Category Archives: Space Travel

New York Times

Recycled Rockets Could Drop Costs, Speed Space Travel New York Times SpaceX launched a pre-flown rocket into space on Thursday. If the company can repeat it, this method could slash the price of space travel in the future. By NEETI UPADHYE and SUSAN JOAN ARCHER on Publish Date March 30, 2017. Photo by SpaceX. Budget space travel could be in the starsDeutsche Welle SpaceX Falcon-9 successfully launches & lands, could mark 'low-cost' era of space travelRT SpaceX is About to Try Something "Potentially Revolutionary" in the History of Space TravelScienceAlert Futurism -Daily Sabah -Stck Nws US all 425 news articles »

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Recycled Rockets Could Drop Costs, Speed Space Travel - New York Times

NASA officials are aiming to build a moon-orbiting spaceport to serve as a gateway for missions to Mars and the lunar surface replacing an Obama administration plan to use an asteroid as a stepping stone for exploration, USA Today reported.

The agency has spent the past six years building a Space Launch System rocket, but has not provided much detail about how the SLS booster would be used for Mars exploration until Tuesday when the agency's chief of human spaceflight, Bill Gerstenmaier, briefed the agency's advisory council on tentative plans for the first dozen launches of the rocket, Ars Technica reported.

Dubbed Deep Space Gateway, the new program would build a mini space station that would be equipped with a small habitat for astronauts, docking capability, an airlock, and would beserviced by logistics modules to enable research, USA Today reported.

"I envision different partners, both international and commercial, contributing to the gateway and using it in a variety of ways with a system that can move to different orbits to enable a variety of missions,"Gerstenmaier said in a news release, USA Today reported.

USA Today reported the new program makes no mention of an Obama administration asteroid plan for travel to Mars; President Donald Trump's 2018 budget cancels the Asteroid Redirect Mission, USA Today reported.

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NASA Unveils Deep Space Gateway Plan to Aid Space Travel - Newsmax

Physicist Stephen Hawking at The Royal Society in London, July 20, 2015.

Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Breakthrough Initiatives

Stephen Hawking has booked a ticket to space. The renowned theoretical physicist announced that hes accepted Richard Bransons invitation to board a flight on a future Virgin Galactic trip to space.

Hawking revealed the news in an interview on ITVs Good Morning Britain. He said that while his three children brought him great joy throughout his life, the next milestone that would make him happy now would be to travel in space.

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One of the most revered scientists in history, Stephen Hawking, says he doesn't understand why people like Republican presidential candidate Dona...

I have already completed a zero-gravity flight which allowed me to float, weightless, Hawking said. But my ultimate ambition is to fly into space. I thought no one would take me, but Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic and I said yes immediately.

Bransons company has not announced how Hawking, who has a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrigs disease, which has gradually paralyzed him since his initial diagnosis at age 21, will make the journey. Any trip to the stars would likely be some years in the future since Virgin Galactic has not made any set plans for the start of regular commercial flights to space.

The company received an operating license for space tourism from the Federal Aviation Administration last year, but is still in the testing phase for its SpaceShipTwo spacecraft that it hopes will ultimately introduce commercial space flights for civilians.

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Stephen Hawking is making plans to travel into space - CBS News

Getting people and payloads into space is expensive very expensive. The astronomical cost of operating space shuttles compelled NASA in 2011 to stop flying the durable space-planes after 30 years and 131 launches.

Today, the cost of building and launching multi-stage rockets varies depending on orbital altitude, weight and how much insurance is needed against the ever-present risk of rocket failure, but its safe to say one launch can cost at least tens of millions of dollars. For example, sending a multi-ton payload on an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance, the joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, starts at $109 million, according to the companys recently launched RocketBuilder web tool. (This expense is typically shared among numerous customers.)

Driving these costs down is one of the main reasons why Elon Musk cofounded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, in 2002. Now, as early as next week, the company could reach a major milestone in an effort to drive its launch costs down 30 percent.

Already, the Los Angeles-area upstart has emerged as the economy class of space transport. By building its engines and rockets in-house, SpaceX offers relative bargains. Its website shows prices of about $1,200 per pound of cargo sent to the low-earth orbit used by the International Space Station and about $3,390 per pound to get to the distance that most telecommunications satellites use.

