DeForest Kelley

Astrobotic, the team behind the Peregrine spacecraft, is urgently working to extract any possible value from its failing mission. This comes after a catastrophic propellant leak occurred just after yesterday’s launch, ending the spacecraft’s attempt to land on the Moon.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonThe 2,829-pound (1,283-kilogram) Peregrine lander reached space early yesterday, after the picturesque inaugural launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. Following orbital insertion, Astrobotic,…

Enterprise mounted to the top of a modified Boeing 747 during OV-101 Flight 7 on October 12, 1977. The Shuttle’s Tail Cone was removed for this mission, exposing its mock engines. Photo: NASAPrior to the inaugural launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981, NASA conducted a series of performance tests with a prototype known as Enterprise. Named for the fictional Star Trek vessel, Enterprise provided our first glimpse of what a future spaceship might actually look like. When I was a kid, I loved to play with my toy…