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Editorial: Space, the final frontier, is now open (to the super-rich)

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There’s a new space race underway. Over the coming weeks and months, two, three, possibly four new space tourism ventures will launch from U.S. soil, taking paying passengers into the Earth’s atmosphere.

On Sunday, British tycoon Richard Branson will be one of the first four passengers soaring into space on his Virgin Galactic’s rocket plane. Later this month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is expected to be on the first human spaceflight launched by his company Blue Origin. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning to take paying passengers into orbit this year. And Boeing is hoping to use its Starliner spacecraft to carry space tourists.

What was once the final frontier, where “no man had gone before,” could soon become the playground of the rich and daring. That comes as no surprise.

For centuries, humankind has looked to the sky in wonder. Sure, scientific advances have helped shed some light on the mysteries of space. Telescopes have allowed us to see stars and planets in greater focus. Rockets and space shuttles allowed the people to travel into space and even walk on the moon. Rovers and unmanned spacecraft have given us images and sound from Mars.

But the experience of being in space and looking down on the shimmering blue Earth has been largely the domain of highly trained astronauts on government-run flights. Until now. With technological advances fueled by billions of dollars supplied by some of the world’s richest men, the opportunity to shoot into the Earth’s orbit will soon be open to the public. Or, that is, the public willing to withstand a Mach 3 ascent into the sky and capable of spending at least $250,000 for the pleasure of it.

The first space tourists won’t be taking a leisurely float over the Earth. What they’ll experience sounds more like the most extreme amusement park ride imaginable.

The Virgin Galactic rocket plane, attached to a larger carrier plane, will take off from a runway in New Mexico. When the carrier hits an altitude of 50,000 feet, the plane will detach, fire up its rockets and blast up into space at three times the speed of sound, or roughly 2,300 mph. When the plane reaches the blackness of space, the motor will shut off and the plane will hover at nearly 300,000 feet above Earth. Passengers can briefly unbuckle to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Then the plane descends, landing on the same runway as before. The trip takes about an hour.

Bezos’ Blue Origin , which launches on July 20, will offer a similar experience, with passengers in the autonomous capsule having several minutes of weightlessness and Earthly views before the capsule returns to terra firma, floating under parachutes.

Of course, it’s all extraordinarily expensive. One person paid $28 million in an auction for a seat with Bezos on Blue Origin’s first flight.

It’s also dangerous. Spaceflight is still a highly risky endeavor; even the experts at NASA have had deadly accidents, including two space shuttle disasters, the Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003. In a world with life-and-death needs for technological advancements — cures for cancer and infectious diseases, carbon sequestration and geo-engineering to mitigate climate change — can we really celebrate the entrepreneurs who have chosen to spend billions of dollars on space tourism?

Yes, we can. We still want some visionaries to put money behind curiosity and imagination. We still need to push the limits of human experience and pursue what seems impossible or impractical. Even if dreams of spaceflights seem gratuitous, there will be Earthly benefits from the pursuit. The race in the 1960s to put a man on the moon did more than just that — it helped develop technology that we rely upon today, including solar panels, portable computers and air purifiers.

So let the new space race begin.

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The future of spaceflight—from orbital vacations to humans on Mars

NASA aims to travel to the moon again—and beyond. Here’s a look at the 21st-century race to send humans into space.

Welcome to the 21st-century space race, one that could potentially lead to 10-minute space vacations, orbiting space hotels , and humans on Mars. Now, instead of warring superpowers battling for dominance in orbit, private companies are competing to make space travel easier and more affordable. This year, SpaceX achieved a major milestone— launching humans to the International Space Station (ISS) from the United States —but additional goalposts are on the star-studded horizon.

Private spaceflight

Private spaceflight is not a new concept . In the United States, commercial companies played a role in the aerospace industry right from the start: Since the 1960s, NASA has relied on private contractors to build spacecraft for every major human spaceflight program, starting with Project Mercury and continuing until the present.

Today, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is expanding on the agency’s relationship with private companies. Through it, NASA is relying on SpaceX and Boeing to build spacecraft capable of carrying humans into orbit. Once those vehicles are built, both companies retain ownership and control of the craft, and NASA can send astronauts into space for a fraction of the cost of a seat on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

SpaceX, which established a new paradigm by developing reusable rockets , has been running regular cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station since 2012. And in May 2020, the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft carried NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS , becoming the first crewed mission to launch from the United States in nearly a decade. The mission, called Demo-2, is scheduled to return to Earth in August. Boeing is currently developing its Starliner spacecraft and hopes to begin carrying astronauts to the ISS in 2021.

Other companies, such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic , are specializing in sub-orbital space tourism. Test launch video from inside the cabin of Blue Origin’s New Shepard shows off breathtaking views of our planet and a relatively calm journey for its first passenger, a test dummy cleverly dubbed “Mannequin Skywalker.” Virgin Galactic is running test flights on its sub-orbital spaceplane , which will offer paying customers roughly six minutes of weightlessness during its journey through Earth’s atmosphere.

With these and other spacecraft in the pipeline, countless dreams of zero-gravity somersaults could soon become a reality—at least for passengers able to pay the hefty sums for the experience.

Early U.S. Spaceflight

Looking to the moon

Moon missions are essential to the exploration of more distant worlds. After a long hiatus from the lunar neighborhood, NASA is again setting its sights on Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor with an ambitious plan to place a space station in lunar orbit sometime in the next decade. Sooner, though, the agency’s Artemis program , a sister to the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, is aiming to put the first woman (and the next man) on the lunar surface by 2024.

For Hungry Minds

Extended lunar stays build the experience and expertise needed for the long-term space missions required to visit other planets. As well, the moon may also be used as a forward base of operations from which humans learn how to replenish essential supplies, such as rocket fuel and oxygen, by creating them from local material.

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Such skills are crucial for the future expansion of human presence into deeper space, which demands more independence from Earth-based resources. And although humans have visited the moon before, the cratered sphere still harbors its own scientific mysteries to be explored—including the presence and extent of water ice near the moon's south pole, which is one of the top target destinations for space exploration .

NASA is also enlisting the private sector to help it reach the moon. It has awarded three contracts to private companies working on developing human-rated lunar landers—including both Blue Origin and SpaceX. But the backbone of the Artemis program relies on a brand new, state-of-the-art spacecraft called Orion .

Archival Photos of Spaceflight

Currently being built and tested, Orion—like Crew Dragon and Starliner—is a space capsule similar to the spacecraft of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, as well as Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. But the Orion capsule is larger and can accommodate a four-person crew. And even though it has a somewhat retro design, the capsule concept is considered to be safer and more reliable than NASA’s space shuttle—a revolutionary vehicle for its time, but one that couldn’t fly beyond Earth’s orbit and suffered catastrophic failures.

Capsules, on the other hand, offer launch-abort capabilities that can protect astronauts in case of a rocket malfunction. And, their weight and design mean they can also travel beyond Earth’s immediate neighborhood, potentially ferrying humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

A new era in spaceflight

By moving into orbit with its Commercial Crew Program and partnering with private companies to reach the lunar surface, NASA hopes to change the economics of spaceflight by increasing competition and driving down costs. If space travel truly does become cheaper and more accessible, it’s possible that private citizens will routinely visit space and gaze upon our blue, watery home world—either from space capsules, space stations, or even space hotels like the inflatable habitats Bigelow Aerospace intends to build .

