A file photo from July 29, 2009 showing Space Shuttle Endeavour's payload bay with Earth in the background. Endeavour and space station crews gathered on May 21, 2011 for an unprecedented conversation with Pope Benedict.
The shuttle Endeavour and space station crews gathered today for an unprecedented conversation with Pope Benedict, who asked how the space programme can promote peace and if the astronauts pray while in orbit.
“I think it must be obvious to you how we all live together on one Earth and how absurd it is that we fight and kill each one,” the pope said.
A Russian rocket with a U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts onboard blasted off successfully early Friday for the International Space Station, with flame-haired Russian spy Anna Chapman making an unexpected appearance at the cosmodrome to wave them goodbye.
The Soyuz TMA-01M was launched at the scheduled time of 5.10am from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the vast steppe of southern Kazakhstan.
The crew's relatives and supporters cheered when the Soyuz engines roared and the spaceship lifted off in a blaze of orange flames, making the ground shudder.
Russian engineers hugged and kissed one another after the craft shed its first stage and it became clear the launch was a success.
I spy: Miss Chapman was spirited away shortly after the launch
International Space Station crew member U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly waves before entering the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft
A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut back to Earth from the International Space Station landed safely in Kazakhstan today.
“The TMA module has landed,” an announcer at Mission Control outside Moscow said to applause from officials and relatives, relieved afer an initial attempt to return from the orbital outpost was foiled by an equipment problem yesterday.
Space officials said the capsule landed upright, on time and on target near Arkalyk on the central Kazakh steppe.
The Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft is seen as it lands near the town of Arkalyk, northern Kazakhstan
Disaster: This image taken by a NASA satellite shows the oil spill perilously close to the U.S. coastline
Aerial shot: Oil emanates from the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak
Spread: The top Nasa image shows the powerful 'loop current' of faster moving water the oil is hitting which circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast. The bottom image shows the extent of the spill
Oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill has for the first time reached a powerful current that could take it to Florida and beyond, say scientists.
A small portion of the slick has entered the so-called 'loop current', a stream of faster moving water that circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Its arrival may herald a wider environmental catastrophe affecting the Florida Keys and tourist-dotted beaches along that state's East coast.
The Falcon 1 rocket was created by company Space X, founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. It launched a satellite into orbit. Private companies such as this could take over launching astronauts into space from Nasa
Farewell Orion? The Contellation space programme looks set to be scrapped. There had been plans to use the Orion module to ferry astronauts to the ISS, like in this artist's impression
Shuttle Atlantis crew member Randolph Bresnik works on the space station. New plans call for commercial firms to resupply the station.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is pictured on the Moon in 1969. It seems certain that Nasa's plan to return Man to the moon by 2020 will be scrapped
American dreams of putting another man on the Moon were dashed last night as President Obama announced a spending freeze to help combat a £1trillion U.S. budget deficit.
Nasa's plan to launch a series of new manned Moon missions was one of 120 government-funded programmes to be shelved.
The Constellation Project, started by former President George W Bush, was supposed to restore America's reputation as a pioneer in human exploration and anticipated landings on Mars by the middle of the century.
It envisaged new rockets and a new crewship called Orion to put astronauts on the lunar surface by 2020. Nasa had already spent $9.1 billion (£5billion) on the programme. The space agency will have to spend a further $2.5bn to close it completely.
But the White House said Constellation was too much like the 1960s Apollo mission and would require large budget increases just to get astronauts back on the moon by 2030.
The writing was on the wall for the space revival after Nasa announced last autumn that 'no plan compatible with the 2010 budget profile permitted human exploration to continue in any meaningful way'.
The Obama administration is hoping that private enterprise will step in to fund the Moon mission.
However, one congressman said the plan was a 'death march' for human space flight.
Unveiling his budget for next year, the president blamed the record debt on inheriting two costly wars and a financial crisis he was forced to combat with hundreds of billions of taxpayer cash.
