Earth is dynamic, not just the landscape but also its internal workings. The magnetic poles flip, it bleeds lava, and the crust trembles; it’s a misconception that we are on solid ground. Earthquakes happen frequently. Most of the time we cannot feel them, but occasionally there’s one that really rocks the surface.
Soon after I took on the Grand Canyon in my solo hike, the Earth’s crust had stressed itself out and released enough energy to roll the ground for hundreds of miles. It was a glorious 7.1 magnitude quake, equivalent to the energy of 45 atomic bombs. For whatever reason, earthquakes don’t frighten me. Maybe it was the rocket launches I’ve experienced? Perhaps all the hurricanes? If you’re close enough to a rocket launch in Florida, you can feel the ground shake. It’s definitely a thrill!
One-hundred forty five miles (233 kilometers) away and 5 miles (8 kilometers) in depth, a fault had dislocated in an area called Searles Valley. Luckily, this was within driving distance and the area accessible to me. On a quest for knowledge and to feel the planet’s rhythm once again, I set off to the epicenter using an app of the location. I brought camping gear with me like last time, ready to explore the area and stay the night as close to the epicenter as possible while hoping for a night full of rumbling.
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- Crews in Ridgecrest repair the roads after an earthquake. | Image: Tom Cross
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- Crews in Ridgecrest repair the roads after an earthquake. | Image: Tom Cross
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- Crews in Ridgecrest repair the roads after an earthquake. | Image: Tom Cross
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- Crews in Ridgecrest repair the roads after an earthquake. | Image: Tom Cross
Destruction from the quake was visible on the drive to the epicenter. A small town called Ridgecrest took the brunt of the force because it’s established along the fault. Driving through the town, crews were cutting large sections of road where it had cracked and were completely repaving the area properly rather than just smoothing out the fracture; I was impressed to see them put that much work into a repair. On either side of the road, the ground was noticeably lifted from the rolling shockwave. Homes in the location had freshly collapsed walls, and a gas station had sunken into the ground a few inches, yet it was still pumping gas and collecting payment even though it had no power or water. The store clerk sat outside in a chair turning customers away. Grocery stores were still open but were missing ceiling tiles, and certain aisles were closed for cleaning.
While eating lunch in a store, I felt a bump at the table and the visible water pipes in the ceiling were swaying. Something had slipped off a shelf and shattered glass on the floor. This was one of the many aftershocks that I was pursuing!
A dry lake was as close as I could get to the epicenter. Unusual rock formations made of calcium carbonate called tufa that formed 10,000 years prior when water filled the basin were scattered along the landscape. Now I was walking through them, investigating changes caused by the earthquake and hoping to feel aftershocks in this area. I discovered a crack in the dense tufa and put my fingers inside. Abandoned railroad tracks offered an opportunity to feel the vibration along a great distance, so I lay down on the steel quietly for awhile.
As night approached, I set up a camera to shoot time-lapse of the Milky Way, parked my vehicle nearby, and put together a sleeping arrangement on the roof. Throughout the night I watched meteors burn up in the atmosphere with the awesome backdrop of our galaxy that’s thousands of light years in visible depth. I thought of the reality that I’m one of many creatures created by the cosmos, floating in a sea of energy swirling around on a rock enveloped in gas we breathe. Life is extraordinary. Where else is it located?
An app on my phone pinged, signaling an earthquake had just occurred, and my spaced out thoughts had come back to the ground. I paid attention to the motion of my vehicle; certainly the rocking could be better felt due to the suspension. For the remainder of the night I allowed my body to sense the silent rumblings of the earth while I’d guess the magnitude. Two minutes after each quake, my phone would ping and display the stats; I’d study them to increase my understanding of the energy I experienced.
I enjoyed the bumping and rocking while watching the sky rotate above. For the first time, I immersed myself into a dynamic experience of our planet’s movements on the ground and in space. Some of the most incredible locations have been formed by the destructive forces of earthquakes.
In next week’s blog, I take a trip into the nearby snow-capped mountains and witness the beauty created by natural disaster. Stay tuned!
Don’t miss Tom Cross | Behind the Lens
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Lifestyle
Tesla saves its passengers again – This time after a 300-foot cliff fall in Malibu
A Tesla Model 3 fell 300 feet off a Malibu cliff and both passengers survived.
