A privately built spacecraft is hours from attempting to land on the moon, a feat that only one other company has accomplished in spaceflight history.
The robotic lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, has been in orbit around the moon for roughly two weeks, preparing for its daring descent. Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace developed the spacecraft, which aims to touch down on the lunar surface early Sunday at around 3:34 a.m. ET.
If all goes according to plan, Blue Ghost will become the second privately built vehicle to land on the moon successfully. In February 2024, another Texas-based company, Intuitive Machines, made history when its Odysseus lander pulled off a nail-biting touchdown near the moon’s south pole.
Join us for LIVE Countdown to Landing coverage as Firefly Aerospace attempts to land on the lunar surface for the first time with their Blue Ghost Lunar Lander.
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“This discovery not only sets a new standard for superelastic materials but also introduces new principles for material design, which will undoubtedly inspire further breakthroughs in materials science,” Xu said.
The newly developed Ti-Al-Cr shape-memory alloy is part of the titanium alloy family, known for being lightweight, strong, biocompatible, and resistant to corrosion. What makes this alloy particularly exciting is its ability to maintain superelasticity across a wide temperature range, making it highly suitable for extreme environments such as deep space and deep-sea exploration.
In space missions, materials must endure harsh conditions while remaining functional. Current superelastic tires made from nickel-titanium (Ni-Ti) for upcoming Moon and Mars missions have limited temperature ranges, which could affect their durability.
2/27/25 | 720 CT Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 Lunar Lander Successfully Commissioned and En Route to the Moon:
After liftoff on February 26, Athena established a stable attitude, solar charging, and radio communications contact with our mission operations center in Houston. The lander is in excellent health, sending selfies and preparing for a series of main engine firings to refine her trajectory ahead of lunar orbit insertion, planned on March 3. Intuitive Machines is targeting a lunar landing opportunity on March 6.
On Wednesday, NASA and SpaceX successfully launched the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It aims to deliver multiple payloads, including NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer, to detect water on the Moon. The lander, named Athena, will take an eight-day journey to the Moon’s South Pole, where it will conduct studies on subsurface materials and volatile substances. Data collected from the mission could inform future Artemis program missions and commercial lunar activities.
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What if a simple vial of synthetic blood could save millions of lives? From cutting-edge laboratories to the frontlines of disaster zones, scientists are revolutionizing medicine with the development of artificial blood. In this episode of Beyond the Veil, we take you on a journey into the world of groundbreaking innovations like ErythroMer, a shelf-stable synthetic red blood cell, and lab-grown blood cells that could transform healthcare as we know it.
Join us as we explore: 🔬 The intricate science behind replicating blood\’s vital functions. 💡 How Dr. Allan Doctor and his team are making synthetic red blood cells a reality with ErythroMer. 🩸 The NHS’s revolutionary trial of lab-grown red blood cells. 🌍 The potential to save lives in remote areas, on battlefields, and even during space exploration. 🚀 The hurdles, breakthroughs, and future implications of artificial blood research.
💉 This isn\’t just a story about science; it\’s a tale of perseverance, hope, and the determination to rewrite the rules of medicine.
Sources and Research Cited in this Episode: 📖 The Long Quest for Artificial Blood — New Yorker. 🔗 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/02… Challenges in Hemoglobin-Based Oxygen Carriers — LabMed 🔗 https://www.labmed.theclinics.com/article/.… 👉 Subscribe to Beyond the Veil for more deep dives into the mysteries of science, medicine, and technology. Together, let’s explore what lies beyond the edge of discovery. #ArtificialBlood #SyntheticBlood #MedicalInnovation #BeyondTheVeil.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft took some unique photos of our home planet on its Mission 1 flight to the moon in late January and early February. The spacecraft is now in orbit around the moon, with a planned landing date of March 2.
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) recently announced that it has successfully completed a series of key tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). These tests are a major step forward in developing Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) technology, which could enable faster and more efficient transportation for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Conducted in collaboration with NASA, the tests evaluated whether GA-EMS’s specially designed nuclear fuel can withstand the extreme conditions required for space travel.
Advancing Deep Space Travel
“The recent testing results represent a critical milestone in the successful demonstration of fuel design for NTP reactors,” said Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS. “Fuel must survive extremely high temperatures and the hot hydrogen gas environment that an NTP reactor operating in space would typically encounter. We’re very encouraged by the positive test results proving the fuel can survive these operational conditions, moving us closer to realizing the potential of safe, reliable nuclear thermal propulsion for cislunar and deep space missions.”
In this fascinating exploration of cosmic mysteries, we delve into the question: Will the Big Bang happen again? Join us as we investigate the theories surrounding the universe’s origin, expansion, and potential future. We’ll cover concepts like the cyclic model, eternal inflation, and how quantum physics plays a role in the fate of the universe. Get ready for mind-bending theories and thought-provoking answers that could change your understanding of space and time! If you enjoyed this cosmic journey, please like and share the video with fellow space enthusiasts.
But other calculations say that applies only in limited cases and that if you ramp up the warp engine slowly enough, you’ll be fine.
Yet more calculations sidestep all of this and just look at how much negative energy you actually need to construct your warp drive. And the answer is, for a single macroscopic bubble — say, 30 feet (100 meters) across — you would need 10 times more negative energy than all of the positive energy contained in the entire universe, which isn’t very promising.
However, still other calculations show that this immense amount applies only to the traditional warp bubble as defined by Alcubierre. It might be possible to reshape the bubble so there’s a tiny “neck” in the front that’s doing the work of compressing space and then it balloons out to an envelope to contain the warp bubble. This minimizes any quantum weirdness so that you need only about a star’s worth of negative energy to shape the drive.
