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    Pete Davidson to Join Next Blue Origin Space Flight

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    The “Saturday Night Live” comedian will be one of six passengers to fly to the edge of space this month with Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos.The “Saturday Night Live” actor Pete Davidson will travel to the edge of space next week on the next Blue Origin spaceflight, the company said on Monday.Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, said on Monday that it would launch its fourth flight with human passengers on March 23. Mr. Davidson will be one of six passengers on the company’s New Shepard rocket for its 20th flight.Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the richest people in the world, was a passenger on the company’s first flight with humans on board last July. Earlier that month, another private spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, took its founder, Richard Branson, to the edge of space and back.Mr. Davidson, 28, joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2014. He has also appeared in movies, including the 2020 semi-autobiographical film “The King of Staten Island.” He could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.A Blue Origin spokeswoman said Monday that Mr. Davidson would fly as “an honorary guest,” while the other five passengers were paying customers. The spokeswoman did not say how much the others had been charged to join the flight.Mr. Davidson will be the latest celebrity passenger to travel to the edge of space with Blue Origin.In October, the “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, 90, became the oldest person to travel to space and cross the Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space that is about 62 miles above the planet’s surface. Mr. Shatner shared the New Shepard rocket with three other passengers on a mission that lasted about 10 minutes.In December, Michael Strahan, the “Good Morning America” co-host, joined a Blue Origin flight with five others.The flight carrying Mr. Davidson is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas at 8:30 a.m. local time on March 23.In addition to Mr. Davidson, Blue Origin said on Monday, the flight will have five other passengers: Marty Allen, Sharon and Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen and George Nield.Mr. Allen is a former chief executive of Party America, the party-supply store. Mr. Hagle is the president and chief executive of Tricor International, a residential and commercial property development company. Ms. Hagle founded the nonprofit group SpaceKids Global. Mr. Kitchen is a professor of the practice of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Dr. Nield is the president of Commercial Space Technologies. From 2008 to 2018, he was associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency that regulates commercial launches like Blue Origin’s.Kenneth Chang More

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      In a Blue Origin Rocket, William Shatner Finally Goes to Space

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      The actor who played Captain Kirk played the role of pitchman for Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company at a time that it is facing a number of workplace and business difficulties.NEAR VAN HORN, TEXAS — William Shatner, the actor best known as the heroic Captain James T. Kirk in “Star Trek,” and three other passengers returned safely from a brief trip to the edge of space on Wednesday.Mr. Shatner, 90, became the world’s oldest space traveler on the flight, which was the latest excursion over the West Texas desert aboard a rocket built by Blue Origin for space tourists. The private space company is owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the wealthiest men on the planet.It was the sixth launch carrying private passengers this year, as billionaire-backed companies jockey to normalize launching humans to space. Carrying two paying passengers, the quick jaunt to space also checked off another revenue-generating flight for Blue Origin’s space tourism business, advancing competition with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to attract more wealthy and adventure-seeking customers.But the successful flight and landing came amid a string of controversies for Mr. Bezos’ company, particularly charges from current and former employees that its workplace culture was “rife” with sexism and that it prioritized speed over addressing some employees’ safety concerns. The company has rebutted the criticisms, but has also faced setbacks in other lines of its business.The actor who played Captain Kirk in “Star Trek” told Jeff Bezos his visit to the edge of space in the Blue Origin rocket was the most profound experience he could imagine.Blue Origin, via EPA, via ShutterstockThose concerns were absent on Wednesday as an effusive Mr. Shatner bent Mr. Bezos’ ear just outside the capsule after it landed, pouring forth words during a video livestream to describe his brief trek into the limits of the planet’s atmosphere. His trip aboard the rocket might have been conceived as a publicity stunt, but brushing the edge of the sky left the actor full of wonder, mixed with unease.“What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine,” Mr. Shatner told Mr. Bezos, waxing poetically about the “immeasurably small” line he witnessed between Earth and space, describing it as a fragile, underappreciated boundary between life and death.