Lifeboat Foundation

Axiom Space, a start-up from Houston, Texas, signed a deal with SpaceX to launch a crew of four private passengers atop a Falcon 9 rocket aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a voyage to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission, known as AX-1, will be the first fully-commercial private passenger mission in history, scheduled to launch during the second half of 2021. “This history-making flight will represent a watershed moment in the march toward universal and routine access to space,” Axiom Chief Executive Officer Michael Suffredini said in a press release earlier this year. “This will be just the first of many missions to ISS to be completely crewed and managed by Axiom Space – a first for a commercial entity. Procuring the transportation marks significant progress toward that goal, and we’re glad to be working with SpaceX in this effort.”

The private passengers will be lead by former NASA Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who has been to space four times; he will be Axiom’s AX-1 Mission Commander. After SpaceX successfully launched four Crew-1 astronauts to the space station this week, Lopez-Alegria shared his excitement to soon ride aboard SpaceX spacecraft. “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be leading the AX-1 crew on the first purely commercial orbital mission in history a little over a year from now — on this very SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. It’s gonna be a Blast!” Lopez-Alegria said.

In Project Apollo, life support was based on carrying pretty much everything that astronauts needed from launch to splashdown. That meant all of the food, air, and fuel. Fuel in particular took up most of the mass that was launched. The enormous three-stage Saturn-V rocket was basically a gigantic container for fuel, and even the Apollo spacecraft that the Saturn carried into space was mostly fuel, because fuel was needed also to return from the Moon. If NASA’s new Orion spacecraft takes astronauts back to the Moon, they’ll also use massive amounts of fuel going back and forth; and the same is true if they journey to a near-Earth asteroid. However, once a lunar base is set up, astronauts will be able use microorganisms carried from Earth to process lunar rock into fuel, along with oxygen. The latter is needed not just for breathing, but also in rocket engines where it mixes with the fuel.

Currently, there are microorganisms available naturally that draw energy from rock and in the process release chemical products that can be used as fuel. However, as with agricultural plants like corn and soy, modifying such organisms can potentially make a biologically-based lunar rock processing much more efficient. Synthetic biology refers to engineering organisms to pump out specific products under specific conditions. For spaceflight applications, organisms can be engineered specifically to live on the Moon, or for that matter on an asteroid, or on Mars, and to synthesize the consumables that humans will need in those environments.

In the case of Mars, a major resource that can be processed by synthetic biology is the atmosphere. While the Martian air is extremely thin, it can be concentrated in a biological reactor. The principal component of the Martian air is carbon dioxide, which can be turned into oxygen, food, and rocket fuel by a variety of organisms that are native to Earth. As with the Moon rocks, however, genetic techniques can make targeted changes to organisms’ capabilities to allow them to do more than simply survive on Mars. They could be made to thrive there.

There is some precedent for international treaties regarding the exploration of other worlds, most-notably the Outer Space Treaty of 1976 or the Artemis Accords. But these amount to little more than non-aggression pacts. The COSPAR convention came closer to what is needed by declaring the inherent hazards to science and terrestrial life that go with exploring other worlds. However, at present, such documents merely recommendations to governments and industry. There are no current means for enforcing the guidelines.

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, talks with Commercial Crew astronauts and the current NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine. The merger between the public and private sectors of the aerospace industry is seen clearly with the partnership between NASA and SpaceX, as it was the first private company to bring American astronauts to the International Space Station.

Why did Russia Abandon a Space Shuttle in the Desert? Some experts believe Russia may have built the most sophisticated space plane to ever fly, but it sat for years lost in the desert after only one launch…

SpaceX and NASA have spent years working towards today’s Crew-1 mission, which is set to launch from Florida at 7:27 PM EST (4:27 PM PST). This is the first time that SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket will be officially used as a spacecraft certified by NASA for human flight on a regular astronaut transportation operation. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, will also be aboard the Dragon spacecraft and, barring any weather delays, on their way to the International Space Station later Sunday night.

SpaceX has already flown people using Dragon – NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley had the honor of being the first humans ever to be launched to the ISS aboard a commercial spacecraft when they took part in SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission earlier this year. That was obviously a historic achievement, but it was also technically the last stage in SpaceX’s test and demonstration program for Dragon and Falcon 9, whereas today’s Crew-1 launch no longer qualifies as a test. Think of it this way: If Demo-2 was akin to the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk flight, Crew-1 will be the equivalent of the first U.S. scheduled commercial airline flight in 1914.

Crew-1 will be the first time that a full complement of astronauts are flown on Dragon (there are six total seats but NASA has said it will only ever fly a max of four of its and partner agency crew to the ISS on these flights). The astronauts will join the existing crew on the ISS for a regular tour of performing experiments, maintaining and upgrading the station, which will also see the active ISS population swell by one additional astronaut for the first time during a standard rotation, which means more science can get done according to the agency.

What happened: A SpaceX spacecraft carrying four astronauts soared into outer space Sunday — marking the kick off of what NASA hopes will be years of the company helping to keep the International Space Station fully staffed.

What’s next: The Crew Dragon is expected to dock with the International Space Station at around 11 pm ET Monday, November 16.

Omo circa 2018.

Humanity has big dreams when it comes to space travel, but our technology isn’t quite there yet. Spacecraft that can take astronauts to Mars and beyond are already in development but some huge questions remain, and one of the biggest issues is food.

Simply packing enough food to last for the entirety of the trip would be terribly inefficient and would leave space travelers in a tight spot if their return is delayed and they somehow run out of things to eat. Growing traditional foods onboard is also a tough sell due to the length of time it would take to grow and harvest it. Now, researchers from Penn State have come up with a novel alternative, and it starts with something astronauts will have no shortage of: poop.

A first look at the out-of-this-world fashion.

Spent rockets are dangerous space trash, but they could be the future of living and working in orbit.