The United States isn’t the only country with its eyes on the sky. Russia regularly launches humans to the International Space Station aboard its Soyuz spacecraft. China is planning a large, multi-module space station capable of housing three taikonauts, and has already launched two orbiting test vehicles—Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2, both of which safely burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere after several years in space.

Now, more than a dozen countries have the ability to launch rockets into Earth orbit. A half-dozen space agencies have designed spacecraft that shed the shackles of Earth’s gravity and traveled to the moon or Mars. And if all goes well, the United Arab Emirates will join that list in the summer of 2020 when its Hope spacecraft heads to the red planet . While there are no plans yet to send humans to Mars, these missions—and the discoveries that will come out of them—may help pave the way.

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Counting the cost of America’s fickle fascination with space travel | Editorial

Should NASA continue paying steep prices to send humans where expendable machines could travel for much less?

The popularity of every Star Wars and Star Trek spin-off imaginable on TV streaming services shows how much Americans remain intrigued by the possibility “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” But 53 years after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, our excitement waxes and wanes with the ups and downs of real-world space exploration orchestrated by NASA. Consider a spate of recent news stories, which have alternately grabbed brief snatches of our attention or been mostly greeted by yawns.

Earlier this month, NASA released the first batch of images from the James Webb Space Telescope — photographs that widely impressed viewers (although there were more than a few who compared the latest views of these celestial bodies to upholstery swaths ). The price tag for those photos? Close to $11 billion and counting, and Americans are split over whether it was money well spent. In a recent poll, 60% of respondents said the telescope was a good investment, while about 40% were either unsure or thought it wasn’t worth it .

The possibility that aliens might have dumped junk on the moon raised eyebrows last month when NASA released photographs of an unusual double crater left behind by something that had smashed into the far side of the moon in March. The ho-hums came when it was later explained that the craters most likely were created by part of a Chinese rocket launched in 2014. It eventually fell from space and crashed on the moon instead of burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere as planned. Of course, China denies this, but does China ever admit a mistake?

Barely making the news was the June 28 launch of a spacecraft called CAPSTONE that was built by several NASA contractors and is operated by a private company, Advanced Space. After a four-month journey, CAPSTONE will orbit the moon for six months gathering information useful to future moon missions. The $30 million project reminds us that even with the private sector doing more and more of what NASA used to do on its own, space exploration still isn’t cheap.

» READ MORE: 52 years after the moon landing, Republicans reject science and America is unraveling | Will Bunch

The Trump administration commanded NASA to return to the moon by 2024, but a number of funding and development delays have made that goal fluid. SpaceX, owned by Tesla founder Elon Musk , won the $2.9 billion contract to develop the Artemis lunar landing system that NASA hopes will put humans on the moon for the first time since 1972. The space agency has defended Artemis’ cost, saying the lunar landers it built for the Apollo program would cost $23 billion each in today’s dollars.

NASA contractors are also building separate units of a lunar space station that it’s calling Gateway . It will have docking ports for visiting spacecraft and areas for crews to live and work. The space agency is paying Northrop Grumman $935 million to build Gateway’s living area and Maxar $375 million to build its propulsion unit. However, some estimates say almost $4 billion may be spent on Gateway before the project is finished.

“Taxpayers footing the bill should continue asking if manned space exploration is still too expensive.” The Inquirer Editorial Board

Whether that kind of money stays with NASA or is beamed to Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin , taxpayers footing the bill should continue asking if manned space exploration is still too expensive. NASA has many missions in which the only human involvement is by long distance from Earth. Should it continue paying steep prices to send humans when expendable machines could travel for much less? In most cases, automated probes and other calibrated machines might do the job.

The moon has not been a manned space flight destination for 50 years because the expense of a return didn’t seem worth it. Even now, renewed interest in the moon is based on using it as a base to send humans to Mars . The red planet has become the bauble dangled before Congress each year to entice NASA’s budget approvals. Stretching its spending across more years doesn’t mean space exploration would end. It might take more time, but as Einstein explained , time is relative.

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

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Ramin Skibba

Here’s a Sneak Peek at the Far-Out Future of Space Travel

From Star Trek–like medical scanners to concepts for off-planet agriculture like in The Expanse , science fiction has often inspired actual research at NASA and other space agencies. This week, researchers are meeting at a virtual conference for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to brainstorm and investigate sci-fi-like ideas, some of which may very well shape the missions of the next 20 years.

A drone helicopter hopping about a Martian crater or a lunar rover that maps moon ice might have seemed far-fetched a decade ago, but the copter actually flew earlier this year, and the rover is in the planning stages. Now the conference organizers have solicited proposals for more exploratory projects, a few of which the agency might eventually fund. “We invest in long-term, far-out technologies, and most of them probably won’t work. The ones that do might change everything. It’s high risk, high payoff, almost like a venture capital investment portfolio,” says Jason Derleth, the NIAC program executive.

The program isn’t focused on incremental developments but instead seeks game-changing technologies, ones that are 10 times better than the state of the art, Derleth says. He likens it to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which also explores extremely speculative concepts but developed the precursor to the modern internet, among other innovations.

The annual conference , which continues through Thursday, September 23, is publicly viewable on NIAC’s livestream . Some of the proposals discussed so far—such as for new ways to launch foldable space stations or astronaut habitats, or to extract resources from other worlds—revolve around the understanding that, for lengthy space voyages, you have to make the most of every rocket launch.

The next generation of space travelers will need resources for survival, for protective structures, and to fuel the journey further or return home. “This leaves us with two options: Take everything with us, like if you were going on a hiking trip in the desert. Or find new and creative ways to use whatever is already there,” says Amelia Greig, an aerospace engineer at University of Texas at El Paso, who presented at the conference on Tuesday.

To aid creative reuse of lunar resources, Greig and her colleagues propose a technology called ablative arc mining, which would slurp up water ice and the kinds of metals that could be used as building materials. “It’s like using controlled lightning bolts to mine the moon,” she said during her presentation. Her concept describes a van-sized moon crawler—named after the Jawa sandcrawlers of Star Wars —that picks a spot, and then places a ringed device that it carries on its front end parallel to the ground. Electric arcs zap across the ring, which can be made as large as a meter in diameter, ripping particles from the moon’s surface. Those particles, now charged, can then be moved and sorted by the machine’s electromagnetic fields. That way, rather than scoping just one resource, a single piece of equipment could fill one container with water, another with oxygen attached to other elements, and others with silicon, aluminum, or other metal particles.

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An artistic representation of the ablative arc mining system deployed into a crater near the lunar south pole.

But, like all early concepts, it faces practical challenges that would have to be overcome: In this case, the moon’s dusty environment could cause problems by getting stuck in the machinery, which would have to be made dust-proof. To hunt for water ice, the crawlers also will have to trundle into permanently shadowed craters, which contain water at about 6 percent by mass but are extremely cold and dark. The crawlers’ electronics would have to be designed to operate in those rugged conditions and with a non-solar power source. It also would be tough for any astronaut to oversee them, though they could monitor the mining from the crater’s rim. NASA estimates that permanent lunar settlements will need around 10,000 kilograms of water per year. That would require at least 20 of these kinds of crawlers roving about, gradually collecting those supplies, unless this technology was supplemented with something else. For now, Greig just hopes to test a smaller demonstration version of the crawler in a few years.

