But before I go any further: this is not investment advice. I did learn a valuable lesson in business school that I’m happy to share: buy low, sell high. Beyond that, you’re on your own!

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Back to the IPO. What makes this deal fascinating isn’t just the size. It’s that SpaceX is no longer just a rocket company.

Yes, Falcon 9 dominates the global launch market, and Starship is still the most ambitious rocket ever built. But SpaceX has grown far beyond launch services. Starlink has become a massive communications business and the most profitable arm of SpaceX. The company has expanded into artificial intelligence by acquiring xAI and Grok this February. It is also investing heavily in chip manufacturing with its Terafab initiative. Elon’s latest plan is to build orbital data centers in space, which could potentially become the most valuable part of SpaceX.

Falcon 9 on the Launch Pad

In other words, SpaceX wants to become the multi-domain company of the future, leading the global space, communications, data, and AI sectors.

That is a grand vision to say the least, but understanding the hard, cold numbers is necessary to evaluate this deal.

In 2025, SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in revenue while losing $4.9 billion. Starlink was profitable, but enormous investments in Starship and AI weighed on overall earnings. It’s worth noting that at its IPO valuation, SpaceX is worth an eye-popping 90 times annual revenue.

For comparison, most large public companies trade at a small fraction of that. Boeing and Exxon are around 2x, AT&T is 1.4x, and United Airlines is a relative bargain at 0.6x. Even high-growth technology firms rarely command such lofty multiples. To really dig under the financial hood, including a fascinating analysis of institutional vs retail investors, check out Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine’s excellent analysis of this blockbuster IPO.

But investors aren’t buying SpaceX for what it earns today. They’re buying what they believe it could become. Some may call this irrational exuberance. Others call it vision. This is where Elon Musk dominates the story.

Nobody has a better track record of turning seemingly impossible ideas into reality. Reusable rockets, electric vehicles, global satellite internet; each sounded unrealistic until they weren’t. Investors are betting that SpaceX can do it again.

Starship Launch

Their launch business may continue to grow as demand for satellites increases with the rise of mega-constellations and Starship becomes operational. Starlink still has room to expand globally, although competition is coming from Amazon Leo, Europe, and China. The AI business could become a major driver of future value if Grok gains traction against rivals like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Elon’s controversial stint with DOGE potentially netted him a massive amount of US Government data, and data is the coin of the AI realm.

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But the biggest prize may be orbital computing.

If Starship becomes operational and SpaceX is able to develop Terafab-enabled satellites that can function in the harsh thermal and radiation environment of outer space, they could deploy a vast network of up to a million computing satellites. This could create a data center ecosystem that avoids many of the energy, water, and permitting challenges faced on Earth. It could also meet the massive computing requirements that modern AI requires at a lower cost than its terrestrial competitors. It’s a bold idea. And a massively expensive one. Success could mean that SpaceX would become profitable beyond imagination. And failure might mean that the IPO was, shall we say, overpriced.

“AI Sat Mini” Orbital Computing Satellite

In any case, SpaceX faces plenty of risks. Launch, internet, and AI markets will eventually mature; the hockey stick won’t last forever. Competition will be fierce from other private rocket companies, AI giants, and Earth-bound data centers. Technical problems will always lurk. Massive satellite constellations for Starlink and AI data centers raise serious concerns about space debris in Earth orbit.

Ultimately the foundation of this whole deal is Elon himself.

SpaceX’s valuation has always been based largely on confidence in Musk’s vision and leadership. One issue that raised many eyebrows is the extraordinary level of voting control that Elon will retain after the IPO. If his decisions prove correct, investors may be rewarded. If not, there will be few checks on his authority which could lead to buyer’s remorse.

Finally, there’s politics.

SpaceX operates in heavily regulated industries and depends on government relationships, and Musk has a friend in Donald Trump today. But political winds change. There’s a midterm election in less than five months and a new presidential administration in two and a half years. Elon is already the world’s richest man, and he’s poised to become humanity’s first trillionaire, which could lead to backlash from the general public. The bottom line is that SpaceX may not always enjoy such friendly political and public goodwill in the future.

