On 20 February 1962, NASA astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. The mission was part of NASA’s Mercury human spaceflight programme and came just nine months after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.

Another significant moment came when Glenn used a camera he had purchased from a shop near the Cape Canaveral, Florida, launch site to snap the first-ever photograph taken by a human in space. Later photos taken by astronauts showed Earth in unprecedented new ways, and NASA quickly realised the scientific and public value of such space photography.

The Mercury programme, along with the Gemini project, were precursors to the Apollo missions that eventually landed humans on the moon. this important segment of history through photographs and film stills masterfully restored by Andy Saunders from NASA’s original images.

ON 20 February 1962, NASA astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, but there were signs of trouble. As Glenn’s Friendship 7 spacecraft returned from its historic flight, a warning light indicated its heat shield had unlatched, risking complete incineration. This image (above) captures Glenn at the moment he reenters Earth’s atmosphere, pieces of the burning spacecraft casting a fiery orange glow on his face.

Fortunately, Glenn splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean minutes later. A faulty switch in the heat shield circuit was to blame for the alarm.

The image is featured in a new book, , which celebrates these early NASA missions through masterfully restored photographs and film stills.

Another significant moment came earlier in the flight, when Glenn used a camera he had purchased from a shop near the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to snap the first photograph taken by a human in space (pictured above). Later photos by astronauts showed Earth in unprecedented ways, and NASA realised the scientific and public value of such space photography.

Gemini and Mercury Remastered by Andy Saunders, who restored the NASA images himself, is out in the UK from 28 August.

Gemini and Mercury photos, restored
See more remastered images from these historic space missions below.

Space is a favourite setting for many Hollywood films, but just how accurate are their portrayals? Patricia Skelton, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, sheds some light on the scientific rigour of her favourite movies.

For example, during an explosive space battle scene in Star Trek, a crew member is tossed out into space and suddenly into silence. For Skelton, this moment accurately portrays physics: space is an almost perfect vacuum, and sound can’t travel without a medium.

Apollo 13 tells the story of NASA’s ill-fated 1970 lunar mission. What stands out for Skelton is how the film-makers tackled the challenge of portraying zero gravity by using NASA’s KC-135 aeroplane, affectionately known as the “Vomit Comet”. By flying in parabolic arcs, the jet creates brief moments of weightlessness, just long enough to film scenes in realistic zero gravity.

In the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader meets with the Emperor Palpatine via hologram. Despite being vast galactic distances apart, their conversation flows surprisingly well, without any communication delay. In reality, that would be impossible, says Skelton. To illustrate this, she uses the example of Voyager 1, a space probe that is currently the most distant human-made object from Earth. Communicating with it involves sending radio signals, which are electromagnetic waves that travel at 300,000 kilometres per second. Since Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometres away, a message sent today takes about 22.5 hours to arrive. Real-time chats across galaxies may not be possible, but a little creative licence is all part of the magic of sci-fi.

Preparations are under way for a rocket test flight in Norway that could make history and give Europe greater independence from the market leader in orbital launches, the United States.

Who is behind the rocket launch?

The company that developed the new rocket, dubbed Spectrum, is German-based Isar Aerospace. Spectrum is 28 metres tall, composed of two stages and uses oxygen and propane as propellant. Isar Aerospace says the aim of the test flight, which will carry no payload, is “to collect as much data and experience as possible”. The company told Â鶹´«Ă˝ that its staff were all too busy preparing for its test flight for an interview.

Where and when will the launch take place?

The launch will take place at Andøya Space Center in Norway, and has been granted permission to go ahead by the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). Isar Aerospace says it is planning to launch on 24 March between 12.30pm and 3.30pm CET, weather permitting.

If successful, the launch will be the first flight of an orbital launch vehicle from continental Europe, excluding Russia.

Does Europe already have other launch companies?

It does, and some are quite established. The European market leader, Arianespace, was founded 45 years ago and carries out launches in collaboration with the European Space Agency and the French national space agency, CNES. But these launches take place in French Guiana, a French territory located in South America, and the rockets themselves – Vega C and Ariane 6 – are built by other companies.

In addition to Isar Aerospace, there are a clutch of European start-ups looking to start competing, including Spain’s  and Germany’s and .

