Space Travel

A new study out of MIT says that, although possibly a little out of the way, the Moon would make a worthwhile refueling pit stop for manned missions to Mars by reducing the mass of a launch from Earth by 68 percent.

NASA has announced the winners of its 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge Design Competition. The contest sought architectural concepts for how 3D printing might be used to create shelters on the Red Planet. The overall winner, Ice House, would be built using the planet's predicted abundant water supply.​

One danger of space travel is fast-flying orbital debris piercing the ship's hull. Scientists may be on their way to a solution, however, in the form of a new self-healing material.

With NASA and others planning manned Mars missions, a team based in Singapore is already working on a specialized Martian rover that could be used to "mine" for water below the planet's crimson surface.

In a historic first, NASA and Russia will launch the One-Year Mission this month in which two astronauts will serve together on the ISS for a year, providing valuable research data to scientists about humankind's weaknesses and risks during extended space travel.

The airlock of the ISS was turned into a laboratory last week. In a station with as much space as a 747, that may seem a bit odd, but its purpose was part of a study of the lungs of space travelers by monitoring the effects of one the astronauts' most surprising hazards: dust.

On the International Space Station, astronauts recently finished putting the European Space Agency's (ESA) Haptics-1 joystick through its paces. The first force-reflecting joystick in space, its purpose is to improve how robots and humans interact in weightlessness.

To help the zero-g coffee aficionado, Portland State University's (PSU) Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science has developed a microgravity espresso cup that drinks like its earthbound counterparts.

Omega watches have flown on manned space missions since the Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph was carried on Project Mercury in the early 1960s. Now the latest version, the Speedmaster Skywalker X-33, is seeing service on the International Space Station.

A European Space Agency experiment aboard the International Space Station suggests that space travelers may have less to worry about when it comes to radiation ... thanks to a phantom.

Plans are afoot to establish a spaceport in Australia. The town of Rockhampton in Queensland is one of three locations currently being considered as a potential site for the base which would focus primarily on space tourism.

Human waste produced on space missions is currently stored in containers before being loaded into cargo vehicles that burn up as they pass through Earth's atmosphere. Now researchers have found a better use for the material, by developing a process to turn it into rocket fuel.