“This air which is keeping us alive is thinner than your skin,” he continued, adding: “it would be so important for everybody to have that experience, through one means or another.”The Origin New Shepard rocket rising from the launch site on Wednesday.LM Otero/Associated PressSpectators watched the New Shepard rocket carrying Mr. Shatner to the edge of space.Mario Tama/Getty ImagesMr. Bezos, who has said he was inspired by “Star Trek” as a boy, listened, still as a statue. He may have been giving Mr. Shatner some space, but it was a sharp contrast to his appearance after his own brief spaceflight in July, when he was aboard the same spacecraft. Then, Mr. Bezos held forth from a stage, rousing condemnation from critics of the vast company he founded as he thanked Amazon’s employees and customers for making it possible for him to finance his private space venture.Mr. Shatner shared the capsule on Wednesday with three other passengers: Audrey Powers, a Blue Origin vice president who oversees New Shepard operations, and two paying customers: Chris Boshuizen, a co-founder of the Earth-observation company Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of a company that builds software for clinical researchers.The launch Wednesday morning was pushed back by roughly an hour by two pauses to the launch countdown — caused in part by extra checks to the spacecraft and winds near its launchpad. The quartet was driven in electric pickup trucks to Blue Origin’s launchpad, roughly an hour before liftoff, flanked by Mr. Bezos and company employees.For a moment, it appeared Mr. Bezos, dressed in a flight suit like the one he wore in July, would join them in flying to space. But he closed the hatch door before leaving the pad, sending the crew on their journey.The rocket lifted off at 9:49 a.m. Central time, ascending nearly as fast as a speeding bullet at 2,235 miles per hour and sending the crew some 65.8 miles high. The whole trip lasted 10 minutes, 17 seconds, and gave the four passengers about four minutes of weightlessness.Mr. Boshuizen, talking to reporters after the flight, likened the crew’s entry into space to a stone hitting the surface of a lake. “I was trying to smile but my jaw was pushed back in my head,” he said.Mr. Shatner emerged from the New Shepard capsule after a safe landing near Van Horn, Texas, on Wednesday. Blue Origin, via EPA, via ShutterstockIn the “Star Trek” episode, “A Piece of the Action,” William Shatner as Captain Kirk appears with DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy, center, and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, right, in 1968.CBS via Getty ImagesMr. de Vries said the crew “had a moment of camaraderie” when they reached space. “We actually just put our hands together,” he said.“And then we enjoyed the view as much as we can,” Mr. de Vries said.In video footage released later by Blue Origin, Mr. Shatner appeared nearly speechless as the crew floated inside the capsule, legs aloft and small toys wafting around. “This is nuts,” said Ms. Powers, gripping the frame of one of the capsule’s windows.Footage captured the 90-year-old “Star Trek” actor and three other passengers floating weightless inside the Blue Origin spacecraft capsule during their trip to the edge of space.Blue OriginThe capsule then descended back to land under a set of three parachutes.Mr. Shatner wasn’t thrilled about his new status as the oldest person to fly into space. “I wish I had broken the world record in the 10-yard dash, but unfortunately it was how old I was,” he said hours after the mission during a news conference on the landing pad. He beat the record recently clinched during Blue Origin’s first crewed flight in July by Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and former candidate for NASA’s astronaut corps who was turned down from joining in the 60s because of her sex.Like Blue Origin’s July trip, in which Mr. Bezos launched to space with Ms. Funk and two other passengers, Wednesday’s flight served as an advertisement of the company’s space tourism business to prospective wealthy customers. It is competing primarily with Virgin Galactic, a rival space company founded by Richard Branson, the British businessman.Virgin Galactic’s suborbital ship is a space plane that takes off from a runway like a commercial airliner. It tops out at a lower altitude. The company sent Mr. Branson and three company employees to the edge of space in July aboard SpaceShipTwo, nine days before Mr. Bezos’ flight.Blue Origin has declined to publicly state a price for a ticket to fly on New Shepard. The company is nearing $100 million in sales so far, Mr. Bezos had said in July. But it’s unclear how many ticket holders that includes.Tickets on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo were hiked to $450,000 in August, from $250,000, when the company reopened ticket sales after a yearslong hiatus. And flights to orbit — a much higher altitude than Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic’s trips go — are far more expensive. Three passengers going to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.An illustration of the proposed SpaceX Starship human lander on the moon.SpaceXVirgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, carrying Richard Branson and crew, beginning its ascent to the edge of space above New Mexico in July.Virgin Galactic, via ReutersBut space tourism is not Blue Origin’s only business, nor its only challenge. Earlier this year, the company lost out to SpaceX, the rival rocket company owned by the billionaire Elon Musk, for a lucrative NASA contract to land humans on the moon. The company is currently challenging the award to SpaceX in federal court, and may receive a ruling in November.Mr. Bezos’ company is also attempting to overcome technical hurdles in its effort to finish building its much bigger rocket, New Glenn, as well as that rocket’s engines, which are to be relied on by a competitor, United Launch Alliance, to fly NASA and Pentagon hardware on its rockets.Its most immediate challenge has concerned accusations that the company’s work culture allowed harassment and sexist behavior. In September, Alexandra Abrams, the former head of employee communications at Blue Origin, published an essay with 20 unnamed current and former employees of the company outlining those charges, as well as accusations that internal safety concerns were often dismissed by management.