Science fiction has often had an inspirational and positive relationship with space endeavors. But the new US Space Force is struggling with a pop culture public relations problem.
Future astronauts will visit Mars.
Shutterstock/Vadim Sadovski
Gray mouse lemurs are more closely related to humans than mice. They also have the ability to hibernate, and researchers are hoping to learn how to transfer that ability to humans.
It has been estimated that there will be one surgical emergency every 2.4 years on a mission to Mars.
T. Trapp/BJS Surgery
The distance between the ISS and Earth is the same as about 3,850 football fields. To bring the station down, rockets will lower it a bit, and then gravity will send it crashing the rest of the way.
The astronauts during a dress rehearsal.
NASA/Bill Ingalls/EPA
The International Space Station is the biggest human made structure in space and the third brightest object in the sky. But the living conditions for the six astronauts on it are quite cramped.
Outside Earth’s protective atmosphere, there is nothing to shield astronauts from the dangerous cosmic radiation of space.
NASA
In the future we might get sick of hearing people tell their stories about going to the Moon. Perhaps the Moon will just be like thinking about today’s Antarctica – a remote but accessible place.