When NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, few thought it would take more than eight years for U.S. astronauts to launch back into orbit from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, hopes ride high on a new “space race” of privately developed launch systems ushering in a new era of U.S. space exploration.Camera: Kane Farabaugh, Elizabeth Lee   …

NASA and SpaceX are set to launch a crewed mission Wednesday to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time since 2011. Two NASA astronauts will be on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in what is the final part of the testing phase of NASA’s work with private companies to return to launching Americans into space. Since the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA has relied on partnering with the Russian space agency in order to send U.S. astronauts to the ISS. U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to be at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Wednesday’s launch. There were concerns earlier this week that weather could interfere, but the U.S. Air Force 45th Weather Squadron said Tuesday that prospects seemed to be improving, and that there was a 60% chance of favorable conditions. If the launch is unable to go forward Wednesday, NASA and SpaceX would try again Saturday. A …

A U.S. judge has dealt another blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to increase domestic oil and gas output from public lands, saying officials failed to protect habitat for a declining bird species when it issued energy leases on hundreds of square miles. Judge Brian Morris said the Interior Department did not do enough to encourage development outside of areas with greater sage grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose numbers have dropped dramatically in recent decades. The judge canceled energy leases on more than 470 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of public land in the western states of Montana and Wyoming. That means officials will have to return millions of dollars in sales proceeds to companies that purchased the leases. The leases at issue already had been invalidated in previous cases that went through other federal courts. But the latest ruling, handed down Friday, appears to go further and strike at a key component …

Even by using the tools at his disposal at the Adler Planetarium situated along the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Director of Astronomy Geza Gyuk acknowledges there is a limit to what he can see and do in understanding the cosmos.“We’ve got a 24-inch telescope in the back of the Adler. It’s not a great place to do observing because of all the light pollution from Chicago,” he explained to VOA in an interview via Skype.Gyuk said he and many other astronomers around the world depend on experiments and equipment — like the Hubble Telescope — deployed by astronauts above Earth’s atmosphere to help them not only “see” the cosmos in new and different ways, but also to see the Earth from above.The independent ability to launch crews into space to perform work and experiments is an important job that has been limited since the space shuttle era ended. Gyuk said he …

Officials with the U.S. space agency say the weather is looking favorable for the scheduled launch Wednesday of the first manned space craft from U.S. soil in nine years. During a briefing from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said the forecast is currently at 60% favorable for launch, an improvement from Monday when the probability for liftoff was at 40%.  The launch will be history making also because it will be the first manned space flight from a commercially made rocket and spacecraft. Bridenstine said the United States is transforming the way it does space flight by commercializing low earth orbit. He said commercially made unmanned cargo craft have been resupplying the International Space Station (ISS) for years. Wednesday’s launch will take the next step with commercially produced spacecraft carrying crew, and next they will be flying crew to commercially made and operated space stations.  Bridenstine, along with other …

Merck & Co Inc, which has largely kept to the sidelines of the race for COVID-19 treatments, said it was buying Austrian vaccine maker Themis Bioscience and would collaborate with research nonprofit IAVI to develop two separate vaccines.   It also announced a partnership with privately held Ridgeback Biotherapeutics to develop an experimental oral antiviral drug against COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.   It did not disclose the terms of the acquisition of Themis, a privately held company.   Merck shares rose more than 3% in premarket trading.   Most big pharmaceutical companies have already placed their bets on COVID-19 treatments, but Merck has been waiting for opportunities with proven track records, Chief Executive Ken Frazier said.   “We wanted to be in a position where we could choose things that have the right kind of characteristics to make a contribution for a virus that’s likely …

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit failed Monday on its first attempt to launch a test satellite into space aboard a rocket carried aloft by a Boeing 747 and released over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. The inaugural launch had appeared to be going well until moments after the rocket was dropped from beneath the left wing of the jumbo jet dubbed Cosmic Girl. “We’ve confirmed a clean release from the aircraft. However, the mission terminated shortly into the flight. Cosmic Girl and our flight crew are safe and returning to base,” Virgin Orbit said in its official Twitter commentary on the launch. There was no immediate word on what went wrong. The highly modified jumbo jet took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles and flew out just beyond the Channel Islands, where the drop occurred. The rocket was supposed to fall for a few …

Countries should levy an “orbit congestion charge” on satellite operators to tackle the growing concentration of space junk cluttering the skies, researchers said on Monday, but with some doubting the practicalities of such a fee. From dead satellites to bits of rockets, the amount of debris orbiting the planet is already so great that space agencies often have to alter the course of satellites to avoid collisions. With the world increasingly reliant on orbital infrastructure to maintain communications links and steer new generations of autonomous vehicles, scientists warn that the danger posed by debris is growing exponentially. The best way to deal with it would be to charge satellite operators an annual orbital-use fee for every satellite launched, according to an economics analysis by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Space is a common resource, but companies aren’t accounting for the cost their satellites impose on other operators when they decide whether …

The World Health Organization said Monday that it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine — the malaria drug U.S. President Trump says he is taking — from its global study into experimental COVID-19 treatments, saying that its experts need to review all available evidence to date. In a press briefing, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems, there would be “a temporary pause” on the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global clinical trial. “This concern relates to the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19,” Tedros said, adding that the drugs are approved treatments for people with malaria or autoimmune diseases. Other treatments in the trial, including the experimental drug remdesivir and an HIV combination therapy, are still being tested. Tedros said the executive group behind WHO’s global …

