Kim Kardashian, long at the center of a few conspiracy theories herself, has cosigned one that’s a fan favorite — and also thoroughly debunked.
During the most recent episode of Hulu’s “The Kardashians,” the fashion and beauty mogul professed her belief that the 1969 moon landing, a watershed moment of great American pride, never really happened. She also tried to get her “All’s Fair” co-star Sarah Paulson to drink the Kool-Aid.
“I’m sending you, like, so far a million interviews with both Buzz Aldrin and the other one [Neil Armstrong],” Kardashian told Paulson on the show.
“Yes, do it,” Paulson told the Skims founder, promising to go on her own “massive deep dive.”
Kardashian then went on to cite an interview that’s made the rounds on TikTok wherein she alleged that Buzz Aldrin — who completed the Apollo 11 mission alongside Armstrong and capsule communicator Michael Collins — gave the hoax away. (The going theory, of course, is that famous footage of the mission was actually filmed on a sound stage.)
“So I think it didn’t happen,” Kardashian concluded, adding that Aldrin, 95, has “gotten old and now he, like, slurs.”
Hours after the episode dropped, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy fact-checked the socialite.
“Yes, @KimKardashian, we’ve been to the Moon before… 6 times!” Duffy wrote Thursday on X. “And even better: @NASAArtemis is going back under the leadership of @POTUS.”
“We won the last space race and we will win this one too,” Duffy wrote.
As for Aldrin’s takes on the matter, a 2022 Reuters article debunked one of the most popular clips used to implicate the former astronaut, which was was taken out of very critical context.
In a shortened version of the clip, Conan O’Brien recounts to Aldrin a childhood memory of his family watching the astronauts walk on the moon.
“No, you didn’t,” Aldrin responds, seemingly contradicting O’Brien’s account. Later in the interview, however, Aldrin clarified that the moon landing itself was authentic, but the animated footage broadcast by TV stations at the time was not.
The National Air and Space Museum has explained that there was a $2.3-million camera on board to capture the real-life images that were sent back to Earth.
Nonetheless, Kardashian doubled down on her opinion when a producer on “The Kardashians” probed further.
“For the record, you think that we didn’t walk on the moon?” the producer asked.
“I don’t think we did. I think it was fake,” Kardashian said, adding that she’s seen several videos of Aldrin allegedly disputing the event.
“Why does Buzz Aldrin say it didn’t happen?” she said. “There’s no gravity on the moon. Why is the flag blowing? The shoes that they have in the museum that they wore on the moon is a different print in the photos. Why are there no stars?”
For what it’s worth, there is gravity on the moon, albeit about a sixth of what it is on Earth, give or take. Hence the footage of astronauts bouncing across the lunar surface but not flying off into space. As far as there being no breeze, NASA planned for the lack of one — a rod can be seen holding up the top of flag, because scientists knew the stars and stripes wouldn’t fly without one. And did we mention that Aldrin did not say it didn’t happen? Yes, we did. We did mention that.
To her credit, Kardashian was self-aware enough to add that people were “gonna say I’m crazy no matter what.”
She also encouraged viewers to look for themselves on Tiktok. Keep in mind, though, the accounts that regularly promote the moon-landing conspiracy theory are also fond of other mistaken notions, like saying the Earth is flat and aliens built the pyramids.
Many actors talk about process but Ethan Hawke has made the act of creation central to his work. He’s played musicians and writers and when he’s gone behind the camera, he’s focused on the stories of composers, novelists, movie stars and country singers both famous and forgotten. Sometimes, it feels like he’s the unofficial patron saint of art suffering, fixated on the glory and anguish of putting yourself out there in the world.
So Hawke’s portrayal of Lorenz Hart, the brilliant but troubled lyricist responsible for beloved tunes like “My Funny Valentine,” in a story set shortly before his death would seem to be just the latest chapter of a lifelong obsession. But “Blue Moon,” Hawke’s ninth collaboration with director Richard Linklater, cuts deeper than any of his previous explorations. Imagining Hart on the night of his former collaborator Richard Rodgers’ greatest triumph — the launch of “Oklahoma!” — Linklater offers a wistful look at a songwriter past his prime. But the film wouldn’t resonate as powerfully without Hawke’s nakedly vulnerable portrayal.
It is March 31, 1943, eight months before Hart’s death at age 48 from pneumonia, and Hart has just gruffly left the Broadway premiere of “Oklahoma!” Arriving early at Sardi’s for the after-party, he plants himself at the bar, complaining to bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) that the show will be a massive success — and that it’s garbage. Eddie nods in a way that suggests he’s often lent a sympathetic ear to Hart’s rantings, allowing him to unload about the show’s supposedly banal lyrics and corn-pone premise and, worst of all, the fact that Rodgers will have his biggest smash the moment he stops working with Hart after nearly 25 years. “This is not jealousy speaking,” Hart insists, fooling no one.
As played by Hawke, Hart adores holding court, entertaining his captive audience with witty put-downs and gossipy Broadway anecdotes. Begging Eddie not to serve him because of his drinking problem, which contributed to the dissolution of his partnership with Rodgers, this impudent carouser would be too much to stand if he also wasn’t such fun company. But eventually, Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and his new lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) are going to walk through that door and Hart will have to swallow his pride and pretend to be happy for them. From one perspective, “Blue Moon” is about the beginning of “Oklahoma!” as a pillar of American theater. From another, it’s Hart’s funeral.
