Tag: Space
-
She was a Disney star with platinum records, but Bridgit Mendler gave it up to change the world
Bridgit Mendler was not in Hollywood anymore. Instead, she found herself in rural North Dakota, where the stars sparkled overhead rather than on the silver screen. And she was freezing. When her team tumbled out of their rental cars after midnight, temperatures had already plummeted into the 40s. Howling winds carried their breath away before…
-
Ars Live recap: Where does NASA go from here?
Our discussion with Reuters’ Joey Roulette and WaPo’s Christian Davenport. Click here for transcript. Recently, during the first Ars Live event of this year, two noted space journalists joined Ars space editor Eric Berger for a discussion of NASA’s future in the age of the second Trump administration. During the hour-long discussion, Christian Davenport of…
-
Second New Glenn launch slips toward fall as program leadership departs
A few weeks ago, the chief executive of Blue Origin, Dave Limp, convened an all-hands meeting for the more than 12,000 employees at the company. Among the most critical items he discussed was the launch rate for the New Glenn rocket and how the company would fall significantly short of its goal for this year.…
-
A long-shot plan to mine the Moon comes a little closer to reality
Look, no one said building a large harvester to roam around the Moon and sift through hundreds of tons of regolith to retrieve small amounts of helium-3 would be easy. And that’s to say nothing of the enormous challenge of processing and then launching any of this material from the lunar surface before finally landing…
-
What would happen if Trump retaliated against Musk’s companies?
A remarkable schoolyard brawl erupted online Thursday between President Donald Trump and his former “First Buddy” Elon Musk during which the pair traded insults and barbs. The war of words reached a crescendo during the afternoon when Trump threatened Musk’s federal contracts. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of…
-
Senate response to White House budget for NASA: Keep SLS, nix science
Negotiations over the US federal budget for fiscal year 2026 are in the beginning stages, but when it comes to space, the fault lines are already solidifying in the Senate. The Trump White House released its budget request last Friday, and this included detailed information about its plans for NASA. On Thursday, just days later,…
-
Jared Isaacman speaks out, and it’s clear that NASA lost a visionary leader
In a revealing interview published by the All-In Podcast on Wednesday, the private astronaut nominated to lead NASA, Jared Isaacman, spoke at length on what he thought about the nomination process, how he would have led NASA, and the factors that led to the abrupt rescission of his nomination by President Trump. “I got a…
-
An in-space propulsion company just raised a staggering amount of money
This week an in-space propulsion company, Impulse Space, announced that it had raised a significant amount of money, $300 million. This follows a fundraising round just last year in which the Southern California-based company raised $150 million. This is one of the largest capital raises in space in a while, especially for a non-launch company.…
-
MIL-STD-981 Explained: Quality Standards for Electromagnetic Devices in Space Applications
MIL-STD-981, officially titled “Military Standard: Design, Construction, and Test Requirements for Custom Magnetics for Space Applications”, is a critical United States military standard that governs the design, construction, qualification, and quality assurance of electromagnetic components specifically custom magnetics such as inductors, transformers, chokes, and filters used in space systems and other high-reliability aerospace applications. Space…
-
Tuesday Telescope: A time-lapse from orbit reveals treasures below
Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is…