Science

And of course the Orion toilet malfunctioned

Toilet trouble, telemetry problems, and an issue with the flight termination system have not marred the Artemis II mission to the Moon, which launched yesterday.…

Cool, but fossil-fuel additions and AI-era power demand still muddy the climate math

It was a strong year for renewable power expansion in 2025, with solar installations helping push renewables to nearly half of global electricity capacity, but that does not mean the world is yet on pace to meet its renewable energy commitments.…

Flights to resume in 2026 before space tourism biz runs out of cash

Virgin Galactic has reopened suborbital ticket sales with a price rise and a promise for commercial spaceflight operations in Q4 2026.…

No risk to ISS or Artemis, but not ideal for operator peace of mind

Starlink satellite 34343 has suffered an "anomaly on-orbit," spraying debris at an altitude of approximately 560 km above Earth.…

Perseverance found the minerals in an ancient river channel, but researchers say geology may still beat biology

A team of scientists in the US have discovered nickel compounds in Martian rocks, in an arrangement similar to organic carbon compounds understood to be formed by living organisms on Earth.…

Orion's four astronauts edge toward liftoff for humanity's first lunar voyage in more than 50 years

NASA is preparing to send astronauts around the Moon, with the Artemis II mission countdown set to begin tonight.…

PLUS: Iran war may slow APAC IT spend; Toshiba, Mitsubishi, may combine chip businesses; Fusion plasma control networks; And more!

Asia In Brief  Staff at services giant DXC’s Australian outpost will go on strike this week after 14 months of negotiations over a new pay agreement failed.…

Alcohol turns up in most floral nectar, meaning pollinators are drinking tiny cocktails without ever getting drunk

Bees and hummingbirds are effectively day-drinking on the job because their lunch is quietly fermenting.…

Private station hopefuls say ISS rethink is shaking confidence

NASA's new Moon plan isn't the only policy shift causing concern. Parts of the commercial space industry are also uneasy about the agency's latest change of direction.…

Satnav systems aren’t well, IP is being sold too cheap, and thousands of roles remain open

India’s space program has thousands of vacant roles it’s struggled to fill, isn’t spending money fast enough to meet its mission timelines, and may be undervaluing intellectual property it sells to the private sector.…

Plus one actual physicist

Donald Trump has named the first members of his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), largely comprising Trump allies in the tech industry and one actual scientist.…

Effort includes permitting and planning

Microsoft is working with Nvidia on nuclear power. Not to build it, but to offer AI-driven tools to deal with all the red tape, help with the design work, and optimize operations for nuclear projects.…

Exactly how will astronauts get to and from that moonbase?

Opinion  NASA's Ignition presentation was heavy on space hardware, but light on details. Not least of which was how astronauts are supposed to get from Earth to its moonbase and back.…

They still look goofy, but at least you might be able to use 'em like a stylus

An undergraduate chemistry researcher has developed a nail polish formulation that will let people use their nails to tap away on touch screens.…

NASA boss Jared Isaacman has no intention of letting this setback delay the Artemis program, apparently

NASA's ambitious plans to build a space station in orbit of the Moon are officially on hold, administrator Jared Isaacman said Tuesday, with the space agency instead skipping the orbital habitat in favor of building a permanent base on the Lunar surface. …

In space, no one can hear you being petty

SpaceX has fired back at Amazon with a letter to the US telecoms regulator, after Amazon objected to its plans for orbiting datacenters.…

Draft Request for Proposals says you can move shuttle orbiter but you cannot break it

NASA has issued a draft Request for Proposals to move a flown space vehicle, a step some lawmakers see as progress toward relocating Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Museum in Virginia to Houston, Texas.…

National Audit Office warns government has little idea of how to respond in the event of a major solar storm

The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has warned the country is underprepared for a severe space weather event.…

Like his promise to get a million robocabs on the road, this doesn’t add up

Elon Musk has put Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI in harness to build a chip fabrication outfit called “Terafab” capable of producing a terawatt’s worth of computing power each year, then send most of it into space.…

The operating system of the universe isn’t going to debug itself

feature  CERN is nothing like today's agentic AI jockeys, who mostly rely on pre-set weights and generic TPUs and GPUs to generate their slop. CERN burns custom nanosecond-speed AI into the silicon itself just to eliminate excess data.…