NASA

U.S. astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon in 1972 and even smuggled a corned beef sandwich into orbit during a career that made him the only person to fly with three NASA space programs, has died at age 87, officials said on Jan. 6.

US President Donald Trump has directed Nasa to plan a crewed mission to the Moon for the first time since 1972, reported BBC.

It will focus on long-term explorations and use of the Moon's surface, in partnership with the private sector.

Mr Trump also said the program would lay the foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, although he did not give a date for this.

What you’re looking at is not a production set photo from Gravity, but rather a training simulation for Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. He’s suspended over a mockup of the International Space Station (ISS), while attached to the Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The International Space Station – ISS – circles the earth at 240 miles above the planet, on the edge of space in low earth orbit. The station is crewed by NASA astronauts as well as Russian Cosmonauts and a mixture of Japanese, Canadian and European astronauts as well.

In 2015, Scott Kelly set the record for the total accumulated number of days spent in space – 350.4 to be precise – the longest space mission by a US astronaut.

So when he did a Twitter Q&A, people paid attention.

A commercial effort to get humans into orbit around Mars in the late 2020s now includes a sleek vehicle to send astronauts down to the surface of the Red Planet.

Russia and the United States have agreed to cooperate on a NASA-led programme to build the first lunar space station, part of a long-term project to send humans to Mars.

The US space agency said earlier this year that it was exploring a programme called the Deep Space Gateway, a multi-stage project to push further into the solar system.

There are many Greeks who are distinguishing themselves abroad in their professional fields. One of them is Athena Coustenis, the Director of Research 1st class with the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Observatory of Paris-Meudon, in France.

For the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, NASA says it may soon have the capability to send astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil.

Critical milestones are on the horizon for Boeing and SpaceX, the space agency's commercial crew partners: Flight tests of their spacecraft, including crewed missions, are planned for 2018.

NASA intends to send a space capsule to space with a compilation of the best posts on social networks. This will be on one of the Voyager missions, which will celebrate 40 years of successful space travel in September.