13 Things You Didn't Know About Space Travel

13 things you didn’t know about space travel.

- Michelle Crouch

1 The first astronauts to Mars may be departing sooner than you realize. In March, President Trump ordered NASA to get people there by 2033, and the agency is building a new rocket known as Space Launch System. It will be one heck of a ride. The heat energy produced by the system’s solid rocket boosters during the two-minute liftoff alone could power 92,000 homes for an entire day.

2 Meanwhile, at least four private companies are racing to be the first commercial taxi service to take paying customers into space: Boeing, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. The first flights will most likely be to the near edge of space—more than 100 miles above  Earth—where tourists can experience weightlessness and marvel at the view. If you want to take a ride, prepare for sticker shock: Virgin Galactic is selling tickets for $250,000. About 700 people have signed up.

3 Beginning next year, it could be possible to make a cell phone call from space. A German company has teamed with Nokia to build the first 4G network on the moon in 2019. The system will allow astronauts to send videos back home. Other companies are planning satellite constellations that could make the Internet available to everyone on Earth.