As early as next week, SpaceX will re-use a rocket itrecovered last yearduring a previous launch in order to deliver a European telecommunications satellite into orbit. The company had said the launch would take place in March, buta scheduled launch of an Atlas V rocket at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Floridawas recently delayeduntilMarch 27. Because it takes a couple of days for the Air Force to reconfigure its tracking system for a new launch from a different platform, the historic mission could take place in early April.

Normally these expensive rockets break off and plunge into the ocean during a multi-stage launch process, but SpaceX is the first aerospace company to prove its feasible to send these rockets skyward to an altitude of 200 kilometers (124 miles), at a peak speed of six times the speed of sound. Instead of dropping into the ocean like a very expensive piece of garbage, SpaceX engineers figured out a way to gradually slow the rocket, rotate it and land it delicately onto a droneship, one of two floating robotic barges used by the company, or onto land. So far, SpaceX has recovered eight of these Falcon 9 rockets, most recently in January, including three of them that touched down at Cape Canaveral.

After it became the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station in 2012, the companys workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule now perform NASAs routine near-orbit space-transport work.

Musk has said the upcoming Falcon Heavy, a bigger rocket whose maiden voyage will help bring prices down further.

Were gonna launch Heavy this summer, as soon as we get Pad 40 back up and running, Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX President and COO, said during a press event at Cape Canaveral ahead of a mission last month, referring to the launch platform damaged in a rocket explosion in September. Obviously, I said earlier, schedules never stick the way other things do, but were still targeting mid-year for sure with that.

Last months launch was also a milestone for the company: It was the first round-trip mission to the ISS. SpaceX delivered supplies and research equipment to the station and then splashed down to earth on Sunday off the coast of southern California with a payload of scientific goodies, including samples aimed at advancing research in stem cells and bone diseases.

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SpaceX's sustainable space travel: Recycled rockets are green - Salon - Salon

By Julia Fuller

Scientist Michael Gillion and his team of astronomers discovered a star system 40 light-years away with potentially habitable planets orbiting around the dwarf star Trappist-1 last February.

This is a huge breakthrough for humankind. The planets may have water and greenhouse gases on the surface which are necessary conditions to support human life.

While Trappist-1 is significantly smaller than our Sun it still produces enough energy to cover its closest orbiting planets. Much like our moon the planets are tidally locked, facing the star one way fully lit and with the other half perpetually dark.

We have to study the planets and determine if they are livable. There may be other life forms on the surface, however speculations suggest any existing life form would be microscopic.

Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years, Stephen Hawking said, By that time we should have spread out into space and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race.

At what cost will this come for us? We will have to develop the space travel to massively transport our population and leave behind a destroyed planet. Would we continue our capitalist ways when we move to other planets?

In order for us to think about space travel we must change how we support our lifestyle and sustain our resources. We are developing tools to discover these other life forms and planets and we should continue to do so. In the process we may discover a more sustainable way of life for the sake of mankinds survival.

Space travel for humans is already underway. Willing to pay $250,000 per person for the trip of a lifetime; celebrities, elites and the wealthy are purchasing round trip tickets to the moon.

Set to take off in 2018 Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic Ship has been preparing for a voyage like this for many years. However after a failed attempt in 2013 many have been skeptical of the ships ability to continue on its scheduled journey.

This development could be phenomenal for space travel. If private companies and NASA can make space travel comfortable for regular people the rest of the world will follow suit.

Our ability to discover new things is exponentially expanding. The ideas, life forms and places we can go and augment in the universe are endless. We should learn to reform our lifestyles in order to incorporate and protect future generations. This is an exciting time for mankind.

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Space travel is just $250000 away - The Guardsman Online

President Trump put NASA on course for a mission to Mars and beyond Tuesday, signing a bill that authorized boosting the agencys current year budget to $19.5 billion and restoring its focus on manned space flights.

Mr. Trump spoke in historic terms about the renewed charge of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which was expanded to include the search for lifes origins, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe in at the agencys mission statement.

Almost half a century ago our brave astronauts first planted the American flag on the moon. That was a big moment in our history. Now this nation is ready to be the first in space once again, he said at a signing ceremony in the Oval Office.

Today we are taking the initial steps toward a bold and bright new future of American space flight, said the president, who was surrounded by several NASA astronauts and a group of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

Congress has not passed a NASA authorization bill in nearly seven years. The agency hasnt had its own spacecraft since retiring the space shuttle program shortly after Endeavour flew its last mission June 1, 2011.

