While the United States puts on the brakes, and hands over the responsibility for manned spaceflight to private companies, India is accelerating its pace.
A budgetary increase (by 35%) is advancing ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organisation) plan to send two Indian astronauts into orbit for that country’s first manned space mission. India is also planning to [...]

I find myself imagining this:
It’s September 2021. The world is watching as a Taikonaut—a Chinese astronaut—steps onto the lunar surface. It’s an incredible view, which I watch on my high-definition video glasses. I see it in real time, except for the 2 1/2 second delay to get the signal from the moon.
The Chinese lander is [...]

There’s a great profile of Elon Musk and his impressive company, SpaceX, in the New York Times. And, although SpaceX’s biggest accomplishment so far is, arguably, winning a huge contract to send supplies to the International Space Station…that wasn’t his main goal.
SpaceX is really about sending humans into space. The exact quote: “Really, the whole [...]

Most of the emerging private space companies are thrilled that the new NASA moon and beyond program—called Constellation—is probably going to be killed. I’m not sure why this is—there’s plenty of room for private companies to send astronauts into earth orbit. And private companies are a long way from sending people to the moon and [...]

The biggest share of stimulus money awarded by NASA for a private spacecraft went to Sierra Nevada Corporation…which is developing Dream Chaser to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.
The craft doesn’t exist yet (except as a full-scale mockup, pictured above), but the company claims it will be ready to go in 2014.
The $20 million [...]

The first president Bush offered a vision for Americans to returnto the moon. (And this was a guy who said he wasn’t good at “the vision thing”.)
The second president Bush offered a similar vision twenty years (or so) later.
Both Bushes offered minimal budget to keep their visions alive.
Now, that will end. America will abandon plans [...]

As NASA’s next manned spacecraft seems destined to be mothballed, SpaceX—a private space company—prepares to ready its Falcon 9 rocket for a first flight.
If the United States decides to privatize manned spaceflight—and that seems to be the Obama administration’s plan—then post-Shuttle astronauts may ride aboard a Falcon 9.
All the pieces of the Falcon 9 have [...]

According to the New York Times, the Obama administration’s new budget and plan for NASA outsources manned spaceflight to private companies.
The guys who brought us Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle are done designing rockets and spacecraft.
It somehow seems appropriate for this news to come out this last week of January. Because this time [...]

The new Ares-Orion spacecraft is supposed to be literally 10x safer than the space shuttles it will replace. And a recent safety board report endorses the early smaller version of Ares (called the Ares 1) which is currently under threat of cancellation.
That report by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel also says that private space vehicles [...]

The Augustine Commission is recommending cancellation of the Ares I rocket—which NASA spent hundreds of millions of dollars on as its future manned orbital launcher (for earth-orbital missions.)
This is supposed to save money. Instead, that group advised NASA to alter and use an existing commercial rocket—developed by the employers of commission members—which is not currently [...]