Feb 1st, 2012 at 4:00PM:
The reality of manned space travel has scientists on limited budgets looking at every angle that might make it happen efficiently. Recently, five aerospace companies contracted with NASA to study the idea of a new propulsion system, designed to turn the sun's rays into electricity for space travel.
NASA hopes the end result is a new propulsion system that will power a reusable "space ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
space travel posts
Space travel to get boost from solar power
Feb 1st, 2012 at 4:00PM:
The reality of manned space travel has scientists on limited budgets looking at every angle that might make it happen efficiently. Recently, five aerospace companies contracted with NASA to study the idea of a new propulsion system, designed to turn the sun's rays into electricity for space travel.
NASA hopes the end result is a new propulsion system that will power a reusable "space ...Training shuttle to be displayed in Seattle's Museum of Flight
Jan 22nd, 2012 at 9:00AM:
It looks like the Space Shuttle, but it isn't. It's made of plywood, for one thing, and it can't fly.
Yet it's a piece of aeronautics history and will soon grace Seattle's Museum of Flight. This training shuttle, more properly called the Full Fuselage Trainer, is a full-scale mockup that astronauts have used for practice since the 1970s. The museum originally hoped to get one of the four ...Discount space travel site launched
Nov 29th, 2011 at 3:30PM: A new website devoted to discount space travel was launched this week and has member-only benefits for joining.
"Space.Travel was created to fill a void in the burgeoning space tourism industry. With passenger space travel becoming a routine activity, outer space needed a destination website just like any other travel location. A one-stop website for all of your space trip planning," says ...NASA is looking for new astronauts!
Nov 19th, 2011 at 9:00AM: Anyone who has ever dreamed of going into space received a glimmer of hope this past week when NASA announced that they were looking for their next class of astronauts. This high profile "help wanted" ad had the dual effect of sending many of us scrambling to update our resumes, while simultaneously regressing to a point in our lives when we actually believed we could still grow-up to be an ...Video of the Day: My Jet Pack
Oct 31st, 2011 at 6:30PM:
We've covered jet packs before here at Gadling. We've looked at water-powered versions, jet packs used for stunts and attempts to bring jet packs to the masses. However, as a viable means of transportation, jet packs still seem to fall a bit short. That said, they are perfectly suited as inspiration for an epic New Wave travel song. While we might have to wait years about we lift our feet off ...
Amazing photographic animation of Cassini's Saturn flyby
Sep 10th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
The Cassini unmanned probe to Saturn has been a resounding success. A joint project between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency, it's been studying the ringed planet since 2004. Cassini has been sending back detailed images of Saturn, its rings, and its moons and expanding our knowledge of the solar system.
Check out this amazing video made up of hundreds of ...
Dirt-Road Driving To Explore Spaceport America
Sep 9th, 2011 at 9:00AM:
In the wilderness of New Mexico, set in the dry, scrubby desert under a crystalline pale blue sky, is a construction site with a bombastic and cartoonish name, incomplete but already a monument to the hubris of interstellar exploration or maybe to tax-payer financed public-private partnerships of indeterminate future success.
Spaceport America, a beautiful collection of Googie-inspired ...Space junk is out of control, scientists say
Sep 2nd, 2011 at 2:00PM: It's a dilemma faced by every adventure traveler: to find the perfect remote spot untouched by modernity, free from cell phones, television, and trash. Of course there is no such place, not even in space. In fact, the orbital detritus of modern life can be downright dangerous, scientists warn.
A new report from the National Research Council says there are so many bits of trash in orbit, ranging ...Russian firm reveals plans for a "space hotel"
Aug 16th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
The newest hotel plans in development are far out ... literally. Russian firm Orbital Technologies revealed plans for a space hotel at a conference in Moscow this week. The hotel has a predicted 2016 opening, the Daily Mail reports.
Initial data suggests that a five day stay will cost around £100,000, not counting transportation costs of £250,000+.
The "hotel" will be "far ...Fifty years ago today: youngest person in space throws up
Aug 6th, 2011 at 10:00AM: Fifty years ago today, Gherman Titov became the second man to go into orbit. The first was Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union on 12 April 1961. Titov was also Soviet, and flew aboard the Vostok-2 mission.