Mr Obama said the U.S. must stop spending cash 'like Monopoly money' if it is going to bridge the growing budget gap.
He insisted his budget, which includes tax rises for the wealthy, will cut into the deficit over the next decade.
We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences, as if waste doesn't matter, as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money,' he said yesterday.
'We won't be able to bring down this deficit overnight,' he added, saying the budget included boosts for education and job creation programmes.
The projected deficit amounts to almost 11 per cent of America's gross domestic product, nearly four times the annual deficit that economists generally consider sustainable.
Republican critics seized on the grim forecast. Senator Judd Gregg, who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, said the U.S. was sinking into a 'quagmire' of debt.
President Obama outlined a dramatic new mission for NASA on Monday, getting the agency out of the rocket-launching business in favor of an aggressive expansion of research and development that would steer the agency away from the launch pad and instead put its engineers in the laboratory, where they would design futuristic vehicles capable of going beyond the moon.
As expected, his budget plan would cancel NASA's Constellation program and its goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020. The troubled rocket program, crippled by funding shortfalls and technical problems, ultimately would cost taxpayers at least $11.5 billion as it is, including $2.5 billion to terminate it.
Instead of pursuing Constellation, NASA would pay for commercial rocket companies to resupply the International Space Station over the next decade while its own workers develop new engines and rockets that NASA officials hope will enable a vast expansion of its future manned-space efforts.
"Imagine trips to Mars that take weeks instead of nearly a year, people fanning out across the inner solar system, exploring the moon, asteroids and Mars nearly simultaneously in a steady stream of firsts," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.
It would be a decade or more, however, before NASA again sends astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, a prospect that is certain to draw strong opposition from NASA's defenders in Congress.
One, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), called the budget a "death march" for American spaceflight.
Bolden said ending Constellation was necessary to ensure NASA had the money to spend nearly $11 billion over the next five years on new technologies, including $3.1 billion to develop heavy-lift rockets that could carry new spacecraft beyond Earth orbit.
Currently, he said, the 5-year-old Constellation program is burning through billions of dollars and falling further behind schedule. The program couldn't get American astronauts back to the moon until at least 2028, he said.
"So as much as we would not like it to be the case . . . the truth is that we were not on a path to get back to the moon's surface," Bolden said.
"And as we focused so much of our effort and funding on just getting to the moon, we were neglecting investments . . . required to go beyond."
Obama's plan calls for NASA to get $19 billion in 2011 -- about $300 million more than this year's budget -- with small annual increases after that.
President Barack Obama wants to end the nation's troubled program to return astronauts to the moon, but NASA officials indicated Monday that any change was unlikely to mean cutbacks at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Obama's $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011, which forecasts a record deficit, includes provisions for increased spending designed to improve the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a 1.4 percent annual pay increase for federal workers and an array of tax and education initiatives that would affect Maryland and the rest of the country, if Congress approves them.
The budget, for example, calls for an additional $25.5 billion nationwide to support state Medicaid programs, helping recession-battered states provide health care to the poor.
The president is requesting more than $800 million in new construction money for military and civilian projects in Maryland, including $219 million for a utility plant at the National Security Agency, which has struggled with inadequate electric power capacity, and $119.6 million for Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, briefing reporters on one of the most contentious budget items, sought to deflect anger, including from key members of Congress, about ending the $49 billion Constellation human spaceflight program.
They emphasized a small overall budget increase that Obama is requesting for NASA, while playing down the impact of ending Constellation, which is over budget and behind schedule. It has already cost $9 billion and would need $2.5 billion more to phase it out under Obama’s plan.
Ending the lunar landing program would mean the loss of thousands of jobs at NASA installations in Florida and Alabama, and perhaps elsewhere.
"The truth is, we were not on a sustainable path to get back to the moon's surface," said NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr., a former space shuttle astronaut, who said he agreed with the president's decision.
Further details, including the budget for Goddard, are expected to be made public Tuesday. Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said some NASA employees who worked on the moon landing program would be reassigned to jobs where they already have expertise, adding that NASA's existing centers, which include Goddard, would "continue to really thrive."
