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  • Apple deletes WhatsApp, Threads from China app store on orders from Beijing

    Apple deletes WhatsApp, Threads from China app store on orders from Beijing

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    Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China, following an order from the country’s internet watchdog, which cited national security concerns.Related video above: French government watchdog agency ordered Apple to withdraw the iPhone 12 from the market (9/12/23)“We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree,” an Apple spokesperson told CNN on Friday. “The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns. These apps remain available for download on all other storefronts where they appear.”The apps, both owned by Meta, were already blocked in China and not widely used. They could be accessed in the country only by using virtual private networks (VPNs) that can encrypt internet traffic and disguise the user’s online identity.The removal of the apps by Apple represents a “further distancing between already separated tech universes” in the country and beyond, said Duncan Clark, the chairman of Beijing-based investment advisory BDA China.“It will cause inconvenience to consumers and businesses (in China) who deal with family, friends or customers overseas. Even if they use VPNs to access their existing WhatsApp apps, these over time will become obsolete and require updating,” he said.Other popular Western social media apps, including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, are still available on Apple’s China app store, according to a check by CNN.The tech giant’s announcement comes against a backdrop of plunging iPhone sales in the world’s second-largest economy. Its smartphone sales tumbled a stunning 10% in the first quarter of this year, according to market research firm IDC.The company has lost momentum in China as nationalism, a rough economy and increased competition have hurt Apple over the past several months.The resurgence of Huawei and other Chinese brands, including Xiaomi and OPPO/OnePlus, will likely continue, according to IDC. Chinese consumers who once would have considered Apple are now turning to the country’s national brands.Besides being a key production center, China remains an important market for Apple as it is the largest market behind the United States. The company continues to offer discounts in the country to help boost sales.Its CEO, Tim Cook, visited Shanghai just last month to open the second-biggest Apple store in the world.Hassan Tayir contributed reporting.

    Hong Kong (CNN) —

    Apple has removed WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China, following an order from the country’s internet watchdog, which cited national security concerns.

    Related video above: French government watchdog agency ordered Apple to withdraw the iPhone 12 from the market (9/12/23)

    “We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree,” an Apple spokesperson told CNN on Friday. “The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns. These apps remain available for download on all other storefronts where they appear.”

    The apps, both owned by Meta, were already blocked in China and not widely used. They could be accessed in the country only by using virtual private networks (VPNs) that can encrypt internet traffic and disguise the user’s online identity.

    The removal of the apps by Apple represents a “further distancing between already separated tech universes” in the country and beyond, said Duncan Clark, the chairman of Beijing-based investment advisory BDA China.

    “It will cause inconvenience to consumers and businesses (in China) who deal with family, friends or customers overseas. Even if they use VPNs to access their existing WhatsApp apps, these over time will become obsolete and require updating,” he said.

    Other popular Western social media apps, including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, are still available on Apple’s China app store, according to a check by CNN.

    The tech giant’s announcement comes against a backdrop of plunging iPhone sales in the world’s second-largest economy. Its smartphone sales tumbled a stunning 10% in the first quarter of this year, according to market research firm IDC.

    The company has lost momentum in China as nationalism, a rough economy and increased competition have hurt Apple over the past several months.

    The resurgence of Huawei and other Chinese brands, including Xiaomi and OPPO/OnePlus, will likely continue, according to IDC. Chinese consumers who once would have considered Apple are now turning to the country’s national brands.

    Besides being a key production center, China remains an important market for Apple as it is the largest market behind the United States. The company continues to offer discounts in the country to help boost sales.

    Its CEO, Tim Cook, visited Shanghai just last month to open the second-biggest Apple store in the world.

    Hassan Tayir contributed reporting.

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  • 25 years after Columbine, trauma shadows survivors of the school shooting

    25 years after Columbine, trauma shadows survivors of the school shooting

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    Hours after she escaped the Columbine High School shooting, 14-year-old Missy Mendo slept between her parents in bed, still wearing the shoes she had on when she fled her math class. She wanted to be ready to run.Related video above — Clarified: How do schools respond to gun incidents?Twenty-five years later, and with Mendo now a mother herself, the trauma from that horrific day remains close on her heels.It caught up to her when 60 people were shot dead in 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas, a city she had visited a lot while working in the casino industry. Then again, in 2022, when 19 students and two teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas.Mendo had been filling out her daughter’s pre-kindergarten application when news of the elementary school shooting broke. She read a few lines of a news story about Uvalde, then put her head down and cried.”It felt like nothing changed,” she recalls thinking.In the quarter-century since two gunmen at Columbine shot and killed 12 fellow students and a teacher in suburban Denver — an attack that played out on live television and ushered in the modern era of school shootings — the traumas of that day have continued to shadow Mendo and others who were there.Some needed years to view themselves as Columbine survivors since they were not physically wounded. Yet things like fireworks could still trigger disturbing memories. The aftershocks — often unacknowledged in the years before mental health struggles were more widely recognized — led to some survivors suffering insomnia, dropping out of school, or disengaging from their spouses or families.Survivors and other members of the community plan to attend a candlelight vigil on the steps of the state’s capitol Friday night, the eve of the shooting’s anniversary.April is particularly hard for Mendo, 39, whose “brain turns to mashed potatoes” each year. She shows up at dentist appointments early, misplaces her keys, forgets to close the refrigerator door.She leans on therapy and the understanding of an expanding group of shooting survivors she has met through The Rebels Project, a support group founded by other Columbine survivors following a 2012 shooting when a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in the nearby suburb of Aurora. Mendo started seeing a therapist after her child’s first birthday, at the urging of fellow survivor moms.After she broke down over Uvalde, Mendo, a single parent, said she talked to her mom, took a walk to get some fresh air, and then finished her daughter’s pre-kindergarten application.”Was I afraid of her going into the public school system? Absolutely,” Mendo said of her daughter. “I wanted her to have as normal of a life as possible.”Researchers who’ve studied the long-term effects of gun violence in schools have quantified protracted struggles among survivors, including long-term academic effects like absenteeism and reduced college enrollment, and lower earnings later in life.”Just counting lives lost is kind of an incorrect way to capture the full cost of these tragedies,” said Maya Rossin-Slater, an associate professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Department of Health Policy.Mass killings have recurred with numbing frequency in the years since Columbine, with almost 600 attacks in which four or more people have died, not including the perpetrator, since 2006, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.More than 80% of the 3,045 victims in those attacks were killed by a firearm.Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of people have been exposed to school shootings that are often not mass-casualty events but still traumatic, Rossin-Slater said. The impacts can last a lifetime, she added, resulting in “kind of a persistent, reduced potential” for survivors.Those who were present at Columbine say the years since have given them time to learn more about what happened to them and how to cope with it.Heather Martin, now 42, was a Columbine senior in 1999. In college, she began crying during a fire drill, realizing later that a fire alarm had gone off for three hours when she and 60 other students hid in a barricaded office during the high school shooting. She couldn’t return to that class and was marked absent each time, and says she failed it after refusing to write a final paper on school violence, despite telling her professor of her experience at Columbine.It took 10 years for her to see herself as a survivor, after she was invited back with the rest of the class of 1999 for an anniversary event. She saw fellow classmates having similar struggles and almost immediately decided to go back to college to become a teacher.Martin, a co-founder of The Rebels Project, named after Columbine’s mascot, said 25 years has given her time to struggle and figure out how to work out of those struggles.”I just know myself so well now and know how I respond to things and what might activate me and how I can bounce back and be OK. And most importantly, I think I can recognize when I am not OK and when I do need to seek help,” she said.Kiki Leyba, a first-year teacher at Columbine in 1999, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder soon after the shooting. He felt a strong sense of commitment to return to the school, where he threw himself into his work. But he continued to have panic attacks.To help him cope, he had sleeping pills and some Xanax for anxiety, Leyba said. One therapist recommended chamomile tea.Things got harder for him after the 2002 graduation of Mendo’s class, the last cohort of students who lived through the shooting since they had been through so much together.By 2005, after years of not taking care of himself and suffering from lack of sleep, Leyba said he would often check out from family life, sleeping in on the weekends and turning into a “blob on the couch.” Finally, his wife Kallie enrolled him in a one-week trauma treatment program, arranging for him to take the time off from work without telling him.”Thankfully, that really gave me a kind of a foothold … to do the work to climb out of that,” said Leyba, who said breathing exercises, journaling, meditation and anti-depressants have helped him.Like Mendo and Martin, he has traveled around the country to work with survivors of shootings.”That worst day has transformed into something I can offer to others,” said Leyba, who is in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with officials about gun violence and promoting a new film about his trauma journey.Mendo still lives in the area, and her 5-year-old daughter attends school near Columbine. When her daughter’s school locked down last year as police swarmed the neighborhood during a hostage situation, Mendo recalled worrying things like: What if my child is in danger? What if there is another school shooting like Columbine?When Mendo picked up her daughter, she seemed a little scared, and she hugged her mom a little tighter. Mendo breathed deeply to stay calm, a technique she had learned in therapy, and put on a brave face.”If I was putting down some fear, she would pick it up,” she said. “I didn’t want that for her.”____Associated Press writer Mead Gruver contributed to this report.

    DENVER (AP) —

    Hours after she escaped the Columbine High School shooting, 14-year-old Missy Mendo slept between her parents in bed, still wearing the shoes she had on when she fled her math class. She wanted to be ready to run.

    Related video above — Clarified: How do schools respond to gun incidents?

    Twenty-five years later, and with Mendo now a mother herself, the trauma from that horrific day remains close on her heels.

    It caught up to her when 60 people were shot dead in 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas, a city she had visited a lot while working in the casino industry. Then again, in 2022, when 19 students and two teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas.

    Mendo had been filling out her daughter’s pre-kindergarten application when news of the elementary school shooting broke. She read a few lines of a news story about Uvalde, then put her head down and cried.

    “It felt like nothing changed,” she recalls thinking.

    In the quarter-century since two gunmen at Columbine shot and killed 12 fellow students and a teacher in suburban Denver — an attack that played out on live television and ushered in the modern era of school shootings — the traumas of that day have continued to shadow Mendo and others who were there.

    Some needed years to view themselves as Columbine survivors since they were not physically wounded. Yet things like fireworks could still trigger disturbing memories. The aftershocks — often unacknowledged in the years before mental health struggles were more widely recognized — led to some survivors suffering insomnia, dropping out of school, or disengaging from their spouses or families.

    Survivors and other members of the community plan to attend a candlelight vigil on the steps of the state’s capitol Friday night, the eve of the shooting’s anniversary.

    April is particularly hard for Mendo, 39, whose “brain turns to mashed potatoes” each year. She shows up at dentist appointments early, misplaces her keys, forgets to close the refrigerator door.

    She leans on therapy and the understanding of an expanding group of shooting survivors she has met through The Rebels Project, a support group founded by other Columbine survivors following a 2012 shooting when a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in the nearby suburb of Aurora. Mendo started seeing a therapist after her child’s first birthday, at the urging of fellow survivor moms.

    After she broke down over Uvalde, Mendo, a single parent, said she talked to her mom, took a walk to get some fresh air, and then finished her daughter’s pre-kindergarten application.

    “Was I afraid of her going into the public school system? Absolutely,” Mendo said of her daughter. “I wanted her to have as normal of a life as possible.”