Set almost exclusively inside Sardi’s, “Blue Moon” has the intimacy of a one-man stage show. After Hart vents about “Oklahoma!,” he readies himself for the arrival of Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley), a gorgeous Yale undergrad he considers his protégée. (He also claims to be in love with her, which baffles Eddie, who rightly assumed otherwise.) If the universal acclaim of “Oklahoma!” will force Hart to confront his professional irrelevance, maybe Elizabeth’s beaming presence — and the promise of them consummating their feelings — will be sufficient compensation.
Linklater, the man behind “School of Rock” and “Me and Orson Welles,” has made several films about creativity. (In a few weeks, he’ll debut another movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” which focuses on the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s epochal “Breathless.”) But what distinguishes “Blue Moon” is that, for once, it’s about someone else’s achievement — not the main character. Fearing he’s a has-been, the diminutive, balding Hart slowly succumbs to self-loathing. He can still spitefully quote the negative reviews for his 1940 musical “Pal Joey.” And he nurses a paranoid pet theory that Rodgers decided to collaborate with Hammerstein because he’s so much taller than Hart. (“Blue Moon” incorporates old-fashioned camera tricks to help Hawke resemble Hart’s under-five-feet frame.) Linklater’s movies have frequently featured affable underdogs, but by contrast, “Blue Moon” is an elegy to a bitter, insecure man whose view of himself as a failure has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Of the many artists Hawke has honored on screen, he has never depicted one so touchingly diminished — someone so consumed with envy who nonetheless cannot lie to himself about the beauty of the art around him. Turning 55 next month, Hawke shares with Hart an effusive passion for indelible work but also, perhaps, a nagging anxiety about the end of his creative usefulness. If he were younger, Hawke would have come across as self-regarding. Here, there’s only a poignantly egoless transparency, exposing the lyricist’s personal flaws — his drunkenness, his arrogance — while capturing the fragile soulfulness that made those Rodgers and Hart tunes sing.
Apropos of his relaxed approach, Linklater shoots “Blue Moon” with a minimum of fuss, but one can feel its enveloping melancholy, especially once the next generation of artists poke their head into the narrative. (Sondheim diehards will instantly identify the brash young composer identified only as “Stevie.”) But neither Linklater nor Hawke is sentimental about that changing of the guard.
That’s why Hawke breaks your heart. All of us are here for just a short time: We make our mark and then the ocean comes and washes it away. In an often remarkable career, Hawke has never embraced that truth so completely as he does here. Ultimately, maybe the work artists leave behind isn’t their most important contribution — maybe it’s the love they had for artistry itself, a passion that will inspire after they’re gone. That’s true of Lorenz Hart, and it will hopefully prove true of Hawke and this understated but profound film for years to come.
It’s no secret that flights and hotels have increased in price, but for one traveller, the cost of their trip was dubbed ‘a trip to the moon with NASA’ as it saw a whopping price increase
Travellers were stunned at the holiday price increase(Image: Getty Images/Stock Image)
Gone are the days of booking a flight seat for £15.99 and an all-inclusive hotel for £100 as prices for a getaway abroad shoot up. But for one traveller, they were left baffled after their holiday package increased by a whopping £17million, prompting people to label it as much as a “trip to the moon with NASA”.
The holidaymaker, who didn’t reveal the exact details of their elaborate holiday, shared a screenshot of the cost inflation while using the TUI website. What started out as an £8million trip jumped to a staggering increase of £17million.
In a message on the TUI website, with the title ‘The cost of your holiday has increased’, it read: “We’re sorry to say the price for your holiday has gone up by £17734902.34. It’s because this trip uses flights from a third-party airline.
“We receive the latest prices from the airline a few times each day, but the price might change when we come to request the actual seats. Your new total is shown in the holiday summary.”
While it’s uncertain what the traveller put into the booking website, he shared the screenshot and wrote on Reddit: “So, £297 for both with flights seemed a little too good to be true, so I went through the motions. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have £18,000,000 in the bank to spend 4 days in Athens, even with the £2m discount.”
The post was met with a flurry of comments as everyone applauded the post. One asked: “Who are the third party airline, NASA?”
A second added: “Just a short layover on the moon.” “Sounds more like a Space X side hustle to me. Uber x Space X if you will”, a third penned.
“NASA’s having a…. bit of time off”, another shared. “Its only £120 deposit. Put it on klarna,” a fifth wrote.
While another wrote: “I feel you OP. I hate when they add on that little 69p to the price like that too. Like it’s such a sneaky trick. You can sort of rationalise it by convincing yourself you’re only paying £8867599 but let’s be honest here, you’re really paying more like £8867600.”
Someone else remarked: “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday”, before another chimed in with: “And right now you can save £1m per person. That’s £4m off for a family of four!”
A TUI spokesperson said the error was likely caused by a technical error, and they’d like to apologise for the confusion.
