Loren Grush

NASA Moves Steps Closer to Artemis II Fueling Test Ahead of Launch - NASA Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue to prepare the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground infrastructure in

Kind of wild that one of NASA's biggest human spaceflight mission in years COULD be happening next week, but we're still waiting to know what's up. www.nasa.gov/blogs/missio...

How AI Weather Models Are Making Better Forecasts Google, Microsoft and Nvidia are among the names vying to make forecasts more accurate for longer.

excited to have a story in Businessweek about the researchers who think AI weather forecasts can break through the limits of the Butterfly Effect: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Blue Origin has announced its own megaconstellation called TeraWeave, consisting of 5,408 telecom satellites that are "urpose-built to serve enterprise-grade customers" www.blueorigin.com/news/blue-or...

From left: Artemis II backup crewmembers NASA astronaut Andre Douglas and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jenni Gibbons and prime crewmembers NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, pose for a picture with NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, secured to the mobile launcher, as it makes the 4.2 mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis II test flight will take Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), around the Moon and back to Earth no later than April 2026. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Oh genuinely this photo of Artemis II is just so good.

Congress Defies Trump on NASA Science Budget The space community is breathing a sigh of relief after lawmakers rejected Trump proposed cuts.

Congress has passed the minibus spending bill for NASA, which would reject most of the proposed budget cuts for the agency www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

A small silver lining: Yes, NASA and NOAA did not do briefings for their global temp data sets released today. And they certainly do not emphasize the human causes. But they *did* release them. The work is still happening.

data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/grap...

www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monit...

It's "very unlikely" NASA will be able to recover the MAVEN Mars orbiter, NASA planetary science division director Louise Prockter says at the Small Bodies Assessment Group meeting this morning. Efforts to restore contact will resume Friday, after solar conjunction ends.

Why AI Data Centers in Space Aren’t Totally Science Fiction Tech billionaires want to move AI’s massive energy demands off Earth. The engineering hurdles are enormous.

Did a dive into the engineering challenges posed by data centers in space. They could work! But there's a lot of technological development to be done www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I've been feeling this schism a lot recently, mainly because those areas are the ones I cover the most. But X just feels like such a hostile place to be, geared toward anger and derision. Doesn't make those fields feel very inviting these days.

Fwiw, it was almost 10 years ago that I was warning of the exclusionary nature of Musk's vision of space colonization, subtle then but very much present. Most space advocates would pooh-pooh such talk saying Musk jcared about the survival of the whole human race and couldn't I see that?

YouTube video by NASA International Space Station Update: Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026

A NASA press conference on the Crew-11 mission should begin shortly www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffcV...

As an update to our earlier communication regarding a medical situation aboard the International Space Station, the matter involved a single crew member who is stable. Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11’s mission. These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely. We will provide further updates within the next 24 hours.

Overnight, the situation on board the ISS became more serious: NASA is now considering ending Crew-11 early due to a crew member's medical issue

Same. Hard to know how serious it is.

NASA is postponing the Thursday, Jan. 8, spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The agency is monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex. Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member. The situation is stable. NASA will share additional details, including a new date for the upcoming spacewalk, later.

NASA is postponing tomorrow’s planned spacewalk

One note from the STScI town hall at #AAS247 today: the median reentry date for Hubble, based on current modeling, is 2033; a <10% chance of reentry by 2029.

NASA’s Isaacman to Treat ‘Exceptional’ Staff to Private Jet Ride NASA employees now have another incentive to outperform for new agency head Jared Isaacman: rides in his private F-5 jets.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has donated his own private jets to the agency and is offering incentive rides on them to NASA employees who do exceptional work. What are your thoughts on this move? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Also fair

Do you still post on Twitter/X?

Yeah I feel that. It just doesn't scratch the itch in the same way Twitter did back when it felt like we were all hanging out with our space friends. Twitter always had its issues but posting on there now is such a gamble when it comes to response. Yet it seems to be where most people are still...

For the new year, I have resolved to be more active on social after kind of falling off a cliff the last year. I had put most of my eggs in the Twitter basket in the 2010s. But now wondering where people find the best connection -- is it here? Insta? Gulp TikTok? Where do you live online these days?

House Approps has released a pkg of FY2026 approps bills including CJS (NASA & NOAA).
appropriations.house.gov/news/press-r...

The Senate has confirmed Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator www.senate.gov/legislative/...

A Rocket Maker Burned Through Its Cash, Then Eric Schmidt Swooped In Relativity Space tried to build spacecraft with 3D printing. After a series of setbacks, Google’s former chief has taken the helm — and the old boss’s big idea is being left behind.

After the remarkable turnover at Relativity Space, my colleague @kielporter.bsky.social and I dove into what really happened at the company and how it's moving forward with its new CEO Eric Schmidt

SpaceX to Pursue 2026 IPO Raising Far Above $30 Billion SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that would seek to raise significantly more than $30 billion, people familiar with the matter said, in a transaction that would make it...

The SpaceX news just keeps on coming

This was one of my favorite projects I did at The Verge -- also my last! A fitting send off

NASA and Boeing are reducing Starliner's definitive mission to the ISS to four, after last year's botched test flight and the ISS program quickly approaches its end. Next Starliner flight, a cargo mission, is planned for April

Apollo's bold, unruly and controversial successor A visual guide to the audacious moon-landing mission design that put SpaceX and NASA in the hot seat — and has experts worried the US could lose the new moon race.

We've worked on this project for months — excited to finally share it!

[Note: The animations are not to scale, and details such as flight paths are simplified to give an illustrative overview of the mission design.]

cnn.com/interactive/...

Bezos’ Blue Origin New Glenn Rocket Launches First NASA Mission Blue Origin LLC launched its flagship New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, successfully reaching space and landing its first-stage booster shortly after launch, a major feat for the Jeff ...

Blue Origin sticks the landing on New Glenn's second flight www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Trump Revives Billionaire Isaacman’s Nomination to Top NASA Job President Donald Trump renominated Elon Musk ally Jared Isaacman to lead NASA on Tuesday, a major about-face just five months after the White House ended his candidacy as relations between Trump and M...

At last, some resolution www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Kim Kardashian Insists the 1969 Moon Landing Was Fake: ‘It Didn't Happen' Kim Kardashian revealed that she believes the conspiracy theory that the 1969 Moon landing did not actually happen, and she tried to convince her 'All's Fair' costar Sarah Paulson to believe it, too, ...

You'd think of all people, Kim Kardashian would know how selective editing works people.com/kim-kardashi...