This IPO will no doubt generate a ton of buzz, and at the end of the day markets are often driven more by emotion that by spreadsheets.

Whether SpaceX ultimately justifies its $135 price remains to be seen. One thing is certain: this is not just another IPO, it’s a public referendum on one of the most consequential business leaders in history.

And if you do decide to jump in, remember my business school advice:

Buy low. Sell high.

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The launch team was conducting the ground test in advance of a planned June 4th launch. Launch Complex 36 has a long and storied history at Cape Canaveral, and today it is the primary launch pad for Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket in Florida. New Glenn will eventually also launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s SLC-14 pad in California.

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During the procedure they filled the rocket with fuel and were preparing to test-fire its seven BE-4 first-stage engines. Fueling a rocket on the launch pad is always one of the most dangerous points in any mission, and for this reason ground personnel are kept far from the launch pad. I don’t think anyone will be arguing against that rule any time soon.

From a “glass is half full” perspective, although the launch pad sustained significant damage, it wasn’t as bad as first feared. Per Blue Origin’s latest update, LC-36’s critical propellant and water tanks survived, and a nearby hangar that housed a different New Glenn booster were intact. Thankfully the payload, 48 Amazon Leo satellites, was also safe in the hangar. Best of all, Blue Origin president Dave Limp declared that they will launch by the end of the year, which is good news for the space company’s NASA, commercial, and national security customers. If you’re going to have the biggest rocket explosion in American history, this isn’t the worst outcome.

Let’s also discuss why New Glenn is so important. Twenty years ago the American launch market was dominated by a few government-led rockets—Atlas, Delta, and the space shuttle. As the shuttle retired and it became clear that the venerable Atlas and Delta were too expensive and would need to be replaced, a new commercial rocket industry was born, led by SpaceX. Resurrected from near-bankruptcy by a NASA contract in 2006, SpaceX completely dominates the global launch market today with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and they are test flying the massive Starship rocket every few months. In 2025 more than half the payloads delivered to orbit from Earth flew on a SpaceX rocket, including over 90% of American launches.

New Glenn at Launch Complex 36, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

There were of course many other private companies joining the race to develop new launchers, including ULA, Relativity, Electron, Firefly, Rocket Lab, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Blue began with a small suborbital rocket called New Shepard, which was actually the first rocket to successfully fly its booster safely back to Earth so it could be re-used. The much larger New Glenn has been in development for over a decade, and finally flew its first mission last year. So the timing of this mishap is frustrating, to say the least. Also, if the root cause of the mishap is found to be the methane-powered BE-4 engine, it could spell trouble for ULA’s Vulcan rocket, which also uses the BE-4.

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The commercial customer for the planned June 4th launch was Amazon (you may have heard of Jeff Bezos’ other company). They are launching a satellite constellation called Amazon LEO that will compete against Starlink as well as several planned European and Chinese constellations in low Earth orbit that will provide global internet service. Other commercial communication customers are also planning to launch on the New Glenn.

NASA is also depending on Blue Origin for its Moon exploration plans. NASA’s recently announced Moon Base program will consist of many robotic landers and probes. The Blue Moon Mark 1 was scheduled to launch later this year on a New Glenn as the first unmanned explorer. That mission will likely slip to the right.

The Artemis program to land astronauts on the Moon is planning to use a variant of Blue Moon, the Mark 2. It will also launch on New Glenn. The other astronaut lunar lander is SpaceX’s Starship HLS, a massive (16 stories tall) and complex vehicle (up to 12 Starship refueling missions required in Earth Orbit before it can fly to the Moon).

Artemis 3 will be the next mission with astronauts on board, a test flight where the Orion capsule will rendezvous and dock with the Blue Origin and SpaceX lunar landers in low Earth orbit to check them out. The New Glenn mishap will potentially delay the readiness of the MK2 lander for the Artemis 3 mission. Because of Starship HLS’s complexity and this New Glenn mishap, I have serious reservations about the likelihood of Artemis 4, the mission to finally land astronauts on the Moon, flying by NASA’s stated goal of 2028.

