Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are always thrilled to welcome new crew members to the orbiting laboratory. However, the May 31, 2020, arrival of NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley on SpaceX's Endeavour was particularly exciting. It was the first piloted launch from American soil since the US Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011 and the first human spaceflight performed by a public-private partnership — NASA and SpaceX....
Read news articleDue to COVID-19, the Class of 2020 is missing out on a traditional graduation. However, those who accepted SpaceX's invitation to upload selfies to the company's website will commemorate their milestone year with a journey most people only dream about....
Read news articleNickelodeon's annual Kids Choice Awards show is notorious for dumping buckets of green slime on the heads of unsuspecting hosts and celebrities. Fortunately for the winners, that was not possible during this year's virtual award ceremony, aired on May 2, 2020. To compensate, the popular children's cable channel surprised the millions of online viewers with footage of International Space Station (ISS) astronauts getting "slimed". The video's debut was particularly timely given that May 2, 2020, was National Astronomy Day!...
Read news articleNASA's X-plane program, established in 1946 to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts, began with the launch of the X-1 — the first plane to break the sound barrier. Since then, the endeavor has led to numerous industry breakthroughs, including the first supersonic and hypersonic flights, and the first crewed suborbital flight....
Read news articleTexas, the biggest of the contiguous US states, prides itself on being larger than life. Everything, from hairstyles to boot heels to food portions to mascots to convenience stores (the largest one boasts 80 soda fountains), is exaggerated. Hence, it should come as no surprise that the Lone Star State is also home to the largest signature on Earth....
Read news articleKatherine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician who was instrumental in helping NASA send Americans into orbit in 1961, and later to the moon, died on Monday, February 24, 2020. The human "computer" is credited with codifying the mathematical principles that remain at the core of space travel to this day....
Read news articleIn what can only be described as an extraordinary engineering feat, NASA scientists have remotely fixed a software glitch on the Voyager 2 probe, which lies 11.5 billion miles away at the edge of a transitional region of space. Known as the heliosphere, it is a vast, bubble-like area that surrounds the Sun and the Solar System....
Read news articleWhen 17-year-old Wolf Cukier accepted an internship at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, last summer, he expected to be challenged and gain insights into pursuing a career in astrophysics. Instead, the high school junior from Scarsdale, New York, attained worldwide fame for an achievement that eludes most astronomers — finding a new planet! Even more impressive, Cukier made the discovery on the third day of his two-month-long internship at the US Space Agency....
Read news articleSwiss military-trained pilot and aviation enthusiast Yves Rossy is famous for pulling off seemingly impossible stunts. Over the years, the adventurer has used his jet-propelled carbon wings to soar across the Grand Canyon, circle over Japan's Mt. Fuji, and even fly alongside the world's largest commercial airplane, the Airbus A380. However, the one thing that has eluded the "Jetman" is the ability to take off from the ground. All his "flights" begin after being transported to a certain altitude aboard a helicopter or plane....
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