Space mining projects have also prompted ethical questions. For example, scientists and others have raised concerns about lunar mining permanently changing the look of the moon in the night sky. But Greig points out that ablative arc mining wouldn’t look like the environmentally harmful pit mines on Earth; the mining region could be spread out, making some craters only slightly deeper. And as for sustainability issues, she says, “there’s enough water to last human settlements hundreds of years.”

Stop-motion representation of the arc mining process on the lunar surface.

As a potential launching point for moon-goers and expeditions to deep space, NASA has proposed a space station orbiting the moon called the Lunar Gateway . But Zachary Manchester, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, argues that the limited size of rockets allows few options for launching large structures for a lunar station. “If you want something that’s bigger than a rocket fairing, which is at most a few meters, it has to get launched in multiple rockets and assembled in orbit, like the International Space Station . Or it has to somehow get scrunched up into that rocket and then somehow expand out,” Manchester says.

At a session Wednesday, he and Jeffrey Lipton, a mechanical engineer at the University of Washington, proposed a space station that would fit into that confined space. Then, once deployed, it would unfold autonomously, like origami, into a full-sized structure, some 150 times bigger than its folded size. Preliminary designs involve a many-jointed structure made of titanium, aluminum, or another metal.

Since future astronauts will likely be on-station for a while, it would need to rotate to generate artificial gravity to avoid the deleterious health effects of prolonged periods in zero-G. But humans are sensitive to spinning; no one wants to live on a merry-go-round. “If you try to build a rotating space habitat, the only way to do it without making people motion-sick is to spin at up to two revolutions per minute,” Manchester says. To produce Earth-like gravity, such a space station needs to be a kilometer across, he argues. Yet squishing such a massive structure into a tiny space until it’s deployed poses a significant engineering challenge. In addition, to make their idea a reality, Manchester and Lipton ultimately need to figure out how to make the unfolding process not get jammed, despite the structure’s thousands of links and joints.

An artist's illustration of the Lunar Gateway in orbit around the moon.

Like packing for the biggest road trip ever, NASA will face similar challenges when fitting everything needed for moon or Mars structures onto rockets. To lighten the load, some scientists have suggested using Martian rocks as material for 3D-printing parts of structures. (A simulated lunar regolith is currently being test-printed aboard the International Space Station.) But Lynn Rothschild, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, has a completely different idea: making structures out of mushrooms—or “mycotecture,” as she calls it. “The humble mushroom can provide an unbelievable building material. It’s completely natural, compostable, and the ultimate green building,” Rothschild says.

Although fungi could be used to grow the material for actual bricks and mortar that astronauts could use for construction, the best kind of space habitat would be assembled before they even arrive. Her team’s proposal involves launching a lander that would include plastic scaffolding and fungal mycelia, white filaments that make the root structure of fungi. (Like yeasts, mycelia can survive for a while without being fed.) The scaffolding would be a lattice of square hollow plastic cells, stitched into layers to make the shape of the final structure. On Mars, it would inflate to perhaps the size of a garage. Using water and oxygen—at least some of which would likely have been sourced or generated on Mars—the fungi would grow along those stitches and fill the cells, eventually turning a tent-like structure into a full-fledged building.

For strength and protection from space radiation, Rothschild thinks some kind of dark fungi could do the trick. “Black fungi—they make you say ‘Blecch,’ they look kind of disgusting. But the black pigment tends to protect from radiation, protecting the fungi and the people inside the habitat,” Rothschild says. She hopes to send a prototype to the International Space Station in the next few years.

Unlike the moon, Mars was once friendly to life . So Rothschild is designing the scaffolding to prevent any chance of renegade fungi escaping beyond the astronauts’ structures. (The last thing NASA wants is for a search for life on other worlds to turn up something that actually came from Earth .) In her team’s design, the fungi are essentially “double-bagged,” with an extra layer in the plastic lattice to ensure they all stay in.

To address those issues, space agencies have “planetary protection” experts like Moogega Cooper, supervisor of the Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who spoke at the NIAC conference. “Anywhere you are possibly interacting with liquid water that is inherent to the place, your exploring would definitely catch our attention. Where you find water you may find life,” she says. The United States is one of the original signatories of the Outer Space Treaty, which requires that every space agency or company that wants to send a mission to an alien world make sure the spacecraft and all the equipment aboard are sterilized.

While the NIAC program has a budget of just $8.5 million per year, it supports many exploratory projects. A few of the ideas presented at this week’s conference could go on to the next level, or could get picked up by other agencies or private companies, as in the case of an earlier proposal to propel a smartphone-sized spacecraft to another stellar system with lasers, which inspired Breakthrough Starshot, a privately funded enterprise. Among a few of the topics on the menu for the rest of Wednesday and Thursday: multiple presentations about moon-based radio telescopes , as well as one about personal rovers for astronauts (since Artemis astronauts will be carrying 220-pound packs) and one about planting mushrooms in space regolith to make a more Earth-like growing soil.

“All of the concepts that are awarded are pushing the edge of our understanding, and they really allow us to take science fiction and make it science fact,” Cooper says.

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The farthest spacecraft from Earth had been transmitting nonsense since November, but after an engineering tweak, it finally beamed back a report on its health and status

April 23, 2024

See NASA’s Initial Moon Buggy Concepts, Expected on the Moon by 2030

Three companies are competing to design NASA's lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) for the agency’s Artemis campaign

April 8, 2024

NASA Will Create a New Time Zone for the Moon, Called Coordinated Lunar Time

With dozens of lunar missions on the horizon, a standard time-keeping system for the moon will assist with precise navigation, docking and landing

April 4, 2024

Falling Object That Crashed Into Florida Home May Be Debris From the International Space Station

Nobody was hurt by the mysterious, two-pound object, but experts speculate it may be a piece of batteries ejected from the station in 2021

April 3, 2024

Most Astronauts Experience 'Space Headaches' While on the ISS, Study Finds

Surveys of 24 astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station found that nearly all of them reported headaches, and many of these occurred past the first week in space

March 19, 2024

Starship Reaches Orbit in Third Test Flight, a Success for SpaceX and the Future of Lunar Travel

As it returned to Earth, the spacecraft likely broke apart or burned up, and the booster was lost in the Gulf of Mexico

March 15, 2024

A History of Total Solar Eclipses Seen by Astronauts From Outer Space

Since the Gemini 12 mission in 1966, a handful of people have seen these stunning celestial events from orbit—or watched the moon’s shadow pass over Earth

March 11, 2024

A Leak on the International Space Station Is Growing, but It Poses No Threat to Crews, NASA Says

The leak, which is at the end of a Russian service module, will not affect the upcoming launch of Crew-8 to the station

March 1, 2024

How a Microbe From Yellowstone's Hot Springs Could Help Feed the World

A Chicago startup has turned a fungus found by NASA into a protein-packed food

Claire Turrell

Odysseus Moon Lander Is Powering Down After 'Very Successful' Mission

The history-making spacecraft landed on its side, but it spent nearly a week sending data and images back from the moon—and engineers may try to make contact again after the lunar night is over

February 29, 2024

An American Spacecraft Successfully Lands on the Moon for the First Time Since 1972

After a tense touchdown process with last-minute changes, U.S.-based company Intuitive Machines received a signal from its uncrewed Odysseus lunar lander on Thursday evening

February 23, 2024

A Lunar Lander Carrying Jeff Koons' Art Is Flying Toward the Moon

The spacecraft, which finally launched on February 15, is expected to touch down on February 22

February 16, 2024

This Remotely Controlled Robot Will Conduct a Simulated Surgery on the International Space Station

Robot surgeons could treat astronauts on long space missions—but they could also be used on Earth in places where surgeons aren't present, such as rural areas or war zones

February 14, 2024

Japan Lands Spacecraft on the Moon

After a successful soft landing, the craft's solar cells weren't charging and it was running out of power

January 19, 2024

Doomed Lunar Lander Will Burn Up in Earth's Atmosphere on Thursday

Astrobotic, the company in charge of the mission, says its Peregrine spacecraft will not reach the moon, and burning it will ensure the lander doesn't end up as space debris

January 17, 2024

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Space and Astronomy

Alarmed by climate change, astronomers train their sights on earth.

