In the early hours of this morning, the tranquility of the remote Gobi desert was shattered by the sound of a brand new spacecraft hurtling towards the sky. The rocket, Shenzhou-8 or “Divine Vessel”, is…
The brand new launch system announced by NASA last week has received wide mainstream media coverage – and why wouldn’t it? It is a plan for a giant rocket, after all. The proposed Space Launch System (SLS…
Malcolm Walter talks space, science and NASA’s future with Dr Greg Chamitoff.
Download the full interview with Dr Chamitoff as a podcast by clicking here. For the latest in our In Conversation series, Malcolm Walter, Professor of Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales…
Solid boosters are recovered following the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2000.
Bruce Weaver/AFP
At approximately 8pm last night (AEST), the Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down at the Kennedy Space Centre for the final time. The 14-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS) was the 135th…
Could Stanley Kubrick’s classic offer direction for the future of space travel?
slagheap
Tomorrow morning (AEST), weather depending, the Space Shuttle Atlantis will blast off from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, marking the end of NASA’s 30-year-old Space Transportation System. But as the…
Has NASA’s 30-year space experiment been worth it?
EPA/NASA TV
All going well, the final Space Shuttle mission will be launched from the Kennedy Space Centre early on Saturday morning (AEST). This flight, being made by the Space Shuttle Atlantis, will be the 135th…
A computer-generated artists impression of the thousands of objects in orbit around Earth.
AFP
Since the launch of the first artificial satellite in 1957 – the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 – countries around the world have been putting satellites and spacecraft into Earth orbit. While the majority of…
Keeping the space shuttle together is a tremendous feat of engineering.
Stan Honda/AFP
The Space Shuttle Endeavour, one of the most complex machines ever created, is about to take its last trip into space. But not just yet. The countdown to Endeavour’s final flight began a few days ago…
How hard can it be getting an object from A to B at great speed?
KARI/HANDOUT
You know, it’s odd being a rocket scientist. The people you meet assume you’re not just smart, but some super-colossal paragon of intelligence with the wits of an atomic lovechild of Albert Einstein and…
It is inevitable that we will one day venture into space beyond the moon not just with robots but in person. Exploration is part of the human psyche: we are risk-takers with an insatiable curiosity. No…