Human Spaceflight: Coming Back to America

Astronauts may soon ride on US rockets and in US spaceships for the first time since the last Space Shuttle flight. Jon Cowart of NASA is working with SpaceX toward the first launch of a Dragon spacecraft with humans on board. See the moons of Saturn as you’ve never seen them before in Emily Lakdawalla’s new composite image. Bruce Betts has just returned from Japan with a What’s Up update on the Planetary Defense Conference.

Related Links:

• NASA Commercial Crew Program
• SpaceX Crew Dragon
• Boeing CST-100 Starliner
• Sierra Nevada Corporation Dream Chaser
• Saturn’s small satellites, to scale
• 2017 Planetary Defense Conference
• Worlds Fantastic, Worlds Familiar: A Guided Tour of the Solar System by Bonnie Buratti

This week's prizes are a Planetary Radio t-shirt, now available in both men’s and women’s styles, and a 200-point iTelescope.net astronomy account.

This week's question:

What is the name of the US mission that will slam a spacecraft into an asteroid in the 2020s as a kinetic impactor demonstration mission? It will be a test of our ability to change the path of a Near Earth Object.

To submit your answer:

Complete the contest entry form at http://planetary.org/radiocontest or write to us at [email protected] no later than Wednesday, May 31st at 8am Pacific Time. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Last week's question:

What Near Earth Asteroid will the Hayabusa 2 mission visit and return samples from?

Answer:

The answer will be revealed next week.

Question from the week before:

With legs deployed, how tall was the Lunar Excursion Module (Ascent and Descent Modules)?

Answer:

With legs fully-extended, the Lunar Excursion Module (later just Lunar Module) stood 7 meters or about 23 feet tall.