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Why does Europe need its own launchers?

at Imperial College London says there are a lot of reasons why there could be demand for smaller, European launch providers. For one thing, the logistics of making a satellite in Europe and then launching it in Europe – rather than having to ship it halfway around the world – would be simpler and cheaper.

It would also be simpler to have small, cheap launch vehicles that could put a single satellite into orbit, rather than having to share a ride with several other missions, all of which may want to reach a different height or orbit.

Then there is the current political situation. Companies and countries may not want to rely on US launch providers, especially SpaceX, given its unpredictable CEO, Elon Musk, and his links to the Trump administration.

These concerns were hinted at by Isar Aerospace’s CEO Daniel Metzler in a : “In today’s geopolitical climate, our first test flight is about much more than a rocket launch.”

Is Norway a good place to launch?

Rockets launching close to the equator get a boost. Thanks to the planet’s spin, they start out travelling much faster relative to the centre of Earth than rockets launching near the poles.

Andøya Space Center is located at 69° north, so Earth’s rotational speed is considerably weaker there than in French Guiana. But this isn’t important for high-inclination orbits: those that make a bigger angle with the equator.

Isar Aerospace says it will be able to put 1500-kilogram payloads into orbit up to 30 times a year, in orbital inclinations from 90° to 110.6°. This would include sun-synchronous orbits – those that always pass over a given point at the same local time – which are ideal for spy and weather satellites. Isar already has a contract to put Arctic Ocean surveillance satellites into just such an orbit for the Norwegian Space Agency.

The launch site is also reasonably free of air and marine traffic, and it benefits from all the infrastructure needed for small launch vehicles. “It will be more limited in terms of what you can achieve, but it’s still, I think, reasonable,” says Amato.

Will Isar be successful ?

Amato says Isar Aerospace could be following SpaceX away from the traditional space approach of extensive design and cautious testing to a more Silicon Valley “test, fail, improve” strategy. “I would expect failure,” says Amato. “Which is not necessarily bad.”

“Now, the question is, can you get to a design that survives and that’s reliable before you run out of money?” he says. “That’s the race. You’re racing your investors, basically.”

The strategy of keeping spacecraft as clean and sterile as possible to ensure astronauts don’t become ill may be a mistake. Our immune systems may need stimulation from certain kinds of molecules and microbes to stay healthy, say researchers who have been studying the International Space Station (ISS).

“The general notion is to try to have as few microbes as possible, but the question is if that is the best thing to do for long-term space travel,” says at the University of California San Diego. “And it’s also relevant for places on Earth, such as research [stations], hospitals and submarines, where you can spend months or more.”

One reason for sterilising spacecraft is to avoid contaminating planets, such as Mars, with microbes from Earth, but the main concern is that an infection that would be easily treatable on our planet could become a major issue on a spacecraft.

Dorrestein and his team have analysed more than 700 swabs of surfaces onboard the ISS, and found it is indeed squeaky clean in terms of the diversity of the molecules and microbes present.

“The space station is just devoid of a lot of molecules and microbes,” he says. “It is at the extreme end of human living.”

The team thinks this lack of exposure to the usual wide array of molecules and microbes could be one reason why there are significant changes to the immune system in space. On the space station, astronauts often get rashes, unusual allergies, fungal or bacterial infections, as well as activation of latent viruses such as Epstein-Barr, which was found in one of the samples.

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“We don’t have a full understanding of that,” says Dorrestein. “But the way I view this is that your immune system has to be periodically pinged.”

The researchers say we need to find ways to make environments like the space station “dirtier, so that they are more diverse in molecules and microbes, but without introducing any infection-causing pathogens”.

Inside NASA’s ambitious plan to bring the ISS crashing back to Earth

The International Space Station will burn up and splash down into the Pacific sometime around 2030. What could possibly go wrong? And will we ever see anything like the ISS again?

One way to do this would be to apply bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis to surfaces instead of disinfectants, says Dorrestein. B. subtilis is already widely used for its antifungal activity.

Growing a range of plants could help as well. “We know from other studies that when people are exposed to a lot more plant molecules, they tend to have reduced connections to asthma and allergies,” says Dorrestein. There is a complete absence of these plant molecules on the space station, he says.