/sci/ - Science & Math

NASA asking for ISS deorbiting space tug - proposals, A South African billionaire took hominin fossil fragments into suborbital hop,
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https://www.space.com/nasa-international-space-station-tug-deorbit-ideas
> NASA wants more 'space tug' ideas to deorbit the International Space Station in a fiery finale
> A spaceship will safely bring down the U.S. segment of the ISS after the program concludes in 2030.
> The agency plans to use a U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) to safely steer the International Space Station (ISS) into Earth's atmosphere. (White House officials previously called this vehicle a "space tug.") If all goes according to NASA's plan, after the ISS program concludes, flights and commercial research will proceed on industry-led space stations, which are now in their early stages of development.
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https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4657/1
> Honoring and dishonoring the dead in outer space
> On September 8, Timothy Nash, a South African billionaire, flew to the edge of space in a Virgin Galactic suborbital spacecraft, the VSS Unity. Virgin Galactic began operating tourist flights in earnest this past summer and Nash participated in the company’s most recent excursion. Nash’s flight was not without scandal, however. Accompanying him on his extraordinary journey were two fragments that were biologically and historically significant. One of them was the thumb bone of a Homo naledi. The other was a collarbone fragment of an Australopithecus sediba. Both specimens have been considered as potential ancestor species to modern humans, Homo sapiens, with Homo naledi living approximately 300,000 years ago and Australopithecus sediba living closer to 1.5 million years ago.
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