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Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center analyzes China's advancement in space and its competition with the United States. Fisher discusses China's Gandai constellation, a space debris monitoring satellite system controlled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which tracked a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster crashing near the moon's Einstein crater from over 380,000 kilometers away. He warns that this constellation can perform dual-use military targeting for space combat and missile defense. Fisher criticizes China's lack of transparency, noting its refusal to give advance notice for earthbound ICBM tests and its intention to let expendable propulsion stages crash into the lunar surface. Finally, he highlights the rapid progress of China's LandSpace with its liquid-fueled, methane-oxygen-powered reusable Zhuque-3 rocket, predicting that ten Chinese companies will offer cheap reusable launch services within five years and directly undercut Western competitors. (2)
TABLE OF CONTENTS THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, 8-19-2026Rebecca Grant, Vice President of the Lexington Institute, discusses technological advancements on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. She details the transition from traditional steam-powered catapults to modern electromagnetic aircraft launch systems (EMALS), which offer superior, adjustable torque to launch both lightweight drones and heavily armed fighter jets. Additionally, Grant highlights the ship's new electromagnetic advanced weapons elevators, which double the capacity of older Nimitz-class systems and move much faster to significantly improve sortie generation rates. However, a White House executive order directing a study to reconsider steam systems threatens to disrupt these advancements. Grant warns that backtracking to older technology on carriers currently in construction, like the CVN-81, could delay delivery by up to seven years, creating dangerous operational gaps as Chinese naval threats rise in the Pacific. (1)Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center analyzes China's advancement in space and its competition with the United States. Fisher discusses China's Gandai constellation, a space debris monitoring satellite system controlled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which tracked a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster crashing near the moon's Einstein crater from over 380,000 kilometers away. He warns that this constellation can perform dual-use military targeting for space combat and missile defense. Fisher criticizes China's lack of transparency, noting its refusal to give advance notice for earthbound ICBM tests and its intention to let expendable propulsion stages crash into the lunar surface. Finally, he highlights the rapid progress of China's LandSpace with its liquid-fueled, methane-oxygen-powered reusable Zhuque-3 rocket, predicting that ten Chinese companies will offer cheap reusable launch services within five years and directly undercut Western competitors. (2)Greg Scarlatoiu, President and CEO of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, analyzes the multifaceted security threats posed by Pyongyang. Scarlatoiu describes North Korea as a post-communist, dynastic kleptocracy and a crime family masquerading as a nation-state. Under Kim Jong-un, the regime has consolidated its intelligence and police agencies while streamlining its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Scarlatoiu explains that North Korea's war economy exploits its people's human rights and security to fund weapons, which it now exports globally to Russia and Iran. The discussion, co-hosted by Gordon Chang, highlights active military provocations along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), including recent boundary crossings. Finally, Scarlatoiu and Chang evaluate how controversial remarks by the Trump administration praising Kim Jong-un have strained trust in extended deterrence and undermined relationships within the vital US-South Korea alliance. (3)Craig Unger, investigative reporter and author, explores President Donald Trump's unstable foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine. Unger contends that Trump behaves as a Russian appeaser whose real estate-linked advisers take marching orders from Vladimir Putin. The discussion highlights how Ukrainian-manufactured drones have successfully targeted Russian oil refineries, causing severe fuel shortages and long gas lines across Russia. While these military successes initially impressed Trump, leading him to publicly promise Patriot missiles and production technology to President Zelenskyy, Unger reveals that Trump subsequently withheld this critical support. Unger cautions that as Putin faces an existential crisis and potential military defeat, he may launch a limited incursion into Baltic states like Estonia or Poland. This would trigger NATO's Article 5, which Unger warns Trump would likely refuse to honor, thereby destroying the Western alliance. (4)Caleb Weiss of the Bridgeway Foundation and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines the evolution of African jihadist movements. Weiss details the case of Jamal Chima, a Ugandan Guantanamo Bay alumnus who transitioned from Al-Qaeda to recruiting for the Islamic State Central African Province (ISCAP) in Kampala. Weiss explains that East African court systems frequently experience "catch and release" cycles due to strict evidentiary demands for terrorism cases. The segment also addresses the kidnapping of missionary Kevin Rideout by the Islamic State Sahel Province. Weiss describes how these groups raise funds through lucrative ransoms, utilizing regional coordination hubs like the Al-Furqan and Al-Karrar offices to move capital globally to active cells in regions like Afghanistan. Finally, he notes that eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar has leveraged anti-jihadist operations to secure Western backing. (5)Michael Bernstam of the Hoover Institution warns of a severe global crisis in refined petroleum products, especially diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel. Bernstam explains that the "crack spread"—the cost differential between crude oil and refined diesel—has reached an unprecedented historical peak of over $102 per barrel. This crisis stems from a fifty-year systemic failure, during which no major new refineries were built in the United States or Europe. Compounding this, sophisticated Ukrainian drone strikes have successfully knocked out 40% of Russia's refining capacity, forcing the major oil exporter to ban refined product exports and become an importer. Additionally, China has halted refined exports to meet its domestic demand. Bernstam warns that the resulting global diesel shortage directly threatens agricultural planting, harvesting, and regional food security, particularly for developing nations as winter approaches. (6)Peter Huessy of the Gold Institute for International Strategy critiques the Hollywood film House of Dynamite for its inaccurate depiction of US nuclear command and control. Huessy argues that the movie relies on flawed premises, such as the sudden, unexplained failure of Defense Support Program (DSP) tracking satellites and the total failure of US missile defense interceptors, to fabricate a helpless crisis scenario. He highlights that actual US missile defenses achieve 75% to 85% success in tests and up to 98% in combat scenarios like Israel's missile defense systems. Huessy strongly refutes the film's negative portrayal of military leadership as reckless warmongers and its central message that nuclear deterrence is ineffective. He asserts that the nuclear triad has successfully and perfectly preserved global peace for eighty years, keeping the country safe. (7)Simon Constable, writer for the Wall Street Journal, discusses European climate anomalies and their severe impact on global commodities. Speaking from the south of France, Constable reports temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius, contributing to low water levels in the Danube, Rhine, and Po rivers. These climate constraints, alongside maritime blockades of Ukrainian ports, have driven up prices for energy, wheat, and coffee. Turning to UK politics, Constable criticizes Prime Minister Keir Starmer for failing to spur house-building and notes that regional politicians like Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham lack an international profile. Finally, he reviews a longevity quiz from the Wall Street Journal, which highlights that the wealthiest Americans live fourteen years longer than the poorest. He notes that Japan leads the world in centenarians, emphasizing that geographic location and financial wealth are pivotal factors in determining an individual's healthy lifespan. (8)Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examines Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation and the mystery surrounding legacy materials. Stricker details a positive, US-brokered development in which the post-AssadSyrian government agreed to cooperate and turn over legacy yellowcake uranium stored at a covert facility known as Site 99. This material was intended for a North Korean-built plutonium-producing reactor at Al-Kibar, which was destroyed by Israel in 2007. Despite long-standing Syrian secrecy and the site changing hands among various factions, environmental sampling by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed undeclared, man-made uranium particles at multiple locations. Stricker also raises concerns regarding Turkey's nuclear ambitions, highlighting its civilian programs' potential military purposes and Turkey's recent attempt to secure raw uranium contracts with the military regime in Niger. (9)Joel Kotkin, senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, examines California's economic and demographic challenges. Kotkin notes that California is on the verge of losing its population lead as middle-class families vote with their feet and move to states like Texas. He attributes this out-migration to exorbitant housing costs, a severe shortage of upwardly mobile middle-class jobs, and high electricity prices that hamper manufacturing and modern technology sectors like artificial intelligence. Furthermore, Kotkin highlights systemic social issues, including high teen unemployment, rising store break-ins, and a deteriorating public education system. These factors have depleted the state's middle class, leaving the tax base heavily dependent on a wealthy top one percent who can easily relocate to lower-tax states like Florida. Kotkin warns that this loss of middle-class families threatens California's future tax base and demographic vitality. (10)Corrections applied, several pending your confirmation: Bridgeway Foundation (transcribed as "Ridgeway," segment 5 — Weiss's actual affiliation), Al-Furqan and Al-Karrar offices (transcribed as "Al-Furkan and Al-Karr" — the standard renderings of the ISIS regional offices), LandSpace and Zhuque-3 (transcribed as "Land Space Corporation" and "Juk 3" — the Chinese firm and its rocket), Zelenskyy per house style, and "yellow cake" → yellowcake. One flag: "Gandaiconstellation" (segment 2) — I couldn't verify that name; the audio may be rendering a Chinese program name roughly, worth checking with the transcript or Fisher's notes. In segment 8, note the source describes Keir Starmer as PM and Andy Burnham as Manchester Mayor — this contradicts the recent batches where Burnham is PM. I've left it as the source has it since it's Constable's segment, but flag it if the summary tool garbled the timeline.R
A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage slammed into the moon on August 5 after spending over a year and a half drifting through the Earth-Moon system. Jared Head, museum facilitator at Columbia Memorial Space Center, producer at TMRO, and co-host of All Space Considered at Griffith Observatory, walks us through how a rocket launched in January 2025 ended up crashing into the lunar surface. Kate Howells, the Planetary Society's public education specialist, shares her experience witnessing Europe's first total solar eclipse in 27 years from a canyon in Spain on her honeymoon. Plus, Jack Kiraly, the Planetary Society's chief of advocacy, gives us an update on the campaign to save NASA science and the proposed changes to OMB's federal grant-making rules. We close with Bruce Betts, our chief scientist, who joins for What's Up, to discuss Point Nemo, the spacecraft graveyard in the South Pacific. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-falcon-9-moon-crashSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Oil Reserves taking a hit. Finally getting to the recent high profile earnings. Market Top Calls (again). ALL TIME HIGHS – Then some consolidation (then highs again). Situational Awareness Update. SpaceX Bounces… PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? PayPal.Donation.Button({ env:'production', hosted_button_id:'JJJHP2GDEJC7J', image: { src:'https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif', alt:'Donate with PayPal button', title:'PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!', } }).render('#donate-button'); Follow John S. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter Warm-Up - Oil Reserves taking a hit - Getting to the recent high profile earnings - Market Top Calls (again) Markets - ALL TIME HIGHS - Then some consolidation - Lets round out earnings - Situational Awareness Update - SpaceX Bounces... Etsy - Layoffs With Better Numbers - Etsy is cutting about 220 jobs, or 12% of its workforce. - Management said the cuts were not primarily about cost savings or AI. ----- CEO Kruti Patel Goyal stated the restructuring aims to simplify the organization, remove management layers, and speed up decision-making to better compete against massive rivals like Amazon, Temu, and TikTok Shop - Q2 revenue was about $668 million and core marketplace sales improved. - Etsy also authorized another $2 billion share buyback. - Comes after selling Depop to eBay for about $1.4 billion. Polysilicon - Tariffs Plus Price Floors - U.S. policy adds a 15% tariff and minimum import prices on polysilicon and solar products. - Goal is to protect domestic production from low-cost foreign competition. - U.S. share of global polysilicon capacity fell from about 50% in 2005 to under 2% in 2024. - First Solar and T1 Energy jumped on the announcement. ---- The same playbook - rinse and repeat Chipotle - Salmonella Returns - Minnesota officials linked a salmonella outbreak to jalapenos served at Chipotle. - Chipotle removed the affected pepper supply and switched growers. - Shares fell roughly 8%-10% as investors remembered the company's earlier food-safety problems. - This is on top of the lettuce situation with Sweetgreen- look at STOCK CHART FOR SG Michael Burry - Calling a Major Top - Michael Burry says the market may be near a "major top." - Warned of the possibility of a 1987-style market drop. - He is short names including Nvidia, Palantir, Tesla and semiconductor stocks. - Main concern is stretched valuations and crowded trades unwinding quickly. - This may be the 100th top he has called since the GFC ---- NVIDIA TURNS GPUs INTO AN ASSET CLASS - Nvidia signed preliminary agreements with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize more than $500 billion for AI infrastructure. - The Wall Street firms would create dedicated pools of capital to finance Nvidia-based data centers and compute infrastructure at what Nvidia calls attractive rates for customers. - Jensen Huang: “This is really the first time that technology chips have become an investable asset class.” Nvidia