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Artemis II brought the world into NASA's Orion spacecraft. When the mission ended, humanity was left “Basking in Reflected Glory” – or BIRGing, as psychologists call it.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
Space tourism felt more achievable after Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin debuted their suborbital rockets in the summer of 2021. Yet both companies had paused flying by 2026 — leaving would-be customers questioning if they'd ever reach space.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
Historically, SpaceX offset its wetlands destruction by donating land to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. But now it has a new approach. SpaceX is hoping to preserve one piece of land that can be tapped again — and again — as it develops the world’s most powerful rocket outside of Brownsville.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
Blue Origin sought to make space more accessible when it launched Michaela “Michi” Benthaus on a suborbital flight. She became the first person who uses a wheelchair to go to space.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
Intuitive Machines’ moon mission met its main goals: The spacecraft landed mostly intact, sent photos home and collected scientific data for paying customers. But there were significant challenges, too.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
U.S. senators from Texas want to display a space shuttle in Houston. Experts say the move will be expensive and logistically challenging.
Photo: Sean Smith/NASA
SpaceX got high on April 20, 2023, during its first launch of the combined Super Heavy rocket and Starship spacecraft from South Texas. Then the rocket exploded spectacularly.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
It sounds like a cheesy end-of-the-world movie: a gigantic space hurricane, packing 4,000 mph winds, is stalled above the Earth raining down high-energy electrons instead of water. Except this isn’t a movie. It happened. And it’s the topic of research published in a scientific journal.
Photo: Reid Wiseman/NASA
NASA appears to be walking back its pledge to land the first woman and person of color on the moon as part of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity initiatives from federal agencies.
Photo: Andrea Leinfelder
Marc Fries and Linda Welzenbach-Fries had never seen a highway so beautiful. The grass was freshly mowed. The road was flat. Light-colored gravel lined either side. It was the perfect place to find freshly fallen space rocks.
Photo: Wix