    Researchers who’ve studied the long-term effects of gun violence in schools have quantified protracted struggles among survivors, including long-term academic effects like absenteeism and reduced college enrollment, and lower earnings later in life.

    “Just counting lives lost is kind of an incorrect way to capture the full cost of these tragedies,” said Maya Rossin-Slater, an associate professor in the Stanford University School of Medicine’s Department of Health Policy.

    Mass killings have recurred with numbing frequency in the years since Columbine, with almost 600 attacks in which four or more people have died, not including the perpetrator, since 2006, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.

    More than 80% of the 3,045 victims in those attacks were killed by a firearm.

    Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of people have been exposed to school shootings that are often not mass-casualty events but still traumatic, Rossin-Slater said. The impacts can last a lifetime, she added, resulting in “kind of a persistent, reduced potential” for survivors.

    Those who were present at Columbine say the years since have given them time to learn more about what happened to them and how to cope with it.

    Heather Martin, now 42, was a Columbine senior in 1999. In college, she began crying during a fire drill, realizing later that a fire alarm had gone off for three hours when she and 60 other students hid in a barricaded office during the high school shooting. She couldn’t return to that class and was marked absent each time, and says she failed it after refusing to write a final paper on school violence, despite telling her professor of her experience at Columbine.

    It took 10 years for her to see herself as a survivor, after she was invited back with the rest of the class of 1999 for an anniversary event. She saw fellow classmates having similar struggles and almost immediately decided to go back to college to become a teacher.

    Martin, a co-founder of The Rebels Project, named after Columbine’s mascot, said 25 years has given her time to struggle and figure out how to work out of those struggles.

    “I just know myself so well now and know how I respond to things and what might activate me and how I can bounce back and be OK. And most importantly, I think I can recognize when I am not OK and when I do need to seek help,” she said.

    Kiki Leyba, a first-year teacher at Columbine in 1999, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder soon after the shooting. He felt a strong sense of commitment to return to the school, where he threw himself into his work. But he continued to have panic attacks.

    To help him cope, he had sleeping pills and some Xanax for anxiety, Leyba said. One therapist recommended chamomile tea.

    Things got harder for him after the 2002 graduation of Mendo’s class, the last cohort of students who lived through the shooting since they had been through so much together.

    By 2005, after years of not taking care of himself and suffering from lack of sleep, Leyba said he would often check out from family life, sleeping in on the weekends and turning into a “blob on the couch.” Finally, his wife Kallie enrolled him in a one-week trauma treatment program, arranging for him to take the time off from work without telling him.

    “Thankfully, that really gave me a kind of a foothold … to do the work to climb out of that,” said Leyba, who said breathing exercises, journaling, meditation and anti-depressants have helped him.

    Like Mendo and Martin, he has traveled around the country to work with survivors of shootings.

    “That worst day has transformed into something I can offer to others,” said Leyba, who is in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with officials about gun violence and promoting a new film about his trauma journey.

    Mendo still lives in the area, and her 5-year-old daughter attends school near Columbine. When her daughter’s school locked down last year as police swarmed the neighborhood during a hostage situation, Mendo recalled worrying things like: What if my child is in danger? What if there is another school shooting like Columbine?

    When Mendo picked up her daughter, she seemed a little scared, and she hugged her mom a little tighter. Mendo breathed deeply to stay calm, a technique she had learned in therapy, and put on a brave face.

    “If I was putting down some fear, she would pick it up,” she said. “I didn’t want that for her.”

    ____

    Associated Press writer Mead Gruver contributed to this report.

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  • Predicting invasive plant ‘time bombs’: New research shows risks of letting these plants go unchecked

    Predicting invasive plant ‘time bombs’: New research shows risks of letting these plants go unchecked

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    Invasive plants can be found just about anywhere in the world. They can endanger the environment by directly competing with native plants for vital moisture, sunlight and space.New research from the University of California, Davis, shows that some invasive species could be lying dormant, going unnoticed until they suddenly spread.Mohsen Mesgaran, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, has developed formulas that help predict the potential emergence of these invasive species “time bombs.””We should be very concerned about this,” Mesgaran said.Invasive plant species can be an expensive problem for farmers, stealing vital nutrients away from important crops.”The best-known impact in agriculture is reducing the production and ultimately affecting the food security, so the price of food,” Mesgaran said.With the help of computer modeling, scientists like Mesgaran can predict the potential emergence of one of these “time bombs.””Like what you do with a weather forecast, you say, ‘Tomorrow it’s going to be raining.’ I can tell you, tomorrow you’re going to have 10 weeds coming out of your field,” Mesgaran said.Plant scientists make these forecasts by analyzing variables like soil condition, air temperature and moisture and lining them up with the timing of a specific plant species emergence.In a recent publication, Mesgaran and his co-authors analyzed more than 5,700 species of invasive plants around the world. They found that some were dormant for decades to centuries.”It’s a problem because you ignore them. You think they’re going to always stay dormant but it’s just a matter of time,” Mesgaran said. “The sooner you get on a problem and eradicate them or control them, it’s better. It’s way cheaper than when are exploding and they’re everywhere.”Other research shows that human-caused climate change is expected to have an impact on where and when certain invasive weeds could take off. Increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are leading to rising temperatures in some regions. Those temperature changes could be enough to tip off an invasive species “time bomb.”Mesgaran says model predictions can help the agriculture industry get ahead of invasive plants. Currently, preventative planning is not a common practice for invasive species in the United States.

    Invasive plants can be found just about anywhere in the world. They can endanger the environment by directly competing with native plants for vital moisture, sunlight and space.

    New research from the University of California, Davis, shows that some invasive species could be lying dormant, going unnoticed until they suddenly spread.

    Mohsen Mesgaran, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, has developed formulas that help predict the potential emergence of these invasive species “time bombs.”

    “We should be very concerned about this,” Mesgaran said.

    Invasive plant species can be an expensive problem for farmers, stealing vital nutrients away from important crops.

    “The best-known impact in agriculture is reducing the production and ultimately affecting the food security, so the price of food,” Mesgaran said.

    With the help of computer modeling, scientists like Mesgaran can predict the potential emergence of one of these “time bombs.”

    “Like what you do with a weather forecast, you say, ‘Tomorrow it’s going to be raining.’ I can tell you, tomorrow you’re going to have 10 weeds coming out of your field,” Mesgaran said.

    Plant scientists make these forecasts by analyzing variables like soil condition, air temperature and moisture and lining them up with the timing of a specific plant species emergence.

    In a recent publication, Mesgaran and his co-authors analyzed more than 5,700 species of invasive plants around the world. They found that some were dormant for decades to centuries.

    “It’s a problem because you ignore them. You think they’re going to always stay dormant but it’s just a matter of time,” Mesgaran said. “The sooner you get on a problem and eradicate them or control them, it’s better. It’s way cheaper than when [invasive species] are exploding and they’re everywhere.”

    Other research shows that human-caused climate change is expected to have an impact on where and when certain invasive weeds could take off. Increasing amounts of carbon in the atmosphere are leading to rising temperatures in some regions. Those temperature changes could be enough to tip off an invasive species “time bomb.”

    Mesgaran says model predictions can help the agriculture industry get ahead of invasive plants. Currently, preventative planning is not a common practice for invasive species in the United States.

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  • NASA wants to come up with a new clock for the moon, where seconds tick away faster

    NASA wants to come up with a new clock for the moon, where seconds tick away faster

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    NASA wants to come up with an out-of-this-world way to keep track of time, putting the moon on its own souped-up clock.Related video above: Odysseus becomes first U.S. lander to touch down on the moon in over 50 yearsIt’s not quite a time zone like those on Earth, but an entire frame of time reference for the moon. Because there’s less gravity on the moon, time there moves a tad quicker — 58.7 microseconds every day — compared to Earth. So the White House on Tuesday instructed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other U.S. agencies to work with international agencies to come up with a new moon-centric time reference system.”An atomic clock on the moon will tick at a different rate than a clock on Earth,” said Kevin Coggins, NASA’s top communications and navigation official. “It makes sense that when you go to another body, like the moon or Mars, that each one gets its own heartbeat.”So everything on the moon will operate on the speeded-up moon time, Coggins said.The last time NASA sent astronauts to the moon, they wore watches, but timing wasn’t as precise and critical as it is now with GPS, satellites and intricate computer and communications systems, he said. Those microseconds matter when high-tech systems interact, he said.Last year, the European Space Agency said Earth needs to come up with a unified time for the moon, where a day lasts 29.5 Earth days.The International Space Station, being in low Earth orbit, will continue to use coordinated universal time or UTC. But just where the new space time kicks in is something that NASA has to figure out. Even Earth’s time speeds up and slows down, requiring leap seconds.Unlike on Earth, the moon will not have daylight saving time, Coggins said.The White House wants NASA to come up with a preliminary idea by the end of the year and have a final plan by the end of 2026.NASA is aiming to send astronauts around the moon in September 2025 and land people there a year later.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    WASHINGTON (AP) —

    NASA wants to come up with an out-of-this-world way to keep track of time, putting the moon on its own souped-up clock.

    Related video above: Odysseus becomes first U.S. lander to touch down on the moon in over 50 years

    It’s not quite a time zone like those on Earth, but an entire frame of time reference for the moon. Because there’s less gravity on the moon, time there moves a tad quicker — 58.7 microseconds every day — compared to Earth. So the White House on Tuesday instructed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other U.S. agencies to work with international agencies to come up with a new moon-centric time reference system.

    “An atomic clock on the moon will tick at a different rate than a clock on Earth,” said Kevin Coggins, NASA’s top communications and navigation official. “It makes sense that when you go to another body, like the moon or Mars, that each one gets its own heartbeat.”

    So everything on the moon will operate on the speeded-up moon time, Coggins said.

    The last time NASA sent astronauts to the moon, they wore watches, but timing wasn’t as precise and critical as it is now with GPS, satellites and intricate computer and communications systems, he said. Those microseconds matter when high-tech systems interact, he said.

    Last year, the European Space Agency said Earth needs to come up with a unified time for the moon, where a day lasts 29.5 Earth days.

    The International Space Station, being in low Earth orbit, will continue to use coordinated universal time or UTC. But just where the new space time kicks in is something that NASA has to figure out. Even Earth’s time speeds up and slows down, requiring leap seconds.

    Unlike on Earth, the moon will not have daylight saving time, Coggins said.

    The White House wants NASA to come up with a preliminary idea by the end of the year and have a final plan by the end of 2026.

