As of December 4, 2019, 565 people from 41 countries have gone into space. That’s it. 565 out of more than 7 billion of us currently on this planet. And that’s using the definition of space travel to include any flight over 62 miles or about 100 kilometers.
Many of these space travelers are, of course, NASA astronauts. That means they went through a rigorous application and training process. So, what exactly does it take to be an astronaut?
To be considered for the NASA astronaut program is you must be a U.S. citizen. Dual citizenship is okay.
What does a 1.1-sec, 0–60 mph acceleration even look like? A graphic artist tried to visualize what a Tesla Roadster with SpaceX thruster looks like when accelerating in 1.1 seconds.
Axiom Space will now let you book a unique all-inclusive vacation to the Internation Space Station for a casual US$55 million per seat.
Having signed a contract with SpaceX – because who else? – the company has effectively secured permission for a fully-trained commander and three “private astronauts” (read: bored & wealthy operators) to travel via one of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules.
“This history-making flight will represent a watershed moment in the march toward universal and routine access to space,” says Axiom CEO, Michael Suffredini.
Former astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman: For the long-term survival of our species, we have to become a multi-planet being.
With our rising planet’s population competing for space and resources, some people are convinced we need to look beyond Earth to help ensure humanity’s survival. As Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind space tourism company SpaceX told Aeon’s Ross Andersen: “I think there is a strong argument for making life multi-planetary in order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen.”
Last month’s NASA and SpaceX successful launch of astronauts from US soil for the first time in almost a decade, has reignited discussion about space travel to Mars and beyond. Musk has been pushing Mars colonisation as extinction insurance for more than a decade now and he told Andersen that he would need a million people to form a sustainable, genetically diverse civilisation. Andersen reports:
‘Even at a million, you’re really assuming an incredible amount of productivity per person, because you would need to recreate the entire industrial base on Mars,’ he said. ‘You would need to mine and refine all of these different materials, in a much more difficult environment than Earth. There would be no trees growing. There would be no oxygen or nitrogen that are just there. No oil.’
I asked Musk how quickly a Mars colony could grow to a million people. ‘Excluding organic growth, if you could take 100 people at a time, you would need 10,000 trips to get to a million people,’ he said. ‘But you would also need a lot of cargo to support those people. In fact, your cargo to person ratio is going to be quite high. It would probably be 10 cargo trips for every human trip, so more like 100,000 trips. And we’re talking 100,000 trips of a giant spaceship.’
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine signaled today that astronauts would soon be cleared to take suborbital spaceflights aboard the commercial rocket ships being tested by Virgin Galactic and by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.
“NASA is developing the process to fly astronauts on commercial suborbital spacecraft,” Bridenstine said in a tweet. “Whether it’s suborbital, orbital or deep space, NASA will utilize our nation’s innovative commercial capabilities.”
Bridenstine said the details will be laid out in a request for information to be released next week. Efforts to get further information from NASA Headquarters weren’t immediately successful.
The rule of awkward silence is simple: When faced with a challenging question, instead of answering, you pause and think deeply about how you want to answer.
But make no mistake, this is no short pause. You might go five, 10, or even 15 seconds before offering a response. Which, if you’re not used to doing it, will feel very awkward—at first.
Garrett Reisman, an engineer and former astronaut who left NASA to join SpaceX, described how Musk uses this technique in a recent interview.
