Lifeboat Foundation

The four Ax-1 astronauts will get to spend about 12 extra hours on the orbiting lab.

The first-ever fully private crewed mission to the International Space Station will get to spend 12 extra hours aboard the orbiting lab.

The four astronauts of Ax-1, a mission organized by Houston company Axiom Space, had been scheduled to depart the station in their SpaceX Dragon capsule at 10:35 a.m. EDT (1435 GMT) on Tuesday (April 19) and splash down off the coast of Florida early Wednesday morning (April 20).

If all goes according to plan, Jessica Watkins will become the first African-American woman to make a prolonged ISS stay.

Elon Musk talks to Chris Anderson, head and curator of the TED media organisation, about the challenges facing humanity in the coming decades – and why we should be more optimistic.

They discuss climate change, clean energy, electric vehicles, the rise of AI and robotics, brain-computer interfaces, self-driving cars, the revolutionary potential of reusable rockets and the forthcoming missions to Mars, as well as the other projects he is working on.

Continue reading “Elon Musk: A future worth getting excited about” »

Axiom-1 is the first all-private mission to the International Space Station, chartered by Axiom Space through SpaceX in the hopes of funding a private space station.

2022 is set to be a major year for the space economy. According to the Space Foundation, 15 new launch vehicles are set to debut this year, more than any other year in space history. Last year, US spaceports had more launches than any year since 1967, and the number is climbing. Meanwhile, employment in the core US space industry employment is at a 10-year high.

The momentum is there for a flourishing space economy that, according to NASA leaders, could in 20 years take public and private missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), with services and infrastructure on the lunar surface and in cislunar space. It’s a fast-growing economy, NASA leaders said at the 37th Space Symposium, that offers promising opportunities for young people who want to get their foot in the door.

The space economy is already a $400 billion industry “and on the way to $1 trillion, and I suspect it’ll get there faster than we think,” James Reuter, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA, said during a panel this week at the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

Musk plans to build a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Here is what you need to know about Musk’s mission.

Continue reading “SpaceX Mars City: Why, when, and how Elon Musk wants to build his ambitious plan” »

A meteor crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2014, but it wasn’t until Harvard scientists researched its velocity and trajectory five years later that they learned it came from outside our solar system.

Spaceship Neptune will start carrying customers to the stratosphere in 2024, if all goes according to plan.

Space Perspective wants its passengers to fly in style.

The Florida-based company is working to send paying customers (as well as research payloads) to the stratosphere aboard its “Spaceship Neptune,” a pressurized capsule that will cruise high above Earth beneath an enormous balloon.