says the compute assets now generate revenue and can increasingly be financed like infrastructure. - Nvidia could backstop as much as 25% of individual investments on a case-by-case basis - potentially up to about $125 billion if applied across the full program. STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE BREAKS 300 MILLION - The Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by 6.1 million barrels to 298.7 million barrels for the week ended Aug. 7 - below 300 million for the first time since January 1983. - The SPR started 2026 around 415 million barrels, meaning more than 100 million barrels have already come out this year as releases were used to offset disruptions from the Iran conflict. - The reserve's authorized storage capacity is roughly 714 million barrels, leaving current inventories at about 42% of capacity. - Oil on the rise last week Earnings and such Toyota - Big Buyback, Better Outlook - Toyota raised its annual operating-profit forecast 13%, helped by the weaker yen. - Announced a share buyback worth up to $6.3 billion. - Quarterly operating profit still fell 9%, hurt by China weakness and higher Middle East-related costs. McDonald's - Value Problem - U.S. same-store sales rose just 0.8%, below expectations and well below last year's 2.5% growth. - Management blamed weak execution of value promotions and fewer digital deals. (and probably because everyone is taking weight loss drugs - see above) - Lower-income customer traffic remains a major pressure point. - McDonald's is bringing back more digital offers and loyalty promotions to drive traffic. Eli Lilly - Weight-Loss Machine - Lilly crushed Q2 expectations as Mounjaro and Zepbound drove most of the growth. - Mounjaro sales hit $9.94 billion; Zepbound brought in $4.93 billion. - Raised 2026 revenue guidance to $85-$87 billion. - Verzenio, its major breast-cancer drug, remains one of Lilly's biggest non-obesity products. - Lilly continues widening its lead over Novo Nordisk in the obesity-drug market. Disney - Parks Keep Printing Money - Quarterly adjusted EPS rose 28% to $2.06, beating the $1.86 estimate. - Parks and experiences revenue increased 10% to nearly $10 billion. - Global park attendance grew 4%. - Disney is selling its 50% stake in A+E Networks to Hearst for an estimated $1.2 billion. Oil - OPEC Adds Barrels, Maybe - OPEC+ agreed to raise September production targets by another 188,000 barrels per day. - The increase completes the rollback of a 1.65 million-barrel-per-day supply cut dating back to 2023. (In other words - planned so not a surprise) - Actual supply remains constrained because several producers are already pumping below quota. - Any normalization around the Strait of Hormuz could suddenly make OPEC+'s additional barrels much more important. Berkshire Hathaway - Greg Abel Starts Spending - Q2 operating earnings rose 16% to about $13 billion. - Berkshire bought $23.5 billion of stocks and sold just $3.7 billion - its first quarter as a net stock buyer in 14 quarters. - Bought back $4.5 billion of Berkshire shares, versus only $235 million in Q1. - Cash dropped from roughly $380 billion to $365 billion as Abel starts putting the massive cash pile to work. - Important shift: Buffett is still chairman, but this is one of the clearest signs yet of how Greg Abel may allocate capital differently as CEO. Situational Awareness - Nearly Blows Up, Investors Want Back In - The fund lost 67% in July after leveraged AI bets collapsed and forced a major stock sale to Citadel. - Despite the blowup, Situational Awareness was still up about 80% for 2026 because of huge earlier gains. - Bloomberg says Silicon Valley investors are already asking to put more money into the fund. - Situational Awareness is currently telling prospective investors it is not accepting new capital. - The fund has also continued making large private investments even after the near-collapse. --- Most recent was a $400B ---- There is some talk that Citadel made out like a bandit on the rescue Mercedes AMG - The Car Literally Brands You - Two Mercedes AMG owners filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the metal AMG logo embedded in the seat becomes dangerously hot in the sun. - One driver says he suffered first- and second-degree burns, with a dermatologist describing the injury as "AMG inscribed." - The lawsuit wants Mercedes to cover damages and remove the metal logos from affected vehicles. - Hard to beat this one: pay AMG money and get the logo branded into your back. Europe's Drought - History Starts Popping Out - Extreme drought and low river levels are exposing things that have been underwater or hidden for decades or centuries. - In Serbia, sunken German World War II warships have reappeared in the Danube. - In Britain, dry ground revealed outlines of medieval buildings; mammoth remains and ancient structures have also surfaced elsewhere. - Serious drought story, but visually one of the strangest side effects of the summer. Golden Toilet - $6 Million Flush - The 18-carat gold toilet was ripped out of Blenheim Palace in a five-minute raid and has never been recovered - but there is a conviction. - Prosecutors used phone data, forensic evidence and planning activity to link the gang to the theft. - One defendant had cased the palace beforehand and photographed entry points; another man had already pleaded guilty and admitted helping move the stolen gold. - Prosecutors believe the 98-kilo toilet was quickly cut up or melted down and sold as gold. - So the conviction was based on evidence of the robbery and disposal - not on recovering the actual toilet. Final Follow Up SpaceX - Space Junk Smashes Into the Moon - A dead SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage crashed into the moon at about 5,400 mph after drifting through space since January 2025. - The roughly 4-ton, school-bus-size object kicked up a lunar dust plume that astronomers detected from Chile. - The impact was accidental - solar activity and gravity gradually pushed the abandoned rocket stage onto a collision course. - NASA and SpaceX are now discussing ways to prevent future lunar crashes as more hardware heads toward the moon. - NEED Space garbage Trucks - something we have discussed on show for years (see next) Space Garbage Trucks - This Is Becoming a Business - Astroscale is building spacecraft designed to inspect, capture and remove dead satellites and other orbital debris. - Its ADRAS-J mission demonstrated close approach and inspection of a large piece of existing space junk - a key step before actually grabbing and removing debris. - ClearSpace is developing similar debris-removal spacecraft, including missions designed to rendezvous with and capture abandoned rocket hardware. - The business model is basically orbital towing: governments and satellite operators pay to remove dangerous junk or service aging spacecraft. - With tens of thousands of tracked objects already in orbit, "space sanitation" could become a real infrastructure business. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? PayPal.Donation.Button({ env: 'production', hosted_button_id: 'JJJHP2GDEJC7J', image: { src: 'https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif', alt: 'Donate with PayPal button', title: 'PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!' } }).render('#donate-button-2'); THE CLOSEST TO THE PIN for SpaceX (SPCX) Winners will be getting great stuff like the new "OFFICIAL" DHUnplugged Shirt! FED AND CRYPTO LIMERICKS See this week's stock picks HERE Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter
SpaceTime with Stuart Gary | Astronomy, Space & Science News
SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 97 The world watches as a SpaceX rocket crashes into the Moon A disused SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage has crashed into the Moon providing astronomers with useful data on the effects of impacts hitting the lunar surface. The radiation eating mutant fungus from Chernobyl Scientists say there's a black fungus in the highly radioactive ruins of the Chernobyl power station that's now evolved to feed on radiation. NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory Scientists have designed two revolutionary new computer chips to process data from a new space telescope called the Habitable Worlds Observatory that will search the skies for Earth like planets and for signs of life on those worlds. The Science Report A strong correlation found between dementia death rates and living in the suburbs. Improving pedestrians' thermal comfort through tree, shrub, and grass plantings along city streets. The exotic origin story of the Australian platypus. New Zealand's endangered yellow-eyed penguin found to be three genetically distinct subspecies. Skeptics guide to high tech water diviners. This Week's Guests Professor Robert Ward from the Australian National University Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics
Dave Rubin of "The Rubin Report" gives a first look at the stories you need to know to start your day, including the Senate Homeland Security Committee voting to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times, as Rand Paul pushes for accountability and Ron Johnson obtains Fauci's government-owned iPhone; New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani being booed off the stage just 43 seconds into his remarks at a pro-police event in Staten Island as opposition to his radical agenda grows; and South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter capturing rare before-and-after images of a four-ton SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage crashing into the moon at approximately 5,400 miles per hour; and much more. #rubinreport #fauci #anthonyfauci #randpaul #mamdani #spacex #daverubin
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Mars and SpaceX News and NHI Coming Back For The Forgotten #Podcast #News Jason Sands is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) intelligence specialist who emerged publicly as a whistleblower claiming to have worked inside a highly classified government legacy program focused on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) and extraterrestrial technology. He gained significant prominence within the UFO disclosure community after being featured in filmmaker James Fox's documentary "The Program", as well as through high-profile media appearances such as the Joe Rogan Experience #2264 alongside fellow veteran Lenval Logan. Attribution Whistleblower Jason Sands drops a bombshell via @UAPReportingCnt Link: https://x.com/UAPReportingCnt/status/2085091275984830868?s=20 SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket struck the Moon via @theinformant_x Link: https://x.com/theinformant_x/status/2085007637800718549?s=20 Sol 3613: Right Navigation Camera Curiosity via @KariSivertzen Link: https://x.com/KariSivertzen/status/2083982969232830761?s=20 Image Link: https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1126107/?site=msl ‼️FAIR USE NOTICE: This video MAY contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Tempest Universe Podcast distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment, and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107.‼️
Mars and SpaceX News and NHI Coming Back For The Forgotten #Podcast #News Jason Sands is a retired United States Air Force (USAF) intelligence specialist who emerged publicly as a whistleblower claiming to have worked inside a highly classified government legacy program focused on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) and extraterrestrial technology. He gained significant prominence within the UFO disclosure community after being featured in filmmaker James Fox's documentary "The Program", as well as through high-profile media appearances such as the Joe Rogan Experience #2264 alongside fellow veteran Lenval Logan. Attribution Whistleblower Jason Sands drops a bombshell via @UAPReportingCnt Link: https://x.com/UAPReportingCnt/status/2085091275984830868?s=20 SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket struck the Moon via @theinformant_x Link: https://x.com/theinformant_x/status/2085007637800718549?s=20 Sol 3613: Right Navigation Camera Curiosity via @KariSivertzen Link: https://x.com/KariSivertzen/status/2083982969232830761?s=20 Image Link: https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1126107/?site=msl ‼️FAIR USE NOTICE: This video MAY contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Tempest Universe Podcast distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment, and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107.‼️
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
Dan Moren of Six Colors joins the show. A newly disclosed flaw was discovered in Apple's iCloud Private Relay. What is the phenomenon, "spiralism," and its ties to AI chatbots? Apple's Siri AI finally makes its way into the iOS 27 beta. And a SpaceX rocket impacted the Moon, but is it as big a deal as the headlines are making it? Apple's iCloud Private Relay has a newly disclosed flaw that can leak users' real IP addresses via passkey authentication, marking the second privacy-feature vulnerability found in iCloud+ in as many months. A bizarre phenomenon called "spiralism" saw thousands of people across different AI chatbots independently arrive at eerily similar mystical "spiral" doctrine and recruitment language, likely a byproduct of shared training data and LLM patterns. Apple's long-awaited Siri AI update has finally landed in the iOS 27 beta and mostly delivers on its promises, but reviewers find the experience oddly anticlimactic now that competitors offer similar AI assistant capabilities. A SpaceX Falcon 9 upper-stage crashed into the Moon near Einstein Crater, sparking outsized headlines despite such impacts being common and scientifically useful. Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren Guest: Rod Pyle Download or subscribe to Tech News Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-weekly. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: rippling.ai/tnw cirasync.com/TNW
A part of a SpaceX rocket is set to crash into the surface of the moon, with experts predicting it'll trigger an explosive impact equivalent to three tons of TNT. The upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched in January 2025 as part of a joint US and Japanese lunar lander mission is set to land near the moon's Einstein Crater, according to NASA's CNEOS. US correspondent Dan Mitchinson explains what to expect, and what kind of telescope technology is needed to get a look at the collision. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
VOV1 - Một phần của tên lửa SpaceX Falcon 9 nặng khoảng 4 tấn dự kiến sẽ đâm xuống bề mặt Mặt Trăng vào hôm nay 5/8, sau hơn một năm trôi dạt ngoài không gian. Sự kiện được nhận định không gây nguy hiểm cho Trái Đất song sẽ là cơ hội hiếm hoi để giới khoa học nghiên cứu về tác động của vật thể này.
A SpaceX Rocket Is About to Crash Into the Moon, $900 Per Kid on Back-to-School Shopping, and Should You Lease Your iPhone? A 9,000-pound SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is on a collision course with the Moon — impact expected around 12:35 AM MDT Wednesday morning — and Utah astronomer Patrick Wiggins joins us live to break down whether you'll actually be able to see it from here. Plus, parents are expected to spend an average of $900 per child on back-to-school shopping this year…why? Apple just launched its new "Apple Upgrade" leasing program with Klarna — iPhones starting at $17.99 a month — and Ethan weighs in on whether this is a budget-friendly game-changer or a never ending payment game. KSL Brightside streams live weekdays 12–3 PM. Watch the YouTube-exclusive live stream from 12–1 PM, then catch us on radio and YouTube from 1–3 PM.