Blue Moon’s Mark 2 Lunar Lander

New Glenn is also planned to fly missions for the DoD as well as the intelligence community under what’s called the National Security Space Launch program. Ironically the US Space Force tasked Blue with a national security launch just hours before the mishap. Thankfully for Blue Origin, the day after the explosion the USSF confirmed that they would continue to plan on using New Glenn for that national security mission.

The bottom line is that the New Glenn rocket plays an incredibly important role for NASA, national security, and commercial launch customers. It is also an essential competitor to SpaceX, which currently enjoys a near-monopoly in the American launch market. The good news is that this accident was a setback, not a death blow. My hope is that the investigators will quickly understand the root cause, fix the problem, and get back to flying in the coming months. As they say at Blue—Gradatim Ferociter.

But what I was most jealous of was their absolutely mesmerizing space photography. I have a bit of a photography addiction, and since my seven months in space I authored a Natgeo space photography book (View From Above), helped shoot an IMAX movie (A Beautiful Planet), helped put together a space photography exhibit, and made a short film about space photography (Cosmic Perspective).

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NASA photos have inspired me since I was a kid, from the early space missions to robotic probes to amazing Hubble space telescopes. But these Artemis photos are really special. So let’s take a look at a few of the best.

Hello World

A few hours after launch, the Orion capsule made its Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) burn that accelerated the four astronauts by 7,000 mph, putting them on a course for the Moon. While speeding away from our planet the crew took this photograph. At first glance it looks like another NASA photo of Earth, but I immediately noticed a few unique things.

First, Earth is illuminated by the Moon. The Sun is actually behind our planet, the bright white thin band of our atmosphere is an impending sunrise. The reason you can see the oceans and clouds and Sahara and a little bit of Spain just across the Strait of Gibraltar is moonlight.

Also, you can see an aurora at the top of the photo (which is actually the Aurora Australis, or southern lights). You can also see an aurora at the bottom, the Aurora Borealis or northern lights. At first this confused me; when I was in space you could never see both at the same time. Because an aurora isn’t bright enough to be seen in daylight, you could only see the northern lights in the winter when the North Pole was in darkness, angled away from the sun. And you could only see the southern lights in the summer, but you never saw both on the same day. Then it hit me- this photo was taken on April 2nd, only 12 days after the Vernal Equinox when both poles are roughly 90 deg to the sun- a perfect time to see both aurorae if you were far enough away from Earth (which the ISS is not). Finally, the aurorae are not always there, they only show up when the sun is actively shooting radiation towards Earth, so the Artemis crew got lucky.

Crescent Earth seen from deep space

From this distance you can’t even see the thin blue line of our precious atmosphere that is prominent in all my ISS photographs. Also, the crescent-shaped arc that separates day from night is called the terminator. You can’t see the aurorae in this picture (even if they were active) because the shutter speed was too fast. In order to see them on an image you have to leave the camera’s shutter open for a relatively long time. For the camera nerds out there the exposure settings I typically used for city lights at night or aurorae were 1/10” with ISO of 6400 and aperture wide open, preferably a prime lens of f/1.6 or so. During the day it was much faster, typically 1/500” with ISO 400. BTW this is also why you don’t see stars in the Apollo photos of astronauts on the Moon, it was daytime. You don’t see them in this photo either, but you do in the first one, because of the day vs night camera exposure settings.

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Moon blocking the Sun

Once again, stars and planets are visible in this photo because the exposure was set up for night time. While the Artemis II crew flew past the Moon into its shadow, the capsule’s trajectory was bent almost 180 degrees back towards Earth by the Moon’s gravity.

In the Moon’s shadow, with the Orion spacecraft on the left

The Moon’s craters are visible because of “Earth shine,” light reflected off our planet illuminating what would be night time on the surface of the Moon. The terminator you see here is from Earth shine, not sunlight. I assume that’s why the Moon has a hint of blue shading in this image.