    NASA is aiming to send astronauts around the moon in September 2025 and land people there a year later.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • An Everest-size volcano hiding in plain sight on Mars? New research makes waves in the science community

    An Everest-size volcano hiding in plain sight on Mars? New research makes waves in the science community

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    Scientists may have pinpointed a massive, oddly shaped volcano taller than Mount Everest on the surface of Mars — and it has been hiding in plain sight for decades, according to new research.Related video above: NASA showcases new images of Mars taken by The James Webb Space Telescope (2022)The possible identification of a previously unknown Martian volcano has made waves across the planetary sciences community since Mars Institute Chairman Pascal Lee, lead author of an abstract about the formation, presented the findings on March 13 at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.The research has drummed up excitement — and attracted some skeptics.Lee said he and Sourabh Shubham, a doctoral student of geology at the University of Maryland, College Park, have identified a volcano within Mars’ Noctis Labyrinthus region — a gnarled patch of terrain near the equator with a web of canyons. The volcano in the “Labyrinth of Night” may have eluded scientists despite years of satellite observation because it does not tower over its surrounding landscape, Lee said.“It’s also deeply eroded, eaten up and collapsed by erosion to the point that unless you’re really looking for a volcano, you would be really hard-pressed to spot it very quickly,” he told CNN.If the team is correct, the revelation could have broad implications for scientists’ understanding of Martian geology. And, Lee said, he hopes the discovery could help lure future exploratory missions to the area to search for water ice or even signs of life.The smoking gunInitially, the research team’s efforts led to a study presented in March 2023 that suggested the Noctis Labyrinthus region may be home to a massive glacier covered in salt deposits.Since then, Lee and Shubham have pored through data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, trying to determine whether water might still be frozen beneath the salt.The hunt for water ice is key — it’s a resource that could be used to sustain human exploration on Mars or even converted into rocket fuel. While scouring the landscape, however, Lee said he was struck by “this little lava flow next to the glacier.”The lava hadn’t yet been fully oxidized, a process that would turn it the same muddy orange hue as the surrounding surface, Lee said.That indicated the lava might be relatively fresh — the first hint that an undetected volcano might be lurking nearby.“We started looking at the landscape carefully,” Lee said. “And sure enough, when we examined the high points of this region, we noticed that they formed an arc.”That arc is reminiscent of a shield volcano, Lee added, a type of volcano that also exists on Earth. Shield volcanoes are characterized by their broad, gently sloping sides — appearing wider than they are tall.That finding led Lee and Shubham to gather more evidence, eventually determining that a 29,600-foot (9,022-meter) peak was actually the tip of a Martian volcano.That’s a few hundred feet taller than Mount Everest, which rises 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level.Mapping MarsScientists have already cataloged and named more than a dozen volcanoes on Mars, including Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in our solar system.Lee said he and Shubham are working to spell out the findings in a peer-reviewed paper, a more detailed work that could lend more credence to the idea across the scientific community.But the hypothesis of the volcano’s existence is already attracting attention.“It’s a big thing,” said Adrien Broquet, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the German Aerospace Center who has studied Martian volcanoes. “It’s as tall as the tallest mountain we have on the Earth. So, it’s not a small feature on Mars for which we’ve had a question mark. And we have plenty of question marks (about the surface of Mars.)”A search for life in the Labyrinth of NightThe journey to identifying this volcano — which the team has provisionally named “Noctis volcano” — began in 2015, Lee said, when NASA asked the planetary science community to propose intriguing locations on Mars where the US space agency might land future human exploration missions.Lee proposed a site just east of Noctis Labyrinthus, which was dubbed “Noctis landing.”The location could be an ideal place to search for alien life on Mars, said Lee, who is also a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life.“Of course, we’re not looking for a little green man with antennae,” Lee said. “But we’re looking for microbes that would not fit into the tree of life on Earth.”Noctis Labyrinthus could be ideally situated for this hunt, according to Lee.“If you want to look for ancient life, you drive east (from Noctis Labyrinthus) into the canyons,” Lee said, referring to Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in our solar system.There, explorers could “sift through the rock layers” to scour for fossils, he said.Or, Lee suggested, a mission could venture west to a volcanic region called the Tharsis plateau, where warm caves may harbor living microbes.With such tantalizing potential, Lee has committed to studying Noctis Labyrinthus to build a case for sending exploratory missions there.A volcano, a glacier and the history of MarsThe existence of a volcano in Noctis Labyrinthus could also help explain the creation of this bizarre landscape.Scientists suspect magma bubbling up from Mars’ interior formed the labyrinthian valleys, but the details are up for debate.One theory is that when the magma pushed up on the Martian crust, it cracked and splintered, leaving behind a maze of branching canyons.Lee favors an alternative theory: This model suggests that the Martian crust in Noctis Labyrinthus is full of ice. And when magma seeped in, it melted or vaporized ice and rock beneath the surface, causing swaths of the terrain to cave in.The existence of a volcano in the region, Lee said, might offer more support for the latter theory.The science of certaintyThree scientists who were not involved in the research told CNN that they would not be surprised if a volcano were hidden near Noctis Labyrinthus.Volcanoes of all shapes and sizes riddle the surface of the broader region, including the Tharsis plateau to the west of Noctis Labyrinthus.However, Ernst Hauber, a staff scientist at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Planetary Research, is one geologist in the community who would like to see a peer-reviewed paper before he accepts Lee and Shubham’s version of events.“They are very vague about chronology, about the timing of events,” Hauber told CNN, referring to the brief abstract Lee and Shubham published.Among Hauber’s questions: If the volcano could still be active, as Lee suggests, why hasn’t it poured lava into the surrounding canyons? Why aren’t there more visible signs of lava near the peak? Could this actually be an impact crater Lee is looking at?“I’m a bit skeptical for several reasons,” Hauber said.Broquet of the German Aerospace Center and David Horvath — a research scientist at the nonprofit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona — both said in separate interviews they would like to see additional data supporting the ideas Lee and Shubham presented.But Broquet and Horvath said they find the abstract intriguing.“This does look like a really good candidate (for a volcano),” Horvath said.Lee said he is welcoming input from other scientists, anxious for additional evidence to support his research. But he also expresses confidence.“In this case, my sense is that there’s really no room for plausible alternate hypotheses,” Lee said, adding that he’s 85% to 90% certain he has located a new Martian volcano.“But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Lee added, quoting the late astronomer Carl Sagan, for whom he once worked as a teaching assistant.

    Scientists may have pinpointed a massive, oddly shaped volcano taller than Mount Everest on the surface of Mars — and it has been hiding in plain sight for decades, according to new research.

    Related video above: NASA showcases new images of Mars taken by The James Webb Space Telescope (2022)

    The possible identification of a previously unknown Martian volcano has made waves across the planetary sciences community since Mars Institute Chairman Pascal Lee, lead author of an abstract about the formation, presented the findings on March 13 at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

    The research has drummed up excitement — and attracted some skeptics.

    Lee said he and Sourabh Shubham, a doctoral student of geology at the University of Maryland, College Park, have identified a volcano within Mars’ Noctis Labyrinthus region — a gnarled patch of terrain near the equator with a web of canyons. The volcano in the “Labyrinth of Night” may have eluded scientists despite years of satellite observation because it does not tower over its surrounding landscape, Lee said.

    “It’s also deeply eroded, eaten up and collapsed by erosion to the point that unless you’re really looking for a volcano, you would be really hard-pressed to spot it very quickly,” he told CNN.

    If the team is correct, the revelation could have broad implications for scientists’ understanding of Martian geology. And, Lee said, he hopes the discovery could help lure future exploratory missions to the area to search for water ice or even signs of life.

    The smoking gun

    Initially, the research team’s efforts led to a study presented in March 2023 that suggested the Noctis Labyrinthus region may be home to a massive glacier covered in salt deposits.

    Since then, Lee and Shubham have pored through data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, trying to determine whether water might still be frozen beneath the salt.

    The hunt for water ice is key — it’s a resource that could be used to sustain human exploration on Mars or even converted into rocket fuel. While scouring the landscape, however, Lee said he was struck by “this little lava flow next to the glacier.”

    The lava hadn’t yet been fully oxidized, a process that would turn it the same muddy orange hue as the surrounding surface, Lee said.

    That indicated the lava might be relatively fresh — the first hint that an undetected volcano might be lurking nearby.

    “We started looking at the landscape carefully,” Lee said. “And sure enough, when we examined the high points of this region, we noticed that they formed an arc.”

    That arc is reminiscent of a shield volcano, Lee added, a type of volcano that also exists on Earth. Shield volcanoes are characterized by their broad, gently sloping sides — appearing wider than they are tall.

    That finding led Lee and Shubham to gather more evidence, eventually determining that a 29,600-foot (9,022-meter) peak was actually the tip of a Martian volcano.

    That’s a few hundred feet taller than Mount Everest, which rises 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level.

    Mapping Mars

    Scientists have already cataloged and named more than a dozen volcanoes on Mars, including Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in our solar system.

    Lee said he and Shubham are working to spell out the findings in a peer-reviewed paper, a more detailed work that could lend more credence to the idea across the scientific community.

    But the hypothesis of the volcano’s existence is already attracting attention.

    “It’s a big thing,” said Adrien Broquet, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the German Aerospace Center who has studied Martian volcanoes. “It’s as tall as the tallest mountain we have on the Earth. So, it’s not a small feature on Mars for which we’ve had a question mark. And we have plenty of question marks (about the surface of Mars.)”

    A search for life in the Labyrinth of Night

    The journey to identifying this volcano — which the team has provisionally named “Noctis volcano” — began in 2015, Lee said, when NASA asked the planetary science community to propose intriguing locations on Mars where the US space agency might land future human exploration missions.

    Lee proposed a site just east of Noctis Labyrinthus, which was dubbed “Noctis landing.”

    The location could be an ideal place to search for alien life on Mars, said Lee, who is also a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

    “Of course, we’re not looking for a little green man with antennae,” Lee said. “But we’re looking for microbes that would not fit into the tree of life on Earth.”

    Noctis Labyrinthus could be ideally situated for this hunt, according to Lee.

    “If you want to look for ancient life, you drive east (from Noctis Labyrinthus) into the canyons,” Lee said, referring to Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in our solar system.

    There, explorers could “sift through the rock layers” to scour for fossils, he said.

    Or, Lee suggested, a mission could venture west to a volcanic region called the Tharsis plateau, where warm caves may harbor living microbes.

    With such tantalizing potential, Lee has committed to studying Noctis Labyrinthus to build a case for sending exploratory missions there.

    A volcano, a glacier and the history of Mars

    The existence of a volcano in Noctis Labyrinthus could also help explain the creation of this bizarre landscape.

    Scientists suspect magma bubbling up from Mars’ interior formed the labyrinthian valleys, but the details are up for debate.

    One theory is that when the magma pushed up on the Martian crust, it cracked and splintered, leaving behind a maze of branching canyons.

    Lee favors an alternative theory: This model suggests that the Martian crust in Noctis Labyrinthus is full of ice. And when magma seeped in, it melted or vaporized ice and rock beneath the surface, causing swaths of the terrain to cave in.

    The existence of a volcano in the region, Lee said, might offer more support for the latter theory.

    The science of certainty

    Three scientists who were not involved in the research told CNN that they would not be surprised if a volcano were hidden near Noctis Labyrinthus.

    Volcanoes of all shapes and sizes riddle the surface of the broader region, including the Tharsis plateau to the west of Noctis Labyrinthus.

    However, Ernst Hauber, a staff scientist at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Planetary Research, is one geologist in the community who would like to see a peer-reviewed paper before he accepts Lee and Shubham’s version of events.

    “They are very vague about chronology, about the timing of events,” Hauber told CNN, referring to the brief abstract Lee and Shubham published.

    Among Hauber’s questions: If the volcano could still be active, as Lee suggests, why hasn’t it poured lava into the surrounding canyons? Why aren’t there more visible signs of lava near the peak? Could this actually be an impact crater Lee is looking at?