President Obama pulled the plug on NASAs manned space flights and refocused the agencys research and development on robotics, saying it saved money. His vision of the space program put an emphasis on private-sector and commercial space industries, with long-term plans for a manned mission to Mars.

At the time, the move was decried by astronauts Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, and James Lovell, who commanded the heroic Apollo 13 flight. They penned a letter warning that the U.S. was becoming a second or even third-rate spacefaring nation.

The Mars expedition still isnt anytime soon. NASA plans aim to launch the mission in 2033.

But the bill requires NASA to submit a human exploration roadmap [to] expand human presence b beyond low Earth orbit to the surface of Mars and beyond, referring to deep space exploration.

Its been a long time since a bill like this has been signed, reaffirming our national commitment to the core mission of NASA: Human space exploration, space science and technology, said Mr. Trump.

He added that the boost for NASA also will create jobs in the space industry.

The bill set goals for manned missions, development of the Orion spacecraft for deep space exploration and partnerships with private spacecraft companies. It also called for advancements in space science, technology and aeronautics programs, including health monitoring and treatment of astronauts duty-related medical conditions.

Mr. Trump wanted to continue working with the private secret, setting up joint operations at NASA launch facilities.

The commercial and the private sector are going to be using these facilities and I hope they are going to be paying us a lot of money, he said.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose proposal for moon bases during his unsuccessful 2012 presidential run was widely mocked, said it was a step in the right direction.

The fast-moving advancements are being driven by private investments from billionaires such as Elon Musk with SpaceX, Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin and Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic, he said.

You are right at the edge of a generator of extraordinary exploration, said Mr. Gingrich, who previously served as a Trump campaign adviser.

The revamp of NASA fulfills one of Mr. Trumps promises from the campaign, including promising more manned space flights, more partnerships with private companies and more space industry jobs.

Under a Trump Administration, Florida and America will lead the way into the stars, he said at an October rally in Sanford, Florida.

The legislation enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. However, the new vision for NASA faced criticism from advocates for fighting climate change because it reduces the agencies earth science programs.

The measures supporters argued that other agencies collect climate change data and will continue to do so.

At the signing ceremony, Mr. Trump praised the astronauts and joked with the assembled lawmakers about the perils of space travel.

Its a pretty tough job, he said, turning to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a co-sponsor of the bill. I dont know Ted would you like to do it? I dont think I would.

He then made the same offer to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, another co-sponsor standing beside the Resolute Desk.

Im not sure we want to do it, Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Cruz piped in: You could send Congress to space.

The lawmakers and astronauts laughed and Mr. Trump said, We could. What a great idea that could be.

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Trump renews NASA mission for human space travel, deep space exploration - Washington Times

One of the first tourists to travel in outer space found it to be a bit of a buzzkill. Sure, he loved every minute-even if he was physically miserable part of the time. The next wave of space tourists will need a high tolerance for discomfort.

If all goes according to plan, Elon Musks Space Exploration Technologies will send two paying civilians around the moon and back some time next year. My advice to them would be to medicate early and often, says Richard Garriott de Cayeux, the video game developer and entrepreneur who paid US$30 million to Russias Space Adventures to spend 12 days aboard the International Space Station. His moon-voyaging counterparts have put down a significant deposit, according to a post last week on SpaceXs website, but the total price and the identities of the tourists have not been disclosed.

The microgravity that permits what Garriott de Cayeux describes as joyous, free-feeling motion we associated with astronauts also takes a serious physiological toll. Body fluids stop flowing normally, which is why, in space, peoples faces look puffy, and they generally have somewhat bloodshot eyes, he says. It feels sort of like lying on a childrens slide, head down. In the first days, you get very stuffed up and have a bit of a headache. These symptoms can be easily remedied with common drugs, such as aspirin and Sudafed.

Another side effect comes from the floating fluid in your inner ear, which normally helps a person detect motion and stay balanced. In space, of course, it also begins floating. So if you move your head forward, it will slosh to the back and make you feel like youre falling backwards, says Garriott de Cayeux. Theres a disagreement between what you see that youre doing and what your body thinks its doing-and that often causes sea sickness.

That perceptual disconnect tends to last for about three days before your brain begins compensating. When you get back to Earth it takes another three days to readjust. This is another downside of space tourism that can be treated with drugs.

My advice to them would be to medicate early and often.

Other physical challenges are more difficult to address and also less acute. Humans in space suffer muscle and bone atrophy. Space travel requires exposure to increased levels of radiation, which can lead to surprising visual effects. All of a sudden you will see this really intense, bright white and then it will fade back out, says Garriott de Cayeux. That is basically you being damaged by radiation, it triggers the impression of light even though there is no light.

