February 2021. Gassing up the crane was no trivial task; the craft's four tanks hold a total of 884 lbs. (401 kilograms) of hydrazine propellant, agency officials said. "The last hundred days before any Mars launch is chock-full of significant milestones," David Gruel, the Mars 2020 assembly, test and launch operations manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a...

BOCA CHICA – An explosion at the SpaceX site in Boca Chica occurred Friday night while testing its Starship SN1. It was posted by LabPadre. It reportedly happened around 10 p.m. According to Valerie Bates, marketing director for the City of Port Isabel, says it was an accidental cryogenic explosion. No injuries were reported and no chemicals were released. Anyone who may have been affected by the explosion is asked to call 956-943-2727.

What happens if the retired space telescope and former spy satellite crash into each other? ______________________________________________________________ Leo Labs, a venture-based company that monitors satellites in Low Earth Orbit, tweeted yesterday that it was tracking two satellites that will come within 15 to 30 meters of each other January 29, just before 6:40 p.m. EST. The two satellites are IRAS, a decommissioned NASA space telescope, and GGSE-4, a US Naval Research Lab intelligence satellite. They're set to sweep past each other in the skies above Pittsburgh at an altitude of about 559 miles above Earth's surface. _____________________________________________________________________ LeoLabs, a company that...

"A study of 11 healthy astronauts onboard the International Space Station for six-month missions has revealed a new risk of long-term spaceflight..." (snip) ..."Reverse flow is really interesting, and we're uncertain if it harmful," Stenger said. "Reverse flow in the jugular vein could be completely harmless as the blood is simply leaving the head via one of the other venous pathways. However, reverse flow implies altered venous pressure dynamics...."

A team of astronomers from NASA’s New Horizons mission has unveiled our best look yet at the far side of Pluto, which went unseen to the spacecraft during its historic July 2015 flyby of the dwarf planet. We have only seen one hemisphere of Pluto in high-resolution because the New Horizons flyby of Pluto lasted just hours, whereas the dwarf planet takes 6.4 Earth days to rotate. Thus as New Horizons flew past, one side of the world was illuminated by the Sun, but the other was shrouded in darkness. However, using images taken by the spacecraft while it was...

Powered by plutonium and drawing 400 watts of power each to run their electronics and heat, the probes still snap photos and send them back to NASA. After 42 years, though, only six of Voyager 2Â’s 10 instruments still work... Ultimately, the team aimed to better understand how to use novel and emerging materials to make chips more computationally efficient. Their efforts to design and simulate a new neuromorphic chip led Yanguas-GilÂ’s to two pivotal breakthroughs. They were able to use filters and weights that impact neural connections in real time, depending on what the system deems important and they...