The crew of Artemis II will not land on the moon but will lay the groundwork for the first crewed missions to Mars.
Published On 23 Sep 202523 Sep 2025
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NASA may be headed back to the moon months sooner than originally planned, with the agency announcing that the first crewed flight in its Artemis programme could make the trip around the moon and back as early as February.
The space agency’s Artemis programme is the flagship effort by the United States to return humans to the moon, a multibillion-dollar series of missions that rivals a similar effort by China, which is aiming for a 2030 astronaut moon landing.
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In the first Artemis mission, an uncrewed spacecraft travelled around the moon and back in November 2022.
The goal of the Artemis II mission, a 10-day flight around the moon and back, is to “explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars”, according to NASA.
The crew of Artemis II will not land on the moon but will be the first to travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972, the BBC reported.
The mission was originally planned for April, but it could be moved up to February.
“We together have a front row seat to history,” Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA’s acting deputy associate administrator, said in a news conference on Tuesday. “The launch window could open as early as the fifth of February, but we want to emphasise that safety is our top priority.”
Artemis II is meant to be a test for the agency’s more ambitious mission, Artemis III, currently planned for 2027, and will involve a moon lander variant of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. The goal for Artemis III is to land on the moon.
Artemis II involves NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and its Orion capsule. The Orion capsule will ride atop the giant, 98-metre-tall (322 feet) SLS rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first time the spacecraft duo will fly with humans.
NASA’s most famous lunar excursion took place more than 50 years ago, when Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon in 1969 while acting as the commander of Apollo 11.
There’s a particular niche of sophisticated, loungy music that thrived from the late ’90s into the mid-2000s. It grew out of ELO’s regal rock and Serge Gainsbourg’s loucheness, taking on bits of U.K. trip-hop, midcentury exotica, the Largo scene’s orchestral flourishes and Daft Punk’s talkboxes. I don’t quite have a word for it — conversation-pit-core? — but a primary text of it is Air’s “Moon Safari.”
The French duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel released “Moon Safari,” Air’s debut LP, to wide acclaim in 1998. The band’s meticulously hazy synth pads paired beautifully with ultra-minimal funk bass and loping tempos. “Moon Safari” set a new benchmark for upmarket French pop, with singles like “Sexy Boy” and “Kelly Watch the Stars” proving they had chops for hooks as well. The band immediately followed it with the score for Sofia Coppola’s debut feature, “The Virgin Suicides,” and those two albums locked in Air as the ultimate turn-of-the-century band for tasteful European melancholy.
At the Bowl on Sunday, the band revisited the whole of “Moon Safari” with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, capping off KCRW’s festival season there. Since that album’s release, Coppola’s daughter Romy grew old enough to become an influencer herself, yet “The Virgin Suicides” remains a mood-board favorite for Gen Z. Fellow travelers like Bonobo, who opened the night with a DJ set, have become arena stars in their own right.
“Moon Safari” has held up wonderfully on its own merits. But as algorithms funnel audiences deeper into formless background listening, Sunday’s show was a reminder that chill can be compelling. Air’s intense focus gave these wispy songs a strong backbone too.
From the opener of “La Femme d’Argent,” lifted by Godin’s nimble basslines, the vibes were, as they say, immaculate. Dressed in all-white formalwear, the band took care to show how much compositional rigor went into this album’s laid-back feeling. The arrangements highlighted the nuanced tones of each of Dunckel’s many synths, and how the band’s Beatles-y chord changes could keep your ears locked into the most stark passages.
Extra credit goes to Air’s creative direction and lighting designer, who locked the band inside a rectangular elevated platform that gave the look of performing inside a James Turrell sculpture. It’s a neat conceptual challenge to visually enliven a famously blissed-out album like this onstage, and Air did it with exquisite panache on Sunday.
The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra usually kicks back on shows like this, adding some sizzle and arrangement richness but functioning more as another band member. The orchestra’s horns perked up during “Ce Matin-là” and raised the dramatic temperature on closer “Le Voyage de Pénélope,” but the whole set was an exercise in restraint as a means of making sure every good idea gets its shine. “Moon Safari” didn’t need much else, but what it got was illuminating.
The back half of the set went into the band’s score work for Coppola — “Highschool Lover” and “Alone in Kyoto,” from “The Virgin Suicides” and “Lost In Translation” respectively, stirred the wistful elder millennials among the crowd, this writer included. They adopted a Daft Punk-ish distance on “Electronic Performers,” touting how “MIDI clocks ring in my mind … We need envelope filters to say how we feel,” but they didn’t really need that wink and nudge. When they broke the spell of ethereal cuts like “Cherry Blossom Girl” for heavier, krautrock-driven numbers like “Don’t Be Light,” they proved that being roused from tasteful stoned pondering is as fun as falling into it.
WASHINGTON — Early in his first term, President Trump held a modest ceremony directing NASA to return humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years. It was a goalpost set without a road map. Veterans of the space community reflected on the 2017 document, conspicuously silent on budgets and timelines, equivocating between excitement and concern.
Was Trump setting up a giveaway to special interests in the aerospace community? Or was he setting forth a real strategic vision for the coming decade, to secure American leadership in the heavens?
