Pope Leo XIV marks 56th anniversary of moon landing with observatory visit, call to Buzz Aldrin

Ed Dwight, America's first Black astronaut candidate, has finally made it to space 60 years later, flying with Jeff Bezos’ rocket company.

Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off the state visit of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol with a tour of a NASA facility as the Biden administration looks to deepen ties with a close ally that it sees as only growing in importance in an increasingly complicated Indo-Pacific.

Astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who was one of the first people to walk on the moon, has married his “longtime love” in a small ceremony in Los Angeles.

A space capsule is hurtling toward the moon for the first time in 50 years.

NASA is making another attempt to launch its new moon rocket on its first test flight.

NASA's new moon rocket makes its debut next week in a high-stakes test flight before astronauts get on top.

Buzz Aldrin’s jacket worn on his historic first mission to the moon’s surface in 1969 has been auctioned off to a bidder for nearly $2.8 million.

NASA is shooting for a late August launch of its giant, new moon rocket.

Scientists for the first time have grown plants in soil from the moon collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts.

They both carved out sterling reputations as military and political leaders over years of public service.

When Blue Origin launches people into space for the first time, founder Jeff Bezos will be on board.

A new podcast series revisits how broadcast journalists covered some of the biggest stories, and tells some fascinating behind-the-scenes details.

Two billionaires are putting everything on the line to ride their own rockets into space.

The price to rocket into space next month with Jeff Bezos and his brother is a cool $28 million.

Sixty years after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, everyday people are on the verge of following in his cosmic footsteps.

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins has died at age 90.

Isaacman also revealed some details about his Inspiration4 mission, as the four gathered Tuesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Their SpaceX Dragon capsule — currently parked at the International Space Station for NASA — will launch no earlier than mid-September, aiming for an altitude of 335 miles (540 kilometers). That’s 75 miles (120 kilometers) higher than the International Space Station and on a level with the Hubble Space Telescope. AdThe capsule will be outfitted with a domed window in place of the usual space station docking mechanism for their trip. The St. Jude physician assistant was treated there as a child for bone cancer.

This Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 photo provided by NASA shows the Perseverance rover lowered towards the surface of Mars during its powered descent. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The world got its first close-up look at a Mars landing on Friday, as NASA released a stunning picture of its newest rover being lowered onto the dusty red surface. NASA equipped the spacecraft with a record 25 cameras and two microphones, many of which were turned on during Thursday’s descent. It's the ninth time that NASA has successfully landed on Mars __ and the fifth rover. As it did with 2012's Curiosity rover — still roaming 2,300 miles (3,750 kilometers) away — NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed Perseverance descending beneath its massive parachute.

The "Meet the Legends" exhibit at Madame Tussauds in D.C. features relaunched sculptures of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong as well as a lunar module where guests can pose to take photos with the astronauts. Now, the astronauts involved in the mission are getting a permanent photo-op thanks to Madame Tussauds newest additions to its attraction in the US capital. In conversation with Madame Tussauds' General Manager Therese Alvich, Stern explained just how significant the moon landing was for science and technology. "We are about to enter a new age of exploration with the Artemis Project, which will send astronauts to the moon in the 2020s. That will be in preparation for sending astronauts to the surface of Mars in the 2030s and beyond.

Later, the Apollo 14 and 15 missions would also add similar arrays to the surface. This allows researchers to determine the moon's orbit, rotation and its current orientation, which will be needed to land on the moon. Previously it was believed that the moon had a solid core, but data from the arrays has revealed that the core is fluid. Until 1964, there weren't any closeup or detailed photos of the lunar surface. In 1964, Ranger 7 successfully reached the moon and returned 4,316 images of the surface before it collided intentionally with the surface.

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were able to secure lunar samples from the surface of the moon from the Apollo 11 mission and bring them back to Earth. However, in order to ensure that it was safe to store lunar samples on Earth, scientists had to run a number of tests to make sure contamination was not possible, according to NASA. "We had to prove that we weren't going to contaminate not only human beings, but we weren't going to contaminate fish and birds and animals and plants and you name it," said Charles Berry, head of medical operations during Apollo, in an oral history. "They didn't find any microbial growth on the lunar samples, and they didn't have any microorganisms that they at least initially attributed to any extraterrestrial source or lunar source," said Hayes. It wasn't until after the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 that NASA felt it was safe enough to stop testing on animals and to end the quarantine process for astronauts and lab technicians working with any lunar samples.

To pull it off, the Apollo astronauts and the teams that supported them put in grueling hours of training. Cool'The Apollo 11 crew of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins traveled 240,000 miles in 76 hours to reach the moon. The Apollo 11 astronauts, meanwhile, had more than 70 food items to choose from. 400,000 people worked on the Apollo 11 missionThe full triumph of Apollo 11 doesn't just belong to the astronauts. Over the years, Apollo Mission Control and its surrounding rooms fell into disrepair.

The moon landing was scheduled for late afternoon, but before that was possible, a precisely choreographed series of maneuvers had to come off perfectly or else. But we all knew that the moon landing was going to require a machine that had not been thoroughly tested to work perfectly the first time. But there was also the possibility they would jam communications or otherwise foul up the delicate maneuvering required for a moon landing. Apollo Moon Landing Astronaut Neil Armstrong did something no one had ever done before. No human since Apollo has gone higher than low earth orbit, yet in 1969 men went to the moon.

The moon landing was scheduled for late afternoon, but before that was possible, a precisely choreographed series of maneuvers had to come off perfectly or else. But we all knew that the moon landing was going to require a machine that had not been thoroughly tested, to work perfectly the first time. But there was also the possibility they would jam communications or otherwise foul up the delicate maneuvering required for a moon landing. Apollo Moon Landing Astronaut Neil Armstrong did something no one had ever done before. No human since Apollo has gone higher than low earth orbit, yet in 1969 men went to the moon.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Apollo 11's astronauts are returning to the exact spot from where they flew to the moon 50 years ago. NASA has invited Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday. They will mark the precise moment - 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969 - that their Saturn V rocket departed on humanity's first moon landing. It kicks off eight days of golden anniversary celebrations for each day of Apollo 11's voyage. Also Tuesday morning, 5,000 model rockets are set to launch simultaneously at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.