Washington (AFP) Aug 2, 2025
Tucked inside President Donald Trump's flagship tax and spending bill last month was a little-noticed provision to relocate the iconic Space Shuttle Discovery from a museum outside Washington to Houston. The plan now faces legal uncertainty, with the Smithsonian Institution arguing Congress had no authority to give away what it considers private property - even before accounting for the ste

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
If there are people and trends that are currently shaping the world, it would have to be the new President of the USA, Donald Trump, and his trusted advisor, billionaire inventor and entrepreneur, Elon Musk. Musk's SpaceX company is another big name everyone knows, and so is Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency. But how are they connected, and why do they depend on each other for success and a sa

Washington DC (UPI) Aug 1, 2025
The SpaceX transport of Crew-11 to the International Space Station launched Friday after Thursday's scrub. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, arrived at the launch complex, where SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was ready for liftoff at 11:43 a.m. EDT Friday. Cardman is the commander, Fi

Urbana, IL (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
Rather than completely burning up when a spacecraft reenters Earth's atmosphere, its heat shield's outer surface is sacrificed to protect the rest of the vehicle. The carbon fibers decompose, dissipating the heat. It was assumed that this only happens on the surface, but in a recent study, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and four othe

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
A new study has identified moonquakes-not meteor strikes-as the primary cause of surface disturbances in the Taurus-Littrow valley, the Apollo 17 landing site. The research suggests that ground shaking from these quakes, which repeatedly struck over millions of years, triggered boulder falls and landslides that reshaped the lunar terrain. Published in Science Advances, the study was co-aut

The Russian space agency Roscosmos has hailed the first face-to-face meeting between its leader and the head of NASA in almost seven years while NASA largely ignored the event.

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Several senators are demanding details from NASA on claims that the agency is withholding current funding and planning to enact proposed cuts.