JOHN YOUNG

Fifty years after his Apollo 16 mission to the moon, retired NASA astronaut Charlie Duke says he’s ready for the U.S. to get back to lunar exploration.

Charlie Duke is part of a tiny fraternity that’s getting even smaller: People who walked on the moon.

While most people are fast asleep, some ultra-introverts are going about their lives, reveling in the quiet and solitude. They challenge a core assumption of psychology: that all humans need social connection.

The Apollo 16 spacecraft is dusty and home to a few cobwebs decades after it carried three astronauts to the moon.

NASA's longest-serving astronaut now has his name on one of the agency's longest-serving structures. Johnson Space Center director Vanessa Wyche led a ceremony to name Hangar 276 for John Young.

The later moon missions didn’t grab as much attention as the first landing in 1969, but they had something very cool on the gear front: the lunar rover, a lightweight go-kart that gave crews unmatched mobility on another world

The supply of Covid-19 vaccine in the United States is slated to substantially ramp up next month with manufacturers doubling the pace of production, company executives said in prepared remarks to be delivered to Congress on Tuesday. Young also said Pfizer is on track to deliver 120 million doses by the end of March, with an additional 80 million doses to go out by the end of May. Moderna hopes to deliver 40 million doses per month, roughly double the current pace, he said. Nettles added that the company is confident it will provide 100 million doses in the first half of the year. More than 75.2 million doses have been delivered to states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and over 64.1 million doses have been administered.

The three Americans and one Japanese should reach the International Space Station late Monday for a five- to six-month stay, following Sunday's liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. A brief look at each:—Crew commander Mike Hopkins, 51, is an Air Force colonel and former space station resident who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Missouri. He played football for the University of Illinois and, before becoming an astronaut in 2009, worked at the Pentagon. —Shannon Walker, 55, a Houston-born-and-raised physicist, also has lived before on the space station. She worked as a flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and then behind the scenes in the space station program, before becoming an astronaut in 2004.

NASA astronaut Charles Duke filmed Commander John Young as Young drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle, in footage shot on April 21, 1972 during the fifth day of the Apollo 16 moon landing. Astronauts on NASA's Apollo missions to the moon captured astounding movies of the lunar surface, but recent enhancements with artificial intelligence (AI) have really made the films out of this world. Experts have been remastering old films for decades, but the recent addition of AI has taken results to a new level, Niels said. And because movement in the films is so slow, the algorithm can generate more interpolating frames without digital artifacts. You can watch all of his AI-enhanced moon landing videos on the DutchSteamMachine YouTube channel , and you can find more of his projects on Patreon .

(SpaceX via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Its back to the future as NASA astronauts launch again from the U.S. aboard a retro-style Right Stuff capsule. SpaceXs Dragon crew capsule outshines NASAs old Apollo spacecraft in virtually every way. This fresh take on a vintage look will be on full display Wednesday when SpaceX plans to launch NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station a first for a private company. Russias workhorse Soyuz capsules, still in use after a half-century plus, have kept NASA astronauts flying to the space station. A test dummy soloed on last years Dragon crew capsule debut.

(SpaceX via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The two astronauts who will test drive SpaceXs brand new rocketship are classmates and friends, veteran spacefliers married to veteran spacefliers, and fathers of young sons. Retired Marine Col. Doug Hurley will be in charge of launch and landing, a fitting assignment for the pilot of NASAs last space shuttle flight. Hurley, 53, and Behnken, 49, are NASAs first test pilot crew in decades. Crippen and the late John Young rode NASAs first space shuttle, Columbia, into orbit on April 12, 1981. Hurley and Behnken both two-time space shuttle fliers were among four astronauts chosen in 2015 for NASAs commercial crew program.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is the conductor and NASA the customer as businesses begin chauffeuring astronauts to the International Space Station. The drama unfolds from the exact spot where men flew to the moon and the last space shuttle soared from Kennedy Space Center. NASAs newest test pilots, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, are launching from home turf with SpaceX presiding over the countdown. Plagued with software problems, Boeings Starliner capsule is still a year from launching with Ferguson and two NASA astronauts. In terms of launch power, the relatively small Falcon 9 has far less than the space shuttle did, another layer of safety.