Sunset over the Moon

This was essentially the beginning of a solar eclipse, as seen from deep space. When we see an eclipse from Earth, the Moon is the same size as the Sun and it perfectly covers it, but from the crew’s vantage point the Moon was obviously much bigger! This reminded me of seeing sunrises or sunsets from the ISS.

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Craters

This is a great picture of the lunar terminator, the line between day and night. If you lived on the Moon you would have a 2-week day and a 2-week night, as the Moon slowly travels around Earth in a little less than a month. Craters look especially fascinating near the terminator, because the Sun is on the horizon and long shadows really give them three dimensions. This photo also reminds us of how lucky we are to have the Moon- it’s basically a celestial offensive lineman, protecting our planet by blocking incoming asteroids. If we didn’t have our Moon there wouldn’t be life on Earth because many of those giant asteroids would have hit us, causing a constant stream of Hollywood-worthy extinction level events.

Earthrise

Reminiscent of the famous image from Apollo 8 in 1968 that gave us all the cosmic perspective that we are very lucky to live on our beautiful blue planet, and that we need to protect it. We have planet A, and there is no planet B.

Big Moon, little Earth

Artemis II flew 4,000 miles past the Moon, traveling farther from Earth than any humans before them.

Earthset

As Orion flew past the Moon, they captured Earth drifting behind the Lunar limb. While the Earth was behind the Moon, the four Artemis astronauts were completely separated from all of humanity for 40 minutes as they looped high above the far side of the Moon, the heavily-cratered part that you can never see from Earth.

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Earthrise

This terminator is caused by sunlight, not Earthshine.

Artemis II ushered in a new era of human and robotic exploration of our nearest neighbor in the universe, the Moon. Hopefully the success of this mission will eventually lead to more adventures deeper into our solar system, starting with Mars. But for now, it’s nice to just marvel at the photographs these astronauts took. There is no better way to share the wonder of space than through imagery, and the Artemis II crew left their mark on history with their beautiful work!

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This is part II of my “Science of Project Hail Mary” piece. Enjoy!

(SPOILER ALERT) After arriving at Tau Ceti, Ryan Gosling AKA Dr. Grace meets an alien friend named Rocky (because he’s made of rocks). He had also traveled to Tau Ceti to try to save his own planet, Erid, which orbits the distant star 40 Eridani. Tau Ceti was the only star in this corner of the galaxy not afflicted with Astrophage-induced cooling, so any advanced civilization with telescopes would know that the cure for the plague might be found there. Their hope proved to be true- they found a special type of cosmic bacteria called Taumoeba on one of its planets (Adrian- cause, Rocky) that destroys the deadly astrophage. Mystery solved! Humanity and Eridians saved! Lots more happens in the plot including a great ending that I won’t spoil. Now, back to the science.

The book dives into how Grace and Rocky learn to communicate, a fascinating study of language, but the movie didn’t have time to address this in depth. Once communicating via computer-generated tones and words, Rocky has some fundamental questions for Dr. Grace. He didn’t understand why the trip had been so fast; he arrived years before he thought he would. He also didn’t know why his entire crew except for him had died. It turns out that Rocky’s Eridian civilization had only developed its scientific knowledge to the level of Newtonian physics. They didn’t understand relativity or quantum mechanics or even the concept of radiation, although they were super engineers and had also constructed a spaceship (the Blip A) using Astrophage as propellant. Because of relativity (see part I of this post), Rocky’s clock onboard his ship had passed much less time than he assumed it would take to travel to Tau Ceti, which must have blown his rock-brain.

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Also, the Eridians had not shielded the crew from the dangers of cosmic radiation because they didn’t know what that was, and all except Rocky had perished after spending years in deep space without protection. Trust me, space radiation is a big deal. After both of my spaceflights I was diagnosed with skin cancer (I’m fine now), so I can say from personal experience that it’s important to give astronauts radiation shielding, especially when travelling beyond the protection of Earth’s magnetic field!

