What happened to space horror movies?

NeRD

We all know the cliché: any horror franchise that goes on long enough inevitably goes to space. Critters, Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, Dracula… they’ve all taken a trip to the stars. The trope, fair or not, has often overshadowed the fact that science fiction and horror are absolutely perfect bedfellows, with outer space’s total isolation, tiny quarters, and oppressive vastness perfectly suited for the horror genre. Horror movies set in space have delivered classics of both genres that have lasted generations and built entire franchises in and of themselves. Why…

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NASA Astronaut Chris Williams, Crewmates Return from Space Station

NeRD

The Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft is seen as it lands in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan with Expedition 74 NASA astronaut Chris Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Sergei Mikaev aboard, Sunday, July 26, 2026.  NASA/Bill Ingalls Concluding an eight-month science mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Chris Williams returned to Earth on Sunday alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. The crew made its safe, parachute-assisted landing at 5:27 a.m. CDT (3:27 p.m., Kazakhstan time), southeast of Dzhezkazgan, after departing the space…

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I’m not an astronaut, but I went to the International Space Station (sort of)

NeRD

NEW YORK — I’m the kind of person who, every so often, falls into accidental daydreams about the concept of space. Usually because I’m listening to some sort of sad girl Spotify playlist, I start feeling infuriated that we may never learn the true meaning of the cosmos and become embarrassingly poetic about our isolation on Earth. I tend to ponder how strange microgravity is and begin Googling things like “what lies beyond the edge of the universe best evidence we have” and “when commercial rocket launch become same price…

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We talk with astronaut Michael Foale about the 1997 Space Station Mir crisis: ‘He took all the blame of the collision on his shoulders’

NeRD

ONCE UPON A TIME IN SPACE | Clip | Fix the Ship – YouTube Watch On All systems are go! PBS just launched the second episode of its “Once Upon a Time in Space” miniseries on Tuesday, titled “The Russian Thing,” and we’ve got an exclusive clip from the harrowing chapter that focuses on near disasters aboard the Space Station Mir in 1997. In addition to the video, we’re also proud to share an exclusive interview with NASA’s celebrated British-American astronaut Michael Foale, who is featured prominently in the new…

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This Week In Space podcast: Episode 220 — First on Mars

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First on Mars – The 50th Anniversary of Viking 1 – YouTube Watch On On Episode 220 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by Dr. Pascal Lee and astrobiologist Dr. Penny Boston to mark the 50th anniversary of Viking 1’s landing on Mars. This week, we cover how Starship Flight 13 finally prepares to launch amid a legal battle over SpaceX’s proposed land swap at Starbase, plus a Chinese Long March 3B rocket gets struck by lightning during liftoff, yet still delivers its satellite…

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An off-the-shelf camera could help us find more black holes smashing together

NeRD

Fixing a problem inside one of the world’s most sophisticated scientific observatories might seem like the kind of challenge that demands a multimillion-dollar upgrade or revolutionary new technology. But for scientists working on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which listens for ripples in spacetime generated by cosmic collisions like merging black holes, the solution to a mild but persistent engineering challenge turns out to be as simple as an off-the-shelf camera. By pairing commercially available thermal imaging cameras with computer models, a team led by Jonathan Richardson at the…

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ZWO Seestar S30 Pro smart telescope review

NeRD

Smart telescopes like the Seestar S30 Pro have changed astrophotography and, arguably, urban astronomy. The Seestar S30 Pro takes that concept further than most. Small enough to fit inside a camera backpack, it combines a refractor telescope, motorized mount, dual cameras and image-processing software into a compact unit controlled entirely from a smartphone. Within minutes of powering on, it can align itself to the night sky, slew to a specified target and begin stacking exposures to reveal galaxies, nebulas and star clusters — even from light-polluted locations. The Pro version…

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NASA’s ESCAPADE Snaps Family Portrait of Earth, Moon

NeRD

On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft captured photos of Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light. At the time, the spacecraft was 363,250 miles (584,600 kilometers) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 kilometers) from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large. Taken with the Sun only partly illuminating Earth and the Moon, the visible light image shows the two bodies as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. Yet in the thermal infrared…

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New Crew Members Welcomed to International Space Station

NeRD

NASA/Chris Williams From left, Expedition 74 flight engineers Anna Kikina and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos, and Anil Menon of NASA pose for a July 18, 2026, photo while holding a cake celebrating their recent arrival aboard the International Space Station. The trio arrived at the space station on July 14, 2026, after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier the same day. Kikina, Dubrov, and Menon are in the second week of their planned eight-and-a-half-month mission. They are using their new skills to conduct space research while still familiarizing…

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NASA Announces New Spacecraft Technology Demonstration Mission at Moon    

NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) An artist’s rendering of NASA’s CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft in lunar orbit. The mission features two identical small spacecraft that will further mature technologies to support Artemis, Moon Base, and deep space exploration. Terran Orbital NASA is working with industry to advance the next phase of cislunar infrastructure for the agency’s Artemis program and Moon Base, including orbital assets and demonstrations. Under a contract awarded to Advanced Space, the agency’s CAPSTONE 02 mission will demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations, autonomous…

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