7 Shuttle Fliers Plus 6 Station Guys Equal Record

The crew of space shuttle Endeavour, from left, flight engineer Timothy Kopra, mission specialist's Thomas Marshburn, and Christopher Cassidy, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Douglas Hurley and mission specialist David Wolf gather for photos after their arrival at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Endeavour is scheduled for a June 13 launch on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

From Yahoo News/AP:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Mix seven shuttle astronauts and six space station residents and you set a record for the biggest off-the-planet gathering.

NASA is aiming to launch Endeavour on Saturday morning to the international space station for a long, laborious construction job. When the shuttle pulls up, there will be 13 people at the station — the most people ever together in space at one time.

Complicating matters is that the station tenants are still getting used to having twice as many people around. Now they're getting seven house guests who will stay for nearly two weeks.

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Long Distance Space Travel Leaves You Short, Fat And Ugly, Claim Scientists

Image: Making long space journeys, like those envisaged in the future, will not be good for your looks or figure, claim scientists who believe they will leave astronauts looking short, fat and bald. Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

Going boldly where no man has gone before is likely to leave you going bald, claims scientists – not to mention fat and ugly.

Making long space journeys, like those envisaged in the future, will not be good for your looks or figure, claim scientists who believe they will leave astronauts looking short, fat and bald.

They believe living permanently in space for many years, perhaps even for many generations, adversely affects human's looks because they will not require any effort to move or keep warm.

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U.S. Astronauts Might Hitch Rides on Chinese Spacecraft

An artist's depiction of China's Shenzhou manned spacecraft in space. Credit: Simon Zajc

From Space.com:

Once NASA's space shuttle fleet is retired next year, U.S. astronauts might arrive at the International Space Station via Chinese spacecraft, according to U.S. President Barack Obama's science chief.

The prospect is being aired by presidential science adviser John Holdren, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology, in an interview posted on ScienceInsider - a web-based blog from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

In the ScienceInsider interview, Holdren underscored the fact that President Obama's administration is intent on retiring the space shuttle in 2010, with the president open to an additional shuttle mission flown within 2010.

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Standing Watch Over A Crowded Space

From The BBC:

On 10 February this year, a defunct Russian communications satellite crashed into an American commercial spacecraft, generating thousands of pieces of orbiting debris.

At the time, some observers put the odds of such an event occurring at millions, maybe billions, to one.

But experts had been warning for years that useable space was becoming crowded, boosting the possibility of a serious collision.

They have argued both for better monitoring of the space environment and for policies aimed at controlling the production of debris.

Over the past two years, a number of incidents have drawn attention to the problem of space debris.

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Microsoft Genius Who Became First Two-Time Space Tourist Returns To Earth

American billionaire Charles Simonyi landed safely back to earth today
after completing his second visit into space.

From The Daily Mail:

U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi who became the first tourist to roar into space twice, touched back down in earth today.

Simonyi landed near Dzhezkazgan, in central Kazakhstan after paying a total of $60million to visit the International Space Station.

Simonyi's capsule also carried American astronaut Mike Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.

The Microsoft genius was sent into space 13 days ago aboard the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft and docked on the station 48 hours later.

The spacecraft blasted into the leaden skies from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to much fanfare.

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Women Excluded From 'Mars Mission' Crew To Prevent Sexual Tension Ruining 105-Day Voyage

Five of the crew during survival training near Star City, Russia.
They will live together for 105 days in cramped conditions.

From The Daily Mail:

Today an all-male crew of six space enthusiasts were shut inside the Mars-500 'spaceship' in Moscow, for a simulated 105-day mission.

The purpose of the reality TV-like mission is to study the psychological and physiological effects of isolation on stress levels, sleep quality, mood and immunity levels.

The experiment paves the way for a 500 day mission which will completely replicate the conditions of a real mission to Mars.

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7 International Spacecraft that Could Replace NASA's Shuttle

A Chinese rocket carrying the Shenzhou-7 spaceship blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. (Photo by Xu Haihan/ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

NASA's Orion won't be ready until at least 2015, but the current space shuttle is due to retire next year. Meet the seven international spacecraft from the world's space fleet that could inherit the job of ferrying supplies into space.

