See the unbuilt rocket design that would have dwarfed the Saturn V

NASA's big dream that never came to life

Conceived in the early 1960s, the Sea Dragon was an audacious ocean-launched rocket design that would have dwarfed the Saturn V in both scale and payload—but its extreme engineering challenges kept it firmly on the drawing board.

A lunar 'satellite catapult' revives a 50-year-old idea for launching rockets

Elon Musk has proposed building a mass driver on the moon to fling satellites into space, exploiting low gravity to cut fuel and costs. The concept dates to 1970s space-settlement studies, highlighting how older industry ideas are resurfacing amid today's AI and space-infrastructure race.

The Space Launch System: NASA's most powerful rocket ever

The Space Launch System is intended to be the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA. Possible missions include returning to the moon and perhaps even reaching Mars. This speculative and mostly silent video uses animation to explore the inner workings of the SLS, showing it launching and in space flight.

Watch a supercut of the various iterations of SpaceX's Starship rocket

The first version, called Starhopper, was named with the vision of developing rocket stages that could safely land after use, enabling reusability to cut costs. The endeavor was an enormous engineering challenge that required years of testing.

The reusability of Falcon 9's first stage rocket has slashed launch costs

Unlike older rockets left to sink in the ocean, the first stage was designed to steer itself back for a controlled landing on a sea-based barge. Refurbishment of these components are half the cost of building new.

Apollo 11’s design relied on shedding parts to reach, land on, and leave the moon

Despite Apollo 11 starting as a 3,000-ton spacecraft, the only part of it that returned to Earth was the small command module, which splashed down in the Pacific Ocean carrying three astronauts and moon rocks.

SpaceShipOne was the first privately built spacecraft to reach the boundary of space

The rocket-powered aircraft was built by Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic. The English business magnate has described being inspired to go to space since he was a child watching NASA's moon landings.

The 3D-printed rocket maker competing with SpaceX

Producing rockets cheaply and at scale may require atypical manufacturing processes like those developed by Relativity Space, a 3D-printer of rockets. Relativity hopes to not just compete with, but beat, SpaceX in the race to get the first...

Viking established entry, descent, and landing methods for future planetary visits

The most significant engineering challenge was slowing the Viking lander, which would move through space at nearly 29,000 kilometers per hour before reaching Mars. This required the invention of supersonic parachute technology, which is still used today.

The Polaris Dawn was a privately crewed spaceflight

SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule Resilience spent five days in low Earth orbit as part of the first of three planned missions under the name Polaris Dawn. The historic journey took participants farther away from our planet than anyone has been since the Apollo missions.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

In 2022, a piece of Challenger was discovered on the ocean floor

While searching for World War II wreckage near Cape Canaveral, Florida, for a documentary, divers discovered debris on the seafloor that NASA later confirmed to be a piece of Space Shuttle Challenger wreckage. The piece is at least 15-by-15 feet in size and partially buried under sand.

Designs for the Hubble Space Telescope were based on Cold War spy satellites

By incorporating elements of the KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellites, NASA could incorporate existing classified manufacturing expertise and infrastructure from the intelligence community to expedite the research project.

A short history of space exploration

Let us to take you back through the timeline of space exploration and its rich, fascinating history, starting in 1946, with a rudimentary German military rocket.

Building the solar system to scale in the Nevada desert

On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our planet's humble position in space.

Longer-duration space missions may amplify astronaut motion sickness

NASA is using the Kraken, a 50-foot-long, 100-ton US Navy research device, to simulate space motion sickness and vertigo and test possible recovery strategies, including testing out different, specific head movements. The Kraken, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, can rotate participants at exposures of up to 3G.

Guide a ship to dock at the International Space Station

Dozens of ships dock at the ISS yearly, rotating astronaut crews and delivering supplies. This simulation lets you try docking a SpaceX Dragon 2 using the same interface and controls as NASA astronauts.

The Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested

In 1961, the Soviet Union detonated AN602—known as the Tsar Bomba—the largest nuclear explosion in history. Newly released Russian footage starkly illustrates the unmatched destructive power of this nuclear weapon.

An interactive of the deep sea

Since its 2019 reveal, the Cybertruck underwent numerous delays and design changes

Elon Musk first envisioned the Cybertruck in 2012, with its design inspired by "Blade Runner" and "The Spy Who Loved Me." Semiconductor shortages and battery manufacturing issues made it impossible to manufacture enough vehicles to meet the 250,000 preorders without shifting delivery dates.

The earliest earthquake detection device involved eight ball-wielding dragons

Invented in China in 132 CE, the seismoscope was an urn with dragons facing different directions. If an earthquake occurred, the dragon facing the direction of the tremor released its ball. Like modern seismographs, its mechanism may have involved a suspended weight.

Engineers warned Challenger could fail, but were overruled

Engineer Bob Ebeling and four of his colleagues presented data to NASA officials and managers at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol the night before the launch about how cold temperatures could cause O-ring failure. Ebeling claims to have told his wife then that, "[Challenger is] going to blow up."

Small elevation differences drastically protect homes in hurricanes

The construction of seaside homes has long involved building residences on elevated stilts, but this feature adds costs—and some elevated homes still fail. Explore the engineering behind the ideal height of a hurricane-proof building.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

The story of the Manhattan Project's unused demon core

A 3-inch, 14-pound sphere of nuclear reactive plutonium-gallium was set to be delivered to the Pacific Theater in 1945 to become the third atomic bomb dropped over Japan. When Japan surrendered, it was returned to Los Alamos in New Mexico for experiment, where two scientists would die testing whether the core could reach criticality—where it would release intense energy—via the use of a dense reflector. Watch the story here.

Galileo's Jupiter discovery shattered Earth-centered universe beliefs

Using a telescope inspired by Dutch designs, Galileo spotted four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610, providing undeniable evidence against geocentrism and fueled support for the heliocentric model. Galileo’s original telescope design stretched 20 meters long—a feat of optical engineering for its time.

Saudi Arabia eyes a 75-mile-long skyscraper

The Mirror Line will consist of two mirrored buildings, crossing mountain and desert terrain. It’s part of a development called Neom, which will be roughly the same size as Massachusetts.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Dirty lightning is a thunderstorm created from friction between rising and falling flows of ash and smoke during volcanic eruptions.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.