S05E158 — “The Crater Makers” · Tuesday 4 August 2026. Four stories on cosmic impacts — and a new map of the X-ray sky — plus a both-hemispheres skywatch. ① A dead Falcon 9 is about to crater the Moon ● A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage (catalogued 2025-010D) is predicted to strike the Moon near Einstein Crater on 5 Aug 2026 at ~06:35 UTC — the second documented uncontrolled rocket impact on the Moon. ● The stage launched Firefly's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience landers in Jan 2025, then was stranded in a chaotic Earth orbit for ~18 months. Impact speed ~2.4 km/s (~5,400 mph); expected crater ~17–27 m across. ● Prediction by Bill Gray (Project Pluto). NASA's LRO can image the site before and after; a ~two-dozen-author campaign is coordinating observers to chase the ejecta plume. ● Governance angle: no international framework governs cislunar debris — a growing hazard as lunar traffic increases (callback to E154's distant-retrograde-orbit debris study). Sources: Space.com / Forbes / Reuters (Cris Tolomia) — impact preview, 31 Jul–3 Aug 2026 · Project Pluto (Bill Gray) — 2025-010D impact page · ZME Science — impact timing, 3 Aug 2026 ② Neptune's inner moons: shrapnel of a shattered world ● JWST NIRSpec spectroscopy of Neptune's inner moons Larissa, Galatea and Proteus (Caltech; lead author Ryleigh Davis, Mike Brown's group) detected magnesium-rich phyllosilicates — clay minerals that require liquid water and had never been seen beyond Jupiter. ● The clays imply the material came from much larger, water-bearing worlds — evidence that Neptune's original regular moon system was destroyed when Triton (a captured Kuiper Belt object) arrived. ● Proteus, the largest of the three, lacks the clays — possibly re-heated and reprocessed after re-forming, hiding its history. Sources: Davis et al., Science Advances, 29 July 2026 · Caltech / phys.org press coverage, 29 Jul–3 Aug 2026 · Space.com (Charles Q. Choi), 3 Aug 2026 ③ “Charbroiled within hours”: impact dust and the dinosaurs ● New modelling (Brandon Johnson et al., Purdue) argues ultrafine impact dust from Chicxulub acted as an insulating blanket, raising surface heating ~3.5× above the spherule-only estimate — enough to ignite global wildfires and kill exposed animals within hours. ● The same dust then blocked sunlight for years — so the model adds a ferocious opening act to the established “impact winter,” rather than replacing it. Sheltering underground or underwater aided survival. ● Caveat: the strongest physical wildfire evidence is so far confined to North America (per UCL's Alfio Chiarenza, not involved in the study); a truly global fire record remains unconfirmed. Sources: Johnson, Johnson, Wakita & Robertson, JGR: Biogeosciences, 2026 · Popular Science / Space.com / ZME Science, 28 Jul–2 Aug 2026 ④ eROSITA DR2 — the X-ray sky doubles ● The eROSITA telescope (SRG mission) released its second data set (DR2) on 31 July 2026: ~1.9 million pointlike and ~64,000 extended X-ray sources from the first three all-sky scans — nearly doubling the previously released eROSITA catalogue. ● For scale: ROSAT catalogued ~130,000 sources in the 1990s and was the benchmark for 30 years. Lead author: Miriam Ramos-Ceja (MPE). ● DR2 delivers the first direct census of cataclysmic-variable binaries sufficient to explain the decades-old Galactic Ridge X-ray Emission. It coincides with SDSS DR20 (Black Hole Mapper), enabling 3D mapping of active black holes. Sources: Ramos-Ceja et al. (eROSITA-DE), arXiv:2607.27772; DR2 release · Max Planck Society press release, 29 July 2026 · phys.org, 31 Jul 2026 Skywatch — both hemispheres ● Falcon 9 impact (5 Aug, ~06:35 UTC): not naked-eye; ejecta plume a long shot for advanced amateurs in the Americas near the western limb (~2:35 a.m. EDT). Sydney: Moon below horizon — watch for LRO after-images. ● Comet 10P/Tempel 2: perihelion 2 Aug, closest to Earth 3 Aug (~0.41 AU); ~mag 8–9 near M30 in Capricornus. Best return of the century; Southern-Hemisphere-favoured; Northern viewers low on the southern horizon. Darkest window ~7–8 Aug. ● This evening: Venus threads between Regulus (Leo) and Spica (Virgo) in the west — both hemispheres, no equipment. Mercury at its best morning showing (greatest western elongation 2 Aug), low in the pre-dawn east. ● Diary — 12 Aug: total solar eclipse (Greenland/Iceland/Spain), moonless Perseid peak, six-planet alignment. Always use certified ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses / solar filters except during totality.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-latest-space-news--5648921/support.Sponsor Details:Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.astronomydaily.io/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!Get the best secure and private email on the planet. Stop your Government, google and who knows who else spying on every email you write. Do what we did and use ProtonMail. They beleive in privacy and there are no ads in their business model...yet they still provide a free forever service. Check them out and get out special deal at www.astronomydaily.io/protonmailBecome a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click HereThis episode includes AI-generated content.
Reinventing the Supply Chain with AI from Rail-to-Road w/ Kevin Damoa of GlidTech - AZ TRT S07 EP11 (293) 7-26-2026 What We Learned This Week The Biggest Supply Chain Problem Isn't Transportation—It's Handling Freight often changes hands multiple times before reaching its destination. Every transfer increases cost, delays, and complexity. America Already Has the Infrastructure Rather than building new rail systems, Glid Tech's strategy is to better utilize the thousands of miles of existing railroad infrastructure that are currently underused. AI Is Becoming a Logistics Manager Ezra 16 doesn't simply route vehicles—it evaluates weather, traffic, rail availability, and fleet positioning simultaneously to determine the most efficient route. Military Innovation Often Creates Commercial Opportunity The company's technology originated from solving dangerous military logistics problems before expanding into commercial transportation, continuing a long history of defense-driven innovation. The Future of Transportation Is Integration Instead of choosing between trucks or trains, the future may involve seamless transitions between both, allowing each mode to be used where it performs best. Guest: Kevin Damoa LKIN: HERE Website: https://www.glidtech.us/ Founder and CEO Glīd Technologies Kevin A. Damoa builds the systems that move what matters. Over two decades, he has carried mobility from the factory floor to the launch pad and onto the battlefield, advancing the hard logistics of rockets, aircraft, electric vehicles, and now autonomous road-to-rail freight. As Founder and CEO of Glīd Technologies, he is building the dual-mode autonomous infrastructure that connects the nation's roads and rails into a single logistics network. His operating discipline was forged in military service. Damoa enlisted in the US Army at seventeen, served two years in South Korea, and completed two combat tours in Iraq with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he ran railhead logistics in a theater of war. He continued his service in the Air National Guard as a Logistics Officer and firefighter supporting California's Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System mission, retiring in 2018 after twelve years of concurrent service. Damoa joined SpaceX in 2012 as Flight Module Logistics Manager, where he built the logistics systems and programs behind a maturing launch operation and designed and deployed the transport apparatus that carried rockets from production to the launch site. Following a tour at Northrop Grumman as an Integration Program Manager on the F-35 program, he moved into senior operating leadership across a generation of clean-mobility companies, holding executive roles at Romeo Power, Xos Trucks, Canoo, and Serial 1, a Harley-Davidson brand. In each, he owned the unglamorous work that decides whether a product reaches the market: industrialization, supply chain, manufacturing deployment, and launch. In 2022, Damoa founded Glīd Technologies to solve a problem the freight system has carried for a century, the broken handoff between road and rail. Glīd designs and builds US-made autonomous dual-mode vehicles and the AI logistics orchestration software that directs them, serving commercial freight and national defense. The company is built on a granted dual-mode road-to-rail patent, is a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, and won the 2025 TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield. Damoa holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and an MBA in Project Management from Keller Graduate School of Management. He leads Glīd as both its CEO and its Architect, a reflection of his conviction that the people who set a company's direction should understand, in detail, how the thing is built. Notes: Summary Technical logistics and supply chain challenges were discussed along with prototype development and potential military applications. Supply Chain Efficiency Challenges Excessive handling requirements create significant dwell time in global shipping. Current infrastructure heavily relies on road transport due to rail inaccessibility, resulting in massive maintenance costs. Startup Prototypes and Technology The startup developed 4 prototypes featuring human-operated and autonomous vehicles alongside AI orchestration software. This technology utilizes existing rail and road infrastructure to enable seamless transport transitions. Military and Market Outlook Applying rail logistics to defense sectors aims to improve safety for military personnel by reducing reliance on road convoys. Future strategy balances defense and commercial growth across various sectors. Segment 1 · Definition of Supply Chain Challenges: Kevin Damoa identified that the core problem in the current supply chain is the inefficiency of moving goods due to excessive handling requirements. Noted that 72% of commercial freight is stuck on roads because rail is viewed as inaccessible, while the military faces similar issues, utilizing only 20% of their 44,000 miles of rail infrastructure. · Company Status and Prototypes: Kevin Damoa confirmed that Glidech is a startup that raised a pre-seed round the previous year and currently has 14 full-time employees. The company has developed four prototypes: two human-operated vehicles named "Glider M" that function on road and rail, and two autonomous vehicles named "Raiden". They also have an AI orchestration software tool called "Ezra 16," which provides transportation management, fleet tracking, and autonomous coordination. · Supply Chain Inefficiencies and "Touches": Kevin Damoa detailed the complexity of global shipping, describing how goods undergo numerous transfers between boats, "hustler" trucks, cranes, and trains. They explained that this leads to significant "detention time" or "dwell time," where goods sit idle for weeks, often resulting in increased costs and the need for expensive expedited shipping. · Comparison of Road and Rail Infrastructure: Kevin Damoa highlighted that while trucks are more accessible, they contribute to congestion, pollution, and high road maintenance costs, citing that $105 billion is spent annually in the United States repairing roads damaged by 80,000-pound trucks. Conversely, they argued that rail infrastructure is simpler and cheaper to maintain using small crews, yet rail remains unattractive due to the difficulties in getting freight onto the system. Segment 2 · GlidTech Solution and Ezra 16 Capabilities: Kevin Damoa described Glidec as a hardware and software company that leverages existing infrastructure rather than creating new fixed systems. The "Ezra 16" software creates a digital twin environment that incorporates weather, road congestion, and rail allocation to determine the most efficient, safe, and cost-effective transport mode for goods. The goal is to facilitate seamless transitions between road and rail, avoiding the necessity of staying exclusively on one mode for the entire journey. · Origin of GliTech Technology: Kevin Damoa traced the origin of their technology to their personal military experience, specifically a process called "rail heading" while preparing for deployment in Iraq. They described the process as dangerous, slow, and cumbersome, requiring multiple pieces of heavy machinery and many people; Glidec was created to consolidate these steps into a single vehicle and one maneuver. · Technical Operation of Vehicles: Kevin Damoa explained the mechanics of the Glider M and Raiden vehicles, which feature specialized rail gear, 360-degree cameras, and sensors that use "positive recognition" to identify datums on the track. Once identified, the rail gear deploys, the steering wheel locks, and the vehicle operates on the rail; upon exit, the system triggers a release notification to return to road operation. · Safety and Integration with Rail Systems: Kevin Damoa noted that their technology patches into existing "positive train control" systems used by railroads. This allows their vehicles to receive time-slot allocations and operate dynamically, such as exiting the track to allow a train to pass before returning to the route. · Utilization of Infrastructure: Kevin Damoa emphasized that their approach leverages "the best of both worlds" by using road networks to navigate traffic and rail networks for faster transit in less developed or woodsy areas. This strategy utilizes existing, underused tracks rather than requiring the construction of new infrastructure. · Professional Background of Kevin Damoa: Kevin Damoa detailed their professional history, starting with military service in the Army and the Air Force National Guard, where they participated in firefighting operations. Their corporate background includes managing transportation and recovery operations for the first 17 SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicles, working as an engineer and program manager on the F-35 fighter jet program at Northrop Grumman, and holding roles in e-mobility at Romeo Power, Canoe, XOS Trucks, and Harley-Davidson's Serial 1. Segment 3 · Historical and Defense Context: Historical overview, noting that President Eisenhower used the Defense Act in the 1950s to develop the US highway system based on models like the German Autobahn. Kevin Damoa discussed how the Department of Defense currently relies heavily on road convoys despite owning 44,000 miles of rail, and noted that they aim to make this existing rail infrastructure