Space

India's boldly gone where no other country has -- landing a spacecraft, the Chandrayaan-3, on the moon's south pole, and becoming only the 4th nation to achieve lunar success.

The Indian Space Research Organisation's mission control erupted in cheers as the unmanned Chyandrayaan-3 softly touched down on the moon's south pole Wednesday morning ... marking a successful end to a more than month-long mission.

India's now earned its Moon Card, along with the U.S., Russia and China -- although, only America's landed manned missions there.

One thing the ISRO has on just about every other lunar mission is cost, 'cause they really did it on the cheap. India's budget for the entire mission is a paltry $75 million ... an amount that pales in comparison to the budgets of several Hollywood movies about space exploration!!!

The Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon's south pole is a big deal because traces of ice were recently discovered there ... so the ISRO is hoping to explore the area for water that could be used to fuel future spacecraft.

Russia's first mission to the moon in 5 decades has ended in failure, as their Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the surface on approach.

The unmanned vessel, which launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome earlier this month, crashed on the moon's surface Saturday. Not much is known about the cause of the failure, but officials called it an "abnormal situation."

The launch marked Russia's first attempt to approach the moon since 1976 ... the goal was to attempt a landing near the moon's south pole.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said they lost contact with the craft Saturday afternoon stating, "spacecraft entered an unplanned orbit and ceased to exist after colliding with the surface of the Moon."

Rep. Tim Burchett says he's determined to get to the bottom of several disturbing UFO allegations ... and that means digging deeper into the bombshell claims that just came out in Congress.

The U.S. Congressman from Tennessee joined us Thursday on "TMZ Live," and we asked how he and other lawmakers intend to follow up on former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch's suggestion murders were committed as part of a government conspiracy to hide evidence of extraterrestrials ... including recovered spacecraft and non-human lifeforms piloting them.

Rep. Burchett says he's hoping to get into a super secret room with Grusch to get specific details on who was allegedly killed as part of a UFO conspiracy ... and to get more info about what kind of alien craft our government might have in its possession.

Remember ... Wednesday's historic Congressional hearings on UFOs included some bombshell testimony from Grusch, and Burchett explains the meaning behind a term that kept coming up -- "SCIF," short for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility -- and why it's so important here.

Rep. Burchett is among the lawmakers most determined to share information on UFOs, and possibly alien life -- and he says some of his colleagues have actually seen UFOs, but were scared to come forward.

The federal government goes to great lengths to keep alien spacecraft secret from the public, even killing its own citizens ... at least that's what a whistleblower is strongly suggesting.

The bombshell claim was levied during Wednesday's historic Congressional hearing on UFOs ... with former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch hinting murder has been a key part of a government conspiracy to hide evidence of extraterrestrials.

Ya gotta see the exchange on Capitol Hill ... Rep. Tim Burchett straight-up asks Grusch if he has any personal accounts of people being murdered over something they've seen in our skies.

The whistleblower's answer is revealing ... "I have to be careful answering that question. I directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities."

Grusch is one of 3 whistleblowers from our military testifying under oath about UFOs and secret government programs allegedly involving extraterrestrial technology. He claims almost 95 percent of UFO sightings go unreported, mainly out of fear of being blackballed, or worse.

The 2 other men being sworn in are Navy fighter pilot commander David Fravor, a witness of the infamous "Tic Tac" UFO sighting, plus former pilot Ryan Graves.

Grusch also testified the U.S. has known about extraterrestrials since at least the 1930s, with the feds covering up a longstanding government program that retrieves and reverse engineers UFOs ... or as he put it, "non-human" spacecraft and pilots.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is gunning to accomplish an incredible feat in the world of commercial space travel -- and if successful, puts him on a short list with the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Branson's company is having its first commercial launch Thursday, dubbed Galactic 01. The VSS Unity is taking off from New Mexico attached to a carrier plane, eventually detaching and soaring about 3 times the speed of sound above the earth before coming back down.