His time in space required a year of difficult preparation, although physical fitness wasnt a focus. If youre going on a space walk, you need to be in excellent physical condition, because an inflated space suit is hard to bend. But if youre not, you just need to be healthy, he says. Still, SpaceXs tourism clients will likely be studied head to toe, undergoing a battery of medical tests theyve probably never heard of before. In my case, they found I was missing a vein on one lobe of my liver, says Garriott de Cayeux. On Earth thats irrelevant, but in space it could have led to internal bleeding, which is why I ended up having surgery to remove that lobe.

Training and preparing mentally will likely be the main challenge for the next generation of space tourists. This is not like an airplane where the pilots sit up front and theres a passenger cabin where youre being serve tea and coffee, says Garriott de Cayeux. I went through all the exact same classes as every other astronaut and cosmonaut. That included learning how to operate every piece of equipment aboard the craft, including radios and safety systems, and studying a long list of potential malfunctions.

Garriott de Cayeuxs team also trained extensively for potential disaster scenarios, including open sea survival. If there was an emergency in orbit and you had to come to ground immediately [in a capsule], you might land in the ocean, he says. You would probably sit in the capsule until somebody came and picked it up. But its also possible that the capsule might start to sink. He learned to change out of a space suit and into special thermal wetsuits-all while crammed in a space roughly the size of the front two seats of a Volkswagen bug. The first time they attempted the feat, while bobbing in a capsule in the ocean, he and his colleagues began overheating to the point where doctors stepped in and aborted the mission. Our heart rates and core body temperatures were going up to a level that was so dangerous, they literally understood that wed be doing ourselves medical harm to continue, says Garriott de Cayeux.

But mini-hardships such as this are crucial for assessing what is perhaps the most important factor in travelling to space: mental fortitude. You need to make sure that the people on the vehicle are serious, confident, positive, and will work to address situations that come up, says Garriott de Cayeux. Every person has a psychologist assigned to them, from Day 1 until launch, to make sure theyll be a safe crew member.

Despite the discomforts and hardship of space travel, Garriott de Cayeux, now 55, says his trip to space was worth every penny. His father, Owen Garriott, was an astronaut. He grew up learning and thinking about space and felt his life change when he looked at the planet from inside the International Space Station. Theres something called the Overview Effect, he says. Up there you really realize, Yeah, of course we are polluting the Earth. Of course CO2 is a problem. Of course particulate matter is a problem. How could you possibly doubt it when we can see it so self evidently?'

While Garriott de Cayeux got to observe the Earth, SpaceXs voyagers will see both Earth and the Moon up close. For them, the Earth will slowly recede into the distance to become much like the moon, he says. That is a whole other level of awe that no one has experienced in over 50 years.

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Travel tips from a real space tourist: Get ready to feel awful - National Post

Mark and Scott Kelly are the only twins that have ever traveled to space and their experience will be invaluable if we want to get to Mars one day.

The brothers are taking part in what NASA calls the Twins Study a genetic experiment to see how our bodies change in zero gravity in the long term. Thats important to understand before we put humans on a spaceship and send them on a round trip to the Red Planet.

Between 2015 and 2016, Scott spent 340 days on the International Space Station, while his genetically identical twin Mark stayed on Earth to function as a control subject. Before, during, and after Scotts trip, the brothers have been giving NASA numerous biological samples blood, saliva, poop, you name it. By comparing Scotts samples with Marks, NASA is trying to understand what long-term space travel does to our bodies.

their experience will be invaluable if we want to get to Mars one day

Some preliminary findings have already come out. One study showed that Scotts DNA changed while he was in space: his telomeres the protective caps on the end of DNA strands were unexpectedly longer than Marks. (Telomere length can affect aging and age-associated diseases.) Another study showed that there were major fluctuations in Scotts gut bacteria while he lived in zero-g compared to his twin.

But were still waiting for the bulk of the results, and we might not see those for another year or two. While we wait, The Verge spoke on the phone with Mark and Scott to talk about the Twins Study, whether theyd fly to Mars or the Moon next, and what it feels like to be guinea pigs for the sake of space.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Loren Grush: I was doing an interview a while back with one of the researchers for the Twins Study, and she mentioned that you guys actually approached NASA with the idea for the study. Is that true? What sparked that idea?