When President Donald Trump doesn’t like the message, he shoots the messenger. So it was this past week when he took very personally a scientific study that should give pause to anyone thinking of following Trump’s lead and ingesting a potentially risky drug for the coronavirus. He branded the study’s researchers, financed in part by his own administration, his “enemy.” Boastful on the occasion of Memorial Day, Trump exaggerated some of his accomplishments for veterans’ health care. Over the weekend, he also repeated a baseless allegation of rampant mail-in voting fraud and resurrected claims of unspecified conspiracies against him in 2016. A look at the rhetoric and reality as the pandemic’s death toll approached 100,000 in the U.S.:Voting FraudTrump: “The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history. People grab them from mailboxes, print thousands of forgeries and ‘force’ people to …

Several snow leopards, including a mother and her cub, have been spotted near the Kazakh city of Almaty wandering through a usually popular hiking destination that is now mostly off limits due to the coronavirus lockdown.   There are only around 150 snow leopards left in Kazakhstan, out of a global population of less than 10,000 across Central and South Asia. Classified as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the big cats are rarely seen in the wild, let alone within city limits.   However, in the past few weeks at least three animals – a lone male and a female with a cub – were caught on film by a motion sensor-equipped camera trap installed near the Big Almaty Lake by an NGO set up to protect the species.   Zoologist Alexey Grachyov, who works with the Snow Leopard Foundation, said that in the mountains near …

The global pandemic is causing major anxiety for many. Some are finding treatment via online therapy. Deana Mitchell reports. Camera, produced by: Deana Mitchell …

The newest branch of the U.S. military began a mostly-classified mission in public view while Japan launched a rocket to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, astronauts scheduled to make history next week reported for duty.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi transports us through This Week in Space. …

Nearly 80 million children under age 1 are at higher risk of preventable diseases such as measles, cholera and polio because of the disruption of routine vaccination programs, according to a report released Friday by the World Health Organization and other global organizations.  Immunization campaigns have been disrupted in half of the 129 countries surveyed around the world in March and April, according to data produced by the WHO, UNICEF, the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Of the 68 countries, 27 have suspended their measles initiatives. Thirty-eight countries have suspended campaigns to vaccinate children against polio.  The COVID-19 pandemic is “walking back progress” that was made in vaccinating children around the world, putting children and their families at greater risk of diseases that routine vaccinations can prevent, Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, said.”More children in more countries are now protected against more vaccine-preventable diseases than at any …

In ordinary times, the beaches and roads along Florida’s Space Coast would be packed with hundreds of thousands of spectators, eager to witness the first astronaut launch from Florida in nine years.   In the age of coronavirus, local officials and NASA are split on whether that’s a good idea. NASA and SpaceX are urging spectators to stay at home next Wednesday for safety reasons. Officials in Brevard County, home to the Kennedy Space Center, are rolling out the welcome mat in an effort to jump-start a tourism industry hit hard this spring by coronavirus-related lockdowns. If people are comfortable coming and watching the launch, “by all means, come. If they aren’t, I respect that too,” said Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey. “I’m not going to tell Americans they can’t watch a great piece of history. I’m just not going to do it,” he said.   The sheriff said he …

Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which U.S. President Donald Trump says he has been taking, is tied to increased risk of death in COVID-19 patients, according to a study published in  medical journal Lancet.   The study which observed over 96,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, showed that people treated with the drug, or the closely related drug chloroquine, had higher risk of death when compared to those who had not been given the medicine.   Demand for hydroxychloroquine, a drug approved decades ago, surged after Trump touted its use as a coronavirus treatment in early April. Earlier this week, he surprised the world by admitting he was taking the pill as a preventative medicine.   The Lancet study authors suggested these treatment regimens should not be used to treat COVID-19 outside of clinical trials until results from clinical trials are available to confirm the safety and efficacy of these medications for COVID-19 …

NASA and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have welcomed the two astronauts who, next Wednesday, are scheduled to head to space, becoming the first humans to do so from U.S. soil in nine years.  NASA test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken arrived from their home base in Houston aboard one of the space agency’s jets Wednesday. They will also make history as the first astronauts to go into space in a privately-funded spacecraft. The two are scheduled to blast off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bound for the International Space Station. Hurley was a crew member on the final shuttle flight launched from the space center July 4, 2011. He told reporters it was “incredibly humbling” to be there for the restart of manned space launches from the United States. Behnken called it “an opportunity but also a responsibility for the American people, for the SpaceX team, for all of NASA.” Hurley and Behnken are scheduled to dock at the International Space Station on the 28th. The two still don’t know how long they’ll spend at the space station. Only one American, Chris …

Healthcare workers at British hospitals will be the first participants in a global study testing the anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to see if they can be used to treat or prevent COVID-19. The University of Oxford-led study, kicking off Thursday, will test over 40,0000 frontline health workers in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, testing at 25 sites in Britain alone, according to Reuters. All healthcare workers who have not contracted COVID-19 are eligible to participate in the “COPCOV” study. Workers in Britain will be administered either hydroxychloroquine or a placebo for three months, while in Asia, participants will be given chloroquine or a placebo.Interest in the drug intensified after President Donald Trump began lauding its usefulness at news conferences in April. Earlier this week Trump announced that he was taking hydroxychloroquine as prophylactic against COVID-19. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug for limited hospital use to …

A new Columbia University study released this week suggests the U.S. delay in reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic cost the nation tens of thousands of lives.The study, conducted by three Columbia University researchers, and funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, suggests that if control measures designed to control the spread of the coronavirus had begun by  March 1 — two weeks earlier than most measures began — 83% of the nation’s deaths by the virus could have been prevented.The study says even one week earlier would have saved as many as 36,000 lives.The researchers say the most basic of measures, such as social distancing and restricting individual contact in the early stages of the pandemic in the U.S., would have prevented the spread of the disease in “hot spots” such as New York, New Orleans and other major cities.The study’s lead researcher, epidemiologist …