News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
SpaceX enters $920M per month cloud service agreement with Google
According to a regulatory filing, on June 5, 2026, SpaceX (SPCX) said it entered into a Cloud Service Agreement with Google LLC (GOOGL) with respect to access to compute capacity. The compute capacity provided includes roughly 110,000 Nvidia (NVDA) GPUs, CPUs, memory, and other related components. Pursuant to the agreement, the customer has agreed to pay SpaceX $920M per month from October 2026 through June 2029, with capacity ramping up through September at a reduced fee. If the company fails to deliver access to the committed amount of GPUs by September 30, 2026, then following a one-month grace period, Google may immediately terminate the agreement or accept the number of GPUs provided, with a corresponding pro rata reduction in the monthly fees. After December 31, 2026, the agreement may be terminated by either party upon 90 days' notice. The customer will retain ownership of, and IP rights in, its content, AI models, and related data.
Live coverage: SpaceX to launch 24 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg
SpaceX is set to launch a batch of its Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base Wednesday morning. The Starlink 17-47 mission will add another 24 broadband internet to its low Earth orbit constellation. There are currently more than 10,000 satellites in orbit. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East is scheduled for 7:36 a.m. PDT (10:36 a.m. EDT / 1436 UTC). The Falcon 9 rocket will fly on a south-southwesterly trajectory upon leaving the pad. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff. SpaceX will launch the mission with the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number B1088. This will be its 16th flight after launching missions, like NASA's SPHEREx, Transporter-12 and NROl-126. More than eight minutes after liftoff, B1088 will target a landing on the drone ship, 'Of Course I Still Love You,' positioned in the Pacific Ocean. If successful, this will be the 200th landing on this vessel and the 619th booster landing to date.
Court orders Elon Musk to turn over Tesla and SpaceX emails in Apple lawsuit
United States District Judge Mark Pittman has rejected xAI's attempt to keep Elon Musk's Tesla and SpaceX emails out of discovery in the lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI. Here are the details. Musk to turn over more material for discovery Last month, the legal teams of Apple, OpenAI, X, and xAI had a hearing before United States Magistrate Judge Hal R. Ray, Jr., to address several disagreements regarding the discovery process in the lawsuit Elon Musk filed against Apple and OpenAI. The lawsuit stemmed from Musk's dissatisfaction with Grok's rankings in the App Store, which he claimed were the result of an anticompetitive collusion between Apple and OpenAI due to their partnership to have ChatGPT power parts of Siri and Apple Intelligence. In the hearing, Judge Ray accepted X and xAI's request to include Craig Federighi as a custodian, and also accepted X and xAI's request to compel Apple to turn over documents regarding its recent agreement with Google to have Gemini power the new Siri. In another decision, Judge Ray accepted OpenAI's argument that Elon Musk's Tesla and SpaceX emails should be searched for relevant material in the lawsuit. X and xAI's layers initially told the court that these documents fell outside their custody and control, because they didn't represent SpaceX or Tesla. Still, the argument didn't persuade Judge Ray. In the end, OpenAI's argument that Musk is "the CEO of all of these companies, and these are accounts that he clearly uses for business for all of these companies" won out, partially helped by the fact that there were "internal documents where his own CFO at X.AI is emailing him about X.AI business at his SpaceX account." Yesterday, the X and xAI legal teams filed an objection in an attempt to reverse Judge Ray's decision. They also filed a request to pause the order pending the court's decision on the objection. Today, Judge Pittman, who had referred those discovery disputes to Judge Ray (a common practice in federal litigation), overruled X and xAI's request, affirmed Judge Ray's findings, and, as a result, also denied X and xAI's motion to stay the decision. In his order, Judge Pittman wrote: Here, because there is reason to believe Musk may be conducting X and/or xAI business on his SpaceX and Tesla business email accounts, the emails are discoverable and should be produced. Those pieces of evidence coupled with Musk's ownership and high-level roles in these companies compel the Court to this holding. And As mentioned, the record also provides specific reasons to believe Musk may be Plaintiffs' conducting business on his other email accounts. For example, xAI's CFO sent xAI financial updates to Musk's SpaceX email address. That alone is sufficient to compel discovery here because X and xAI have the right to obtain documents when a CEO uses non-company email accounts to conduct company business -- whether those are personal email accounts or not is not dispositive. Judge Pittman didn't establish a deadline for the production of these emails. During the May 13 hearing, Judge Ray asked X and xAI's lawyers how long they would take to produce these emails, to which the legal team replied they didn't know exactly, adding that "it would take a little bit of time, but we'd move as quickly as possible, if so ordered." Worth checking out on Amazon
SpaceX's Starship Rockets Grounded Pending Investigation After Test Flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week's test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base.
