Texas billionaire Edward P. Bass, envisioning the eventual colonization of Mars, funded the creation of Biosphere II in 1991, in order to study how earthlings might survive in a totally enclosed, greenhouse-like environment that mimicked conditions on Earth. The experiment failed, and Biosphere II was turned into a research facility for Columbia University.

Commander Curtis L. Brown, pilot Steven W. Lindsey, flight engineer Stephen K. Robinson, mission specialists Scott E. Parazynski and Pedro Duque (of Spain), and pay-load specialist Chiaki Mukai (of Japan) were the six astronauts who accompanied former astronaut, U.S. senator, and senior citizen John Herschel Glenn Jr. on his return to space aboard the shuttle Discovery in October 1998.

In 1995 R. Paul Butler and Geoffrey W. Marcy helped develop a way to detect planets orbiting distant stars as far away as forty or fifty light years. On 18 October, Michel Mayor...