On July 29th, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act and soon we sent men where only our imaginations had taken us. The Pulse celebrates major advancements in space travel and considers the challenges that have — so far — kept us from building a community on Mars. We visit a lab hoping to produce the power source that will fuel tomorrow’s space missions. An analysis of the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” suggests how the filmmakers got the future so wrong. Also, squashing coworker squabbles in space and why it’s so hard to bake a decent loaf of bread in microgravity.