astronauts

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Russia Plans Moonwalk by 2030

Leaked documents reveal deadline

(Newser) - Russia will finally send a human to the moon. At least it's planning to—by 2030, according to a leaked document from Roskosmos, the Russian Space agency. The Russians have intermittently laid forth enthusiastic goals for space exploration in recent years, reports the Telegraph , but never with a set...

Long Missions May Wreck Astronauts' Vision

Brain scans show abnormalities in eyeballs, optic nerves

(Newser) - NASA has been worried for a while now about astronauts returning from space with blurred vision and other eyesight problems. A new study in the journal Radiology might help explain why: Brains scans of 27 astronauts who had been on missions longer than a month showed that they had abnormalities...

Gabby Giffords' Hubby Pens Kids' Book

Mark Kelly spins tale of mouse in space

(Newser) - Mark Kelly retired as an astronaut just last fall—but he's already back to work. Gabrielle Giffords' husband is writing a children's book about a mouse who travels to space, the AP reports. It's called Mousetronaut: A Partially True Story, and it's inspired by some of...

NASA Puts Sale of Apollo 13 Checklist on Hold

Astronaut Lovell sold it for $388K, but he may not own it

(Newser) - Astronaut James Lovell may not have made a small fortune after all by selling his checklist and notes from the almost-disastrous Apollo 13 mission (the one made famous in the Tom Hanks movie of the same name). The list, along with handwritten calculations by Lovell, fetched $388,000 at auction...

World's Biggest Plane to Rocket People into Space

Paul Allen project might be ready for tests in 2016

(Newser) - The world's biggest plane, with wings longer than a football field, is being built to launch astronauts and cargo into outer space. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace innovator Burt Rutan have teamed up to create the gargantuan aircraft, which will work by hauling a rocket high into the...

NASA Puts Out Call for Astronauts

Though it'll be a looong time before you get into space

(Newser) - Bust out your resume, space cadets, because NASA wants you! Yes, despite the recent end of the space shuttle program, and the fact that everyone and their brother once dreamed of being an astronaut, a September report concluded that the space agency needed to recruit fresh astronauts or face a...

Crew Emerges From 520-Day Mars 'Flight'

Mission 'lands' without ever leaving planet

(Newser) - They’re free—and they don’t appear to have gone crazy. The crew of Russia’s simulated Mars mission has landed, by which we mean, been released from the narrow confines of the “spaceship” they’ve been trapped in for 520 days . The six men, ages 27 to...

NASA's New Worry: Astronauts Going Blind

It could happen on a trip to Mars

(Newser) - NASA has a serious health concern to resolve before it fires up a manned mission to Mars or some other way-off locale: Astronauts might not be able to see anything once they get there. As the Orlando Sentinel explains, the space agency is seeing more cases of astronauts reporting blurred...

NASA Clip Shows 9/11 From Space

Smoke rises from New York in ISS video

(Newser) - As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, NASA has provided a stunning new look at the tragedy—which was visible all the way from the International Space Station. American astronaut Frank Culbertson and two Russians were orbiting the earth in the ISS when they caught video of smoke...

Scientists Discover Way to Predict Sunspots

Researchers say they can provide 48 hours warning

(Newser) - Maybe we'll eventually be able to cross off solar flares as a possible way the world ends. Scientists at Stanford say they've developed a system to predict dangerous sunspots two days before they erupt, reports the San Francisco Chronicle . Using satellite data, they can detect the rumblings of...

Astronauts Break Record for Longest 'Space' Mission

...without actually leaving the planet

(Newser) - A crew of cosmonauts has broken the record for longest space mission, having spent 438 days in a 12-foot-wide capsule. But they'll also break another record when their mission is up—the record for shortest distance traveled on a space mission—because they've never actually left Moscow in...

NASA's Final Shuttle Crew Readies for Atlantis' Last Ridew
 Meet NASA's Last Shuttle Crew 
Jul 3, 2011 8:46 AM CDT

Meet NASA's Last Shuttle Crew

Four astronauts close out program with Atlantis' final flight

(Newser) - They are the envy of America's space program: Christopher Ferguson, Douglas Hurley, Rex Walheim, and Sandra Magnus will zip into space on Friday aboard NASA's 135th and final shuttle mission. The smallest crew since 1983 amounts to an afterthought: They were initially groomed as a rescue mission in...

Stinging Eye Almost Derails Spacewalk

Astronaut Andrew Feustel has an eye irritation ... 220 miles up

(Newser) - Eyelash, space dust, tears … who knows what was, but an astronaut today got something in his eye that stung "like crazy"—and almost interrupted a spacewalk. Several minutes later, Andrew Feustel assured everyone his eye was feeling better and the third spacewalk of the Endeavour continued as...

NASA Scraps Endeavour Launch Tomorrow

Unsure when next opportunity will come

(Newser) - NASA has scrapped tomorrow's tentative launch of space shuttle Endeavour, reports Space.com, saying that it needs more time to fix the broken auxiliary power unit that delayed the launch on Friday. "We're looking more toward the end of the week, maybe next weekend," says a...

Discovery Astronauts Bottling Outer Space

Bottle will remain sealed, hit museums

(Newser) - The Discovery crew will leave the International Space Station today for the first of two spacewalks—and one of their missions is to capture a sample of space in a metal bottle. The bottle will be given to Japan's space agency, which says it will remain sealed and make the...

NASA Marks 25th Anniversary of Challenger Disaster

Agency pays tribute to fallen astronauts

(Newser) - NASA officials will gather at Kennedy Space Center today to mark the 25th anniversary of one of the worst disasters in the history of space travel. The space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after take-off on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The widow of Challenger commander...

Buzz Aldrin Sues Over Trading Card's Moon Image

He accuses Topps of unfairly profiting from his historic walk

(Newser) - Buzz Aldrin doesn't mess around with his image as a moon-walker. The second man to set foot up there is suing Topps over its "American Heroes" series of trading cards, which features an image of the big moment without permission, reports the Los Angeles Times . The astronaut's lawyers helpfully...

How to Prevent Sex on Mars: His and Hers Spaceships?

Study: Astronauts of the opposite sex are bound to have some

(Newser) - Boy, send a male and female astronaut to Mars, and next thing you know they'll be hiding behind the land rover fornicating like rabbits. It's just what humans do, says a new study in the Journal of Cosmology . It examines the potentially dangerous medical and social repercussions of sex between...

Robonaut Joining Space Station Crew

'A giant leap forward for tinmankind'

(Newser) - International Space Station astronauts won't need to worry about the newest crew member hogging the oxygen or clogging the toilet. Robonaut 2 will become the first humanoid robot in space when he heads to the station this week on the space shuttle Discovery's final mission, AP reports. "R2" will...

A Day Late, Soyuz Lands in Kazakhstan

Despite earlier glitch, landing goes flawlessly

(Newser) - Russia's Soyuz space capsule safely touched down in a Kazakhstan steppe this morning, reports the AP, landing flawlessly a day after being delayed by an undocking glitch with the International Space Station. "That was almost a bull's-eye landing," said a NASA spokesman as Russian officials swarmed the landing...

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