Despite the commercial aspect, the trip is more about business than pleasure -- the space vessel will carry members of the Italian Air Force and a research engineer, collecting data while airborne.

As we reported, the VSS Unity turned Branson into the first billionaire in space in 2021 when he and a handful of others went into sub-orbital space ... paving the way for Thursday's big milestone.

The view inside the vessel was almost as cool as what they were seeing on the outside -- especially the look on Branson's face when the Unity shot toward space!

Marshawn Lynch and Lance Armstrong turned the heat all the WAY up while out on "Mars" ... wielding some massive flamethrowers -- and the video of them chucking fireballs is awesome!!!

The dudes got armed with the weapons for a challenge on the latest episode of the Fox show, "Stars on Mars" ... and the former athletes sure seemed to love being fungus-killing pyros for a few minutes.

Check out the clip ... as Lynch went to extinguish his foe with a massive blaze, he channeled his inner Al Pacino -- screaming out, "Say hello to my little friend!"

Armstrong, too, handled the big gun well ... though he did note the thing was hot as hell!!

It was a cool change of pace for the guys ... because in last week's episode, some of the show's contestants were seen really feeling their separation from the real world.

In fact, Ronda Rousey actually broke down in tears while FaceTiming with her fam.

But, everyone seemed to enjoy the most recent hot challenge ... especially Lynch!!

Tom Sandoval has been in a vortex of bad press these past few months -- all over his cheating scandal, of course -- and now ... his best bud's weighing in on the galactic fail.

Of course, we're talking about Tom Schwartz -- Sandoval's right-hand man in business and fellow costar on "Vanderpump Rules" ... who's had a front-row seat to all the drama unfolding of late. Naturally, seeing how he's close with Tom #1 -- Schwartz caught flak too.

Now, the dude's spilling his guts about it all in the aftermath -- as seen on FOX's new reality show, "Stars on Mars," on which TS is a contestant -- and it sounds like he wants to distance himself from Sandoval/his poor decision-making ... trying to get light years away.

BTW, if you think our space references are a bit much ... wait 'til you hear how Schwartz puts it. The guy's got a ton of creative ways to explain how out of this world Scandoval has been from his POV ... and this is just a taste. He'll dish even more on Monday's episode.

Also, if you're wondering what the "Stars on Mars" show is ... we'll tell ya. The series just launched and it's very much so in the vein of "Big Brother" -- only here, celebs are living together in a manufactured Mars-like environment ... competing against each other.

The other contenders run the gamut of stardom -- folks like Lance Armstrong, Marshawn Lynch and Richard Sherman are on ... as are Ariel Winter, Porsha Williams, Ronda Rousey and others. It truly is a who's-who of reality TV ... also, William Shatner's hosting!

Jeremy Corbell believes the U.S. military is covering up evidence of an eerie UFO sighting over a Marine base in the California desert.

The UFO expert and filmmaker joined us Wednesday on "TMZ Live," to dig deeper into the bombshell footage he released this week showing a huge triangular-formation of lights hovering over the Camp Davis in Twentynine Palms, CA.

Jeremy says the Marines he's talked to all told him they could see the shape of an aircraft in the night sky ... and he says the fact the sighting happened over a Marine base means the government is sitting on tons of data that might reveal what was up there.

While skeptics were quick to dismiss the footage as flares, Jeremy says that's just not the case -- he says the Marines fired flares at the UFO to illuminate the craft, but when the flares got close, the UFO vanished into thin air.

Jeremy says there were at least 50 witnesses, mostly Marines ... but he's hoping other folks who were out in that part of the California desert that April night in 2021 will come forward with their own footage.

Turns out, Twitter isn't the only thing in Elon Musk's life going up in flames ... because his highly-anticipated rocket launch just blew up only minutes after taking the skies.

Thankfully, the SpaceX Starship wasn't carrying any people or satellites when it took off in southern Texas Thursday morning for an around-the-world trip. All seemed fine to the folks on the ground until a massive explosion sent the rocket plummeting back down to Earth.

