NASA's 1992 Plan to Land Soyuz Space Station Lifeboats in Australia

Image credit: NASA Kosmos 133, the first in the long line of Soyuz ("union") spacecraft, lifted off unmanned from Baikonur Cosmodr...

Cometary Explorer (1973)

The world's longest-running spacecraft series is the Explorer series, which began with the launch of Explorer 1, the first U.S. Earth sa...

Oldest evidence of breast cancer found in Egyptian skeleton

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The Challenge of the Planets, Part Three: Gravity

Image credit: NASA It is strange that Lexell's Comet is not better remembered. Discovered by ace comet-hunter Charles Messier on the nig...

Where to Launch and Land the Space Shuttle? (1971-1972)

Image credit: NASA/North American Rockwell/General Dynamics NASA's ambition in 1971 was to build a fully reusable Space Shuttle which it...

The Challenge of the Planets, Part Two: High Energy

JPL's nuclear-electric "Space Cruiser" could in theory reach Pluto from Earth orbit in slightly more than three years. Image c...