International Space Station

Since he was a young boy growing up in upstate New York, Blaze Sanders always said he wanted to be an astronaut. He's doing his best to live up to his dream. Sanders, who has a degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, worked as a civil servant for NASA, at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. But he wanted to move faster with his various dreams for space exploration and even space commerce — dreams that involve air bag lunar-landing modules, robots and a business plan for collecting space junk, fixing satellites and space sky diving.

Whatever goes up must come down — just not always in the condition one hoped. That's the lesson Paul Warren, the 16-year-old from Maryland whose science experiment was launched into space in May, learned Friday when the materials of his project — test tubes, packing liquids and roundworms by the thousand — returned after having spent nearly seven weeks aboard the International Space Station. The experiment, he learned, had never been activated. "I don't know if I've ever been this frustrated," he said shortly after opening the box he had been waiting for since it landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday.

Is there anything that the U.S. technology community, with an assist from the federal government, can do that would simultaneously achieve the following: a) help hone our economic edge to help us prosper a bit more over a long term; b) maintain and improve upon the technological advantage we have with the rest of the world in space and aeronautics; c) help us on the military side; and d) maintain, retain and sharpen the technological minds of some of our smartest citizens? Such a thing does exist, but a case for it has not been made - because it was not possible to make it until now. Earlier this month, a private company, SpaceX, successfully launched an American-built rocket vehicle system, docked with the International Space Station, and returned successfully to Earth with an intent and hope of commercializing orbital access.

As the space capsule called Dragon hurtled toward the International Space Station at about 17,500 miles per hour on Friday, no space enthusiast was more enthralled than Paul Warren, a self-described "nerd" who attends Henry E. Lackey High School in Charles County. Warren is one of 15 students from across the U.S. whose original science experiments are aboard the capsule, the first privately built spacecraft ever sent to the station. His project sends thousands of tiny roundworms into orbit to study the effects on their life spans — research that could lead to a better understanding of how space travel affects the human body.

Space Exploration Technologies is vying to be the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station, and its mission got off to a successful start with a launch this morning. A Dragon spacecraft launched from the company's launch pad at Cape Canaveral at 3:44 a.m. Tuesday. It will soon begin a series of tests in space to determine if it can indeed dock with the space station. Officials with the company, known as SpaceX, said the launch was a successful first step regardless of what happens later in the mission.

If all goes as planned, sometime this morning a spacecraft will blast off from its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and ride a fiery plume of contrails upward through the pre-dawn darkness to begin a two-week journey to the International Space Station and back. But the flight won't be just another NASA resupply mission. Instead, the Falcon 9 rocket and its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - SpaceX for short - will be the first commercially owned and operated vehicle ever to rendezvous with the station's orbiting astronauts.

Get outside Wednesday and Thursday nights for chances to view the International Space Station fly over the region. Wednesday, the spacecraft will appear as a bright, swiftly moving light on the northwest horizon just before 9:44 p.m. It will move three-quarters of the way up in the sky as it goes toward the west-southwest before disappearing into the Earth's shadow about 9:47 p.m. Thursday night, look to the northwest horizon at...

Baltimoreans can get a nice look at the International Space Station tonight - late enough to be visible but early enough for the kids to watch before bedtime. The station will appear as a bright, swiftly moving star just over the southwest horizon at about 8:22 p.m. It will move toward the northeast, rising to about two-thirds of the way above the horizon before disappearing in the northeast sky at 8:29 p.m. On board are two NASA astronauts, three Russian cosmonauts and a European Space Agency astronaut.