Live coverage: SpaceX to launch 29 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX is preparing for its penultimate planned launch of May, which will see its Falcon 9 rocket fly from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday morning. The Starlink 10-53 mission will add another 29 broadband internet satellites to the company's low Earth orbit megaconstellation. The network consists of more than 10,000 spacecraft. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 is scheduled for 8:03 a.m. EDT (1203 UTC). The rocket will fly on a north-easterly trajectory upon leaving the pad. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff. The 45th Weather Squadron forecast an 80 percent chance for favorable weather during the launch window. Meteorologists are tracking the possibility for interference from cumulus and anvil clouds. "The subtropical ridge axis will move south of the Spaceport by Friday, leading to an influx of tropical moisture," launch weather officers wrote. "Westerly-to-southwesterly low-level winds will bring prime conditions for afternoon showers and thunderstorms along the east coast of Florida for several days, some of which could develop in the morning hours. "For both the primary and backup launch windows, isolated showers and thunderstorms could develop towards the end of the windows, with possibly lingering anvil clouds towards the beginning of the windows." SpaceX will launch the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number B1085. This will be its 16th flight following the launches of missions, like NASA's Crew-9, Fram2, and Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1. Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1085 will target a landing on the drone ship, 'A Shortfall of Gravitas.' If successful, this will be the 152nd touchdown on this vessel and the 616th booster landing for SpaceX to date.
Elon Musk Says He's 'Frequently Asked' to Have SpaceX Build Weapons -- 'We Have Thus Far Declined'
War is moving fast into drones, chips, and autonomous systems, and governments are increasingly looking to tech innovators like Elon Musk for a technological edge in modern warfare. But Musk says he's staying out of the weapons business, for now. SpaceX is often approached about participating in weapons programs, Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum in May 2025. "I do not currently anticipate SpaceX going to be getting into the weapons business," he said. "That's certainly not an aspiration. We're frequently asked to do weapons programs, but we have thus far declined." Don't Miss: * This Lithium Breakthrough Is Turning Heads on Wall Street -- See Why Investors Are Watching * NVIDIA & Tesla Steal the Spotlight -- RAD Intel Emerges as an AI Stock Worth Watching Musk said SpaceX's core focus remains rockets, satellites and expanding high-bandwidth internet connectivity through Starlink. SpaceX, founded in 2002, has expanded into military space infrastructure over the years. It joined a consortium of companies developing the operating system for the Pentagon's "Golden Dome" missile defense initiative, according to media reports last month. SpaceX's Role in the Ukraine War See Also: Investors With $1M+ Often Use Advisors for Tax Strategy -- This Tool Matches You With One in Minutes "Starlink is the backbone of the Ukrainian military communication system because it can't be blocked by the Russians, essentially," Musk said at West Point. " On the front lines, all the fiber connections are cut, the cell towers are blown up and the geostationary satellite links are jammed. The only thing that isn't jammed is Starlink." The Pentagon awarded a contract to SpaceX for Starlink satellite communications services for Ukraine in 2023. "SpaceX is a space launch leader," Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum. "SpaceX doesn't do drones." Building Wealth Across More Than Just the Market Rad AI Immersed Connect Invest Arrived Lightstone AdviserMatch Accredited Debt Relief Image: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
Doubleheader rocket launch in Florida. What time is SpaceX, ULA liftoff?
Florida is well-known for its rocket launches -- but a rare doubleheader is on the schedule. SpaceX plans to send a Falcon 9 rocket into space from Cape Canaveral, delivering more Starlink internet satellites to orbit, on Friday, May 29. Then about 12 hours later, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is set to lift off from the same city. Though rockets here launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, people on the Fun Coast can sometimes see this phenomenon. Weather permitting and depending on cloud cover and trajectory, a rocket launch from Florida's Space Coast could be visible as far north as Jacksonville Beach and as far south as West Palm Beach. When there's a launch window in the middle of the night or very early morning, there's an opportunity for unique photos -- the rocket lights up the dark sky, and the contrail after makes for a great photo. Below is more information on the next rocket launch from Florida and suggestions on where to watch it. ► Is there a launch today? NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin rocket launch schedule in Florida For questions or comments, email USA TODAY Network Space Reporters Rick Neale at [email protected], Brooke Edwards at [email protected] or Eric Lagatta at [email protected]. For more space news from the USA TODAY Network, visit floridatoday.com/space. Friday, May 29, 2026: SpaceX Starlink 10-53 * Mission: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 29 Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit. * Launch window: 7:52 a.m. to 11:52 a.m. ET Friday, May 29, 2026 * Launch trajectory: Northeast * Launch location: Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida * Sonic booms for the Space Coast of Florida: No * Live coverage starts 90 minutes before liftoff at floridatoday.com/space: You can watch live rocket launch coverage from USA TODAY Network's Space Team, which consists of FLORIDA TODAY space reporters Rick Neale and Brooke Edwards and visuals journalists Craig Bailey, Malcolm Denemark and Tim Shortt. Our Space Team will provide up-to-the-minute updates in a mobile-friendly live blog, complete with a countdown clock, at floridatoday.com/space, starting 90 minutes before liftoff. You can download the free FLORIDA TODAY app, which is available in the App Store or Google Play, or type floridatoday.com/space into your browser. Friday, May 29, 2026: ULA Amazon Leo 7 * Mission: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will lift a payload of 29 Amazon Leo broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit. * Launch window: 7:33 p.m. to 8:02 p.m. ET Friday, May 29, 2026 * Trajectory: TBA. * Location: Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. * Live FLORIDA TODAY Space Team coverage: Starts 90 minutes before liftoff at floridatoday.com/space. Where can I watch a rocket launch in Florida? A rocket launch with a northeast trajectory can be visible as far north as Jacksonville Beach, Florida, which is about 160 miles north of Cape