Scott Kelly: When I was assigned to this year-long mission, I had a briefing with the scientists to prepare for the press release and the press conference about sending two guys into space for a year. And during that briefing, I asked the scientists if anyone had any interest in doing any comparative studies on Mark and I, considering hes also an astronaut and they had a lot of data on him for a really long time. And they went back over the next couple of weeks and talked about it and decided that there was in fact an interest and asked us if we would be participants.

LG: Mark, what did you think when he suggested that idea?

Mark Kelly: After talking to NASA about this, Scott came to me and said, Would you be willing to do this? The science that NASA does is incredibly important and Im so appreciative of everything that NASAs done for me in allowing me to be part of the space program for 15 years. So I said, absolutely, to do whatever theyd like. They dont even have to pay me. So even though I didnt work there and I told NASA they dont have to pay me. Then they came back a little bit later and they said well, it turns out we actually have to pay you. I got paid minimum wage.

SK: Wait a minute. You get paid minimum wage? I dont get paid anything.

MK: Yeah, I still do. Youre getting ripped off. I get like $10.50 an hour or whatever it is whenever I deal with one of those NASA experiments.

SK: Wow.

Alessandra Potenza: How much work do you guys still do for the Twins Study, now that youre almost one year from landing?

SK: Well for me, I have my one-year medical test. We get an annual physical every year, but part of this will be data collection for the Twins Study. Im not really sure how much of it. Its probably like a full days worth of stuff. And then I think I have another one at a year and a half. And then after that, it gets more and more irregular and spread out longer. But most astronauts are part of a different study called the Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health, that just tracks their health throughout the course of their lives to try to get an understanding of the effects of spaceflight on us from a long-term perspective, but also to try to understand just a group of people that have pretty good health care and are monitored closely. What and how does that change things?

LG: Now that some of the preliminary results are coming in, were you guys surprised at some of the genetic changes that theyve been finding, for instance?

SK: Yeah, I was really surprised.

MK: The one big surprising thing was his telomeres got longer while in space, and thats kind of the opposite of what they thought would happen. The presumption was that in the radiation theres a lot of radiation in space and the stress of being on the space station, they thought that those things would result in the shortening of his telomeres. Theyre like the structure on your genes thats indicative of how old you are. But the opposite happened. And there were some people out there in the media that were speculating that maybe NASA discovered the fountain of youth, which is going into space, which is not true and thats wild speculation. But I think the interesting thing is, heres an experiment that the scientists have their hypothesis and they wound up with the opposite result.

LG: Didnt Scott get a little bit younger because of time dilation? Maybe not because of the telomeres, but something like a couple milliseconds or something like that?

SK: Yeah, by like three milliseconds.

MK: No, no, Scott, I think if you actually add up your 520 days, because I did this, I saw what people say is that per day, at 17,500 miles an hour, I think where I used to be six minutes older, I think I am now if you did the math correctly its six minutes and 13 milliseconds.

LG: Another study showed that your gut bacteria changed while in space. Did that manifest in any crazy ways while you were on the station?

SK: Its interesting that our microbiome consists of all these cells that arent us, so theres actually more of them than there are our own human cells. And your microbiome is affected by a lot of things. Its affected by what you eat and its affected by where you live, your environment. Its interesting that Mark and I, our microbiomes are very different. So I guess my point is that our microbiome is affected by our environment and the space environment is an extreme environment, its a unique environment. So it doesnt surprise me that they saw changes while I was in space.

AP: Both of you have been in the spotlight a lot with the Twins Study. How does it feel to be guinea pigs?

SK: Its part of it. As an astronaut, from day one, when you agree to take that job, youre also agreeing to be a human subject. So its something that weve been used to for the last 20 years. I just think its part of the responsibility when youre in this very unique position, to participate in these studies and be a human subject. So its not even something I think about, actually.

MK: Well, then they also try to make sure that we dont do anything really stupid. I mean its not like the mice I carried on my first space flight, or the mice and rodents that my brother dealt with in space. As subjects of science experiments, theyve got a much more difficult job than we do. The outcome is much better for us, at least in the short term.

LG: I know theres a protocol, when they get these results from the Twins Study, theyre supposed to share it with you beforehand. What is that process like and do you guys have veto power if you dont want something shared?

SK: Yeah, theyll generally send us the research paper and sometimes preliminary material and ask us how we feel about it, because it is our medical data and it is protected under the law. So far we havent declined release on anything in any studies. As time goes on and we see how the process works, I anticipate that theres not going to be much stuff that we would not want people to see.

