space travel

Testing spacecraft components is no cake walk. It's expensive and can require subjecting them to tremendous amounts of stress and wear and tear, but it's necessary. You can't just blast them up into suborbit and hope they work.

Spacecraft manufacturer XCOR decided to get a little more grounded when it came to testing out components of its new piston pump technology destined for the Lynx Suborbital Spacecraft.

XCOR modified a Triumph motorcycle with propulsion parts and sent it off on a massive road trip from Roswell, N.M., to Mojave, Calif.… Read more

The anniversaries this week of the first man in space and the launch of NASA's first space shuttle missions come at time when commercial spacecraft are ushering in a new era of space flight.

Thursday was the 51st anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute orbit around the Earth, an event that shocked the world and ratcheted up the speed of the Cold War-fed space race.

And 31 years ago on April 12, the space shuttle Columbia lifted off, the inaugural flight of NASA's shuttle program which drew to a close last year.

Astronauts from different countries on the … Read more

Brace yourself, pyromaniacs. Put away all the matches before you watch the below video of SpaceX's new SuperDraco engine spewing flame.

Elon Musk's space exploration company released the video of a successful test-firing of an engine from a test site in McGregor, Texas. The SuperDraco could be used to propel SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft out of Earth's gravitational pull, and Musk claims it will be the safest such system in history and also capable of more accurate landings. As if to prove the point, there are plenty of completely flammable trees in the background of the test-fire site in the video.… Read more

A spaceship isn't much use if it doesn't have the juice to go somewhere. And if you're an astronaut bouncing around destinations like the moon, random asteroids, Lagrange points, and Mars, you'll probably need an interstellar gas station.

NASA has launched an "In-Space Cryogenic Propellant Storage and Transfer Demonstration Mission Concept (PDF)" study, which is essentially a call for scientific institutions around the globe to help create a space gas station. Those wishing to build a fueling stop in the sky have until May 23 to submit their proposals.

Cryogenic propellants used in rocket engines are usually made of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Both liquids reside in enormous insulated containers and are pumped through an expansion chamber, then mixed and ignited in the combustion chamber. The result is an incredible amount of power per gallon of cryogenic proellant, up to 40 percent higher than other rocket fuels.

However, there are many challenges to creating a gas station in the stars. The primary objectives of the study are to address key elements including a fail-safe way to transfer the propellants from a storage container to a ship. The difficulty is high since hydrogen tends to leak (it's the smallest element), and can eventually deteriorate the container it's stored in. … Read more

Somehow, with all the strange, otherworldly people standing for office in American elections Tuesday, one ballot measure has not received quite the enormous importance that it deserves.

No, I am not thinking of Proposition 19 in California, the one supported by significant members of the tech world, the one that hopes to legalize the sale of marijuana.

This ballot measure, addressed to voters in Denver, is called Initiative 300 and it is adorned by perhaps the most ridiculous question ever asked in a political campaign: "Are you ready for the truth?" The truth that proponents of this measure … Read more

Is all this space travel worthwhile? Will it really contribute to our civilization or our touchingly naive way of life? Will it even lift our spirits?

I cannot be sure about the first two, as I feel these might be permanently floating somewhere out there. But I have some space-sourced spirit lifting to share.

Japan's Sapporo Breweries, the entity that brings you those large silver tins of beer to complement your rainbow roll, announced this week that it is launching space beer.

According to Reuters, Sapporo "Space Barley", with its cute outer-space sparkling starred label, has been … Read more

Perhaps space travel has become old. Perhaps people have come to take it for granted. It's been seen in so many movies. So many space shuttles have taken off and returned to Earth that we think little more of them than we do of jumbo jets.

NASA therefore has to use its imagination to persuade tomorrow's generations that space travel continues to be a large step for man.

One small step in this process is a new public service annoucnement featuring that fearsome space creature, "The Rock." Dwayne Johnson himself, a man who has appeared in … Read more

Just because there's a recession, it doesn't mean you can't find your dream job. So allow me to direct your boundless ambition toward an ad on Craigslist's Calgary site.

While many people scour Craigslist to see if Starbucks or Bed, Bath and Beyond might be seeking additions to their cheery teams, the poster of this ad is searching for an altogether more adventurous type, proudly announcing "Astronaut Needed (Northern Alberta)." Is that the cough of a million scoffs I hear? Perhaps. But this is truly an interesting opportunity, to say the least. Just look … Read more

I know science thinks it can do everything.

I know robots will soon be ordering us around like wait staff at the Ritz.

But I am gravely concerned about an experiment that has been going on up there in space.

Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who returned to earth Friday, had been on the International Space Station since March. And, well, I don't know quite how I am to put this, but he didn't change his underwear for a month.

I know what you're thinking. We're both thinking the same thing.

Not even in the the darkest, … Read more