Several spaceflights scheduled over the next few years will take non-astronauts to space. But it’s not certain this privilege will ever extend to anyone beyond the extremely wealthy.
A capsular spacecraft, similar to this, will bring Crew Dragon into space.
3Dsculptor/ Shutterstock
It was funny at the time — but rereading Ben Elton’s 1989 bestselling satirical novel Stark today is profoundly unsettling.
If you went to Mars, you’d need to be able to survive an extremely punishing environment. This picture, taken by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, gives you an idea.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.
I’ve worked with NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Project for 16 years. If you got yourself a ticket to Mars, here’s how I’d advise you to prepare. And by the way, any mistake could kill you.
To get us to Mars and beyond, a team of students from around the world has a plan involving lunar rovers mining ice and a space station between the Earth and the moon.
A rocket carrying the NBN’s Sky Muster II satellite. Perhaps one day Australia might have more direct involvement in space activities.
AAP Image/National Broadband Network
An Australian Space Agency could capitalise on our history working with NASA and the ESA and boost our entry into the expanding commercial space industry.
Is this how space travel will look some day? ‘Sulu, punch it!’
Shutterstock
Some climatologists argue it may be too late to reverse climate change, and it’s just a matter of time before the Earth becomes uninhabitable – if hundreds of years from now. The recent movie Interstellar…
National Transportation Safety Board inspectors with a tail section of SpaceShipTwo.
National Transportation Safety Board/Wikimedia Commons
Last week was a particularly grim one for private space flights. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed in the Mojave Desert, about 150km north of Los Angeles, killing a pilot, Michael Alsbury, and seriously…
A co-pilot on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (seen here in 2010) died after the spacecraft crashed in the Mojave desert.
EPA/Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic
Tragically, the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipTwo crashed in the Mojave desert during a test flight on Friday, killing one pilot and injuring another. It is not clear what went wrong, and the coming…
With private space missions just around the corner, we need to think about keeping important lunar sites safe.
Cultsofhteshadow/Flickr
Who will preserve the first lunar landing site at Tranquility Base for future generations? It seems an odd question given the fact that this extraordinary archaeological site was created on July 21, 1969…
Boeing’s CST-100 selected as a passenger spacecraft.
Boeing
After a four-year competition, NASA has announced it has selected Boeing and SpaceX to take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The contract - worth US$6.8 billion - was announced as part…
Humanity is standing on the cusp of a huge technological leap. Commercial space flight could place something that has been the preserve of a chosen few (around 500 people) who’ve completed years of gruelling…
US tycoon and first space tourist Dennis Tito revealed plans on 27 February, 2013, to send a couple to Mars in 2018.
Sergei Chirikov/EPA
US millionaire, former rocket scientist and the world’s first private space tourist, Dennis Tito, has announced that he will be sending a couple on a round trip to Mars. And this isn’t the only trip into…
ARC Laureate Fellow and Winthrop Research Professor at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, UWA., The University of Western Australia