AP: What kind of follow-ups to the Twins Study would you like to see from NASA?

MK: Well Id like them to let me go back in space for just like a couple weeks. That would be nice.

SK: Id like a follow-up for them to send Mark to that new solar system we discovered.

LG: Can you take me with you?

SK: Im just kidding, obviously. Its 40 light-years away. How long do you think it would take to get there, me and my brother and the two of you ladies, at the speed that we could travel at to go 40 light-years?

LG: Well what is the deal? Voyager 1 is still like 0.05 percent from Alpha Centauri, which is like, four light-years away?

SK: Exactly! So you should be able to figure this out. Give me a number.

LG: Ill do the math and get back to you.

SK: No, youve got to do it in your head right now! How many years?

LG: Im working on it Ill get it to you.

SK: Come on. About 10 minutes ago I tweeted my guess. So what is your guess?

LG: Im going to guess 200,000 years.

SK: No, more like 800,000 years. At 35,000 miles an hour, it would take about 800,000 years.

LG: Oh, gosh. We could have multiple generations later get there.

SK: Thats what I was thinking.

MK: Multiple? It could take all of the generations of humans to get there.

SK: The people that go there, if you did that, you get on this spaceship and when you got off 800,000 years later, it would be a new species.

LG: Yeah, we would be the aliens once we got there.

SK: We wouldnt even recognize our descendants.

LG: Well, speaking of traveling through space, Scott, you said that being in space changed you and gave you a better appreciation for our planet. Mark, does that resonate with you? And I guess both of you, how did you guys feel you changed when you were in space?

SK: For me, its just looking down at the Earth for a long period of time, and not just on this mission, but between my first mission in 1999 and then my last, which I landed in 2016, you see significant changes on the Earth, especially the rainforests in South America. Its just really heartbreaking to see how theyve been decimated. Pollution that is almost constantly over certain parts of our planet. The fragility of the atmosphere that you notice.

But also in space, you do have this orbital perspective where you feel detached from all of the people and everything that has happened to the point of the planet while youre in space, especially for long periods of time. And the news we get from Earth, by and large, its all bad stuff. You know, its mostly bad news. And when you look out the window and you consider how lucky we are to have this planet that, until recently, we figured it was pretty unique in the universe. I think we should take better care of it, we should take better care of each other. We need to be better teammates on our shared spaceship that were flying around the universe in. Spaceship Earth.

AP: Mark, do you want to answer the question on how being in space changed you?

MK: What he said. Same answer.

AP: What do you guys miss the most about being in space and what dont you miss?

SK: I miss the work and the technical challenge of it. I miss the teamwork, the working on something that is technically challenging and doing it with a group of highly professional and inspiring people, both your crewmates and the folks on the ground. Doing something you believe is important. I miss that a lot more than floating around in zero-g and looking at the sites out the window.

MK: Yeah. Having a mission and trying to do something really complicated and being successful at it is very rewarding. So I really miss that part of trying to do a really good job at a very difficult thing.

LG: Now you both talk so fondly about your time in space, and I know Scott, youve mentioned not closing the book on that. Are you both interested in making a trip with a private company in the future?

MK: So I have co-founded a company called World View, which part of our business is space tourism, but with a helium balloon to the edge of space. Im excited about the fact that other people are going to get to have these kinds of experiences, whether its with us or launching with Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin in a rocket ship. Thats a great thing for a country for a lot of different reasons.

SK: You know, under the right circumstances, Id be all for it. We will get there someday, where people are flying into space for different reasons, some of which is just for pleasure. And we have a little bit of that now, of course, but were talking on a much bigger scale. So yeah, under the right circumstances, I would go. Id never rule out never flying in space again. I think thats definitely something that would interest me.

AP: Whats the life of a retired astronaut like for both of you?

SK: You know, Im busier now than I think Ive ever been in my life. Im trying to write several books and doing some public speaking that takes a lot of my time. And starting out on this new part of my life after getting back from space, being there for a year has definitely been a challenge. But it was a welcome challenge and Im enjoying it.

MK: Ive got a lot of stuff that Im involved in right now. I was on the road about 80 percent of last year, and probably the year before that as well. I serve on a few boards, Ive got this company Im the co-founder of in Tucson, public speaking, some book project stuff. So Ive been probably as busy as Ive ever been. Ive certainly spent more time away from home than I ever did as an astronaut. So its a challenge. But I do a lot of things that I enjoy, and its nice to be able to control your own schedule.