The rocket was careening out of control when it was intentionally blown up ... You hear mission control say, "It appears that the automatic flight termination system has been activated."

Starship is massive, 400 feet long and is both the biggest and most powerful ever built. This was the rocket's first launch -- it was supposed to originally go up Monday, but that was called off after a valve got stuck during fueling.

Elon apparently wasn't deterred by the explosion, tweeting out only a few minutes after the failure, "Congrats SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months."

Here's a chance to literally give someone the moon ... lunar soil from a Soviet mission to the Moon is up for grabs ... but it's going to cost seven figures.

Moondust recovered from the USSR's last successful lunar probe is up for sale over at Moments In Time ... with a whopping $1,250,000 price tag for three tiny pieces.

The lunar soil sample particles were collected from the moon way back in 1976, when the Soviets sent their Luna 24 probe up into space. The probe landed near the Moon's then-unexplored "Mare Crisium" and drilled two meters into the soil, collecting 170 grams of moondust.

The Luna 24 mission was historic ... in addition to being the last lunar spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union, it's also the last probe from any country to make a soft landing on the planet.

What's more, these moondust particles are the only known Luna 24 material to fall into private hands. They were first gifted to Soviet First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev on his 70th birthday in 1976, and when he died the moondust went to his daughter, who eventually passed the lunar soil on to a private collector.

If you're a die-hard Elon Musk fan, then an exciting new auction might be right up your alley, because a couple of unique items from his past could be yours ... if you've got a ton of cash to spend, of course.

Auction house, GottaHaveRockandRoll is kicking off its new Pop Auction Wednesday, and two super rare, Musk-themed finds are in the mix ... one straight from the Tesla CEO's early days.

A rep for GottaHaveRockandRoll tells TMZ ... one collectible is his original business card for Zip2, Elon's first-ever company which licensed city guide software to newspapers. He founded it back in 1995 along with Greg Kouri and Musk's brother, Kimbal.

The card's expected to fetch upwards of $20K -- a ton of change for a piece of paper.

The other piece of history is a signed dollar bill which he inked with the phrase, "To the moon." As you know, Elon's been obsessed with space travel for some time. But, the phrase is also one he's used when promoting crypto like Dogecoin, so it could just be just a plug ... and an ironic one, writing it on legal tender.

It's like Fashion Week ... for space, as NASA unveils the freshly designed spacesuits its astronauts will be rocking on the moon.

Axiom Space designed the new look, and NASA proudly flaunted it Wednesday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX -- the sleek new suits were primarily designed for the Artemis lunar missions scheduled for 2025.

The new suit is called Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, and it's way more flexible than the old bulky suits worn for over 50 years -- and they can be worn by men and women. Big diff from the Apollo missions of the '60s and '70s.

Fun fact: NASA says the new suits would fit at least 90% of the folks in the U.S.

You'll recall, NASA initially pulled the plug on the first all-female spacewalk back in 2019 ... all because the existing suits couldn't fit the 2 women heading to space.

Although they eventually did make the spacewalk in October 2019, it was clear the space agency needed a new vision for its spacesuits.

NASA enlisted Axiom last year to fix the problem, and they sound thrilled with the end result.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says, "Axiom's next generation spacesuits will not only enable the first woman to walk on the Moon, but they will also open opportunities for more people to explore and conduct science on the Moon than ever before."

BTW, don't get used to that black and orange color pattern ... Axiom noted that's just to show off its logo. The final version will likely be all-white to reflect the intense heat astronauts are exposed to in space.

Flying cars could be soarin' into the market much sooner than we thought ... according to one Aerospace CEO who's working hard to make this sci-fi dream a reality.

Doron Merdinger, CEO of Doroni Aerospace Inc., joined us Tuesday on "TMZ Live" -- filling us in on how his company's new flying cars could be up for sale in the next 2 years ... adding his team has already been testing its flagship project in Florida.

