Blue Origin targeting early Saturday morning (Dec. 11) for launch of GMA host Michael Strahan, 5 others | How to watch Blue Origin's NS-19 launch on Saturday | Building a private space station: Q&A with Axiom Space CTO Matt Ondler
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Blue Origin's third crewed mission, which will send Good Morning America anchor Michael Strahan and five other people to suborbital space, is expected to launch early Saturday morning (Dec. 11). Liftoff is expected from Blue Origin's Launch Site One at 9:45 a.m. EDT (8:45 a.m. local time or 1445 GMT), but that is subject to change due to weather or technical issues with the New Shepard vehicle or other systems.
Blue Origin's third crewed mission is scheduled to launch on Saturday (Dec. 11). The company's New Shepard spacecraft will send GMA host and former NFL star Michael Strahan and five other people to suborbital space on the mission, which is known as NS-19. Liftoff is targeted for 9:45 a.m. EDT (1445 GMT) on Saturday, though that could change due to weather or technical issues. You can watch the action via BlueOrigin.com and here on Space.com, beginning at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1315 GMT).
Space.com caught up with Axiom Chief Technology Officer Matt Ondler via email recently to discuss the company's space station plans, the outlook for private industry in LEO and the importance of commercial missions such as SpaceX's recent Inspiration4 crewed orbital flight, among other things.
George Abbey now has more than a herd of longhorns to his name at the entrance to NASA's Johnson Space Center. Driving by the Houston home to NASA's human spaceflight program, past the 35-acre pasture established by Abbey for Texas Longhorn cattle to graze, visitors now come across a sign dedicating Johnson's Rocket Park to the Apollo-era engineer and former center director. The George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park displays one of only three remaining Saturn V rockets that was used to launch the first astronauts to the moon more than 50 years ago.
An extraordinary galactic jet ejected from a supermassive black hole boasts a corkscrew-like helical structure, new ground-based telescope views reveal. The black hole lies at the center of an elliptical galaxy called Messier 87 (M87), which is located roughly 55 million light-years from Earth. The black hole — the first, and only, black hole ever photographed — is about 6.5 billion times more massive than the sun and shoots out a stream of material, also known as a galactic jet.
The December Geminid meteor shower is usually considered the most satisfying of the annual meteor displays, but this year, the moon will put a damper on the spectacle. Unfortunately, the moon will be full on Dec. 18 and as such will seriously hamper viewing the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, predicted to occur during the overnight hours of Dec. 13-14. Bright moonlight will flood the sky for more than half of that night and will certainly play havoc with any serious attempts to observe these meteors.
The famous Geminid meteor shower will sling bright shooting stars this December. But 2021 isn't expected to be a spectacular year for the Geminids, as the shower's peak on Dec. 13-14 arrives just a few days before the full moon.
Leonardo DiCaprio's longstanding passion for climate change, which even brought him to NASA a few years back, is now on screen in a new movie. The Oscar-winning actor ("The Revenant", "Inception") is the lead for the cast of "Don't Look Up" (Netflix, Dec. 10), a dark satire about a deadly comet heading for Earth. Director Adam McKay ("The Big Short") has said the comet is meant to evoke how the global warming crisis is being politicized by anybody with the chance to do something about it.
Director Adam McKay has said the fictional Comet Dibiasky — which will inevitably hit Earth in six months in "Don't Look Up" — is meant to be a discussion on how the topic of climate change is manipulated by the media, Big Tech and politics. You can catch the whole film Dec. 10 in select theatres and Dec. 24 on Netflix.