    “I’m a bit skeptical for several reasons,” Hauber said.

    Broquet of the German Aerospace Center and David Horvath — a research scientist at the nonprofit Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona — both said in separate interviews they would like to see additional data supporting the ideas Lee and Shubham presented.

    But Broquet and Horvath said they find the abstract intriguing.

    “This does look like a really good candidate (for a volcano),” Horvath said.

    Lee said he is welcoming input from other scientists, anxious for additional evidence to support his research. But he also expresses confidence.

    “In this case, my sense is that there’s really no room for plausible alternate hypotheses,” Lee said, adding that he’s 85% to 90% certain he has located a new Martian volcano.

    “But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Lee added, quoting the late astronomer Carl Sagan, for whom he once worked as a teaching assistant.

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  • Trump posts video with an image of a hog-tied Biden, drawing a rebuke from Democrat’s campaign

    Trump posts video with an image of a hog-tied Biden, drawing a rebuke from Democrat’s campaign

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    Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump drew criticism Friday for posting a video on social media that contains the image of a hog-tied President Joe Biden painted on the tailgate of a passing truck.Related video above: Trump has days to pay $464 million bond before assets seized (3/22/24)The Biden campaign was quick to condemn the video for suggesting physical harm to the sitting Democratic president. Biden has portrayed his likely 2024 opponent as someone who freely evokes Nazi imagery with regard to immigrants, while also stressing in speeches that Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 elections ultimately led to an assault on the U.S. Capitol.”Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6,” said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director.Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded Friday night: “That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was traveling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”The U.S. Secret Service released a statement saying it “does not confirm or comment on matters of protective intelligence.”The former president posted the video on his social media site, Truth Social. His caption said the video was taken in Long Island, New York, on Thursday, when the former president attended the wake of a New York City police officer who was killed during a traffic stop.The posted video shows a passing truck decked out with “Trump 2024″ and flags claiming support for police, with the picture of a seemingly helpless Biden with his hands and feet tied painted on the rear of the vehicle.Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. began trading on the stock market Tuesday, with the valuation adding billions of dollars to his fortune.Seeking a return to the White House, Trump has painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden secures a second term.”If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned at an Ohio rally earlier this month while talking about the impact of offshoring on the country’s auto industry.Trump has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing the rhetoric of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. And he once described his enemies as “vermin,” language that his opponents say reflects his authoritarian beliefs.At one recent rally, Trump went so far as to cast Biden’s handling of the border as “a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”Last year, before his indictment in New York over hush money paid on his behalf during his 2016 campaign, Trump posted a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of District Attorney Alvin Bragg.In a 2018 speech, Biden discussed lewd comments that Trump had made about women and registered his disgust by suggesting a willingness to physically fight the then-president.”If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” Biden said at the time, adding that any man who disrespected women was “usually the fattest, ugliest SOB in the room.”

    WASHINGTON (AP) —

    Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump drew criticism Friday for posting a video on social media that contains the image of a hog-tied President Joe Biden painted on the tailgate of a passing truck.

    Related video above: Trump has days to pay $464 million bond before assets seized (3/22/24)

    The Biden campaign was quick to condemn the video for suggesting physical harm to the sitting Democratic president. Biden has portrayed his likely 2024 opponent as someone who freely evokes Nazi imagery with regard to immigrants, while also stressing in speeches that Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 elections ultimately led to an assault on the U.S. Capitol.

    “Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6,” said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director.

    Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded Friday night: “That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was traveling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”

    The U.S. Secret Service released a statement saying it “does not confirm or comment on matters of protective intelligence.”

    The former president posted the video on his social media site, Truth Social. His caption said the video was taken in Long Island, New York, on Thursday, when the former president attended the wake of a New York City police officer who was killed during a traffic stop.

    The posted video shows a passing truck decked out with “Trump 2024” and flags claiming support for police, with the picture of a seemingly helpless Biden with his hands and feet tied painted on the rear of the vehicle.

    Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. began trading on the stock market Tuesday, with the valuation adding billions of dollars to his fortune.

    Seeking a return to the White House, Trump has painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden secures a second term.

    “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned at an Ohio rally earlier this month while talking about the impact of offshoring on the country’s auto industry.

    Trump has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing the rhetoric of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. And he once described his enemies as “vermin,” language that his opponents say reflects his authoritarian beliefs.

    At one recent rally, Trump went so far as to cast Biden’s handling of the border as “a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”

    Last year, before his indictment in New York over hush money paid on his behalf during his 2016 campaign, Trump posted a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

    In a 2018 speech, Biden discussed lewd comments that Trump had made about women and registered his disgust by suggesting a willingness to physically fight the then-president.

    “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” Biden said at the time, adding that any man who disrespected women was “usually the fattest, ugliest SOB in the room.”

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  • Russian detains suspects after deadly Moscow concert hall attack that killed 115 people

    Russian detains suspects after deadly Moscow concert hall attack that killed 115 people

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    Russian authorities detained 11 people, state media reported Saturday, after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow in a grisly attack that left at least 115 people dead.Related video above: Russia presidential election explainer Russia’s Investigative Committee said four of those detained were directly involved in the attack that left the sprawling shopping mall and music venue smoldering with a collapsed roof.Russian agencies appeared to suggest the attack was linked to Ukraine even though the Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. agencies had confirmed that that group was responsible for the attack.The four suspects were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said. They planned to cross the border into Ukraine and “had contacts” there, state news agency Tass said, citing Russia’s FSB. The head of the FSB briefed President Vladimir Putin on the arrests on Saturday, according to Tass.Images shared by Russian state media Saturday showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, a shopping mall and music venue with a capacity of more than 6,000 people in Krasnogorsk, on Moscow’s western edge.Friday’s attack came just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide. The attack was the deadliest in Russia in years and came as the country’s fight in Ukraine dragged into a third year.Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. The roof of the theatre, where crowds had gathered Friday for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours fighting a fire that erupted during the attack.Four of those detained were directly involved in the attack, Tass said.The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated social media channels, although neither the Kremlin nor Russian security services have officially assigned blame for the attack.In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.However, a U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies had confirmed that IS was responsible for the attack.The official said U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and that U.S. officials had privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.Messages of outrage, shock and support for those affected have since streamed in from around the world.On Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms,” his spokesman said.Meanwhile, in Moscow itself, hundreds of people stood in line Saturday morning to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, had publicly denounced the Western warnings of a potential terrorist attack as an attempt to intimidate Russians. “All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this week.In October 2015, a bomb planted by the Islamic State downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.___Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.

    MOSCOW (AP) —

    Russian authorities detained 11 people, state media reported Saturday, after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow in a grisly attack that left at least 115 people dead.

    Related video above: Russia presidential election explainer

    Russia’s Investigative Committee said four of those detained were directly involved in the attack that left the sprawling shopping mall and music venue smoldering with a collapsed roof.

    Russian agencies appeared to suggest the attack was linked to Ukraine even though the Islamic State group claimed responsibility in a statement. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. agencies had confirmed that that group was responsible for the attack.

    The four suspects were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said. They planned to cross the border into Ukraine and “had contacts” there, state news agency Tass said, citing Russia’s FSB. The head of the FSB briefed President Vladimir Putin on the arrests on Saturday, according to Tass.

    Images shared by Russian state media Saturday showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, a shopping mall and music venue with a capacity of more than 6,000 people in Krasnogorsk, on Moscow’s western edge.

    Friday’s attack came just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide. The attack was the deadliest in Russia in years and came as the country’s fight in Ukraine dragged into a third year.

    Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. The roof of the theatre, where crowds had gathered Friday for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours fighting a fire that erupted during the attack.

    Four of those detained were directly involved in the attack, Tass said.

    The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated social media channels, although neither the Kremlin nor Russian security services have officially assigned blame for the attack.

    In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.

    However, a U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that U.S. intelligence agencies had confirmed that IS was responsible for the attack.

    The official said U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and that U.S. officials had privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.

    The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

    Messages of outrage, shock and support for those affected have since streamed in from around the world.

    On Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms,” his spokesman said.

    Meanwhile, in Moscow itself, hundreds of people stood in line Saturday morning to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.

    Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, had publicly denounced the Western warnings of a potential terrorist attack as an attempt to intimidate Russians. “All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this week.

    In October 2015, a bomb planted by the Islamic State downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt. The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine is ‘not unthinkable’

    Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine is ‘not unthinkable’

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    Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO forces “is not unthinkable” and that he appreciates the French president for not ruling out that idea.Related video above: Russian forces ramp up assault in UkraineRadek Sikorski made the observation during a discussion marking the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO in the Polish parliament on Friday, and the Foreign Ministry tweeted the comments later in English.They reflect a larger European debate over how to help Ukraine, as Russia has gained some momentum on the battlefield and Kyiv is running low on ammunition. The U.S. Congress is withholding aid that Ukraine says it critically needs to hold off the Russians, putting more pressure on Europe to respond to the war that has shattered peace on the continent.Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said the possibility of Western troops being sent to Ukraine could not be ruled out, a comment that broke a taboo among allies and prompted an outcry from other leaders. French officials later sought to clarify Macron’s remarks and tamp down the backlash, while insisting on the need to send a clear signal to Russia that it cannot win its war in Ukraine.The Kremlin has warned that if NATO sends combat troops, a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia would be inevitable. Russian President Vladimir Putin said such a move would risk a global nuclear conflict.Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk was among those European leaders who initially ruled out sending troops to Ukraine after Macron’s remarks, saying: “Poland does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine.”But less than two weeks later, Sikorski struck a different tone.”The presence of #NATO forces in Ukraine is not unthinkable,” he said, according to the Foreign Ministry’s post on X. He said he appreciated Macron’s initiative “because it is about Putin being afraid, not us being afraid of Putin.”Sikorski’s remark is part of a broader shift to align with Macron’s position, wrote Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.”The issue of sending European forces to help Ukraine was never one to be dismissed — it was always a possibility,” O’Brien wrote in an email analysis sent to subscribers Saturday. “In fact it has become more of one as the USA has stepped back and withdrawn aid. Europe is now faced with a terrible dilemma — watching Ukraine potentially run out of ammunition, or stepping in and helping Ukraine more directly.”Polish President Andrzej Duda and Tusk will travel to Washington for a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, a visit the Poles hope they can use to spur the United States to do more to help Ukraine.Poland is a member of NATO along the alliance’s eastern flank, with Ukraine across its eastern border. The country has been under Russian control in the past, and fears run high that if Russia wins in Ukraine, it could next target other countries in a region that Moscow views as its sphere of interest.

    WARSAW, Poland (AP) —

    Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO forces “is not unthinkable” and that he appreciates the French president for not ruling out that idea.

    Related video above: Russian forces ramp up assault in Ukraine

    Radek Sikorski made the observation during a discussion marking the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO in the Polish parliament on Friday, and the Foreign Ministry tweeted the comments later in English.

    They reflect a larger European debate over how to help Ukraine, as Russia has gained some momentum on the battlefield and Kyiv is running low on ammunition. The U.S. Congress is withholding aid that Ukraine says it critically needs to hold off the Russians, putting more pressure on Europe to respond to the war that has shattered peace on the continent.

    Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron said the possibility of Western troops being sent to Ukraine could not be ruled out, a comment that broke a taboo among allies and prompted an outcry from other leaders. French officials later sought to clarify Macron’s remarks and tamp down the backlash, while insisting on the need to send a clear signal to Russia that it cannot win its war in Ukraine.

    The Kremlin has warned that if NATO sends combat troops, a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia would be inevitable. Russian President Vladimir Putin said such a move would risk a global nuclear conflict.

    Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk was among those European leaders who initially ruled out sending troops to Ukraine after Macron’s remarks, saying: “Poland does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine.”

    But less than two weeks later, Sikorski struck a different tone.

    “The presence of #NATO forces in Ukraine is not unthinkable,” he said, according to the Foreign Ministry’s post on X. He said he appreciated Macron’s initiative “because it is about Putin being afraid, not us being afraid of Putin.”

    Sikorski’s remark is part of a broader shift to align with Macron’s position, wrote Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

    “The issue of sending European forces to help Ukraine was never one to be dismissed — it was always a possibility,” O’Brien wrote in an email analysis sent to subscribers Saturday. “In fact it has become more of one as the USA has stepped back and withdrawn aid. Europe is now faced with a terrible dilemma — watching Ukraine potentially run out of ammunition, or stepping in and helping Ukraine more directly.”

    Polish President Andrzej Duda and Tusk will travel to Washington for a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, a visit the Poles hope they can use to spur the United States to do more to help Ukraine.

    Poland is a member of NATO along the alliance’s eastern flank, with Ukraine across its eastern border. The country has been under Russian control in the past, and fears run high that if Russia wins in Ukraine, it could next target other countries in a region that Moscow views as its sphere of interest.

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  • What do you get when you cross rodeo with skiing? The wild and wacky skijoring

    What do you get when you cross rodeo with skiing? The wild and wacky skijoring

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    What do you get when you cross rodeo with skiing? The wild and wacky skijoring

    Every winter, thousands of people converge on the old Colorado mining town of Leadville to witness one of the most popular skijoring races in the country


    By THOMAS PEIPERT, Associated Press

    Nick Burri clicks into his ski bindings, squats to stretch his knees and scans the snowy race course. Moments later, he’s zipping past a series of gates at high speed and hurtling off jumps. But it’s not gravity pulling him toward the finish line: It’s the brute force of a quarter horse named Sirius.Welcome to skijoring: an extreme — and quirky — winter sport that celebrates the unlikely melding of rodeo and ski culture in the U.S. Mountain West.It’s a heart-pumping, white-knuckle competition in which horses — and sometimes dogs, snowmobiles and even cars — tow skiers by rope at speeds that can top 40 mph over jumps as high as 8 feet and around obstacles as they try to lance suspended hoops with a baton, typically a ski pole that’s cut in half.Every winter, thousands of people converge on the old mining town of Leadville, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains — elevation 10,158 feet — lining downtown’s main street and packing the saloons to witness one of the most popular skijoring races in the country. The spectacle, billed as “The Granddaddy of ’em All,” has been a tradition here since 1949.”It’s just the pure adrenaline that gets me to do it. … And then getting these two different groups of people together with the riders and the skiers. Usually, they don’t hang out, and getting them together, we mesh pretty well,” said Burri, who wears fringed leather pants with his ski gear in a nod to the sport’s Western vibe.Skijoring draws its name from the Norwegian word skikjoring, meaning “ski driving.” It started as a practical mode of transportation in Scandinavia and became popular in the Alps around 1900.Today’s sport is inherently dangerous, and injuries are not uncommon among riders and skiers alike. Indeed, one of the first riders in the Leadville race earlier this month toppled off his horse and had to be helped off the track as he shook his head in confusion. Burri did well in the competition despite skiing with a separated shoulder from a hard spill during a race two weeks earlier.”Wrong turn, taking a jump wrong, go down wrong. You could end your season. Then, hospital bills rack up, but it’s just for the thrill of it,” said Burri, a 26-year-old from Meeker, Colorado.Another skier, Jason Decker, pulled out of the race at the last minute because he broke his collarbone in a crash during a recent contest. He sometimes wears a protective cup, a valuable lesson learned after being hit in the groin by a flying chunk of snow flung by a horse’s hoof.”It’s not uncommon that my hands are shaking a little bit even after all this time, because that horse’s nostrils are flaring, and I’m about ready to grab a rope that’s attached to that saddle. And if I’m not ready to go, then things can go bad real quickly,” said Decker, a 43-year-old engineer from Pagosa Springs, Colorado, who has been skiing since he was 2 and skijoring for 14 years.Savannah McCarthy, a competitive skijorer since she was 12, describes a similar nervous energy before she mounts her horse for a race. But once she is speeding down the course, her world goes silent.”I don’t hear a thing when I’m running,” she said. “When it’s happening, you really don’t have time to think about anything. But when you get done, you’re like, ‘Holy cow, that was insane,’” said McCarthy, a 24-year-old financial broker from Durango, Colorado, who has won the Leadville race nine times.One of her more memorable moments was when her horse slipped, pulled back and head-butted her, breaking her nose. Then there was the time she lost control of her horse following a race and smashed into a minivan.Both riders and skiers say those moments — the crashes, the speed, the raucous crowd and the camaraderie — make skijoring what it is. And the sport is growing.Loren Zhimanskova, the chair of Skijor USA, which promotes the sport and helps organize races across the country, said skijoring is becoming more mainstream with the rise of social media, and she hopes it will one day be featured in the Winter Olympics. Skijoring is particularly popular in Poland and Switzerland, as well as in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana in the U.S.Five years ago, about 350 riders and the same amount of skiers were competing in the U.S., she said. Now, there are more than 1,000 competitors in each of those categories, and the number of races has increased from about 15 a year to more than 30. One event in Shakopee, Minnesota, consistently draws a crowd of 10,000 spectators.Despite its growing popularity, getting the sport into the Olympics has proved challenging.There is no official governing body, no uniform set of rules and regulations and no point system that would allow riders to advance to the Winter Games. Plus, every track is different, and every race has its own unique traditions and sometimes stubborn organizers.Still, Zhimanskova is pushing to include skijoring as a non-competitive demonstration sport or to be included in the torch relay at the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.”I think it’s one of the most romantic and visually pleasing sports that you could see. It’s just magnificent,” she said. “Everyone loves snow … and then you add horses to that. And then you add cowboys and cowgirls to that. And then you add skiing to that and bonfires and fun music. I mean, all the elements that go into a skijoring event, in my opinion, are really feel-good elements.”

    LEADVILLE, Colo. (AP) — —

    Nick Burri clicks into his ski bindings, squats to stretch his knees and scans the snowy race course. Moments later, he’s zipping past a series of gates at high speed and hurtling off jumps. But it’s not gravity pulling him toward the finish line: It’s the brute force of a quarter horse named Sirius.

    Welcome to skijoring: an extreme — and quirky — winter sport that celebrates the unlikely melding of rodeo and ski culture in the U.S. Mountain West.

    It’s a heart-pumping, white-knuckle competition in which horses — and sometimes dogs, snowmobiles and even cars — tow skiers by rope at speeds that can top 40 mph over jumps as high as 8 feet and around obstacles as they try to lance suspended hoops with a baton, typically a ski pole that’s cut in half.

    Every winter, thousands of people converge on the old mining town of Leadville, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains — elevation 10,158 feet — lining downtown’s main street and packing the saloons to witness one of the most popular skijoring races in the country. The spectacle, billed as “The Granddaddy of ’em All,” has been a tradition here since 1949.

    “It’s just the pure adrenaline that gets me to do it. … And then getting these two different groups of people together with the riders and the skiers. Usually, they don’t hang out, and getting them together, we mesh pretty well,” said Burri, who wears fringed leather pants with his ski gear in a nod to the sport’s Western vibe.

    A skijoring team competes in Leadville, Colo., on Saturday, March 2, 2024. Skijoring draws its name from the Norwegian word skikjoring, meaning &quot&#x3B;ski driving.&quot&#x3B; It started as a practical mode of transportation in Scandinavia and became popular in the Alps around 1900. Today&apos&#x3B;s sport features horses at full gallop towing skiers by rope over jumps and around obstacles as they try to lance suspended hoops with a baton, typically a ski pole that&apos&#x3B;s cut in half. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

    Thomas Peipert

    A skijoring team competes in Leadville, Colo., on Saturday, March 2, 2024.

    Skijoring draws its name from the Norwegian word skikjoring, meaning “ski driving.” It started as a practical mode of transportation in Scandinavia and became popular in the Alps around 1900.

    Today’s sport is inherently dangerous, and injuries are not uncommon among riders and skiers alike. Indeed, one of the first riders in the Leadville race earlier this month toppled off his horse and had to be helped off the track as he shook his head in confusion. Burri did well in the competition despite skiing with a separated shoulder from a hard spill during a race two weeks earlier.

    “Wrong turn, taking a jump wrong, go down wrong. You could end your season. Then, hospital bills rack up, but it’s just for the thrill of it,” said Burri, a 26-year-old from Meeker, Colorado.

    Another skier, Jason Decker, pulled out of the race at the last minute because he broke his collarbone in a crash during a recent contest. He sometimes wears a protective cup, a valuable lesson learned after being hit in the groin by a flying chunk of snow flung by a horse’s hoof.

    “It’s not uncommon that my hands are shaking a little bit even after all this time, because that horse’s nostrils are flaring, and I’m about ready to grab a rope that’s attached to that saddle. And if I’m not ready to go, then things can go bad real quickly,” said Decker, a 43-year-old engineer from Pagosa Springs, Colorado, who has been skiing since he was 2 and skijoring for 14 years.

    Savannah McCarthy, a competitive skijorer since she was 12, describes a similar nervous energy before she mounts her horse for a race. But once she is speeding down the course, her world goes silent.

    “I don’t hear a thing when I’m running,” she said. “When it’s happening, you really don’t have time to think about anything. But when you get done, you’re like, ‘Holy cow, that was insane,’” said McCarthy, a 24-year-old financial broker from Durango, Colorado, who has won the Leadville race nine times.

    One of her more memorable moments was when her horse slipped, pulled back and head-butted her, breaking her nose. Then there was the time she lost control of her horse following a race and smashed into a minivan.

    Both riders and skiers say those moments — the crashes, the speed, the raucous crowd and the camaraderie — make skijoring what it is. And the sport is growing.

    A skijoring team competes in Leadville, Colo., on Saturday, March 2, 2024. Skijoring draws its name from the Norwegian word skikjoring, meaning &quot&#x3B;ski driving.&quot&#x3B; It started as a practical mode of transportation in Scandinavia and became popular in the Alps around 1900. Today&apos&#x3B;s sport features horses at full gallop towing skiers by rope over jumps and around obstacles as they try to lance suspended hoops with a baton, typically a ski pole that&apos&#x3B;s cut in half. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

    Thomas Peipert

    A skijoring team competes in Leadville, Colo., on Saturday, March 2, 2024.

    Loren Zhimanskova, the chair of Skijor USA, which promotes the sport and helps organize races across the country, said skijoring is becoming more mainstream with the rise of social media, and she hopes it will one day be featured in the Winter Olympics. Skijoring is particularly popular in Poland and Switzerland, as well as in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana in the U.S.