A growing number of researchers in the field are using their expertise to fight the climate crisis.

  By Katrina Miller and Delger Erdenesanaa

A Solar Storm Lights Up the Night Sky

The unusual sight of aurora borealis was visible around the world.

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Solar Storm Crashes GPS Systems Used by Some Farmers, Stalling Planting

The storm interfered with navigational systems used in tractors and other farming equipment, leaving some farmers temporarily unable to plant their crops.

  By Livia Albeck-Ripka

China Launches Spacecraft to the Far Side of the Moon

If successful, the Chang’e-6 mission will be the first in history to return a sample from a part of the moon that we never get to see from Earth.

  By Katrina Miller

What Happens When NASA Loses Eyes on Earth? We’re About to Find Out.

Three long-running satellites will soon be switched off, forcing scientists to figure out how to adjust their views of our changing planet.

  By Raymond Zhong

Edward Dwight Aims for Space at Last

Six decades ago, Mr. Dwight’s shot at becoming the first Black astronaut in space was thwarted by racism and politics. Now, at 90, he’s finally going up.

  By Matt Richtel

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Private space flight opens a potential new era for dreams of space - and prosperity

For 60 years, we have watched launches slip the bounds of earthly gravity and hurtle into space. And we have dreamed of one day being among those elite crew members, many of whom devoted their entire working life toward being chosen for space fight.

But as SpaceX’s Resilience capsule splashed down Saturday, we knew we were witnessing something radically different: A giant leap forward in the era of American commercial spaceflight, and a firm step toward a time when the stars could be accessible to anyone.

More: Volusia, Flagler residents celebrate photo-worthy SpaceX Inspiration4 blastoff

Sen. Marco Rubio: NASA’s success is critical to our nation’s future

More: Launch marks new age of space flight

We aren’t quite there yet. But the selection process for the crew members who made up the Inspiration4 mission sparked the imagination in new ways. We already know the basics: JShift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman bankrolled the mission, buying the four seats on Resiliance from SpaceX. He donated two of those seats to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which chose one of its own physician assistants, Hayley Arceneaux, as its first choice. The second seat was the subject of a raffle that raised millions for the hospital; someone at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University had the winning ticket, but gave it to U.S. Air Force veteran Christopher Sembroski. The final seat was taken by Sian Proctor, selected in a Shark-Tank-like competition. Through a Netflix documentary series, Americans got a front-row seat as the four  worked hard, preparing for months before the launch.

There have been civilians in space before — the first American civilian chosen was Christa McCauliffe, a high school social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986. And Russia has sold passes to “space tourists” for 20 years. But this launch was different in several critical ways: The civilians were crew members, not supercargo. And the entire mission was in the hands of SpaceX, which coordinated with NASA but called all the shots. Early next year, Axiom Space plans to take a civilian mission to the International Space Station. NASA has announced more private missions through 2023.

For the foreseeable future, commercial space flight will still be a highly selective endeavor. But the entire stands to benefit as space exploration firms  migrate toward Central Florida, posting high-paying jobs. Some of that benefit will spill over into Volusia County and possibly further — and it will certainly be welcome.

Beyond that? Who knows. The days of spending a long weekend on the moon still seem distant: Space travel is dangerous and looks to remain that way for a long time. But 20 years ago, few imagined that the United States would have multiple, well-funded companies competing for the chance to commercialize space travel — so we refuse to put limits on our imagination, or our optimism and pride as American entrepreneurs head for the stars.

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• Space Travel + Astronomy

2022 in Space Travel: What to Watch for This Year

Rockets and tourists and probes, oh my!

There's no doubt that 2021 was a fantastic year in space , bookended by two major milestones: the landing of three rovers on Mars in Feb. 2021 and the successful launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope in the universe, toward the end of the year. Now, 2022 is shaping up to be an exciting year, too. We'll not only see a handful of missions finally launch after months or years of delays (knock on wood), but also the crescendoing effects of missions launched in years past. Here are the seven space missions to add to your calendar this year.

SpaceX Starship Orbital Attempt

From late 2020 through mid-2021, SpaceX launched several test flights of its new reusable Starship rockets, eventually destined for the Moon and Mars. While some of the "hops," or up-and-down flights, ended in spectacular explosions, SpaceX did eventually stick the landing. Next up: an orbital flight attempt, in which the rocket will circle the Earth. While the company had hoped to fly in January or February, it's waiting on final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is expected on Feb. 28. SpaceX will be ready to go as soon as it gets the green light, so if all goes to plan, you can expect a launch in March.

James Webb Space Telescope

Perhaps the most nerve-wracking launch of 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — the most powerful ever created, at a cost of $10 billion — left Earth aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on Christmas Day. Since then, it's successfully deployed its full structure, which had to be folded up like origami for launch — a monumental feat of engineering. It's currently making its way to its new home, a point called L2 about 930,000 miles away from Earth, where it'll start photographing the universe in extraordinary detail. We can expect the first images to arrive this summer.

NASA's big return to the moon is the four-part Artemis mission, which will put the first woman on the lunar surface, supposedly by 2024. The first stage of the mission, Artemis I, will see the first flight of NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and the second flight of its Orion capsule. Though there won't be any astronauts on board, the capsule will spend three weeks orbiting the moon as a test flight to prepare for a crewed mission in a few years' time. Artemis I was supposed to launch last year, but a series of technical issues bumped back that date to 2022; as of right now, the mission is scheduled for March or April.

Boeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test-2

Like Artemis I and SLS, Boeing's Starliner capsule, designed to carry astronauts as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, has been plagued by delays. The capsule made its first orbital test flight in December 2019, but it failed to achieve its goal of docking at the International Space Station (ISS) due to software anomalies. Starliner Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), a repeat of the first test, was originally supposed to launch in August 2021, but a fuel valve malfunction shifted the date back until May 2022—if the engineers can solve the problem in time.

Axiom Mission 1

You might notice a timing trend here. Optimistically scheduled for late 2021, but delayed to early 2022, Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) will take four men to the ISS for an eight-day stay via a chartered SpaceX Crew Dragon. It'll be the first fully private mission to the ISS. Former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría will command a crew of three space tourists on the mission, which is the first for private spaceflight company Axiom Space. Axiom plans to take tourists to the ISS up to twice per year. Unlike many other missions with technical delays, Ax-1 is simply facing scheduling issues, as only so many people (and vehicles) can be at the ISS at once.