more accessible to the military. · Military Safety and Operational Applications: Kevin Damoa highlighted that enabling rail transport could save soldiers' lives, citing that one out of ten logisticians in the military are casualties during combat supply operations. They further explained that their autonomous Raiden vehicles can operate in austere, desert, or underdeveloped locations, moving containerized supplies, weapons, or drone-manufacturing equipment without risking personnel. · Future Market Outlook: Looking ahead, Kevin Damoa projected a balanced growth strategy between commercial and defense sectors, noting interest from municipalities, states, countries, and industrial parks. Framed the future of the company around bridging the gap in the logistical workforce and providing a new transport mode, which they branded with the slogan, "Don't ship it, glide it". Segment 4 Clips from: Efficiency in the Supply Chain by a New Container Invention w/ Trevor Pan of BidBird AZ TRT S04 EP41 (204) 10-15-2023 Things We Learned This Week Malcolm McLean was the inventor of the shipping Container, and a key person in trade & globalization BidBird invented a container skin, a smooth panel for the side to reduce wind resistance & improve fuel efficiency Patent process and Patent Cooperation Treaty to register an invention in foreign countries Building a Prototype and doing a road test with a Truck plus a Container on a race track Show Link: HERE **Preview clip of Trevor Pan Malcolm McLean and the History of the Container This leads to a new level of capitalism, modern globalization & wider trade Malcolm Mclean is the inventor of one of the most major inventions in history that affects people daily. He is also not known by many people despite the impact he has had. McLean owned a trucking company and he used to ship goods via boat. He'd be waiting on the docks with cotton in the 1940s in early 1950s for hours. Ships would be docked for a month, as men were loading crates by hand. The same system was being done with global trade and sea trade for thousands of years. Mclean got tired of this, and trying to figure out a solution to the problem like any entrepreneur. Find a need and fill it. January 1956 - he debuted the box ship. McLean got a $22 million loan & bought 2 World War II tankers and converted them. In April 1956 the first one sailed from New Jersey to Houston. This cut cost from 5.86 per to $.16, a 95% drop or 36 fold savings. Oct.1957 - the first real containership Gateway city launched. Trip went from New York to Florida to Texas and then on later to Puerto Rico. Per McLean, 'the ship makes money when at sea'. In 1963, container ports had been created, by 1966 in Europe, 1967 Vietnam had container service, and 1969 Hong Kong and more Southeast Asia. McLean got a patent which is shared, called – standardization, and the standardize size container for shipping. He created a company, called Sealand Industries - which was then bought by RJ Reynolds. Eventually they were mergers and oil companies that bought out the line and today it's owned by MAERSK. Goods are shipped today for pennies on the dollar, all because of McLean's invention. He changed global trade, shipping, oil exploration, and more. It's a multi trillion dollar invention. It also created port cities like Oakland. Every day it affects all sorts of goods and trades finance, big companies like Walmart and Apple. Not sure if we would have globalization if not for Mclean. At least not as fast. More Info on Malcolm McLean: HERE Tech Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Tech-Startup-VC-Cybersecurity-Energy-Science Best of Tech: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=best+of+tech 'Best Of' Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Best+of+BRT Thanks for Listening. Please Subscribe to the AZ TRT Podcast. AZ Tech Roundtable 2.0 with Matt Battaglia The show where Entrepreneurs, Top Executives, Founders, and Investors come to share insights about the future of business. AZ TRT 2.0 looks at the new trends in business, & how classic industries are evolving. Common Topics Discussed: Startups, Founders, Funds & Venture Capital, Business, Entrepreneurship, Biotech, Blockchain / Crypto, Executive Comp, Investing, Stocks, Real Estate + Alternative Investments, and more… AZ TRT Podcast Home Page: http://aztrtshow.com/ 'Best Of' AZ TRT Podcast: Click Here Podcast on Google: Click Here Podcast on Spotify: Click Here More Info: https://www.economicknight.com/azpodcast/ KFNX Info: https://1100kfnx.com/weekend-featured-shows/
SpaceTime with Stuart Gary | Astronomy, Space & Science News
SpaceTime Series 29 Episode 89 A lucky 13th test flight for the world's biggest rocket The world's largest and most powerful rocket has successfully launched on its latest test flight bringing it a step closer to NASA's Artemis program's aim of returning humans to the lunar surface, and eventually on to Mars and beyond. Scientists identify the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs A new study has determined that the asteroid which slammed into the Earth 66 million years ago wiping out over 75 percent of all life on the planet including all the non-avian dinosaurs was most likely a rare CO type carbonaceous chondrite. SpaceX rocket about to crash into the Moon The spent upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is about to slam into the visible side of the Moon, providing scientists with a new method of pinpointing exactly where objects strike the Moon, data that could help prepare for future lunar seismic experiments. The Science Report Warnings that a third of all heart related deaths due to ultra processed foods. New data suggests fewer people in Australia are now smoking. Scientists have identified high levels of vehicle tyre dust on local Brisbane balconies. Iran continuing its nuclear weapons program in a complex deep below Pickaxe Mountain. Skeptics guide to fake news click bait. Our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics
-The suit accuses OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of negligence and the "unauthorized practice of medicine." It points to multiple instances in which the chatbot offered up its own diagnoses and treatment plans. -The upper stage that will be crashing into the lunar surface came from SpaceX's Firefly Blue Ghost mission, which launched on January 15th of last year. -The Genesis Mission was created via executive order last November with the broadly stated goal of using AI to further scientific discoveries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Live July 17, 2026 | Yaron Brook Show(Season 12, Episode 126)Election Speech; ICE; Insider Trading; AI; Iran; Ukraine; Britain; Achievement | Yaron Brook ShowTrump's Contradictions, AI's Arms Race & Iran's Future: The World's Fault Lines Are CollidingIs America making rational decisions—or stumbling from one political contradiction to the next?In this wide-ranging live episode, Yaron Brook dissects President Trump's latest election speech, examines the growing tensions between political rhetoric and economic reality, and explores why America's biggest challenges—from immigration enforcement to AI competition with China to the conflict with Iran—require something today's politicians seem unwilling to embrace: rational thinking.Yaron also analyzes insider trading concerns surrounding Truth Social, the escalating AI race between the U.S. and China, the enormous infrastructure challenge behind artificial intelligence, developments in Ukraine and Britain, breakthroughs in biotechnology and space exploration, and why achievement—not politics—is ultimately what moves civilization forward.The show concludes with an engaging audience Q&A covering Iran, fascism, Ayn Rand's cultural influence, retirement, the 2028 election, and America's strategy toward the Islamic Republic.Watch Now: https://youtube.com/live/fwvuZFhPYDwTopics Covered00:00 Introduction & upcoming schedule00:36 What today's show covers01:57 Trump's election speech & contradictions on China07:34 Irrationality inside the Trump administration11:10 Non-citizen voting claims & voter fraud narratives14:57 DHS & ICE: funding, training and enforcement challenges21:20 Truth Social, insider trading & privileged market access29:14 The AI race: America vs. China38:54 Are today's AI companies worth the hype?41:32 Why data centers may become AI's biggest bottleneck46:12 Iran, the Persian Gulf & American strategy50:53 Shipping, trade & the economic consequences of war with Iran57:52 Political obstacles to U.S. military action1:01:14 Ukraine's political turmoil1:07:32 Britain's new Prime Minister: Andy Burnham1:11:06 Bioprinting organs in space1:14:57 Nuclear reactor pilot progress1:16:14 SpaceX Falcon 9 milestone1:19:07 Upcoming Ayn Rand Institute conferenceLive Audience Questions1:24:38 What would you say to Americans who support Iran?1:26:54 Has every president since Calvin Coolidge shown fascist tendencies?1:27:47 Is Ayn Rand making a meaningful impact on today's culture?1:29:21 Would retirement ever satisfy you?1:31:40 Which Democrats would you support before Marco Rubio in 2028?1:33:28 If Trump opens the Strait, will he pursue regime change in Iran?If you enjoy thoughtful analysis of politics, economics, technology, foreign policy, philosophy, and capitalism, subscribe and join us live every week.#Trump #ArtificialIntelligence #Iran #China #IndustrialRevolution #Iran #Immigration #Technology#Ukraine #Politics #AynRand #Economics #Objectivism #Capitalism Subscribe for daily analysis on economics, politics, philosophy, technology, investing, and current events.The Yaron Brook Show is Sponsored by[The Ayn Rand Institute](https://www.aynrand.org/starthere)[Energy Talking Points, featuring AlexAI, by Alex Epstein](https://alexepstein.substack.com/)[Express VPN](https://www.expressvpn.com/yaron)[Hendershott Wealth Management](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4lfC...) &(https://hendershottwealth.com/ybs/)[Michael Williams & The Defenders of Capitalism Project](https://www.DefendersOfCapitalism.com)[Support the Show]( / yaronbrookshow )[Sponsor the Show](askyaron@yaronbrookshow.com/)[One-time donation](https://bit.ly/2RZOyJJ)Join the [Yaron Brook Show YouTube channel]( / @yaronbrook )Like what you hear? Like, share, and subscribe to stay updated on new videos and help promote the [Yaron Brook Show](https://bit.ly/3ztPxTx)Continue the discussion by following Yaron on [Twitter](https://bit.ly/3iMGl6z) and [Facebook](https://bit.ly/3vvWDDC )Want to learn more about Ayn Rand and Objectivism? Visit the [Ayn Rand Institute](https://bit.ly/35qoEC3)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/yaron-brook-show--3276901/support.Yaron is the executive chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute and a world class speaker. He is the coauthor of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality and In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. He speaks around the world on a variety of topics including the morality of capitalism, Ayn Rand and her philosophy, finance and economics, and the value of inequality.
HOUR 3 (07/10) - Gary & Shannon cover today's biggest stories during #WhatsHappening, including the growing race to replace Graham Platner in Maine, fallout from the contentious Boyle Heights town hall, tonight's planned SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, Huntington Beach's "End of Summer Party," and the mysterious spread of the Cyclospora parasite.During #SwampWatch, they discuss Platner's looming resignation deadline, newly released video involving Mitch McConnell following last month's medical emergency, and newly released Pentagon files related to UFOs.The week wraps up with #NNNYNTK (Nine News Nuggets You Need To Know) featuring Berlin drug dealers mailing free samples, a DoorDash driver's shocking encounter with an indecent customer, a robber whose own truck was stolen mid-crime, and other bizarre stories you probably missed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of Astronomy Daily (S05E125), hosts Anna and Avery cover six major stories from the frontiers of space science and astronomy, including the most detailed image ever taken of the Milky Way's core, a Hubble discovery that solves a decades-old cosmological mystery, the oldest confirmed asteroid impact crater on Earth, a pair of impossibly light exoplanets, an impending lunar impact from a SpaceX rocket stage, and a live solar weather alert for Southern Hemisphere aurora watchers. Stories Covered Story 1 — Euclid's Record Milky Way Galactic Bulge Image: ESA's Euclid telescope releases the largest, highest-resolution visible-light image ever made of the Milky Way's central bulge, containing more than 60 million stars. The image serves as a baseline for NASA's upcoming Roman Space Telescope's microlensing survey. (ESA / NASA, June 24–25 2026) Story 2 — Hubble Catches Galaxy Clearing the Cosmic Fog: Galaxy MXDFz4.4, observed 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, has been caught emitting ionising ultraviolet light — direct evidence of how the early universe's hydrogen fog was cleared. Published in The Astrophysical Journal, June 23 2026. Story 3 — Earth's Oldest Asteroid Crater Dated to 3 Billion Years: Curtin University researchers precisely date the North Pole Dome impact structure in Western Australia's Pilbara region to 3.024 billion years ago — the oldest known impact crater on Earth, beating the next oldest by ~800 million years. Published in Geology, June 23 2026. Story 4 — Super-Puff Planets Lighter Than Cotton Candy: An Oxford-led international team confirms TOI-791 b and c — two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy (0.038 and 0.047 g/cm³), making them the lowest-density giant planets ever found. Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, June 26 2026. Story 5 — SpaceX Falcon 9 Upper Stage to Impact Moon on August 5: A spent Falcon 9 upper stage from the January 2025 Blue Ghost / Hakuto-R launch is on course to strike the Moon near Einstein Crater on August 5 2026. Visibility from Earth is uncertain, but NASA's LRO will image the resulting crater. NASA SSERVI, June 2026. Skywatching — A G1 geomagnetic storm struck overnight June 25, with further unsettled conditions expected June 26–27 as coronal hole streams strengthen and new sunspot region AR4478 rotates into Earth view. Aurora possible for Tasmania, New Zealand's South Island and southern Australia tonight.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-the-latest-space-news--5648921/support.Sponsor Details:Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click HereThis episode includes AI-generated content.
