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Marcia Dunn, AP reporter: Almost all roads to space begin here in Cape Canaveral. Haya Panjwani, AP correspondent: That’s Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press space writer. Shes following Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’s return home from the International Space Station. PANJWANI: I’m Haya Panjwani. On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, were unpacking how the two astronauts got stuck up there in the first place and what theyve done in the last few months at the station. DUNN: So Butch and Suni became the first people, the first astronauts, to strap into a Boeing Starliner capsule and be launched into space. This was last June, June 5, 2024. They launched aboard the Starliner on what was supposed to be an eight-day trip to the space station and back. Here we are, more than nine months later. This eight-day mission has turned into a nine-month marathon for them. So, Butch and Suni strap in on June 5. Launch goes off great from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Im there watching, watching the rocket fly. They get to orbit safely. All is well, except the next day, as theyre going into dock with the International Space Station as planned, the thrusters start to fail. Helium is leaking. There had been some helium leaks prior to liftoff, but nobody thought it would morph into something bigger and worse. These two are test pilots. Sunis a helicopter pilot by trade. Butch is a fighter pilot, combat pilot, both military skill people. They temporarily had to take control to try to get the thrusters back in business so that they could make a fully automated docking at the space station. They got docked to the space station, and months started rolling by. Were now into the summer of 2024. Because engineers on the ground could just not exactly figure out what had happened. Well, what went wrong with the Starliner? Why did all these thrusters malfunction? Whats the deal with all the helium leaking out of it? Now, they were safe at the space station, right? And they didnt need the Starliner at this point, but to come home. And because NASA was worried that it could be dangerous for them to get aboard this craft with these troubles, they kept them up there while they kept investigating the situation here on the ground. This dragged on for months. And finally, NASA told Boeing, thats it. Done. You know, you bring that capsule back empty. Well see if it survives entry and it lands OK. But, Butch and Suni, were sorry, but youre gonna have to be up there until next year. SpaceX was now the designated taxi service for Butch and Suni. There are only three ways to get Americans back from the space station. SpaceX, the Russians, right, because they have their capsules coming and going, and also, what should have been Starliner. The next SpaceX crew to go up, was launched in September. There should have been four people for astronauts on that flight. They knocked two people off the flight so that there were two empty seats on the SpaceX Dragon capsule for the return leg of Butch and Suni. Well, then they cant leave until the replacements get there. Right? Because NASA always likes a crew handover between two crews to sort of, like, show them the ropes. And it just makes it an easier transition for everybody. So then they were told, hopefully youll be home by the end of March. This month, the end of March. They switched capsules in the end. The brand new capsule that was taking so long to get ready is going to be used by other people on the later this spring. A private crew. They hurried up. Friday night, this past Friday night, finally the replacements lifted off. We know that the crew, the space station crew, was up and watching via monitors and everything. And Im sure there was a lot of hooting and hollering and a lot of smiles. PANJWANI: Butch and Suni were chosen specifically for this mission. DUNN: Both of them have been on military deployments. Right? So these are not your run of the mill scientists who or maybe a little more touchy feely. These two are like, you know, kick the tires. You know, fly boy, fly girl kind of people. But I have to say, Ive never seen two people who seem so upbeat. They look on the positive side. Butch has his wife. They have two daughters, one’s college age. His youngest is a senior in high school, so hes missed most of her senior year of high school. And Sunis husband, they have two Labrador retrievers, right. Thats their babies. And she has an elderly mother who is and has been quite worried about all this going through all of this and this. They told reporters recently that being in space has got its challenges. No, they didnt know that this was going to obviously take so long, but theyve been busy doing experiments. They got to do a spacewalk together. Suni set a world record for most spacewalking time by any woman ever, with her latest spacewalk up there. They get to talk with their families almost every day with an internet phone. They got video hookups, but its not the same as being there. And they have told us repeatedly that its much harder on their families. Their families are down here on earth waiting and waiting and waiting. And while theyre busy, you know, theyre distracted with their mission. Theyre laser focused on their mission. These two are particularly upbeat, positive, optimistic people. Butch in particular is quite a religious man. And he is an elder in his Baptist church back home in Houston, and hes even done, I understand, some, put in some calls to some of his older church members to try to give them a pep talk, right? Right. He has said hes used his faith a lot to get him through this and that theres a reason for everything, and thats what hes trying to instill in his daughters as they deal with this as well, that, you know, persevere. This will make you stronger. PANJWANI: Now when they come back to Earth, whats next? DUNN: NASA wants to have an overlap of at least a few days between the crew thats recently launched, the replacements and Butch and Suni, and they will come back with two others. Right. The two people, people who launched in September with two empty seats, theyre coming back with them. And so they want a couple of spillover days so that the people who have been up there all this time can show them the ropes. Then they will undock in the SpaceX Dragon capsule thats been up there since September and splash down off the Florida coast, and then they will be directly taken to Houston. You know, they have had astronauts up there as long as a year. Theyll be treated the same, you know. And of course, any astronaut coming back after six months is not allowed to drive for a certain amount of period because, you know, youre wobbly when you get back. Your muscles are weak. Your bones are weak. Yes, youve been exercising two hours every day. But you know, some people do better than others coming back, right? And so they dont want you behind a wheel. They dont want you doing anything that could endanger you accidentally. Between the two of them, of course, theyve been asked, what cant… what do you miss? What cant you wait to to do besides hug your families when you get back? And Suni cant wait to take her dgs for a walk and jump in the ocean, she told us recently. And Butch cant wait to get back to face to face ministering of his flock back home at his church in Houston. PANJWANI: Launch audio courtesy of NASA. Haya Panjwani, Associated Press