Canaveral (about a two-hour and 30-minute car ride, depending on which route you take). Rocket launches with a southeast trajectory can be seen as far south as West Palm Beach, Florida, which is about 150 miles south of Cape Canaveral (about a two-hour-and-20-minute car ride). Rocket launches are most visible from the Space Coast, where they launch from, and are often visible from the Treasure Coast and Volusia County as well. Where to watch a SpaceX rocket launch near Daytona Beach, Florida In Volusia County, immediately north of Brevard County -- home to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station -- you can get a great view of a SpaceX, NASA or United Launch Alliance rocket launch. The best views of a rocket launch from here are along the beach. Look due south. Recommended spots: * South New Smyrna Beach (Canaveral National Seashore) * Mary McLeod Bethune Beach Park, 6656 S. Atlantic Ave., New Smyrna Beach. Bethune Beach is 3.5 miles south of New Smyrna Beach and one mile north of the Apollo Beach entrance to Canaveral National Seashore Park. * Apollo Beach at Canaveral National Seashore (south of New Smyrna Beach). Canaveral National Seashore runs along Florida's East Coast in Volusia County and Brevard County. To access Apollo Beach, take Interstate 95 to exit 249, then travel east until it turns into State Road A1A. Follow SR A1A south to the park entrance. * Oak Hill riverfront is the southernmost city in South Volusia County. * Sunrise Park, 275 River Road, Oak Hill * Goodrich's Seafood and Oyster House back deck, 253 River Road, Oak Hill * Seminole Rest national historic site, 211 River Road, Oak Hill * Riverbreeze Park, 250 H.H. Burch Road, Oak Hill * Mary Dewees Park, 178 N. Gaines St., Oak Hill * Nancy Cummings Park, 232 Cummings St., Oak Hill * Jimmie Vann Sunrise Park, 275 River Road, Oak Hill * A.C. Delbert Dewees Municipal Pier, 243 River Road, Oak Hill * Bird Observation Pier on River Road across from A.C. Delbert Municipal Pier (see above) * Rose Bay in Port Orange, Florida * Skylake in Port Orange, Florida * Beaches along New Smyrna Beach, Florida * New Smyrna Beach Inlet, New Smyrna Beach lifeguard station * Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona Beach, Florida * Ormond-by-the-Sea in Ormond Beach, Florida * George R. Kennedy Memorial Park in Edgewater, Florida Watch some rocket launches with NASA+ on Prime Video Watch NASA+ content with Amazon Prime Video NASA content, including some rocket launches, is available to watch through NASA+ on desktop, both from its official site and YouTube. The platform is also available to download as a mobile app on smartphones. All NASA+ content is also available to those who have Prime Video downloaded on any of their devices - whether it be a smartphone or smart TV. The content, which does not require a Prime subscription to view, is one of Prime Video's FAST channels (free ad-supported television). Viewers can find it under Prime's Live TV section at the top of the screen when they open the app. Lianna Norman and Jennifer Sangalang are trending reporters for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, covering rocket launches, Florida wildlife, breaking news and more. You can get all of Florida's best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at floridatoday.com/newsletters.
FAA Orders SpaceX Starship Flight 12 Mishap Probe
In a statement on Wednesday (local time), the FAA said it had determined that the flight test on Friday resulted in a mishap during the booster's return flight over the Gulf of Mexico following stage separation. The agency said it will oversee the process and approve SpaceX's final report and any corrective actions. According to the FAA, a mishap investigation is intended to enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective measures to prevent a recurrence, reports Xinhua news agency. The agency said that a return to flight for the Starship Super Heavy booster will depend on the FAA determining that no system, process, or procedure related to the mishap poses a threat to public safety. No injuries or damage to public property were reported following the incident, the FAA said. Starship lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase facility in the US state of Texas at 5:30 p.m. Central Time (2230 GMT) last Friday (May 22). All 33 Raptor 3 engines on the Super Heavy booster ignited successfully at liftoff. However, one engine shut down prematurely during ascent. Following a successful first-stage ascent, Starship's upper stage ignited its six Raptor engines during the hot-staging manoeuvre and continued toward space, according to SpaceX. After stage separation, the Super Heavy booster carried out a directional flip manoeuvre and attempted its boostback burn. However, not all planned engines ignited, resulting in only a partial boostback burn before the manoeuvre terminated prematurely. The booster later attempted to reignite its engines for the landing burn before making a hard splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship upper stage successfully entered its planned coast phase despite the loss of one of its six engines. SpaceX said the vehicle demonstrated its engine-out capability and still achieved its intended trajectory. During the coast phase, Starship deployed 20 Starlink simulators and two modified Starlink satellites designed to capture imagery of the vehicle in flight. The two modified satellites transmitted images of Starship's thermal protection system back to mission controllers. All 22 payloads remained on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and were expected to burn up during atmospheric reentry. About one hour after liftoff, Starship re-entered Earth's atmosphere and collected critical data on the performance of its heatshield and structural strength during reentry, according to SpaceX. In the final minutes of flight, Starship carried out a manoeuvre designed to test the structural limits of its rear flaps, along with a dynamic banking manoeuvre intended to simulate the trajectory of future missions returning to Starbase. Starship later splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned. According to SpaceX, the vehicle successfully completed its landing flip manoeuvre and landing burn with two functioning Raptor engines before splashdown. The mission marked the first flight of the next-generation Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster, featuring upgraded Raptor engines and a newly designed launch pad at Starbase. According to SpaceX, the primary objective of the test flight was to evaluate for the first time the performance of the upgraded vehicle, its propulsion system and ground infrastructure in a real-flight environment. The launch attempt originally scheduled for May 21 was scrubbed due to a technical issue. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said a hydraulic pin holding the launch tower arm in place failed to retract as planned. Starship is slated to serve as the lunar landing system for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon and lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars.
