Good morning.
For the first time in 50 years, Nasa on Monday is planning to launch a rocket that can ferry humans to the moon.
The giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is scheduled to take off from Nasa’s Cape Canaveral complex in Florida at 8.33am ET (1.33pm UK time) with a crewless Orion spacecraft that is designed to carry up to six astronauts to the moon and beyond.
The 1.3 million-mile Artemis I test mission – slated to last 42 days – is aiming to take the Orion vehicle 40,000 miles past the far side of the moon, departing from the same facility that staged the Apollo lunar missions half a century ago.
Nasa’s Space shuttle program in the intermediary launched crewed missions orbiting Earth in relatively near outer space before its discontinuation in 2011. Private American space companies such as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX have since flown missions similar to the shuttle program. But Artemis I’s job is to begin informing Nasa whether the moon can act as a springboard to eventually send astronauts to Mars, which would truly bring the stuff of science fiction to life.
How much will it cost? US taxpayers are expected to put up $93bn to finance the Artemis program. But in the days leading up to Monday’s launch, Nasa administrators said that Americans would find the cost to be justified.
‘The US could lose the right to vote within months’: Top official warns on threat to democracy
Colorado’s secretary of state, Jena Griswold, has said the fate of free and fair elections in the United States hangs in the balance in this November’s midterm contests.
In many of the most competitive races for offices with authority over US elections, Republicans nominated candidates who have embraced or echoed Donald Trump’s myth of a stolen election in 2020.
Griswold, who chairs the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State (Dass) and is running for re-election, is urging Americans to pay attention to the once-sleepy down-ballot contests for secretary of state – lest they lose their democracy.
“What we can expect from the extreme Republicans running across this country is to undermine free and fair elections for the American people, strip Americans of the right to vote, refuse to address security breaches and, unfortunately, be more beholden to Mar-a-Lago than the American people,” Griswold, 37, said in an interview with the Guardian.
She added: “For us, we are trying to save democracy.”
Having failed to overturn the 2020 vote, Trump and his loyalists are now strategically targeting positions that will play a critical role in supervising the next presidential election, turning many of the 27 secretary of state contests this year into expensive, partisan showdowns.
In other news …
Taylor Swift took home the night’s biggest prize – and announced a new album – during the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, a chaotic, bleep-heavy show that nodded to music phenomena past and present, and featured a surprise appearance by Johnny Depp.
Senator Bernie Sanders chided Republicans yesterday for backing tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans while criticizing Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan. “I don’t hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires, the Vermont senator said.
An unidentified and charismatic Indigenous man thought to have been the last of his tribe has died in the Brazilian Amazon, causing consternation among activists lamenting the loss of another ethnic language and culture. The solitary and mysterious man was known only as the Índio do Buraco, or the “Indigenous man of the hole”.
Boris Johnson is “hoping to do a Berlusconi” and make a “populist return” to Downing Street after being ousted by his own MPs, according to a former Conservative cabinet minister. Rory Stewart said people needed to be reminded Johnson was forced to quit – over a slew of scandals.
Stat of the day: Plea for help amid fears monsoon could put a third of Pakistan under water
Pakistan’s government has appealed for international help to tackle a flooding emergency that has killed more than 1,000 people and threatens to leave a third of the country – an area roughly the size of Britain – under water. The foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, said last night that floods brought on by weeks of extreme monsoonal rainfall and melting glaciers would worsen Pakistan’s already dire economic situation and that financial aid was needed. “I haven’t seen destruction of this scale, I find it very difficult to put into words … it is overwhelming,” he said.
Don’t miss this: The people who can’t stop daydreaming
Every day, Kyla* travels to a fictional universe with advanced space travel. It’s not real, of course – but an incredibly vivid daydream, centred on a protagonist with a detailed history. “It covers 79 years in the life of my main character,” she says. “I know how the whole thing plays out, and I can drop into it at whatever point I want to experience.” Reports like Kyla’s are of increasing interest to psychologists, who have started to identify a subset of the population marked for their unusually immersive daydreams. Psychiatrists may soon recognise “maladaptive daydreaming” as a clinical disorder. But what is it, and how can it be treated?
… or this: Meet the ‘liveaboards’ sailing away to a new life
As a girl growing up in landlocked Kunming in south China, Nadiyana Na heard a story about a woman who lived alone on a boat in the Caribbean. “For years I wanted to be that girl.” When Nadiyana met and fell in love with Mark Farnworth, 31, a British teacher, a sticker on the head of his bed called to mind Nadiyana’s childhood preoccupation. The sticker read: “Do You Want to Sail the World With Me?” Five years later, Nadiyana and Mark are permanent “liveaboards” dwelling at sea in a “formerly rotting” 34ft 1975 catamaran, which they restored with the help of online tutorials.
Climate check: How US government diet guidelines ignore the climate crisis
To keep the climate habitable, most scientists agree that switching to renewable energy alone isn’t enough – Americans also need to change the way they eat. Environmental and public health advocates are pushing a new strategy to help get there: including climate breakdown in the official US dietary guidelines, which shape what goes into billions of meals eaten across the country every year. The current 150-page edition for 2020-2025 doesn’t mention food’s role in the climate crisis at all. Climate groups say this is an abdication of responsibility.
Last Thing: Two Air France pilots suspended after fight in cockpit prompts cabin crew to intervene
Two Air France pilots have been suspended after physically fighting in the cockpit on a Geneva-Paris flight in June, Air France confirmed. The flight continued and landed safely, and the dispute didn’t affect the rest of the flight, an official said, stressing the airline’s commitment to safety. Switzerland’s La Tribune reported that the pilot and co-pilot had a dispute shortly after takeoff and grabbed each other by their collars after one apparently hit the other. Cabin crew intervened and one crew member spent the flight in the cockpit with the pilots, the report said.
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