Space

Star gazers and astronomers now have a powerful new tool that will allow them to surf the skies from their desktop. Microsoft unveiled the public beta of its WorldWide Telescope Web application Monday. The software creates an experience that users of all ages will find captivating, said Frank Reddy,...

Ten teams from around the world have signed up to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize, a robotic race to to the moon with a $30 million purse. The basic rules are simple: Teams will compete to be the first to land a privately funded robotic craft on the moon, have it tool around on the surface for ...

NASA launch crews were making final preparations Monday for this week's launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, which will install the European Columbus science laboratory on the international space station. Mission STS-122 is slated to lift off at 4:31 p.m. EST this Thursday from Launch Pad 39A at NA...

WEEKEND FEATURE

NASA’s Foam Quandary, Part 2: No Easy Solutions

Before the space shuttle Columbia's disastrous mission in 2003, NASA did not fully recognize the safety risk posed by the shuttle's protective foam. Following that tragedy, however, NASA buckled down and set to work, trying to come up with solutions. "As soon as NASA saw the foam as a safety problem...

WEEKEND FEATURE

NASA’s Foam Quandary, Part 1: Anatomy of a Disaster

As the world watched the progress of the space shuttle Endeavour's mission to the international space station and back last month, it was hard not to suffer from flashbacks to past space disasters. The presence of Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, for one, evoked memories of the 1986 space shuttle ...

When NASA sends astronauts back to the moon, they will likely have pressurized rovers to drive and large-capacity habitation modules to live in, NASA officials reportedly said Thursday. Speaking at the Space 2007 Conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Long Beach, Cal...

DigitalGlobe successfully launched a sophisticated new satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Tuesday. The satellite, WorldView-1, has the potential to provide a raft of new imagery for geographical databases such as Google Earth. The company launched WorldView-1 -- which it says is ...

Less than a month after it launched Sky in Google Earth with astronomical images from around the universe, Google announced on Thursday that it is taking its space fascination a step further by sponsoring a contest to fly to the moon. Offered in partnership with the X Prize Foundation, best known fo...

Google Earth turned its gaze upward Wednesday with the debut of a new feature that allows users to view the best images of the sky captured by astronomers around the globe. Called "Sky," the new feature lets Google Earth users view and navigate through 200 million galaxies. The images presented are ...

Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan, the teacher-turned-astronaut who is embarking her first space flight Wednesday, is capturing much of the world's attention as the space shuttle Endeavour is readied for launch. Morgan served as the backup to Christa McAuliffe under the NASA Teacher in Space program...

Computers aboard the international space station are up and running once again, thanks to the efforts of flight controllers over the weekend, so the Space Shuttle Atlantis received the green light from mission managers to undock from the space station on Tuesday morning. Two of three lanes on each o...

After working overnight to try to restore two failed computers aboard the international space station back to full operation, flight controllers have made little progress in identifying or fixing the problem. Operating on the theory that the pair of new solar arrays being installed on the starboard ...

SPACE

Computer Crashes Bedevil ISS

After two critical computers crashed aboard the international space station Wednesday, U.S. and Russian flight controllers have partially restored functioning, but long-term prospects remain uncertain. The crashes occurred Wednesday, while crew members were working to retract a solar array as part o...

At $30 million a ticket for orbital space travel and about $200,000 for suborbital trips, demand can only go so far. Before space tourism can really take off -- so to speak -- prices are going to have to come down, and that may require a new business model. While many early efforts have been single-...

Before orbital travel becomes commonplace, there's another type of suborbital transit that will likely help fuel the orbital market while fulfilling a critical need in its own right. It's called "point-to-point transportation," and it would use suborbital travel to deliver cargo or people from one p...

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