geekosystem

With humans continuing our long, slow journey into space, it's only a matter of time before children are conceived and born in space, whether it's on a space station like the ISS or a colony on Mars. But future generations of space babies -- and perhaps Martians, technically speaking -- could run into a number of problems. Humans are pretty good at having babies on Earth, because we've been doing it for quite some time, but other environments might not be so kind to developing fetuses, which couldn't be expected to recover from the stretched spines and swollen faces that astronauts return to Earth with so easily.

Do you want to be one of the first astronauts to go to Mars? Are you ready to give up on life here on Earth and do your duty helping mankind establish a place for itself among the stars? Well, tune in today at noon EDT where you can find out what it will take to get yourself a one-way ticket to the Red Planet. That's when the Mars One team will make the official announcement detailing their astronaut selection program, and you can watch it live with us right here

Space travel for the masses is something that's continuously moving toward becoming reality. That isn't to say it's here, or that we're even all that close, but it's something that's closer to happening than it is to not. For those that have already made it to space, the experience has had a profound effect. It's been described as this encompassing feeling of unity and enhanced perspective. It's an interesting phenomenon, to be sure, which is why PBS Idea Channel, with host Mike Rugnetta, asks the question: Will space travel save us all?

If you're anything like me, you still haven't given up on that dream of being an astronaut one day, breaking the surly bonds of Earth and experiencing the wonder and vastness of space firsthand. That's why I bring you the following story with a heavy heart -- according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, the list of dangers involved in space travel just got a little longer, with "alien attacks," "insane computer AIs," and "being sucked out of an airlock" joined by a new hazard to space flight -- an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Ladies and gentlemen, today we mourn the loss of a real hero. With a lump in our throats and a tear in our eye, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History announced that their resident space-traveling red-backed jumping spider, Nefertiti, passed away yesterday, five days after returning from a 100-day and 42-million-mile journey to the International Space Station. We promised ourselves we wouldn't cry, but here come the waterworks.

Any sort of travel can stress out your immune system, expose you to unfamiliar bugs, and generally make you more likely to get sick. Take it from a guy on what is now officially on week two of a plane flight induced common cold. A study published in The FASEB Journal suggests that space travel could wreak even more havoc on the immune system, even changing the way the immune system develops in embryonic animals.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has voted to officially change the Astronomical Unit (AU) -- a measure of the distance from the Earth to the Sun -- from a variable value to a more convenient constant. Because if you're the IAU and you have a meeting without voting on anything, it looks kind of bad, we guess? Kidding! It's because the IAU is made up largely of people who teach astronomy for a living, and people who teach astronomy for a living are, as a whole, just sick to death of teaching a new legion of bong-addled freshmen a mostly obsolete equation that most of them will never use outside of scribbling it on their hand to pass their astronomy final.

In the early afternoon of February 20, 1962, John Glenn climbed inside the cramped confines of Frienship 7. The spacecraft sat atop a modified Atlas missile, originally designed to ferry nuclear weapons towards targets toward the Soviet Union. However, in what might be the greatest triumph of the military-industrial complex, the rocket blasted off and made Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth, putting this country on the path to becoming a leader in space sciences.

With the Space Shuttle's imminent retirement, much of the discussion about the future of American spaceflight has centered on private companies like SpaceX. But NASA will have a spacecraft for deep-space missions, and Lockheed Martin recently unveiled the first of these craft called Orion. Originally designed as part of the now-defunct Constellation project, Orion is the craft that is hoped will carry astronauts to Asteroids and beyond. Reusable and highly durable, the Orion crew module looks like a larger Apollo-era capsule but with a slew of high-tech improvements. NASA hopes to have a manned mission flying by 2016, and it certainly seems like they are well on their way. (Engadget, image credit Lockheed Martin)

The tit-for-tat competition between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world is already the stuff of legend. The space race was one of the most public examples, the Concordski one of the more confusing, and the Buran reusable spaceplane program is probably the least well-known. A response to the American space shuttle program, the Buran was a reusable spacecraft designed for use with the Energia rocket that would have flown into space and landed like a glider. Though a single unmanned flight of the Buran was completed in 1988, the craft never flew again and the project completely canceled in 1993. After nearly two decades of quiet decay, this is how the Buran complex looks today. As NASA's space shuttle program comes to a close this June, it's humbling to look at this other ambitious project that is now reduced to rusting wreckage. And besides, everyone loves Soviet ruin-porn. More pictures after the break.