“Space” on The Daily Caller

Work is quietly underway in the South Bay on a massive 22-story rocket whose power is rivaled in the U.S. only by the mighty Saturn V rocket, which took man to the moon, in a risky private venture that could herald a new era in space flight. (more)

The growing cloud of space junk surrounding the Earth is a hazard to spaceflight, and will only get worse as large pieces of debris collide and fragment. NASA space scientists have hit on a new way to manage the mess: Use mid-powered lasers to nudge space junk off collision courses. (more)

The final mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery concluded Wednesday when the shuttle landed safely on earth, returning from the International Space Station. (more)

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) (part of NOAA’s National Weather Service, NWS), has issued an alert for an increase in solar activity to moderate levels with a chance for an isolated major solar flare over the next few days. The consequent solar wind, consisting of charged atomic particles, is expected to intersect the upper atmosphere over polar regions February 17-19, leading to the possibility of brilliant auroras. (more)

You know how you sometimes can sense that something is present even though you can’t see it? Well, astronomers are getting that feeling about a giant, hidden object in space. (more)

Space spending has long been the multibillion-dollar government project that is rarely discussed and even more infrequently brought up as a primary focus by fiscal conservatives. (more)

New discoveries from NASA’s Kepler space mission made public Wednesday reveal a large and surprising menagerie of planets deep in space, with some almost as small as Earth and others in the “habitable zones” of their solar systems where scientists think life could potentially exist. (more)

Things don’t look good for Gliese 581g, the first planet found orbiting in the habitable zone of another star. The first official challenge to the small, hospitable world looks in the exact same data — and finds no significant sign of the planet. (more)

Forget the mile-high club. Who’s joined the million-mile high club? (more)

If aliens exist, they’re probably a lot like us humans: Adaptable, intelligent, and eager to steal from the natives. (more)

Voyager 1, the little spacecraft that could, is nearing the edge of the solar system and continuing to prove theorists wrong about solar wind — the massive outflow of particles produced by the sun. (more)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private company launched a spacecraft into orbit and then, in a historic first, guided it back to Earth on Wednesday in a bold test for NASA that could lead to the first commercial space station supply run next year and eventual astronaut rides. (more)

Nasa scientists are set to announce that bacteria have been discovered that can survive in arsenic, an element previously thought too toxic to support life, it can be revealed. (more)

An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged. (more)

If you have the millions to spare and the derring-do, your chances of being strapped in and launched to the international space station improved markedly Wednesday when two major companies agreed to join forces to make space travel significantly more available. (more)

Before the year is out, SpaceX will likely have conducted the first orbital demonstration of the Dragon capsule, which is intended to transport cargo, and ultimately humans, to the International Space Station (ISS). Next year, Orbital Sciences is expected to launch its cargo vessel, Cygnus. By 2014, two more spacecraft, the Dream Chaser and CST-100 are on track to have maiden voyages, launched by the Sierra Nevada Corporation and Boeing, respectively. And even more spacecraft are being developed by companies such as Blue Origin and PlanetSpace, as well as suborbital vehicles being built by Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and others. (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)

Call it “American Idol” in space: NASA has launched a new contest that allows the public to pick – or even create – wake-up songs for astronauts flying on the agency’s two final space shuttle missions. (more)

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

Eyewear with adjustable strength lenses isn’t new — PopSci first heaped “Best of What’s New” honors upon one concept a full ten years ago — but NASA is taking it to new heights, evaluating Zoom Focus Eyewear’s strength-shifting TruFocals for use on the International Space Station and other missions. (more)