NASA has scheduled the first piloted flight launched by the United States since the final Space Shuttle mission in July 2011. The SpaceX Demonstration Mission-2 returns a human space flight capability to American soil for the first time in nine years ending the nation’s reliance on Russia to transport crews to the International Space Station.
Employees at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center work in high-tech facilities alongside hundreds of wildlife species in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The diverse, 144,000-acre landscape provides a habitat for hundreds of species of wildlife and plants. This feature includes photos of numerous types of animals that live at the Florida spaceport.
Maxime “Max” Faget (pronounced: fah-ZHAY) was one of the most important leaders in the history of America’s space program, but relatively unknown to the general public. He designed the Mercury capsule and was a key contributor to plans for spacecraft flown during NASA’s Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle Programs.
On Feb. 9, 2020, the European Space Agency and NASA launched the Solar Orbiter spacecraft to gain a better understanding of how the Sun influences life on Earth. Additionally, it will provide crucial information on the effects the Sun may have on astronauts as they travel to the Moon and Mars as part of NASA’s Artemis Program.
When a person is called a “rocket scientist,” it can be referring to someone who supports space exploration, or it can simply mean he or she is very intelligent. A “rock star” usually refers to a member of a successful musical band or someone highly renowned in a particular field. Dr. Brian May could be considered both.