Human spaceflight represents a relatively small part of the work at Goddard, which employs nearly 12,000 federal workers and contractors, officials said. They noted that Obama's plan to boost spending by more than $300 million for scientific research in global climate change and upgrading ground support for the International Space Station would play to Goddard's strengths as a center for Earth science and orbital communications.
Obama budget director Peter Orszag said the spending blueprint for NASA was designed to redirect spending toward "advanced robotics, research and development, [to] find those new technologies that will actually allow us to go further in space and not just repeat what we've already done" by landing more U.S. astronauts on the moon.
Congressional reaction ranged from caution to outrage, raising questions about whether the plan to kill the program would be approved.
Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, an influential lawmaker on NASA issues, urged the administration to consult widely with members of Congress.
"I am concerned by any abrupt or disruptive changes to the human spaceflight program," Mikulski said in a statement that stopped short of endorsing or opposing Obama's plan.
The leading Republican on the appropriations panel, Alabama Sen. Richard C. Shelby, whose state would be hit particularly hard, promised to fight the administration proposal. He called Obama's decision the start of a "death march for the future of U.S. human spaceflight."
Other budget initiatives brought only positive comments from Maryland's Democratic lawmakers.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Southern Maryland, the House majority leader, said he was "pleased" that Obama decided to give civilian employees the same cost-of-living increase as members of the military, a change from last year.
Orszag, director of the president's Office of Management and Budget, defended the size of the salary increase at a time of double-digit national unemployment by saying that "to a lot of Americans, [a 1.4 percent raise] sounds pretty good." The increase "is lower than it's been in the past because inflation is lower than it's been in the past."
A variety of programs designed to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay would receive additional funding in a year in which Obama wants to hold overall nonsecurity spending flat.
The Clean Water revolving fund, an anti-pollution program that helps local governments upgrade sewage treatment systems, would get a major increase that could mean $387 million in additional funds for bay watershed states.
In addition, the Chesapeake Bay program, a federal-state partnership that has largely failed thus far in its mission to restore the bay, would get a $12.9 million increase, to $63 million. Obama is requesting $72 million for a separate conservation program designed to reduce farm runoff into the bay, up from $44 million in 2010.
Doug Siglin, federal affairs director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, called the increases a "significant" commitment of new federal spending for the bay when "times are tough."
Obama is proposing to increase the size of the federal work force by several hundred thousand in the next few years, building on recent increases at the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. Much of the beefed-up staffing would be in offices that monitor federal acquisitions and other routine transactions, in an effort to cut down on fraud.
A spokesman for Gov. Martin O’Malley said the Democrat was "thankful" for the president's additional funding for state Medicaid programs. Obama is asking Congress to extend the current emergency aid to the states through June 2011.
Republican Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Frederick, in a statement, said he would have preferred a more tightfisted approach to spending. But he added that "proposing a little bit of budget restraint in the future is better than the dangerously bloated and unsustainable budget that the president and the Democratic congressional majority approved last year."
White House fact sheets, tailored to each state, promoted the supposed benefits of the president's budget, while carefully avoiding mention of cuts, spending freezes or proposals for user fees or higher taxes that would pinch many Americans.
The administration touted Obama's proposed extension of a stimulus tax cut, which it said would help 2.1 million Maryland families. There was no mention of Obama's proposed tax increase on families earning at least $250,000, or how many in Maryland that might affect.
More details of the president's spending plan will be released in coming days and weeks, including programs such as Army Corps of Engineers harbor dredging, that have a direct impact on Baltimore and the state.
Obama is proposing to eliminate six agricultural research projects, totaling $3 million, in Beltsville, but includes $13 million for new research at the facility.
The president’s 2011 budget, which attempts to start reining in the growth of federal spending, reflects a different political reality. With elections looming, the president chose to limit some of the fights that he, and his predecessors, have picked with Congress.