“Even if there are absolutely zero issues with all of Blue’s programs, which is absolutely not the case, a toxic culture bursting with schedule pressure and untrustworthy leaders breeds and encourages failures and mistakes each and every day,” Ms. Abrams said this week.Blue Origin disputed the allegations in the essay, saying in a statement that the company has an internal hotline for sexual harassment complaints. And on Wednesday’s livestream of the launch, Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s astronaut sales director, emphasized the company’s safety record, saying “safety has been baked into the design of New Shepard from day one.”On Wednesday after the flight, Mr. Shatner also brought up New Shepard’s safety.“I think, just generally, the press needs to know how safe this was,” he said, adding “the technology is very safe, the approach was safe, the training was safe and everything went according to exactly what they predicted. We even waited for the winds an extra half-hour.”But asked by reporters if he would launch to space again, he said, “I am so filled with such an emotion, I don’t want to dissipate it by thinking of another journey.”Floating back to the west Texas desert after a successful mission.LM Otero/Associated PressDavid Streitfeld and Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting. More

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      in Movies

      Russian Film Crew Has Arrived at Space Station

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      The pair arrived at the International Space Station on Tuesday, aiming to shoot scenes for the first feature film made in orbit.The Russian crew — an actress, a director and their professional astronaut guide — arrived at the International Space Station with a mission to shoot scenes for the first feature-length film in space.Roscosmos, via ReutersThe first dog in space. The first man and woman. Now Russia has clinched another spaceflight first before the United States: Beating Hollywood to orbit.A Russian actress, Yulia Peresild, a director, Klim Shipenko, and their veteran Russian astronaut guide, Anton Shkaplerov, launched on a Russian rocket toward the International Space Station on Tuesday. Their mission is to shoot scenes for the first feature-length film in space. While cinematic sequences in space have long been portrayed on big screens using sound stages and advanced computer graphics, never before has a full-length movie been shot and directed in space.Whether the film they shoot in orbit is remembered as a cinematic triumph, the mission highlights the busy efforts of governments as well as private entrepreneurs to expand access to space. Earth’s orbit and beyond were once visited only by astronauts handpicked by government space agencies. But a growing number of visitors in the near future will be more like Ms. Sherepild and Mr. Shipenko, and less like the highly trained Mr. Shkaplerov and his fellow space explorers.A Soyuz rocket, the workhorse of Russia’s space program, lifted off on time at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.Before the launch on Tuesday, the MS-19 crew posed for photos and waved to family and fans in Baikonur. Mr. Shipenko, the director of the film which is named “The Challenge,” held up a script as he waved to cameras.“We didn’t forget to take it with us,” he said, according to a translator, before he boarded a bus with the other crew members to get dressed in their flight suits.The crew then raced to catch up with the space station in a trip that took only three hours. Known as a “two-orbit scheme,” it was unusually fast, as journeys to the lab in space typically last between eight and 22 hours over multiple orbits around Earth. (The first three-hour trip was performed by a Soyuz spacecraft in 2020 for Russia’s MS-17 mission, carrying two Russian astronauts and a U.S. astronaut.)The MS-19 spacecraft carrying its three-person crew was expected to dock with the space station at 8:12 a.m. But because of what a mission control official in Moscow described as “ratty comms” between the capsule and mission control in Moscow, possibly the result of weather conditions on Earth, Mr. Shkaplerov, the mission’s commander, was forced to abort an initial automated docking attempt. Mr. Shkaplerov instead manually steered the spacecraft to a port on the station’s Russian segment.“Up, down, left, right,” the mission control official in Moscow instructed Mr. Shkaplerov, as he steered the spacecraft closer to the station’s Russian segment. “Do what you’ve trained for. You’ll be fine.”The capsule latched onto the space station around 8:22 a.m. slightly behind schedule. Opening the hatch door was also delayed as the crew checked for air leaks, and as the Russian astronauts already on the station lined up their first shot: Ms. Peresild’s arrival.“They’re going to open the hatch from their side, and then they’re going to float towards the camera, correct? So we need to stay out of the picture,” Oleg Novitsky, one of two Russian astronauts who’ve been on the station since April, asked mission control in Moscow.Pyotr Dubrov, the other resident of the Russian segment, was behind a large digital cinema camera, recording and waiting for the MS-19 crew to open the hatch door and board the station. When it finally opened more than two hours after docking, at 11 a.m., out floated Mr. Shkaplerov and a smiling Ms. Peresild, followed by Mr. Shipenko, her director. The three then participated in a welcoming ceremony with the space station’s current crew of seven astronauts from NASA, Russia, Europe and Japan, with Ms. Sherepild in a red jumpsuit while her fellow new arrivals wore blue.A screengrab from a video by the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos showed Yulia Peresild entering the I.S.S. on Tuesday.Roscosmos, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I still feel that it’s all just a dream and I am asleep,” she said. “It is almost impossible to believe that this all came to reality.”The two film crew members will spend nearly two weeks moviemaking on the space station before returning on Oct. 17 aboard the MS-18 Soyuz spacecraft. Mr. Novitsky will leave with the film crew, and Mr. Shkaplerov will remain on the station.