Balloons to hoist tourists 100,000 feet into the stratosphere

Commercial space flight is becoming more and more common, with companies including SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic all transporting paid customers into space over the last several years. People interested in seeing the earth from an unusual vantage point may soon have another option. CNBC spoke to three startups — France-based Zephalto, Florida-based Space … Read more

Boeing Starliner Could Return To Earth If It Needs To, Just Doesn’t Want To Right Now: NASA

Photo: Joel Kowsky/NASA (Getty Images) Despite the development delays and a drastically elongated mission, NASA stated on Wednesday that it’s aiming to return the Boeing Starliner from the International Space Station by the end of July. The space agency also stated the spacecraft could evacuate to Earth right now should an emergency arise. Like the … Read more

Elon Musk Will Crash The International Space Station Into The Sea

Photo: Paolo Nespoli – ESA/NASA (Getty Images) The International Space Station is dying. Once an icon of space exploration, something I would stare up at the sky in hopes of seeing as a kid, the station is now spending its last few years in orbit before being taken down by NASA. Or, more specifically, being … Read more

NASA Freaks Everyone Out By Broadcasting Audio Of Astronaut With Simulated Decompression Sickness

Photo: NASA NASA confirmed that audio from a simulation channel dedicated to dealing with disaster scenarios was inadvertently broadcast Wednesday on its YouTube channel. The audio indicated that an astronaut was in distress onboard the International Space Station with a tenuous chance of survival, a terrifying scenario for enthusiasts following the feed. NASA accidentely broadcasts … Read more

Boeing’s years-long struggle to launch astronauts on Starliner

Boeing‘s Starliner is a human-grade space capsule designed to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Boeing began work on the capsule in 2014, when it signed a $4.2 billion contract with NASA under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA also selected SpaceX for the job, giving Elon Musk’s company $2.6 billion to … Read more

Why there is a new global race to the moon

Japan recently became the fifth nation to successfully complete a soft landing on the moon’s surface, joining a select few countries — the U.S., Russia, China and India — in accomplishing this feat. But moon landings are likely to become more common over the next few years. Globally, more than 100 lunar missions, both by … Read more