Humanoid robots, space travel, the science of aging--Musk was willing to weigh in on all of it at this week's World Economic Forum. But his predictions rarely work out the way he says they will. Elon Musk speaks during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, is very good at making money. His track record of predicting the future is less stellar.

If you want to put people back on the moon, don't gut the agency in charge of getting them there. The senator wanted a promise. For the last six years--or maybe the last decade or quarter century, depending on how you count it--the United States and China had been locked in a space race, a contest to see which nation could put its people on the moon . Senator Ted Cruz wanted President Donald Trump's nominee to run NASA, Jared Isaacman, to pledge that the US would not lose. Cruz brought a little surprise to Isaacman's confirmation hearing last April. It was a poster of the moon. On one side stood three astronauts and a giant Chinese flag. On the other were two more figures in space suits, with the tiniest Stars and Stripes planted in the lunar soil . Cruz apologized for the imbalance. "My team used ChatGPT," explained the senator, who chairs the committee that oversees NASA. Then Cruz, with a bit more seriousness, asked Isaacman, "Do we have your commitment that you will not allow the scenario on the right of this poster to happen? That China will not beat us to the moon?" Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who had paid for his own missions to space, replied, "Senator, I only see the left-hand portion of that poster."

America's great journey in space is about to face its most consequential moment in half a century. Everyone agrees: It's a complete disaster. I. Artemis, We Have a Problem As you may have heard, NASA plans to send a crew of astronauts around the moon in early 2026, followed by a lunar landing in 2027. Or maybe you haven't heard. When I told one of my daughters about this plan to send people to the moon, she said, after a long silence: "But I thought we already sent a bunch of people there a long time ago." This is a standard response when I quiz people about Artemis, NASA's program to return to the moon, and this time to stay . It's named for Apollo's twin sister and the goddess of the moon and the hunt. The other day, I was in a gaggle with six neighbors, all highly informed professional people--two of them with long careers at the National Science Foundation--and none knew anything about Artemis except one thing: It's a plan to send people to Mars. Artemis is a moon mission. There is no Mars mission NASA has no Mars rocket, no Mars capsule, no Mars mission crew. What it does have is a very troubled moon program. Artemis faces fundamental engineering challenges that have called into question the program's basic architecture. Reconfiguring a mission this important is hard in the best of times, but the agency is being forced to do it during a year of unprecedented internal turmoil. A new administration always means turnover, but NASA has been in an uncontrolled spin every bit as alarming as the one Neil Armstrong famously pulled out of during in 1966. More than a year ago, President-elect Donald Trump nominated a billionaire entrepreneur and Elon Musk ally, Jared Isaacman, to become NASA administrator. It was an unconventional choice, but Isaacman drew support from many quarters in the space community. Then, right before Isaacman was poised for confirmation by the Senate, Trump and Musk had a nasty falling-out, and Trump yanked Isaacman's nomination. Since Inauguration Day, NASA had been run by acting administrator Janet Petro, a veteran agency official, and with Isaacman out, she remained in charge until one day in July when Trump suddenly named Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy as interim administrator.

This was the last flight of SpaceX's V2 Starship design. Version 3 arrives next year. SpaceX closed a troubled but instructive chapter in its Starship rocket program Monday with a near-perfect test flight that carried the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world from South Texas to the Indian Ocean. The rocket's 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines roared to life at 6:23 pm CDT (7:23 pm EDT; 23:23 UTC), throttling up to generate some 16.7 million pounds of thrust, by a large measure more powerful than any rocket before Starship. Moments later, the 404-foot-tall (123-meter) rocket began a vertical climb away from SpaceX's test site in Starbase, Texas, near the US-Mexico border.

'Delivery robots will happen': Skype co-founder on his fast-growing venture Starship C ity dwellers around the world have long been used to rapid delivery of takeaway food and, increasingly, groceries. But what they are not entirely used to - yet - is the sight of a robot pulling up to their front door. The co-founder of Skype, Ahti Heinla, believes his new venture is about to change that. Heinla is the chief executive of Starship Technologies, a startup that, he claimed, is able to operate deliveries run by trundling robots at a small profit - and cheaper than a human delivery driver, even in small towns and villages where delivery has not previously been viable. "We've solved everything that there is to solve," Heinla said over lunch at a London hotel.

Elon Musk Is Out to Rule Space. With SpaceX and Starlink, Elon Musk controls more than half the world's rocket launches and thousands of internet satellites. Just off the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway, the hotel's rooftop bar is open late. The bartender passes out shots and turns Ozzy up. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takes off, its orange plume glowing bright, about 12 miles due north up the Banana River. The "Iron Man" riff starts to blast. When we hear the thud of the sonic boom, most everyone lets out some kind of hoot. This is SpaceX's 95th launch of the year, one nearly every other day. That's more liftoffs than the rest of the world gets into space, combined. For our politics issue, WIRED examines the state of tech's influence on governmental power--and the people who will change everything in the future. On this particular night, this Falcon 9 took 28 Starlink internet satellites to orbit. Starlink, of course, is another Musk space venture that dominates its competitors.

Orbital missions will unlock the next phase of Starship's development, providing better data on the performance of the spacecraft's heat shield and allowing for tests of in-orbit refueling, which will be essential for missions to Mars. Save this storyIt has been two weeks since SpaceX's last Starship test flight, and engineers have diagnosed issues with its heat shield, identified improvements, and developed a preliminary plan for the next time the ship heads into space. Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX executive in charge of build and flight reliability, presented the findings Monday at the American Astronautical Society's Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Cleveland. The rocket lifted off on August 26 from SpaceX's launch pad in Starbase, Texas, just north of the US-Mexico border. It was the 10th full-scale test flight of SpaceX's Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage, combining to form the world's largest rocket. There were a couple of overarching objectives on the August 26 test flight.

When space startup Ispace attempts its second lunar landing on June 6, CEO Takeshi Hakamada will be watching more than just another spacecraft attempt to touch down. The 45-year-old founder of the firm will be witnessing the next chapter of a journey that began decades ago, in a childhood bedroom in Japan, where a boy obsessed with science fiction first dreamed of reaching for the stars. "For me, the first time I really engaged with space was through'Star Wars,'" Hakamada said in an interview with The Japan Times. "I was around 9 or 10 when I saw the original trilogy on TV. I was really inspired by the cool starships and robots. If I look back, that was definitely the spark for me."

DOGE leader Elon Musk opens up about his work in space on'Kudlow.' Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX's Starship will head to Mars at the end of 2026. The ship will be carrying Optimus, Tesla's humanoid robot. The tech billionaire said that if all goes well, humans could be on the red planet by 2029, although he admitted that 2031 is more likely. NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used its dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager to capture this image of "Santa Cruz," a hill within Jezero Crater, on April 29, 2021, the 68th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The X account for Optimus replied to Musk's announcement with just two words: "Hold on."

From NASA's mission to study Jupiter's icy moon Europa to Elon Musk's SpaceX catching its Starship rocket mid-air, there's no doubt 2024 saw some incredible space feats. 'In 2024, NASA made leap after giant leap to explore, discover, and inspire – all while bringing real, tangible, and substantial benefits to the American people and to all of humanity,' said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. And 2025 is set to be an even more remarkable year for space agencies and companies around the world, who have an assortment of exciting missions lined up. Among them are NASA, which is sending two twin spacecraft to Mars – although its upcoming return to the moon has been delayed yet again. There's also the European Space Agency, which is set to launch its futuristic'Space Rider' spaceplane – described as a'robotic laboratory the size of two minivans'.