Their vehicle is aptly named the Doroni H1, a 2-seater that can travel a couple hundred feet off the ground with the use of joysticks -- not a steering wheel. The futuristic whip can come in handy in a bunch of ways, according to Doron.

The ride will set you back a few hundred Gs, though ... but Doron says his crew is doing everything they can to make it a true bang for your buck -- which includes its seriously-impressive top speed.

For those unaware, President Biden asked for a $27.2B budget for NASA last week, with some of the funds to be used to test flying cars, and Doron's company is one of the many working with NASA towards a future in the skies.

BTW -- Biden's budget request came after Trump called for the government to invest in the tech ... saying we've gotta beat China to the punch. In addition, there are other start-ups developing flying cars too.

Former United States Presidents are going to new heights -- well, samples of their hair are ... because they'll be shot into space in honor of Presidents Day.

Hair samples from George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan will soon be rockin' zero Gs ... scoring a ride on Celestis' upcoming deep space Enterprise Mission atop the Vulcan Centaur rocket.

The launch from the company, which specializes in memorial spaceflights, marks the first time a President or any part thereof has taken to space.

We're told the samples were originally held by celebrity hair collector, Louis Mushro -- yup, that's a real job. It's all legit, with the requisite certificates of authenticity.

Mushro passed away in 2014, but the follicles were later sent to the spaceflight company by an anonymous donor.

As we reported, Celestis is also hosting the launch of a hair sample from "Star Trek" star DeForest Kelley and the ashes of Nichelle Nichols. We're told the past presidents will be sharin' space with the intergalactic actors later this year when the rocket launches from Cape Canaveral.

With the recent takedowns of unexplained flying objects in the sky -- and mass speculation they may be of another world -- one former Navy pilot says the convo is long overdue.

We talked to Ryan Graves -- a retired naval lieutenant who used to fly F-18s and who's attested to seeing UAPs -- to help make sense of these latest mysterious incidents ... namely, the U.S. government shooting objects down but not knowing what they are.

On "TMZ Live" Wednesday, Graves weighed in on the latest piece to this wonky puzzle ... the alarming cockpit audio that was just released, where the pilots are baffled by what they were seeing over Lake Huron this past weekend ... ultimately calling it an apparent balloon.

According to RG, they probably only landed on "balloon" because that's the best thing they could refer to describe this -- even though it's clear that whatever they saw fell outside the parameters of a typical orb they might normally see floating around.

With the White House now explicitly saying "alien" -- specifically, to deny that the UFOs that were shot down were E.T.-related in any way -- Graves says this topic is finally breaking through in a meaningful way ... this after years of military personnel having seen them.

He tells us there are likely things in this world, and universe, that we simply don't understand and can't quite explain ... and now that we're zeroing in on some of this stuff -- by actually seeking it out, he adds -- it's going to be a difficult road in making sense of it all.

The best thing Uncle Sam can do, he suggests, is to be upfront and transparent about what we know or don't ... as that's the best way to maintain trust and get to the truth.

UFOs remain a divisive topic -- some people just won't believe in the possibility, but a new image grabbed overseas is making it harder to dispute their existence.

Experts Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp revealed the bombshell image of the "Mosul Orb" Tuesday morning on their podcast, "Weaponized" ... saying it comes from a brief video clip shot in 2016 in northern Iraq.

Safe to say this thing is unidentified -- Jeremy says the shiny orb was shown as part of a classified briefing video on the topic of UFOs, shown to U.S. government agencies.

He says the mysterious object was captured on camera as it flew alongside a spy plane without changing altitude.

Pretty unnerving ... Jeremy and George dissect the possibilities of the phenomenon in detail, as well as just how impossible it is for crafts like this to take flight.

Sounds like Jeremy and George are gonna be dropping a bunch of other evidence as the pod continues, too.

FYI -- Harvard physicist Avi Loeb recently joined us on "TMZ Live" to discuss the growing threat of UFOs ... telling us the government likely doesn't know squat about the objects they're observing.