NASA has a flight gap coming. Can the private sector fill it? The space agency is planning to retire the shuttle fleet in 2010, but the next generation of spacecraft is not likely to be ready to fly astronauts to the International Space Station and beyond until 2015. During the pause in American flights, the United States will rely on Russia to get astronauts to the station. ...more

January 2, 2009

Mary Epperson was one of those kids who grew up in the 1960s, watching Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts blast into space and splash down in the ocean. ...more

November 28, 2008

Mary Epperson was one of those children who grew up in the 1960s, watching the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts blast into space and splash down in the ocean. ...more

November 28, 2008

Middle school teachers from the Tampa Bay area and across Florida slipped free from the Earth's gravitational constraints Tuesday, part of a program to nudge students toward careers in math, science and engineering. ...more

September 30, 2008

SARASOTA - Diana Cloud came within a ball's toss of the world's first spaceship for tourists last week, a vessel she hopes will eventually take her on a daring and expensive ride. ...more

August 5, 2008

Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and best-selling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday at his home in Chesapeake, Va., of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. ...more

July 26, 2008

To everybody's relief, astronauts fixed the toilet at the International Space Station on Wednesday and opened up a grand new science lab. ...more

June 5, 2008

Capping a successful 13-day mission to the International Space Station, the crew of Atlantis glided home to a postcard touchdown at 9:07 a.m. Wednesday, setting the stage for another shuttle venture in less than three weeks. ...more

February 21, 2008

This second-generation private ship being built by Virgin Galactic to fly tourists into weightlessness is an exciting experiment in the privatization of space flight. ...more

February 19, 2008