Lifeboat Foundation

Two NASA astronauts last Sunday entered the International Space Station (ISS) from SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft after a historic launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the dawn of a new age in commercial space travel. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which is the agency for space research, aeronautics and related programmes in the US and the pre-eminent such agency of its kind, alongside the ESA, JAXA, China’s space agency and India’s ISRO, confirmed the arrival of astronauts Bob Behnken (49) and Doug Hurley (53) at the ISS.

A spaceship with only touch screen controls

One of the most fascinating aspects was that both the astronauts became the first astronauts launched to space on a privately-owned rocket and they also became the first to pilot a spaceship using only touchscreen controls. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon refrained from using the infamous maze of manual controls and switches found on retired spacecraft like the Space Shuttle or the Apollo command modules.

SpaceX just launched humans to space for the first time.

ESA’s Prometheus is the precursor of ultra-low-cost rocket propulsion that is flexible enough to fit a fleet of new launch vehicles for any mission and will be potentially reusable.

Chrysler Aerospace was already contracted for the Saturn 1 and 1B First Stage so in 1971
they proposed an alternate shuttle program, the SERV and MURP
SERV: the Single-stage Earth-orbital Reusable Vehicle had a 53 metric ton payload in a 7m x 18m payload bay
12 LH2/LOX aerospike engines were arranged around the rim of the base, covered by movable metal shields
Jet Engines, which were fired just prior to touchdown in order to slow the descent.

MURP, the Manned Upper-stage Reusable Payload
The MURP was based on the HL-10 lifting body (Six Million Dollar Man test Vehicle) and a Larger Versionone larger (the D-34) could carry up to ten passengers.

Extensive travel required! Applications are open for #Artemis explorers who will be journeying to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Our latest astronaut class shares their journey to #BeAnAstronaut. Are you next? https://youtu.be/q5T9iYjt6Lk

The SpaceX CEO has a bold target to start his Mars settlement plans, and he’s not backing down.

Amateur astronauts, private space stations, flying factories, out-of-this-world movie sets — this is the future the space agency is striving to shape as it eases out of low-Earth orbit and aims for the moon and Mars.

It doesn’t quite reach the fantasized heights of George Jetson and Iron Man, but still promises plenty of thrills.

“I’m still waiting for my personal jetpack. But the future is incredibly exciting,” NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren said the day before SpaceX’s historic liftoff.

If you’ve wanted to learn more about SpaceX’s projects than you normally see in the news, now’s your chance. The company’s software team is holding a Reddit AMA session today starting at 3PM Eastern to answer questions on the software that guides SpaceX’s projects, including Crew Dragon and Starlink. Six key staffers will be on hand, so you can expect a fair number of responses.

The spaceflight firm doesn’t hold AMAs often, and it’ll likely be worth following the discussion to see what emerges. When Elon Musk held a Reddit chat about BFR (now Starship) in 2017, for instance, he touched on everything from engine design to his vision for Mars colonies. You won’t necessarily get any shocking revelations, but this could fill in some knowledge gaps and satisfy your curiosity.

SpaceX had just conducted yet another static fire test of the Raptor engine in its Starship SN4 prototype launch vehicle on Friday when the test vehicle exploded on the test stand in Boca Chica, Texas. This was the fourth static fire test of this engine on this prototype, so it’s unclear what went wrong versus other static fire attempts.

This was a test in the development of Starship, a new spacecraft that SpaceX has been developing in Boca Chica. Eventually, the company hopes to use it to replace its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket, but Starship is still very early in its development phase, whereas those vehicles are flight-proven, multiple times over.

SpaceX had just secured FAA approval to fly its Starship prototype for short, suborbital test flights. The goal was to fly this SN4 prototype for short distances following static fire testing, but that clearly won’t be possible now, as the vehicle appears to have been completely destroyed in the explosion following Friday’s test, as you can see below in the stream from NASASpaceflight.com.