Posts

Posted on

This New Space Station Is Full Of Modern Touches

I’ll let them speak to the details, and trust me…it’s fucking awesome.

The International Space Station is 25 years old, cost $155 billion, and leaks. A startup called Vast thinks it can build the replacement for about a billion dollars, and it plans to launch the first piece in 2027. In this episode, Ashlee Vance heads to Vast’s headquarters in Long Beach, California for a full tour of Haven-1, the spacecraft the company expects to be the world’s first commercial space station. Vast is the wildcard in the race to replace the ISS, moving faster than rivals like Axiom, Blue Origin and Starlab, and it’s doing it the SpaceX way: everything designed, built and tested in house, from the hatch to the micrometeorite shielding to the actual flight hull sitting next to the cafeteria.

The money comes from Jed McCaleb, the crypto billionaire who believes humanity needs a frontier and is willing to spend a fortune to open one. The building falls to CEO Max Haot, who walks Ashlee through mission control, the hull welding operation, and the numbers that make competitors nervous. Vast builds pressure vessels in six months for under $5 million while others pay 55 million euros and wait four years. NASA showed up in 2023 expecting a science fair. They’ve been coming back every quarter since.

Then NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, who spent 225 days on the ISS, takes over for the fun part: a space food taste test featuring freeze dried tiramisu and tales of trading for duck confit in orbit, the largest window ever flown to space, a zero gravity sleep pod that hugs you, and a walkthrough of Haven-1’s surprisingly roomy interior. Four people will live aboard for two week missions, with a SpaceX Dragon serving as taxi, lifeboat and bathroom. Ashlee walked in skeptical after 15 years of covering commercial space delays. He walked out believing this thing is actually going to fly.

Posted on

Sports betting, good or bad?

I asked Gemini about how much Americans are losing to sports betting in 2026. I have never placed a bet this way, I used to go to Vegas in the ’80s and would limit my losses to 100 bucks a trip. It was my version of paying for entertainment.

Americans are expected to lose an estimated $12 billion to $14 billion on legal sports betting in 2026. This aggregate loss, known as Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR), reflects the difference between the total money wagered and the amount paid out in winnings. The aggregate GGR across all legal forms of gambling (including sports betting and iGaming) regularly tops $130 billion annually.

Driven by a higher average “hold” percentage for sportsbooks—which recently rose from roughly 9.3% to over 11%—and monthly handles regularly exceeding $13 billion to $15 billion, Americans are actively losing billions each month to sportsbooks.

The financial impact extends beyond direct betting losses, bringing broader consequences for household wealth:

  • Investment Reduction: Studies show that for every dollar deposited into a sports betting app, users reduce their traditional investment and brokerage deposits by about 20 cents.
  • Credit Impacts: Research indicates that the legalization of online sports betting increases household bankruptcy filings by up to 28% and raises loan/credit card delinquencies as consumers chase losses.
  • New Tax Burdens: Tax law changes are impacting bettors nationwide, as federal caps on gambling deductions force many to pay taxes on “phantom income” generated by winnings, even if their year-end totals result in a net loss.