US FAA orders SpaceX to investigate Starship Flight 12 mishap
Washington, May 28 (SocialNews.XYZ) The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered SpaceX to conduct a "mishap investigation" involving the Super Heavy booster during the 12th flight test of its giant Starship rocket. In a statement on Wednesday (local time), the FAA said it had determined that the flight test on Friday resulted in a mishap during the booster's return flight over the Gulf of Mexico following stage separation. The agency said it will oversee the process and approve SpaceX's final report and any corrective actions. According to the FAA, a mishap investigation is intended to enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective measures to prevent a recurrence, reports Xinhua news agency. The agency said that a return to flight for the Starship Super Heavy booster will depend on the FAA determining that no system, process, or procedure related to the mishap poses a threat to public safety. No injuries or damage to public property were reported following the incident, the FAA said. Starship lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase facility in the US state of Texas at 5:30 p.m. Central Time (2230 GMT) last Friday (May 22). All 33 Raptor 3 engines on the Super Heavy booster ignited successfully at liftoff. However, one engine shut down prematurely during ascent. Following a successful first-stage ascent, Starship's upper stage ignited its six Raptor engines during the hot-staging manoeuvre and continued toward space, according to SpaceX. After stage separation, the Super Heavy booster carried out a directional flip manoeuvre and attempted its boostback burn. However, not all planned engines ignited, resulting in only a partial boostback burn before the manoeuvre terminated prematurely. The booster later attempted to reignite its engines for the landing burn before making a hard splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship upper stage successfully entered its planned coast phase despite the loss of one of its six engines. SpaceX said the vehicle demonstrated its engine-out capability and still achieved its intended trajectory. During the coast phase, Starship deployed 20 Starlink simulators and two modified Starlink satellites designed to capture imagery of the vehicle in flight. The two modified satellites transmitted images of Starship's thermal protection system back to mission controllers. All 22 payloads remained on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and were expected to burn up during atmospheric reentry. About one hour after liftoff, Starship re-entered Earth's atmosphere and collected critical data on the performance of its heatshield and structural strength during reentry, according to SpaceX. In the final minutes of flight, Starship carried out a manoeuvre designed to test the structural limits of its rear flaps, along with a dynamic banking manoeuvre intended to simulate the trajectory of future missions returning to Starbase. Starship later splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned. According to SpaceX, the vehicle successfully completed its landing flip manoeuvre and landing burn with two functioning Raptor engines before splashdown. The mission marked the first flight of the next-generation Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster, featuring upgraded Raptor engines and a newly designed launch pad at Starbase. According to SpaceX, the primary objective of the test flight was to evaluate for the first time the performance of the upgraded vehicle, its propulsion system and ground infrastructure in a real-flight environment. The launch attempt originally scheduled for May 21 was scrubbed due to a technical issue. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said a hydraulic pin holding the launch tower arm in place failed to retract as planned. Starship is slated to serve as the lunar landing system for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon and lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars.
SpaceX Starship rockets grounded pending probe into test flight mishap
SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week's test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration announced on Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-metre) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base. More From This Section Zelenskyy asks Trump for more US air defence aid against Russian attacks Washington paper mill implosion leaves 2 dead, 9 workers still missing Iran 'negotiating on fumes', says Trump, shrugs off midterms' impact on war Nasa unveils 3-phase plan for permanent moon base; 3 missions this year Israel-Hezbollah fighting escalates as US-Iran peace talks drag on
SpaceX's Starship rockets are grounded pending investigation after test flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week's test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base.
《日出而作》據報華爾街基金套現待SpaceX上市，聯儲理事提加息可能
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SpaceX's Starship rockets grounded pending investigation after test flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week's test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Massive News for SpaceX Investors!
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue " *Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of May 25, 2026. The video was published on May 27, 2026. Before you buy stock in Invesco QQQ Trust, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now... and Invesco QQQ Trust wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $472,852!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,317,207!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 984% -- a market-crushing outperformance compared to 210% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Parkev Tatevosian is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
SpaceX ordered to investigate Starship booster mishap
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered SpaceX to investigate the cause of its Starship booster losing control and crashing into the Gulf of Mexico during a test flight last week, the agency announced Wednesday. Following an assessment of the Starship Flight 12 launch, the FAA determined the launch "resulted in a mishap" and that the failed operation was the result of a mishap involving the Super Heavy booster that flew back to the Gulf of Mexico after stage separation Thursday. The agency added that there were no reports of injuries or damaged property. The FAA said it will oversee the company-led investigation and must approve SpaceX's final report as well as any corrective actions before its spacecraft can launch again. The agency said the mishap investigation is meant to determine the cause of the failure and to ensure similar issues do not pose a risk to public safety in future launches. The Hill reached out to SpaceX for comment. SpaceX's Starship spacecraft is a key part of CEO Elon Musk's plans to expand the company's space travel capabilities and eventually carry humans to Mars. NASA is also tapping into a modified version of Starship for its Artemis lunar missions. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman had cheered SpaceX for its test launch. "Congrats @SpaceX team and @elonmusk on a hell of a V3 Starship launch. One step closer to the Moon ... one step closer to Mars," he posted to social platform X. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
SpaceX's Starship rockets grounded pending investigation after test flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week's test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
SpaceX's Starship rockets are grounded pending investigation after test flight - WXXV News 25
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base.
