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The NEAR spacecraft undergoing preflight preparation in the Spacecraft Assembly Encapsulation Facility-2 at Kennedy Space Center.
Rendezvous with an Asteroid

By Andrew Cheng   NEAR was the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, the first launch in NASA’s Discovery Program—and the first dedicated asteroid mission. The plan was to insert the vehicle into orbit around Eros, one of the larger near-Earth asteroids. Not everything went according to plan.

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Managing Stakeholder Styles to Optimize Decision Making
Managing Stakeholder Styles to Optimize Decision Making

By Vania Neves   We make many decisions every day. Should we wait patiently for the green light to cross the street or risk an accident? Should we buy something we want or save money for the future?

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ASK Interactive
ASK Interactive (ASK 44)

Whats Next for NASA? The end of the Space Shuttle program marks the end of an era for NASA, but not the end of NASA’s ambitious goals for space exploration, aeronautics, science, and technology.

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Why Wikis at NASA?
Why Wikis at NASA?

By Jon Verville, Patricia Jones, and Mark Rober   How Does a Wiki Work? The NASA workforce is hungry for ways to improve collaboration. Wikis can help—and are helping—to do that.

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Coastal flooding after Hurricane Ike.
Weathering Ike

By Haley Stephenson   Opening the International Space Station under normal circumstances is challenging. Doing it during the third-costliest hurricane to hit the United States is another story.

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Viewpoint: Putting the Science Back in Rocket Science

By Glen A. Robertson One hundred years from now there will exist technologies that today’s science fiction writers have yet to dream of. Many of these technologies will come from theories, ideas, and concepts that are laughable today.

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Astronaut Jay Apt looking at a solid-fuel oxygen generator like the one that caught fire on Mir.
International Life Support

Supplying oxygen is only one of many life-support necessities for human spaceflight, but it’s obviously one of the most vital.

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Interview with Jeffrey Hoffman

By Don Cohen   Currently a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jeffrey Hoffman flew on five shuttle missions as a NASA astronaut, including the first Hubble repair mission. He also served as NASA’s European representative for four years. Don Cohen spoke with him at his […]

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The HL-20 undergoing testing for forced oscillation in pitch, 1989.
The Dream Chaser: Back to the Future

By Jim Hodges   The first time Mark Sirangelo saw the model on which Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser is based, in 2005, it was in the corner of a huge hangar at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “It was covered with dust and other things I’d probably better not mention,” said Sirangelo, who […]

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