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It was a return to a plan first proposed by President George W. Bush in 2004, then abandoned by President Obama in 2010, asserting the moon as a vital part of American ambitions in space. Whether to return to the lunar surface at all — or skip it to focus on Mars — was a long-standing debate governing the division of resources at NASA, where every project is precious, holding extraordinary promise for the knowledge of mankind, yet requiring consistent, high-dollar funding commitments from a capricious Congress.
Eight years on, the debate is over. Trump’s policy shift has blazed a new American trail in space — and spawned an urgent race with China that is fast approaching the finish line.
Both nations are in a sprint toward manned missions to the lunar surface by the end of this decade, with sights on 2029 as a common deadline — marking the end of Trump’s presidency and, in China, the 80th anniversary of the People’s Republic.
A “What Will 2030 Look Like?” sign behind Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who chairs the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, during a confirmation hearing in April.
(Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
It is a far different race from the original, against the Soviet Union, when U.S. astronauts inspired the world with a televised landing in 1969. This time, Washington would not just plant a flag and return its astronauts home. Instead, the Americans plan to stay, establishing a lunar base that would test humanity’s ability to live beyond Earth.
China has similar plans. And with both countries aiming for the same strategic area of the surface — the south pole of the moon, where peaks of eternal light shine alongside crevices of permanent darkness, believed to store frozen water — the stakes of the race are grounded in national security. Whichever nation establishes a presence there first could lay claim to the region for themselves.
The world’s first full-scale model of the crewed pressurized lunar rover, to be used in the Artemis moon exploration program, is displayed during a press preview in July.
(Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images)
Advocates of the U.S. effort, called the Artemis program, increasingly fear that delays at NASA and its private sector partners, coupled with proposed funding cuts to NASA from the Trump administration, could ensure China’s victory in a race with broad consequences for U.S. interests.
So it is a race that Trump started. The question is whether he can finish it.
While U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that Beijing is on track to meet its goals, NASA veterans say that accomplishing a manned mission before the Chinese appears increasingly out of reach.
“It’s a stretch,” said G. Scott Hubbard, a leader in human space exploration for the last half-century who served as NASA’s first “Mars czar” and former director of the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. “Bottom line, yes, it is doable. It’ll take an intense effort by the best engineers, and appropriate funding.
“It’s not inconceivable,” he added.
Visitors take photos of a space suit during an event marking China’s Space Day at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang province.
(Wang Jianwei/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The White House said Trump is committed to making “American leadership in space great again,” noting his first-term push to return U.S. astronauts to the moon and his efforts to deregulate the U.S. space industry. But officials declined to comment on a timeline for the mission or on China’s steady progress.
“Being first and beating China to the moon matters because it sets the rules of the road,” Sean Duffy, Transportation secretary and acting NASA administrator, told The Times. “We’re committed to doing this right — safely, peacefully, and ahead of strategic competitors — because American leadership on the moon secures our future in space.”
The success of the Artemis program, Duffy said, is about ensuring the United States leads in space for generations to come. “Those who lead in space lead on Earth,” he added.
NASA officials, granted anonymity to speak candidly, expressed concern that while leadership on the Artemis program has remained relatively stable, talent on robotics and in other key areas has left the agency at a critical time in the race, with potentially less than two years to go before China launches its first robotic mission to the south pole — a scout, of sorts, for a manned landing to follow.
A proposal to cut NASA research funding by roughly 47% has gripped officials there with doubt, jeopardizing a sense of job security at the agency and destabilizing a talent pipeline that could prove critical to success.
In the 1960s, the federal government increased spending on NASA to 4.4% of GDP to secure victory in the first space race.
“There’s too much uncertainty,” one NASA official said, raising the specter of the Trump administration impounding funds for the agency even if Congress continues to fund it.
Inside NASA headquarters, Hubbard said, “the feeling right now is terrified uncertainty — everyone is walking on eggshells.”
“They’re treading water,” he added. “People want to be given clear direction, and they’re not getting it.”
A Chinese Smart Dragon-3 rocket carrying satellites lifts off from sea on Sept. 9.
(VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
China’s long march gets closer
Beijing conducted a series of tests over the last several weeks viewed in Washington as crucial milestones for China on its journey to the moon.
A launch of its Lanyue lander, equipped to carry two taikonauts to the lunar surface, “validated” its landing and takeoff system, state media reported. Two subsequent tests of China’s Long March 10, a super-heavy lift rocket designed to jump-start the mission, were a “complete success,” according to the China Manned Space Agency.
Unlike in the United States, China’s manned space flight program is housed within its military.
“We have seen them steadily progress on all of the various pieces that they are going to need,” said Dean Cheng, senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“You need a vehicle to launch, because current rockets simply don’t have enough throw-weight. They’re testing the lander to carry astronauts to the surface,” Cheng said. “These are key pieces, and significant advances — this is a brand new rocket and a lunar lander with new technology.”
China initially set a goal for its manned mission by 2035, but has since moved up its plans, an expression of confidence from Beijing and an unusual break from typical party protocol. Now, China aims not only to have completed that mission, but to begin establishing an International Lunar Research Station on its surface, in conjunction with Russia, by 2030.
