Trump's defunding of NASA would be catastrophic

"This is probably the most uncertain future NASA has faced, maybe since the end of Apollo," Casey Dreier tells me over the phone. Dreier is the chief of space policy at The Planetary Society [...]

Boeing Starliner astronauts finally head home, nine months later

Eight days. That’s how long Boeing Starliner’s mission — its first flight test with crew aboard — was supposed to last. But this mission has been singular in almost every way, and astronauts B [...]

Why on Earth would NASA build a nuclear reactor on the Moon?

"Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon" is not a headline I imagined reading before last week. Sure, as a sci-fi loving nerd, I could see a future where nuclear power played a role i [...]

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is about to have its second close encounter with an asteroid

A NASA spacecraft will make a close approach to an asteroid in the main belt on Sunday afternoon, in the second of several asteroid flybys planned for its 12-year mission to study remnants of the earl [...]

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission teases new insights on how life began

NASA and its partners have published the first wave of information about the samples collected in the OSIRIS-REx mission. "The findings do not show evidence for life itself, but they do suggest t [...]

Senate passes minibus bill funding NASA, rejecting Trump's proposed cuts

After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate pass [...]

NASA finally has a leader, but its future is no more certain

After a rudderless year and an exodus of around 4,000 employees due to Trump administration cuts, NASA got what may be its first piece of good news recently. On December 17, the Senate confirmed billi [...]

DNA building blocks on asteroid Ryugu, bacteria that eat plastic waste, and more science news

Remember when Japan sent a spacecraft to an asteroid 180 million miles away to scoop some dirt off the surface? Six years on from its arrival to Earth, that sample has yielded some insights about what [...]

2025 is going to be another big year for commercial moon missions

As soon as late February, a lunar lander will depart from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on its way to the moon carrying instruments that could investigate what’s just beneath the surface. Barely two [...]