Spacex

A few weeks ago, four astronauts came home from the Moon for the first time since 1972. Artemis II splashed down on April 11, 2026, after a nine-day flight that took its crew further from Earth than any human has ever travelled - 252,756 miles, a new record set by Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. It is the clearest signal yet that human spaceflight has stopped being a thing of the past and started being a thing of the near future again. But the headline mission is only one piece of a much larger picture. The decade we are living in is shaping up to be the most consequential one for crewed space travel since Apollo - and unlike the 1960s, this time it is not a single government driving it. ...

It’s rare to see an option contract make the front page, but that is what landed on 21 April 2026. SpaceX disclosed that it has signed a deal with Cursor - the AI coding tool made by Anysphere - giving it the right to buy the startup outright for $60 billion later this year, or to walk away with a $10 billion payment for the joint work the two teams are doing in the meantime. ...

Two Paths Diverge The 21st century space race isn’t between countries - it’s between philosophies. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and SpaceX’s Starship represent two radically different bets on how to explore deep space. The SLS is the traditional aerospace approach: specialized hardware, proven technology, massive government investment, and a decades-long development timeline. Starship is the startup approach: rapid iteration, reusability, vertical integration, and “fail fast” in practice. Both are heading to the Moon. Only one philosophy will define deep space exploration beyond. ...

About The SpaceX Starfactory is the heart of Starship production, located within the Starbase complex in Boca Chica, Texas. Its goal is to mass produce Starship rockets, with an ambitious target of one Starship per day! This vast facility manufactures and assembles Starship vehicles, including both the Starship spacecraft itself and the Super Heavy booster that launches it. The Starfactory is still under construction, but with ongoing expansion it’s expected to reach its full production potential soon. SpaceX views Starfactory as crucial to achieving their long-term goals - regular space travel and missions to Mars. By streamlining Starship production, they hope to dramatically increase launch cadence and make space more accessible. ...