Orbital Spacecraft
Satellites, shuttles and space stations
The Mojave Launch Lab
A community of alternative rocketeers who may one day dominate the space biz.
May 2011 |
By Stephen Joiner
Assembly (Nearly) Complete
NASA's space station manager looks back with satisfaction at one of history's greatest construction projects.
May 2011 |
By Paul Hoversten
How Things Work: Soyuz-Station Docking
In orbit, it’s all about connections.
March 2011 |
By Michael Klesius
Meet the Orbiters
A fleet of winged spacecraft, the likes of which we'll never see again.
March 01, 2011 |
By Michael Klesius
Astronaut Stories: The World’s First Spaceplane
Shuttle crews from the 1980s recall how their new vehicle took some getting used to.
February 28, 2011 |
By The Editors
Shuttle Home Movies
Highlights from 30 years of astronaut videos, filmed on location in Earth orbit.
February 28, 2011 |
By The Editors
Life As We Didn't Know It
Score another one for the extremophiles.Biologists had already discovered organisms that can survive everything from high levels of radiation to vacuum to total darkness. Now they've found one that uses arsenic as a substitute for phosphorus, one of the six elements (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxy...
December 02, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Three Million Miles in Ten Days
Floating off to sleep, Earthgazing, making sure the capsule doesn't depressurize: all standard on a space vacation.
October 22, 2010 |
By Gregory Olsen
SETI @ 50: Are We Getting Anywhere?
Most people date the modern Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to Frank Drake's Project Ozma, conducted in 1960 using the giant dish at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.Today through Wednesday, at an NRAO workshop, SETI-ologists will review where th...
September 13, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Aliens Confirmed Dead
In researching a reader's letter about "Department of Flying Saucers" in the Sept. 2010 issue, I came across a report on the Web site, UFO Casebook, which claimed that General Omar Bradley had been flown overseas to view alien beings retrieved from a UFO crash site in the Arctic Circle. The report ...
August 31, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
The Truck
Satellites, experiments, space station parts - the space shuttle hauled it all.
August 2010 |
By Paul Hoversten
Roswell, "The Genesis Story of U.S. UFOs"
"It was 58 years ago today that the Roswell incident occurred," said Roger Launius, a National Air and Space Museum Space History curator who could also be considered NASM's chief skeptic. (An earlier talk of his concerned people who refuse to believe the Apollo program landed men on the moon.) Hi...
July 07, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
Sightings: Cause for Reflection
Endeavour lights up the sky—and water—in Florida.
July 2010 |
By The Editors
Evolution of the Space Shuttle
How 30 years changed the world's most complex flying machine.
July 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
IKAROS Unfurled
We had hoped that Japan's IKAROS solar sail would work as advertised, and it did. Here's an animated image of the fully deployed sail, taken by a "separation camera" from a short distance away.In other happenings:
The Hayabusa asteroid sample return capsule came home in spectacular style last wee...
June 17, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Plume Power
The space shuttle's exhaust trail makes for a lovely sight on an April morning.
May 11, 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
