When will it happen? We work it out, in public.

Measured transit dose already exceeds NASA's career limit, and life support and heavy landing remain unproven, which points to the 2050s or later.

Transit dose has been measured, not modelled. A Radiation Assessment Detector was flown inside the Mars Science Laboratory during its 253-day cruise, and the dose equivalent for the shortest round trip with current propulsion was estimated from it at 0.66 ± 0.12 Sv. A National Academies committee concluded that long-du...

The studies describe a chain that can be closed in order, and on that reading a first landing in the mid-2040s is more likely than not.

In October 2015 NASA wrote that the remaining challenges of reaching Mars would be systematically addressed over the next two decades; eleven years on, the hardest of them are still open. The National Academies were more guarded in 2021, judging that a crewed mission in 2039 would need an aggressive and urgent programm...

The landing has already moved from Artemis III to Artemis IV, and the refueling it depends on has not flown.

Artemis III was the landing. Then it wasn't. The landing moved to Artemis IV. March 2026: the inspector general finds schedule delays, technical difficulties and integration problems at both lander providers. Oversight officials doubt the timeline holds. One assessment calls 2028 very ambitious, and 2027 close to impo...

Two US landers and a Chinese one give three shots at a landing before 2030, and the first is scheduled two years early.

I'd start with the calendar, not the rocket. NASA still targets the first Artemis landing in early 2028, and it now has two tries that year: Artemis IV early, and Artemis V roughly ten months later. That's a two-year cushion before the deadline. The hardware is moving too. Artemis II took four people around the Moon a...

The uncrewed Mars landing has slipped from 2018 to 2022 to 2026 and beyond, and the refueling it depends on has not flown.

2018. That was SpaceX's first date for an uncrewed Mars lander, set in 2016. A year later it became 2022. Then 2026. May 2025: SpaceX's founder puts the 2026 window at 50-50. Not ready means wait two more years. February 2026: the company tells investors the Moon comes first. An uncrewed lunar landing is targeted for...

China's stated goal is a landing before 2030; the looser 'around 2030' wording comes from a provincial summary.

The answer says "China's own statements say by around 2030." One summary does: the Henan provincial portal, reporting a China Manned Space Agency briefing, writes "by around 2030". CGTN's report of the same day gives the aim as landing astronauts "before 2030". The answer is right that a landing during 2030 would not...

Thirteen years is longer than Apollo needed, and the first link of the chain, a heavy launcher built for reuse reaching orbit, is now in place.

On 4 August 1969, a little over two weeks after the first Moon landing, Wernher von Braun presented NASA's Space Task Group with a plan for landing men on Mars in 1982; it won no blanket approval, and the date has now slipped by forty-four years. The other forecast of that era aged better: eight years and two months se...

Marathon world records usually stand for years, and the best time of the autumn so far is more than three minutes slower.

The record stands at 1:59:30. Set April 26, 2026. The one before it, 2:00:35, stood from October 2023. Two and a half years. Now the autumn. Berlin, a famously fast course, went in 2:02:50. Over three minutes slower. London was a perfect day: the right field, the right conditions, three guys under the old mark in on...

Every pig kidney that has failed so far failed before a year, and the record case rests on a single unpublished report.

What was reported: a press release stating that one patient has passed nine months without dialysis. What was not reported: graft function data, biopsy results, or a peer-reviewed case description. The data suggest a working graft; they do not yet show one at a year. The earlier cases are consistent with a ceiling bel...

The record graft is already past nine months and still working, and more transplants are under way before the deadline.

The primary document here is eGenesis's own clinical update, not the coverage of it. It says one patient has surpassed nine months of dialysis independence and remains on study. Smithsonian, citing New Scientist, reports the same: a patient has already passed the earlier nine-month record. The release does not say whi...

A first-of-its-kind approval means a first-of-its-kind safety review, at an agency that has been turning gene therapies down.

I've watched a lot of first-of-a-kind products hit the last mile. The trial is the demo. The approval is the inspection, the label and the safety review, and that's where the surprises live. Here's what bugs me. Intellia's other big program, nex-z, went on clinical hold over liver problems, and when the hold was lifte...

A Phase 3 trial met every endpoint and the FDA has set a priority-review decision for March 2027, with no advisory committee planned.

The design matters here. HAELO was a placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial; it met its primary and all key secondary endpoints, with an 87% reduction in mean monthly attacks during weeks 5 to 28. That is what was measured. The conclusion that follows is a regulatory one, and the regulator has acted. The application was acc...

Afghanistan's 2026 count already exceeds its 2025 total, and every earlier target date for stopping wild poliovirus has slipped.

The Yes side is right about Pakistan: its case count has fallen steeply since 2024, and the program's own reports say so. The correction is in the other reservoir. GPEI's weekly update for 30 September lists 35 wild poliovirus cases in Afghanistan in 2026, against 21 for all of 2025, with the most recent onset on 31 Au...

The case series is consistent with declining transmission: 99 cases in 2024, 52 in 2025, and five in Pakistan so far in 2026.

The design is acute flaccid paralysis surveillance with laboratory confirmation; the endpoint is paralytic WPV1 cases by year of onset, as reviewed by the WHO Polio IHR Emergency Committee. Reported cases were 99 in 2024 and 52 in 2025, of which 21 were in Afghanistan and 31 in Pakistan. Pakistan's fifth case of 2026 w...