They are expected to target the south pole.
“There’s room for two powers under schemes of coordination, but there’s not room in an uncoordinated environment. There can easily be a competition for resources,” said Thomas González Roberts, an assistant professor of international affairs and aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Landing and takeoff of spacecraft on the moon will kick up lunar dust and rocks, risking the safety of astronauts on the ground and sensitive equipment across a base site — considerations that are likely driving Beijing’s strategy to get there first. Those enjoying the benefits of first arrival could set up generous routes for rovers, equipment at dig sites for deposits, telecommunication assets, and even a nuclear reactor to assert a large area of domain.
Since his first term, Trump and his aides have sought to avoid a showdown on the lunar surface, drafting a new set of international rules to govern an otherwise untamed frontier. The Artemis Accords “set out a practical set of principles to guide space exploration,” according to the State Department. President Biden embraced and extended the initiative, growing the list of signatories to 56 nations.
But China is not one of them, prohibited by Congress during the Obama era from cooperating with the United States in space after attempting to steal U.S. technology on intercontinental ballistic missiles and thermonuclear weapons. Instead, Beijing has recruited a small list of countries to join its lunar base program, including Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Egypt, Nicaragua, Belarus and South Africa.
“I don’t think there will be extreme congestion on the moon, but if you really define an area of interest — and there is that, with these peaks of eternal light next to permanently shadowed regions — you could manufacture congestion,” Roberts added.
“How do you benefit from obfuscation?” he asked. “If you’re the first arrival, you spread yourself out.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, carrying Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft toward the International Space Station.
(Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The promise and burden of Musk’s Starship
Last month, Duffy warned NASA staff that the Trump administration suspects Beijing is planning to deliver a nuclear reactor to power a long-term presence at its lunar base by 2029.
The move, Duffy said, could allow China to “declare a keep-out zone, which would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned Artemis presence if not there first.” He ordered the agency to collect proposals by October on delivering a U.S. reactor to the surface no later than that year.
The administration’s success relies on a man whose relationship with Trump has crashed spectacularly to Earth.
Starship, a super heavy-lift launch vehicle produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is the rocket Trump is relying on to accomplish the Artemis mission. Yet repeated setbacks in the Starship program have raised alarm at NASA over its fundamental constitution. A concerning series of tests have already delayed the U.S. manned launch, known as Artemis III, toward the end of Trump’s term.
Last month, in its 10th test flight, the rocket finally succeeded in a suborbital mission. But “Starship has yet to reach orbit,” Hubbard said, “and once it reaches orbit, they’ve got to demonstrate microgravity transfer of cryogenic propellant.”
“That’s something that’s never been done before,” he added. “So to say that they’ll be ready to do all of that in two years is a real stretch.”
Setbacks are common course in the history of the U.S. space program. But the success of China’s recent tests has shown the Trump administration that NASA and its partners have run out of time for further delays.
Duffy said that Artemis II, a manned mission to orbit the moon, will take place early next year, overcoming a separate set of design flaws that faced Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft. Artemis III would keep astronauts on the surface for more than a week and deliver payloads to help begin the foundation of a base.
Whether the Trump administration will commit to the funding and leadership necessary for the mission is an open question. The White House declined to say who within the West Wing is leading the effort. Trump has not named a permanent NASA administrator for Senate confirmation.
Success on the moon is meant to provide a testing ground and a launching pad for more ambitious, challenging manned missions to Mars. But Trump’s commitment to those ventures are equally in doubt. The administration has proposed canceling funds for a landmark program decades in the making to return samples from the red planet, despite a NASA announcement last week revealed it had discovered signs of ancient Martian life.
“I’ve been on the inside of it — you waste enormous amounts of time just trying to find workarounds to get funding in to stay on schedule,” Hubbard said. “If you really, really want to beat the Chinese, give NASA the funding and some stability — because you’re not going to beat them if every day, week or month, there’s a different direction, a different budget, a different administrator.
“And China may still win,” he said, adding: “It would be another claim that they’re the dominant power in the world.”
In 1901, U.S. President William McKinley died of wounds inflicted by an assassin eight days earlier. He was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1920, the first live radio dance music was broadcast, carried by a Detroit station and featuring Paul Specht and his orchestra.
In 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 2 — known informally as Lunik 2 — became the first Earth-launched space vehicle to land on the moon.
In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was founded.
OPEC ministers meet in Moscow on December 23, 2008. File Photo by Anatoli Zhdanov/UPI
In 1982, Princess Grace of Monaco — American film actress Grace Kelly — was killed when her car plunged off a mountain road by the Cote D’Azur. She was 52.
In 1991, the South African government, ANC, Inkatha Freedom Party and 20 other anti-apartheid groups signed a peace accord to end black factional violence.
In 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush proclaimed this to be a day of national mourning and remembrance for those killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The FBI identified the hijackers and said several had taken flying lessons in Florida.
In 2005, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, the third and fourth largest U.S. air carriers, filed for bankruptcy as the industry reeled under record high jet fuel costs.
In 2008, the U.S. brokerage firm Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for $50 billion and Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy after it failed to find a buyer.
