astronauts news stories on Newser

Russia Plans Moonwalk by 2030

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:35:45 CDT

Russia will finally send a human to the moon. At least it's planning to—by 2030, according to a leaked document from Roskosmos, the Russian Space agency. The Russians have intermittently laid forth enthusiastic goals for space exploration in recent years, reports the Telegraph , but never with a set deadline...

Long Missions May Wreck Astronauts' Vision

John Johnson — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:09:05 CDT

NASA has been worried for a while now about astronauts returning from space with blurred vision and other eyesight problems. A new study in the journal Radiology might help explain why: Brains scans of 27 astronauts who had been on missions longer than a month showed that they had abnormalities...

Gabby Giffords' Hubby Pens Kids' Book

Matt Cantor — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:18:05 CST

Mark Kelly retired as an astronaut just last fall—but he's already back to work. Gabrielle Giffords' husband is writing a children's book about a mouse who travels to space, the AP reports. It's called Mousetronaut: A Partially True Story , and it's inspired by some of Kelly's own furry friends....

NASA Puts Sale of Apollo 13 Checklist on Hold

John Johnson — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:25:32 CST

Astronaut James Lovell may not have made a small fortune after all by selling his checklist and notes from the almost-disastrous Apollo 13 mission (the one made famous in the Tom Hanks movie of the same name). The list, along with handwritten calculations by Lovell, fetched $388,000 at auction...

World's Biggest Plane to Rocket People into Space

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:00:00 CST

The world's biggest plane, with wings longer than a football field, is being built to launch astronauts and cargo into outer space. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace innovator Burt Rutan have teamed up to create the gargantuan aircraft, which will work by hauling a rocket high into the air...

NASA Puts Out Call for Astronauts

Kevin Spak — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:16:05 CST

Bust out your resume, space cadets, because NASA wants you! Yes, despite the recent end of the space shuttle program, and the fact that everyone and their brother once dreamed of being an astronaut, a September report concluded that the space agency needed to recruit fresh astronauts or face a...

Crew Emerges From 520-Day Mars 'Flight'

Kevin Spak — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:28:15 CDT

They’re free—and they don’t appear to have gone crazy. The crew of Russia’s simulated Mars mission has landed, by which we mean, been released from the narrow confines of the “spaceship” they’ve been trapped in for 520 days . The six men, ages 27 to 38, grinned widely as they...

NASA's New Worry: Astronauts Going Blind

John Johnson — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:24:45 CDT

NASA has a serious health concern to resolve before it fires up a manned mission to Mars or some other way-off locale: Astronauts might not be able to see anything once they get there. As the Orlando Sentinel explains, the space agency is seeing more cases of astronauts reporting blurred...

NASA Clip Shows 9/11 From Space

Matt Cantor — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:00:05 CDT

As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, NASA has provided a stunning new look at the tragedy—which was visible all the way from the International Space Station. American astronaut Frank Culbertson and two Russians were orbiting the earth in the ISS when they caught video of smoke...