All posts tagged "Physicalsciences"

ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA was riding a high after the overall success of Artemis I when the uncrewed rocket made a test run to the moon and back in 2022, so the message remained full steam ahead to push for a crewed Artemis II flight in 2024 and the return of humans to the moon in 2025. But under the surface were issues, and the sheen of success hit reality, prompting NASA to delay Artemis’ first human spaceflight until no earlier than September 2025, and then pushing the moon landing until at least one year later. A big driver of that delay was a NASA-driven, lessons-learned initiative that is clo......

ORLANDO, Fla. — While NASA is rooting for SpaceX to achieve Starship success so it can land humans on the moon, the U.S. military has plans of their own for the massive rocket that could include launches from Florida’s Space Coast. Elon Musk’s next-generation rocket currently in development at SpaceX’s southeast Texas facilities is gearing up for its third suborbital test flight as soon as this month after its first two ended in explosions last year. It’s part of the company’s long-term plans for a completely reusable spacecraft with more payload capacity into space than any other rocket ever.......

A critical system of Atlantic Ocean currents may be approaching collapse, which scientists warn will have a dangerous impact on our global climate. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which “effectively transports heat and salt through the global ocean,” has recently shown signs of trending toward a crucial “tipping point” according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. Scientists have been warning of the potential collapse for decades, as the currents’ strength has been weakened by rising temperatures which affect the system’s balance of heat and sal......

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced it was laying off 530 on staff or about 8% of its workforce on Tuesday after expected congressional budget cuts kneecapped one of its biggest endeavors, the Mars Sample Return mission. The Pasadena, California, institution is one of NASA’s major science mission hubs, the home to the majority of Mars missions, including the Perseverance rover currently collecting soil and rock samples as part of that mission. JPL Director Laurie Leshin said fiscal wrangling in Washington has led to an expected budget for that mission of only $300 million, less than a t......

MIAMI — The late scientist Stephen Hawking made a name for himself through his exploration of the physics of black holes, but it is his connection to the holder of one of the world’s most notorious black books — the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — that has him in the news again. A just-unsealed 2015 email from Epstein to his former girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, suggests Hawking was involved in the culture of sex abuse that thrived on Epstein’s private island. The email was included in discovery in connection with a slander lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, one of Eps......

WASHINGTON — Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas likes to think of himself as the space senator — and as the top Republican appropriator for NASA in the Senate, he is set to play a key role in the emerging space race between the United States and China. Beijing has aggressively advanced its space program in recent years, with plans to construct a permanent base on the moon by the end of the decade. China’s ambitions have fueled competition with Washington and spurred a new era of space exploration — one that officials in both countries hope will eventually put humans on Mars. “I would say that we’re in......