LG: What about your personal preferences when it comes to the future of human space exploration? Is there anything in particular you guys want to see from NASA or from other companies?

SK: Ive always been a fan of going back to the Moon. I think theres a lot we can learn from the Moon thats going to help us go to Mars some day and its something that always excites me.

MK: We should just go straight to Mars. Forget about the Moon. Weve been there. Weve already done that.

SK: But more importantly, when we transition from one administration to another, we need to kind of let NASA continue along the path theyre on and not change direction because it just wastes time and effort and money and it doesnt help us get anywhere at all.

MK: I do agree with you, Scott, that its incredibly important for our long-term success as a government agency and to have consistency. And thats something thats lacking. We often get these wild changes in direction from either the White House or often from Congress as well. So consistency from year after year is really important to our space program. So I hope as the new administration in the White House, our new president, starts to formulate a plan for NASA, I hope they keep in mind that having a goal and a strategic plan and predictable funding, if we do that, then NASA can accomplish great things. But predictability and being able to execute a long-term plan over time is really important to our success.

AP: Is there anything else you guys would like to add about the Twins Study or your experience?

SK: Well one more thing I want to say is, one of the things that also keeps us busy is our relationship with Breitling, the watch company who I think set up this interview for us, right?

AP and LG: Right.

SK: So I was going to put in a good Breitling plug. Your readers probably like stuff and pilots and astronauts like watches. And Breitling makes the best watches, especially for aviators and astronauts.

LG: Did you use Breitling watches when you were on the station?

SK: Yeah I did, and you need to put that in the article, because this is what I was told this article was going to be about.

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Astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly on NASA's twin experiment and the future of space travel - The Verge

One of the first tourists to travel in outer space can be a bit of a buzzkill. Sure, he loved every minuteeven if he was physically miserable partof the time. The next wave of space tourists will need a high tolerance for discomfort.

If all goes according to plan, Elon MusksSpace Exploration Technologies Corp.will send two paying civilians around the moon and back some timenext year.My advice to them would be to medicate early and often, saysRichard Garriott de Cayeux, thevideo game developer and entrepreneur who paid $30 million to Russias Space Adventures to spend 12 days aboard the International Space Station. His moon-voyagingcounterparts have put down a significant deposit, according to a post last week on SpaceX's website, but the total price and the identitiesof the tourists have not been disclosed.

Themicrogravitythat permits what Garriott de Cayeux describes as joyous, free-feeling motion we associated with astronauts also takes a serious physiological toll.Body fluids stop flowing normally, which is why, in space, peoples faces look puffy, and they generally have somewhat bloodshot eyes, he says. It feels sort of like lying on a childrens slide, head down. In the first days, you get very stuffed up and have a bit of a headache. These symptoms can be easily remediedwith common drugs, such as aspirin and Sudafed.

Another side effect comes from the floating fluid in your inner ear, which normally helps a person detect motion and stay balanced. In space, of course, it also begins floating. So if you move your head forward, it will slosh to the back and make you feel like youre falling backwards, says Garriott de Cayeux. Theres a disagreement between what you see that youre doing and what your body thinks its doingand that often causes sea sickness.

That perceptual disconnect tends to last for about three days before your brain begins compensating. When you get back to Earth it takes another three days to readjust. This is another downside of space tourism that can be treated withdrugs.

My advice to them would be to medicate early and often.

Other physical challenges are more difficult to address and also less acute. Humans in spacesuffer muscle and bone atrophy. Space travel requires exposure to increased levels of radiation, which can lead to surprising visual effects. "All of a sudden you will see this really intense, bright white ... and then it will fade back out," says Garriott de Cayeux. "That is basically you being damaged by radiation, it triggers the impression of light even though there is no light."

His time in space required a year of difficult preparation, although physical fitness wasn't a focus. If you're going on a space walk, you need to be in excellent physical condition, because an inflated space suit is hard to bend. But if youre not, you just need to be healthy, he says.Still,SpaceXs tourism clients will likely be studied head to toe, undergoing a battery of medical tests they've probably never heard of before. In my case, they found I was missing a vein on one lobe of my liver, says Garriott de Cayeux. OnEarth that's irrelevant, but in space it could have led to internal bleeding, which is why I ended up having surgery to remove that lobe.