SpaceX's Deep Moat
Making large-language models is hard. Rockets are even harder. SpaceX and OpenAI are both racing towards public offerings. That will put on display two very different businesses that are both putting distinctive spins on the artificial intelligence market. Importantly, Musk has succeeded in ...
SpaceX Starship Faces Herculean Tech Hurdles In Race To Moon Landing
Despite acing a flight test of its newest generation Starship super-capsule, SpaceX still has to speed through an obstacle course of tech challenges, stretching out across 380,000 kilometers, to win the race to land astronauts around the impact craters of the Moon, say leading North American space scholars. Stepping up pressure on SpaceX to whizz through a progression of Herculean-level leaps in space technology, the White House has issued an executive order that mandates "returning Americans to the Moon by 2028." And while SpaceX once held an exclusive commission from NASA to shuttle its astronauts down to the lunar surface, originally by 2024, delays in perfecting the Starship have triggered the space agency to reopen the Moon landing competition. SpaceX is now vying with Blue Origin to complete its Moon lander first, with both American spacecraft designers keeping close tabs on China's parallel quest to speed its taikonauts to the silver and black orb before the end of the decade. The clock is ticking on this three-power competition, a curious redux of the first race to the Moon by the rival American and Soviet Russian space superpowers. Since SpaceX founder Elon Musk webcast the sensational 12th flight test of the Starship, aerospace engineers forming Blue Origin's lunar lander division, and their counterparts across China, are undoubtedly replaying the flight, frame by frame, to measure up their competing advances, says Brian Hurley, a world-leading expert who chronicles the rapid-fire expansion of the modern space sector, and its rippling effects across the spheres of national security and international affairs. Blue Origin's lunar teams "would not be watching as spectators," says Hurley, founder of the influential think tank New Space Economy, which also publishes a digital magazine. "They would be watching as competitors, engineers, and strategic planners." "Every Starship test provides public information about SpaceX's progress, weak points, cadence, risk tolerance, and likely schedule pressure," Hurley told me in an interview. "Blue Origin's lander architecture is different, but SpaceX's pace matters to Blue Origin because it shapes NASA expectations, political expectations, and the perceived race between commercial lunar-lander providers." China's spacecraft developers, he adds, are just as likely to parse the Starship flight footage for clues and details on the ship's next-generation design and engineering. "A Starship test is not only a U.S. commercial event; it is also open-source technical intelligence." "Chinese teams working on crewed lunar landing systems, heavy-lift launchers, reusable boosters, and new crew spacecraft would almost certainly study the flight to assess both the promise and the remaining weaknesses of the Starship approach." "That does not mean China would change its architecture based on one flight," Hurley says, "but it would feed into their assessment of U.S. progress toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface." Blue Origin, which like SpaceX has received a NASA commission to develop a Moon lander, and its counterparts across the Chinese government's spacecraft development sector, are also racing to perfect their own lunar modules, patterned after the Apollo program's of a generation ago, and tiny compared to SpaceX's Titan-size Starship. The Starship is not just the most powerful spacecraft ever designed on Planet Earth, configured to hold 100 astronauts on every future flight to Mars, but also features world-leading technologies that place it uniquely in a new class of hyper-ship. With constant, iterative changes in the design of every spacecraft, Elon Musk, a dot-com tycoon before creating SpaceX, and his army of engineers are all driven by the Silicon Valley mantra "Move fast and break things." But even as the starting gun is fired on the new-millennium Moon marathon, SpaceX still has to ace a succession of space-tech breakthroughs that have never before been tested, ranging from refilling the Starship with cryogenic fuel while the ship and tanker are speeding around the planet at 28,000 kilometers per hour, and then again in orbit around the Moon, and touching down amid the meteor strike-created craters near the orb's South Pole. Did the new demo flight of the Starship, with the picture-perfect soft splashdown of its capsule in the Indian Ocean, position SpaceX to take the lead in rocketing NASA spacefarers to the gleaming globe by 2028, ahead of their Chinese rivals? "I think that schedule is optimistic," says Robert Zubrin, the pre-eminent American aerospace engineer who designed an early prototype of NASA's Space Launch System, the cutting-edge rocket that just sent four Allied astronauts on a flight around the Moon. "But I do think Starship will be operational as a fully reusable heavy lift Earth to orbit system by that time [2028], with revolutionary implications for the exploration and development of space," Dr. Zubrin told me in an interview. But the design and tech wizards at SpaceX, he says, "face a number of engineering challenges." "First is development of refueling tankers." "Then is orbital refueling of Starship to leave LEO," or low Earth orbit. "Then is orbital refueling of tankers to refuel Starship in lunar orbit." "Then is doing all this at a fast enough tempo (they will need 10 to 15 Starship launches to do all this) so that the propellant does not boil away before they can get the mission done," Zubrin says. Besides designing vanguard American spacecraft, Dr. Zubrin has created the globe's foremost masterplan to terraform Mars, or generate an Earth-like biosphere around the Red Planet while restoring its original oceans and atmosphere. SpaceX has incorporated vast portions of the designs and strategies sketched out in Zubrin's masterwork book "The Case for Mars," on transforming Mars onto a second foundation for civilization, into