This weekend was an auspicious one as regards travel into space.
First off, the first privately funded and developed vehicle sent into space.
SpaceX is a privately funded company. Wired Science covers the story:
SpaceX has made history. Its privately developed rocket has made it into space.
After three failed launches, the company founded by Elon Musk worked all of the bugs out of their Falcon 1 launch vehicles.
The entire spectacle was broadcast live from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. Cameras mounted on the spacecraft showed our planet shrinking in the distance and the empty first stage engine falling back to Earth.
As the rocket ascended, cheers rang out during every crucial step of the launch sequence, and at the final stage their headquarters in Hawthorne, California erupted in excitement. (Wired.com viewed the launch over the Internet on SpaceX’s live webcast.)
The tensest moment came just before stage separation. At that critical juncture, the third launch attempt had failed. This time, it worked out perfectly.
Eight minutes after leaving the ground, Falcon 1 reached a speed of 5200 meters per second and passed above the International Space Station.
Earlier in the week, China put more astronauts into space (they’re only the third country to put a person into space independently, after the Russians and Americans). But for a first, they sent one of them on a spacewalk. From CNN:
A Chinese astronaut has completed his country’s first-ever spacewalk as part of an ambitious program that is starting to rival the United States and Russia in its rapid expansion.
Mission commander Zhai Zhigang waves Chinese flag after emerging from his spaceship.
State broadcaster CCTV showed live images of Zhigang as he floated out of the orbiter module’s hatch. “Greetings to all the people of the nation and all the people of the world,”
Zhai Zhigang waved to an external camera as he emerged from the hatch of the Shenzhou-7 spaceship on Saturday.
He later held a small Chinese flag, waving it in space.
Zhai returned to the interior of his capsule and closed the hatch after less than 20 minutes outside.
Video of the EVA (extra vehicular activity – geekspeak for “spacewalk”) can be found at the click. National Geographic has the story, and some nice video as well.
So lots of space. News.
.