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Air France on Tuesday unveiled a new first-class suite as it expands efforts to lure wealthy travelers from business jets and lend a ‘French touch’ to the tussle for premium revenue. The CEO of parent Air France-KLM, Ben Smith, told Reuters the unspecified investment aimed to place Air France at the top of the European league in airline luxury, signalling a battle with British Airways and Lufthansa. “A large percentage of the customers are flying for business reasons Many of them have the choice of a private jet or flying in first class,” Smith said in an interview. “What is new for us over the last few years is a marked increase in the number of luxury customers that are flying for leisure purposes.” The air travel industry is locked in a battle for high fare-paying customers as it recovers from the pandemic but is split over the value of investing in first class, with many carriers focusing on steady improvements in business-class seating. Air France’s latest first-class cabin, laid out in four pairs of grey, red-accented beds and seats on select planes, follows a years-long effort to re-invent a once loss-making product since Smith joined the national carrier in 2018. The Canadian executive has long been a champion of first class even as many rivals retrench to business class. But he said only a handful of airlines had the depth of demand or ability to tap into assets like France as a destination. “A lot of people like to experience France. When they get on the airplane outside France, they want to start their journey from San Jose, Tokyo or Sao Paulo already in France through the environment on the airplane,” he said. The launch comes weeks after arch-rival British Airways launched its own new first-class cabin. Lufthansa also offers first class. Neither airline responded to requests for comment. French brand power Smith declined to say how much the investment in the new seats would cost, but the airline says its first-class service is already profitable, in part because the price of the ticket has risen in recent years. An average one-way Paris-New York ticket costs around 10,000 euros in May, according to the Air France website. Tuesday’s rollout reflected the airline’s efforts to strike a chord with France’s broader reputation for luxury, with waiters passing Michelin-starred snacks in the presence of specially invited influencers in a Paris Fashion Week location. Smith insisted, however, that Air France’s “La Premiere” brand could stand on its own feet as a luxury product. Partially state-owned Air France has long been synonymous with first class, with its passenger list so powerful that seats were once reputed to be bugged by the country’s spy agencies. Now, it must compete with now-common lie-flat seats in business class or increasingly accessible private jets. Much of the cost is wrapped up not just in the seats but in bespoke ground services such as special check-ins or limousines. There is also the hidden cost of creating a sub-fleet of airplanes that can only operate on a handful of routes. “Unless it’s rock solid, it can be quite marginal because of the operational complexity, the capital investment and the risk of substituting seats that they could be sure of selling in business class,” said aviation consultant John Strickland. Joanna Plucinska and Tim Hepher, Reuters
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Tuesdays news that Google would acquire the Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion was remarkable on several fronts. The deal, assuming it closes, will be the largest acquisition in Googles history. And its the biggest exit in Israeli history. Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs, Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport wrote in a blog post. [I]t will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a stand-alone company.” It also marks the close of a fast-paced, five-year chapter for the company. Founded in January 2020 by Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak, Wiz grew quickly, as the pandemic forced companies and workers online and cloud servers exploded in popularity. And as hybrid work has continued, so has the companys expansion. An IPO on ice In just 16 months, Wiz became a unicorn, with a $1.7 billion valuation. By October 2021, its valuation had ballooned to $6 billion and by February 2023, that figure had jumped to $10 billion. Last May, the company raised $1 billion in funding, giving it a $12 billion valuation. As Wizs fortunes rose, so too did its reputation. The companys researchers have alerted the public to a number of cloud vulnerabilities in everything from Microsofts Azure cloud system to the cloud systems of Oracle and IBM. In January, it raised a red flag about DeepSeek, finding that the Chinese AI system had inadvertently exposed a significant amount of sensitive data. The company has been on Googles radar for some time. Last year, Alphabet offered $23 billion to acquire Wiz but was rejected. Instead, Wizs founders planned to pursue an IPO. Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, Rappaport wrote at the time in a memo seen by CNBC. The move was a calculated gamble. Wiz officials were worried whether a takeover by Google would be approved by regulators, given the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)s fixation on Big Tech at the time and Googles own antitrust court battles then. But the IPO market has hardly been welcoming to most tech companies for the past several years. Wiz aimed to hit $1 billion in annual recurring revenue before it filed for a public listing, which gave it some breathing room, but market conditions havent improvedin fact, have worsened in the past two months. Between that stock market volatility and the change in White House administrations, which shifted regulatory sentiment, Wizs leadership began to reconsider its options. Why regulators might let this one through While Google is still facing a possible breakup following a verdict that found the company to be an illegal monopoly last August, Justice Department officials dropped the push for the company to sell off its AI investments. That could signal improved odds that Tuesdays deal will not face the same level of antitrust scrutiny it would have in 2024. Part of the secret to Wizs success is exactly why antitrust regulators might be amenable to the Google buyout. The company is a native multi-cloud platform. It works equally well on offerings from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and more. That makes this both a security play for Google as well as an AI infrastructure one, as it can secure workloads across multiple platforms and doesnt force customers to use Google Cloud. Wiz and Google Cloud are both fueled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratized so more organizations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely, Wiz CEO Rappaport wrote in a blog post. We both also believe Wiz needs to remain a multi-cloud platform, so that across any cloud, we will continue to be a leading platform. We will still work closely with our great partners at AWS, Azure, Oracle, and across the entire industry. The deal is expected to close in 2026, pending regulatory approval.
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