In Pictures: Exploring Mars with Curiosity
In Pictures: Meteors
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Dancing with the Stars
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Black Holes
In Pictures: Space Photos of the Day: Asteroids
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Visions of the future
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Massive Storms
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Gas giants
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Heavenly Rings
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: Female Astronauts
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: The Moon
In Pictures: Space photos of the day: A Blue Planet
In this 1960 photograph, the seven original Mercury astronauts participate in US Air Force survival training exercises at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. Pictured from left to right are: L. Gordon Cooper, M. Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter Schirra, and Donald K. Slayton. Portions of their clothing have been fashioned from parachute material, and all have grown beards from their time in the wilderness. The purpose of this training was to prepare astronauts in the event of an emergency or faulty landing in a remote area. NASA via CNP/Newscom
Weightlessness training for New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe is seen on board a KC-135 'zero gravity' aircraft. McAuliffe was aboard the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, when the vehicle exploded shortly after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Newscom
Emergency personnel drag a shuttle crewmember pretending to be injured away from a mock shuttle disaster during training at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The rescue crews are training for possible shuttle landing emergencies.
This 1999 image, taken from the NASA Internet site in April of 2000, shows a 'fish-eye' view illustrating NASA's Multifunction Electronic Display Subsystem (MEDS), otherwise known as 'glass cockpit. This photo is actually a recent one of the fixed base Space Shuttle mission simulator in the Johnson Space Center's (JSC) Mission Simulation and Training Facility. The fixed base simulator has been outfitted with MEDS to be used by flight crews for training.
In the waters of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near NASA's Johnson Space Center, STS-129 Mission Specialist Robert L. Satcher Jr. is dressed in a training version of his Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit as he trains for a spacewalk. Satcher's rehearsal is intended to prepare him for work outside the International Space Station
Astronauts Sunita L. Williams, Expedition 14 flight engineer, and Robert L. Curbeam (partially obscured), STS-116 mission specialist, are about to be submerged in the waters of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) near Johnson Space Center. Williams and Curbeam are attired in training versions of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) space suit. SCUBA-equipped divers are in the water to assist the crew members in their rehearsal intended to help prepare them for work on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS).
Attired in a training version of his shuttle launch and entry suit, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, STS-119 mission specialist, participates in a training session in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1998.
Astronauts Michael Fossum (l.) and Satoshi Furukawa practice taking photographs in the virtual-reality lab at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, March 3, 2011. The jerry-rigged contraption, including cookie cans, helps them understand what zero-gravity will feel like with a camera. They are practicing how to photograph the Space Shuttle as it flies by the station.
The Apollo 12 lunar Extravehicular Activity crew members, Pete Conrad and Al Bean conduct a simulation of the lunar surface activity planned for their lunar landing mission at a training session held in the Flight Crew Training Building at the Kennedy Space Center in 1969.
Astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton, STS-3 pilot, gets a preview of what it might be like in space during a flight aboard NASA's KC- 135 'zero-gravity' aircraft. A special parabolic pattern flown by the aircraft provides shore periods of weightlessness. These flights are nicknamed the 'vomit comet' because of the nausea that is often induced. Fullerton's suit is an extravehicular mobility unit, used by astronauts when leaving the Shuttle orbiter to go outside and perform tasks in space.
Once NASA had been challenged to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, attention turned to a delivery system for the mission. Less visible to the nation was how to resolve the matter of landing on the moon itself and then leaving it safely. Simultaneously but independently, engineers at the Flight Research Center (now Dryden) and Bell Aircraft Co. of Buffalo, N.Y., conceived of a free-flying machine meant to replicate the lunar environment - that is, the absence of an atmosphere, and one-sixth Earth's gravity. NASA awarded Bell the contract to build two Lunar Landing Research Vehicles.
Astronauts train to service the Hubble Space Telescope in a huge, water-filled tank that simulates weightlessness. The 40-foot-deep tank at NASA's Johnson Space Center contains full-scale underwater mockups of Hubble, its instruments, and the carriers that hold the instruments. The astronauts wear pressurized suits similar to those they wear in orbit. They spend weeks doing this kind of training, and weeks in class.
Astronaut Edin 'Buzz' Aldrin practices donning the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit AMU Back Pack, at Building 5. Manned Space Center, now Johnson Space Center, in Houston in 1966.
Astronauts Greg Harbaugh and Joe Tarner conduct Hubble Space Telescope train in Marshall's Neutral Buoyancy Simulator in 1996.
Astronaut James A. McDivitt, commander of Gemini IV, sits suited in preparation for weight and balance tests. The objective of the Gemini IV mission was to evaluate and test the effects of four days in space on the crew, equipment and control systems. Pilot Edward White II successfully accomplished the first US spacewalk during the Gemini IV mission.
Astronaut Peggy A. Whitson, Expedition 16 commander, and cosmonaut Yuri I. Malenchenko, flight engineer representing Russia's Federal Space Agency, participate in a training session at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, in Star City, Russia. Whitson and Malenchenko are attired in training versions of Russian Orlan spacesuits.
Two members of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission participate in a simulation of deploying and using lunar tools on the surface of the Moon during a training exercise on April 22, 1969. Astronaut 'Buzz' Aldrin (l.), lunar module pilot, uses a scoop and tongs to pick up a soil sample. Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander, holds a bag to receive the sample. In the background is a Lunar Module mockup.
Astronauts Clifton C. Williams Jr. and Astronaut Alan Bean train in a Gemini Space capsule in the mid-1960s.
Astronaut Clifton C. Williams Jr., Backup Crew Pilot, GT-10 Space Flight, undergoes Zero-Gravity Egress Training aboard a KC-135 Air Force Plane. 
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/21
In Pictures: Sinkholes around the world
In Pictures: What happened to the green revolution in Iran?
In Pictures: Facing the devastation of the Oklahoma tornadoes
In Pictures: Sandy: Chronicle of an unrelenting storm
Photos of the Day: Photos of the day 05/20
In Pictures: Weather extremes 2013
In Pictures: The Israeli separation barrier: A West Bank wall
In Pictures: Derby Day devotees, Kenyan style
Greece is rolling out the red carpet for Chinese investors as a means of stabilizing its shaky economy.
Officials in Brussels and Washington may view China’s global shopping spree with alarm, as the Asian power house continues to buy up companies, sovereign debt, ports, and bridges around the world. But the Greeks are already dusting off the red carpet.
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