Double Asteroid Redirection Test

Yes, there are actually scores of people tasked with defending our planet from threats from outer space, just like in a sci-fi movie. But no, they're not worried about aliens — they're keeping an eye on Near-Earth objects (NEOs), or asteroids and comets. To that end, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission in 2021, with the goal of crashing a probe into an asteroid to see if it would change the asteroid's trajectory. If successful, this method could be used to deflect a NEO on a collision course with Earth. The DART spacecraft is anticipated to impact the asteroid Dimorphos in late September or early October. Sadly, there will be no film crews there to capture the scene in IMAX.

Launched in 2011, NASA's Juno probe has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016. Last year, NASA made the decision to extend the mission through 2025, setting it up for a pretty exciting 2022. In February, Juno will make a "close" pass of Jupiter's moon Europa, coming within 29,000 miles of the icy body. But the real show happens in September, when Juno will come within a mind-bogglingly close distance of Europa's surface: just 221 miles. Hopefully, the probe will be able to shed some light on the composition of the moon; scientists believe there may be a liquid ocean on Europa beneath its icy crust, which means there's a chance for life to be discovered there.

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• Boeing & Aerospace

Boeing is on the verge of launching astronauts aboard new capsule, the latest entry to space travel

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After years of delays and stumbles, Boeing is finally poised to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.

It’s the first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board, a pair of NASA pilots who will check out the spacecraft during the test drive and a weeklong stay at the space station.

NASA turned to U.S. companies for astronaut rides after the space shuttles were retired. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has made nine taxi trips for NASA since 2020, while Boeing has managed only a pair of unoccupied test flights.

Boeing program manager Mark Nappi wishes Starliner was further along. “There’s no doubt about that, but we’re here now.”

The company’s long-awaited astronaut demo is slated for liftoff Monday night.

Provided this tryout goes well, NASA will alternate between Boeing and SpaceX to get astronauts to and from the space station.

A look at the newest ride and its shakedown cruise:

THE CAPSULE

White with black and blue trim, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about 10 feet (3 meters) tall and 15 feet (4.5 meters) in diameter. It can fit up to seven people, though NASA crews typically will number four. The company settled on the name Starliner nearly a decade ago, a twist on the name of Boeing’s early Stratoliner and the current Dreamliner.

No one was aboard Boeing’s two previous Starliner test flights. The first, in 2019, was hit with software trouble so severe that its empty capsule couldn’t reach the station until the second try in 2022. Then last summer, weak parachutes and flammable tape cropped up that needed to be fixed or removed.

Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are retired Navy captains who spent months aboard the space station years ago. They joined the test flight after the original crew bowed out as the delays piled up. Wilmore, 61, is a former combat pilot from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Williams, 58, is a helicopter pilot from Needham, Massachusetts. The duo have been involved in the capsule’s development and insist Starliner is ready for prime time, otherwise they would not strap in for the launch.

“We’re not putting our heads in the sand,” Williams told The Associated Press. “Sure, Boeing has had its problems. But we are the QA (quality assurance). Our eyes are on the spacecraft.”

THE TEST FLIGHT

Starliner will blast off on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It will be the first time astronauts ride an Atlas since NASA’s Project Mercury, starting with John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. Sixty-two years later, this will be the 100th launch of the Atlas V, which is used to hoist satellites as well as spacecraft.

“We’re super careful with every mission. We’re super, duper, duper careful” with human missions, said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Starliner should reach the space station in roughly 26 hours. The seven station residents will have their eyes peeled on the approaching capsule. The arrival of a new vehicle is “a really big deal. You leave nothing to chance,” NASA astronaut Michael Barratt told the AP from orbit. Starliner will remain docked for eight days, undergoing checkouts before landing in New Mexico or elsewhere in the American West.

STARLINER VS. DRAGON

Both companies’ capsules are designed to be autonomous and reusable. This Starliner is the same one that made the first test flight in 2019. Unlike the SpaceX Dragons, Starliner has traditional hand controls and switches alongside touchscreens and, according to the astronauts, is more like NASA’s Orion capsules for moon missions. Wilmore and Williams briefly will take manual control to wring out the systems on their way to the space station.

NASA gave Boeing, a longtime space contractor, more than $4 billion to develop the capsule, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. SpaceX already was in the station delivery business and merely refashioned its cargo capsule for crew. While SpaceX uses the boss’ Teslas to get astronauts to the launch pad, Boeing will use a more traditional “astrovan” equipped with a video screen that Wilmore said will be playing “Top Gun: Maverick.”

One big difference at flight’s end: Starliner lands on the ground with cushioning airbags, while Dragon splashes into the sea.

Boeing is committed to six Starliner trips for NASA after this one, which will take the company to the station’s planned end in 2030. Boeing’s Nappi is reluctant to discuss other potential customers until this inaugural crew flight is over. But the company has said a fifth seat will be available to private clients. SpaceX periodically sells seats to tycoons and even countries eager to get their citizens to the station for a couple weeks.

Coming soon: Sierra Space’s mini shuttle, Dream Chaser, which will deliver cargo to the station later this year or next, before accepting passengers.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Beyond ISS: America must lead in LEO, cislunar and beyond

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A Groundbreaking Scientific Discovery Just Created the Instruction Manual for Light-Speed Travel

In a first for warp drives, this research actually obeys the laws of physics.

If a superluminal—meaning faster than the speed of light—warp drive like Alcubierre’s worked, it would revolutionize humanity’s endeavors across the universe , allowing us, perhaps, to reach Alpha Centauri, our closest star system, in days or weeks even though it’s four light years away.

The clip above from the 2016 film Star Trek Beyond showcases the effect of a starship zipping through space inside a faster-than-light warp bubble. You can see the imagined but hypothetically accurate warping of spacetime.

However, the Alcubierre drive has a glaring problem: the force behind its operation, called “negative energy,” involves exotic particles—hypothetical matter that, as far as we know, doesn’t exist in our universe. Described only in mathematical terms, exotic particles act in unexpected ways, like having negative mass and working in opposition to gravity (in fact, it has “anti-gravity”). For the past 30 years, scientists have been publishing research that chips away at the inherent hurdles to light speed revealed in Alcubierre’s foundational 1994 article published in the peer-reviewed journal Classical and Quantum Gravity .

Now, researchers at the New York City-based think tank Applied Physics believe they’ve found a creative new approach to solving the warp drive’s fundamental roadblock. Along with colleagues from other institutions, the team envisioned a “positive energy” system that doesn’t violate the known laws of physics . It’s a game-changer, say two of the study’s authors: Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics, and Jared Fuchs, Ph.D., a senior scientist there. Their work, also published in Classical and Quantum Gravity in late April, could be the first chapter in the manual for interstellar spaceflight.

Positive energy makes all the difference. Imagine you are an astronaut in space, pushing a tennis ball away from you. Instead of moving away, the ball pushes back, to the point that it would “take your hand off” if you applied enough pushing force, Martire tells Popular Mechanics . That’s a sign of negative energy, and, though the Alcubierre drive design requires it, there’s no way to harness it.

