The Artemis II astronauts are chatting it up with their friends aboard the International Space Station. Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the three Americans and one Canadian put in a call to their station colleagues Tuesday while heading home from the moon. It's the first such moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. "We have been waiting for this like you can't imagine," the commander Reid Wiseman said. NASA's Apollo moonshots had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s. For Artemis II's Christina Koch and the station's Jessica Meir, it was a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019.
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On March 18, 1925, nearly 700 people died when the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana; it remains the deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.
On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein, who would revolutionize physics and the human understanding of the universe, was born in Ulm, Germany.
The replacements for the astronauts involved in NASA's first medical evacuation are on their way to the International Space Station. SpaceX launched the fresh crew on Friday from Florida. The four astronauts are representing the U.S., France and Russia and should reach the orbiting lab Saturday. They'll fill the vacancies left by their evacuated colleagues. NASA had to put spacewalks on hold and defer other duties after an unidentified astronaut experienced a serious medical issue in January. The entire crew returned to Earth more than a month early, leaving three astronauts in orbit.
Four astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station after being sidelined by Boeing's Starliner trouble and other issues. SpaceX launched the U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew from Florida on Friday. They should reach the space station this weekend, replacing colleagues who launched in March as fill-ins for NASA's two stuck astronauts. Leading the taxi flight for NASA is Zena Cardman. She was yanked from a SpaceX flight last year to make room for Starliner's test pilots whose capsule was judged too dangerous to fly. Two of her crewmates were also training on Starliner, which remains grounded until next year.
On July 15, 1799, the Rosetta Stone, a key to deciphering ancient Egyptian scripts, was found at Fort Julien in the Nile Delta during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.
On June 18, 1812, the War of 1812 began as the United States Congress approved, and President James Madison signed, a declaration of war against Britain.
Elon Musk is dialing back his threat to decommission a capsule used to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA. The threat came as President Donald Trump and Musk argued on social media on Thursday. Trump said he could cut government contracts given to Musk's rocket company, SpaceX. Musk responded by saying SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft. It was unclear how serious he was, but he later posted he wouldn't withdraw the capsule. SpaceX is the only U.S. company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules.
Blue Origin has launched Jeff Bezos' fiancee Lauren Sanchez into space with an all-female celebrity crew that included Katy Perry and Gayle King. The New Shepard rocket blasted off Monday from West Texas. Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, invited the others along for the 10-minute, fully automated ride. Besides Sanchez, Perry and King, the crew included a film producer, a former NASA engineer who started her own companies to promote science education, and a scientist who now advocates for sexual violence survivors. Moved by the views of Earth below, Perry couldn't resist singing "What a Wonderful World" in space.
Today in history: On Nov. 2, 1948, in one of the most unexpected results in U.S. election history, Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman won the presidential election against the heavily favored Republican governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey.
