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Funko reveals as-cans: Among the new Funko collectibles coming out this fall are the company's first real NASA astronaut figures. Packaged in what looks like a soda can (but without the carbonated drink inside), Funko's Soda NASA astronaut is posed in a white spacesuit holding a U.S. flag. One in six cans will have a "chase" variant with the astronaut in an orange pressure suit. Limited to 17,000 cans worldwide, the NASA astronaut vinyl figures are set to retail for $15 each with shipping to begin in late September.

Escaping Gravity: Before Lori Garver was NASA's (now former) deputy administrator and championed the space agency's support for commercial contracts, she arranged for the White House to present Jim Lovell with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. In her new book, "Escaping Gravity," Garver reveals the untold story of how the ceremony came to be and how it was almost canceled.

For All Mankind: What happens when the events of an alternate space history, though still set in the past, surpasses present day reality? For season three of the Apple TV+ series "For All Mankind," now streaming, the move from the moon to Mars meant leaving behind Apollo spacecraft designs for deeper cuts into unrealized projects and once future ideas. collectSPACE spoke with the series' cast and crew about the pivot from alt-space to hard sci-fi.
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From NZ to NRHO: Rocket Lab launched its first mission to the moon on Tuesday (June 28), sending Advanced Space's CAPSTONE cubesat from a New Zealand launchpad on a four-month journey to a near rectilinear halo orbit. The private mission will collect data about the unique multi-body path, which is the same orbit NASA plans to use for its human-tended Artemis Gateway lunar space station.

Starliner CFT crew: NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams will test fly Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on its next mission. NASA announced the Crew Flight Test (CFT) assignments on Thursday (June 16), as it continued to assess data from the Starliner uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) that landed in May. Astronaut Mike Fincke, who was previously assigned to the CFT mission, will serve as backup to commander Wilmore.

Astronaut Hall of Fame: Veterans of seven space shuttle missions and one expedition on the International Space Station together, David Leestma, Sandy Magnus and Chris Ferguson were honored with their induction into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on Sunday (June 11). The three, celebrated for their past, shared the excitement for what is next to come for NASA and space exploration.

Space for everyone: The National Air and Space Museum has unveiled a new brand identity to go with its soon-to-be reopening, reimagined galleries. The new logomark, the first in the museum's history, uses positive and negative space to create a stylized craft that suggests both aviation and spaceflight at the same time. Embodying celebration, inspiration, approachability and inclusivity, the brand signals there is "space for everyone" at the museum.

Moon2Mars: When singer-songwriter Katie Toupin wrote and recorded "Astronaut," she thought it would be a good track for NASA, but she never expected she would be invited to perform it live at Space Center Houston's first Moon2Mars Festival. The four-day event, which began Thursday (June 9), also marked the debut of a permanent exhibit dedicated to NASA's Artemis missions to the moon.
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