Say WOW

Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
If offered, rats will use cannabis to...
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Email address Sign up Thank you! Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. It appears that rats will often indulge in a bit of cannabis if given the chance, according to new research. But just like many humans, some rodents are more prone to the recreational drug than others. As neuroscientists explain in a study recently published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, stressed rats are far more...

Read More

If offered, rats will use cannabis to...
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Email address Sign up Thank you! Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. It appears that rats will often indulge in a bit of cannabis if given the chance, according to new research. But just like many humans, some rodents are more prone to the recreational drug than others. As neuroscientists explain in a study recently published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, stressed rats are far more...

Read More

SpaceX IPO plan sets stage for a...
TAMPA, Fla. — Other space companies are likely to move toward the public markets now that Elon Musk is openly signaling plans to pursue a SpaceX IPO next year, hoping to ride the wave of momentum behind a potentially record-breaking listing. Cape Canaveral–based Starfighters Space, which is developing a small satellite air-launch system using a fleet of supersonic F-104 fighter jets, said Dec. 10 it is increasing the size of its planned offering next week by $5 million to...

Read More

 
 
Scientists find a massive hidden CO2 sponge...
Rock samples that formed about 60 million years ago and were collected from far beneath the ocean surface have helped scientists understand how large amounts of carbon dioxide can remain locked away for extremely long periods. These samples show that CO2 becomes trapped within layers of lava rubble that build up across the seafloor. Researchers examined lava material drilled from deep below the South Atlantic Ocean to measure how much CO2 becomes incorporated into these rocks through interactions between...

Read More

The deep ocean is fixing carbon in...
In an effort to better understand how the ocean stores carbon, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and their collaborators have uncovered results that challenge long-held ideas about how carbon dioxide is “fixed” in the dark, deep sea. Led by UCSB microbial oceanographer Alyson Santoro, the team reports in Nature Geoscience that their work helps close a long-standing gap between estimates of nitrogen availability and measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) fixation in deep waters. “Something that we’ve been trying...

Read More

 
Inside the 2025 Mars Society Convention
The 2025 International Mars Society Convention convened at the University of Southern California this October for three days of passionate discussion about humanity’s future on the red planet. Speakers explored science, policy, technology, AI, synthetic biology, and the long-term path toward becoming a multi-planet species. In this episode, Mat Kaplan, senior communications adviser at The Planetary Society, shares his conversations with speakers and guests at the Convention. We hear from Robert Zubrin, founder of The Mars Society, who delivered...

Read More

Retirement
Retirement Information for NASA Employees The NSSC provides general administrative, advisory, and transactional support for federal benefits programs to all NASA employees, calculates retirement estimates, and processes retirement packages. In consideration of retiring employees on administrative leave, resources typically available only to NASA employees behind the NASA firewall are temporarily available below.  Most of your questions can be answered with one of these guides or the information below. This information may help you resolve questions you would otherwise contact the...

Read More

ESCAPADE begins its journey to Mars
NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft have finally launched on their journey to Mars. Designed to study how the solar wind interacts with Mars’ patchy magnetic fields and drives the loss of its atmosphere, ESCAPADE is NASA’s first dual-spacecraft mission to the Red Planet and a major milestone for the SIMPLEx program’s small, low-cost planetary explorers. The mission began its voyage aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket after several weather and space weather delays, marking the vehicle’s first science launch. We...

Read More

 
Smart Girl Dumb Questions: Casey Dreier answers...
This week on Planetary Radio, we’re sharing a special conversation from our friends at the Smart Girl Dumb Questions podcast. Host Nayeema Raza sits down with The Planetary Society’s Chief of Space Policy, Casey Dreier, to explore one of the most common questions in space exploration: Why does space matter, and is it really worth the cost? Casey breaks down how space exploration impacts daily life, from GPS and weather forecasting to cutting-edge technologies and scientific discoveries that could...

Read More

Book Club Edition: The Martians: The True...
There was a time when almost everyone, from Alexander Graham Bell to the Wall Street Journal, believed there was a supremely intelligent civilization on Mars, one that was probably trying to talk to Earthlings. Most of this belief could be traced to an amateur astronomer and charismatic speaker named Percival Lowell. David Baron tells this story in “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America,” the product of seven years of research into this...

Read More

Epic Spaceman: Making cosmic scale human
When his filmmaking career stalled during the pandemic, Toby Lockerbie turned to the one place that had never stopped inspiring him: the Universe. With no background in visual effects, he taught himself the tools needed to transform complex space science into cinematic stories using everyday objects and beautifully crafted visuals to make the Cosmos feel human. His channel, Epic Spaceman, now reaches millions and has earned multiple Webby Awards for its innovative approach to visualizing scale, awe, and accessible...

Read More