Send us Fan MailWe set up a livestream and waited for a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch in our backyard. Want to see the video version? Check out https://patreon.com/aggpod To keep the show and rocket projects coming, get ad-free early releases of all episodes, and to see exclusive behind-the-scenes content, join us on Patreon! Support the showSupport the podcast by joining our Patreon and get early/ad-free episode releases:https://patreon.com/aggpodFollow Braden Here:https://youtube.com/@rocketvlogshttps://www.instagram.com/bigb1011https://www.tiktok.com/@bradencarlson6Follow Taylor here:https://www.youtube.com/@the_rocketchannelFollow Shane (or as you may know him, Postart) here:https://www.youtube.com/@PostartPropulsionshttps://www.instagram.com/shaneharrisphoto
00:00:00 - Stream Intro00:01:00 - Rubio, Vance, Newsom, & Ossoff00:03:46 - President Trump Speaks at the Medal of Honor Ceremony00:07:04 - Honoring Marine Corps Major James Capers Jr.00:08:26 - NYC Mayor Mamdani's Epic Knicks Championship Speech00:14:50 - The Obama Presidential Center Opening Ceremony in Chicago00:19:12 - VP JD Vance Press Briefing on the Iran Peace Deal & Oil Prices00:26:50 - Iran Deal Signed at Versailles & Economic Costs00:36:01 - JD Vance's Warning to Israel Critics: "You Can't Kill Your Way Out"00:44:16 - Mayor Mamdani: "It Is In That .4% That We Go To Work"00:50:00 - Barack Obama Takes the Stage at the Library Opening00:57:00 - Mayor Mamdani & Bernie Sanders Rally in Brooklyn01:04:00 - JD Vance vs. Gavin Newsom01:17:00 - JD Vance Q&A on Rebuilding Iran & Nuclear Facilities01:23:00 - Medal of Honor Awarded to Col. John W. Ripley01:29:00 - Medal of Honor Awarded to Major Nicholas Dockery01:42:00 - JD Vance Q&A: Hezbollah, Lebanon, and the 60-Day Window01:53:47 - Official Medal of Honor Presentation for James Capers Jr.02:00:18 - Tied Up!02:07:00 - Medal of Honor Presentations for Col. Ripley & Major Dockery02:13:00 - Barack Obama on the Promise of Democracy & Civil Rights02:30:00 - Alex Rants: Obama's Bulletproof Glass vs. Mamdani's Open Parade02:55:00 - Trump's Cabinet Shakeups: Kash Patel & Howard Lutnick03:02:11 - VP Vance Discusses Ending Sanctions & Releasing Funds03:09:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson!03:22:00 - Debunking the Myth: Do 60% of Americans read at a 5th-grade level?03:26:00 - Reading the Official 14-Point US-Iran Peace Plan Terms03:30:00 - Tucker Carlson: "We Are Waging a War With Israel"03:52:00 - Breaking Down the $300 Billion Private Investment Fund for Iran04:11:20 - 3rd Party Challenger Dave Portnoy04:15:00 - No Cap On God Street Interviews at the NYC Knicks Parade04:33:38 - Barack & Michelle Obama's First Joint Post-Presidency Interview05:13:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Vivek Ramaswamy05:17:00 - Reacting to Obama's ABC Interview & Political Cynicism05:29:00 - Real-Time Look Up: Obama Library Outdoor Park Rules05:45:00 - Piers Morgan vs. Ben Shapiro & Mark Levin on Foreign Policy06:09:00 - DNI Tulsi Gabbard Drops the "Fauci Files" on the Wuhan Lab Leak06:14:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Shane Gillis06:21:00 - Nick Fuentes Live: Breaking Down Trump's US-Israel06:38:00 - The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Turns Neon06:46:00 - Looking Back at the UFC Freedom 250 White House06:58:00 - Nick Fuentes Continued: Will Israel Accept07:14:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Matthew07:27:00 - Reviewing the UK "Rape Gang Inquiry" Report07:35:00 - Hasan Piker Rants About the "Normie Sphere" & Content07:56:00 - Liberal Hivemind: Antifa Group Chats & Port08:07:00 - The Young Turks Discuss Israel's Strategy08:18:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Tulsi08:19:00 - Pop Culture Theory: Did Trump Pardon Saul08:29:00 - Tucker Carlson Blasts Neoconservatives Over the Iran08:41:00 - Fox News Jesse Watters on the Iran Deal Taking08:47:00 - Fox News on Trump's $400M White House Ballroom08:59:00 - Gutfeld! Monologue on the Knicks09:03:00 - MSNBC: Luigi Mangione Withdraws Psychiatric09:08:00 - Axios: Donald Trump Claims "Regime Change" in09:13:00 - Reading the 14-Point US-Iran Memorandum of10:03:00 - Tucker Carlson Discusses the Future of Gaza & Foreign10:21:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Rep. Alexandria10:23:00 - Massive Ukraine Drone Strikes Hit Oil Refineries in10:25:00 - 3rd Party Challenger Ben10:27:00 - ABC World News10:36:00 - Tragic Central Park Horse Carriage Accident Kills10:47:00 - Sean Hannity Slams the Cost of the Obama Presidential10:48:00 - SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket10:53:00 - ABC News Coverage: USPS Worker Cheered at the Knicks10:54:00 - Mayor Mamdani on Morning Joe Discussing Politics & The World11:03:00 - ABC News Coverage: Algae Fiasco at the Lincoln11:15:00 - Philip DeFranco Covers the US-Iran Peace11:26:00 - The Final 2028 Poll
In this episode of Tank Talks, host Matt Cohen sits down with Mina Mitry, CEO and Co-Founder of Kepler Communications, one of the world's most ambitious space infrastructure companies. With a journey that spans from winning $75,000 in university pitch competitions to building the world's first commercial optical data relay network, Mina's experience offers valuable insights for founders, especially those navigating the challenges of building deep-tech and hardware-driven companies.Mina shares his entrepreneurial beginnings, the lessons he learned while scaling Kepler, and the hard pivot from off-the-shelf software to a vertically integrated satellite manufacturing model. He also discusses the Arctic surveillance gap, why real-time space data is critical for Canadian sovereignty, and how Kepler was selected as prime contractor for ESA's Hydron Element 3 project.From launching 10 satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 to shooting lasers across 6,500 kilometers in orbit, Mina dives into his journey and the key principles he follows in his entrepreneurial endeavors. Whether you're interested in space tech, defense, or sovereign infrastructure, Mina's story provides inspiration and practical wisdom.From University Rockets to Building Space Infrastructure (02:03)* Mina's journey from a first-generation immigrant family to co-founding Kepler at the University of Toronto* Why Kepler's original mission of bringing the internet beyond Earth has never changed* The ultimatum that convinced his co-founders to leave traditional career paths behindThe Early Days of Kepler and Finding Product-Market Fit (06:36)* How Kepler survived the early years with limited capital and massive ambition* Why remote communications in the Arctic became one of the company's first real-world use cases* The challenge of convincing investors in 2015 that orbital laser networks were even possibleSatellites, Orbital Networks, and Why Space Connectivity Matters (08:25)* A breakdown of low Earth orbit, geostationary orbit, and why northern connectivity remains difficult* How Kepler built the world's first commercial laser-based relay network in space* Why real-time data transmission is becoming critical for everything from disaster response to defenseBuilding Canada's Largest Orbital Data Center (14:22)* What it actually means to put compute infrastructure in orbit* Why SpaceX, Starship, and falling launch costs could completely reshape the space economy* The engineering, thermal, and regulatory challenges of scaling orbital infrastructureInside Kepler's Falcon 9 Launch Moment (16:48)* What it felt like watching Kepler's satellites launch from Vandenberg for the first time* The emotional significance of one of Canada's largest space milestones in years* Why launch economics and insurance remain misunderstood parts of the industryDefense, Arctic Surveillance, and Sovereign Space Infrastructure (19:42)* How Kepler is helping governments access real-time intelligence from space* Why the Arctic has become a major strategic priority for Canada and its allies* The role of orbital infrastructure in missile detection, surveillance, and national securityThe Geopolitical Tailwinds Behind Space Sovereignty (23:19)* Why middle powers are increasingly investing in sovereign technology infrastructure* How defense ministries around the world are approaching space-based intelligence differently* The recurring revenue model behind Kepler's government partnershipsWhy Space Tech Moats Are Built Over Decades (26:56)* Why Mina believes infrastructure, regulatory access, and time are harder to replicate than capital* The importance of spectrum rights, security clearances, and orbital heritage* Why Kepler's biggest competitive advantage may simply be the years it has already spent buildingJeremy Hansen, Artemis II, and Inspiring the Next Generation (28:43)* What Canada's moon mission means for the future of the country's space sector* Why Mina believes visibility and inspiration matter as much as technology itself* How astronauts have become both cultural icons and catalysts for innovationWhy Ambition Still Matters Most for Founders (31:00)* Mina's advice for founders building difficult, long-term companies* Why independent thinking matters more than following trends* The types of space startups Mina believes are still too early to realistically succeedAbout Mina MitryMina Mitry is the CEO and co-founder of Kepler Communications, a Toronto-based space infrastructure company building the world's first commercial optical data relay network. A first-generation Egyptian-Canadian, Mina started Kepler out of the University of Toronto in 2015 with $75,000 from pitch competitions. Under his leadership, Kepler has grown to over 200 employees, vertically integrated its satellite manufacturing, and launched 10 optical relay satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in January 2026. Mina holds advanced degrees in engineering, left a PhD program to start Kepler, and has become one of Canada's most outspoken advocates for sovereign space capability, real-time data infrastructure, and ambitious engineering.Connect with Mina Mitry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmitry?originalSubdomain=caVisit Kepler Communications website: https://kepler.space/Connect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com
It appeared as a towering plume of white smoke, dotted with glowing spots. That was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base along the Central Coast. Tensions remain high in the Iran war as President Donald Trump sets a deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route that has been choked by the conflict. Our news partner ABC30’s live updates track unfolding ceasefire proposals, escalating military threats, and sharp market reactions as global leaders push for diplomacy while oil prices and stock markets swing amid uncertainty. Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Philip Teresi on KMJ' on all platforms: --- Philip Teresi on KMJ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever else you listen to podcasts. -- Philip Teresi on KMJ Weekdays 2-6 PM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | Podcast | Amazon | - Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Artemis II crew has completed the most significant human spaceflight milestone since 1972 — a historic lunar flyby that took four astronauts further from Earth than any humans in history. In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover every moment of Flight Days 6 and 7, including the far-side blackout, a solar eclipse observed from beyond the Moon, and what comes next on the journey home. Plus: NASA faces another proposed 47% science budget cut, a cargo ship heads to the space station, Europe and China are about to launch a groundbreaking solar shield explorer called SMILE, and Blue Origin reveals its ambitious plan to map the Moon's hidden water ice. Today's Stories 1. Artemis II Days 6 & 7: The Lunar Flyby • The crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen completed a 7-hour lunar flyby on April 6 • Orion reached a maximum distance of 252,760 miles from Earth, surpassing the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles • Closest lunar approach: 4,067 miles above the surface at approximately 7 p.m. EDT • Christina Koch became the first woman to complete a lunar flyby • The crew witnessed an Earthset, Earthrise, and a solar eclipse from behind the far side of the Moon • Day 7 is a rest day; splashdown in the Pacific is targeted for April 10 2. NASA FY2027 Budget Proposal • White House proposes $18.8 billion for NASA — a 23% overall reduction • Science Mission Directorate would be cut by 47%, from $7.25B to $3.9B • More than 40 missions face termination; Mars Sample Return and SERVIR named explicitly • Exploration/Artemis funding would increase by ~10% • Congress rejected nearly identical cuts last year 3. Cygnus NG-24 ISS Resupply • Launch targeted April 8 from Cape Canaveral on SpaceX Falcon 9 • Named S.S. Steven R. Nagel after four-time shuttle veteran • Carrying 11,000+ lbs including Cold Atom Lab upgrade and stem cell research hardware • Also includes Africa's ClimCam AI-powered climate camera from Egypt, Kenya, and Uganda 4. SMILE Mission — Launch April 9 • Joint ESA / Chinese Academy of Sciences mission; first ever jointly designed, built, launched and operated by both agencies • Launches April 9 on Vega-C from French Guiana; 3-year science mission • Will give humanity its first complete, simultaneous view of Earth's magnetosphere reacting to the solar wind • Four instruments: soft X-ray imager, UV aurora camera, light ion analyser, magnetometer • Science orbit reaches 121,000 km above North Pole; up to 40 hours continuous observation per orbit • Critical for understanding and predicting space weather — protecting satellites, power grids and communications 5. Blue Origin Oasis-1: Lunar Water Ice Prospecting • Introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) • Two-smallsat mission deployed from Blue Origin's uncrewed Mk1 lander; ultra-low 10x50 km polar orbit • Instruments: neutron spectrometer (water ice to 1m depth), magnetometer (metals), multispectral imager (Helium-3) • 90-day global mapping phase followed by 10-day controlled deorbit — science continues to impact • Partnership with Luxembourg Space Agency; data licensed commercially, non-commercial data released publicly via ESRIC • Phase 1 of a 3-phase Project Oasis roadmap: orbit survey, surface mobility, then extraction operations 6. April Skywatching • Comet C/2025 R3: closest approach April 27, magnitude ~8, binoculars needed • Lyrid meteor shower peaks April 21–22, look toward Lyra from 10pm • Mercury at best visibility of 2026 in the eastern pre-dawn sky Links & Resources • NASA Artemis II Flight Day 6 updates: nasa.gov • Planetary Society Artemis II guide: planetary.org • NASA FY2027 budget: spacenews.com • Cygnus NG-24 launch: nasaspaceflight.com • ESA SMILE mission: esa.int/smile • Blue Origin Oasis-1: blueorigin.com Connect With Us • Website: astronomydaily.io • Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod • Instagram: @AstroDailyPod • TikTok: @AstroDailyPod • YouTube: Astronomy Daily • Tumblr: AstroDailyPodBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support.Sponsor Details:Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click HereThis episode includes AI-generated content.
It appeared as a towering plume of white smoke, dotted with glowing spots. That was a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base along the Central Coast. Tensions remain high in the Iran war as President Donald Trump sets a deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route that has been choked by the conflict. Our news partner ABC30’s live updates track unfolding ceasefire proposals, escalating military threats, and sharp market reactions as global leaders push for diplomacy while oil prices and stock markets swing amid uncertainty. Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Philip Teresi on KMJ' on all platforms: --- Philip Teresi on KMJ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever else you listen to podcasts. -- Philip Teresi on KMJ Weekdays 2-6 PM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Website | Facebook | Instagram | X | Podcast | Amazon | - Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Elon Musk's SpaceX is preparing to go public. Could it become one of the world's most valuable companies?One year on from “Liberation Day”, when sweeping tariffs reshaped global trade, we ask who's winning and who's paying the price.And from bankruptcy to comeback, Leanna Byrne speaks to the boss of Polaroid about why instant cameras are thriving again.(Photo: NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission lifts off in a Dragon spacecraft, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from the launch pad of Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, 28 September 2024. Credit: Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock).