I did find it a little hard to swallow that Rocky’s species was advanced enough to build an interstellar spacecraft without understanding the concepts of relativity or radiation. But hey, it led to some good plot twists, and some of our own species still claim the Earth is flat.

One of Weir’s best descriptions was when the Hail Mary spacecraft arrived at Tau Ceti and its Astrophage-powered photon engines shut down- everything was instantly weightless. On my Space Shuttle and Soyuz flights, the second the rocket engines shut down I was immediately thrust forward in my seat straps, floating. It was a bit overwhelming, I felt like I was falling. Dr. Grace had that same experience without the benefit of training or preparation, he was suddenly weightless and VERY disoriented. Remembering that he had been assigned to this mission just days before launch, when the ruthless mission director Eva Stratt had him drugged and put in a coma before leaving Earth. When he finally woke up he was literally at another star system, 12 light-years from home, with both of his crewmates dead and no professional astronaut training under his belt.

Luckily for Dr. Grace, the Hail Mary has an artificial gravity system. The crew module separates from the propulsion module and they rotate around each other, attached by a cable, generating 1-g of artificial gravity. Think of the rotating spaceships in 2001: A Space Odyssey or Interstellar. Ostensibly the need for this complicated system was to ensure the many scientific instruments onboard functioned properly, because they were designed to work in Earth’s gravity.

In the book it felt like Hail Mary transitioned from 1-g to zero g and back many times, which I found overly risky because if something breaks while splitting the spacecraft in two, that is bad. In the movie they mostly just kept him at 1-g, probably for time constraints. Plus it’s cheaper to film 1-g than zero-g!

Spacewalking was another big part of the story. In the book he used a Russian Orlan spacesuit, because Weir correctly notes that it’s a simpler spacesuit and it’s possible to get in and out of by yourself. The spacesuit I used for my spacewalks, the EMU (NASA’s acronym for “spacesuit”), requires at least one other person to help you suit up. Simplicity turned out to be a good thing, because Grace’s crewmates had perished during the journey to Tau Ceti.

They also kept the Hail Mary at the low pressure of 1/3 of an Earth atmosphere of pure oxygen, which is roughly the pressure we have in our NASA spacesuits. This allowed him to dispense with the time-consuming procedure we have to go through on the ISS (which is at sea-level pressure) to slowly depressurize and get nitrogen out of our bodies before going outside.

In the movie they didn’t use the Orlan, they had a bespoke spacesuit that looked a little like Ironman. Ryan Gosling probably has a clause in his contract that he had to look cool, and the Orlan unfortunately has a “1960s Soviet” vibe.

One final note about spacewalking- Dr. Grace was outside while the spacecraft was accelerating. In my opinion it would be impossible to move around in gravity in that big heavy spacesuit. I tried one time on Earth, when taking my crew photo in the EMU, and it was almost impossible. Walking around at 1g in an actual spacesuit is like walking around with your overweight buddy on your shoulders- not gonna happen for very long. But it was cool in the movie.

Back to Dr. Grace’s crewmates dying- in the book there was a long discussion of the need to put the crew in a forced coma, because they were worried the astronauts would kill each other after a few years of grating each others’ nerves. 5 years together on a one-way suicide mission in a (large) tin can isn’t optimal, but we have sent hundreds of astronauts to the ISS, many of them for 6 months and some as long as a year. If you knew you were going to another solar system to save all of humanity I think you would be pretty motivated. If I were Eva Stratt (the boss of the whole program) I would have chosen the risk of going crazy over the risk of dying in a coma. But then the story loses the drama of waking up in a daze at another star system with your crewmates all dead.

In the book Andy Weir invented a fictional rare gene that allowed humans to stay in a medically induced coma indefinitely, and the crewmembers all had that gene. The reality is there is no such gene and if you’re in a coma for more than a few weeks you probably have severe brain damage if not die.

