With the newest iPhones and Android devices at hand, the crew will be able to be a bit more spontaneous with image and video gathering, meaning that for those of us back home, these upcoming trips to space could end up being some of NASA's most well-documented journeys yet. Imagine how cool (or cringe-worthy) it will be if astronauts turn themselves into TikTok stars in zero gravity, or if they take ultra-wide-angle selfies in the spacecraft.
Last year, the Trump administration declared war on climate science. In the first two weeks of Trump's second term, the administration started scrubbing critical environmental resources and datasets from federal agency websites and withdrew the United States from international organizations dedicated to combating climate change, dismissing them as a "waste of taxpayer dollars." Trump himself has dismissed climate science as " woke," while vowing to " drill, baby, drill " for fossil fuels as our planet stands at the edge of a climate disaster.
Particularly when it comes to stepping out of the spacecraft - the agency has yet to pick between Blue Origin and SpaceX's offerings in that regard - staying protected from the extreme temperature swings, space radiation, and lack of atmosphere is extremely challenging. That's not to mention the physical limitations of an extremely bulky spacesuit, which could physically tax astronauts even more than stepping outside of the International Space Station during a spacewalk.
Going into the appropriations process, the president called for a 24 percent year over year reduction to NASA's total operating budget. As part of that plan, the White House wanted to reduce the Science Mission Directorate's funding by nearly half, a move that would have forced NASA to cancel 55 ongoing and planned missions, including efforts like OSIRIS-APEX. The bill effectively rejects President Trump's plan, reducing NASA's total operating budget by just 1.6 percent year over year to $24.4 billion.
The Dynamic Test Stand (Building 4550) rises more than twice as high as the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility and for good reason-it was built to fit a fully assembled Saturn V (363 feet or 111 meters tall) for mechanical and vibrational trials. Described once as the tallest building in the state, the stand later was used to form the first complete space shuttle stack with a winged orbiter (the prototype "Enterprise"), external fuel tank, and solid rocket boosters.
The move could raise tens of billions of dollars for SpaceX, but there's more than money at stakethe future of space exploration hangs in the balance, too. SpaceX is integral to numerous critical missions with both NASA and the Pentagon, including ferrying crew and cargo to the International Space Station, placing satellites in orbit and being key to NASA's plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2028.
The uncertain future of science at the embattled space agency, meanwhile, took a back seat at the confirmation hearing for Jared Isaacman. NASA is at an inflection point, said Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which held the hearing. The agency must prioritize if we're to beat China back to the moonand then to Mars.
In a statement, NASA revealed that it agreed to modify Boeing's existing 2014 Commercial Crew contract to have Starliner carry cargo only for its first operational flight, Starliner-1, which is tentatively scheduled for "no earlier than April 2026." "Following Starliner certification, and a successful Starliner-1 mission, Starliner will fly up to three crew rotations to the International Space Station," NASA's statement reads.
The agency is once again calling on citizen innovators to help design the future, this time through a new HeroX challenge to develop better wheels and more robust tires for lunar rovers. The competition, called the Rock and Roll with NASA Challenge, offers $155,000 in prizes for top designs that can handle the punishing surface of the moon. As with previous NASA and HeroX challenges, everyone from amateur inventors working out of their garages to teams of students or professional companies are welcome to participate.
Since Donald Trump retook the White House earlier this year, the relationship between NASA staffers and government leadership has become unbelievably fraught. From the point-of-view of the rank and file, it's been a deluge of unforced errors as layoffs, budget cuts, and asset liquidations take a devastating toll on morale. According to the group Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association (GESTA), which represents a broad swath of NASA staff,
OPINION - Space has gone from frontier to front line. But despite this increased urgency and to remain first in flight, the Trump administration recently the Office of Space Commerce's budget. Additionally, NASA remains without a permanent leader and is struggling to select a new lunar lander for its Artemis missions. It's a dangerous place to be as America's adversaries are investing heavily in everything from spy satellites to landing on the Moon. Now is the time for the United States to prioritize investment in innovation and security.
It's an astonishing twist, showing that NASA is growing wary of SpaceX and its enormous Starship spacecraft falling behind schedule. The rocket's development has been mired in setbacks over the last couple of years, raising concerns among NASA officials that a Human Landing Systems variant may not be ready to deliver astronauts from the Moon's orbit down to the surface as soon as 2027, as part of its Artemis 3 mission.
On an unassuming morning in rural West Texas, a woman named Ann Walter was puzzled whena huge hunk of metal descendedfrom the sky and crash landed in her neighbor's wheat field. There were NASA logos on the parachutes that carried the truck-sized object, which itself bore NASA markings. "It's crazy, because when you're standing on the ground and see something in the air, you don't realize how big it is," Walter told the Associated Press. "It was probably a 30-foot parachute. It was huge."
