In 2018, astronauts aboard the International Space Station plugged a 2mm “hole” in a Soyuz MS-09 vehicle that had docked with the station in June of that year. While the pressure leak never posed an immediate threat to those aboard, it set off a bizarre turn of events that saw Russia open an investigation to find out if the incident was the result of sabotage.

Per an RIA Novosti article spotted by Ars Technica, the country’s Roscosmos space agency recently completed its probe of the event and sent the results to Russian law enforcement officials, opening the door for them to announce criminal charges. Roscosmos didn’t’ say anything official about the cause of the pressure leak, but that hasn’t stopped Russian media from spreading misinformation.

The RIA Novosti article references Russian media reports that allege the hole may have been drilled by NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, a crew member of the ISS at the time of the incident. Specifically, per Russia’s TASS news agency, the country’s Izvestia newspaper claimed Aunon-Chancellor may have drilled the hole out of a “desire to return to Earth because of a blood clot or a fight with her onboard the International Space Station.” Citing its own source, TASS claims “the hole had been drilled in weightlessness by a person not acquainted with the spaceship’s design.”

According to NASA, the possibility that its astronauts were involved in creating the pressure leak is non-existent. As Ars Technica notes, NASA knew the location of all of its astronauts before the leak started and the moment it began. None of the US astronauts aboard the ISS at the time of the incident were near the Russian compartment where the Soyuz was docked when it started leaking air. The US shared this information with Russia when Roscosmos began its investigation in 2018.

“These attacks are false and lack any credibility,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told the outlet. “I fully support Serena and stand behind all of our astronauts.” We’ve reached out to NASA for additional information.

The accusations come at a time when the relationship between NASA and Roscosmos is already fraught. On November 15th, Russia conducted an anti-satellite missile test that created a debris field that forced astronauts on the ISS to seek shelter aboard their spacecraft. The US condemned the trial, accusing the country of putting everyone aboard the ISS, including Russian cosmonauts, in danger.

Source: Engadget – Russia may press criminal charges in 2018 ISS pressure leak incident

Starfield is just under a year away from landing on PC and Xbox Series X/S, and Bethesda has offered another peek at what’s in store with a mini documentary. The seven-minute “Into the Starfield: The Endless Pursuit” featurette shows a lot of concept art and brief shots of things like robots, alien worlds and a spaceport.

After a six-year stint as CEO (again), Jack Dorsey is leaving Twitter in a very different place than when he took it over in 2015. Back then, not everyone was excited about the return of the company’s cofounder. Even though he initially came back temporarily, employees and investors were concerned that dual CEO roles — he was, and still is, the CEO of Square — would keep him from being able to tackle the company’s many problems.

“The general feeling among Twitter employees now is trepidation,” The New York Times wrote in 2015 of Dorsey’s surprise return. “Many are concerned at the prospect of Mr. Dorsey’s interim title becoming permanent, given his divisive and sometimes erratic management style and the fact that he had been dismissed and returned to the company before.”

At the time, the company was often described as being “in turmoil.” Twitter was churning through executives, and investors were concerned about lackluster user growth. Journalists and other pundits often noted that Twitter never knew how to explain what it was or why it mattered. The actual service had barely changed in years. Harassment was rampant, and relatively unchecked.

Much has changed since then. Hand-wringing over Dorsey’s two jobs never really abated, but turnover at the top of the company eventually slowed, and Twitter started growing again. The platform still struggles with harassment, but has made a concerted effort at encouraging “healthy conversations” and has significantly ramped up its policies against hate speech and harassment.

More recently, the company has undertaken a number of ambitious initiatives to change its core features and create new sources of revenue. In the last year alone, Twitter has introduced new features for live audio, groups, and payments. It rolled out creator-focused features like Super Follows, and acquired a newsletter platform for longform content. Last month, it introduced Twitter Blue, a subscription service aimed at power users. The company is also in the early stages of BlueSky, a plan to create a decentralized standard for social media platforms.

But incoming CEO Parag Agrawal will still be inheriting significant challenges alongside all the shiny new projects. Though the company has made strides in increasing conversational “health,” it’s also grappled with where to draw the line between free speech and toxicity, particularly when political figures are involved. And, like other platforms, the company struggled to rein in misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 presidential election.

“Dorsey leaves behind a mixed legacy: a platform that’s useful and potent for quick communication but one that’s been exploited by a range of bad actors, including former President Donald Trump, who did his best on Twitter to undermine democracy—until Dorsey’s people finally had enough and shut him down,” says Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, who has researched social media polarization.

That Twitter under Dorsey did eventually permanently ban Trump has only made the company more of a target for politicians. And that’s unlikely to change just because Twitter’s new CEO has been one of the company’s lowest profile executives.

Agrawal is taking over as social media platforms face a bigger reckoning about their role in society. As lawmakers eye regulating algorithms and other reforms, Twitter has started to research algorithmic amplification and potential “unintentional harms” caused by its ranking systems. It will now be up to the company’s former CTO to steer that work while navigating scrutiny from lawmakers.

Agrawal will also inherit ambitious goals Twitter set earlier this year: To double its revenue and grow its user base to 315 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU) by the end of 2023 (the company reported 211 million mDAU in its most recent earnings report). And there are some signs he may be well positioned to make that happen. While Twitter under Dorsey has been slow to make decisions and release updates, Agrawal has been a proponent of new features like Bitcoin tipping. He also over saw Bluesky, the decentralization project.

The company has been betting that moving away from advertising and leaning into subscription services and other new features will help it get there. But Twitter is hardly alone in pursuing creators and subscriptions, and it’s not clear the company will be able to easily persuade large swaths of users to start paying for extra content or premium features.

Twitter’s new CEO seems to be well aware of the challenges ahead. “We recently updated our strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy to be bold and right,” Agrawal wrote in an email to employees he shared on Twitter. “But our critical challenge is how we work to execute against it and deliver results.”

Source: Engadget – Jack Dorsey took on Twitter’s biggest problems, but leaves plenty of challenges for his successor