Space station astronauts welcome civilian space travel as billionaires prepare to launch
CBSN
As two billionaires prepare for launch this month on milestone space flights, professional astronauts aboard the International Space Station said Friday they fully support commercialization and look forward to a rapidly expanding civilian presence on the high frontier.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson plans to join five company crewmates for a short up-and-down flight to sub-orbital space on July 11. Nine days later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to blast off on his own sub-orbital flight aboard a New Shepard spacecraft built by Blue Origin, a company he founded in 2000. Both companies plan commercial operations flying wealthy space tourists, government and private-sector researchers and experiments that can take advantage of the few minutes of weightlessness the flights will offer.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.