Thank you for listening to Astronomy Daily! Here's everything from today's episode: Story 1: Artemis II — T-Minus Days to Launch NASA is targeting April 1, 2026 for the launch of Artemis II — the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen will fly a 10-day free-return trajectory around the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft on the SLS rocket from Kennedy Space Center. The six-day launch window runs April 1–6. Meanwhile, a new analysis suggests the mission could face elevated solar superflare risk, though NASA is proceeding after a successful Flight Readiness Review. Source: NASA — https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ Solar risk analysis: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/artemis-2-moon-mission-shouldnt-launch-until-late-2026-new-analysis-of-solar-superflares-suggests Story 2: G3 Geomagnetic Storm & Aurora Australis Multiple coronal mass ejections from the Sun triggered a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm, producing vivid auroral displays from New York to Scotland to — remarkably — Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe storm warning for March 23. Conditions are easing on March 24 (Kp 3–4) but some aurora activity may continue. March is historically the best month for auroras due to the equinox effect, and with Solar Cycle 25 at its peak, scientists say this could be the best aurora viewing period until the mid-2030s. Aurora forecast: https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ Aurora Australis guide: https://www.elle.com.au/culture/news/aurora-australis-southern-lights-march-2026-tonight-alert/ Story 3: JWST Finds 'Impossible' Atmosphere on Lava World TOI-561 b A Carnegie Institution-led team used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to detect the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet. TOI-561 b — an ultra-hot super-Earth about twice Earth's mass, orbiting its star every 10.56 hours — was expected to be a bare rock. Instead, JWST measured a dayside temperature far cooler than a bare rock would produce, indicating a thick atmosphere redistributing heat above a global magma ocean. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Source: Carnegie Institution for Science — https://carnegiescience.edu/ultra-hot-lava-world-has-thick-atmosphere-upending-expectations ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260322020255.htm Story 4: Sealed Apollo 17 Moon Rocks Reveal Surprise Sulfur Signal Sealed lunar samples from Apollo 17 (collected 1972, opened through NASA's ANGSA program) have revealed unexpected sulfur isotope signatures. A Brown University-led team found volcanic material from the Taurus-Littrow region is strongly depleted in sulfur-33 — unlike anything found on Earth. Possible explanations include ancient lunar atmospheric chemistry or a legacy of the Theia impact that formed the Moon. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Source: Brown University — https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-10-06/sulfur-isotopes-apollo-samples SciTechDaily: https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-open-moon-rocks-locked-away-since-1972-and-find-something-totally-unexpected/ Story 5: This Week in Global Rocketry An exceptional week of launches spanning five countries and seven rocket types: SpaceX Falcon 9 (Starlink 17-17, Tuesday; Starlink 10-44, Thursday — B1067's record 34th flight; Transporter 16, Sunday), Rocket Lab Electron (ESA Celeste demo sats, Wednesday, NZ), Isar Aerospace Spectrum (Onward and Upward, Wednesday, Norway), Chang Zheng 2C (Wednesday, China), CAS Space Kinetica 1 (Friday, China), Russia's debut Soyuz-5 (Friday, Baikonur), and ULA Atlas V (Amazon Leo batch, Sunday). The 73rd orbital launch attempt of 2026 worldwide. Full preview: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/launch-preview-032326/ Update: Progress MS-33 & Spectrum Rocket Progress MS-33 (also known as Progress 94) launched from the newly-repaired Site 31/6 at Baikonur on March 22 carrying 2,509 kg of supplies for the ISS Expedition 74 crew. A KURS antenna failure required ISS commander Sergei Kud-Sverchkov to dock the vehicle manually using the TORU backup system, scheduled for 13:34 UTC on March 24. Separately, Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket remains on the pad at Andøya, Norway, with a new launch window on March 25 (20:00–21:00 UTC) after weather delays. Progress MS-33: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/progress-ms33/ Spectrum launch info: https://isaraerospace.com/mission-updates-overview
01:16 Результати удару DART 10:22 Суперечки NASA и SpaceX 17:19 На жаль, я був правий
Astronomy Daily — S05E55 | 6 March 2026 Six stories today covering planetary defence, a cosmic laser record, a solar superstorm on Mars, space debris pollution, a mystery satellite launch, and the most charming farming experiment you'll hear about all year. Stories This Episode 1. Asteroid 2024 YR4 — Moon Impact Officially Ruled Out NASA has confirmed, using the James Webb Space Telescope, that infamous asteroid 2024 YR4 will not hit the Moon in 2032. The space rock — once the most dangerous asteroid identified in two decades — will instead pass the Moon at a distance of around 13,200 miles. It previously held a 4% lunar impact probability, now fully eliminated thanks to Webb's extraordinary sensitivity pushing it to the limits of what the telescope can observe. 2. MeerKAT Detects Cosmic 'Gigalaser' 8 Billion Light-Years Away South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope has spotted the most distant hydroxyl megamaser ever detected — a natural 'space laser' in a galaxy undergoing a violent collision more than 8 billion light-years away. The signal is so powerful it qualifies as a gigamaser. Adding to the serendipity, the signal was further amplified by a foreground galaxy acting as a gravitational lens on its 8-billion-year journey to Earth. The discovery points toward the future capability of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). 3. ESA's Mars Orbiters Record Solar Superstorm Hitting Mars A new Nature Communications study reveals what happened when the record-breaking May 2024 solar superstorm hit Mars. ESA's Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter recorded unprecedented electron density spikes in the Martian upper atmosphere — up to 278% above normal — and both spacecraft experienced computer glitches from the energetic particles. The study uses a novel spacecraft-to-spacecraft radio occultation technique and highlights how Mars's lack of a global magnetic field leaves it vulnerable to solar events in ways that Earth is not. 4. SpaceX Falcon 9 Re-entry Directly Linked to Atmospheric Lithium Plume For the first time, scientists have directly tied a specific rocket re-entry to a measurable atmospheric pollution event. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics detected a tenfold spike in lithium vapour in the upper atmosphere — from 3 to 31 atoms per cubic centimetre — in the hours following the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 upper stage off Ireland in February 2025. Eight thousand backward atmospheric simulations confirmed the connection. Published in Communications Earth & Environment, the paper raises important questions about the growing chemical footprint of the commercial space industry. 5. Rocket Lab Launches Mystery Satellite — 'Insight at Speed is a Friend Indeed' Rocket Lab completed its 83rd Electron launch from New Zealand, deploying a single satellite for a confidential commercial customer to an orbit 470 km above Earth. The company announced the mission just hours before liftoff, offering no further details on the customer or the payload's purpose. 6. Scientists Grow Chickpeas in Simulated Moon Dirt for First Time Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have successfully grown and harvested chickpeas in simulated lunar regolith — the first time this has ever been achieved. Using a combination of vermicompost (worm castings) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to condition the otherwise toxic, sterile moon dirt, the team produced flowering, seed-bearing plants in soil mixtures of up to 75% regolith simulant. The chickpeas have not yet been cleared for eating pending metal accumulation testing — but the team's goal of 'moon hummus' is, apparently, very much alive. Find Us: astronomydaily.io | @AstroDailyPod on all platforms Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · everywhere you listenBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support.Sponsor Details:Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click HereThis episode includes AI-generated content.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched NASA's SpaceX Crew 12 to the International Space Station (ISS). The crew are expected to dock on Valentine's Day. Arianespace successfully launched 32 Amazon Leo satellites from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. NASA and Vast have signed an order for the sixth private astronaut mission to the ISS, and more. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn and Instagram. T-Minus Guest Our guest today is Greg Gillinger, SVP for Strategy & Development, Integrity ISR. Elysia Segal brings us the Space Traffic Report from NASASpaceflight.com. Selected Reading NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 Launches to International Space Station Arianespace successfully launches 32 Amazon Leo satellites with the first Ariane 64 NASA Selects Vast for Sixth Private Mission to Space Station Axiom Space Secures $350M in Financing to Accelerate Space Station, Spacesuit Development NRO Advances Multi-Phenomenology Remote Sensing Solutions Space Systems Command- Special Delivery: Valentine's Day eCards! Share your feedback. What do you think about T-Minus Space Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at space@n2k.com to request more info. Want to join us for an interview? Please send your pitch to space-editor@n2k.com and include your name, affiliation, and topic proposal. T-Minus is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to Astronomy Daily! Today we explore the new lunar space race as SpaceX shifts focus from Mars to the Moon, Europe establishes its Moonport company, and NASA continues Artemis II preparations. Plus, scientists solve the mystery behind auroras, explain Uranus's radiation anomaly from 1986, and SpaceX returns to flight after a brief stand-down.Join hosts Anna and Avery for your daily dose of space and astronomy news!---### Featured Stories**[00:00] Introduction**Your hosts Anna and Avery preview today's Moon-focused episode**[01:15] SpaceX Pivots from Mars to Moon**- Elon Musk announces strategic shift to lunar settlement- Moon city achievable in under 10 years vs 20+ for Mars- Launch windows: Moon every 10 days vs Mars every 26 months- Alignment with Trump's space policy and Artemis program- Mars plans delayed but not abandoned (5-7 year timeline)- History of Musk's changing Mars predictions**[05:30] Europe's Moonport Ambitions**- German aerospace company OHB establishes European Moonport Company- Consolidating lunar mission activities and future infrastructure- Involvement in ESA's Argonaut lander and Gateway ESPRIT module- Moon base concept developed with Munich Airport International- European funding commitments at ESA Ministerial Council- Italy leads Moon exploration funding at €284 million**[09:45] NASA Artemis II Progress Report**- Technicians replace seals after hydrogen leak detection- Tail service mast umbilical repairs and testing- Operational changes for next wet dress rehearsal- Extended countdown hold times for troubleshooting- Crew training continues: Wiseman, Glover, Koch, Hansen- March launch window still under consideration**[13:00] Aurora Power Source Discovered**- International team solves decades-old mystery- Alfvén waves act as natural particle accelerators- Analysis of Van Allen Probes and THEMIS mission data- Universal model applicable to other planets- Collaboration between HKU and UCLA researchers- Applications for Jupiter, Saturn, and exoplanet studies**[15:30] Uranus Radiation Mystery Solved**- Voyager 2's 1986 anomaly explained after 40 years- Co-rotating interaction region (CIR) supercharged radiation belts- Comparative analysis with Earth's space weather events- Southwest Research Institute breakthrough- Implications for future Uranus orbiter missions- Similar applications for Neptune studies**[18:00] SpaceX Falcon 9 Returns to Flight**- Successful Starlink launch from Vandenberg after 5-day stand-down- 25 satellites deployed to orbit (Group 17-33)- Booster 1088 completes 13th flight with successful landing- February 2nd upper stage anomaly explained- Gas bubble prevented deorbit burn- FAA clearance after corrective actions implemented- Starlink constellation exceeds 9,600 active satellites- SpaceX's 15th launch of 2026Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/astronomy-daily-space-news-updates--5648921/support.Sponsor Details:Ensure your online privacy by using NordVPN. To get our special listener deal and save a lot of money, visit www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. You'll be glad you did!Become a supporter of Astronomy Daily by joining our Supporters Club. Commercial free episodes daily are only a click way... Click HereThis episode includes AI-generated content.
NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the Artemis II launch. SpaceX has acquired xAI. A SpaceX Falcon 9's second stage experienced an off-nominal condition during preparation for the deorbit burn after launching Starlink satellites on Monday, and more. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn and Instagram. T-Minus Guest Our guest today is Sara Harris, Executive Director of the Midland Development Corporation. You can connect with Sara on LinkedIn, and learn more about the Midland Development Corporation on their website. Selected Reading NASA Conducts Artemis II Fuel Test, Eyes March for Launch Opportunity SpaceX - Updates SpaceX X Update Singapore to launch space agency in response to global investment surge- Reuters ispace and Dymon Sign Agreement Regarding Development of Payload Transportation Box for Integration into Lunar Landers We're HAMming it up at New Mexico Museum of Space History! Share your feedback. What do you think about T-Minus Space Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at space@n2k.com to request more info. Want to join us for an interview? Please send your pitch to space-editor@n2k.com and include your name, affiliation, and topic proposal. T-Minus is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has shared plans to develop space-based data centers. A SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle launched the GPS III-9 Space Vehicle 09 for the US Space Force (USSF). The US Space Systems Command (SSC) has released a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the Hybrid Architecture and Development for Experimental Systems, or HADES, contract, and more. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn and Instagram. T-Minus Guest Our guest today is Brian Miske, Americas Space Leader for KPMG. You can connect with Brian on LinkedIn, and find out more about KPMG on their website. Selected Reading China plans space‑based AI data centres, challenging Musk's SpaceX ambitions- Reuters U. S. Space Force Field Commands successfully launch GPS III Space Vehicle 09 into orbit Space Systems Command Issues Draft RFP for HADES Contract NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 Begins Quarantine for Space Station Mission York Space Systems Announces Pricing of Upsized Initial Public Offering NASA's Arcstone Instrument Successfully Completes Primary Mission Share your feedback. What do you think about T-Minus Space Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at space@n2k.com to request more info. Want to join us for an interview? Please send your pitch to space-editor@n2k.com and include your name, affiliation, and topic proposal. T-Minus is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
LAPD officials say the department is now cleared to hire 410 new recruits as it works to rebuild staffing levels across the city. Brooklyn Beckham Feud & SpaceX Launch Brooklyn Beckham is confirming reports of a family feud, a move that has PR experts cringing as they urge David and Victoria Beckham to stay silent. Plus, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying 25 Starlink satellites into orbit—an event that could trigger sonic booms across parts of California’s Central Coast. Are Dogs Getting Smarter? New research and viral videos are raising the question: are dogs actually getting smarter, or are humans just finally paying attention? Hungover Driving Debate Is driving while hungover just as dangerous as driving drunk? We break down what the science and safety experts have to say. If you want these tighter, funnier, or more provocative for radio delivery, I can punch them up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode of Tank Talks, host Matt Cohen and recurring guest John Ruffolo kick off the new year with a true “only in 2026” combo: a front-row seat to a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch carrying Kepler Communications' satellites, followed by a hard reality check on Canada's venture capital slowdown. John breaks down what it felt like watching the rocket, the first-stage landing, and why Kepler's mission is bigger than a cool space flex: it's the early shape of space-based data centers and laser-linked networks.From there, Matt and John unpack an RBCx report arguing 2025 was Canada's worst VC fundraising year since 2016, and why “capital is fungible” is a comforting myth at the seed stage. They dig into how de-globalization and national self-interest are reshaping capital flows, why Canada is getting squeezed by the barbell effect in venture, and what policy levers (like a QSBS-style incentive) could actually restart domestic risk capital. The episode closes with two tension points that rhyme: Nvidia's $20B Groq (with a Q) deal showing how returns can flow outside Canada, and the escalating political drama of Trump's DOJ targeting Fed Chair Jerome Powell and what that uncertainty does to markets.If Canada can help put “data centers in the sky,” can it also build the domestic capital base to keep its best companies anchored at home?“A Data Center in the Sky” + Laser-Linked Networks (00:03:07)Kepler's satellites are positioned as more than comms hardware: think orbital compute + storage + real-time processing, with laser links connecting satellites like a network in space.The RBCx VC Report: 2025 Fundraising Hits a Low (00:05:51)Matt summarizes the report's headline numbers and why the pain concentrates on emerging managers and the long tail, not the handful of breakout founders who can raise anywhere.“Venture Investing Is Local” in a De-Globalizing World (00:08:39)John challenges the idea that foreign capital will fill gaps at the earliest stages. In this cycle, countries increasingly keep capital for their own ecosystems, making Canada's domestic shortage more dangerous.The Barbell Effect: Giants and Niche Funds Win, the Middle Gets Crushed (00:10:17)They outline how venture is polarizing into mega-platform funds and specialized micro-funds, while mid-sized generalists get squeezed, and why that dynamic is amplified in Canada.Nvidia's $20B Groq Deal and Canada's Return Profile (00:12:36)They break down the Groq (Q) story, Canadian ties among investors and operators, and the bigger question: if LPs can make outsized returns elsewhere, what keeps capital committed to Canada?Trump vs Powell: DOJ Pressure, Fed Independence, and Market Fallout (00:17:38)They react to the reported DOJ move against Jerome Powell, how even Republicans are uneasy about weaponization, and why political pressure campaigns tend to increase uncertainty, not lower it.Why Uncertainty Pushes Rates Up, Not Down (00:19:30)John's punchline: the intended outcome (lower costs, lower rates) can backfire as markets price in instability, and the Powell timeline may extend into a longer institutional fight.Connect with John Ruffolo on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/joruffoloConnect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com
The European Space Agency's (ESA's) Member States commit €22.1 billion Euros in contributions at the annual ministerial meeting. Europe's Vega C rocket launched an advanced Korean Earth-observation satellite from French Guiana. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on November 28 from Vandenberg Space Force Base for the Transporter-15 mission, and more. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn and Instagram. T-Minus Guest Bailey Reichelt from Aegis Space Law and Matthew Linton from Linton Space Law bring us Space Law FAQs. Selected Reading ESA Member States commit to largest contributions at Ministerial Watch Europe's Vega C rocket launch an advanced Korean Earth-observation satellite to orbit today- Space South Korea's largest satellite launched on Nuri rocket in ambitious space mission SpaceX - Transporter-15 Mission Hatches Open, Station Crew Expands to 10 - NASA Russia accidentally destroys its only way of sending astronauts to space- The Independent CHAPEA Crew Begins Stay Inside NASA's Mars Habitat for Second Mission Share your feedback. What do you think about T-Minus Space Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at space@n2k.com to request more info. Want to join us for an interview? Please send your pitch to space-editor@n2k.com and include your name, affiliation, and topic proposal. T-Minus is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In late November 2025, Taiwan marked a significant milestone with the successful launch of the first satellite in the Formosat-8 constellation. Carried into a 561-km sun-synchronous orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, the “Chi Po-lin” satellite symbolizes both technical progress and cultural meaning, extending the late filmmaker's aerial perspective of Taiwan into space. This mission inaugurates Taiwan's first domestically built high-resolution Earth-observation constellation. FORMOSAT-8 will eventually consist of eight satellites deployed between 2025 and 2031. With native 1-meter resolution—improving to roughly 70 centimeters for two advanced units—the constellation will provide multiple daily revisits over Taiwan. Importantly, about 84% of each satellite's core components are manufactured in Taiwan, covering optics, structures, propulsion, and electronics. This demonstrates the country's ambition to develop a self-reliant industrial base for space technologies. The episode also explores the broader global landscape. The value of the global space economy reached USD 570 billion in 2023 and is projected to exceed USD 1 trillion within the decade. Reusable rockets from SpaceX and Blue Origin, mega-constellations such as Starlink and OneWeb, and commercial imaging companies like Planet Labs and ICEYE are reshaping how nations communicate, observe Earth, and respond to climate and security challenges. In this episode, we examine what Formosat-8 means for Taiwan's space capabilities, how global players are redefining the space economy, and why satellite technology is becoming essential infrastructure for connectivity, environmental monitoring, disaster response, and national security. Taiwan's emerging participation in this ecosystem reflects both technological ambition and a strategic need for resilience in an increasingly complex world. 2025 年 11 月底,臺灣太空發展迎來重要進展。福衛八號首顆衛星搭載 SpaceX Falcon 9 成功進入 561 公里太陽同步軌道,正式啟動臺灣第一組自製高解析度遙測衛星星座。以導演齊柏林命名的首枚衛星象徵「從空中看臺灣」的精神延伸至太空,也展現臺灣提升自主太空能力的決心。 福衛八號採「6+2」配置,從 2025 至 2031 年將部署八顆衛星,其原生解析度達 1 公尺,部分可提升至約 70 公分,並具備每日多次回訪臺灣的能力。約 84% 的技術與零組件由臺灣研發製造,涵蓋光學、結構、推進與電子系統,意味著本土太空產業正逐步形成完整供應鏈。 本集節目也將延伸至全球脈動。2023 年全球太空經濟規模已達 5,700 億美元,預估本世代內有望突破 1 兆美元。從 SpaceX、Blue Origin 的可重複使用火箭,到 Starlink、OneWeb 的全球通訊網,再到 Planet Labs 與 ICEYE 的商業遙測服務,太空已成為通訊、氣候、國安與產業韌性的核心基礎設施。 在這集節目中,我們帶你理解福衛八號的技術進展、全球太空產業的競逐,以及臺灣如何藉由自主研發與國際合作,在新興太空經濟中建立關鍵角色。 Powered by Firstory Hosting
SpaceTime with Stuart Gary | Astronomy, Space & Science News
In this episode of SpaceTime, we delve into thrilling advancements in space exploration, including a remarkable test flight of SpaceX's Starship, groundbreaking insights into Mars, and a classified mission from the United States Space Force.Starship's Spectacular Test FlightAfter overcoming numerous challenges, SpaceX's Starship has successfully completed its 10th test flight, launching from Texas and splashing down in the Indian Ocean. This flight demonstrated the rocket's capabilities, including a controlled splashdown of the Super Heavy booster and the successful deployment of Starlink satellite simulators. The mission provided critical data on the vehicle's performance during reentry, including stress testing its heat shield.New Insights into MarsThe European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter has provided new observations of the Acheron Foci region, revealing the geological forces that have shaped the Red Planet. These findings highlight the impact of ancient geological upheaval and climatic shifts on Mars' landscape, offering clues about its past and the dynamic processes that continue to influence its environment today.Space Force's Secret Shuttle MissionThe United States Space Force has launched its 8th X37B space shuttle mission, utilizing a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This classified mission aims to test next-generation technologies, including advanced laser communication systems and quantum sensors. The versatile X37B continues to serve as a platform for various operational demonstrations and experiments in space.www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com✍️ Episode ReferencesEuropean Space Agencyhttps://www.esa.int/NASAhttps://www.nasa.gov/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched last night carrying the US Space Force's X-37B space plane. SpaceX has moved its Super Heavy booster to the launch pad at Starbase ahead of Starship's tenth flight test. Japan has announced that they will launch a new uncrewed cargo spacecraft HTV-X to resupply the International Space Station in October, and more. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn and Instagram. T-Minus Guest Elysia Segal brings us the Space Traffic Report from NASASpaceflight.com Selected Reading SpaceX - USSF-36 Mission SpaceX - Starship's Tenth Flight Test Japan to launch new spacecraft to resupply International Space Station in October- Reuters Japan to provide H3 rocket for Europe's mission to observe Apophis asteroid- Reuters L3Harris Expands Florida Facility to Support America's Golden Dome Live, Laugh, Launch | Rocket Lab China, Russia, and U.S. Race to Develop Lunar Nuclear Reactors But technical challenges may stymy ambitious deadlines Solar panels in space ‘could provide 80% of Europe's renewable energy by 2050' T-Minus Crew Survey Complete our annual audience survey before August 31. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at space@n2k.com to request more info. Want to join us for an interview? Please send your pitch to space-editor@n2k.com and include your name, affiliation, and topic proposal. T-Minus is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A new federal initiative could allow Americans to share private medical information through apps run by tech companies. Dr. Celine Gounder joins "CBS Mornings" to explain the benefits and the privacy concerns. SpaceX Falcon 9 is scheduled for liftoff Thursday, carrying a crew to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Zena Cardman is the commander of the mission. She was supposed to launch last year, but issues with Boeing's Starliner changed those plans. Now set to blast off into space, Cardman has special notes from her father, sent before he died last August, waiting for her at the ISS. Mark and Scott Kelly, brothers who are both veterans of four spaceflights, join CBS Mornings to discuss today's SpaceX mission and what they learned from years of pushing the boundaries of human spaceflight. Ellen Hendriksen, author of "How to Be Enough," shares insights on how to stop overthinking, overcome self-criticism, and feel good without needing to be perfect. In "The State of Spirituality," Lisa Ling explores how faith and spiritual care shape the final chapter of life. She meets a hospital chaplain whose own journey helps others find comfort in their final moments. Comedian and author Jenny Slate joins "CBS Mornings" to talk about her Emmy-nominated performance in "Dying for Sex," where she plays Nikki, the best friend and caretaker to a woman exploring desire after a terminal diagnosis. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches two new SES O3b mPOWER satellites to medium earth orbit (MEO). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) postponed the SpaceX Falcon 9 TRACERS launch on Tuesday, July 22 due to a regional power outage. New Zealand has passed legislation to regulate the use of ground-based space infrastructure following concerns about foreign actors using it to harm national security, and more. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn and Instagram. Selected Reading SES's Ninth and Tenth O3b mPOWER Satellites Successfully Launched FAA: ‘Regional power outage' causes last-minute scrub of NASA's TRACERS mission New Zealand introduces new laws to govern space infrastructure- Reuters BlackSky Wins Contract to Deliver Gen-3 and Gen-2 Monitoring Services to Latin American Defense and Intelligence Customers Earth Fire Alliance Releases First Wildfire Images from FireSat Protoflight OSC Seeks Stakeholder Feedback on the EU Space Act EU Space Act - European Commission Trump Administration Looking to Slash Environmental Protection Rules for Rocket Launches Poland Seeks to Get Stake in Surveillance-Satellite Maker Iceye NASA Challenge Wraps, Student Teams Complete Space Suit Challenges - NASA T-Minus Crew Survey Complete our annual audience survey before August 31. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at space@n2k.com to request more info. Want to join us for an interview? Please send your pitch to space-editor@n2k.com and include your name, affiliation, and topic proposal. T-Minus is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week we talk about Luna 2, soft-landings, and Firefly Aerospace.We also discuss the private space launch industry, lunar landers, and regolith.Recommended Book: The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. CoreyTranscriptIn 1959, Luna 2, a Soviet impactor-style spacecraft, successfully reached the surface of the Moon—the first-ever human-made object to do so.Luna 2 was very of its era; a relatively simple device, similar in many ways to the better-known Sputnik satellite, but getting a craft to the moon is far more difficult than placing something in orbit around Earth, in part because of the distance involved—the Moon is about 30-Earth's from the surface of the earth, that figure varying based on where in its elliptical orbit it is at the moment, but that's a good average, around 239,000 miles which is about 384,000 km, while Sputnik's orbit only took it something like 359 miles, around 578 km from the surface. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of 670-times the distance.So new considerations, like fuel to get there, but also charting paths to the moon that would allow the human-made object to actually hit it, rather than flying off into space, and even figuring out whether craft would need to be designed differently if they made it out of Earth's magnetic field, were significant hurdles that had to be leapt to make this mission a success; everything was brand new, and there were gobs of unknowns.That said, this craft didn't settle onto the moon—it plowed into it like a bullet, a so-called ‘hard landing.' Which was still an astonishing feet of research and engineering, as at this point in history most rockets were still blowing up before making it off the launch pad, including the projects that eventually led to the design and launch of Luna 2.The US managed their own hard landing on the Moon in 1962, and it wasn't until 1966 that the first soft landing—the craft slowing itself before impact, so that some kind of intact device would actually continue to exist and function on the surface of the moon—was accomplished by the Luna 9.The Luna 9 used an ejectable capsule that was protected by airbags, which helped it survive its 34 mph, which is about 54 kmh impact. This successful mission returned the first panoramic photographs from the surface of the moon, which was another notable, historic, incredibly difficult at the time feat.A series of rapid-fire firsts followed these initial visits, including the first-ever crewed flight to the Moon, made by the US Apollo 8 mission in 1968—that one didn't land, but it did circle the Moon 10 times before returning to Earth, the first successful crewed mission to the surface of the Moon made by the Apollo 11 team in 1969, and by the early 70s humans had made several more moon landings: all of them were American missions, as the US is still the only country to have performed successful crewed missions to the Moon's surface, but the Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 missions all put people on the lunar surface, and then returned them safely to Earth.The Luna 24, another Soviet mission launched in 1976, was the last big space race era mission to return lunar samples—chunks of moon rock and regolith—to earth, though it was a robotic mission, no humans aboard. And by many measures, the space race actually ended the previous year, in 1975, when Apollo and Soyuz capsules, US and Soviet missions, respectively, docked in orbit, creating the first international space mission, and allowing US astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts to shake hands, symbolically burying the hatchet, at least in terms of that particular, non-earthbound rivalry.What I'd like to talk about today is a recent, successful soft landing on the lunar surface that's historic in nature, but also contemporarily significant for several other reasons.—Firefly Space Systems was founded in the US in 2014 by a team of entrepreneurs who wanted to compete with then-burgeoning private space companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic by, like these competitors, reducing the cost of getting stuff into low Earth orbit.They were planning to become profitable within four years on the back of the also-burgeoning small satellite industry, which basically means selling space on their rockets, which are capable of carrying multiple small satellites on what's often called a ‘rideshare' basis, to companies and agencies that were keen to launch their own orbital assets.These smaller satellites were becoming increasingly popular and doable because the tech required was shrinking and becoming cheaper, and that meant you no longer needed a boggling amount of money to do basic research or to lob a communications satellite into orbit; you could spent a few million dollars instead of tens or hundreds of millions, and buy space on a rocket carrying many small satellites, rather than needing to splurge on a rocket all by yourself, that rocket carrying only your giant, extremely costly and large conventional satellite.This path, it was hoped, would provide them the benefits of economies of scale, allowing them to build and launch more rockets, which in turn would bring the costs of such rockets and launches down, over time.And the general concept was sound—that's basically what SpaceX has managed to do, with mammoth success, over the past decade completely rewiring how the space launch industry works; their many, reusable rockets and rocket components, and abundant launches, many of which are used to lob their own StarLink in-orbit satellites into space, while also usually carrying smaller satellites provided by clients who pay to go along for the ride, bringing all of these costs down dramatically.So that model is basically what Firefly was aiming for, as well—but the Firefly team, which was made up of folks from Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and other industry entities was sued by Virgin Galactic, which alleged that a former employee who left them to work for Firefly provided Firefly with intellectual property and committed what amounts to espionage, destroying data and hardware before they left.These allegations were confirmed in 2016, and some of Firefly's most vital customers and investors backed out, leaving the company without enough money to move forward. A second lawsuit from Virgin Orbit against Firefly and some of its people hit that same year, and that left the company insolvent, its assets put up for auction in 2017.Those assets were bought by an investment company called Noosphere Ventures, which relaunched Firefly Space Systems as Firefly Aerospace. They then reworked the designs of their rockets a bit and relocated some of the company's research assets to Ukraine, where the head of Noosphere Ventures is from.They picked up a few customers in the following years, and they leased a private launch pad in Florida and another in California. In 2021, they were awarded more than $90 million to develop exploration tech for the Artemis Moon program, which was scheduled for 2023 and was meant to help develop the US's private space industry; NASA was trying out a model that would see them hire private companies to deliver assets for a future moon-based mission, establishing long-term human presence on the moon, over the course of several years, and doing so on a budget by basically not having to build every single aspect of the mission themselves.That same year, the head of Noosphere Ventures was asked by the US Committee on Foreign Investment to sell nearly 50% of his stake in Firefly for national security reasons; he was born in Ukraine, and the Committee was apparently concerned about so much of the company's infrastructure being located in a country that, even before Russia invaded the following year, was considered to be a precarious spot for security-vital US research and development assets.This is considered to be something of a scandal, as it was implied that this Ukrainian owner was himself under suspicion of maybe being a Russian asset—something that seems to have been all implication and no substance, as he's since moved back to Ukraine and has gone on to be something of a war hero, providing all sorts of tech and other resources to the anti-invasion effort.But back then, he complied with this request, though not at all happily—and it sounds like that unhappiness was probably justified, though there are still some classified documents on the matter that maybe say otherwise; we don't know for sure publicly right now.In any event, he and Noosphere sold most of their stake in Firefly to a US company called AE Industrial Partners, and the following year, in 2022 it successfully launched, for the first time, its Alpha rocket, intended to be its core launch option for small satellite, rideshare-style customers.The satellites placed in orbit by that first launch didn't reach their intended height, so while the rocket made it into orbit, another launch, where the satellites were placed where they were supposed to go, actually happened in 2023, is generally considered to be the first, true successful launch of the Alpha rocket.All of which is interesting because this component of the larger space industry has been heating up; SpaceX has dominated, soaking up most of the oxygen in the room and claiming the lion's share of available contracts. But there are quite a few private space companies from around the world profitably launching rockets at a rapid cadence, these days. And many of them are using the same general model of inexpensive rideshare rockets carrying smaller satellites into orbit, and the money from those launches then funds their other explorations, ranging from government mission components like rovers, to plans for futuristic space stations that might someday replace the aging International Space Station, to larger rockets and launch craft that might further reduce the cost of launching stuff into space, while also potentially serving as in-orbit or off-planet habitations—as is the case with SpaceX's massive Starship craft.This is also notable, though, because Firefly launched a lander as part of its Blue Ghost mission, to the Moon on January 15 of 2025. That craft reached the moon, and successfully soft-landed there, on March 2 the same year.This lander was partly funded by that aforementioned 2021 Artemis award by NASA—it ultimately received just over $100 million from the agency to conduct this mission—and it was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, as the company's own Alpha rockets don't yet have the right specs to launch their lander, the Blue Ghost M1; which interestingly shared space in this rocket with another lander produced by a Japanese company called ispace, whose name you might recognize, as ispace managed to get a previous lunar lander, the Hakuto-R 1, to the moon in 2023, but communication was lost with the craft a few seconds before it was scheduled to land. It was confirmed later that year that the lander crashed; though again, even just getting something to the moon is a pretty impressive feat.So this SpaceX rocket, launched in mid-January of 2025, had two competing lunar landers on it, one made by Firefly and one made by ispace. That latter lander is scheduled to arrive on the surface sometime in early May of this year, though that might change, based on all sorts of variables. But the former, Firefly's Blue Ghost, successfully touched-down, soft-landing on the lunar surface on March 2.There's another lander from Intuitive Machines—the American company that can claim to be the first to successfully soft-land on the lunar surface, but whose first effort tipped over. Their new lander could arrive as soon as March 6, just days after Blue Ghost, and it'll be aiming for an area just 100 miles from the moon's south pole; an area that's of particular interest because of water ice contained in permanently shadowed areas thereabouts, which could be vital for long-term human occupation of the moon.So things are heating up on the lunar surface these days, but soft-landing something on the moon is still an accomplishment that few nations, much less private companies, have managed.In the past decade alone, India, Russia, and a nonprofit based in Israel have attempted and failed to achieve soft-landings, and those aforementioned Japanese and US companies managed to soft-land on the moon, but their landers tipped over, limiting the amount of research they could conduct once there. China is the only nation to have successfully achieved this feat on their first attempt, and they benefitted from decades of preexisting research and engineering know-how.And it's not surprising that this is such a rare feat: in addition to the incredible distances involved, the Blue Ghost lander was traveling at around 3,800 mph, which is more than 6,100 kpm just 11 minutes before it landed. It then had to slow itself down, while also adjusting its orientation in order to safely land on an uneven, crater-paved moonscape; it slowed to the pace of a slow walk just before it touched down.Science-wise, this lander is carrying tools that will help it measure the stickiness of regolith on different materials, that will allow for more precise measurements of the distance between earth and the moon, and that will help researchers study solar winds, radiation-tolerant technologies, and the moon's mantle. It has equipment that allowed it to detect GPS and Galileo signals from earth, which suggests these satellites might be used by craft and rovers on the moon, for navigation, at some point, and it has a drill that will allow it to penetrate the lunar regolith up to nine feet deep, among several other project assets.This has also served as a sort of proof of concept for this lander and mission type, as another Blue Ghost lander is scheduled to launch in 2026, that one aiming for the far side of the moon, with a third currently meant to head out in 2028, destined for a currently under-explored volcanic region.The aggregate goal of these US missions, alongside the research tools they deliver, is to eventually start building-out and supplying the necessary infrastructure for long-term human occupation of the moon, culminating with the construction of a permanently crewed base there.These sorts of ambitions aren't new, but this approach—funding companies to handle a lot of the legwork, rather than keeping those sorts of efforts in-house, within NASA—is novel, and it arguably recognizes the nature of the moment, which is increasingly defined by cheaper and cheaper, and in most ways better and better offerings by private space companies, while those deployed by NASA are still really solid and impressive, but incredibly slow and expensive to develop and deploy, in comparison.This is also happening at a moment of heightened geopolitical competition in space, and one in which private entities are equipping the nation states that would have traditionally dominates this industry.China's space agency has enjoyed a flurry of moon-related successes in recent years, and many of these missions have relied at least in part on efforts by private, or pseudo-private, as tends to be the case in China, companies.Business entities from all over the world are also regularly making the satellites and probes and components of landers that make these things work, so solar system exploration and space travel are no longer the exclusive wheelhouses of government agencies—the private sector is becoming a lot more influential in this area, and that's led to some novel security issues, alongside massive swings in influence and power for the folks running these companies: perhaps most notably SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's increasing sway over governments and even inter-governmental conflict, due in part to his company's space launch capabilities, and their capacity to beam internet down to conflict zones, earthside, via their StarLink satellite array.So this is an area that's heating up, both for earthbound and space-faring reasons, and the incentives and peculiarities of the private market are increasingly shaping the type of research and missions being conducted, while also changing the math of what's possible, how quickly, and maybe even what level of risk is acceptable within a given mission or program.Show Noteshttps://www.cnn.com/science/live-news/moon-landing-blue-ghost-03-02-25/index.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakuto-R_Mission_1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakuto-R_Mission_2https://spacenews.com/ae-industrial-partners-to-acquire-stake-in-firefly-from-noosphere/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_programhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_Alphahttps://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-firefly-aerospace-for-artemis-commercial-moon-delivery-in-2023/https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/18234604/firefly-aerospace-cape-canaveral-florida-launch-site-slc-20https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25861-next-generation-of-space-cowboys-get-ready-to-fly/https://apnews.com/article/moon-landings-failures-successes-545ea2f3ffa5a15893054b6f43bdbb98https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/science/blue-ghost-firefly-mission-1-moon-landing.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_Aerospacehttps://www.space.com/the-universe/moon/were-on-the-moon-private-blue-ghost-moon-lander-aces-historic-lunar-landing-for-nasahttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9208qv1kzohttps://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-firm-fireflys-blue-ghost-moon-lander-locks-lunar-touchdown-2025-03-02/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/science/intuitive-machines-second-moon-landing-launch-how-to-watch.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_south_polehttps://www.livescience.com/space/the-moon/how-far-away-is-the-moonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landinghttps://www.space.com/12841-moon-exploration-lunar-mission-timeline.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_24 This is a public episode. 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