Science
Amid tense clashes between NASA and Musk, two NASA science missions launch on SpaceX rocket
After every federal employee received an email asking them to list their recent accomplishments, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X, warning any employee who didn’t respond would be terminated. NASA, instead, asserted that replying was optional and that its leadership would handle the matter.
Two weeks after the clash, the space agency hitched a ride to orbit on a SpaceX rocket.
It’s another indicator that, despite an aggressive push by the Trump Administration and Musk to significantly reduce government spending and the federal workforce that have led to some tense public disputes, NASA’s space science missions — and its relationship with SpaceX, the dominant launch provider in the U.S. — have so far remained relatively unscathed.
The space agency narrowly escaped the mass firing of its probationary employees and has stayed out of the political crosshairs of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is working to slash funding at agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.
It has also survived some strained squabbles with the SpaceX CEO, including Musk’s call to deorbit the International Space Station as soon as possible, before its scheduled 2030 decommissioning date.
Yet, tangible threats to the space agency’s status quo are looming on the horizon, space-policy experts say, including potentially significant budget cuts and staff reductions through the normal processes of government.
“There’s a lot of this highly disruptive, very symbolic culture war … that’s taking a lot of attention,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a Pasadena-based nonprofit advocating for space science and exploration. “But the bigger issue is the more quotidian of, will NASA get the money it needs to do the projects it’s told to do.”
SpaceX launched two NASA spacecraft Tuesday — both part of the agency’s Explorers Program, designed to provide frequent flight and funding opportunities for space science missions — on its Falcon 9 rocket.
It included a spacecraft from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge that will study the rapid expansion that occurred during the first split-second of the universe and a mission from the Southwest Research Institute, a private nonprofit organization based in Texas and Colorado, that will explore the dynamics of solar wind.
Despite the public clashes, a NASA spokesperson said the agency’s relationship with Musk’s company remains strong.
“NASA is working with partners like SpaceX to build an economy in low Earth orbit and take our next giant leaps in exploration at the Moon and Mars for the benefit of all,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “To date, NASA invested more than $15 billion in SpaceX for its work under numerous agency contracts.”
The Falcon 9 has become one of the U.S.’ most prolific and reliable rides to space (and unlike SpaceX’s developmental Starship rocket, it does not frequently explode). Much of the rocket’s success is thanks to a nearly two-decade partnership with NASA.
The space agency funded the development of the rocket in 2006 as part of a push to foster a burgeoning private launch industry ahead of the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Two years later, SpaceX was the first private company to reach space with a liquid-fueled rocket, using a scaled-down precursor to the Falcon 9.
In the years since, NASA has given SpaceX billions in contracts to shuttle supplies and, later, astronauts to and from the ISS; launch science missions far beyond Earth’s orbit; and now, develop a spacecraft to deorbit the ISS in 2030 and the Starship rocket to carry humans back to the moon.
As SpaceX excelled in rocket development, other private launch companies — and NASA itself — struggled to keep up.
In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing $4.2 billion and SpaceX $2.6 billion to develop capsules to launch astronauts to the ISS. But while SpaceX has launched 10 missions to the ISS with NASA astronauts to date, Boeing has managed only one botched crewed test flight that left two U.S. astronauts on the ISS without a ride back, until SpaceX agreed to take them home.
(Notably, that involved another incident pitting Musk against NASA, in which the former described the astronauts as “stranded,” despite the latter’s insistence that this was a mischaracterization.)
Meanwhile, NASA’s Space Shuttle successor, the Space Launch System, has accrued billions in cost overruns and years of delays. The rocket’s side boosters and engines were originally projected to cost $7 billion over 14 years of development and flights. That’s grown to at least $13.1 billion over 25 years, according to a report from the NASA Office of Inspector General.
The result: Over the years, America’s space agency has become increasingly dependent on SpaceX and Musk for access to space.
Then, the Trump administration created DOGE — a temporary organization in the executive office (and not an official government department) — and instated Musk as a special government employee to head it.
The administration began firing probationary employees — government workers in their first year of a new role, who are not yet considered full employees — across the federal government, including at the National Park Service, U.S. Agency for International Development, and most recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
On Feb. 18, NASA employees braced for a similar cut, but it never came. The agency announced it had worked with the Office of Personnel Management to avoid the firings and that about 5% of the workforce had resigned voluntarily as part of a separate program to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
Instead, the agency began undertaking a longer-term by-the-books reduction of staff mandated by an executive order. The agency, in a document outlining the process, stated it intends to proceed in a manner that “minimizes adverse impact on employees and limits disruption to critical Agency missions, programs, operations, and organizations.”
