NASA is no longer flying space shuttles, but when the cameras turn away from the breathtaking 747 carrier flyovers or flotillas the real heavy lifting begins. Massive cranes have to delicately lift the shuttle from place to place.

Jeezis. This is why we can't have nice things. After the prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise was flown spectacularly into New York a bit over a month ago, yesterday it was just a touch less spectacularly floated on a barge through New York Harbor for temporary storage in New Jersey.

The deliveries of the real Space Shuttles to their final resting places were grand events that created amazing images. Houston, which deserved a real damn shuttle, is getting a replica.

Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk must be pretty happy right now. His other major venture, SpaceX, has just succeeded in a monumental first: the first docking of a private spacecraft, the Dragon, to the International Space Station. Up to now, docking a craft, even an unmanned one, has only been accomplished by some big…

Calling this thing a "food truck" isn't really accurate. It's really an actual WWII veteran DC-3 that was built onto a GMC chassis for street use in 1976, then had a full commercial kitchen built into it in 2001. Then it was painted to look like the Space Shuttle, since just being a drivable airplane with a kitchen…

Skylon, in development by the British company Reaction Engines, would be the Holy-Grail-meets-cold-fusion of space travel, a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane powered by the Sabre engine, which is both a jet and a rocket. While typical Skylon spaceports still belong to a hazy future, a recent test of the Sabre engine…

Today between 10:30 am and 11:30 am the Space Shuttle Enterprise will make its final landing at New York City's JFK Airport, but first it's going to circle Manhattan.

Our leaders may be faltering when it comes to sending men into space, but the youth know what's up. Specifically, they know how to get objects like Camilla the solar radiation-measuring rubber chicken up into the stratosphere.

This is a very neat graphic: all modern American rockets and spaceships compared, from XCOR's Lynx—a two-seat space transport vehicle—to NASA's next-generation Space Launch System. And of course, the classic Saturn V added for good measure.

Today, the Space Shuttle Discovery flies over the Capitol of the great nation that birthed it on the way to its very last home — the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum annex in Northern Virginia. Here's what the shuttle's final flight looked like — both through the camera lens of professional photographer…

When it comes to wild-ass ’50s dreams about mankind’s imminent future in space, it’s tough to beat Freeman Dyson’s nuke-powered Project Orion, but this concept drawing of a rocket monorail is not half bad either. A rocket monorail!

A company that develops rocket engines for NASA has turned that rocket tech into an amazingly efficient method of extinguishing fires that can put out a flaming car in nine seconds.

Our planet never seems more beautiful than from a distance. Extreme jumper Felix Baumgartner brought back this amazingly distant view — from 71,580 feet above the surface — before jumping out of his space capsule and hurtling home at 365 mph in his quest to hit supersonic speeds without an aircraft.

First, GM and NASA built the humanoid Robonaut. Now, the two have teamed up again to create a Human Grasp Assist device. The K-Glove, a.k.a, Robo-Glove, a.k.a. a real-life Nintendo Power Glove, gives the user the power of robots. You could be like The Wizard. In space! And not horrible! And without Fred Savage! How bad …

Today is International Women's Day, and yesterday was the birthday of Valentina Tereshkova. It's ok to admit you don't know who that is. Despite beating Sally K. Ride (and many men) into space by 20 years, Tereshkova and her comrade Svetlana Savitskaya are probably most notably remembered in a souvenir apron bearing…

Space training is not all about mad afternoons in aerotrims and learning how to operate a can of Space Coke. On some days, it’s about taking off your spacesuit and kicking it in hammocks in a birch forest.

On February 20, 1962, John Glenn orbited the Earth three times in his Friendship 7 spaceship to make the United States the second nation to send a man into orbit. This is the Universal Newsreel of his flight.

Space junk is a serious if little-appreciated problem. Dead satellites, spent booster rockets, and other orbiting technical garbage place active satellites and manned craft in significant peril. In a culturally appropriate effort, the Swiss Space Center is launching the CleanSpace program to tidy up low-earth orbit.

When Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger jumped out of a ballon gondola from 102,800 feet in August 1960, he set four aerospace records which stand to this day. Red Bull and a mad Austrian skydiver are about to break them. And Kittinger is on board.

Here's the situation: You wake up, dazed, and find yourself floating weightlessly in the cramped confines of a Soyuz orbital module, possibly the victim of a prank by wealthy, well-connected friends — or maybe some espionage plot. Maybe you owe money to some powerful Russians. Who knows — maybe you even planned it.…