Instead, regular old positive energy is more feasible for constructing the “ warp bubble .” As its name suggests, it’s a spherical structure that surrounds and encloses space for a passenger ship using a shell of regular—but incredibly dense—matter. The bubble propels the spaceship using the powerful gravity of the shell, but without causing the passengers to feel any acceleration. “An elevator ride would be more eventful,” Martire says.

That’s because the density of the shell, as well as the pressure it exerts on the interior, is controlled carefully, Fuchs tells Popular Mechanics . Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, according to the gravity-bound principles of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity . So the bubble is designed such that observers within their local spacetime environment—inside the bubble—experience normal movement in time. Simultaneously, the bubble itself compresses the spacetime in front of the ship and expands it behind the ship, ferrying itself and the contained craft incredibly fast. The walls of the bubble generate the necessary momentum, akin to the momentum of balls rolling, Fuchs explains. “It’s the movement of the matter in the walls that actually creates the effect for passengers on the inside.”

Building on its 2021 paper published in Classical and Quantum Gravity —which details the same researchers’ earlier work on physical warp drives—the team was able to model the complexity of the system using its own computational program, Warp Factory. This toolkit for modeling warp drive spacetimes allows researchers to evaluate Einstein’s field equations and compute the energy conditions required for various warp drive geometries. Anyone can download and use it for free . These experiments led to what Fuchs calls a mini model, the first general model of a positive-energy warp drive. Their past work also demonstrated that the amount of energy a warp bubble requires depends on the shape of the bubble; for example, the flatter the bubble in the direction of travel, the less energy it needs.

☄️ DID YOU KNOW? People have been imagining traveling as fast as light for nearly a century, if not longer. The 1931 novel Islands of Space by John W. Campbell mentions a “warp” method in the context of superluminal space travel.

This latest advancement suggests fresh possibilities for studying warp travel design, Erik Lentz, Ph.D., tells Popular Mechanics . In his current position as a staff physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, Lentz contributes to research on dark matter detection and quantum information science research. His independent research in warp drive theory also aims to be grounded in conventional physics while reimagining the shape of warped space. The topic needs to overcome many practical hurdles, he says.

Controlling warp bubbles requires a great deal of coordination because they involve enormous amounts of matter and energy to keep the passengers safe and with a similar passage of time as the destination. “We could just as well engineer spacetime where time passes much differently inside [the passenger compartment] than outside. We could miss our appointment at Proxima Centauri if we aren’t careful,” Lentz says. “That is still a risk if we are traveling less than the speed of light.” Communication between people inside the bubble and outside could also become distorted as it passes through the curvature of warped space, he adds.

While Applied Physics’ current solution requires a warp drive that travels below the speed of light, the model still needs to plug in a mass equivalent to about two Jupiters. Otherwise, it will never achieve the gravitational force and momentum high enough to cause a meaningful warp effect. But no one knows what the source of this mass could be—not yet, at least. Some research suggests that if we could somehow harness dark matter , we could use it for light-speed travel, but Fuchs and Martire are doubtful, since it’s currently a big mystery (and an exotic particle).

Despite the many problems scientists still need to solve to build a working warp drive, the Applied Physics team claims its model should eventually get closer to light speed. And even if a feasible model remains below the speed of light, it’s a vast improvement over today’s technology. For example, traveling at even half the speed of light to Alpha Centauri would take nine years. In stark contrast, our fastest spacecraft, Voyager 1—currently traveling at 38,000 miles per hour—would take 75,000 years to reach our closest neighboring star system.

Of course, as you approach the actual speed of light, things get truly weird, according to the principles of Einstein’s special relativity . The mass of an object moving faster and faster would increase infinitely, eventually requiring an infinite amount of energy to maintain its speed.

“That’s the chief limitation and key challenge we have to overcome—how can we have all this matter in our [bubble], but not at such a scale that we can never even put it together?” Martire says. It’s possible the answer lies in condensed matter physics, he adds. This branch of physics deals particularly with the forces between atoms and electrons in matter. It has already proven fundamental to several of our current technologies, such as transistors, solid-state lasers, and magnetic storage media.

The other big issue is that current models allow a stable warp bubble, but only for a constant velocity. Scientists still need to figure out how to design an initial acceleration. On the other end of the journey, how will the ship slow down and stop? “It’s like trying to grasp the automobile for the first time,” Martire says. “We don’t have an engine just yet, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Warp drive technology is at the stage of 1882 car technology, he says: when automobile travel was possible, but it still looked like a hard, hard problem.

The Applied Physics team believes future innovations in warp travel are inevitable. The general positive energy model is a first step. Besides, you don’t need to zoom at light speed to achieve distances that today are just a dream, Martire says. “Humanity is officially, mathematically, on an interstellar track.”

Before joining Popular Mechanics , Manasee Wagh worked as a newspaper reporter, a science journalist, a tech writer, and a computer engineer. She’s always looking for ways to combine the three greatest joys in her life: science, travel, and food.

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SpaceX Starship's next launch 'probably 3 to 5 weeks' away, Elon Musk says

"Objective is for the ship to get past max heating, or at least further than last time."

We're likely still a month or so away from the next launch of SpaceX's Starship megarocket.

That was the timeline Elon Musk offered in a post on X over the weekend, saying Starship's next test flight is "probably 3 to 5 weeks" away. "Objective is for the ship to get past max heating, or at least further than last time," the billionaire entrepreneur added. 

The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. It consists of two elements, both of which are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable: a huge first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 m) upper stage known as Starship, or simply "Ship."

Related: Relive SpaceX Starship's 3rd flight test in breathtaking photos

A fully stacked Starship has flown three times to date, on each occasion from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas — in April 2023, November 2023 and March 14 of this year . The giant vehicle has performed better with each successive flight.

During the debut liftoff, for example, Starship's two stages failed to separate as planned, and SpaceX detonated the tumbling vehicle just four minutes after liftoff. Flight 2 achieved stage separation , but both Super Heavy and Ship broke apart early, ending the mission after eight minutes.

On Flight 3, Super Heavy successfully steered its way into position for a planned Gulf of Mexico splashdown but broke apart about 1,650 feet (500 m) above the waves. Ship reached orbital velocity and flew for nearly 50 minutes, though it ultimately succumbed to the violent forces of frictional heating when reentering Earth's atmosphere .

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As he noted in his X post, Musk wants Ship to do even better on the upcoming Flight 4.

— SpaceX launches giant Starship rocket into space on epic 3rd test flight (video)

— Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars transportation system

— FAA to oversee investigation of SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight

SpaceX has been gearing up for Flight 4 for a while now. The company has already conducted static fire tests for both the Super Heavy and the Ship assigned to the mission, briefly igniting their Raptor engines while the vehicles remained anchored to the pad at Starbase. SpaceX also recently rolled Flight 4's Super Heavy back to the pad, presumably for more testing, a move the company chronicled in a post on X on Saturday (May 11).

However, there may still be logistical hurdles to clear; SpaceX is seeking a license modification for its next launch from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing an investigation into what happened on the March 14 flight.