File Photo by Laura Cavanaugh/UPI
In 2010, U.S. hiker Sarah Shourd, imprisoned in Iran on charges of espionage for more than a year after she and two male companions were accused of illegally crossing into Iranian territory, was released on $500,000 bail. The men — Shane Bauer, her fiance, and Josh Fattal — were freed just over a year later.
In 2023, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, on felony gun charges. He was the first child of a sitting president to be charged by the department.
On Monday, NASA (Florida’s Kennedy Space Center seen in April) said its annual public Lunabotic challenge is one of several student challenges related to Artemis, and that next year’s seeks mechanical robots with an ability to construct berms out of lunar regolith on the Moon’s surface. File Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo
Sept. 8 (UPI) — NASA on Monday announced its 2026 Lunabotics challenge that seeks a team or person to create a robot able to move about and build things on the moon’s surface.
The challenge comes as the space agency gears up for future lunar activity as part of its Artemis program.
NASA officials said its annual challenge — held since 2010 — is one of several student challenges associated with Artemis, and that next year’s event seeks mechanical robots with an ability to construct berms out of lunar regolith by using loose, fragmental material found on the moon’s surface.
“We are excited to continue the Lunabotics competition for universities as NASA develops new moon-to-Mars technologies for the Artemis program,” Robert Mueller, senior technologist at NASA, said in a statement.
Officials at America’s space agency said berms will be critical during lunar missions as blast protection during landings and launches. They added that, among other uses, berms also will play a role in shading for cryogenic propellant tank farms and radiation shielding around nuclear power plants.
“Excavating and moving regolith is a fundamental need to build infrastructure on the moon and Mars, and this competition creates 21st century skills in the future workforce,” said Mueller, also co-founder and chief judge of the Lunabotics competition.
NASA said the competition will provide hands-on experiences in computer coding, engineering, manufacturing, fabricating and other crucial tech skills.
Officials will notify selected teams to begin the challenge, the top 10 teams will be invited to bring their robot creations to the final competition in Florida in May at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex’s Artemis Arena.
The team scoring the most points will receive the Lunabotics Grand Prize and participate in an exhibition-style event at NASA Kennedy.
An in-person qualifying event will be held May 12-17 at the University of Central Florida’s Space Institute’s Lab in Orlando.
The NASA challenge launched Monday comes after last week’s announcement that a separate NASA competition is seeking a special space wheel in a design by an American inventor or team.
Meanwhile, interested participants can submit applications via NASA’s portal starting Monday and find other information in the challenge guidebook.
Stargazers enjoyed a “blood moon” during a total lunar eclipse visible across Asia, as well as swaths of Europe and Africa.
When the sun, Earth, and the moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour — an effect that has astounded humans for millennia.
People in Asia, including India and China, were best placed to see Sunday’s total eclipse, which was also visible on the eastern edge of Africa as well as in western Australia.
The total lunar eclipse lasted from 17:30 GMT to 18:52 GMT.
Stargazers in Europe also had a brief chance to see a partial eclipse just as the moon rose during the early evening, but the Americas missed out.
The moon appears red during lunar eclipses because the only sunlight reaching it is “reflected and scattered through the Earth’s atmosphere”, said Ryan Milligan, an astrophysicist at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Blue wavelengths of light are shorter than red ones, so they are more easily dispersed as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere, he told the AFP news agency.
“That’s what gives the moon its red, bloody colour.”
While special glasses or pinhole projectors are necessary to observe solar eclipses safely, all that is required to view a lunar eclipse is clear weather and a suitable spot.
The last total lunar eclipse was in March this year, while the previous one was in 2022.
Timelapse footage shows Blood Moon rising around the world
Sky-watchers around the world have been witnessing a striking Blood Moon – a phenomenon that happens when the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow, taking on a deep red hue.
The captivating display was visible in its totality in several countries around world.
Getty Images
People at the top of the Shanghai World Financial Centre in China watch as the Moon rises above skyscrapers in the financial district
Getty Images
The Moon illuminates a promenade along the Huangpu river in the Chinese city of Shanghai
Getty Images
The full Moon above a minaret in Kuwait City in Kuwait
Sunshinesid/BBC Weather Watchers
A deep red Moon was also seen above Malton, UK
Reuters
A golden statue in Dresden, Germany, is seen alongside the Moon
EPA
A striking view of the Blood Moon near a building in Berlin
Reuters
In Baghdad, Iraq, the Moon stands out in the hazy sky near a ferris wheel
EPA
The Blood Moon with a partial lunar eclipse seen in Jerusalem
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States has confirmed that one of its most famous space explorers, Jim Lovell, has died at age 97.
In a statement on Friday, Transportation Secretary and NASA administrator Sean Duffy confirmed that Lovell passed away at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Lovell is perhaps most famous for his 1968 voyage on the Apollo 8 space flight, which made history as the first voyage to take human beings past the Earth’s gravitational field and around the moon.
For that flight, which took more than six days to complete, Lovell served as command module pilot, alongside astronauts Frank Borman II and William Anders. They circled the moon 10 times before returning to Earth.
Lovell was the last surviving crew member from that flight.
