However, since Ares I is capable only of reaching low Earth orbit and the space station is the only habitable thing in low Earth orbit, Ares I by itself would be a road to nowhere.
Look no further than Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth, soon becoming the first animal to die in orbit, not too long after achieving that earlier distinction.
Cremated human remains were placed in the second stage of the Falcon and will orbit the Earth.
It passed far closer even than the geosynchronous satellites that orbit the Earth, but there was no risk of impacts or collisions.
While the Shenzhou V stayed aloft for only 21 hours, the Shenzhou VI will orbit the Earth for five to seven days.
And after the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, the United States went about winning the Space Race by investing in science and technology, leading not only to small steps on the moon but also to tremendous economic benefits here on Earth.
It could mean they gain control of the spacecraft systems and can fire the engines, but after the orbit around Earth has dropped so low that there is not enough fuel to go to Phobos.
Then in 1945 he published a paper proposing the concept of space stations which would orbit the Earth and be able to act as transmitters of radio waves.
It was only half a century later, as the consequences of pushing the earth out into plebeian orbit dawned on the priests, that it became too hot to handle, or even touch.
Which is why Mr Robinson and others believe that the picosats currently in orbit around the earth will be the shape, and size, of things to come.
Mr Obama was not yet born in 1957, when the Soviet Union put the first satellite in orbit around the Earth, but the moment is remembered as a salutary shock to an America grown complacent.
The images from the Hubble, which has a clear view of the cosmos from its orbit above the Earth's turbulent atmosphere, will enable astronomers to gain a better understanding of black holes and the effect they have on material captured in their gravitational trap.
Scientists have charted about 500 meteors near the Earth's orbit and estimate that 100 of those are potentially dangerous.
Among its other discoveries, in 2011 Wise spotted in a "Trojan" asteroid ahead of the Earth in its orbit.
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But there is a way to counter the increasing brightness of the Sun, the scientists believe - just increase the radius of the Earth's orbit!
The amount of carbon dioxide varies daily somewhat and has cycled historically in accordance with changes in the Earth's orbit, a phenomenon known as Milankovitch cycles.
The work, which is described in the journal Nature, actually draws on observations made by several astronomical facilities, including the Keck and James Clerk Maxwell telescopes in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around the Earth.
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The STARSHINE (Student Atmospheric Research Satellite for Heuristic International Networking Equipment) will orbit the Earth through the end of the year.
The silver lapel badge is being given to all UK-born spacefarers who get to orbit the Earth.
Its most striking feature is to delegate the humdrum task of ferrying people and equipment to low-Earth orbit to the private sector.
But unlike Iridium's 66 low-orbit birds, Astrolink will cover the earth with only four high-orbit geostationary fliers.
The award would be presented to each crewmember from all 12 three-man Apollo missions, including the Apollo 7 and 9 Earth-orbit flights as well as the Apollo 1 crew, which perished in a launch pad fire in 1967.
Soon, however, the object's motion suggested it was in an orbit around the Earth.
Take the Apollo program: No human has been beyond the orbit of the Earth since the Nixon administration.
The commercial efforts to low Earth orbit, which SpaceX achieved, are only a piece of the U.S. space program.
Similarly in 1992 the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) put forward the idea of launching 55, 000 "solar sails" into orbit around the Earth, each with an area of 100 square kilometers, the sails collectively producing the same effect as Early's single glass panel.
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Mr Bennett, whose love of rocketry was inspired by the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds, has predicted that he could put a small satellite in low Earth orbit by the year 2001.
While we applaud the work that has been accomplished by the private spaceflight industry, such programs are focused exclusively on developing systems for access to low Earth orbit following the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle.
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"We need to get NASA out of the business of getting crew" to low-earth orbit, she told The Wall Street Journal at the time.
In October 1957 the Soviets managed to hoist a 184-pound hunk of metal with a radio transmitter into orbit around the Earth.
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