its grand schemes for Mars, including tapping Martian resources to produce rocket propellants for its Starship capsule. The perils awaiting SpaceX on the Earth's ancient silver satellite, Zubrin says, include its shifting topography and sparsely explored surface features. "There is the issue of avoiding blowing a crater in the Moon and shooting up tons of high velocity dust as they land," he says. "Then there is the issue of leveling the lander." "Then there is the issue of moving payloads up and down from the tall Starship to the surface." "Then there are issues associated with the takeoff from the Moon." The very first flight test of the Starship, three years ago at the Starbase center, blasted the launch pad, transforming it into a crater, and there are fears that a landing or takeoff on the Moon's variable surface could trigger a similar catastrophe. The Moon's surface conditions, combined with the extraordinary height of the SpaceX capsule, represent "one of the more important technical risks for using Starship as a lunar lander," says space scholar Brian Hurley. "The concern is not only that the lunar surface may be uneven. It is the combination of Starship's size, landing-leg loads, possible surface slope, loose regolith, rocks, and the effect of engine plumes on the surface." "Apollo's Lunar Module was a much smaller vehicle," he says. "Starship HLS [Human Landing System] is a very different class of lander, so the margin for unexpected surface interaction becomes an important issue." "A very large lander can blast dust, sand-sized particles, and rocks away from the landing zone at high speed. That can affect visibility, sensors, nearby hardware, and potentially the surface under the vehicle itself." "If the landing site is soft, rocky, sloped, or uneven," he warns, "there is also the possibility of uneven leg loading or an excessive tilt after touchdown." Yet there's an array of technology approaches to reduce the danger. "The first is conservative landing-site selection: using high-resolution orbital mapping to pick very flat, relatively rock-free areas." "The second is autonomous hazard detection and avoidance, so the vehicle can identify unsafe terrain during descent and adjust its touchdown point." NASA and SpaceX can also mitigate the dangers by minimizing the touchdown velocity. "Starship HLS has been expected to use design features different from the Earth-return Starship," Hurley explains, "because landing on the Moon creates a very different set of problems." "Landing without a prepared pad is not necessarily a show-stopper," Hurley predicts, as a one-time solution. "If Artemis becomes a continuing program rather than a series of isolated sorties, prepared landing zones become much more important." For a sustained lunar base, landing pads will likely shift from being optional to absolutely essential infrastructure. SpaceX could use its first, uncrewed landing demo on the Moon to deploy a team of autonomous robots to build a landing zone or to position a prefabricated landing pad for the next human flight, Hurley says. In a fascinating paper that he co-authored with other spaceflight visionaries across NASA and inside SpaceX, titled "Accelerating Martian and Lunar Science through SpaceX Starship Missions," Professor Kip Hodges says: "SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle for both human and robotic flights to the surface of the Moon and Mars." Flotillas of massive Starships will enable the delivery of fleets of mobile robots, adds Hodges, one of the top space scholars in the U.S. and founding director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. While SpaceX's longstanding focus has been fixed on Mars, he says, "flights to the Moon provide the opportunity to test and demonstrate Starship systems closer to Earth prior to the longer journey to Mars." "More frequent flights to the Moon than to Mars are feasible due to orbital dynamics, and thus significant capabilities can be developed and tested at the Moon prior to Mars missions." Besides speeding brigades of robots to off-world destinations, Hodges says, Starships "will also carry hardware needed to support the human base including equipment for increased power production, water extraction, LOX/methane [rocket fuel] production [and] pre-prepared landing pads." Upon landing, Professor Hodges and the SpaceX engineers say, spacefarers could live on the Starship, the first of identical spacecraft-turned-skyscrapers that ultimately spread out across the solar system. Brian Hurley says that means the first experimental touchdown of the robotically piloted Starship on the Moon could carry a prefabricated landing platform, to be positioned by a squad of robots, while the ship provides living spaces for scores of future astronauts. Professor Hodges tells me in an interview that, in light of the rush to triumph in Moon Race II, NASA might even delay the assembly of lunar landing platforms until after the first American astronauts reach the crater-surrounded finishing line. "I don't think they absolutely need a landing pad for Starship or Blue's lander," says Hodges, who has teamed up with NASA to help train Allied astronauts on surface operations. "I think there is enough urgency to not be beaten to the Moon by the Chinese that they want to get Americans there as quickly as they can." Spacecraft designer Zubrin says that SpaceX could completely avoid the looming dangers and complexity of landing a Starship on the alien terrain of the Moon by rapidly prototyping and launching a miniature version of the Starship. This mini-Starship, which he calls a Starboat, would feature just one-fifth the mass of the mothership, and act as a shuttle to transport astronauts from an orbiting Starship down to the surreal polar region of the Moon. Many of the Herculean tech challenges now facing a Starship descent onto the Moon "would be much, much, easier to solve if the Starship were coupled with a mini-Starship, or Starboat, that could serve the function of lunar orbit to surface ferry." "The big Starship would never have to land." "Instead it could be used to refuel the Starboat from orbit." In the future, Dr. Zubrin says, "A similar Starboat could also serve as a ferry from Mars orbit to the surface."
