Space Race
Launches, discoveries, and the future of space.
Latest Gobbles
Space is getting expensive — and fast
In the last 30 days alone, a single week saw over $875 million flow into three space companies. Europe launched its heaviest rocket payload ever. A startup
The Moon Is Looking Less Like a Destination and More Like a Supply Chain
Before humans can build on the Moon or Mars, they need to answer a deceptively simple question: what is already there? Water, volatiles, exotic isotopes li
Mars Sample Return's very human problem
Mars Sample Return looks like a planetary science mission. It behaves like a miniature human spaceflight program: big spacecraft, multiple launch windows,
A Moonlit Earth as Seen From Artemis II
One of the first images transmitted back to Earth from the Artemis II mission shows Earth’s full disk amid celestial phenomena that illustrate its place in
3I/ATLAS keeps the weirdness coming
Scientists got the best evidence yet for past life on Mars, but the cosmic headline here is the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS: only the third interstellar ob
NASA's lunar-base update sounds less like a moon mission and more like a groundbreaking ceremony
NASA has accelerated its Lunar Base plan, and this is not Apollo-style flag-and-footprints territory. The Moon Base will be a permanent home for Artemis as
Roman's mirror is ready — and the exoplanet era is no longer hypothetical
NASA has completed its final inspection of the primary mirror for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: 2.4 meters across, coated in a layer of silver hun
Roman gets a launch window that moved way up
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could head into space sooner than expected, with NASA now targeting a launch as early as September 2026. That is e
Blue Origin’s New Glenn turns into a very expensive fireball
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a static hotfire test at Launch Complex 36, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, destroying the booster, seco
NASA’s moon-base moonshot gets a 2032 horizon
NASA says the next “golden age of space exploration” has begun, and this week it laid out more of its plan for a habitable base on the moon by 2032. The id
FAA requires mishap investigation into latest Starship launch
SpaceX’s Starship lifted off on May 22 for Flight 12, and the FAA has now said the launch resulted in a mishap after assessing what happened with the Super
Europe's Satellite Strategy: Own Some, Share the Rest
NASA's TESS spacecraft has spent nearly eight years scanning the entire sky and found 679 confirmed alien worlds — plus 5,165 more candidates waiting to be
Space is busy, and humanoids are no longer staying in their lane
Humanoids are moving out of labs and into apartments, airports, and factories, and one of the clearest examples here is Gatsby sending a humanoid robot to
Starship, Jerry Pournelle, and the long road to orbit
A post reacting to Friday's successful SpaceX Starship v.3 launch frames the moment as one Jerry Pournelle would have loved to witness. The piece ties Star
Luna 15 and Apollo 11: the Space Race’s most poetic near-miss
During Apollo 11, while American astronauts were landing on the moon, the Soviet Union was making one last secret push: Luna 15. Launched three days before
SpaceX's Starship V3 Made a Planned Fiery Splashdown in the Indian Ocean
Four Russian military satellites burned through their fuel reserves this week to stalk a Western radar satellite that's feeding imagery to Ukraine — and th
Just 350 Miles Away: The Secret Soviet Crash That Ended the Moon Race While Apollo 11 Walked
The search results confirm 350 miles is approximately 563 kilometers. One result also notes the English Channel is 350 miles long. This is a good compariso
NASA Chief Warns China Will Beat America Back to the Moon in 2027
The next time humans fly around the Moon, they won't be American astronauts — they'll be Chinese taikonauts, according to NASA's own chief.
A New Method Just Doubled the Number of 'Tatooine' Planets We Might Know About
For the first time in history, humanity will get a global picture of Earth’s magnetic field, thanks to a joint European and Chinese mission that just launc
Our 240-Light-Year Radio Bubble Is Effectively Invisible — Even Up Close
A sphere of human radio signals has been expanding from Earth since the 1930s — and any alien civilization would need a receiver the size of a small countr
The Day Space Became a Trillion-Dollar Battlefield
On the same day last month, NASA launched Artemis II — sending humans beyond Low Earth Orbit for the first time since Apollo — and SpaceX filed for what co
18 Hours of Stargazing Pulls the Elephant's Trunk Nebula Out of the Dark
A $1.75 trillion IPO that hasn't happened yet is already reshaping how investors think about every space stock on the market.
The Fungus That Survived NASA's Cleanroom Is Probably Already on Mars
A fungus that laughs at NASA's best sterilization equipment may have already hitchhiked to Mars and Titan — and we left it there.
Lunar Outpost Secures $30 Million Series B Round
A company with more Moon rovers in its pipeline than every other commercial firm combined just raised $30 million — and the lunar economy is just getting s
Texas Astrophotographer Shoots 1,500 Frames of the Moon to Keep Just 375
China has at least nine reusable rockets under simultaneous development — more than any other nation on Earth, and most people have never heard of a single
The Next Generation of Rockets Is So Powerful, It's Redefining What's Possible
Nothing broke today — but here's what deserves a second read.
Two Weeks With No Texts From Earth Is Exactly the Point
Four astronauts just completed the first crewed lunar flight since 1972 — the same month a rocket nailed its booster landing and still lost the satellite.
The Moon's Real Prize Isn't Water — It's Who Gets to Own the Return
The moon may be worth billions — but the people paying to get there are almost never the ones who get paid back.
NASA's 12,217-Photo Artemis II Vault Is the Closest Thing to Being There
NASA released 12,217 official Artemis II mission photos this week — enough frames to watch the entire journey to the Moon and back at one image per second
10 People, No Rockets, One Moon Base: Denmark's SAGA Space Architects Just Won ESA's Lunar Shelter Contract
A 10-person Danish architecture firm just beat aerospace giants to design the Moon's first robotic shelter — and it unfolds like a pop-up tent.