Russia's War in Ukraine Threatens Joint Missions to Mars, Venus and the Moon

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March 17, 2022

Dear Reader, This week, our lead story examines the surprising ways that the war in Ukraine is disrupting space exploration, including canceled missions, suspended launches, shutdown space telescope instruments and perhaps an all-time low in U.S.-Russia relations aboard the International Space Station. Elsewhere, we have stories on novel celebrations of Pi Day, the troublesome ubiquity of radioactivity, a moon-rock research bonanza, a controversy over pronouns at NASA and much more.

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Space Exploration Russia's War in Ukraine Threatens Joint Missions to Mars, Venus and the Moon Interplanetary voyages are among several space science collaborations delayed or doomed by the ongoing conflict By Leonard David

Space Exploration NASA Criticized for Ending Pronoun Project More than 100 employees at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center were surprised when a test project allowing them to add their pronouns to their agency identifiers was abruptly canceled By Nadia Drake

Education Math Is More Than Just Numbers: Celebrate Pi Day a Different Way While you savor that apple or key lime pie, consider the many ways math influences our lives By Alissa S. Crans

Energy Radioactive Material Is Basically Everywhere and That's a Problem The RadSecure program aims to remove dangerous substances from medical facilities and other industries By Sarah Scoles

Planetary Science China's First Moon Rocks Ignite Research Bonanza Samples collected by Chang'e-5 are revealing exciting insights into the Moon's evolution By Smriti Mallapaty,Nature magazine

Defense 'Limited' Tactical Nuclear Weapons Would Be Catastrophic Russia's invasion of Ukraine shows the limits of nuclear deterrence By Nina Tannenwald

Politics A Small Cut in World Military Spending Could Help Fund Climate, Health and Poverty Solutions International cooperation could stem and redirect some of the $2 trillion the world wastes each year in the global arms race By Carlo Rovelli,Matteo Smerlak

Astrophysics Eugene Parker, Namesake of NASA's Sun-Touching Spacecraft, Dies at Age 94 The eminent astrophysicist changed the way we view our home star By Elizabeth Howell,SPACE.com

Quantum Physics Does Quantum Mechanics Rule Out Free Will? Superdeterminism, a radical quantum hypothesis, says our "choices" are illusory By John Horgan

Animals How Migrating Birds Use Quantum Effects to Navigate New research hints at the biophysical underpinnings of their ability to use Earth's magnetic field lines to find their way to their breeding and wintering grounds By Peter J. Hore,Henrik Mouritsen

Quantum Physics Poem: 'Schrödinger's Cat' Science in meter and verse By Peggy Landsman

Astrophysics Are Telescopes the Only Way to Find Dark Matter? If the invisible matter does not appear in experiments or particle colliders, we may have to find it in space By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Archaeology Space Archaeology Takes Off An International Space Station project is "one small step" for off-world fieldwork By Megan I. Gannon

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 326, Issue 4

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The Russians have chosen confrontation in space over cooperation. We'll see how that works out for them." Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University

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