Why Falcon 1 Failed Three Times Before SpaceX Succeeded
Discover why Falcon 1 failed three times, how SpaceX nearly ran out of money, and how a rocket built from spare parts saved the company in six weeks
Elon Musk's SpaceX Russia Trip: The Meeting That Started It All
In 2001, Elon Musk did not want to build a rocket company. He wanted to buy three refurbished Soviet missiles and send a small robotic greenhouse to Mars, a project called Mars Oasis. Two trips to Moscow went nowhere, and the price kept rising every time he asked. On the flight home from the second trip, he ran the numbers on building a rocket himself instead. That single spreadsheet is why SpaceX exists.
Let the stars choose your next read
Tell the Oracle what era is calling you — the past, the present, or what's coming — and it will find the right article from the celestial record.
The History of Tarot: From Card Game to Fortune-Telling Tool
Tarot started as a 15th-century Italian card game, not a divination tool. Discover the Visconti-Sforza deck, its invented Egyptian myth, and the 1909 illustrations behind modern tarot.
The History of Astrology: From Babylon to the Birth Chart
Astrology began in Babylon as omens for kings, not individuals. Discover how the Greeks invented the horoscope, why medieval universities taught it, and how it ended up in your newspaper.
Who Was Hildegard of Bingen? Mystic, Composer and Prophet
Hildegard of Bingen spent her first thirty years enclosed within a monastery cell before becoming one of the most influential women in medieval Europe. Mystic, composer, physician and visionary, she claimed to receive revelations from a living light and went on to advise kings, emperors and popes.
The Antikythera Mechanism: The Ancient Computer That Should Not Exist
A shipwreck yielded the most advanced machine the ancient world ever built. It could predict eclipses and track five planets, and nothing else came close to it for fourteen hundred years.
The Sibylline Books: Rome's Secret Prophecies and the Fall of Empire
The Sibylline Books guided Rome through five centuries of crisis, consulted in secret by the Senate alone. Destroyed twice, the second loss came two years before Rome fell.
Can AI Predict the Future? Humanity's New Oracle Explained
AI is already forecasting outbreaks, markets and weather with real accuracy. Discover how it compares to ancient oracles, why its confidence can mislead, and who controls the predictions.
History of SpaceX: The Journey From Falcon 1 to Starship
SpaceX's Starship is the largest rocket ever built. Three early flights exploded. Flight 5 caught the booster mid-air. Here's the full story of the rocket built to reach Mars.
The Book of Revelation: The Bible's Most Debated Prophecy
The Book of Revelation has fuelled centuries of art, anxiety and argument. But most people's version of it bears only a passing resemblance to what the text actually says.
Tiresias: The Blind Prophet of Ancient Greece and the Underworld
Tiresias was the greatest prophet in ancient Greece. He warned Oedipus, Creon and Pentheus about what was coming. All three ignored him. All three were destroyed. He was right every time, and it never made any difference.
What Is Dark Matter Made Of? Everything We Know So Far
Dark matter makes up around 27% of the universe, yet nobody knows what it is made of. Scientists can see its gravitational effects, but the particles behind it remain one of physics' greatest mysteries.
The Drake Equation: How Many Civilisations Are Out There?
Frank Drake's famous equation promised a way to estimate how many intelligent civilisations inhabit the Milky Way. More than sixty years later, it still asks one of humanity's biggest unanswered questions: are we alone?
Is Planet Nine Real? The Hunt for Our Solar System's Hidden World
Planet Nine is either the most significant undiscovered object in our solar system or a pattern that doesn't exist. Two Caltech astronomers have spent a decade building the case for it. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is now running the survey that should settle it.
John Dee: Queen Elizabeth I's Astrologer, Spy and Philosopher
John Dee advised Queen Elizabeth I, coined the phrase British Empire and spent years attempting to communicate with angels through a convicted forger. He died in poverty, dismissed as a wizard. He was one of the most learned men of his century.
Who Was the Real Merlin? The Man Behind the Arthurian Wizard
Before Merlin became King Arthur's wizard, there was Myrddin Wyllt. A warrior, a prophet and perhaps the real figure behind Britain's most famous legend.
What Happens to Earth When the Sun Dies? Earth's Fate Explained
The Sun is halfway through its life. In about a billion years Earth loses its oceans, and five billion years from now the star that made us becomes a red giant.
Thomas Harriot: The Forgotten Astronomer Who Drew the Moon Before Galileo
On 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot drew the moon through a telescope. The drawing predates Galileo's published lunar work by several months. Harriot never published it. This is the story of the astronomer history nearly forgot.
The Oracle of Delphi: How a Sacred Site Shaped the Ancient World
For more than a thousand years the Oracle of Delphi shaped the decisions of kings, generals and city-states. Before a war, before a new colony, before almost any decision that carried real weight, Delphi was consulted. Not out of superstition. Out of political necessity.
Who Was the Pythia? The Women Behind the Oracle of Delphi
The Pythia was not a single prophetess but a title held by dozens of women across a thousand years. Almost none of them left a trace in the historical record. This is what we know about the women behind the Oracle of Delphi.
DART's Planetary Defence Test: What It Proved and What It Didn't
Humanity now knows it can deflect an asteroid. Whether it can do so in time, with enough warning, and with the international cooperation required is a different question entirely.
How Did Rasputin Die?|The Poison, the Bullets and the Truth
The poison didn't work. Neither did the bullets. Or so the story goes. What the post-mortem actually found is considerably less dramatic, and considerably more interesting.
Cassandra: The Greek Myth of the Prophet Nobody Listened To
She saw the fall of Troy coming and said so, repeatedly. Nobody listened. Thousands of years later her name is still being used for exactly that situation, which tells you something about how little has changed.
Nostradamus's Quatrains: Inside His Book of Predictions
Before the famous predictions, there is the form itself. This article introduces the quatrains, the language problem, and the mechanism that keeps Nostradamus alive after five centuries.
What Was the Star of Bethlehem? Miracle, Myth or Astronomy?
The Bible gives us one source, one story, and almost no detail. Two thousand years of astronomers have been trying to work out what was actually in the sky.
Nicolaus Copernicus Origins: The Man Who Moved the Earth, Part One
Before he changed cosmology, Copernicus spent decades doing almost everything else. The first in a series on the man behind the theory.
A Year on Mars: What Life on the Red Planet Would Actually Look Like
The first crew to reach Mars will spend roughly 500 days on the surface before the planets align enough to let them leave. Here is what the first year might actually look like.
What Is the Fermi Paradox? Are We Alone in the Universe?
Are we alone in the universe? The conditions for life appear to be everywhere. The evidence for it, beyond Earth, is nonexistent. The Fermi Paradox has been asking why for seventy years.
Who Was Mother Shipton? The Making of a Yorkshire Prophetess
She was born in a cave, lived on the edges of respectable society and allegedly predicted the modern world five centuries before it arrived. But how much of Mother Shipton is real and how much is Victorian invention?