Month: July 2023

Enlarge / Artist’s illustration shows the ejection of a cloud of debris after NASA’s DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)

The Pew Research Center published the results of a new public survey on Thursday, the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. The survey assessed Americans' attitudes toward space exploration and space policy issues.

Similarly to five years ago, the survey found that Americans broadly support the national space agency, NASA. Three-quarters of respondents had a favorable opinion of NASA, compared to just 9 percent with an unfavorable opinion.

However, as several previous surveys have found, the public has far different priorities for NASA than are expressed in the space agency's budget. In this new report, based on a large survey of 10,329 US adults, the highest support came for "monitor asteroids, other objects that could hit the Earth" (60 percent) and "monitor key parts of the Earth's climate system" (50 percent). Sending astronauts to the Moon (12 percent) and Mars (11 percent) lagged far behind as top priorities for respondents.

Enlarge / Artist’s illustration shows the ejection of a cloud of debris after NASA’s DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)

The Pew Research Center published the results of a new public survey on Thursday, the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. The survey assessed Americans' attitudes toward space exploration and space policy issues.

Similarly to five years ago, the survey found that Americans broadly support the national space agency, NASA. Three-quarters of respondents had a favorable opinion of NASA, compared to just 9 percent with an unfavorable opinion.

However, as several previous surveys have found, the public has far different priorities for NASA than are expressed in the space agency's budget. In this new report, based on a large survey of 10,329 US adults, the highest support came for "monitor asteroids, other objects that could hit the Earth" (60 percent) and "monitor key parts of the Earth's climate system" (50 percent). Sending astronauts to the Moon (12 percent) and Mars (11 percent) lagged far behind as top priorities for respondents.

Enlarge (credit: Getty / Aurich)

Tesla reported strong sales and revenues for the second quarter of 2023. The automaker built 479,700 electric vehicles during the period, delivering 466,140. Selling those cars brought in $21.3 billion in revenue, a 46 percent increase year over year. But the company's once-fat margins are shrinking, and Tesla shares have fallen 5 percent in trading this morning.

Tesla's total Q2 revenues also grew year over year by 47 percent to $24.9 billion. The largest increase was seen in Tesla's solar panel and battery storage side of the business, which grew 74 percent, year over year, to $1.5 billion. Tesla actually deployed fewer GWh of storage for Q2 versus Q1 2023, although at 3.7 GWh, that's still a 222 percent increase year over year. The company blamed high interest rates for a year-over-year decline in solar panel installations.

Services and revenues grew by 47 percent, year over year, to $2.2 billion. This budget line includes Tesla's Supercharger network, and it's possible that some of the growth here reflects payments from rival automakers like Ford, General Motors, Volvo, Rivian, and Polestar, each of which signed an agreement to adopt Tesla's charging plug to gain access to the Supercharger network for their own customers.

Enlarge (credit: Getty / Aurich)

Tesla reported strong sales and revenues for the second quarter of 2023. The automaker built 479,700 electric vehicles during the period, delivering 466,140. Selling those cars brought in $21.3 billion in revenue, a 46 percent increase year over year. But the company's once-fat margins are shrinking, and Tesla shares have fallen 5 percent in trading this morning.

Tesla's total Q2 revenues also grew year over year by 47 percent to $24.9 billion. The largest increase was seen in Tesla's solar panel and battery storage side of the business, which grew 74 percent, year over year, to $1.5 billion. Tesla actually deployed fewer GWh of storage for Q2 versus Q1 2023, although at 3.7 GWh, that's still a 222 percent increase year over year. The company blamed high interest rates for a year-over-year decline in solar panel installations.

Services and revenues grew by 47 percent, year over year, to $2.2 billion. This budget line includes Tesla's Supercharger network, and it's possible that some of the growth here reflects payments from rival automakers like Ford, General Motors, Volvo, Rivian, and Polestar, each of which signed an agreement to adopt Tesla's charging plug to gain access to the Supercharger network for their own customers.

Enlarge / A worker picks up trash in front of the new logo in front of Meta's headquarters on October 28, 2021, in Menlo Park, Calif. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Meta is shunning the news business, giving lower priority to current affairs and politics on its social media platforms while refusing to engage with efforts from governments to make the US tech giant pay more to media organizations.

Facebook’s parent company, after years of attempting to placate powerful publishers by funding nonprofit journalism projects and striking deals with groups like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, is toughening its stance toward the sector, according to people familiar with the company’s strategies.

Meta’s latest snub came this month when the company launched Threads, a text-based app to challenge its struggling rival Twitter. Threads drew in 100 million users within a record five days of launch, linking profiles to existing accounts on Meta’s popular photo-sharing app Instagram.

Enlarge / A worker picks up trash in front of the new logo in front of Meta's headquarters on October 28, 2021, in Menlo Park, Calif. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Meta is shunning the news business, giving lower priority to current affairs and politics on its social media platforms while refusing to engage with efforts from governments to make the US tech giant pay more to media organizations.

Facebook’s parent company, after years of attempting to placate powerful publishers by funding nonprofit journalism projects and striking deals with groups like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, is toughening its stance toward the sector, according to people familiar with the company’s strategies.

Meta’s latest snub came this month when the company launched Threads, a text-based app to challenge its struggling rival Twitter. Threads drew in 100 million users within a record five days of launch, linking profiles to existing accounts on Meta’s popular photo-sharing app Instagram.