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The idea was that China's regime, given a stake in the existing system, would then defend it... By now, however, that bet looks like a mistake history will remember. For as the Communist Party grew stronger, it did not align itself with its Western supporters. On the contrary, it came to believe it could avenge centuries-old grievances and remake the world in its own image. The West's generous approach created the one thing it had hoped to avoid: an aggressive state redrawing its borders by force, attacking liberal values around the world, and undermining institutions at the heart of the...

Left to right, NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, G. Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor J. Glover Jr., and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will be taking part in the Artemis II mission. Photo courtesy of NASA April 3 (UPI) -- NASA officials Monday revealed the four names that will make up a team astronauts from the United States and Canada that will journey around the moon next year as part of the first crewed flight of the Artemis mission. The four include a woman and a person of color, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency confirmed during the joint...

A newly proposed propulsion system could theoretically beam a heavy spacecraft to outside the confines of our Solar System in less than 5 years – a feat that took the historic Voyager 1 probe 35 years to achieve.The concept, known as 'pellet-beam' propulsion, was awarded an early-stage US$175,000 NASA grant for further development earlier this year.To be clear, the concept currently doesn't exist much beyond calculations on paper, so we can't get too excited just yet.Still, it's attracted attention not only because of its potential to get us into interstellar space within a human lifetime – something that traditional, chemical-fueled...

SpinLaunch, which is building an alternative method of launching spacecraft to orbit, last month conducted its first test flight of a prototype in New Mexico...The company is developing a launch system that uses kinetic energy as its primary method to get off the ground – with a vacuum-sealed centrifuge spinning the rocket at several times the speed of sound before releasing...The SpinLaunch design for its orbital vehicle would be able to carry about 200 kilograms of payload to orbit, equivalent to a few small satellites.

Oregon Democrat Rep. Earl Blumenauer said 'space travel isn’t a tax-free holiday for the wealthy'As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launched into space on Tuesday aboard a Blue Origin rocket, and back on Earth, a Democratic lawmaker announced a measure to tax commercial spaceflight.Oregon Democrat Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, on Tuesday introduced what he is calling the Securing Protections Against Carbon Emissions (SPACE) Tax Act, which would create excise taxes on commercial space flights carrying human passengers for purposes other than scientific research."Space travel isn’t a tax free holiday for the...

China aims to achieve orbiting, landing, and roving on the Red Planet in a single mission. The country has already successfully entered into the orbit of Mars when it reached the Red Planet in February. If China successfully lands its spacecraft on the surface, it will become only the third country to land a rover on another planet after the United States and Russia. China's Mars orbiter is carrying seven scientific payloads, while the rover is equipped with six instruments to explore the Red Planet. CNSA, which is one of the most tight-lipped space agencies, recently released the name of...

SpaceX just completed another milestone in Crew Dragon’s historic journey. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have successfully docked the capsule with the International Space Station just under 19 hours after launch from Cape Canaveral. The largely automated process was uneventful. The crew tested manual operation at one point, which they said behaved much like the simulator. Don’t expect a hasty return after this. Behnken and Hurley are expected to spend weeks aboard the ISS before returning to Earth. The capsule’s solar arrays are only rated for 119 days in space, so it will have to return by the fall...

Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida3:47 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you very much.  I just want to say this is a very exciting day for our country.  We have been at this long and hard for three and a half years.I want to thank Elon for — who’s been a friend of mine for a very long time, somebody I have great respect for.  But this is 24/7 for you.  You’re always thinking about this.  You’re thinking about other things, too; you have plenty to think about.  But this has been your baby.MR. MUSK:  This is the top...

While the moon is the main goal of NASA's Artemis program, the agency's larger goal is to send crewed missions to Mars. But long-term space travel and habitation won't be easy. Such missions will present both physical and mental challenges as astronauts work to not only survive, but perform important scientific research in uniquely difficult environments. In the upcoming NASA-Russia experiment, which builds on a previous four-month-long study from 2019, a crew will live in isolation in a closed facility at Russia's Institute for Biomedical Problems, which is in Moscow, NASA officials said in a statement. This habitat facility was...

ORLANDO, Fla., May 1 (UPI) -- The duration of SpaceX's first mission with astronauts on board -- planned to launch at May 27 from Florida -- has been extended from a few days to potentially weeks aboard the International Space Station, NASA said Friday. The mission was lengthened to ensure that the crew -- astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley -- can help maintain and operate the space station, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. "Among the work that will await their arrival is upgrading the space station's power system with new batteries due to arrive in May,"...

The first flight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil in nearly nine years finally has a launch date: May 27. The mission will launch astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in a final test flight for NASA. The mission, Demo-2, will mark NASA's first crew launch from American soil since the agency's space shuttle fleet retired in July 2011. Liftoff is set for 4:32 p.m. EDT (2032 GMT) from historic Launch Pad 39A, the same site used for NASA's Apollo and shuttle missions.

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...

Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. She was 101. Johnson died Monday of natural causes at a retirement community in Newport News, Virginia, family attorney Donyale Y. H. Reavis told The Associated Press. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that Johnson “helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color.” Johnson was one of...

"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...."

NASA seeking proposals for human-rated lunar lander systems Derek Richardson February 9th, 2019 An artist’s illustration of a completed lunar Gateway flying around the Moon with a commercially-developed lunar lander. Image Credit: NASAWith SLS and Orion in the latter stages of development, NASA wants to work with industry to develop a human-rated lunar lander by the mid-to-late 2020s.NASA is working to return astronauts to the Moon under Space Policy Directive-1. In order to do that sustainably, the agency announced plans on Dec. 13, 2018, to work with U.S. companies to develop systems to land on the lunar surface. A formal...

Opinions at odds over President Donald Trump's directive to creative a unique military branch to cover outer space have spilled over into retired astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Mark Kelly are of completely opposite minds on the matter Aldrin tweeted on Friday calling the move, 'one giant leap in the right direction' But Kelly wrote that it was redundant in June, even saying it was 'a dumb idea' Military officials have agreed that space is a 'warfighting domain' where we need to better protect ourselves from enemy threats originating from Earth But they argue the Air Force, which has had domain...

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Throughout our history, America has been shaped by entrepreneurial risk takers who were focused on innovation – and on doing and making things better and cheaper. Along the way, government has traditionally helped by not getting in the way of the inventors and entrepreneurs – and making sure they had a fair commercial playing field to try out their ideas. This is one reason why the rise of Bernie Sanders-style socialism is alarming – it is the opposite of historic American inventiveness, creativity and progress. Today this tradition of aggressive entrepreneurs is taking on new life in working to get...

The current state of this technology is really promising. They use a technique called therapeutic hypothermia, which lowers the temperature of a person by a few degrees...With the lowered temperature, a human’s metabolism decreases and they fall unconscious into a torpor. ... A few years ago, SpaceWorks Enterprises delivered a report to NASA on how they could use this therapeutic hypothermia for long duration spaceflight within the Solar System. Currently, a trip to Mars takes about 6-9 months. And during that time, the human passengers are going to be using up precious air, water and food. But in this torpor...

According to current plans, a crewed mission, EM-2, would not be launched until several years later under the NASA timeline — certainly not during Trump's current term. That crewed mission would also orbit the moon. But on Wednesday, NASA's acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, sent a letter to employees saying he'd instructed the top NASA official for human spaceflight, associate administrator William Gerstenmaier, to explore the feasibility of adding astronauts to the EM-1 flight.