“Human spaceflight” on The Daily Caller

On January 28, 1986, seventy three seconds after liftoff, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all on board. (more)

The X-37B robotic spacecraft, which resembles a miniature version of the space shuttle, touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base early Friday morning, marking the first time an American unmanned vehicle returned from orbit to land on its own. (more)

Plans for sending humans to visit an asteroid are heating up, with at least one company already scoping out the technological essentials for a deep space expedition within a decade, given the go-ahead. (more)

Astronauts who spend months in space become as physically weak as 80-year-olds, a study has found. (more)

Spokesmen from NASA and the White House both issued statements in response to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recent comments that President Obama had told him that it was his  “foremost” mission to make the Muslim world “feel good about their historic contribution to science…and math and engineering.” (more)

The federal employees at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing know darn well why they go to work in the morning. (more)

A cargo vessel which failed to dock with the International Space Station is under control, a Russian space agency official has said. (more)

In February, the Obama administration announced its fiscal year budget, which proposed to eliminate the NASA human space flight program, called Constellation, and instead rely on the commercial space industry and other countries to ferry future astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). (more)

(June 17) — A shaky camera turns on, out of focus in haste to capture something of terrible importance. The camera zooms in, and the image emerges in awful clarity: the space shuttle, destroyed and coasting in helpless orbit, the astronauts almost certainly dead. The impact debris coasts alongside the ruined shuttle in a funeral procession of atmospheric flotsam. (more)

NASA is getting hit up for extra launch passes, and mission stickers and pins are flying off the shelf. Another Twittering crowd is descending on the space center. Even science fiction writers want in on the action. (more)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery is back on Earth. (more)

On the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, President George H.W. Bush capitalized on the excitement surrounding the commemoration of the landmark spacewalk by announcing big goals for the U.S. space program. In remarks delivered at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on July 20, 1989, he said the U.S. would go, “Back to the moon: back to the future. And this time, back to stay,” hinting at the much promised manned moon base that was supposed to have gotten under way in the 1970s. He also said the U.S. would launch a manned mission to Mars. Though Bush’s announcement served to excite NASA and the public, the numbers weren’t pretty. A NASA study estimated the long-term cost of Bush’s plan would be approximately $500 billion — a staggering figure, even when spread across 20 to 30 years. As a result, NASA transitioned away from human exploration and focused on earth and space science. (more)

They’ve lived with each other for extended periods of time in very close quarters, but that doesn’t mean America’s astronauts see eye-to-eye. (more)

The first man to walk on the moon blasted President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s back-to-the-moon program on Tuesday, saying that the move is “devastating” to America’s space effort. (more)

Those who have had the honor to work in and around the White House understand that in reality, the president has a limited and shrinking power-base. Every day and in almost every way, Congress seeks to weaken that base while transferring more of the executive branch authority to its own body. (more)

When America’s space shuttle program ends in September, the U.S. will be completely dependent on Russian rockets for launching men and women into space — and bringing them back. But what will happen to America’s astronauts if relations between the U.S. and Russia sour? (more)

Astronauts moved a cargo module the size of a mini bus the short distance from space shuttle Discovery’s payload bay to the International Space Station’s (ISS) Harmony node Thursday morning, setting the stage for a carefully choreographed ballet to begin transferring tons of supplies and equipment to and from and the orbiting laboratory (more)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Discovery’s astronauts surveyed their ship Tuesday for signs of launch damage, but the job was complicated by the failure of the space shuttle’s big dish antenna. (more)

The space shuttle Discovery is on its way to the International Space Station following a successful liftoff early Monday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. (more)

The final countdown has begun to the end of manned spaceflights by NASA, leaving some to fret that the nation’s dreams of reaching for the stars may be in jeopardy under President Barack Obama’s controversial plan to commercialize spaceflight. (more)