SpaceX’s Starship Could Save NASA’s Beleaguered Mars Sample Return Mission
Facing budgetary pressure for its Mars Sample Return program, NASA has turned to private industry for ideas—perhaps with one specific company in mind
Mars Sample Return Is Still Worth Doing—Even If We Have to Wait
We should return samples from Mars to answer fundamental scientific
questions. That could mean stretching out the mission to keep NASA’s
other projects intact
Mars Mission’s Budget Problems Force NASA Layoffs
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is eliminating nearly 600 workers due to funding shortfalls for the space agency's Mars Sample Return mission
NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Ends Mission on the Red Planet after 3 Years
NASA’s enterprising Mars helicopter and its remarkable 72 flights offered a new vision of planetary exploration
NASA Restores Contact with Mars Helicopter Ingenuity
After an unexpected communications dropout, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is back in business on Mars
NASA’s Troubled Mars Sample Mission Has Scientists Seeing Red
NASA’s Mars Sample Return program is the agency’s highest priority in planetary science, but projected multibillion-dollar overruns have some calling the plan a “dumpster fire”
Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real
Today’s Silicon Valley billionaires grew up reading classic American science fiction. Now they’re trying to make it come true, embodying a dangerous political outlook
The Mars Sample Return Mission Is at a Dangerous Crossroads
Mars Sample Return has always been an expensive, high-risk, high-reward project. But now, with realization of the mission’s actual cost and expanding timeline, Congress must commit to fully supporting the effort or risk tanking the rest of NASA’s planetary science program
Subterranean ‘Microbial Dark Matter’ Reveals a Strange Dichotomy
The genes of microbes living as deep as 1.5 kilometers below the surface reveal a split between minimalist and maximalist lifestyles
NASA Lab’s Workforce Woes Threaten Major Space Missions
A brain drain from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory could pose problems for the space agency’s ambitious science plans
Mars Can Wait. Questions Surround Settlements on Other Worlds
Establishing a permanent Mars settlement in the foreseeable future makes little sense. The weakest reason for doing it is also the strongest—and not in a good way
SpaceX Starship’s Second Flight Was an Explosive Milestone
SpaceX’s Starship—the most powerful rocket ever built—experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” in its otherwise successful second full-scale launch, triggering a federal investigation into what went wrong