The agency is partnering with OPM and DOGE to carry out the reduction and does not have a specific percent reduction goal, a NASA spokesperson said in a statement.
At a Cabinet meeting, Musk said DOGE’s goal is not to be “capricious or unfair” and said the temporary organization has no target numbers. Instead, he wants to keep “everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well.”
NASA began the layoffs Monday with 23 employees in advisory science and policy offices, as well as a diversity, equity and inclusion branch.
Employees at JPL, a government contractor funded by NASA but managed by Caltech, are exempt from the reduction, both NASA and JPL confirmed. However, the laboratory remains at the whims of federal funding for its missions.
While, publicly, NASA’s science funding has not seen the same level of scrutiny or cuts as other science agencies, Congress has a quick-approaching March 14 budget deadline, and, in line with the White House, the Republican-controlled chambers are set on decreasing federal spending.
The implications for NASA’s science programs could be significant.
In an example budget proposal for the 2023 fiscal year, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget proposed slashing NASA’s science budget in half — which would far outpace previous budget cuts to the agency’s science programs.
Typically, NASA’s science budget follows the trends of the rest of the discretionary budget, which doesn’t include mandatory spending like Medicare and Social Security that is managed outside the typical budget process.
“People love NASA, but in general, NASA’s budget doesn’t buck the trend of overall non-defense discretionary,” said Dreier. “If that pie gets bigger, NASA’s slice gets a little bigger, but if it gets smaller, NASA’s slice doesn’t stay big.”
When Congress has tough choices to make over which programs to fund, it’s often the science and technology side — and not the human spaceflight side — of the agency that sees the biggest cuts.
Notably — with representatives jockeying to bring funding to their own constituents — conservative-leaning states are home to NASA’s biggest human spaceflight centers, like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Johnson Space Center in Texas. More liberal states are home to many of the science-focused centers, like JPL and Maryland’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which runs the Explorers Program.
And within the science spending, it’s the big flagship science missions, like the James Webb Space Telescope, that survive, whereas smaller missions, like those in the Explorers Program, end up on the chopping block.
The bigger missions often have many more advocates across the country ready to defend the programs, and stir up backlash if they’re canceled.
The Senate has yet to hold hearings for Trump’s NASA administrator pick, Jared Isaacman, a Musk and SpaceX business partner who rode to space on a Falcon 9 rocket in 2021 as part of the first space mission with an all-civilian crew.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
Three months after his son was born, Kevin Maguire felt alone.
It was 2019. He had recently moved to Barcelona with his wife and daughter and was working on marketing projects for Fortune 500 companies. The birth of his son, Bodhi, should have been a joyous event. But Maguire, now 43, became sad and irritable, and didn’t want to be around his newborn. He withdrew from family and friends, often playing video games late into the night or finding excuses to get out of the house.
“I would take the dog out for a walk,” Maguire said. “I wanted to get far away enough that I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew and I would just sit and cry.”
Desperate for answers, he entered his symptoms online. Maguire, author of the recently published book “The New Fatherhood: Why Everything They Told You About Being a Dad Is Wrong, and How Embracing It Will Transform Your Life,” knew to look for signs of the “baby blues” in his wife. But he was surprised by articles that said men could experience postpartum depression too. The diagnosis resonated and he began writing about his condition and the trials of fatherhood on Substack.
New dads face psychological pressures, from sleepless nights to sky-high bills, which can contribute to postpartum depression. So can shifting hormone levels.
“One thing I found in my lab’s research is that when new dads have really low levels of testosterone, they might report more symptoms of postpartum depression,” said Darby Saxbe, a professor of psychology at USC and author of the recently published “Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives.”
While hormonal shifts can create challenges, they also help men adapt to fatherhood, Saxbe explained. Several hormones can spike in men when they become dads, including oxytocin, linked to better relationship quality; vasopressin, associated with emotional bonding; and prolactin, which promotes lactation in women and caregiving behavior in guys.
New dads can also experience a decline in testosterone. According to a 2011 paper from University of Notre Dame professor Lee Gettler, part of the largest study on fatherhood and testosterone ever conducted, men averaged around a 25% drop in testosterone after becoming fathers.
