Tag: Human Spaceflight

Curveballs could be even tougher to hit in space than they are here on Earth.  International Space Station (ISS) astronaut Jeanette Epps says baseballs could have more spin in space, based on her NASA experience. She shared gameplay tips live with the Baseball Hall of Fame, during a live conversation on Tuesday (June 25). “The biggest difference is that we just don’t have gravity, so everything floats, but you can swing a bat as hard as you can swing it,” Epps said during the conversation, which was broadcast on NASA…

Scientists have created the first-ever aerospace medicine biobank to help outline the impact spaceflight has on astronauts’ health. This repository integrates data and samples from various missions, including those performed by SpaceX and NASA, enabling researchers to compare and standardize space medicine findings and apply their results to future missions.  “This represents a breakthrough in the study of human adaptation and life in space,” said Guy Trudel, one of the scientists behind the study and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, in a…

Soviet-era cosmonaut Vyacheslav Zudov, whose failed docking with a Russian space station ended with the first and only emergency splashdown in a Soyuz spacecraft, has died at the age of 82. Zudov’s death on Wednesday (June 12) was reported by Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space corporation. “[His] two-day spaceflight became, without exaggeration, dramatic,” read a statement from the space agency. “The landing of ‘Radon’ (the call sign that the cosmonaut chose for himself) turned out to be no less dangerous.” The Soyuz 23 descent module, dragging its parachute, is lifted by…

Boeing’s first crewed Starliner mission, that ferried astronauts to the International Space Station, will need to wait a little longer before returning its crew to Earth.  On June 5, the Crew Flight Test (CFT) for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft launched with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board; the spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS) the next day. The mission’s objective was to complete a full on-orbit shakedown of the spacecraft, and it was originally set to last about a week. Now, the pair won’t return home…

Come 2026, NASA plans to land humans on the moon for the first time since 1972. Times have changed, as can be gauged from the new rockets, spacecraft and spacesuits.  To prepare for the Artemis 3 moon-landing mission, in late April two astronauts donned Axiom Space’s new spacesuits and for the first time tested out a mock version of the vehicle that will get them to the moon. Scientists and engineers say the test — the first of its kind since the Apollo era — provided feedback on how well…

The handwritten journal pages of Israel’s first astronaut have been added to the country’s national library in Jerusalem, more than 20 years after they were found among the debris from the NASA tragedy that claimed his life. Ilan Ramon wrote most of the diary while he was in orbit aboard the space shuttle Columbia, serving as an STS-107 payload specialist on the winged spacecraft’s last, ill-fated flight. The found pages document Ramon’s day-to-day life in space, from his hygiene routine to the research he performed on behalf of NASA and…