This picture is of a small scale flight demonstrator of the X-33 Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), Venture Star, developed and built by NASA and Lockheed Martin. The X-33 program was cancelled in 2001.

In this artist's concept, the X-33 Venture Star, a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), manufactured by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, is shown in orbit with a deployed payload. The Venture Star was one of the earliest versions of the RLV's developed to replace the aging shuttle fleet. The X-33 program was cancelled in 2001.

This artist’s concept is of the X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator, a subscale prototype Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), in its 1997 configuration. Named the Venture Star, this vehicle manufactured by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, is shown in orbit with a deployed payload. The Venture Star was one of the earliest versions of the RLV’s developed in attempt to replace the aging shuttle fleet. The X-33 program has been discontinued.

This is an artist's concept of an X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator, a subscale protoptye launch vehicle being developed by NASA Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. (Vehicle configuration current as of 10/97) The X-33 is a subscale prototype of a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) Lockheed Martin has labeled "Venture Star TM." The X-33 program was cancelled in 2001.

In this artist's concept, the X-33 Venture Star, a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), manufactured by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, is shown in orbit with a deployed payload. The Venture Star was one of the earliest versions of the RLV's developed to replace the aging shuttle fleet. The X-33 program was cancelled in 2001.

This is an artist's interpretation of a future launch complex for third generation propulsion reusable launch vehicles such as the X-33. The X-33 is a sub-scale technology demonstrator prototype of a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), with a vertical take off / horizontal landing (lifting body) concept, which was manufactured and named as the Venture Star by Lockheed Martin. The X-33 program was cancelled in 2001.

The wedge-shaped X-33 was a sub-scale technology demonstration prototype of a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). Through demonstration flights and ground research, NASA's X-33 program was to provide the information needed for industry representatives such as Lockheed Martin (builder of the X-33 Venture Star) to decide by the year 2000 whether to proceed with the development of a full-scale, commercial RLV program. This program would dramatically increase reliability and lower the costs of putting a payload into space. This would in turn create new opportunities for space access and significantly improve U.S. economic competitiveness in the worldwide launch marketplace. NASA would be a customer, not the operator in the commercial RLV. The X-33 program was cancelled in 2001.

Dwayne Brown, Senior Public Affairs Officer, NASA Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, kicks off a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Gary Zank, Department of Space Sciences, Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomics Research (CSPAR), University of Alabama in Huntsville, speaks at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) holds a replica of the golden record carried on Voyager at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Golden Record was intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) speaks at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Gary Zank, (second from right) Department of Space Sciences, Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomics Research (CSPAR), University of Alabama in Huntsville, speaks at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, California Institute of Technology, is seen as he speaks at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, California Institute of Technology, is seen as he speaks at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Don Gurnett, Voyager plasma wave investigation principal investigator, University of Iowa, speaks at a news conference on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. A report on the analysis of this new data is published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

The STS-99 crew members designed the flight insignia for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), the most ambitious Earth mapping mission to date. Two radar anternas, one located in the Shuttle bay and the other located on the end of a 60-meter deployable mast, was used during the mission to map Earth's features. The goal was to provide a 3-dimensional topographic map of the world's surface up to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. In the patch, the clear portion of Earth illustrates the radar beams penetrating its cloudy atmosphere and the unique understanding of the home planet that is provided by space travel. The grid on Earth reflects the mapping character of the SRTM mission. The patch depicts the Space Shuttle Endeavour orbiting Earth in a star spangled universe. The rainbow along Earth's horizon resembles an orbital sunrise. The crew deems the bright colors of the rainbow as symbolic of the bright future ahead because of human beings' venturing into space. The crew of six launched aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor on February 11, 2000 and completed 222 hours of around the clock radar mapping gathering enough information to fill more than 20,000 CDs.