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Because they didn’t have enough Astrophage for a round-trip, Hail Mary was a suicide mission. In the book Weir discussed different ways for the astronauts to humanely kill themselves after hopefully finding a cure for our sun’s plague and sending it back to Earth in a small unmanned drone. This was to avoid the misery of running out of oxygen or food. My favorite method was nitrogen-induced asphyxia. The Russian Cosmonaut decided she would OD with vodka and heroin and the Chinese Cosmonaut wanted a handgun. Those weren’t necessary in the story because they unfortunately died during the flight to Tau Ceti.

One of the more entertaining science threads was the fictional material xenonite. Rocky’s species were awesome engineers and they had discovered a super hard material called xenonite. As you might guess, it is made of xenon, which is an inert gas and can not be made into a hard material in real life. But the Eridians had figured out how to use it and how to 3-D print it into all kinds of things.

A final note about the cinematography. Academy Award winner Greig Fraser (Dune parts One and Two, The Batman, Zero Dark Thirty, et al) shot Project Hail Mary, and he and the entire crew did a spectacular job, especially with lighting. One shot really stood out to me when Ryan Gosling was in the spaceship’s “cupola” and starlight was coming in from the side. It took me back to the real world cupola module that I helped install on the ISS. Another cool scene was when Grace boards Rocky’s spaceship, the Blip A. I assume that was a challenge to light since there were no lights or windows on that alien spaceship (Eridians don’t have eyes) but visually I felt like that’s what the Blip A would have looked like. Well done to Greig, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and all the gaffers / grips / electricians / set designers / art directors and the whole rest of the crew! I expect a lot of Oscar nominations will be forthcoming.

In summary, this is a true page-turner of a science fiction story, with an emphasis on “science.” Also, kudos to Ryan Gosling for his brilliant performance. In the book Dr. Grace was one-dimensional and stoic, and Gosling’s acting genius came through as he gave his scientist character humanity. Movie-Grace was much more likeable than book-Grace. Did I mention Oscar nominations?

Bottom line- I highly recommend the book, the audio book, AND the movie!

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But in true Andy Weir tradition his science fiction work has a very strong emphasis on the science, especially in the book. So let’s talk about a few of the science concepts- what is real, and what is fiction.

SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you haven’t read the book or seen the film and want to be surprised!

The premise of the entire story revolves around something called astrophage- basically a cosmic microbe that has been flying around the galaxy and sucking the energy out of nearby stars, and it recently reached our sun. It doesn’t take long before scientists realize the sun is dimming and most importantly getting cooler as it gets eaten by this stellar infection, and it won’t be long until the Earth freezes and basically everybody dies as we slowly lose the sun’s warmth. So that sucks. And after some astronomer sleuthing, they realize that every star near us is also dimming except for one- Tau Ceti. So the race is on to go there and figure out why it has been able to fend off the stellar plague.

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The good news in the real world is that there’s no such thing as astrophage, this is the ‘fiction’ part of the science fiction story. But the science of it is pretty fascinating- Weir describes astrophage as a cell very similar to Earth-based biological cells, but with a really really hard membrane that can survive on the surface of the sun, sucking up energy and storing it. In order to reproduce it needs carbon dioxide- and the easiest place to find CO2 in our solar system is on the planet Venus, whose atmosphere is basically all CO2. So, a massive cloud of astrophage microbes flies in between the sun (where it sucks up its energy) and Venus (where it reproduces) like a plague of interstellar locusts. They travel by using light-propulsion (more on that below) along an interplanetary highway called the “Petrova Line,” named after the fictional Russian scientist who discovered it.

Astrophage couldn’t actually exist in part because no biological cell could survive the heat of the sun, or store that much energy. But the good news for the plot of the story is that after a robotic probe flies to Venus, scoops up a few cell samples, and brings them back to Earth, Dr. Grace figures out how to reproduce astrophage on Earth. That required turning the Sahara into a giant mirror farm to generate enough energy to pump into the little guys. Most importantly, they figure out how to harness that energy and store the cells in tanks as the spaceship Hail Mary’s rocket fuel.