SpaceX Starship Faces Herculean Tech Hurdles In Race To Moon Landing
Despite acing a flight test of its newest generation Starship super-capsule, SpaceX still has to speed through an obstacle course of tech challenges, stretching out across 380,000 kilometers, to win the race to land astronauts around the impact craters of the Moon, say leading North American space scholars. Stepping up pressure on SpaceX to whizz through a progression of Herculean-level leaps in space technology, the White House has issued an executive order that mandates "returning Americans to the Moon by 2028." And while SpaceX once held an exclusive commission from NASA to shuttle its astronauts down to the lunar surface, originally by 2024, delays in perfecting the Starship have triggered the space agency to reopen the Moon landing competition. SpaceX is now vying with Blue Origin to complete its Moon lander first, with both American spacecraft designers keeping close tabs on China's parallel quest to speed its taikonauts to the silver and black orb before the end of the decade. The clock is ticking on this three-power competition, a curious redux of the first race to the Moon by the rival American and Soviet Russian space superpowers. Since SpaceX founder Elon Musk webcast the sensational 12th flight test of the Starship, aerospace engineers forming Blue Origin's lunar lander division, and their counterparts across China, are undoubtedly replaying the flight, frame by frame, to measure up their competing advances, says Brian Hurley, a world-leading expert who chronicles the rapid-fire expansion of the modern space sector, and its rippling effects across the spheres of national security and international affairs. Blue Origin's lunar teams "would not be watching as spectators," says Hurley, founder of the influential think tank New Space Economy, which also publishes a digital magazine. "They would be watching as competitors, engineers, and strategic planners." "Every Starship test provides public information about SpaceX's progress, weak points, cadence, risk tolerance, and likely schedule pressure," Hurley told me in an interview. "Blue Origin's lander architecture is different, but SpaceX's pace matters to Blue Origin because it shapes NASA expectations, political expectations, and the perceived race between commercial lunar-lander providers." China's spacecraft developers, he adds, are just as likely to parse the Starship flight footage for clues and details on the ship's next-generation design and engineering. "A Starship test is not only a U.S. commercial event; it is also open-source technical intelligence." "Chinese teams working on crewed lunar landing systems, heavy-lift launchers, reusable boosters, and new crew spacecraft would almost certainly study the flight to assess both the promise and the remaining weaknesses of the Starship approach." "That does not mean China would change its architecture based on one flight," Hurley says, "but it would feed into their assessment of U.S. progress toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface." Blue Origin, which like SpaceX has received a NASA commission to develop a Moon lander, and its counterparts across the Chinese government's spacecraft development sector, are also racing to perfect their own lunar modules, patterned after the Apollo program's of a generation ago, and tiny compared to SpaceX's Titan-size Starship. The Starship is not just the most powerful spacecraft ever designed on Planet Earth, configured to hold 100 astronauts on every future flight to Mars, but also features world-leading technologies that place it uniquely in a new class of hyper-ship. With constant, iterative changes in the design of every spacecraft, Elon Musk, a dot-com tycoon before creating SpaceX, and his army of engineers are all driven by the Silicon Valley mantra "Move fast and break things." But even as the starting gun is fired on the new-millennium Moon marathon, SpaceX still has to ace a succession of space-tech breakthroughs that have never before been tested, ranging from refilling the Starship with cryogenic fuel while the ship and tanker are speeding around the planet at 28,000 kilometers per hour, and then again in orbit around the Moon, and touching down amid the meteor strike-created craters near the orb's South Pole. Did the new demo flight of the Starship, with the picture-perfect soft splashdown of its capsule in the Indian Ocean, position SpaceX to take the lead in rocketing NASA spacefarers to the gleaming globe by 2028, ahead of their Chinese rivals? "I think that schedule is optimistic," says Robert Zubrin, the pre-eminent American aerospace engineer who designed an early prototype of NASA's Space Launch System, the cutting-edge rocket that just sent four Allied astronauts on a flight around the Moon. "But I do think Starship will be operational as a fully reusable heavy lift Earth to orbit system by that time [2028], with revolutionary implications for the exploration and development of space," Dr. Zubrin told me in an interview. But the design and tech wizards at SpaceX, he says, "face a number of engineering challenges." "First is development of refueling tankers." "Then is orbital refueling of Starship to leave LEO," or low Earth orbit. "Then is orbital refueling of tankers to refuel Starship in lunar orbit." "Then is doing all this at a fast enough tempo (they will need 10 to 15 Starship launches to do all this) so that the propellant does not boil away before they can get the mission done," Zubrin says. Besides designing vanguard American spacecraft, Dr. Zubrin has created the globe's foremost masterplan to terraform Mars, or generate an Earth-like biosphere around the Red Planet while restoring its original oceans and atmosphere. SpaceX has incorporated vast portions of the designs and strategies sketched out in Zubrin's masterwork book "The Case for Mars," on transforming Mars onto a second foundation for civilization, into its grand schemes for Mars, including tapping Martian resources to produce rocket propellants for its Starship capsule. The perils awaiting SpaceX on the Earth's ancient silver