Planet-spotting is all about perspective.

From where we stand in our orbit of the Sun the closest planet to us, Venus, will come to what astronomers call inferior conjunction on Sunday, January 9.

After over six months of shining brightly in the west in the post-sunset sky in its apparition as the “Evening Star,” on that day Venus will finally disappear from sight.… See more.

Source: Teslarati Date Published: 01/03/2022.

Lockheed’s Star Clipper was a proposed Earth-to-orbit spaceplane based on a large lifting body spacecraft and a wrap-around drop tank. Originally proposed during a USAF program in 1966, the basic Star Clipper concept lived on during the early years of the NASA Space Shuttle program, and as that project evolved, in a variety of new versions like the LS-200.

The LS-200 was very similar to the earlier version, it was smaller overall, The M-1 engines were replaced with the Space Shuttle Main Engines.

As we approach the new year, there’s always talk of new trends. One such trend that finally kicked off in 2021 and will undoubtedly gain momentum in 2022 is space tourism. By mid-2021, two private companies — Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin — launched paying customers to space.

While we haven’t yet gotten commercial space stations or moon vacations, space tourism is definitely here to stay — and will have some exciting developments in 2022.

One of the great criticisms of space tourism is its cost; it’s prohibitively expensive for most people and thus feels inaccessible. In fact, there are ways to bring space into your life in 2022 — even if you’re not taking yourself to space (or the edge of it). Here are five ways to experience space tourism in the coming year, from budget-friendly to budget blow-out.

For a low-cost, accessible, outdoors, and distance-friendly way to bring more space into your life in 2022, consider attending a dark sky festival. Many of these events were canceled in 2020 and/or 2021, but some great dark sky destinations have figured out how to have safe outdoor under-the-star experiences.

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British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has become the first spaceline to get the go-ahead from the FAA to take up space tourists — a huge milestone in recreational spaceflight.

Space tourists: For decades, only governments could afford to launch people into space, but thanks to reusable rockets and other advances, spaceflight is now cheaper than ever.

That’s led to a burgeoning space tourism industry, with dozens of companies looking to take people on recreational trips into space — or at least the edge of it.