    Five years ago, about 350 riders and the same amount of skiers were competing in the U.S., she said. Now, there are more than 1,000 competitors in each of those categories, and the number of races has increased from about 15 a year to more than 30. One event in Shakopee, Minnesota, consistently draws a crowd of 10,000 spectators.

    Despite its growing popularity, getting the sport into the Olympics has proved challenging.

    There is no official governing body, no uniform set of rules and regulations and no point system that would allow riders to advance to the Winter Games. Plus, every track is different, and every race has its own unique traditions and sometimes stubborn organizers.

    Still, Zhimanskova is pushing to include skijoring as a non-competitive demonstration sport or to be included in the torch relay at the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

    “I think it’s one of the most romantic and visually pleasing sports that you could see. It’s just magnificent,” she said. “Everyone loves snow … and then you add horses to that. And then you add cowboys and cowgirls to that. And then you add skiing to that and bonfires and fun music. I mean, all the elements that go into a skijoring event, in my opinion, are really feel-good elements.”

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  • Why it’s so difficult to land on the moon, even 5 decades after Apollo

    Why it’s so difficult to land on the moon, even 5 decades after Apollo

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    Hundreds of thousands of miles beyond Earth, a phone booth-size spacecraft is en route to take on a challenge no vehicle launched from the United States has attempted in more than 50 years.The lunar lander called Odysseus or IM-1, created by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, landed on the moon this week. Coverage of the historic event was livestreamed on NASA TV.Success is not guaranteed. Had it failed, Odysseus would have become the third lunar lander to meet a fiery demise on the moon in less than a year. Russia’s first lunar lander mission in 47 years, Luna 25, failed in August 2023 when it crash-landed. Hakuto-R, a lander developed by Japan-based company Ispace, met a similar fate last April.Overall, more than half of all lunar landing attempts have ended in failure — tough odds for a feat humanity first pulled off nearly 60 years ago.The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a controlled, or “soft,” landing in February 1966. The United States followed shortly after when its robotic Surveyor 1 spacecraft touched down on the moon’s surface just four months later.Since then, only three other countries — China, India and Japan — have achieved such a milestone. All three reached the moon with robotic vehicles for the first time in the 21st century. India and Japan each pulled off the monumental feat just within the past six months, long after the U.S.-Soviet space race had petered out. The U.S. remains the only country to have put humans on the lunar surface, most recently in 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission.But the U.S. government hasn’t even tried for a soft landing — with or without astronauts on board — since then. Private space company Astrobotic Technology had hoped its Peregrine lunar lander would make history after its recent January launch, but the company waved off the landing attempt mere hours after liftoff because of a critical fuel leak and brought the spacecraft back to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.Regaining past knowledge and experience is a big part of the challenge for the U.S., Scott Pace, the director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, told CNN.“We’re learning to do things that we haven’t done in a long time, and what you’re seeing is organizations learning how to fly again,” Pace said. “Going to the moon is not a matter of just a brave or brilliant astronaut. It’s a matter of entire organizations that are organized, trained, and equipped to go out there. What we’re doing now is essentially rebuilding some of the expertise that we had during Apollo but lost over the last 50 years.”Technical know-how, however, is only part of the equation when it comes to landing on the moon. Most of the hurdles are financial.A new modelAt the peak of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget comprised over 4% of all government spending. Today, the space agency’s budget is one-tenth the size, accounting for only 0.4% of all federal spending, even as it attempts to return American astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program.“There were literally hundreds of thousands of people working on Apollo. It was a $100 billion program in 1960s numbers. It would be a multi-trillion-dollar program in today’s dollars,” said Greg Autry, the director of space leadership at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. “There’s simply nothing that compares to it.”The lunar landers of the 21st century are attempting to accomplish many of the same goals at a small fraction of the price.India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander, which became the first spacecraft from the country to safely reach the lunar surface in August 2023, cost about $72 million, according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Science and Technology.“The cost of Chandrayaan-3 is merely Rs 600 crore ($72 million USD), whereas a Hollywood film on space and moon costs more than Rs 600 crore,” Singh told The Economic Times, a media outlet in India, in August.In the U.S., NASA is attempting to drastically reduce prices by outsourcing the design of small, robotic spacecraft to the private sector through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS.Astrobotic was the first company to fly under the CLPS initiative, and after its January setback, Intuitive Machines has picked up the torch — soft-landing Odysseus near the lunar south pole on Thursday, though the craft is now reportedly on its side.“We’re going a thousand times further than the International Space Station,” Intuitive Machines president and CEO Steve Altemus told CNN. “And then, on top of that, you set the target: Do it for $100 million when in the past it’s been done for billions of dollars.”Why we can’t just repeat ApolloIt’s also unrealistic to expect that NASA or one of its partners could simply drag out the blueprints of a 1960s lunar lander and recreate it from scratch. Most of the technology used on those missions has long been retired, cast aside by the massive leaps in computing power and material sciences made in the past half-century.Each piece of hardware on a lunar lander must be sourced from modern supply chains — which look far different than those of the 20th century — or designed and manufactured anew. And every sensor and electronic component on the spacecraft must be created to withstand the harsh environment of outer space, a process the industry calls “hardening.”The Apollo missions were famously controlled by computers less powerful than modern smartphones. But spaceflight is far too complex and dangerous to directly translate computing advancements to easier, cheaper moon missions.“Landing on the moon is very different than programming a game. The thing about the iPhone in your pocket is that there are millions and millions of these things. Whereas with space launches, there’s maybe only a handful of them,” Pace said. “The iPhone is, of course, a wonderful innovation with hundreds if not thousands of innovations buried within it, but it also benefits from just raw numbers. And so we really haven’t had that kind of repetition in lunar landings.”A perilous descentAnd while technology has advanced in the past five decades, the fundamental challenges of landing on the moon remain the same. First, there is the sheer distance — it’s roughly a quarter of a million-mile journey from Earth to the moon. If you could drive a car to the moon at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour, it would take more than five months.“Some people have likened it to hitting a golf ball in New York and having it go into a specific hole in Los Angeles. That kind of precision in long distance is unbelievably difficult to do,” Pace said.Then, there is the tricky lunar terrain. The moon is covered in dead volcanoes and deep craters, making it difficult to find flat landing zones.“Apollo 11 would absolutely have crashed and been destroyed if it had landed on the spot it originally came down on,” Autry said. “Neil (Armstrong) was literally looking out the window. He maneuvered the lander over a boulder field and a big crater and found a safe spot to land with just barely enough fuel left. If there wasn’t a skilled pilot that could control it, the lander certainly would have wrecked.”Without the assistance of human eyes inside the spacecraft, modern-day robotic lunar landers use cameras, computers, and sensors equipped with software and artificial intelligence to safely find their landing spot — and avoid boulders and craters — during the final descent. And even humans in mission control rooms back on Earth can’t help the spacecraft in those final, critical seconds before touchdown.“It takes time for a signal to go up and come back, about three seconds total round trip,” Pace said. “A lot can go wrong in that time. So when the vehicle is actually landing, it’s pretty much on its own.”Failure is an optionIn the early days of the 20th-century space race, far more spacecraft failed than safely touched down on the moon. The companies and governments dashing for the moon today — aiming for cheaper price points as they implement modern technology — acknowledge that legacy.And NASA’s commercial partners may be even more willing to embrace risks as they take their moonshots.“(Commercial companies) brought that iterative, fail fast model with them. Get the product out there, let it blow up, figure out what you did wrong, fix it, and go again,” Autry said. “That is not the way the U.S. government operates. Because if your project dies, your government career is screwed.”For its part, even NASA recognizes that a 100% success rate is not guaranteed for its partners.“We’ve always viewed these initial CLPS deliveries as being kind of a learning experience,” said Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s exploration, science mission directorate, during a February 13 briefing. “We knew going into this … we didn’t believe that success was assured.”The hope, however, is that failures early on will lead to repeatable successes down the road. It’s already clear many of the modern moon race participants are prepared to bounce back from their initial failures.Both Ispace — the Japanese company that encountered a mission-ending software glitch last year — and Astrobotic, which lost its Peregrine lander to a propellant issue, have second attempts already in the works.“Everybody on those missions was a rookie. These are people doing it for the first time, and there’s no substitute for that experience. It’s like taking your first solo flight,” Pace said. “Yes, they’re failing, and some companies will go out of business. But if they learn from that failure and come back, now you’re going to have a strong team. This is really about educating a new generation.”

    Hundreds of thousands of miles beyond Earth, a phone booth-size spacecraft is en route to take on a challenge no vehicle launched from the United States has attempted in more than 50 years.

    The lunar lander called Odysseus or IM-1, created by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, landed on the moon this week. Coverage of the historic event was livestreamed on NASA TV.

    Success is not guaranteed. Had it failed, Odysseus would have become the third lunar lander to meet a fiery demise on the moon in less than a year. Russia’s first lunar lander mission in 47 years, Luna 25, failed in August 2023 when it crash-landed. Hakuto-R, a lander developed by Japan-based company Ispace, met a similar fate last April.

    Overall, more than half of all lunar landing attempts have ended in failure — tough odds for a feat humanity first pulled off nearly 60 years ago.

    The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a controlled, or “soft,” landing in February 1966. The United States followed shortly after when its robotic Surveyor 1 spacecraft touched down on the moon’s surface just four months later.

    Since then, only three other countries — China, India and Japan — have achieved such a milestone. All three reached the moon with robotic vehicles for the first time in the 21st century. India and Japan each pulled off the monumental feat just within the past six months, long after the U.S.-Soviet space race had petered out. The U.S. remains the only country to have put humans on the lunar surface, most recently in 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission.

    But the U.S. government hasn’t even tried for a soft landing — with or without astronauts on board — since then. Private space company Astrobotic Technology had hoped its Peregrine lunar lander would make history after its recent January launch, but the company waved off the landing attempt mere hours after liftoff because of a critical fuel leak and brought the spacecraft back to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

    Regaining past knowledge and experience is a big part of the challenge for the U.S., Scott Pace, the director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, told CNN.

    “We’re learning to do things that we haven’t done in a long time, and what you’re seeing is organizations learning how to fly again,” Pace said. “Going to the moon is not a matter of just a brave or brilliant astronaut. It’s a matter of entire organizations that are organized, trained, and equipped to go out there. What we’re doing now is essentially rebuilding some of the expertise that we had during Apollo but lost over the last 50 years.”

    Technical know-how, however, is only part of the equation when it comes to landing on the moon. Most of the hurdles are financial.

    A new model

    At the peak of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget comprised over 4% of all government spending. Today, the space agency’s budget is one-tenth the size, accounting for only 0.4% of all federal spending, even as it attempts to return American astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program.

    “There were literally hundreds of thousands of people working on Apollo. It was a $100 billion program in 1960s numbers. It would be a multi-trillion-dollar program in today’s dollars,” said Greg Autry, the director of space leadership at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. “There’s simply nothing that compares to it.”

    The lunar landers of the 21st century are attempting to accomplish many of the same goals at a small fraction of the price.

    India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander, which became the first spacecraft from the country to safely reach the lunar surface in August 2023, cost about $72 million, according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Science and Technology.