“Undoubtedly, this mission is special, we have people going to space who are neither tourists nor professional cosmonauts,” said Dmitri Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. He said he hoped the flight would help the agency attract a new generation of talent.As an actress, Ms. Peresild has performed in some 70 roles onscreen, and Russian movie publications have named her among the top 10 actresses under 35 years old. She may be best known among Russian moviegoers for “Battle for Sevastopol” (2015), in which she played the role of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the deadliest Red Army female sniper during World War II.But her prominence alone wouldn’t have been enough to secure her a seat to orbit: She was picked for the flight from some 3,000 contestants in a two-stage selection procedure that involved both tests of creativity and a stringent medical and physical fitness screening.Ms. Peresild will also become the fifth Russian woman to travel to space, and the first aboard the space station since 2015, when Elena Serova returned to Earth.Aboard the space station, Ms. Peresild will star in “The Challenge.” It’s about a surgeon, played by Ms. Peresild, who embarks on an emergency mission to the orbiting lab to save the life of an ailing cosmonaut (to be performed by Mr. Novitsky). Few other details about the plot or the filming aboard the station have been announced.The crew, using hand-held cameras both on board the capsule and in the space station, started filming scenes for the movie as the spacecraft approached the outpost, Rob Navias, a NASA spokesman, said on Tuesday.For “The Challenge,” cinematic storytelling may take a back seat to the symbolism of shooting a movie in space. The production is a joint project involving Russia’s space agency Roscosmos; Channel One; and Yellow, Black and White, a Russian film studio.Anton Shkaplerov, Klim Shipenko and Ms. Peresild boarding the Soyuz before launch on Tuesday.Roscosmos, via ReutersLike a lot of private missions to space these days, Channel One and Roscosmos hope the film can prove to the public that space isn’t reserved for only government astronauts. One of the production’s core objectives is to show that “spaceflights are gradually becoming available not only for professionals, but also for an ever wider range of interested persons,” Channel One said on its website.Mr. Rogozin, the Russian space agency leader, said he hopes the mission will make “a truly serious work of art and a whole new development of the promotion of space technologies,” in order to attract young talent to Russia’s space program.Funding for Russia’s space program is beginning to wane. Starting in 2011, when the U.S. space shuttle program ended, NASA could only send astronauts to the International Space Station by paying for expensive rides on one of Russia’s Soyuz rockets. But that ended in 2020 when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon proved itself capable of sending astronauts from American soil. And recently, the United States ended purchases of a Russian rocket engine long used for NASA and Pentagon launches to space, which generated billions in revenue for Moscow.Is this really the first movie that has been made on the space station?“The Challenge” is the first full-length movie that will use scenes filmed in orbit. The movie will include about 35 to 40 minutes of scenes made on the station, Channel One says.Other kinds of productions have been made in space in the past, like “Apogee of Fear,” an eight-minute science fiction film shot by Richard Garriott, a private astronaut, in 2008. Mr. Garriott, a video game entrepreneur, paid $30 million for his seat on a Soyuz spacecraft, which he booked through Space Adventures, a space tourism broker. The company is booking future missions to the space station aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.Several feature-length documentaries have relied heavily on video shot aboard the station. “Space Station 3D,” a short 2002 documentary about the space station’s construction, was one of the earliest IMAX productions filmed in space.Are there other plans to film in orbit?Tom Cruise may have plans to film something on the space station, but it’s unclear exactly when. Deadline, a Hollywood news publication, reported in 2020 that Mr. Cruise would fly to space aboard one of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules for an action-adventure film directed by Doug Liman. Jim Bridenstine, who served as NASA’s administrator under President Donald Trump, confirmed the plans on Twitter at the time and lauded them as a chance to galvanize the public around space exploration.Russia’s space agency announced its intention to send an actress to the space station shortly after Mr. Cruise’s plans emerged.The Nauka multipurpose laboratory module, left, docked to the International Space Station alongside a Soyuz spacecraft in July.Roscosmos, via ReutersWhat problems have the Russians had with the space station recently?Astronauts have been living aboard the space station, a science lab the size of a football field, for more than 20 years, and it’s starting to show signs of decay, particularly on the Russian side.Several air leaks on the Russian segment of the outpost have been detected in recent years, although none have posed immediate danger to the station’s crew. Astronauts found a leak in Russia’s Zvezda service module last year by using tea leaves, and patched the leak with space-grade glue and tape. Another gradual air leak is ongoing, and its source has eluded Russian space officials.And in July, Russia’s new science module, Nauka, carried out a chaotic docking procedure: Shortly after locking onto the station, the module’s thrusters began to fire erroneously, spinning the entire space station by one-and-a-half revolutions. None of the seven astronauts on board were harmed, but it was a rare “spacecraft emergency” that sent NASA and Russian officials scrambling to return the station to its normal orientation.Who else is going to the space station soon?Traffic at the space station will be busy for the next few months.On Oct. 30, NASA is scheduled to send a crew of three U.S. astronauts and one European Space Agency astronaut to the space station for a roughly six-month stay. The mission, named Crew-3, will be NASA’s fourth trek to the station using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, a spacecraft developed with a mix of NASA and private funds.Then, more private missions. Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, will launch to the orbital laboratory aboard a Soyuz rocket on Dec. 8 for a 12-day stay. Mr. Maezawa, an art collector and the tycoon behind the Japanese fashion retail site Zozotown, booked his first mission to space with SpaceX in 2018, aiming to one day ride the company’s Starship rocket around the moon. That won’t come until 2023, and for Mr. Maezawa’s sooner Soyuz flight, he’ll bring a producer and a camera along to document his trip.Then on Feb. 21, three private astronauts, paying $55 million each, will fly to the space station in a Crew Dragon capsule booked by the company Axiom Space. They will be joined by a fourth crew member, a retired NASA astronaut who will essentially serve as their guide.Valerie Hopkins and Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Moscow.Sync your calendar with the solar systemNever miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other astronomical and space event that’s out of this world. More

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      Watch Live: Russia Launches Film Crew to Space — Time and Video Details

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      The first dog in space. The first man and woman. Now Russia is about to clinch another spaceflight first before the United States: Beating Hollywood to orbit.A Russian actress, a director and their professional Russian astronaut guide launched on a Russian rocket toward the International Space Station on Tuesday. Their mission is to shoot scenes for the first feature-length film in space. While cinematic sequences in space have long been portrayed on big screens using sound stages and advanced computer graphics, never before has a full-length movie been shot and directed in space.Here’s what you need to know:What happened during the launch and what happens next?Who is on the flight?What movie are they making on the space station?Why are they making a movie in orbit?What happened during the launch and what happens next?The Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome Tuesday, carrying a film crew to orbit.Roscosmos/Via ReutersA Soyuz rocket, the workhorse of Russia’s space program, lifted off on time at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The MS-19 spacecraft carrying the three-person crew is expected to dock with the space station about three hours later, at 8:12 a.m.The MS-19 crew posed for photos and waved to family and fans during launch preparations in Baikonur on Tuesday. Klim Shipenko, the director of the film, “The Challenge,” held up a script as he waved to cameras.“We didn’t forget to take it with us,” he said, according to a NASA translator, before he boarded a bus with the other crew members to get dressed in their flight suits.NASA, which manages the space station in partnership with Russia, will host another livestream for the spacecraft’s docking beginning at 7:30 a.m. You can also watch the video in the player embedded above.The three-hour trip, called a “two-orbit scheme,” is unusually fast for journeys to the space station, which typically last between eight to 22 hours over multiple orbits around Earth. The first three-hour trip was performed by a Soyuz spacecraft in 2020 for Russia’s MS-17 mission, carrying two Russian astronauts and a U.S. astronaut.Who is on the flight?Yulia Peresild, a Russian actress, during a training session at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last month.Andrey Shelepin/GCTC/Roscosmos, via ReutersYulia Peresild, a Russian actress, Mr. Shipenko and Anton Shkaplerov, a veteran astronaut who has completed three treks to and from the space station since 2011, are strapped inside the MS-19 capsule on their way to the space station. Ms. Peresild has spent months training for the mission.The film crew will return to Earth on Oct. 17 along with Oleg Novitsky, an astronaut who’s been on the station since April.“Undoubtedly, this mission is special, we have people going to space who are neither tourists nor professional cosmonauts,” said Dmitri Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. He said he hoped the flight would help the agency attract a new generation of talent.As an actress, Ms. Peresild, has performed in some 70 roles onscreen, and Russian movie publications have named her among the top 10 actresses under 35 years old. She may be best known among Russian moviegoers for “Battle for Sevastopol” (2015), in which she played the role of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the deadliest Red Army female sniper during World War II.But her prominence alone wouldn’t have been enough to secure her a seat to orbit: She was picked for the flight from some 3,000 contestants in a two-stage selection procedure that involved both tests of creativity and a stringent medical and physical fitness screening.What movie are they making on the space station?The movie’s working title is “The Challenge,” and it’s about a surgeon, played by Ms. Peresild, who embarks on an emergency mission to the space station to save an ailing cosmonaut’s life. Few other details about the plot or the filming aboard the station have been announced, although NASA said on Tuesday that Mr. Novitsky, one of the Russian astronauts currently aboard the station, will play the role of the sick cosmonaut.The crew, using hand-held cameras both on board the capsule and in