Editor's note: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that SpaceX is seeking a launch license from the FAA for the next Starship liftoff. SpaceX already has a launch license; it is seeking a modification of that license. The story was corrected at 11:15 a.m. ET on May 14 to make this clear.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

SpaceX launching 50th mission of the year today

How SpaceX's private Polaris Dawn astronauts will attempt the 1st-ever 'all-civilian' spacewalk

The summer of 2023 was Earth's hottest in 2,000 years, scientists find

• Rob77 Admit a little disappointed at the delay, I'm sure month ago they were eyeing early May? But I guess its to be expected. It looked like they were getting another ready, maybe they might try 2 test runs consecutively? Reply
• danR Translation: 6 to 10 weeks. From the days of Starhopper I'd been anticipating a gradual shift from linear cadence progress to exponential. That has been happening, but the exponent isn't very great, and isn't getting greater at any rate commensurate with getting manned missions to the Moon in under 4 years, or to Mars before 2035. Reply
• Classical Motion Putting a man on Mars is no problem. Getting him back is. You will have to send and build an oasis before you can send a man. And you will need gravity and shielding for the trip. 2035-------maybe cockroaches. A man would only demonstrate ego over reason. Hollywood over reality. PR taken too far. What is the true value in going? Who benefits from the cost, time and resources? There is nothing new there. Send probes to our outer edge, out beyond Pluto and farther for newness. Analyze the corrosion of our system. We have recently found debris fields for all the planets. Perhaps our system leaves such. Reply
• Classical Motion We might even excrete system debris in a pattern. Breadcrumbs. Reply
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• 2 SpaceX launching 50th mission of the year today
• 3 New book 'Challenger: A True Story of Heroism & Disaster on the Edge of Space' out today
• 4 How SpaceX's private Polaris Dawn astronauts will attempt the 1st-ever 'all-civilian' spacewalk
• 5 This time, we take it from no one: Why opening the High Frontier of space can be different (op-ed)

Want to live in or visit space? This exhibit offers a preview

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live and work in space?

To find out, you might track down an astronaut or cosmonaut who spent time on the Russian space station Mir. Or, you could question one of more than 270 individuals who have spent time in the International Space Station, which, NASA boasts, is larger than a six-bedroom house with six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym and a 360-degree-view bay window.

You could also grab some popcorn or some freeze-dried "astronaut" ice cream and watch a movie or TV show — such as "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Ad Astra" or "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" — that imagines what life might be like on a fictional space station.

Want more aviation news? Sign up for TPG's free biweekly Aviation newsletter .

Or you can jet over to Seattle's Museum of Flight to visit " Home Beyond Earth ." It's an exhibit opening in early June that focuses on space stations past, present and future and includes more than 50 artifacts, models, space-flown objects and uniforms.

The topic of long-term living in space is timely, according to Geoff Nunn, the exhibit developer and year-round space curator at the Museum of Flight. Right now, there are two space stations in Earth's orbit: China's Tiangong space station and the ISS, which has been hosting a revolving team of astronauts since November 2000 and is set to be retired around 2030.

"NASA and its international partners are looking to hand off operations of long-term activity in space to private space station companies. And several companies are developing successors to the International Space Station that will be privately owned and operated," Nunn said. "So, in the next decade or so we could see tremendous change in how we live and work in space."

More for AvGeeks: A behind-the-scenes look at Southwest's Dallas headquarters

Nunn said that for this exhibit, the museum wanted to go beyond the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) aspect of living and working on a space station. It aims to dig deeper into the cultural influences and the human fascination with the nuts and bolts of what living and working in space might really entail.

To do that, the exhibit reaches back to the early science fiction stories hypothesizing and predicting what space stations might be like. It progresses to the history of actually living and working in space, which began with Skylab and Salyut in the 1970s and through to the current ISS. The exhibit also looks ahead to the near future and what the space community might be like.

Objects in the exhibit will include scale models of both historic and conceptual space stations, including a model of the ISS built by students at the University of Washington that has solar panels that sync up and rotate with the solar on the real ISS.

"Home Beyond Earth" will also include inflight garments from all the major types of space stations that have been in orbit (with the exception of China's Tiangong space station). It'll feature artifacts that have flown in space, such as the award-winning Space Cup , a zero-gravity coffee cup designed for NASA at Portland State University and tested on the ISS.

A test version of a 3D printer called the Refabricator, which is about the size of a dorm room refrigerator and was launched to the ISS in 2018, will be on exhibit. Nicole Stott's "The Wave" — the first watercolor painted by an astronaut in space on board the ISS in 2009 — will also be on display.

To help future astronauts better visualize what it might be like to live and work in space, the exhibit will issue digital cards or tokens that invite visitors to pick a space station of their choice and personalize their journey. For those who want souvenirs of their journey, there will be space travel posters featuring both real and imagined space stations.

So, is the Museum of Flight's space curator ready to live and work in a space station?

"I think if we can get a decently comfortable space up there," Nunn said, "I might consider it."

"Home Beyond Earth" opens June 8 at Seattle's Museum of Flight and will run through Jan. 20, 2025.

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Boeing is on the verge of launching astronauts aboard new capsule, the latest entry to space travel

Boeing’s Starliner capsule atop an Atlas V rocket is rolled out to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41, Saturday, May 4, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will launch aboard to the International Space Station, scheduled for liftoff on May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore exit the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a mission dress rehearsal on Friday, April 26, 2024. The first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board is scheduled for Monday, May 6, 2024. (Frank Micheaux/NASA via AP)

Boeing Crew Flight Test crew members Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore work in the Boeing Starliner simulator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Nov. 3, 2022. The first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board is scheduled for Monday, May 6, 2024. (NASA/Robert Markowitz)

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After years of delays and stumbles, Boeing is finally poised to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.

It’s the first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board, a pair of NASA pilots who will check out the spacecraft during the test drive and a weeklong stay at the space station.

NASA turned to U.S. companies for astronaut rides after the space shuttles were retired. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has made nine taxi trips for NASA since 2020, while Boeing has managed only a pair of unoccupied test flights.

Boeing program manager Mark Nappi wishes Starliner was further along. “There’s no doubt about that, but we’re here now.”

The company’s long-awaited astronaut demo is slated for liftoff Monday night.

Provided this tryout goes well, NASA will alternate between Boeing and SpaceX to get astronauts to and from the space station.

A look at the newest ride and its shakedown cruise:

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore exit the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a mission dress rehearsal on Friday, April 26, 2024. (Frank Micheaux/NASA via AP)

THE CAPSULE

White with black and blue trim, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about 10 feet (3 meters) tall and 15 feet (4.5 meters) in diameter. It can fit up to seven people, though NASA crews typically will number four. The company settled on the name Starliner nearly a decade ago, a twist on the name of Boeing’s early Stratoliner and the current Dreamliner.

No one was aboard Boeing’s two previous Starliner test flights. The first, in 2019, was hit with software trouble so severe that its empty capsule couldn’t reach the station until the second try in 2022. Then last summer, weak parachutes and flammable tape cropped up that needed to be fixed or removed.

Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are retired Navy captains who spent months aboard the space station years ago. They joined the test flight after the original crew bowed out as the delays piled up. Wilmore, 61, is a former combat pilot from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Williams, 58, is a helicopter pilot from Needham, Massachusetts. The duo have been involved in the capsule’s development and insist Starliner is ready for prime time, otherwise they would not strap in for the launch.

“We’re not putting our heads in the sand,” Williams told The Associated Press. “Sure, Boeing has had its problems. But we are the QA (quality assurance). Our eyes are on the spacecraft.”