However, unfortunately for a few of the astronauts training for the mission, there is a (SPOILER ALERT AGAIN) minor accident when some astrophage explode during a test, releasing an insane amount of energy that basically vaporizes much of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. That made me a little sad since my last space mission was there, launching from the same launch pad as Yuri Gagarin had launched. But, as the great German aviation pioneer Otto von Lillienthal said more than a century ago, “Sacrifices must be made.” So with a newly created vacancy on the crew just a few days before launch, you guessed it- Dr. Grace is pressed into service quite to his displeasure.

While in real life no fuel could store the energy per mass that astrophage has, our willing suspension of disbelief brings us to the rocket science part of the film.

The foundation of space travel is determined by something called “the rocket equation” which basically says that the speed of your spacecraft is limited by the speed of the rocket engine exhaust. So, our best rocket engines like the Space Shuttle and now SLS main engines (RS-25s) that burn liquid hydrogen and oxygen are theoretically limited to around 15 km/ sec, or just over 30,000 mph. Pretty fast- but the journey to other stars that are light years away would take tens of thousands of years- and that’s for nearby stars. Ryan Gosling wouldn’t have made it in time to save humanity if he had to use a Space Shuttle Main Engine, that’s for sure.

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Electric propulsion is a newer technology that works by shooting electrically charged propellant out the back of a “rocket engine” rather than burning fuel, and those can go maybe 10x faster than a typical rocket. The problem with electric propulsion on a large scale is having the megawatts of electric power required to push the electrically charged fuel.

But the fastest possible exhaust is light, because nothing can go faster than light! And yes, there is a very small amount of momentum in a photon of light. So if you went into space and turned your flashlight on, it would accelerate away from the light beam- albeit at a glacial pace, because a few D batteries just don’t have that much energy.

Now, if you cranked up the flashlight wattage to nuclear bomb levels of energy, you start to talk about real acceleration- and that is exactly how Grace’s spaceship (also named Hail Mary) was able to travel a dozen light years to Tau Ceti in search of the cure to our sun’s infection. It had fuel tanks full of astrophage which released insane amounts of light energy that accelerated the spaceship at 1.5 times Earth’s gravity for the first two years of the 4-year trip, and then turned around and decelerated it for the final two years so that it didn’t go whizzing past the star.

An interesting plot point that Weir uses is the concept of relativity. The basic principle that Einstein discovered over a century ago is that if you accelerate a lot (theory of general relativity), or go very fast (theory of special relativity), time slows down relative to a different inertial reference frame (in this case, Earth). Weird I know. NASA physicists told me that during my last 200-day mission in space, my body aged 7 milliseconds less than all of yours did while you were stuck down here on Earth. So I have that going for me.

Now during Dr Grace’s imaginary journey to Tau Ceti, a star 12 light-years from Earth, he only experienced 4.7 years onboard his spaceship because of those 1.5 g’s of acceleration plus the high speed he was travelling, 0.92c, or 92% the speed of light. Pretty cool stuff- if you remember the movie Interstellar, the premise was that the heroes had to travel close to a black hole. When they did that, they experienced a ton of gravity, which is the same thing as acceleration when it comes to general relativity. They therefore only aged a bit, while their friends and families who were far from the black hole aged decades.

Relativity is a real thing in the real world and I loved how Weir used it.

That’s Part 1 of the “science of Project Hair Mary”- more to come in Part 2!

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The Democratic brand is deeply underwater nationwide, and it’s getting worse by the week. We need a strong and healthy Democratic Party to win seats in the House and Senate. And with Donald Trump taking America down the authoritarian path, we can’t afford to wait until the next Congress to elect a new leader. We need action now.

While speaking to voters during my U.S. Senate campaign across the state of Texas, one issue has universal agreement — that Senator Chuck Schumer needs to be replaced.