While dads have reasons to be concerned by plummeting levels of testosterone, a modest dip isn’t necessarily a disaster — in fact, it can make men better parents and partners.
“We often get invested in the idea that men should always have the highest possible levels of testosterone,” Saxbe said. “What the research tells us is a little more nuanced. You really want flexibility. You want a hormonal system that can adapt to the different demands of your life.”
The prospect of a decline might scare soon-to-be fathers, especially those on TikTok and Instagram, where accounts push the idea that having “high T” is the key to being a “real man,” according to a recent study in the journal Social Science & Medicine.
Influencers stand to profit persuading men there’s a widespread “masculinity crisis,” the researchers found, noting that 72% of the accounts they analyzed had a stake in testosterone supplements and treatments.
But studies show more testosterone isn’t always better. “We found that when dads have higher testosterone, even before birth, they’re less invested [than men with lower testosterone] in co-parenting a few months after birth,” Saxbe said. High T fathers were more stressed from parenting than their lower T counterparts, and had partners who were less satisfied in their romantic relationships.
This jibes with the challenge hypothesis, which says, in multiple species, testosterone levels rise when males battle for attention from potential mates and go down when it’s time to take care of the young.
While a small decline can be adaptive, dads face mental health risks when their testosterone drops too low.
There is no “normal” level of testosterone, said Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the Men’s Clinic at UCLA Health. Experts recommend that men should consider treatment if their levels dip below 300 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL). But men metabolize testosterone in different ways, meaning a healthy level for one might be low for another.
“If a new dad comes to me and his testosterone is 298 [ng/dL], he’s below the threshold,” Mills said. “But if he has zero symptoms and everything else is going great — he’s over the moon with his new child, he’s so happy — that’s not somebody I’m going to treat with testosterone.”
He notes that the drop in testosterone fathers experience can partly be attributed to the stresses that come with a new kid: less sleep, a poor diet and fewer trips to the gym. That means there are precautions that expectant fathers can take that don’t involve testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).
Still, while some guys with low testosterone levels might not need TRT, others in the “normal” range could benefit from treatment. (Dads who want another kid soon, beware. Mills notes that testosterone replacement therapy can take a man’s sperm count to zero.)
Both Mills and Saxbe stress that men should be paying attention to symptoms of low testosterone — such as depression and low libido — rather than trying to reach or maintain an ideal number. They also agree that tending to mental health concerns is hugely important for new fathers.
Eventually, after Maguire researched his condition, he recovered after time spent meditating, exercising and bonding with his son.
“A lot of new dads don’t realize how much they’re struggling because they feel ashamed or because they don’t realize it’s common shortly after the birth of a baby,” Saxbe said.
When they struggle, fathers can fixate on testosterone because that’s what modern culture tells them will make them feel better. And sometimes testosterone replacement therapy works. But Saxbe stresses a lot of men could use psychotherapy or support groups that bring dads together, as well as more time bonding with loved ones in general.
“The thing that predicts a man’s well-being and longevity is the quality of his relationships with other people,” said Saxbe. “You can be the world’s best weightlifter. You can have a low body-fat percentage. You can be killing it at work. Those things don’t predict how happy you’re going to be at 80.”
new video loaded: NASA Announces Artemis III Crew
transcript
transcript
NASA Announces Artemis III Crew
NASA announced the crew of Artemis III mission, which will fly to low-Earth orbit to test rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or two lunar landers.
-
“I am excited to welcome you as the next crew in the Artemis journey to successfully return to the moon — this time to stay.” “I’m honored by the role that I’ve been given. I’m also very humbled by the task in front of us. But first and foremost, I’m grateful.” “So with that, the Artemis II crew, comrade, hands you the baton. You got the controls.” “As you know, we had a significant anomaly at our Launch Complex 36A on May 28. We’ve redoubled our efforts and are moving forward.”
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 9, 2026
Science
Santa Monica Mountains’ last steelhead trout survived the Palisades fire — and even had babies
Scientists feared the Santa Monica Mountains’ last remaining steelhead trout were dead, smothered by debris flows unleashed by the Palisades fire.
But the endangered fish surprised them: A team of biologists recently spotted 30 of the rare trout — and 21 babies — in Topanga Creek.
“There was a lot of happy dancing in the creek,” said Rosi Dagit, principal conservation biologist for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, which works with public and private landowners to conserve natural resources.
