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NASA announced Tuesday it may turn to Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to help reduce the soaring costs of returning Martian rocks collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth.Originally planned to deliver 30 sample tubes to Earth by the 2030s, the Mars Sample Return mission has faced rising expenses and delays, prompting the US space agency to explore more streamlined solutions.The pivot comes as China progresses towards a simpler “grab-and-go” sample return mission to the Red Planet “around 2028,” according to state media, potentially making it the first nation to achieve the feat.Outgoing NASA Administrator Bill Nelson revealed Tuesday that the agency is evaluating two potential architectures for landing a robotic platform on Mars, with a final decision expected in mid-2026.The first option uses NASA’s tried-and-true Sky Crane system, a robotic jetpack that famously lowered the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers onto the Martian surface in 2012 and 2021, respectively.The second involves a “heavy lift lander” developed by a commercial partner to place the necessary hardware on the surface.”You all know that SpaceX and Blue Origin have already been ones that have expressed an interest, but it could be others as well,” said Nelson. Under both scenarios, the lander would carry a scaled-down Mars Ascent Vehicle — a lightweight rocket designed to launch samples into Mars orbit.There, the Earth Return Orbiter, being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), would intercept the payload for the journey back to Earth.NASA is also revising its power strategy for the lander. Instead of solar panels, which are vulnerable to Mars’s dust storms, the agency plans to use a nuclear battery for heat and energy.With the Sky Crane option, NASA estimates expenses could range from $6.6 billion to $7.7 billion — far less than the $11 billion projected under the original plan, as reported in an independent audit.Partnering with commercial providers could reduce costs further, to between $5.8 billion and $7.1 billion, with the return expected between 2035-2039, compared to 2040 under the original plan.The mission’s timeline depends on variables like annual congressional funding and whether NASA and ESA opt for a direct Mars-to-Earth flight or a detour to a “cislunar orbit” around the Moon, where samples would need retrieval.Meanwhile, China’s simpler mission could deliver samples years ahead of NASA, marking a significant symbolic victory.Nelson downplayed comparisons between the programs, emphasizing the complexity and scope of NASA’s effort. “You cannot compare the two — ours… is an extremely well thought-out mission created by the scientific community of the world,” he said.Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021 to search for evidence of ancient microbial life from billions of years ago, when the planet was warmer and wetter.

With no one in the driver seat, the SUV pulling up resembles an autonomous robotaxi like those becoming increasingly present in some cities — but the car from German startup Vay is something else.One of a number of emerging players aiming to disrupt road transportation, the seven-year-old company is built around remote driving, where a human is very much present, though sitting in an office using TV monitors to guide the car.Over the last year, riders in Las Vegas have been able to test drive Vay, and the company was demonstrating its technology ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s most important tech show.Thomas von der Ohe, chief executive and co-founder of Vay, said his was a lower-cost approach “that has nothing to do with autonomous driving.”Von der Ohe, who previously worked at Zoox, the Amazon-owned autonomous driving company, said that unlike autonomous driving companies, Vay doesn’t have to “run massive amounts of simulations” to be safe.”Our core safety principle is that the (human driver) can make the decision,” he said.And unlike a Tesla or Waymo, there is no dream at Vay of one day shedding the steering wheel, which twists and turns during rides as if maneuvered by the Invisible Man.The remote driving approach also employs fairly inexpensive camera technology, which costs a fraction of the envelope-pushing Lidar sensing systems favored by leading autonomous companies.A demonstration of the remote driving technology showed someone watching three screens — which included live imagery from front, side and rear-view cameras — as they operated a system similar to at-home racing simulators, with a steering wheel and pedals.Vay is offering rides for half the price of Uber or Lyft. Von der Ohe hopes to reach profitability in the next year or two, depending on how quickly the company can scale.Since launching 12 months ago, Vay’s Las Vegas fleet has grown from two to 30 vehicles, completing 6,000 rides, von der Ohe said.But Von der Ohe believes the company’s cash cow will not be ride-hailing, but the delivery of autos to consumers who then drive the vehicles. In this way, Vay resembles a car rental company.Since the launch in Las Vegas, some customers have ordered up Vay vehicles for home delivery and then driven them themselves.That flexibility is one reason “we believe this can be a real alternative to private cars,” von der Ohe said.

