Tag: space travel
DARPA’s New Space Shuttle Getting Closer to Reality
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, is known for conceiving and testing some pretty advanced (read: cool) stuff. One of the projects getting closer to fruition that is drawing considerable attention, both technological as […]
Want to Get Taller? Spend a Year in Space
Astronaut Scott Kelly is now home on U.S. soil after nearly a year in space. His brother, and fellow astronaut, Mark Kelly participated with Scott in a twins experiment where the two will be compared […]
The Secret Space Station
The first space station was the Salyut 1, launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The first U.S. station was Skylab, launched just over two years later. But those were almost upstaged by […]
The Key to Getting to Mars: Balloons
Okay, not balloons, exactly, but the next closest thing: inflatable habitation modules. With existing technology, the planned travel time to Mars is about six months. That’s a lot of time cooped up in a small […]
Antimatter Power: Practical or Not?
Since the 1960s and the first Star Trek episodes, the concept of antimatter as a power source has been in the main stream. How many times did we hear a line including loss of […]
Asteroid Mining a Step Closer
Earlier this week, the reality of asteroid mining came a step closer when President Obama signed into law the Space Act of 2015, which includes in it provisions that allow U.S. companies to mine asteroids […]
Space Elevator: Is it Feasible?
In 1895, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian rocket scientist, proposed using a free standing tower that would be placed on Earth’s equator and rise to the height of 35,800 km, or geosynchronous orbit. Once the tower was […]
Routine Access to Space – Sooner Than We Thought?
In a previous post on launch and reentry, I referenced Reaction Engines and their revolutionary SABRE (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) technology. This engine represents the closest we’ve come to developing true reusable space access. This week, […]
Dangers of Space Travel: Launch and Reentry
Space travel is dangerous – mostly during launch and reentry. Of the four fatal accidents during space flight, one happened during launch (Challenger), and three happened during reentry (Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11 and Columbia). The two […]
3-D Printing: Can it Enable Space Colonization?
You’re a space colonist. You’ve just embarked on a one-year journey to Jupiter’s moon Europa. It’s the adventure of a lifetime, you aspired to this, you trained for it, you got up the nerve to […]
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