Introducing CIMON, a floating, basketball-sized robot that will serve as a companion and assistant to crew members aboard the International Space Station. Infused with artificial intelligence, the floating bot is reminiscent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but far less evil. We hope.
Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, has filed a lawsuit against two of his children and a former business manager in an effort to retain control over his finances, business affairs, and legacy.
Have you ever heard of Guion “Guy” Bluford—the first African American in space? Despite his major place in history, his name is surprisingly not very well-known. A new short film aims to change that, with the blessing of Bluford himself, who shared his own unpublished memoirs with the filmmakers.
Astronaut Jeanette Epps, slated to be the first African-American crew member on board the International Space Station, will not be flying in 2018, according to a NASA announcement.
Update: January 10, 8:20 am EDT: According to new reports, Kanai either fabricated this story, “mis-measured” himself, or it was all a joke that didn’t translate well to English. In a tweet posted earlier today, the Japanese astronaut apologized, claiming he had measured his height after the ISS captain questioned the…
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular roundup of the cool toys and merchandise we’ve been trying to furiously add to our Christmas wishlists this week. We’ve got some excellent new Pacific Rim robots, the General of the Resistance herself, and even environmentally-conscious Jenga. What more could you want?
Veteran astronaut Paul J. Weitz has died at the age of 85. Among his many accomplishments, Weitz served as a pilot aboard the Skylab space station, commanded the first flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger, and logged nearly 800 total hours in space.
A team of astronauts is specially trained to solve an unprecedented disaster in space. It sounds like the plot of Armageddon or any number of other generic Hollywood blockbusters, but in the Russian space adventure Salyut-7, it actually happened. Unfortunately, somehow that doesn’t make the movie any more exciting.
In The Martian, Matt Damon used his own shit to fertilize potatoes and survive the Red Planet. While we all know Matt Damon isn’t actually an astronaut, we do know that human excrement is very much real—and it could be integral to getting real humans to Mars in the near future.
Sometime between your marine biologist and professional ninja phases, you probably dreamed of being an astronaut as a kid. But have you seen all the work that goes into actually becoming one? Save yourself years of G-force training and wearing onesies and just shortcut your way onto the International Space Station,…
Astronauts are golden retrievers of human beings. The rest of us have to live vicariously through their resplendent existences while we sit back and watch hours of cats reacting to fidget spinners. Now, Reebok has decided to make our astronaut envy even worse—it’s finally revealed the space boots for Boeing Starliner…
We’re all clamoring to get into space these days, but lost in our excitement to fly to the Moon and colonize Mars is a brutal truth: the final frontier is a cold, inhospitable wasteland that’ll kill you at the first opportunity it gets. Astronauts already know this, but for the rest of us, here are just a few of the…
NASA’s astronauts are American heroes and proxies for our hopes and dreams. The best part of each new astronaut class is that we get an entirely fresh crop of people we can live vicariously through, and this year is no exception. Today, NASA announced its 22nd space squad. Although over 18,000 applied, the space…
WASHINGTON, D.C.—It’s 7pm, and the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University, which was packed with investors, aerospace tycoons, and scientists just hours ago, has dwindled to a dedicated few. It’s a very different crowd than the folks who came earlier in the day to watch Buzz Aldrin and other space veterans…
Another day, another study showing how awful microgravity is to the human body. In the latest research, scientists have found that long term exposure to space inhibits the movement of oxygen through the body, reducing an astronaut’s ability to perform strenuous tasks.
As journalists, it’s our obligation—nay, our duty—to ask the hard questions. So when presented with the opportunity to ask a living former astronaut and American hero Mike Massimino about his two trips to the final frontier to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, without any real impetus or news peg, we knew what to do. We…
Although it sounds like The Hunger Games in space, Germany’s “Die Astronautin” competition—which means “the female astronaut”—seeks to put the first German woman into space. In March 2016, 400 women entered the competition, and yesterday, aerospace recruitment agency HE Space announced it had selected its final six…
Leland Melvin is a star in every sense of the word. The retired astronaut, NFL draftee, and literal dog whisperer has a resume most of us could only dream of. Now, he can add “bringer of internet joy in these dark and troubled times” to that very long list of accolades.
Spaceflight is not for the faint of heart—literally. The first results of NASA’s twin study, released just this week, revealed that space physically impacts astronauts on multiple levels, right down to shifts in gene expression. Now, a group of scientists at the University of Michigan have released research that…
After recent events, we’re all ready to hop aboard the next flight to Mars. But before us Earthlings embark on a seven-month journey to the Red Planet, we need to understand how the harsh conditions of space can affect our bodies.