Peter Yarrow — one third of the beloved folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, whose anthems epitomized the 1960s protest movement — died Tuesday in New York. He was 86 years old.His longtime publicist told AFP in a statement that Yarrow, the songwriter behind hits like “Puff the Magic Dragon,” had been battling bladder cancer for four years.”Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life,” Yarrow’s daughter Bethany said in the statement. “The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest,” she continued. “He always believed, with his whole heart, that singing together could change the world.”Yarrow and his band mates Mary Travers and Noel “Paul” Stookey burst onto the American folk music scene in 1961 with an influential style punctuated by rich three-part harmonies and progressive activist politics. Born May 31, 1938 in Manhattan to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Yarrow studied painting before turning to singing and guitar as a student at Cornell University.After graduating he moved to New York and became a regular on Greenwich Village’s burgeoning folk scene.The band blended folk roots and commercial success: their self-titled 1962 debut reigned over the US charts and sold more than two million copies.Their rendition of “Blowin’ in the Wind” became a popular interpretation of fellow folk singer Bob Dylan’s anti-war anthem; Peter, Paul and Mary performed the song at the 1963 civil rights March on Washington, cementing its place in the folk activist canon.Their version of the progressive protest song “If I Had a Hammer” — written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays — earned the trio two of their five Grammy wins.Their other hits included “Day Is Done” and “The Great Mandala.” The band also covered John Denver’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” to chart-topping success.- ‘Politically astute and emotionally vulnerable’ -But they broke up in 1970, shortly after the song’s release, partly to pursue solo work and partly because Yarrow was accused of making sexual advances toward a 14-year-old girl who came to his dressing room while seeking an autograph with her teenage sister.Yarrow served three months of a prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking “indecent liberties” with the child.The artist was controversially pardoned in 1981 by then-president Jimmy Carter.The incident trailed him, however: in 2019, as the #MeToo movement gained traction, he was due to perform at a New York arts festival, but the set was canceled due to protests.In a statement at the time, Yarrow voiced remorse: “I do not seek to minimize or excuse what I have done and I cannot adequately express my apologies and sorrow for the pain and injury I have caused.”Neither he nor his band mates achieved the fame as solo artists as they did together, and reunited for one-off shows before touring regularly throughout the late 20th century, until Travers was diagnosed with cancer from which she eventually died.The group played their final performance together in May 2009 in New Jersey.In a statement, the last living band mate, Stookey, called Yarrow his his “creative, irrepressible, spontaneous and musical younger brother — yet at the same time, I grew to be grateful for, and to love, the mature-beyond-his-years wisdom and inspiring guidance he shared with me like an older brother.””Politically astute and emotionally vulnerable, perhaps Peter was both of the brothers I never had,” Stookey said. “I shall deeply miss both of him.”

Social media giant Meta on Tuesday slashed its content moderation policies, including ending its US fact-checking program on Facebook and Instagram, in a major shift that conforms with the priorities of incoming president Donald Trump.”We’re going to get rid of fact-checkers (that) have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the US,” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.Instead, Meta platforms including Facebook and Instagram, “would use community notes similar to X (formerly Twitter), starting in the US,” he added.Meta’s surprise announcement echoed long-standing complaints made by Trump’s Republican Party and X owner Elon Musk about fact-checking, which many conservatives see as censorship.They argue that fact-checking programs target right-wing voices, which has led to proposed laws in states like Florida and Texas to limit content moderation.”This is cool,” Musk posted on his X platform after the announcement.The shift came as the 40-year-old tycoon has been making efforts to reconcile with Trump since his election in November, including donating one million dollars to his inauguration fund.Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate against the tech billionaire once back in office.Speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, when asked if he believed the move was a response to his threats against Zuckerberg, Trump responded: “Probably, yeah.”The Republican was kicked off Facebook following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, though the company restored his account in early 2023.Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, said the decision came after “extreme political pressure.”The move “will hurt social media users who are looking for accurate, reliable information to make decisions about their everyday lives and interactions with friends and family.”- Ending ‘Facebook jail’ -Zuckerberg, like several other tech leaders, has met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida ahead of his January 20 inauguration.Meta has made several moves in recent days that are likely to please Trump’s team, such as appointing former Republican official Joel Kaplan to head up public affairs at the company.He takes over from Nick Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister.Zuckerberg also named Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) head Dana White, a close ally of Trump, to the Meta board.Kaplan, in a statement Tuesday, insisted the company’s approach to content moderation had “gone too far.””Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,'” he said.As part of the overhaul, Meta said it will relocate its trust and safety teams from liberal California to more conservative Texas.”That will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams,” Zuckerberg said.Zuckerberg also took a shot at the European Union “that has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there.”The remark referred to new laws in Europe that require Meta and other major platforms to maintain content moderation standards or risk hefty fines.Zuckerberg said that Meta would “work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more.”Additionally, Meta announced it would reverse its 2021 policy of reducing political content across its platforms.- Community Notes -AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking program, in which Facebook pays to use fact-checks from around 80 organizations globally on its platform, WhatsApp and Instagram.In that program, content rated “false” is downgraded in news feeds so fewer people will see it and if someone tries to share that post, they are presented with an article explaining why it is misleading. Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter) allows users to collaboratively add context to posts in a system that aims to distill reliable information through consensus rather than top-down moderation.Meta’s move into fact-checking came in the wake of Trump’s shock election in 2016, which critics said was enabled by rampant disinformation on Facebook and interference by foreign actors, including Russia, on the platform.