the space station, started filming scenes for the movie as the spacecraft approached the outpost, Rob Navias, a NASA spokesman, said on the livestream.Why are they making a movie in orbit?For “The Challenge,” cinematic storytelling may take a back seat to the symbolism of shooting a movie in space. The production is a joint project involving Russia’s space agency Roscosmos; Channel One; and Yellow, Black and White, a Russian film studio.Like a lot of private missions to space these days, Channel One and Roscosmos hope the film can prove to the public that space isn’t reserved for only government astronauts. One of the production’s core objectives is to show that “spaceflights are gradually becoming available not only for professionals, but also for an ever wider range of interested persons,” Channel One said on its website.Mr. Rogozin , the Russian space agency leader, said he hopes the mission will make “a truly serious work of art and a whole new development of the promotion of space technologies,” in order to attract young talent to Russia’s space program.Funding for Russia’s space program is beginning to wane. Starting in 2011, when the U.S. space shuttle program ended, NASA could only send astronauts to the International Space Station by paying for expensive rides on one of Russia’s Soyuz rockets. But that ended in 2020 when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon proved itself capable of sending astronauts from American soil. And recently, the United States ended purchases of a Russian rocket engine long used for NASA and Pentagon launches to space, which generated billions in revenue for Moscow.The Nauka multipurpose laboratory module, left, docked to the International Space Station alongside a Soyuz spacecraft in July.Roscosmos, via ReutersIs this really the first movie that has been made on the space station?“The Challenge” is the first full-length movie that will use scenes filmed in orbit. The movie will include about 35 to 40 minutes of scenes made on the station, Channel One says.Other kinds of productions have been made in space in the past, like “Apogee of Fear,” an eight-minute science fiction film shot by Richard Garriott, a private astronaut, in 2008. Mr. Garriott, a video game entrepreneur, paid $30 million for his seat on a Soyuz spacecraft, which he booked through Space Adventures, a space tourism broker. The company is booking future missions to the space station aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.Several feature-length documentaries have relied heavily on video shot aboard the station. “Space Station 3D,” a short 2002 documentary about the space station’s construction, was the first IMAX production filmed in space.Are there other plans to film in orbit?Tom Cruise may have plans to film something on the space station, but it’s unclear exactly when. Deadline, a Hollywood news publication, reported in 2020 that Mr. Cruise would fly to space aboard one of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules for an action-adventure film directed by Doug Liman. Jim Bridenstine, who served as NASA’s administrator under President Donald Trump, confirmed the plans on Twitter at the time and lauded them as a chance to galvanize the public around space exploration.Russia’s space agency announced its intention to send an actress to the space station shortly after Mr. Cruise’s plans emerged.What problems have the Russians had with the space station recently?Astronauts have been living aboard the space station, a science lab the size of a football field, for more than 20 years, and it’s starting to show signs of decay, particularly on the Russian side.Several air leaks on the Russian segment of the outpost have been detected in recent years, although none have posed immediate danger to the station’s crew. Astronauts found a leak in Russia’s Zvezda service module last year by using tea leaves, and patched the leak with space-grade glue and tape. Another gradual air leak is ongoing, and its source has eluded Russian space officials.And in July, Russia’s new science module, Nauka, carried out a chaotic docking procedure: Shortly after locking onto the station, the module’s thrusters began to fire erroneously, spinning the entire space station by one-and-a-half revolutions. None of the seven astronauts on board were harmed, but it was a rare “spacecraft emergency” that sent NASA and Russian officials scrambling to return the station to its normal orientation.Valerie Hopkins and Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Moscow.Sync your calendar with the solar systemNever miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other astronomical and space event that’s out of this world. More

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      Stephen Colbert Adds a Dash of Comedy to Branson's Space Launch

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      In this billionaire space race, slipping the surly bonds of Earth apparently isn’t enough — not without some glitz and a bevy of celebrities.Richard Branson combined private spaceflight with show business on Sunday as he completed his highly-anticipated Virgin Galactic flight high above the New Mexico desert. He enlisted “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert to introduce segments of a live streamed production, which was delayed around 90 minutes by the weather.Mr. Colbert played up a humorous rivalry he has cultivated with the entrepreneur on his talk shows over the years, and joked about some of Mr. Branson’s failed business ventures, like Virgin Cola.“Seriously, he lost money selling sugar water,” Mr. Colbert quipped. “All aboard.”Later in the production, the Grammy-winning artist Khalid gave a performance in front of a small crowd on an outdoor stage at Spaceport America, which featured the release of his new song, “New Normal.” The musician, appearing in a sequined jacket as machines sprayed mist on a stage, performed three songs.