Billionaire Dennis Tito, tired of being told that we can’t send humans to Mars just yet, on Wednesday revealed his scheme for launching two astronauts to the red planet as early as December 2017. Dubbed “Inspiration Mars,” the flyby mission would exploit a rare alignment of Earth and Mars that [...]
Richard Branson announced today that his commercial space company, Virgin Galactic, will accept Bitcoin in exchange for a ride into space. The adoption of Bitcoin as a means of currency has now entered the final frontier: in a blog post today, Richard Branson announced that his commercial space company, Virgin [...]
The launch of the satellite Sputnik in 1957 ignited a race between the world’s two great rival powers. The United States and the former Soviet Union, USSR each poured vast amounts of resources into the research and development of technologies for the exploration of outer space. Sputnik and the impressive [...]
Virgin Galactic Once a week at dawn, C.J. Sturckow guns a blue Extra 330SC stunt plane into the pink sky above the Mojave Desert. At 14,000 feet, the 5-foot-9 former NASA astronaut starts doing his "card" – a checklist of rolls and spins meant to simulate spaceflight's G-forces. White-knuckling the [...]
