NASA's Moon Program Faces Delays. Its Ambition Remains Unchanged

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January 18, 2024

This week, we're wondering when we'll get back to the moon. Our top story concerns NASA's Artemis program, which is slated to send crews to the lunar surface later this decade, more than a half-century after the Apollo missions of yore. It's unclear just how much later such landings will occur, though, as last week the space agency announced delays to the program's highly ambitious next two missions—and opportunities aplenty remain for further schedule slips. Remarkably, however, Artemis has so far proved resilient to such delays, thanks to enduring bipartisan support in Congress—a rarity in the modern era of hyperpolarized U.S. politics—and robust international partnerships. Despite inefficiencies that have become notorious among advocates for human spaceflight, NASA's plan to fly astronauts to the moon seems almost unstoppable. Elsewhere this week, we have stories on a bizarre galaxy bereft of stars, the special circumstances surrounding 2024's total solar eclipse, a recipe for nigh-indestructible tardigrades, and much, much more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Space Exploration NASA's Moon Program Faces Delays. Its Ambition Remains Unchanged If successful, the Artemis program promises to revolutionize travel to other celestial bodies. But many more tests of hardware remain By Michael Greshko

Animals Cute Little Tardigrades Are Basically Indestructible, and Scientists Just Figured Out One Reason Why Tardigrades are microscopic animals that can survive a host of conditions that are too extreme to ever occur on Earth—and scientists want to learn their secrets By Meghan Bartels

Astrophysics Why 2024's Total Solar Eclipse Will Be So Special The last time North Americans caught a total solar eclipse, the sun was in a lull of activity. This year's eclipse will be very different By Meghan Bartels

Space Exploration Ailing Peregrine Moon Lander Is on Course to Crash into Earth Peregrine will likely burn up in Earth's atmosphere, the moon lander's builder has said By Tariq Malik,SPACE.com

Astrophysics Bizarre Dark Object Could Be First-Known 'Empty' Galaxy from the Early Universe A serendipitously discovered object nearly as massive as the Milky Way appears to be made of primordial gas that has formed almost no stars By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Astronomy Earth's Wobble Wreaks Havoc on Astronomers--And Astrologers, Too Our planet's precession is scarcely noticeable during anyone's lifetime, but across history, it has had enormous effects By Phil Plait

Mathematics Simple Math Creates Infinite and Bizarre Automorphic Numbers Squaring numbers can have surprising consequences By Manon Bischoff

Artificial Intelligence AI Matches the Abilities of the Best Math Olympians Until now computers have failed to solve mathematical problems. But the AI program AlphaGeometry has succeeded in finding proofs for dozens of theorems from the International Mathematical Olympiad By Manon Bischoff

Astronomy Information Theory Can Help Us Search for Life on Alien Worlds Information theory can help us decode signs of biological activity hiding in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets By Marcelo Gleiser,Lisa Kaltenegger,Sara Vannah

Aerospace Space and Submarine Explorers Are Right to Take Risks What lessons does the loss of the Titan submersible have for preventing spaceflight disasters? By Rick N. Tumlinson

Particle Physics Why Aren't We Made of Antimatter? To understand why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter, physicists are looking for a tiny signal in the electron By Luke Caldwell

Astronomy The New Story of the Milky Way's Surprisingly Turbulent Past The latest star maps are rewriting the story of our Milky Way, revealing a much more tumultuous history than astronomers suspected By Ann Finkbeiner

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Civilians will die in space. They will die over and over as more and more go and venture further and further out. The most important thing is that no one dies because of hubris or ignorance of the risks." Rick Tumlinson, a spaceflight entrepreneur, on managing the mortal risks associated with private human spaceflight

FROM THE ARCHIVE Private U.S. Lunar Lander Suffers 'Critical' Anomaly after Launch Astrobotic's Peregrine lander was meant to be the first commercial spacecraft to operate on the surface of the moon. Instead it may not reach lunar orbit at all By Michael Greshko | January 2024

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