Last year, for example, Obama tried to save $400 million by eliminating the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which subsidizes state and local governments for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants accused of committing crimes. Two years ago, when Republican President George W. Bush tried to end the program, key Democrats, including Mikulski and Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger of Baltimore County, fought him; they avoided openly criticizing Obama, but the program survived.
The president's 2010 budget criticized the Justice Department program, which can be used for "extraneous items and services," including bonuses and consultants.
The money could be better spent protecting the borders and quickly deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes in the U.S., White House officials said last year.
But the program survived Obama's effort to kill it. This time, he is asking Congress to spend $330 million on it, with the proviso that reimbursements for state and local governments be limited to the actual cost of housing illegal immigrants and other detainees.
Virgin Galactic's bullet-nosed rocket, SpaceShipTwo, coming together in the hangar of Scaled Composites in Mojave, California.
Taking to the skies: Mothership White Knight Two has been doing test runs with SpaceShipOne while SpaceShipTwo was being built
Grand unveiling: SpaceShipTwo will finally be presented to the public after five years of secret construction
Click to enlarge.SpaceShipTwo, slung beneath WhiteKnightTwo, the launch aircraft that will carry Virgin Galactic's spacecraft out of the Earth's atmosphere. The Final Countdown:October 15, 2009: Virgin Galactic’s bullet-nosed rocket, SpaceShipTwo, sits in the hangar of Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, awaiting a paint job before its public debut in December.This undated image provided by Virgin Galactic shows placement of the center beam during SpaceShipTwo's construction inside the Scaled Composites plant at the Mojave Airport in Mojave, Calif. It has been five years since the first privately financed manned spacecraft captured the Ansari X Prize on Oct. 4, 2004, by demonstrating that a reusable rocket capable of carrying passengers could fly more than 62 miles high twice within two weeks. Turning the second part of that dream into reality has taken longer than many expected.
After five years of secret construction, the cloak is coming off a privately funded spacecraft designed to fly well-heeled tourists into space.
The long-awaited glimpse of SpaceShipTwo, slated for rollout Monday in the Mojave Desert, could not come sooner for the scores of wannabe astronauts who have forked over part of their disposable income for the chance to float in zero gravity.
"We've all been patiently waiting to see exactly what the vehicle is going to look like," said Peter Cheney, a 63-year-old potential space tourist from Seattle who was among the first to sign up for suborbital space rides marketed by Virgin Galactic. "It would be nice to see it in the flesh."
Virgin Galactic spokeswoman Jackie McQuillan promised a "theatrical unveil" followed by a cocktail party for paying passengers and other VIPs.
SpaceShipTwo's debut marks the first public appearance of a commercial passenger spacecraft. The project is bankrolled by Virgin Galactic founder, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who partnered with famed aviation designer Burt Rutan, the brains behind the venture.
SpaceShipTwo is based on Rutan's design of a stubby white prototype called SpaceShipOne. In 2004, SpaceShipOne captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize by becoming the first privately manned craft to reach space.
Since the historic feat, engineers from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC have been laboring in a Mojave hangar to commercialize the prototype in heavy secrecy.
The last time there was this level of hoopla in the high desert was a little more than a year ago when Branson and Rutan trotted out to great fanfare the twin-fuselage mothership, White Knight Two, that will ferry SpaceShipTwo to launch altitude.
Despite the hype, hard work lies ahead before space journeys could become as routine as air travel.
Flight testing of White Knight Two has been ongoing for the past year. The first SpaceShipTwo test flights are expected to start next year, with full-fledged space launches to its maximum altitude by or in 2011.
It remains unclear when Virgin Galactic customers will receive their astronaut wings, but it will largely depend on how the test program fares. Some 300 clients have paid the $200,000 ticket or placed a deposit, according to the company.
SpaceShipTwo, built from lightweight composite materials and powered by a hybrid rocket motor, is similar to its prototype cousin with three exceptions. It's twice as large, measuring 60 feet long with a roomy cabin about the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet. It also has more windows including overhead portholes. While SpaceShipOne was designed for three people, SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots.