While Gagarin launched into enduring fame and became one of my personal heroes, Titov has been largely forgotten. That's a shame, because his flight included a number of records and advanced our ...What's next for space travel? Maybe a road trip
Jul 23rd, 2011 at 7:00AM: While the space shuttle era officially ended early Thursday morning as Atlantis landed for the last time at Kennedy Space Center, the next chapter in American space flight has yet to be written. One vision of what's next for space travel over the next 20 to 30 years includes an efficient network of refueling stations, communication points and satellites throughout the solar system.
"We're ...Space race brings trip around the Moon by 2015
May 8th, 2011 at 7:00AM:
We've heard of suborbital flights being booked by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, those have been in the works for quite some time. So have various plans for a replacement vehicle for the retiring space shuttles. Now, the news about space travel brings us to the Moon with a flight around the moon available coming up as soon as 2015 says one company already in the business.
Space ...Forgotten space pioneer: 50th anniversary Alan Shepard's historic flight
May 5th, 2011 at 9:30AM: Fifty years ago today Alan B. Shepard Jr., became the first American in space when he flew in the Freedom 7 mission. He got 116.5 miles up and his flight lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds. He made history, but has been generally forgotten.
Why? Because he was the second man in space. Yuri Gagarin made it into space 23 days earlier and won the second round of the US-Soviet space race. The Soviets ...Space shuttle workers may have short trip to new jobs
Apr 24th, 2011 at 4:00PM:
When the U.S. space shuttle program finally shuts down and the final launch is complete, space workers are going to need a job and they may not have to travel far to find one. Some may end up working in a related field, maybe building the next generation of flight vehicles with a private contractor. But for many workers at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, the future had been uncertain at best ...Orion spacecraft key to future space travel
Mar 23rd, 2011 at 11:00AM:
Lockheed Martin's Orion space craft, designed to take astronauts to the moon, may first be used as an emergency escape vehicle for the international space station. By 2016, NASA wants to run multiple, deep-space missions to the moon and much farther destinations, making the Orion spacecraft key to future space travel.
"Orion was designed from inception to fly multiple, deep-space ...TripAlertz wants to send you to outer space ... for free
Mar 15th, 2011 at 5:15PM: TripAlertz, whose launch we covered for you earlier this year, is celebrating their official "grand launch" (what do you call an online grand opening, anyway?) with a chance to win an "Epic Journey into Space"!
You can lift-off with Colonel Rick Searfoss (retired), who is one of only seven astronauts with more than 50 flights in rocket-powered vehicles. The winner can even assign the trip, ...Virgin Galactic signs deal with scientists for space travel
Feb 28th, 2011 at 11:00AM: While NASA's Discovery made its final frontier into space on Friday, Virgin Galactic was inking its own space deal, this time substituting space tourists for scientists.
Southwest Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization, signed a deal with Virgin Galactic to conduct experiments in suborbital space. Two $200,000 tickets aboard the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo will be handed to ...NASA wants hypersonic plane, puts aside $15 million
Nov 5th, 2010 at 1:30PM: If NASA gets its way, layovers will become a thing of the past. It has plans in the works to develop hypersonic jets that would surpass the speed of sound by a factor of five. What's the implication? Well, you get on a plane in New York and get off in Sydney a mere two and a half hours later. That's a cut from the current flight duration of 21 hours, according to The Daily Mail. In addition to ...Space travel destination: Gliese 581g
Oct 1st, 2010 at 5:00PM: Okay, so the name isn't as sexy as "St. Tropez" or "Bora Bora." But, you have to admit that "Gliese 581g" does get your imagination going. Why is this such an inspiring destination? Well, it's the first potentially habitable planet that's been found! You'd actually have a shot at living there. So, as talk of space travel continues to gain momentum – regardless of how much it may remain in ...FAA seeks standards for space travel
Aug 23rd, 2010 at 2:30PM: The Federal Aviation Authority announced its intention to set standards for commercial space travel with the recent creation of the Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation. Based at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, the new center will build a brand new bureaucracy around the barely-there industry of space travel, starting with safety measures for potential passengers and ...