“Look how far we’ve came just as humanity,” he said during the live steam.Around two hours before lifting off, Mr. Branson shared a photo of himself with a shoeless Elon Musk, a billionaire rival in the private conquest of space.“Great to start the morning with a friend,” Mr. Branson said on Twitter.Even Mr. Branson’s arrival at Spaceport America wasn’t lacking for showmanship. Flanked by two white Range Rovers, the British mogul pedaled to the site at daybreak on a bicycle, a video posted by Mr. Branson showed. Once there, other members of the flight’s crew greeted him and joked that he was late.In England, where he was knighted by Prince Charles in 2000, the spotlight did not entirely belong to Mr. Branson, however. Mr. Branson’s space odyssey coincided with the men’s tennis final at Wimbledon on Sunday — historically billed for U.S. television audiences as “breakfast at Wimbledon.”The flight also came just hours before England was set to take on Italy in the soccer finals of Euro 2020, which has drawn the collective attention of many people in Britain. Some on social media suggested that Mr. Branson’s timing was less than ideal.The live stream production was not without its hiccups. The show’s hosts tried to interview Mr. Branson when the plane reached space, but the audio feed wasn’t working. After re-entry, many of his words were garbled as he tried to describe what it was like to visit space. More

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      in Television

      Space Station May Host Wave of TV Shows and Films

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      A Discovery reality TV competition, a Russian medical thriller and more productions could be heading to the orbital outpost in the next year.Who wants to be an astronaut?If the answer is you, there’s a reality TV show, appropriately titled “Who Wants to Be an Astronaut?,” that you ought to apply for.The Discovery Channel is seeking to cast about 10 would-be astronauts to compete during the series’s eight-episode run next year for a seat on a real-life trip to the International Space Station, followed by live coverage of the launch of the winner on a SpaceX rocket.“We’d like a diverse group of people that each have their own story, why they want to go to space, why they’re worthy of going to space, what their back story is,” said Jay Peterson, president of Boat Rocker Studios, Unscripted, one of the companies producing the show for Discovery.That person will not be the only amateur astronaut destined for the space station next year. So many tourism and entertainment efforts are preparing trips there that it could begin to look more like a soundstage for television shows and a hotel for the wealthy than an orbiting research laboratory.Many who work in the business of space believe that is a good thing, even if trips to orbit will remain out of reach of all but the wealthiest passengers in the near term.“This is a real inflection point, I think, with human spaceflight,” Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial spaceflight development, said during a news conference this month announcing that the agency had signed an agreement with Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, to fly the first mission of private astronauts to the space station.“I’m very bullish on the tourism market and the tourism activity,” Mr. McAlister said. “I think more people that are going to fly, they’re going to want to do more things in space.”Although the International Space Station may stay up in orbit at least until 2028, in the future it will not be the only space station. Russian space authorities last month declared their intention to leave the I.S.S. in the coming years and build a station of their own. A Chinese orbital outpost is expected to come online in the next year or two.Even NASA is looking for what comes next, promising support for commercial alternatives. Axiom, for one, is building a commercial segment, which will first be added to the International Space Station and later serve as a core piece of an Axiom station.“By the end of the decade I believe we will have at least five, possibly 10 private stations,” said Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of NanoRacks, a company that arranges commercial use of I.S.S. and is also planning its own orbital outposts. “Some for entertainment, some for research, some for in-space manufacturing, some for preparing the way for our journey to Mars. At long last, our more pragmatic aspirations are becoming reality.”TV and film projects in orbit are attracting the greatest attention so far. In the year ahead, the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, and a Russian broadcaster, Channel One, are behind a project in the year ahead to send Yulia Peresild, an actress, and Klim Shipenko, a filmmaker, to the space station to make the movie “Challenge.” Ms. Peresild will play a surgeon sent to orbit to save the life of a Russian astronaut.The Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa expects to spend 12 days in space starting in December, and hopes eventually to circle the moon.David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA Soyuz rocket taking off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the city of Uglegorsk, Russia, last month.Roscosmos/EPA, via ShutterstockThey will be flying on a Russian Soyuz rocket. So will a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano, a production assistant. Their 12-day trip, scheduled to launch in December, is a prelude for a more ambitious around-the-moon trip Mr. Maezawa hopes to embark on in a few years in the giant SpaceX Starship rocket currently in development. His trip to the space station is being arranged by Space Adventures, a company that arranged eight similar visits for private citizens between 2001 and 2009.There is still the possibility of Tom Cruise going to space, too.A year ago, Deadline reported that NASA was in discussions with the megamovie star on shooting an action-adventure film on the station. Since then, nothing more of Mr. Cruise’s out-of-this-world movie project has been revealed publicly.There will also be other trips to space going places other than the space station. Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, has bought an orbital trip from SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk.A bit closer to Earth, two companies, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, and Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, are getting closer to flying tourists on short, suborbital flights that will offer a few minutes of weightlessness.On Saturday, Virgin Galactic conducted a successful test flight of its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane. And Blue Origin has announced that its New Shepard spacecraft will have people aboard its next flight, scheduled for July 20, and it is auctioning one seat. As of Wednesday, the high bid was $2.8 million.Axiom Space, the Houston company, is central to some coming trips to the space station. Its first flight to the International Space Station, which is to launch aboard a SpaceX rocket as early as January, will carry three passengers, who are spending $55 million each for their eight days or so in orbit. Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who is now a vice president at Axiom, will accompany them, serving as commander of the mission.Film director Klim Shipenko, left, and actor Yulia Pereslid, third from left, at the cosmonaut training center in Star City, Russia. They will attempt to make a film aboard the International Space Station in the coming year.ITAR-TASS News Agency/AlamyVirgin Galactic’s VSS Unity being released from its mothership, VMS Eve, on the way to its first spaceflight after launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico this month.Virgin Galactic, via ReutersThis month’s announcement was the first time NASA acknowledged that the Axiom mission was officially on the space station schedule.“We’re finally able to open our doors to private citizens and allow others to experience the magic of living and working in space,” said Dana Weigel, deputy manager for the space station at NASA. “The dream is really to allow everyone access to space, and this is a pretty exciting starting point here.”Producers of Discovery’s “Who Wants to Be an Astronaut” expect the winner to be on board for the second Axiom mission to the space station, which might take off six or seven months after the first one. For now, an agreement between the Discovery team and Axiom has not been finalized, and NASA has yet to choose Axiom to conduct the second private space tourism flight.The NASA-led part of the station could accommodate two private astronaut missions a year, space agency officials have said, and other companies are also interested in participating.“We are seeing a lot of interest in private astronaut missions, even outside of Axiom,” Ms. Weigel said. “At this point, the demand exceeds what we actually believe the opportunities on station will be.”Still, on Tuesday, Axiom announced two people who would be in the seats for that second mission: Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom, will be the commander, and John Shoffner, a paying passenger who made his fortune as head of a company that manufactures conduits for fiber optic cables, will serve as pilot for the mission.Dr. Whitson, who holds the record for the most cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut — 665 days — joined Axiom as a consultant a year ago, in hopes of getting to space again and adding to her record. “Yes, most definitely,” she said. “That was the carrot.”Mr. Peterson said plans for the Discovery show grew out of discussions with Axiom early in 2020 and that it would be “a premium documentary” and less like “Survivor” or other ruthless reality television competitions.“There’s real stakes here, unlike those kinds of comparisons,” Mr. Peterson said. “We want to create an interest in somebody, so that everyone can feel like they maybe someday have the ability to do this.”The astronaut Peggy Whitson in the cupola of the International Space Station in 2016. She will chaperone a tourist to the I.S.S., as will astronaut Michael López-Alegría, who is now president of Axiom.NASA, via Associated PressMr. López-Alegría in the Quest Airlock of the I.S.S. in 2002.NASAPaul Ricci, a founder of BoomTown Content Company and also involved in the show, said the competition will be based on what astronauts and others who have worked in human spaceflight have said was needed to succeed.“If these are the qualities that astronauts need to have,” Mr. Ricci said, “then we can model challenges that test those qualities. Things like problem solving, teamwork, precision and focus, grace under pressure, handling the unexpected.”The idea of staging competitions to get to space is not new. In 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese television journalist, went to the Russian space station Mir. The Tokyo Broadcasting Service bought the seat on the Soyuz and Mr. Akiyama was selected from 163 candidates. A year later, Helen Sharman, an English chemist, also flew to Mir, selected from among 13,000 British applicants in a privately financed campaign.A space-based reality television show is not a new idea either. In 2000, NBC signed a deal for a show developed by Mark Burnett, who had also produced “The Apprentice” and “Survivor.” The winner of that competition would have also traveled to Mir, but NASA pressed Russia to abandon Mir and shift its focus to the International Space Station, which was in the early stages of construction.Russia relented, Mir was nudged to a watery crash in the Pacific in 2001, and the reality television show never came to fruition.As for Mr. Cruise, it is a guessing game when he and the movie director he is working with, Doug Liman, might head to the space station, and Axiom has never commented on whether it is involved in Mr. Cruise’s movie.Asked on Monday if there were any developments that could be shared, Amanda Lundberg, Mr. Cruise’s publicist, replied, “Thanks but this is not possible.” More