In 1978, Ride and five other women became the first group of female astronauts in the U.S. A new book by a longtime curator of spaceflight artifacts explores the nearly five-decade history of women in

From Neil Armstrong to an all UM crew on an Apollo mission, the University of Michigan and Purdue University both featured large in the advent of space travel.

The ISS has “come into its own as a very sophisticated scientific laboratory,” says retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who famously spent a year in space aboard the station in 2015 and 2016.

The International Space Station marks a quarter-century of continuous occupancy this weekend, boasting a guest list of nearly 300 — mostly professional astronauts but also the occasional space tourist and movie director. The first full-time residents opened the hatch on Nov. 2, 2000.