American astronaut Shannon Lucid has retired from NASA after over three decades of being a NASA employee, including being an astronaut on the Russian space station Mir and the International Space Station.  

Canadian teenagers Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad bought an inexpensive weather balloon. They connected it to a Styrofoam box with several cameras and a Lego astronaut. And, then they filled the balloon with helium for an 80,000-foot ascent into the sky. See the rest of their story below.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken the clearest images yet of the various Apollo landing sites.  Memo to the nay-sayers: the landings really did happen - here's photographic proof.

The U.S. space agency NASA announced Tuesday, May 24, 2011, that its next-generation space capsule, which will take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, will be based on the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Fifty years ago, on May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to go into space. Shepard became a true American hero at a time when it looked like the United States was losing the race to explore space.

In the 50 years since man’s first space flight, it would appear that a "final union" has never been achieved.  Maybe.

Astronauts from the United States will not be the only people hitching rides to the International Space Station. Russia and a U.S. space tourism company agreed to resume taking wealthy space tourists on Space Station trips aboard Soyuz spacecraft.  

With NASA running out of space shuttle missions, there is a much reduced need for active astronauts at the Johnson Space Center. Consequently, many are leaving the U.S. space agency for other employment or retirement.

The normally reliable Russian Soyuz spacecraft had troubles on Thursday, September 23, 2010, when three members of the International Space Station tried to undock for a trip back to Earth.  

The U.S. space agency NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos are scheduled to launch Mark Kelly and Scott Kelly, respectively, into space later in 2010 and early in 2011. If their missions remain on schedule, they will become the first twin brothers in space.