I don’t have a typical politician’s resume. I’m a former F-16 fighter pilot who’s flown forty-five combat missions over Iraq. I’ve commanded the International Space Station. I’m trained to make quick life-or-death decisions, to stay calm under pressure and to act decisively. That’s exactly the kind of leadership that this moment demands.

And it’s the kind of leadership my party needs to exercise now, if we are to have any hope in 2026.

Texas is a tough state for Democrats to win. It’s been more than thirty years since we won a statewide race here. For us, every election is an uphill battle. And the harsh truth is that the national Democratic brand is in the dumps. While Trump’s numbers are falling on just about every issue, we are worse.

It’s time for some serious soul searching. And that starts at the top. If you’re a sports team with talented players and a terrible record, you fire the head coach. If you’re a company with a strong product, but are losing money, you fire the CEO.

If you are a political party that is as unpopular as Democrats are in 2025, it’s time for new leadership. And that needs to start at the top of the party with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. 

If we change our national party’s leadership now, it will show American voters that Democrats have heard them loud and clear and are honoring their demand for a course correction. Continuing to do the same thing, hoping for a different result, will result in a red wave next year. And to be brutally honest, America cannot survive indefinitely with Donald Trump relentlessly attacking our republic with no checks or balances.

Schumer’s latest poll numbers are awful — both nationally and in his home state of New York. Those numbers send a clear message: voters don’t like him, and they don’t want him in charge. In a race like mine, where the margin will be razor-thin, the perception that electing a Democrat means putting Schumer back in charge of the Senate is a real problem. Texas doesn’t need more Washington. Washington needs more Texas. 

It’s not just Texas. It’s every tough race we must win to take back the Senate: Montana, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, North Carolina, Maine, South Carolina, and Alaska. In each of these states, the Democratic Party’s brand is Schumer’s brand. And Schumer’s brand is a drag on the ticket and blocks the real reform that both the Democratic Party and our nation desperately need. If the roles were reversed and Schumer had to run in a swing state with these numbers, no strategist in their right mind would recruit him. By his own viability standards, he wouldn’t pass.

This is a mistake that is easily remedied, but is catastrophic if not corrected.

Looking behind the scenes, it’s clear that Schumer is deeply involved in national party campaign politics, controlling the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Senate Democratic super PAC — two big-money machines. Any candidate running for Senate is in a Catch-22 situation: promote the message voters actually want and receive no backing from the party machine, or deny reality to keep the money flowing and lose the election. That structural problem is keeping our party in a perpetual, losing do-loop.

What the heck are we doing here?

This feels a lot like the choice we faced with Joe Biden in 2024. Poll after poll — focus group after focus group — left no doubt that he was too old, but Democrats ignored reality, forcing the choice on voters out of fear. And it’s that same fear that’s keeping Schumer in power today. However, the voters have spoken: they don’t want him in charge, and they’re less likely to vote for us if he stays. We know how this ends. We just experienced the pain of 2024, and we are on course to have more pain in 2026.

That truth hurts. But it’s the truth. 

I’ve been clear: When I’m elected, I will not vote for Chuck Schumer as our Senate leader. The real question is — what are current Senate Democrats waiting for? Let’s make the change now and show voters we’re serious about change. We have incredible Democratic talent in the Senate. A new generation of leaders is ready to step up.

I want to stop Donald Trump’s chaos and corruption. I want to end the timid, weak opposition that allowed him to win in the first place. I’m ready to be a new voice that stands up for Texans. Nothing else matters. Not Schumer’s ego. Not his power. Not his money or influence. Trust me: after decades as a fighter pilot and astronaut, I know firsthand that inaction during a crisis will kill you dead. Democrats are in just such a crisis, and the time for action is now.

This moment in America is like a giant red warning light flashing in the cockpit. We need to change course before it’s too late. The Democratic Party is America’s only hope to put a stop to Trump’s march towards fascism and we won’t succeed under Chuck Schumer’s leadership.

Democrats MUST get better. Prove that we’re listening. That we dare to act boldly.

Let’s not wait. Let’s leave the past behind us. It’s time to start winning. Now.

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