THE TEST FLIGHT

Starliner will blast off on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It will be the first time astronauts ride an Atlas since NASA’s Project Mercury, starting with John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. Sixty-two years later, this will be the 100th launch of the Atlas V, which is used to hoist satellites as well as spacecraft.

“We’re super careful with every mission. We’re super, duper, duper careful” with human missions, said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Starliner should reach the space station in roughly 26 hours. The seven station residents will have their eyes peeled on the approaching capsule. The arrival of a new vehicle is “a really big deal. You leave nothing to chance,” NASA astronaut Michael Barratt told the AP from orbit. Starliner will remain docked for eight days, undergoing checkouts before landing in New Mexico or elsewhere in the American West.

STARLINER VS. DRAGON

Both companies’ capsules are designed to be autonomous and reusable. This Starliner is the same one that made the first test flight in 2019. Unlike the SpaceX Dragons, Starliner has traditional hand controls and switches alongside touchscreens and, according to the astronauts, is more like NASA’s Orion capsules for moon missions. Wilmore and Williams briefly will take manual control to wring out the systems on their way to the space station.

NASA gave Boeing, a longtime space contractor, more than $4 billion to develop the capsule, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. SpaceX already was in the station delivery business and merely refashioned its cargo capsule for crew. While SpaceX uses the boss’ Teslas to get astronauts to the launch pad, Boeing will use a more traditional “astrovan” equipped with a video screen that Wilmore said will be playing “Top Gun: Maverick.”

One big difference at flight’s end: Starliner lands on the ground with cushioning airbags, while Dragon splashes into the sea.

Boeing is committed to six Starliner trips for NASA after this one, which will take the company to the station’s planned end in 2030. Boeing’s Nappi is reluctant to discuss other potential customers until this inaugural crew flight is over. But the company has said a fifth seat will be available to private clients. SpaceX periodically sells seats to tycoons and even countries eager to get their citizens to the station for a couple weeks.

Coming soon: Sierra Space’s mini shuttle, Dream Chaser, which will deliver cargo to the station later this year or next, before accepting passengers.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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BY ANDREA DUCKENFIELD

Space travel is hard. It’s something that became an incredible milestone in the 1950’s with the launch of Bumper Two, the NASA first launch out of Cape Canaveral in Florida. Throughout the next 50 years, NASA has made superior progress within the realm of space science; but are we done?

Many people began to think when news spilled out to the public that NASA was somehow done: no more missions, no more telescopes and no more people on the moon. Somehow, people thought the space agency terminated, but it is important for people to know that NASA has never stopped and they never will. They won’t stop until all questions, even questions that nobody has asked yet, are answered.

NASA, and many other honorable mentions like SpaceX, continues to make incredible progress in answering the questions everyone has thought about. For example, is the universe expanding? Are we alone? And the question that was recently answered: What does a black hole do, and what does it look like?

It is important that the public starts paying an eye to what’s happening outside of our Earth’s prison bars. Outside them, there is much more out there than stars and planets.

I believe the world should also pay more attention to NASA, as it is doing some record-breaking and phenomenal things. The missions and potential goals they have for the bright and exciting future of space travel is something you don’t want to miss.

Andrea Duckenfield is a first-year student at the university studying physics and astronomy, and can be reached at [email protected].

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"Extreme" G5 geomagnetic storm reaches Earth, NOAA says, following "unusual" solar event

By Li Cohen

Updated on: May 11, 2024 / 8:32 PM EDT / CBS News

An "extreme" G5 geomagnetic storm reached Earth on Friday, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center said , after issuing a watch earlier in the day warning of the potential for a severe impact. 

The watch followed days of solar activity that sent several explosions of plasma and magnetic fields toward Earth. 

G5 is the strongest level of geomagnetic storm , on a scale from G1 to G5. 

"Widespread voltage control problems and protective system problems can occur," NOAA warns. "Some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage." 

Radio transmissions and satellite navigation may also be disrupted.

The last G5 geomagnetic storm, in October 2003, caused power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.

A geomagnetic storm also means aurora borealis , otherwise known as the northern lights , could be seen as far south as Alabama and in Northern California. 

Earlier, NOAA had issued its first watch for a potential G4-level geomagnetic storm in almost 20 years. "If geomagnetic storms were hurricanes, 'severe' would be category 4," SpaceWeather.com says. 

In a press release on Thursday, NOAA said the most recent series of solar events started on May 8, when a large cluster of sunspots produced "several moderate to strong solar flares." Solar flares are bursts of radiation known to be the solar system's largest explosive events, according to NASA. The area where the flares are occurring is 16 times the diameter of Earth, the NOAA said, and more solar activity is expected. 

That sunspot is so big you may be able to see it with your own eyes  — with your solar eclipse glasses. The spot is known as AR3664 , and it was responsible for most of the geomagnetic activity Friday, the NOAA reported. According to Space.com, it measures about 124,000 miles across and is one of the "largest and most active sunspots seen this solar cycle." 

The NOAA reported that a strong solar flare was observed peaking from AR3664 at 9:23 p.m. Eastern Time Friday. 

"Flares of this magnitude are not frequent," the prediction center said . 

Still have your solar eclipse glasses? There's currently a sunspot so large you will be able to "spot" it while wearing them 15x wider than the earth! pic.twitter.com/XpQJEd4Qk0 — Eric Fisher (@ericfisher) May 9, 2024

There has also been a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are explosions of plasma  and magnetic fields that come out of the sun's corona, the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere. At least five CMEs appear directed toward Earth and could arrive as early as midday on Friday and persist through Sunday, the agency said. 

"This is an unusual event," NOAA said.

In a call with reporters on Friday, Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center, said that some CMEs "are catching up with other ones." He said officials are expecting a "big shock arrival" when they hit Earth. Dahl said at the time that while officials weren't predicting a G5 storm — the strongest of geomagnetic storms — they couldn't discount a "low-end G5 event."

"We're really buckling down here," Brent Gordon, chief of the space weather services branch, also said on the call.

G4 conditions were detected by Friday afternoon, marking a "major disturbance in Earth's magnetic field," NOAA said, adding that "the public should stay properly informed of storm progression."  

In a forecast discussion at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center said that solar activity is expected to continue at "high to very high levels" through the weekend, with additional solar flares expected, including X-class flares , the most powerful class of solar flares.

As of Friday afternoon, NOAA said it had observed a moderate solar radiation storm that could expose people in high-flying aircraft to "elevated radiation risk" and cause infrequent issues with satellite operations. 

Radio blackouts have also been detected with an R3 designation, meaning that the blackouts were "strong" on a scale from R1 (minor) to R5 (extreme). At this level, wide blackouts of HF radio communication is expected, as well as loss of radio contact, for about an hour on the sunlit side of Earth, as low-frequency navigation signals decline for roughly an hour. 

"Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth's surface, potentially disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations," NOAA said. "[The Space Weather Prediction Center] has notified the operators of these systems so they can take protective action."

Dahl agreed Friday that the event is "pretty extraordinary" and said that it could impact infrastructure, including high-voltage transmission lines of the power grid. Dahl said that infrastructure operators have been notified to adequately prepare. 

This is the first time a storm watch has been issued for a G4 since January 2005. There is an average of 100 severe geomagnetic storms every solar cycle, but so far, there have only been three observed in the most recent cycle that began in December 2019. The most recent occurred on March 23. 

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.

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