Friday, August 25, 2023

Happy Friday! I'm Izzie Ramirez, and here's what you need to know for the weekend:

Spotlight: The new international space race's trash problem

In other news: How crushing heat waves change labor, Spain's soccer chief refuses to resign, and the death of a WWE champion

Today's newsletter is a little different from other ones this week — we're still experimenting with formats to create a product that best serves you. We'd love to hear what you think. Write us at [email protected] or just reply to this email. 

How the moon became our cosmic junkyard

Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The new space race comes with a potential consequence: The surface of the moon could start to get littered. On Wednesday, India became the fourth country to successfully land a craft on the moon and the first to land in the moon's south polar region. It's a location where no craft has successfully landed before due to the area's boulder-strewn surface. 

The lowdown: The accomplishment arrives on the heels of an ill-fated attempt to achieve the same feat by a Russian lander, Luna-25, which crashed into the lunar surface earlier this week.

• Israel and Japan have attempted (and failed) to land crafts on the southern part of the moon. The US and China also have future missions planned.

• Government space agencies, nonprofits, and companies are interested in exploring the moon for scientific purposes, but also potentially for industrial or commercial ones.
• There are resources on the moon that could be useful on Earth, or provide materials to make space travel deeper into the solar system more feasible.
• However, even successful missions leave behind debris. Previous space missions have left behind nearly a hundred bags of urine, feces, and vomit, and a range of other distinctly human artifacts (including golf balls and boots). 

The stakes: Overall, the moon serves as a dumping ground for 400,000 pounds of human-made material. Plus, a few dozen rockets, satellites, and mission-related bits of debris orbit the space between Earth and the moon.

I spoke with Future Perfect fellow Rachel DuRose about what space junk could mean for our future.

"When you look up at the moon, you don't see little specks of crashed rockets past, so aesthetically this lunar junk doesn't mean much to people," Rachel told me. "But space litter could possibly hinder future moon missions and therefore our ability to learn about our solar system."

The takeaway: The moon's surface area is smaller than the Asian continent, and an even smaller portion of that is flat enough to land on. With as many as 100 planned lunar landings in the next decade, this small area could get congested fast.

Read Rachel's full piece here »

Sweltering heat dome leads to record-breaking temps in the Midwest

Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Here's what you need to know: 

• A heat dome is when the atmosphere traps hot ocean air. [NOAA]
• As of Thursday morning, about 143 million people were under extreme heat alerts. At least 100 heat records are being set or tied per day this week. [Axios]
• Extreme heat causes more deaths across the US each year than any other weather event. [National Weather Service]
• Nearly two dozen cattle died in Nebraska and more than 100 Missouri nursing home residents were evacuated because of the heat. [CNN]
• Extreme heat is transforming work. Access to breaks, water, and shade could trigger the next big labor battle. [Vox]

Death of a hot dog salesman

Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, the caterer-turned-warlord who recently attempted to overthrow Russia's government, has apparently died in a plane crash. Puck's Julia Ioffe explains why it's reasonable to suspect foul play.

• Another industry strike could be on the way. United Auto Workers members overwhelmingly granted union leaders authorization to strike during ongoing contract negotiations with General Motors and Ford, if warranted. [NBC News]

• The head of Spain's soccer federation refuses to resign after kissing a female player on the lips after winning the World Cup. Luis Rubiales claims the backlash is "social assassination" and "false feminism." [Guardian] 
  

• Millions of children in Pakistan need aid a year after devastating floods. Unicef says there's a lack of access to safe water and sanitation. [NPR]

• Former WWE champion Bray Wyatt has died at 36. No cause of death was initially shared. [Vulture]

Why Trump seems to grow more popular the worse his legal troubles become

America has the world's safest air travel but sucks so bad at car safety

YouTube can't fix its kid safety problem

AI-discovered drugs will be for sale sooner than you think

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