Space station astronauts welcome civilian space travel as billionaires prepare to launch
CBSN
As two billionaires prepare for launch this month on milestone space flights, professional astronauts aboard the International Space Station said Friday they fully support commercialization and look forward to a rapidly expanding civilian presence on the high frontier.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson plans to join five company crewmates for a short up-and-down flight to sub-orbital space on July 11. Nine days later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to blast off on his own sub-orbital flight aboard a New Shepard spacecraft built by Blue Origin, a company he founded in 2000. Both companies plan commercial operations flying wealthy space tourists, government and private-sector researchers and experiments that can take advantage of the few minutes of weightlessness the flights will offer.Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund, agreeing to review a lower court decision that upended the mechanism for funding programs that provide communications services to rural areas, low-income communities and schools, libraries and hospitals.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched six space tourists on a high-speed dash to the edge of space and back Friday, giving the passengers — including a husband and wife making their second flight — about three minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this world view before the capsule made a parachute descent to touchdown at the company's west Texas flight facility.