STS099-S-001 (June 1999) --- The STS-99 crew members designed the flight insignia for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), the most ambitious Earth mapping mission to date. Two radar antennas, one located in the shuttle bay and the other located on the end of a 60-meter deployable mast, will be used during the mission to map Earth?s features. The goal is to provide a three-dimensional topographic map of the world?s surface up to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. The clear portion of Earth illustrates the radar beams penetrating its cloudy atmosphere and the unique understanding of the home planet that is provided by space travel. The grid on Earth reflects the mapping character of the SRTM mission. The patch depicts the space shuttle Endeavour orbiting Earth in a star spangled universe. The rainbow along Earth?s horizon resembles an orbital sunrise. The crew deems the bright colors of the rainbow as symbolic of the bright future ahead because of human beings? venturing into space. The NASA insignia design for space shuttle flights is reserved for use by the astronauts and for other official use as the NASA Administrator may authorize. Public availability has been approved only in the forms of illustrations by the various news media. When and if there is any change in this policy, which is not anticipated, the change will be publicly announced. Photo credit: NASA

"When we do passes over parts of the world where you can see the human impact to the world, you get to really see the magnitude of the impact. When we’re flying over North America, we come up over Vancouver, and a short five minutes later we’re flying over Houston. We’d just cross over all of the Western United States. And during the daylight, you may not really see a whole lot of human influence, with all the great plains are stretched out and the cities blending into everything. "But when we’d do that same view over South America, at what at one point was rainforest, as far as we can see, has all been deforested. You can understand the reasons why people are doing it. They’re trying to survive. But you also know at your core that we’re having a significant impact on how life is balancing on the world. And so, I walked away with a deep sense of stewardship of the planet. My wife chuckles at this being my mid-life crisis. I came home and signed up for 100% renewable energy and looked at EV cars and everything. "When you look out into space, and you see all those stars and all those galaxies — there’s just so much stuff out there. But the only thing you see with any life on it is what’s right below you. You know that we’re on this island out in the middle of this vast darkness, and we need to just take care of it as best we can." NASA astronaut Nick Hague, Monday, Jan. 13, 2020 in Washington, DC. Hague most recently spent 203 days living and working onboard the International Space Station as part of Expeditions 59 and 60. Hague ventured outside the space station on three spacewalks totaling 19 hours and 56 minutes. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center's (MSFC) Interstellar Propulsion Research department are proposing different solutions to combustion propellants for future space travel. One alternative being tested is the solar sail. The idea is, once deployed, the sail will allow solar winds to propel a spacecraft away from Earth and towards its destination. This would allow a spacecraft to travel indefinitely without the need to refuel during its ong journey. Thin reflective sails could be propelled through space by sunlight, microwave beams, or laser beams, just as the wind pushes sailboats on Earth. The sail will be the largest spacecraft ever built, sparning 440 yards, twice the diameter of the Louisiana Super Dome. Construction materials are being tested in a simulated space environment, where they are exposed to harsh conditions to test their performance and durability in extremely hot and cold temperatures. A leading candidate for the construction material is a carbon fiber material whose density is less than 1/10 ounce per square yard, the equivalent of flattening one raisin to the point that it covers a square yard. In space, the material would unfurl like a fan when it is deployed from an expendable rocket. This photo shows Les Johnson, manager of MSFC's Interstellar Propulsion Research Center holding the rigid, lightweight carbon fiber. An artist's concept of the sail is on the right. Mankind's first venture outside of our solar system is proposed for launch in a 2010 timeframe. An interstellar probe, powered by the fastest spacecraft ever flown, will zoom toward the stars at 58 miles per second. It will cover the distance from New York to Los Angeles in less than a minute and will travel over 23 billion miles beyond the edge of the solar system.

Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center's Interstellar Propulsion Research department are proposing different solutions to combustion propellants for future space travel. Pictured here is one alternative, the solar sail, depicted through an artist's concept. The idea is, once deployed, the sail will allow solar winds to propel a spacecraft away from Earth and towards its destination. This would allow a spacecraft to travel indefinitely without the need to refuel during its prolong journey. Thin reflective sails could be propelled through space by sunlight, microwave beams, or laser beams, just as the wind pushes sailboats on Earth. The sail will be the largest spacecraft ever built, sparning 440 yards, twice the diameter of the Louisiana Super Dome. Construction materials are being tested in a simulated space environment, where they are exposed to harsh conditions to test their performance and durability in extremely hot and cold temperatures. A leading candidate for the construction material is a carbon fiber material whose density is less than 1/10 ounce per square yard, the equivalent of flattening one raisin to the point that it covers a square yard. In space, the material would unfurl like a fan when it is deployed from an expendable rocket. Mankind's first venture outside of our solar system is proposed for launch in a 2010 timeframe. An interstellar probe, powered by the fastest spacecraft ever flown, will zoom toward the stars at 58 miles per second. It will cover the distance from New York to Los Angeles in less than a minute and will travel over 23 billion miles beyond the edge of the solar system.