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Soon, thanks to the advance of robots, the only reason left to send humans to the moon will be as an ultra-expensive sport
Martin Rees is the astronomer royal and a former president of the Royal Society; Donald Goldsmith is an astrophysicist and science communicator
The 2020s has seen a revival of the “Apollo spirit”. The US and China are seemingly in a race to send humans to the moon by the end of the decade – and thereafter, perhaps, even to Mars. Nasa astronauts have just returned from a 10-day journey looping around the moon. Although they arrived back safely, Nasa accepts that the lack of data makes it impossible to quantify the risks involved – this represents only the second launch for the Artemis system and the first to carry astronauts.
To date, estimated expenditures on the Artemis programme are close to $100bn (£75bn). The “one big beautiful bill” that the US Congress passed in July 2025 allocates $9.9bn for the Artemis IV and V missions. Still greater expenditures are envisioned for a well-developed lunar base.
Continue reading...The biggest names in and out of Hollywood are choosing to be interviewed by their peers rather than journalists, leaving many more revealing questions on the table
We live in a time where ultra-rich businesspeople have accrued more wealth and power than ever, creating a growing sentiment that they ought to be held to account, no doubt exacerbated by the fact that a wealthy businessman is in his second self-enriching term in the US presidency. So naturally, CNN, Donald Trump’s supposed nemesis, has figured out the best way to use their resources to better interrogate this elevated class: by letting them interview each other about their businesses. The 1 on 1 is named not for an actual journalist going up against a major business leader; they would probably never agree to that. So instead, CEOs can “grill” each other about whatever they mutually agree are the correct things to ask fellow elites. A spokesperson says these conversations will be “refreshingly direct”. Refreshing to who, exactly, is not specified, but you can take a guess.
This is disappointing but also inevitable. Interviews, especially on-camera interviews with people not directly involved with politics, have increasingly become all-subject, no-perspective affairs, starting from the ground zero of the entertainment industry – a leader in content-light mutual admiration. For a splashy new Vogue piece, for example, the journalist whose byline is affixed to a conversation featuring Meryl Streep and Anna Wintour, tied to the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, takes the fly-on-the-wall version of journalism to an extreme: the “moderator” of this conversation is Greta Gerwig, Streep and Wintour’s fellow celeb. Chloe Malle, the writer and Wintour’s successor as Vogue editor, meanwhile, compares herself to a “court stenographer” without mentioning that in courts, typically the lawyers and judge aren’t all on the same team. There’s no byline at all on the introduction to another recent piece where Marc Jacobs – finally, a leg up for this underappreciated figure! – interviews Sabrina Carpenter. Presumably someone else was actually in the room with them – unless Jacobs brought his own recorder, did his own transcriptions and anonymously wrote that intro. Journalists, apparently, should be neither particularly seen nor heard.
Continue reading...The actor on the killer T rexes he’d like to meet, a 90% life lesson, and an awkward moment with Amy Adams
Born in Maryland, Richard Schiff, 70, came to fame when he was cast in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. From 1999 to 2006 he played Toby Ziegler in the TV drama The West Wing, receiving an Emmy for his performance. Other work includes the series The Good Doctor and Ballers, and the film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. He stars in Copenhagen at Hampstead Theatre until 2 May. He is married with two children and lives in Montana and New York City.
What is your greatest fear?
People finding out my greatest fear.
Chris Kempczinski’s taste test was mocked online, to which he said his mother had taught him: ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full’
The chief executive officer of McDonald’s recently blamed etiquette guidance from his mother for a February on-camera taste test that made him a target for ridicule – and summarily recorded another video of him eating one of the fast-food giant’s offerings in a manner potential consumers found awkward.
Chris Kempczinski suggested to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) earlier in April that he was simply heeding maternal advice to never talk with his mouth full when he took the humorously small bite at the center of a viral video which depicted him discussing and sampling the new Big Arch burger from McDonald’s.
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