The space shuttle is due for retirement in 2010, and NASA’s next spaceship, Orion, won’t be available until at least 2015. That will leave a five-year gap during which NASA astronauts and space-station cargo will be grounded unless they find other ways to get to orbit. In the past, NASA has cadged rides off its former arch-rival, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and its Soyuz (for astronauts) and Progress (for cargo) spacecraft. But relations between the U.S. and Russia are cooling, raising the very real prospect that Congress will forbid NASA to buy spaceflights from Russia. NASA has stepped up its support of two U.S. companies, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corporation, that hope to have unmanned cargo spaceships ready for launch by 2010. (See details below.) Even if these companies succeed, NASA will still have to rely on Soyuz for manned flights. But maybe not for long. Here’s a roundup of seven rides to low Earth orbit besides the space shuttle and Soyuz that could be available for space-station flights.

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Asia's Space Program Is Heating Up

Photo: An Indian spacecraft takes off carrying the country's first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1 last autumn

India Approves £1.7bn Plan To Launch Astronauts As Asian Space Race Heats Up -- Times Online

India has approved a £1.7 billion plan to launch its first astronauts into space by 2015, in its latest bid to close the gap with China in what many see as a 21st Century Asian version of the Cold War race for the Moon.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will attempt to put two people into orbit 172 miles (275 km) above the Earth for seven days, according to a proposal approved by the Planning Commission at a meeting on Friday.

"ISRO needs to be supported as it has done marvellous job in the field of Space Science. That's why Planning Commission will support it," Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, told reporters.

"An unmanned flight will be launched in 2013-2014 and manned mission likely to launch by 2014-2015," he said.

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Remembering Apollo 1

Apollo 1 astronauts "Gus" Grissom (left), Edward White, and Roger Chaffee pose in front of the Saturn 1 launch vehicle at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the morning of January 27, 1967, the crew was sitting atop the launch pad for a pre-launch test when a fire broke out in their capsule, killing all three astronauts. The investigation into the fatal accident led to major design changes for future launch vehicles. Photograph courtesy NASA

Jan. 27, 1967: 3 Astronauts Die in Capsule Fire -- Wired News

1967: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are killed on the launch pad when a flash fire engulfs their command module during testing for the first Apollo/Saturn mission. They are the first U.S. astronauts to die in the line of duty.

The command module, built by North American Aviation, was the prototype for those that would eventually accompany the lunar landers to the moon. Designated CM-012 by NASA, the module was a lot larger than those flown during the Mercury and Gemini programs, and was the first designed for the Saturn 1B booster.

Even before tragedy struck, the command module was criticized for a number of potentially hazardous design flaws, including the use of a more combustible, 100 percent oxygen atmosphere in the cockpit, an escape hatch that opened inward instead of outward, faulty wiring and plumbing, and the presence of flammable material.

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Wikipedia entry for Apollo 1

Astronauts Threatened By Cosmic Rays As Sun Becomes Less Active

European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang works during his second spacewalk in 2006. The Sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful radiation could falter in the early 2020s, increasing the risk of such spacewalks

From The Daily Mail:

Astronauts returning to the moon could be threatened by cosmic rays as a result of the sun becoming less active, scientists have said.

The sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful radiation could falter in the early 2020s, research from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology claimed.

At about the same time, the American space agency Nasa plans to send astronauts back to the moon.

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Space Station Cargo Delivery Still Expensive

From Future Pundit:

Orbital Sciences Corp has won a $1.9 billion contract to carry 20 metric tons of cargo to the International Space Station in 8 flights. Think about those numbers. That's $95 million per metric ton to move cargo from ground level to low orbit. Those deliveries start in 2011 and run through 2015. A metric ton is 1000 kilograms or 2204.6 lbs. So the cost of putting stuff into low Earth orbit in 2015 is still going to be around $43k per lb or $95k per kg. At these prices large scale human colonization of space still seems a very distant prospect.

Those costs will come down a lot if a beanstalk into space built using nanotubes becomes possible. A bigger cost reduction for a Mars mission will come from nanotech advances. A bunch of nanodevices that can transform Mars landscape and produce needed supplies for a colony would reduce the size of the payload needed for setting up an initial colony.

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