"It's a big and beautiful vehicle," said X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, who has seen SpaceShipTwo during various stages of development.
The ability to view Earth's curvature from space has been limited so far to government astronauts and a handful of wealthy people who have shelled out millions to board Russian rockets to the orbiting international space station.
After SpaceShipOne's history-making flights, many space advocates believed private companies would offer suborbital space joyrides before the end of this decade.
George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon called the milestones to date "measured progress."
"They've been appropriately cautious and making sure that every step is done correctly," he said.
Tragedy struck in 2007 when an explosion killed three of Rutan's engineers during a routine test of SpaceShipTwo's propellant system. The accident delayed the engine's development.
Virgin Galactic plans to operate commercial spaceflights out of a taxpayer-funded spaceport in New Mexico that is under construction. The 2 1/2 hour trips — up and down flights without circling the Earth — include about five minutes of weightlessness.
SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by White Knight Two and released at 50,000 feet. The craft's rocket engine then burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel to climb more than 65 miles above the Earth's surface.
After reaching the top of its trajectory, it will fall back into the atmosphere and glide to a landing like a normal airplane. Its descent is controlled by "feathering" its wings to maximize aerodynamic drag.
Virgin Galactic expects to spend more than $400 million for a fleet of five commercial spaceships and launch vehicles.
It's not the only player in the ultra-secretive commercial space race. A handful of entrepreneurs including Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, computer game programmer John Carmack and rocketeer Jeff Greason are building their own suborbital rockets with dreams of flying people out of the atmosphere.
Sir Richard Branson will reveal the Virgin Galactic commercial spacecraft at the Mojave Air and Spaceport tonight, offering a glimpse of the first spaceship designed to carry private passengers.
The unveiling of SpaceShipTwo marks one small step for the future of space tourism, and one giant $200,000 leap for any passenger who wants on board.
Is the journey worth the hefty price tag? Keep reading for more details about this innovative voyage.
Last year, Branson and American designer Burt Rutan revealed the highly anticipated White Knight Two, the mother ship that will carry SpaceShipTwo to its launch altitude.
Tonight, space enthusiasts can feast their eyes on the sleek ship that will actually hold the six passengers and two pilots on their journey into space.
SpaceShipTwo’s cabin is 7.5 feet in diameter by 12 long with a slick, wavy interior reminiscent of an Apple product. More importantly, it’s dotted with several porthole windows to give travelers plenty of opportunities to gaze out into space.
Virgin's SpaceportThe passenger pod isn’t designed to launch from the ground, so the mother ship will carry it to 50,000 feet, at which point SpaceShipTwo will disengage and ignite its own rocket, accelerating to 2,600 mph.
Passengers will officially become space tourists at an altitude of 62.1 miles as they cross the boundary between earth’s upper atmosphere and space. Soon after, at 65 miles high, the private astronauts will experience weightlessness for about six minutes. During this period, they’ll be able to unfasten their seatbelts, float about from porthole to porthole and admire the Earth’s curvature against the backdrop of space, a sight previously reserved only for government astronauts.
At this point, SpaceShipTwo’s wings will “feather out” to optimize resistance, allowing it to fall back through the atmosphere like a shuttlecock. The wings will convert to “glider mode” at an altitude of about 13 miles to take the ship back home. The entire trip from takeoff to landing will last an estimated 2.5 hours.
The next phase for Virgin Galactic is an extensive series of safety tests. Engineers hope to launch the SpaceShipTwo on a test run to its maximum altitude by 2011.
Branson is optimistic that his project will send thousands of people into space in the next few years. According to Virgin Galactic, more than 300 people have already reserved their spots.
Travel specialist group Virtuoso is the official sales channel for Virgin Galactic flights. Currently, there are three deposit options available: Founders, who will be on the first 100 commercial seats; Pioneers, comprised of 350-400 travelers who will fly within the first year of operation; and Voyagers, who will travel at a later date. And no, U.S. citizens do not need a visa to fly into space.
