From This Collection

How should the FAA regulate commercial spaceflight?

Jul 26, 2021
The industry's growth raises questions about how the FAA manages spaceports and their impact on surrounding communities.
Kevin Lang, vice president of the Little Cumberland homeowners association in Georgia, has been fighting a spaceport proposal that would involve launching rockets over members' homes.
Emma Hurt

The International Space Station has an AI assistant. No ... it's not evil

CIMON, a floating AI robot will help astronauts on the International Space Station.
Matthias Biniok with CIMON.
IBM

No one knows how a military Space Force would work, exactly

Jun 26, 2018
The Department of Defense is expected to send a report on the structure of the proposed sixth branch of the military by August.
Astronaut Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. salutes the U.S. flag on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969.
NASA/AFP/Getty Images

Launching a satellite? Watch out for space junk

The amount of debris in space is complicating private satellite launches.
A SpaceX rocket awaits launch in 2017 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Imagining the everyday economy of the moon

Nov 28, 2017
Andy Weir, author of "The Martian" and now "Artemis," on what colonizing space might look like.
A plane flies past the moon at sunset on March 3, 2015, in London.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

The economics of colonizing Mars

Oct 24, 2017
Would it be profitable? One science fiction writer isn't so sure.
An artist's conception of the Phoenix Mars lander on the red planet.
NASA/JPL via Getty Images
Satellites dishes on the roof of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Kimberly Adams / Marketplace

Should we fund the militarization of space?

Oct 3, 2017
Congress is debating whether the U.S. should create a Space Corps.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on June 2017 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images