By Danielle Sempsrott
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

Building the Team

For 20 consecutive years, NASA has been sending humans to low-Earth orbit to live and work aboard the International Space Station, a unique microgravity laboratory that’s making new discoveries to this day. The technology used for LASIK eye surgery, air purifiers, and robotic arms that assist in medical surgeries are just a few of the things we benefit from here on Earth thanks to science performed on the orbiting laboratory. However, getting the space station into orbit and maintaining it is one of humanity’s biggest challenges – one that required people from all over the world working together to make it possible.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos will discuss their mission and the upcoming 20th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station during an in-orbit news conference at 11:10 a.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 30. The news conference will air live on NASA TV and the agency’s website.

The Houston Chronicle has a puzzling interview with George Abbey, the former NASA Johnson Space Center director who is now a senior fellow in space policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Abbey calls SpaceX’s test flight last week “a great achievement,” advocates keeping the space shuttle flying until a replacement is fielded, and demonstrates a narrow perspective on the market for commercial human spaceflight: Q: The goal […]