He also was a key figure on the doomed 1970 Apollo 13 flight, which was meant to conduct the third lunar landing.
But the flight met disaster when its oxygen tank exploded in space, endangering all on board. It was unclear whether Lovell, the most experienced astronaut on the flight, and his two colleagues, John Swigert Jr and Fred Haise Jr, would return from the voyage alive.
As mission commander, however, Lovell helped steer their lunar module back to Earth in a death-defying splashdown. It was his last space flight, and he has been praised for his calm under pressure.
“Jim’s character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success,” Duffy said.
“From a pair of pioneering Gemini missions to the successes of Apollo, Jim helped our nation forge a historic path in space that carries us forward to upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.”
We are saddened by the passing of Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13 and a four-time spaceflight veteran.
Known by the nickname Smilin’ Jim, Lovell was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 25, 1928.
He began his aviation career in the 1950s as part of the US Navy, where he completed a four-year tour of duty as a test pilot in Maryland. During his naval service, he logged more than 7,000 hours of flying time.
Then, in 1962, he was selected by NASA to be an astronaut. His first space flight took place as part of the Gemini project, a series of flights designed to improve space travel in order to pave the way for the later Apollo moon missions.
At first, Lovell was a backup pilot for Gemini 4. But he got his break with the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, which was only the 12th crewed flight the US had sent to space by that point.
He was paired with Borman, his future Apollo 8 colleague, for that launch, and together, they made a rendezvous in space with Gemini 6 — a first-time feat for two crewed flights.
Lovell was also on the spacecraft for the final mission of the project, Gemini 12, which paired him with Buzz Aldrin, then a rookie.
With the Gemini missions complete, NASA turned its attention to putting a man on the moon.
Lovell and his colleagues on Apollo 8 helped make that possible, with NASA dubbing the circumnavigation “man’s maiden voyage to the moon”.
“We could actually see the Earth start to shrink,” Lovell would later tell the TV channel CSPAN. “It reminds me of being in a car, looking out the back window, going inside a tunnel and seeing the tunnel entrance shrink as you go farther into the tunnel. It was quite a sensation to think about.”
“You had to pinch yourself: Hey, we’re really going to the moon.”
Astronaut Jim Lovell is photographed inside the Apollo 13 lunar module in April 1970 [NASA via AP]
In 1969, Apollo 11 would make good on the promise of Lovell’s mission, achieving the first successful moon landing of a crewed flight. Lovell’s former colleague Aldrin joined Neil Armstrong in being the first human beings to plant a foot on the moon.
Lovell was meant to land on the moon himself. He was 42 at the time of his flight with Apollo 13, which was likewise charged with completing a lunar landing.
But two days into the 10-day mission, the crew heard an explosion. “OK, Houston,” Lovell’s colleague Swigert radioed back to Earth, coining a famous phrase. “We’ve had a problem here.”
Lovell communicated that the spacecraft was “venting something out into” space. That turned out to be oxygen leaking out of an exploded tank. Another tank remained, but it was damaged, as were the fuel cells. That, in turn, risked leaving the astronauts without electricity.
The fate of the three astronauts on board the Apollo 13 mission, including Lovell, captured international attention.
The crew ultimately transformed their lunar module into a “lifeboat” and faced dangerous levels of carbon dioxide as they looped around the moon to boomerang back to Earth.
Fred Haise, Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell gather for a photo on the day before launch of Apollo 13 on April 10, 1970 [NASA via AP]
Lovell ultimately co-wrote a book about his experience, Lost Moon, and the American actor Tom Hanks played him in a 1995 film adaptation, called Apollo 13.
Lovell himself made a cameo appearance opposite Hanks.
During his final days, Lovell met with Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, who wrote about the meeting on social media.
“Yesterday, I was honored to meet one of my personal heroes, Navy Veteran and astronaut Jim Lovell,” Collins said. “Jim’s remarkable leadership during the historic Apollo 13 mission is an inspiration to all!”
Upon learning of Lovell’s death, Collins joined in the outpouring of condolences: “Astronaut and Navy Veteran Jim Lovell was a legend, plain and simple.”
Rosemary Coogan is surrounded by a team of people pushing, pulling, squishing and squeezing her into a spacesuit.
It takes about 45 minutes to get all her gear on before a helmet is carefully lowered over her head.
The British astronaut is about to undergo her toughest challenge yet – assessing whether she is ready for a spacewalk. The test will take place in one of the largest pools in the world: Nasa’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The pool – which is 12m deep (40ft) – contains a life-sized replica of the International Space Station (ISS), and a “spacewalk” here is as close as it gets to mimicking weightlessness on Earth.
Kevin Church/BBC
Dr Rosemary Coogan graduated as a European Space Agency astronaut in 2024
“It’s a big day,” Rosemary says before the dive, which is going to last more than six hours. “It’s very physically intense – and it’s very psychologically intense.”
But Rosemary doesn’t seem too fazed. She smiles and waves as the platform she’s standing on is slowly lowered into the water.
Being an astronaut was Dr Rosemary Coogan’s dream from a young age, she says. But it was a dream that seemed out of reach.
“At the careers day at school, you don’t tend to meet astronauts,” Rosemary says. “You don’t get to meet people who’ve done it, you don’t really get to hear their stories.”
