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Space Isn’t the Final Frontier

Mars fantasists still cling to dreams of the Old West.
by Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith via Foreign Policy on January 21, 2024
Wally Funk today and as a pilot

Guess Who’s Going to Space With Jeff Bezos?

Wally Funk has been ready to become an astronaut for six decades.
by Marina Koren via The Atlantic on July 1, 2021
An illustration of a kid imagining going to space.

Selling the American Space Dream

The cosmic delusions of Elon Musk and Wernher von Braun.
by David Beers via The New Republic on December 7, 2020
Galaxy in space.

Sanctuary or Battlefield?

Fighting for the soul of American space policy.
by Stephen Buono via Perspectives on History on July 15, 2020

Jeff Bezos Dreams of a 1970s Future

If the sci-fi space cities of Bezos’s Blue Origin look familiar, it’s because they’re derived from the work of his college professor.
by Fred Scharmen via CityLab on May 13, 2019

R.I.P. Astronaut John Young, The First Man to Get Yelled at for Smuggling a Sandwich into Space

Remembering the life of astronaut John Young and the time he took an unauthorized corn beef sandwich into space.
by William Hughes via The A.V. Club on January 6, 2018

Trump's NASA Pivot

His administration has made the moon a destination, not just a pit stop, on the way to Mars.
by Marina Koren via The Atlantic on October 7, 2017
Jerri Cobb with a space capsule.

The Case for Female Astronauts: Reproducing Americans in the Final Frontier

Imagining a future that separates women from their biological identity seems so “drastic” as to be unimaginable—in 1962 and today.
by Lisa Ruth Rand via The Appendix on July 15, 2014
Collage of images including spacecrafts, the moon and President Kennedy surround a jumping Elon Musk.

How NASA Engineered Its Own Decline

The agency once projected America’s loftiest ideals. Then it ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on July 28, 2025
<p>Earth rising over the Moon, captured by Lunar Orbiter 1, 1966. Courtesy NASA/<a href="https://www.planetary.org/articles/1238" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Planetary Society</a></p>

How the Scientists of the 1960s Turned the Moon into a Place

For most of history, the Moon was regarded as a mysterious and powerful object. Then scientists made it into a destination.
by Danny Robb via Aeon on February 13, 2025
An illustration of space, with two silhouettes of heads overlapping.

The Fraught U.S.-Soviet Search for Alien Life

During the Cold War, American and Soviet scientists embarked on an unprecedented quest to contact extraterrestrials.
by Sophie Pinkham via The New Yorker on February 6, 2025
NASA's administrator shows a model of the space shuttle to President Jimmy Carter.

What Spaceflight Owes to Jimmy Carter: The President's Little-Known NASA Legacy

Jimmy Carter, skeptical of NASA's shuttle, saved it with funding despite delays and opposition. His Voyager message carries hope deep into space.
by Denise Chow via NBC News on December 30, 2024
Map of the US Air Force Atlantic Missile Range stations in 1957

Making the American Orbit

The U.S. military operated a Grand Turk missile tracking station for 30 years, with limited local benefits, highlighting American expansionism's impact.
by Andrew J. Ross via Perspectives on History on October 8, 2024
A crystal ball reflecting a landscape.

50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974

A half-century ago, "Saturday Review" asked some of the era's visionaries for their predictions of what 2024 would look like. Here are their hits and misses.
by David Cassel via The New Stack on August 24, 2024
Buzz Aldrin lands on moon for the first time, Apollo 11.

Apollo 11 Launch: "If You Can Survive the Simulations, the Mission is a Piece of Cake"

The grueling, relentless simulations astronauts that prepared the astronauts for quick decision-making in space.
by Myles Burke via BBC News on July 15, 2024
Colorful lithograph showing the "Department of Electricity," a building with electrical lights positioned along the water, with a crowd of people entering

Colonizing the Cosmos: Astor’s Electrical Future

John Jacob Astor’s "A Journey in Other Worlds" is a high-voltage scientific romance in which visions of imperialism haunt a supposedly “perfect” future.
by Iwan Rhys Morus via The Public Domain Review on September 14, 2022
Book cover of Whole Earth, featuring an image of Stewart Brand backlit and walking through a door, encircled by the earth.

On Floating Upstream

Markoff’s biography of Stewart Brand notes that Brand’s ability to recognize and cleave to power explains a great deal of his career.
by W. Patrick McCray via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 22, 2022
This false-color photo of the surface of Mars was taken by Viking Lander 2 at its Utopia Planitia landing site on May 18, 1979. It shows a thin coating of water ice on the rocks and soil.

A NASA Mission 45 Years Ago Changed Everything

The Viking missions set the gold standard for landing on Mars, but they couldn't resolve the big question — are we alone?
by Jon Kelvey via Inverse on September 2, 2021
Astronaut John Glenn surrounded by piles of mail

Sexism in the Early Space Program Thwarted the Ambitions of Women

John Glenn's fan mail shows many girls dreamed of the stars.
by Roshanna P. Sylvester via The Conversation on July 13, 2021
Photograph of Sun Ra by Ming Smith

Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’

Sun Ra, a seminal artist of afrofuturism, embraced a unique vision of blackness.
by Namwali Serpell via New York Review of Books on July 12, 2020
Blind Willie Johnson animation

Drawn and Recorded: Blind Willie in Space

Dark was the night, cold was the ground, and brilliant is that song drifting through space.
by Drew Christie, Bill Flanagan via Aeon on October 31, 2019
Pluto, July 2015, photographed by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.

In Search of Planet X

The books examine the history of space exploration, from the race to discover Pluto to the idea of space colonization.
by Priyamvada Natarajan via New York Review of Books on October 3, 2019

Whose Apollo Are We Talking About?

A review of Roger D. Launius's "Apollo’s Legacy" and Teasel E. Muir-Harmony's "Apollo to the Moon."
by Asif Siddiqi via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 28, 2019

What John F. Kennedy’s Moon Speech Means 50 Years Later

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
by Marina Koren via The Atlantic on July 15, 2019
Neil Armstrong and the American flag on the moon.

Apollo 11 Capsule Foil and Memories of Plucking NASA’s Moonmen From the Sea

A recollection of a NASA employee's experiences with Apollo 11 and 12.
by David Porter II, Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on July 12, 2019

While NASA Was Landing on the Moon, Many African-Americans Sought Economic Justice Instead

The billions spent on the Apollo program, no matter how inspiring the mission, laid bare the nation's priorities.
by Bryan Greene via Smithsonian on July 11, 2019

The Rocket Scientist Who Had to Elude the FBI Before He Could Escape Earth

Frank Malina's scientific dreams were as radical as his politics.
by Fraser MacDonald via Literary Hub on June 26, 2019
Neil Armstrong and the American flag on the moon.
partner

How NASA Sold The Science And Glamour of Space Travel

At the time of the Apollo 11 landing, some Americans had reservations about reaching for the stars when troubles swelled on Earth.
by Clyde Haberman via Retro Report on June 23, 2019
Pile of garbage.

The Curious History of Crap—From Space Junk to Actual Poop

We don't think much about where our waste goes, but the history of what we do with poop is also the history of how we grow food.
by Ziya Tong via Wired on May 14, 2019

With Plans for Cities in Space, Jeff Bezos Looks Back to the Future

The Amazon CEO's vision of space settlements draws on 1970s thinking, without adding anything new.
by Fred Scharmen via CityLab on May 13, 2019
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