satellite, Zubrin says, include its shifting topography and sparsely explored surface features. "There is the issue of avoiding blowing a crater in the Moon and shooting up tons of high velocity dust as they land," he says. "Then there is the issue of leveling the lander." "Then there is the issue of moving payloads up and down from the tall Starship to the surface." "Then there are issues associated with the takeoff from the Moon." The very first flight test of the Starship, three years ago at the Starbase center, blasted the launch pad, transforming it into a crater, and there are fears that a landing or takeoff on the Moon's variable surface could trigger a similar catastrophe. The Moon's surface conditions, combined with the extraordinary height of the SpaceX capsule, represent "one of the more important technical risks for using Starship as a lunar lander," says space scholar Brian Hurley. "The concern is not only that the lunar surface may be uneven. It is the combination of Starship's size, landing-leg loads, possible surface slope, loose regolith, rocks, and the effect of engine plumes on the surface." "Apollo's Lunar Module was a much smaller vehicle," he says. "Starship HLS [Human Landing System] is a very different class of lander, so the margin for unexpected surface interaction becomes an important issue." "A very large lander can blast dust, sand-sized particles, and rocks away from the landing zone at high speed. That can affect visibility, sensors, nearby hardware, and potentially the surface under the vehicle itself." "If the landing site is soft, rocky, sloped, or uneven," he warns, "there is also the possibility of uneven leg loading or an excessive tilt after touchdown." Yet there's an array of technology approaches to reduce the danger. "The first is conservative landing-site selection: using high-resolution orbital mapping to pick very flat, relatively rock-free areas." "The second is autonomous hazard detection and avoidance, so the vehicle can identify unsafe terrain during descent and adjust its touchdown point." NASA and SpaceX can also mitigate the dangers by minimizing the touchdown velocity. "Starship HLS has been expected to use design features different from the Earth-return Starship," Hurley explains, "because landing on the Moon creates a very different set of problems." "Landing without a prepared pad is not necessarily a show-stopper," Hurley predicts, as a one-time solution. "If Artemis becomes a continuing program rather than a series of isolated sorties, prepared landing zones become much more important." For a sustained lunar base, landing pads will likely shift from being optional to absolutely essential infrastructure. SpaceX could use its first, uncrewed landing demo on the Moon to deploy a team of autonomous robots to build a landing zone or to position a prefabricated landing pad for the next human flight, Hurley says. In a fascinating paper that he co-authored with other spaceflight visionaries across NASA and inside SpaceX, titled "Accelerating Martian and Lunar Science through SpaceX Starship Missions," Professor Kip Hodges says: "SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle for both human and robotic flights to the surface of the Moon and Mars." Flotillas of massive Starships will enable the delivery of fleets of mobile robots, adds Hodges, one of the top space scholars in the U.S. and founding director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. While SpaceX's longstanding focus has been fixed on Mars, he says, "flights to the Moon provide the opportunity to test and demonstrate Starship systems closer to Earth prior to the longer journey to Mars." "More frequent flights to the Moon than to Mars are feasible due to orbital dynamics, and thus significant capabilities can be developed and tested at the Moon prior to Mars missions." Besides speeding brigades of robots to off-world destinations, Hodges says, Starships "will also carry hardware needed to support the human base including equipment for increased power production, water extraction, LOX/methane [rocket fuel] production [and] pre-prepared landing pads." Upon landing, Professor Hodges and the SpaceX engineers say, spacefarers could live on the Starship, the first of identical spacecraft-turned-skyscrapers that ultimately spread out across the solar system. Brian Hurley says that means the first experimental touchdown of the robotically piloted Starship on the Moon could carry a prefabricated landing platform, to be positioned by a squad of robots, while the ship provides living spaces for scores of future astronauts. Professor Hodges tells me in an interview that, in light of the rush to triumph in Moon Race II, NASA might even delay the assembly of lunar landing platforms until after the first American astronauts reach the crater-surrounded finishing line. "I don't think they absolutely need a landing pad for Starship or Blue's lander," says Hodges, who has teamed up with NASA to help train Allied astronauts on surface operations. "I think there is enough urgency to not be beaten to the Moon by the Chinese that they want to get Americans there as quickly as they can." Spacecraft designer Zubrin says that SpaceX could completely avoid the looming dangers and complexity of landing a Starship on the alien terrain of the Moon by rapidly prototyping and launching a miniature version of the Starship. This mini-Starship, which he calls a Starboat, would feature just one-fifth the mass of the mothership, and act as a shuttle to transport astronauts from an orbiting Starship down to the surreal polar region of the Moon. Many of the Herculean tech challenges now facing a Starship descent onto the Moon "would be much, much, easier to solve if the Starship were coupled with a mini-Starship, or Starboat, that could serve the function of lunar orbit to surface ferry." "The big Starship would never have to land." "Instead it could be used to refuel the Starboat from orbit." In the future, Dr. Zubrin says, "A similar Starboat could also serve as a ferry from Mars orbit to the surface." This article was originally published on Forbes.com