So she decided to study the stars instead, opting for a career in astrophysics. But when the European Space Agency (ESA) announced it was looking for new recruits to go to space, Rosemary applied and was chosen from more than 22,000 people.
Kevin Church/BBC
Kevin Church/BBC
The Neutral Buoyancy Lab pool is filled with 23 million litres of water
ESA aims to get Rosemary to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2030. She’ll be following in the footsteps of Britons Helen Sharman, who visited the Soviet’s Mir Space Station in 1991, and Tim Peake who launched to the ISS in 2015.
Rosemary has spent the last six months training at the Johnson Space Center. As well as exploring the outside of the submerged ISS, she can head inside the orbiting lab in another life-sized mock-up located in a huge hangar.
She takes us on a tour of the lab’s interconnected modules. It feels very cramped, especially considering astronauts usually spend many months on board. But Rosemary reminds us about the spectacular views.
“It is an isolated environment, but I think this helps to give that kind of connection to being outside – to alleviate that sense of claustrophobia.”
Kevin Church/BBC
Kevin Church/BBC
Water is a such valuable resource in space that urine is recycled into drinkable water
Rosemary’s training here covers every aspect of going to space – including learning how to use the onboard toilet.
“The lower part is where you put your solid waste,” she says, pointing to a loo in a small cubicle that looks like something you might find at a very old campsite. “And this funnel here is actually attached to an air suction system, and that is where you put your liquid waste.”
Female astronauts have the option of suppressing their periods using drugs, Rosemary says, but can also opt not to.
“There’s essentially a filter that you put on top of the cone in which you urinate and it’s to stop any particles, any blood, from going into the urine system.”
Urine needs to be kept separate because it’s purified and treated to be re-used as drinking water, she explains.
Kevin Church/BBC
Weightlessness is simulated by manipulating astronauts’ buoyancy in the pool
Back in the pool, divers are constantly adjusting Rosemary’s buoyancy in the water to make the experience as close as possible to microgravity.
She moves around painstakingly, making sure she’s always attached to the submerged structure using two hooks.
Every hand-hold is carefully chosen along the bars on the outside of each module. They’re in exactly the same positions as the ones on the real thing, vital muscle memory if she gets to carry out a spacewalk 200 miles (322km) above the Earth.
It’s slow and difficult work, requiring plenty of upper body strength and physical effort in the hot, bulky spacesuit.
“You do a lot of mental preparation – you really think through every single movement,” Rosemary explains. “You have to be really efficient with your energy. You don’t want to do something and realise it wasn’t quite right and have to do it again.”
Kevin Church/BBC
The team in the control room watch a live video feed of Rosemary to monitor everything that’s happening underwater
Kevin Church/BBC
Rosemary is working alongside another astronaut to complete a list of space station repairs and maintenance for the test. Her every move is monitored by a team in a control room overlooking the pool. They’re in constant communication with her as she works through her tasks.
Former space station commander Aki Hoshide, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is on hand for advice. He has completed four spacewalks and says it’s a steep learning curve for new astronauts.
“When we first start out, there’s so much information thrown at you, so many skills that you have to learn and show and demonstrate,” he says. “It is baby steps, but they are moving forward – and I can see their excitement every time they come here and jump in the pool.”
Rosemary takes us to see a Saturn V – the rocket that took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon in 1969. More than 50 years on, Nasa is planning an imminent return to the lunar surface with its Artemis programme. European astronauts will join later missions. With an expected 35-year space career ahead, Rosemary may one day get the chance to become the first Briton to walk on the Moon.
“It’s incredibly exciting that we, as humanity, are going back to the Moon, and of course, any way that I could be a part of that, I would be absolutely delighted. I think it’s absolutely thrilling,” she says.
After six gruelling hours underwater, Rosemary is nearing the end of her spacewalk test – but then she’s thrown a curve ball.
In the control room, we hear her call out for a comms check with her astronaut partner who’s working on another part of the space station. But she’s met with silence.
On a video screen, we can see he’s motionless. Rosemary doesn’t know it, but he’s been asked to pretend to lose consciousness. Rosemary’s job is to reach him, check his condition – and tow him back to the airlock.
After so long under water, we can see how exhausted she is – but working slowly and steadily, she gets him safely to the airlock.
“Rosemary has the endurance of a champion. She crushed it today,” says Jenna Hanson, one of Nasa’s spacewalk instructors who’s been assessing Rosemary. “We’re really happy with where she’s at – she’s doing awesome.”
Kevin Church/BBC
Dr Rosemary Coogan has dreamed of being an astronaut since she was a child
The spacewalk is finally over. Rosemary’s platform is hoisted out of the pool and the support team help her out of her suit. As her helmet is removed, we can see she’s clearly very tired, but still smiling.
“It was a challenging one, it really was, and a challenging rescue,” she tells us, “But yeah, it was a really enjoyable day.”
Rosemary’s hard work is bringing her ever closer to her dream of getting to space.
“It’s amazing,” Rosemary says, “If I could do that for the real space station – where you can look out and see the stars and see the Earth at the same time – that would just be the cherry on top.”