That’s because the steelhead here are endangered, at both the state and federal levels. Once, they swam in most streams of the Santa Monicas, but their numbers plummeted amid overfishing and coastal development. Increasingly frequent wildfire has further stressed their habitat. Topanga Creek, a biodiversity hot spot, is home to their last known population in the mountains that stretch from the Hollywood Hills to Point Mugu in Ventura County.
The trout that were spotted, including this one, are part of a distinct Southern California population that’s listed as endangered at the state and federal levels.
(RCDSMM Stream Team)
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife spearheaded a complex mission to rescue trout threatened by the Palisades fire that sparked in January 2025.
Time was of the essence. The fire hadn’t yet been fully contained. But rain was on the way, which would sweep massive amounts of sediment from the denuded hillsides into the water. Fish are often killed this way.
Crews stunned the fish with electricity, scooped them up in buckets, trucked them to a hatchery and ultimately moved them to Arroyo Hondo Creek in Santa Barbara County.
Within days, Topanga Creek was choked with mud. Some assumed the fish left behind were goners.
But in March, the conservation district’s team found four. The following month, when water conditions were clearer, they saw more.
“These fish continue to amaze me,” said Kyle Evans, environmental program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, who had seen the damage to the creek. “I had seen populations get wiped out in similar situations. So when I heard, I was thrilled.”
Evans surmises the fish that survived were in an area of the creek where less charred material and sediment were swept in.
“These fish likely hunkered down, were hiding under some rocks or places to try to get away from the main concentration of flow,” he said. “And luckily they weren’t buried.”
The ones that were spotted were fairly small, around 6 to 14 inches. Rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species, but with different lifestyles. If the fish remain in freshwater, they’ll be considered rainbows. However, they can migrate to the ocean and become steelhead, where they typically grow larger before returning to their natal waters to spawn.
Topanga Creek hasn’t fully recovered from the damage it sustained, but scientists say it’s looking better. Surveys last year were “so depressing,” Dagit said, with very few animals, and stretches that were essentially transformed into flat roads from all the sediment buildup. Some of the riparian canopy burned right down to the creek.
Then came 32 inches of rain over the last nine months, scouring out and moving sediment, creating deeper pools. Dagit said they recently found newt egg masses for the first time in years, as well as a few adult newts and many frogs. Plants that provide cover are starting to recover.
She provided photos comparing certain pools last year and this year, some dramatically transformed. In September 2025, the Shrine Pool could have been an overgrown hiking trail. This April, it was filled with shallow water.
The Shrine Pool in September 2025, left, and the same location in April 2026, right, with RCDSMM’s Isaac Yelchin donning a wetsuit.
(RCDSMM Stream Team)
Topanga Creek is home to another endangered fish, the small but hardy northern tidewater goby, often described as cute. Not long before the trout operation, Dagit led a rescue of hundreds of these fish too. Many were repatriated to the lagoon at the mouth of the creek in a moving ceremony last June.
There’s still the matter of what to do with the trout that were moved to Santa Barbara County last year. Evans would like to bring them home to the Santa Monicas at some point, but isn’t sure if it will happen. On one hand, they could bolster the small, genetically isolated surviving population. On the other, they might inadvertently bring in a disease or bacteria. There is some time to decide. Evans estimates the creek still needs to recover for two to three more years.
For now, the fish are functioning fine in their adopted creek. Experts worried the trauma wrought by the move would disrupt their spawning process, but they had babies that spring. This year, they spawned again.
-
Crypto7 minutes agoDelaware House Approves Bill to Ban Cryptocurrency ATMs Statewide
-
Finance10 minutes agoUK’s first public-private nature fund raises $86m to restore landscapes at scale
-
Fitness15 minutes agoI’m A Longevity Doctor—These Are The 6 Types Of Exercise Every Woman Should Be Doing For Healthy Ageing
-
Movie Reviews25 minutes ago‘Playing POTUS’ Review: Documentary From ‘Barb and Star’ Director Makes a Fun but Limited Impression
-
News40 minutes agoRead the Charges Against 8 People Connected to the University of Michigan
-
Lifestyle1 hour ago‘Disclosure Day’ star Josh O’Connor received a ‘genius’ late-night text from Spielberg
-
Technology1 hour agoClaude Fable is too scared to teach you about the powerhouse of the cell
-
World1 hour agoWorld court prosecutor who went after Netanyahu for war crimes suspended over sexual misconduct