    “The cost of Chandrayaan-3 is merely Rs 600 crore ($72 million USD), whereas a Hollywood film on space and moon costs more than Rs 600 crore,” Singh told The Economic Times, a media outlet in India, in August.

    In the U.S., NASA is attempting to drastically reduce prices by outsourcing the design of small, robotic spacecraft to the private sector through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS.

    Astrobotic was the first company to fly under the CLPS initiative, and after its January setback, Intuitive Machines has picked up the torch — soft-landing Odysseus near the lunar south pole on Thursday, though the craft is now reportedly on its side.

    “We’re going a thousand times further than the International Space Station,” Intuitive Machines president and CEO Steve Altemus told CNN. “And then, on top of that, you set the target: Do it for $100 million when in the past it’s been done for billions of dollars.”

    Why we can’t just repeat Apollo

    It’s also unrealistic to expect that NASA or one of its partners could simply drag out the blueprints of a 1960s lunar lander and recreate it from scratch. Most of the technology used on those missions has long been retired, cast aside by the massive leaps in computing power and material sciences made in the past half-century.

    Each piece of hardware on a lunar lander must be sourced from modern supply chains — which look far different than those of the 20th century — or designed and manufactured anew. And every sensor and electronic component on the spacecraft must be created to withstand the harsh environment of outer space, a process the industry calls “hardening.”

    The Apollo missions were famously controlled by computers less powerful than modern smartphones. But spaceflight is far too complex and dangerous to directly translate computing advancements to easier, cheaper moon missions.

    “Landing on the moon is very different than programming a game. The thing about the iPhone in your pocket is that there are millions and millions of these things. Whereas with space launches, there’s maybe only a handful of them,” Pace said. “The iPhone is, of course, a wonderful innovation with hundreds if not thousands of innovations buried within it, but it also benefits from just raw numbers. And so we really haven’t had that kind of repetition in lunar landings.”

    A perilous descent

    And while technology has advanced in the past five decades, the fundamental challenges of landing on the moon remain the same. First, there is the sheer distance — it’s roughly a quarter of a million-mile journey from Earth to the moon. If you could drive a car to the moon at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour, it would take more than five months.

    “Some people have likened it to hitting a golf ball in New York and having it go into a specific hole in Los Angeles. That kind of precision in long distance is unbelievably difficult to do,” Pace said.

    Then, there is the tricky lunar terrain. The moon is covered in dead volcanoes and deep craters, making it difficult to find flat landing zones.

    “Apollo 11 would absolutely have crashed and been destroyed if it had landed on the spot it originally came down on,” Autry said. “Neil (Armstrong) was literally looking out the window. He maneuvered the lander over a boulder field and a big crater and found a safe spot to land with just barely enough fuel left. If there wasn’t a skilled pilot that could control it, the lander certainly would have wrecked.”

    Without the assistance of human eyes inside the spacecraft, modern-day robotic lunar landers use cameras, computers, and sensors equipped with software and artificial intelligence to safely find their landing spot — and avoid boulders and craters — during the final descent. And even humans in mission control rooms back on Earth can’t help the spacecraft in those final, critical seconds before touchdown.

    “It takes time for a signal to go up and come back, about three seconds total round trip,” Pace said. “A lot can go wrong in that time. So when the vehicle is actually landing, it’s pretty much on its own.”

    Failure is an option

    In the early days of the 20th-century space race, far more spacecraft failed than safely touched down on the moon. The companies and governments dashing for the moon today — aiming for cheaper price points as they implement modern technology — acknowledge that legacy.

    And NASA’s commercial partners may be even more willing to embrace risks as they take their moonshots.

    “(Commercial companies) brought that iterative, fail fast model with them. Get the product out there, let it blow up, figure out what you did wrong, fix it, and go again,” Autry said. “That is not the way the U.S. government operates. Because if your project dies, your government career is screwed.”

    For its part, even NASA recognizes that a 100% success rate is not guaranteed for its partners.

    “We’ve always viewed these initial CLPS deliveries as being kind of a learning experience,” said Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s exploration, science mission directorate, during a February 13 briefing. “We knew going into this … we didn’t believe that success was assured.”

    The hope, however, is that failures early on will lead to repeatable successes down the road. It’s already clear many of the modern moon race participants are prepared to bounce back from their initial failures.

    Both Ispace — the Japanese company that encountered a mission-ending software glitch last year — and Astrobotic, which lost its Peregrine lander to a propellant issue, have second attempts already in the works.

    “Everybody on those missions was a rookie. These are people doing it for the first time, and there’s no substitute for that experience. It’s like taking your first solo flight,” Pace said. “Yes, they’re failing, and some companies will go out of business. But if they learn from that failure and come back, now you’re going to have a strong team. This is really about educating a new generation.”

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  • ‘Odie’ lunar mission takes off, aiming for historic US moon landing

    ‘Odie’ lunar mission takes off, aiming for historic US moon landing

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    The Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has embarked on a historic journey to the lunar surface – aiming to make the first touchdown of a U.S.-made spacecraft on the moon in over five decades.The launch follows closely on the heels of a separate U.S. lunar landing mission that failed in January. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has ramped up the development of robotic spacecraft via private partners to evaluate the lunar environment and identify key resources – such as the presence of water – before it attempts to return astronauts to the moon later this decade.Odie lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:05 a.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.The mission had been slated to launch on Wednesday, but an issue with the temperature of propellant needed to power the spacecraft delayed the attempt by 24 hours.Journey to the moonThe rocket fired Odie into Earth’s orbit, blazing to speeds topping 24,600 mph, according to Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that developed the spacecraft under contract with NASA through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.Odie’s path amounts to “a high-energy fastball pitch towards the moon,” as Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus put it.After burning through its fuel, the rocket detached from Odie, leaving the lunar lander to fly solo through space. The robotic explorer then consulted an onboard map of the stars so it could orient itself in space, pointing its solar panels toward the sun’s rays to charge its batteries.”We are seeing most everything that we would expect,” according to a dispatch from Intuitive Machines’ mission control around 2 a.m. ET.Odie is now on an oval-shaped path around Earth, stretching as far out as 236,100 miles from home. And about 18 hours into spaceflight, the vehicle will ignite its motor for the first time, continuing its fast-paced trip toward the lunar surface.The moon, which orbits roughly 250,000 miles away from Earth, is expected to give Odie a gentle gravitational tug as the spacecraft approaches, pulling the vehicle toward its cratered surface.Odie is slated to make its nail-biting touchdown attempt on Feb. 22, aiming for a crater near the moon’s south pole.It will be a dangerous trek. If Odie fails, it will join a growing list of missions that have unsuccessfully sought a lunar touchdown: The first U.S.-built lunar lander to launch in five decades, Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine, was hampered by a critical fuel leak last month. That came after two failed missions from other countries in 2023: one from Russia and another from a company based in Japan.China, India and Japan are the only nations to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon so far in the 21st century.What Odie will do on the moonOdie’s trip to the moon can be considered a scouting mission of sorts, designed to assess the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s current plan to return a crewed mission to the moon through the Artemis program in late 2026.The moon’s south pole is an area of widespread interest amid a new international space race, as the region is thought to be home to stores of water ice. The precious resource could be converted into drinking water for astronauts or even rocket fuel for missions exploring deeper into space.Packed on board the lunar lander are six NASA science and technology payloads. They include a radio receiver system that will study lunar plasma, which is created by solar winds and other charged particles raining down on the moon’s surface.Other payloads will test technology that could be used on future lunar landing missions, such as a new sensor that could potentially help guide precision landings.The Navigation Doppler Lidar, as the sensor is called, “shoots laser beams to the ground and measures spacecraft velocity – that’s the speed – and the direction of the flight,” said Farzin Amzajerdian, the principal investigator for the lidar payload at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Also on board the lander are technological and commemorative payloads from the private sector. Columbia Sportswear, for example, developed a special insulation material that could help shield Odie from the moon’s extreme temperatures. A small sculpture representing the phases of the moon – designed in consultation with artist Jeff Koons – will be tucked on board as well.Odie also houses a camera system called EagleCam that was developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The device is set to pop off of the lunar lander as it approaches the surface and captures images of the vehicle’s descent.”Hopefully, we’ll get a bird’s-eye view of that landing to share with the public,” Altemus said.Odie is expected to operate for seven days on the lunar surface before darkness falls on the landing site, blocking the spacecraft’s solar panels from the sun and plunging it into freezing temperatures.

    The Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has embarked on a historic journey to the lunar surface – aiming to make the first touchdown of a U.S.-made spacecraft on the moon in over five decades.

    The launch follows closely on the heels of a separate U.S. lunar landing mission that failed in January. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has ramped up the development of robotic spacecraft via private partners to evaluate the lunar environment and identify key resources – such as the presence of water – before it attempts to return astronauts to the moon later this decade.

    Odie lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:05 a.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    The mission had been slated to launch on Wednesday, but an issue with the temperature of propellant needed to power the spacecraft delayed the attempt by 24 hours.

    Journey to the moon

    The rocket fired Odie into Earth’s orbit, blazing to speeds topping 24,600 mph, according to Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that developed the spacecraft under contract with NASA through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

    Odie’s path amounts to “a high-energy fastball pitch towards the moon,” as Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus put it.

    After burning through its fuel, the rocket detached from Odie, leaving the lunar lander to fly solo through space. The robotic explorer then consulted an onboard map of the stars so it could orient itself in space, pointing its solar panels toward the sun’s rays to charge its batteries.

    “We are seeing most everything that we would expect,” according to a dispatch from Intuitive Machines’ mission control around 2 a.m. ET.

    Odie is now on an oval-shaped path around Earth, stretching as far out as 236,100 miles from home. And about 18 hours into spaceflight, the vehicle will ignite its motor for the first time, continuing its fast-paced trip toward the lunar surface.

    The moon, which orbits roughly 250,000 miles away from Earth, is expected to give Odie a gentle gravitational tug as the spacecraft approaches, pulling the vehicle toward its cratered surface.

    Odie is slated to make its nail-biting touchdown attempt on Feb. 22, aiming for a crater near the moon’s south pole.

    It will be a dangerous trek. If Odie fails, it will join a growing list of missions that have unsuccessfully sought a lunar touchdown: The first U.S.-built lunar lander to launch in five decades, Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine, was hampered by a critical fuel leak last month. That came after two failed missions from other countries in 2023: one from Russia and another from a company based in Japan.

    China, India and Japan are the only nations to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon so far in the 21st century.

    What Odie will do on the moon

    Odie’s trip to the moon can be considered a scouting mission of sorts, designed to assess the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s current plan to return a crewed mission to the moon through the Artemis program in late 2026.

    The moon’s south pole is an area of widespread interest amid a new international space race, as the region is thought to be home to stores of water ice. The precious resource could be converted into drinking water for astronauts or even rocket fuel for missions exploring deeper into space.

    Packed on board the lunar lander are six NASA science and technology payloads. They include a radio receiver system that will study lunar plasma, which is created by solar winds and other charged particles raining down on the moon’s surface.

    Other payloads will test technology that could be used on future lunar landing missions, such as a new sensor that could potentially help guide precision landings.