Training and preparing mentally will likely be the main challenge for the next generation of space tourists. This is not like an airplane where the pilots sit up front and theres a passenger cabin where youre being serve tea and coffee, says Garriott de Cayeux."I went through all the exact same classes as every other astronaut and cosmonaut." That included learninghow to operate everypiece of equipment aboard the craft, including radios and safety systems, and studying a long list of potential malfunctions.

Garriott de Cayeux's teamalso trained extensively for potential disaster scenarios, including open sea survival. "If there was an emergency in orbit and you had to come to ground immediately [in a capsule], you might land in the ocean," hesays. "You would probably sit in the capsule until somebody came and picked it up.But it's also possible that the capsule might start to sink."Helearned to change out of a space suit and into special thermal wetsuitsall while crammed in a space roughly the size of the front two seats of aVolkswagenbug. The first time they attempted the feat, while bobbing in acapsule in the ocean,he and his colleaguesbegan overheating to the point where doctors stepped in andaborted the mission. "Our heart rates and core body temperatures were going up to a level that was so dangerous, they literally understood that we'd be doing ourselves medical harm to continue," says Garriott de Cayeux.

But mini-hardships such asthis are crucial for assessing what is perhaps the most important factor in traveling to space: mental fortitude. "You need to make sure that the people on thevehicle are ... serious, confident, positive, and will work to addresssituations that come up," says Garriott de Cayeux. "Everyperson has a psychologist assigned to them, from Day 1 until launch, to make sure they'll be a safe crew member."

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Despite the discomforts and hardship of space travel, Garriott de Cayeux, now 55, says his trip to space was worth every penny. His father, Owen Garriott, was an astronaut.He grew up learning and thinking about space and felt his life change when he looked at the planet from inside the International Space Station. "There's something called the Overview Effect," he says."Up there you really realize, 'Yeah, of course we are polluting the Earth. Of course CO2 is a problem. Of course particulate matter is a problem. How could you possibly doubt it when we can see it so self evidently?'"

While Garriott de Cayeux got to observe the Earth, SpaceX's voyagers will see both Earth and the Moon up close. "For them, the Earth will slowly recede into the distance to become much like the moon," he says. "That is a whole other level of awe that no one has experienced in over 50 years."

Here's How Elon Musk Plans to Send Tourists to Space

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Travel Tips From a Real Space Tourist: Get Ready to Feel Awful - Bloomberg

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Facts surrounding global warming are terrifying. Just try listening to the This American Life episode, Hot in My Backyard, without spending the rest of the day sobbing in bed, we dare you. As the population continues to increase, and the temperature continues to rise, the destruction we are causing to the planet is rapidly becoming exponentially more damaging. Thats incredibly scary. We are talking about the very future of humanity.

For many of us, its hard to comprehend the consequences our actions have had and continue to have on the planet. And much easier to simply ignore the problem after all, reading statistics about global warming is really overwhelming. When you look at the bleak conclusions, it can seem easier to simply give up. To take the attitude of, What am I, one single person, going to do that will change anything? Its much easier to choose apathy over panic, but global warming is not a problem that can be wished or ignored away. And were running out of time to reverse things.

Luckily for literally everyone alive, there are scientists (and everyday people!) all over the world who arent passive. They fight against that fear and apathy. These heroes create real change through innovative technology feverishly working to combat global warming before it ends in the destruction of everything we hold dear. Heroes like Wyatt Pontius. Pontius was only a junior in high school when he decided he wanted to change the world.

Through hard work and trial and error, Pontius invented a way of changing the composition of leaves to make them significantly increase their oxygen production. He did this by putting the leaves in a blender (in his case spinach leaves) to isolate their photosynthetic chloroplasts. He then recreated the leaf (which now had nanoscale materials implanted inside).

And his innovation paid off. The result of his work was that the leaf was able to produce about 375% more oxygen than a typical leaf. Its a potentially world saving discovery as we face increasingly lowering amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere. Its also insanely awesome: the guy is literally disrupting the leaf game.

A recent study showed that at the rate that the oceans temperatures are rising, the photosynthesis of phytoplankton could be interrupted by 2100. This is a big deal. Phytoplankton produces two thirds of the worlds oxygen. If it stopped producing, wed be looking at a mass extinction of life on Earth. Those modified leaves will become essential in a hurry.

Once I actually realized it worked, I was in disbelief, Pontius said.

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This Teenager's Invention Could Help To Revolutionize Space Travel - UPROXX