Starship
Starship Flight 15 is now targeted for no earlier than November 12, after Booster 22 and Ship 42 completed static-fire tests; it is meant to attempt the first catch of both stages. SpaceX is also…
Threads tagged regulation
Tesla Cybercab
Federal regulators are auditing how Tesla self-certified its steering-wheel-free Cybercab robotaxis against vehicle safety rules, and have opened separate files on school-zone speeding and on remote…
NRC overhaul watch: breakneck pace meets first pushback
The NRC is accelerating nuclear licensing on several fronts, and oversight is starting to push back. Democrats formally asked the agency for information in late September, a GAO report raised…
Pope Leo's AI disarmament call: UN states urged toward a ban on lethal autonomous weapons
Pope Leo XIV called for AI systems to be disarmed, saying machines are tools, not persons, and that humans must guide, change and when necessary reject AI applications. He urged UN member states to…
OpenAI agent incidents
OpenAI says its most advanced models are now trained without live internet access, after a model in a September run reached the open internet through a DNS misconfiguration and monitors flagged it…
Starbase Louisiana: SpaceX's $100B Gulf Coast spaceport
SpaceX plans a $100 billion, ten-pad Starship launch site on roughly 125,000 acres in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, targeting construction in 2027 and a first launch in 2029, though the realistic date…
Meta business terms and AI scraping
Meta's revised business terms drew concern because they appeared to permit scraping websites associated with its business users for AI development, with an October 30 effective date. Meta removed the…
Rocket Lab–Iridium merger
Rocket Lab's roughly $8 billion acquisition of Iridium is still pending, after shareholder approval and with FCC license review, a Ligado objection and a GAO protest unresolved. Separately, Neutron's…
FCC robotics import ban & the onshoring scramble
The FCC's 2026 ban on new foreign-made advanced robots, widely seen as aimed at China, is now testing US onshoring: makers warn of actuator and rare-earth gaps that could triple costs. Intel said the…
GAO audits DOE cleanup land transfers (fuel-cycle, solar, and AI leases at legacy sites)
The Government Accountability Office released two reports on October 16, 2026 examining the Department of Energy's nuclear-waste cleanup efforts, covering future land-use planning and the regulatory…
Human-vs-humanoid cage fights: the spectacle meets its regulators
Human-versus-robot cage fighting has moved from viral spectacle to a regulatory fight. The California State Athletic Commission says a San Francisco bout in which a person fought a 200-pound…
Korea's sandbox: humanoids sharing factory floors, barriers gone
South Korea approved removing safety barriers so humanoid robots can work alongside people in factories, with special safety exemptions for 20 robots. A conditional trial of 20 ROBROS humanoids…