    The Navigation Doppler Lidar, as the sensor is called, “shoots laser beams to the ground and measures spacecraft velocity – that’s the speed – and the direction of the flight,” said Farzin Amzajerdian, the principal investigator for the lidar payload at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

    Also on board the lander are technological and commemorative payloads from the private sector. Columbia Sportswear, for example, developed a special insulation material that could help shield Odie from the moon’s extreme temperatures. A small sculpture representing the phases of the moon – designed in consultation with artist Jeff Koons – will be tucked on board as well.

    Odie also houses a camera system called EagleCam that was developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The device is set to pop off of the lunar lander as it approaches the surface and captures images of the vehicle’s descent.

    “Hopefully, we’ll get a bird’s-eye view of that landing to share with the public,” Altemus said.

    Odie is expected to operate for seven days on the lunar surface before darkness falls on the landing site, blocking the spacecraft’s solar panels from the sun and plunging it into freezing temperatures.

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  • Ed Dwight was almost the first Black astronaut. Now 90, he’s telling his story

    Ed Dwight was almost the first Black astronaut. Now 90, he’s telling his story

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    Ed Dwight grew up in segregated 1930s Kansas on a farm on the edge of town. An airfield was within walking distance, and, as a boy, he’d often go to marvel at the planes and gawk at the pilots. Most were flying back from hunting trips, and their cabins were messy with blood and empty beer cans on the floor.Related video above: The Groundbreaking Rocket Man”They’d say to me, ‘Hey kid, would you clean my airplane? I’ll give you a dime,’” Dwight, 90, recalls. But when he was 8 or 9, Dwight asked for more than a dime. He wanted to fly.”My first flight was the most exhilarating thing in the world,” says Dwight, smiling. “There were no streets or stop signs up there. You were free as a bird.”It would be years before Dwight entertained the idea of himself becoming a pilot. “It was the white man’s domain,” he says. But while in college, he saw in a newspaper, above the fold, an image of a downed Black pilot in Korea.”I said, ‘Oh my God, they’re letting Black people fly,’” Dwight says. “I went straight to the recruitment office and said, ‘I want to fly.’”With that decision, Dwight set in motion a series of events that would very nearly lead to him being among the first astronauts. As Dwight progressed through the Air Force, he was handpicked by President John F. Kennedy’s White House to join Chuck Yeager’s test pilot program at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert.That fabled astronaut breeding ground, the site of “The Right Stuff,” might have turned Dwight into one of the most famous Americans and the first Black man in space. But at Edwards, Dwight was discriminated against even with Kennedy championing him. Dwight eventually departed for civilian life and largely receded from history.But in recent years, Dwight is finally being celebrated. The new National Geographic documentary “The Space Race,” which premieres Monday on National Geographic Channel and streams Tuesday on Disney+ and Hulu, chronicles the stories of Black astronauts — and their first pioneer, Dwight.”When I left, everyone said, ‘Well, that’s over. We got rid of that dude. He’s off the map,’” Dwight said in an interview via Zoom from his home in Denver. “Now it comes back full force as one of these I-didn’t-know stories.”It wasn’t until 1983 that the first African American, Guion Bluford, reached space. But two decades earlier, Dwight found himself at a fulcrum of 20th-century America, where the space race and the struggle for social justice converged.In “The Space Race,” astronaut Bernard Harris, who became the first Black man to walk in space in 1995, contemplates what a difference it might have made if Dwight had become an astronaut in the tumultuous ’60s.”Space really allows us to realize the hope that’s within all of us as human beings,” Harris says. “So to see a Black man in space during that period in time, it would have changed things.””Ed is so important for everyone who’s followed after, to recognize and embrace the shoulders they stand on,” says Lisa Cortés, who directed the film with Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. “There’s the history we know and the history that’s not had the opportunity to be highlighted.”In 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, it jolted its Cold War rival into action.As the U.S. began pursuing a space program, political leaders were conscious of the image its astronauts could project of American democracy. The first astronauts, the Mercury Seven, were all male and white.When the Aerospace Research Pilot School was established that November, the White House urged the Air Force to select a Black officer. Only Dwight met the criteria.That November, Dwight received a letter out of the blue inviting him to train to be an astronaut. Kennedy called his parents to congratulate them.Despite reservations, Dwight joined up. He was celebrated on the covers of Black magazines like Jet and Sepia. Hundreds of letters hailing him as a hero poured in. But in training, he was treated with hostility by officers.”They were all instructed to give me the cold shoulder,” Dwight says. “Yeager had a meeting with the students and the staff in the auditorium and announced it — that Washington was trying to shove this N-word down our throats.”Yeager, who died in 2020, maintained Dwight simply wasn’t as good as the other pilots.Dwight was among the 26 potential astronauts recommended to NASA by the Air Force. But in 1963, he wasn’t among the 14 selected. Dwight’s astronaut future took a more drastic turn when Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.Kennedy was killed on a Friday. By Monday, Dwight says, he had papers in his mailbox shipping him out to Germany. He quickly met with Bobby Kennedy in Washington, who had the Pentagon cancel those orders.Ultimately, Dwight was stationed at Wright-Patterson in Ohio in January of 1964. He graduated from the program and totaled some 9,000 hours of air time, but never became an astronaut. He left the Air Force in 1966.Asked if he was bitter about his experience, Dwight exclaims, “God no!””Here you get a little 5-foot-4 guy who flies airplanes, and the next thing you know, this guy is in the White House meeting all these senators and congressmen, standing in front of all these captains of industry and have them pat me on the back and shake my hand,” Dwight says. “Are you kidding me? What would I be bitter about? That opened the world to me.”In 1977, he earned his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Denver. Much of his work is of great figures from Black history, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Barack Obama. Several of his sculptures have flown into space, most recently one aboard the vessel Orion. NASA also named an asteroid after him.Dwight is filled with gratitude. His one recommendation is that every congressman and senator be flown on a sub-orbital flight so they can see the Earth from above. Everyone, he thinks, would realize the absurdity of racism from that height.”I’d advise everybody to go through what I went through, and then they’d have a different view of this country and how sacred it is,” Dwight says. “We’re on this little ball flying around the galaxy.”

    NEW YORK (AP) — —

    Ed Dwight grew up in segregated 1930s Kansas on a farm on the edge of town. An airfield was within walking distance, and, as a boy, he’d often go to marvel at the planes and gawk at the pilots. Most were flying back from hunting trips, and their cabins were messy with blood and empty beer cans on the floor.

    Related video above: The Groundbreaking Rocket Man

    “They’d say to me, ‘Hey kid, would you clean my airplane? I’ll give you a dime,’” Dwight, 90, recalls. But when he was 8 or 9, Dwight asked for more than a dime. He wanted to fly.

    “My first flight was the most exhilarating thing in the world,” says Dwight, smiling. “There were no streets or stop signs up there. You were free as a bird.”

    It would be years before Dwight entertained the idea of himself becoming a pilot. “It was the white man’s domain,” he says. But while in college, he saw in a newspaper, above the fold, an image of a downed Black pilot in Korea.

    “I said, ‘Oh my God, they’re letting Black people fly,’” Dwight says. “I went straight to the recruitment office and said, ‘I want to fly.’”

    With that decision, Dwight set in motion a series of events that would very nearly lead to him being among the first astronauts. As Dwight progressed through the Air Force, he was handpicked by President John F. Kennedy’s White House to join Chuck Yeager’s test pilot program at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert.

    That fabled astronaut breeding ground, the site of “The Right Stuff,” might have turned Dwight into one of the most famous Americans and the first Black man in space. But at Edwards, Dwight was discriminated against even with Kennedy championing him. Dwight eventually departed for civilian life and largely receded from history.

    But in recent years, Dwight is finally being celebrated. The new National Geographic documentary “The Space Race,” which premieres Monday on National Geographic Channel and streams Tuesday on Disney+ and Hulu, chronicles the stories of Black astronauts — and their first pioneer, Dwight.

    “When I left, everyone said, ‘Well, that’s over. We got rid of that dude. He’s off the map,’” Dwight said in an interview via Zoom from his home in Denver. “Now it comes back full force as one of these I-didn’t-know stories.”

    It wasn’t until 1983 that the first African American, Guion Bluford, reached space. But two decades earlier, Dwight found himself at a fulcrum of 20th-century America, where the space race and the struggle for social justice converged.

    In “The Space Race,” astronaut Bernard Harris, who became the first Black man to walk in space in 1995, contemplates what a difference it might have made if Dwight had become an astronaut in the tumultuous ’60s.

    “Space really allows us to realize the hope that’s within all of us as human beings,” Harris says. “So to see a Black man in space during that period in time, it would have changed things.”

    “Ed is so important for everyone who’s followed after, to recognize and embrace the shoulders they stand on,” says Lisa Cortés, who directed the film with Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. “There’s the history we know and the history that’s not had the opportunity to be highlighted.”

    In 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, it jolted its Cold War rival into action.

    As the U.S. began pursuing a space program, political leaders were conscious of the image its astronauts could project of American democracy. The first astronauts, the Mercury Seven, were all male and white.

    When the Aerospace Research Pilot School was established that November, the White House urged the Air Force to select a Black officer. Only Dwight met the criteria.

    Ed Dwight/National Geographic via AP

    Ed Dwight’s Air Force days

    That November, Dwight received a letter out of the blue inviting him to train to be an astronaut. Kennedy called his parents to congratulate them.

    Despite reservations, Dwight joined up. He was celebrated on the covers of Black magazines like Jet and Sepia. Hundreds of letters hailing him as a hero poured in. But in training, he was treated with hostility by officers.

    “They were all instructed to give me the cold shoulder,” Dwight says. “Yeager had a meeting with the students and the staff in the auditorium and announced it — that Washington was trying to shove this N-word down our throats.”

    Yeager, who died in 2020, maintained Dwight simply wasn’t as good as the other pilots.

    Dwight was among the 26 potential astronauts recommended to NASA by the Air Force. But in 1963, he wasn’t among the 14 selected. Dwight’s astronaut future took a more drastic turn when Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.

    Kennedy was killed on a Friday. By Monday, Dwight says, he had papers in his mailbox shipping him out to Germany. He quickly met with Bobby Kennedy in Washington, who had the Pentagon cancel those orders.

    Ultimately, Dwight was stationed at Wright-Patterson in Ohio in January of 1964. He graduated from the program and totaled some 9,000 hours of air time, but never became an astronaut. He left the Air Force in 1966.

    Asked if he was bitter about his experience, Dwight exclaims, “God no!”

    “Here you get a little 5-foot-4 guy who flies airplanes, and the next thing you know, this guy is in the White House meeting all these senators and congressmen, standing in front of all these captains of industry and have them pat me on the back and shake my hand,” Dwight says. “Are you kidding me? What would I be bitter about? That opened the world to me.”

    In 1977, he earned his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Denver. Much of his work is of great figures from Black history, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Barack Obama. Several of his sculptures have flown into space, most recently one aboard the vessel Orion. NASA also named an asteroid after him.

    Dwight is filled with gratitude. His one recommendation is that every congressman and senator be flown on a sub-orbital flight so they can see the Earth from above. Everyone, he thinks, would realize the absurdity of racism from that height.

    “I’d advise everybody to go through what I went through, and then they’d have a different view of this country and how sacred it is,” Dwight says. “We’re on this little ball flying around the galaxy.”

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