A Tesla Model 3 plunged roughly 300 feet off a cliff on Mulholland Highway in Malibu on Friday morning, May 29, 2026, and both occupants survived. The crash was reported at approximately 7:30 a.m. near the 2500 block of Mulholland Highway, triggering a multi-agency rescue operation involving Malibu Search and Rescue, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the California Highway Patrol, and McCormick Ambulance.
When first responders arrived, the male driver was outside the vehicle shouting for help while the female passenger remained pinned inside the Tesla. Rescue crews rappelled down the cliffside on ropes to reach the wreckage. A flight medic was lowered by helicopter to begin treating both victims, and the driver was hoisted up to the roadway before crews used the Jaws of Life to free the trapped passenger. Both were airlifted to a local trauma center with moderate injuries despite a remarkable result for a fall that steep.
The outcome is not surprising, considering Model 3 earned an overall 5-star rating from NHTSA in every category and sub-category, and recorded the lowest probability of injury of any car ever evaluated by the U.S. New Car Assessment Program. The absence of a traditional engine in the front of the vehicle creates a longer crumple zone that absorbs impact energy before it reaches occupants, and the battery pack running along the floor gives the car an unusually low center of gravity that reinforces structural rigidity.
This is not the first time a Tesla has kept passengers alive after going off a cliff. A Tesla Model Y carrying a family of four survived a plunge off a cliff at Devil’s Slide near San Francisco in January 2023, with two adults and two children walking away from a 250-foot fall. That incident drew widespread attention to how the structural integrity of Tesla’s electric platform performs in extreme crash scenarios that most vehicles would not survive.
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Elon Musk
NASA’s first human outpost on the Moon starts now – SpaceX on deck
NASA named the rovers, landers, and vendors that will build America’s first Moon Base.
NASA has laid out its most detailed Moon Base plan to date, describing a permanent outpost near the Moon’s south pole that the agency intends to build over the coming decade as a direct stepping stone to Mars. “The Moon Base will be America’s and humanity’s first outpost on another celestial world,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, adding that every mission crewed and uncrewed “will be a learning opportunity as we return to the lunar surface, build the infrastructure to stay, and master the skills required to live and operate in one of the most demanding and dangerous environments imaginable.”
The plan is structured in three phases involving both uncrewed and crewed missions to deliver equipment, vehicles, and infrastructure to the surface, with the first three moon base missions targeted to launch before the end of 2026.
Moon Base I, targeting fall 2026, will use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to deliver scientific instruments to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge, the same region where Artemis astronauts will land. Moon Base II will send Astrobotic’s Griffin lander carrying more than 1,100 pounds of cargo including Astrolab’s FLIP rover to begin developing mobility systems on the surface. Moon Base III will carry the Lunar Vertex science mission on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Trinity lander to study lunar swirls near the south pole, with ESA and Korean science payloads aboard.
On the rover side, NASA awarded Astrolab $219 million and Lunar Outpost $220 million to build the first phase of Lunar Terrain Vehicles, with both rovers targeted for deployment to the lunar surface by 2028. Astrolab’s crewed rover weighs roughly 2,000 pounds and can reach over 6 mph. Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus rover can operate autonomously or via remote control at over 9 mph. Blue Origin separately received $188 million with an option worth $280.4 million to deliver cargo landers for rover transport.
NASA also confirmed that MoonFall, a mission deploying four survey drones to scout Artemis landing sites, has selected Firefly Aerospace to build the transport spacecraft, with a 2028 launch target.
SpaceX sits at the center of that commercial layer. SpaceX holds the NASA Human Landing System contract for the Starship-derived lander that will put astronauts on the surface under Artemis IV, currently targeting 2028. Before that can happen, SpaceX must demonstrate in-orbit propellant transfer at scale, a process requiring multiple Starship tanker launches to fuel a single mission. Water ice at the lunar south pole is central to the base’s long-term viability, as it can be converted into drinking water, breathable oxygen, and rocket fuel, directly reducing dependence on Earth resupply. That resource loop becomes far more practical if Starship can land and be refueled on or near the Moon itself.
Elon Musk has publicly stated that Starship V3, which recently completed its first flight, should be capable enough for initial Mars missions. The Moon Base plan announced Tuesday is the infrastructure layer that connects everything between those two ambitions, and SpaceX is the only American company currently contracted to build the rocket that gets humans to either destination.
Elon Musk
Tesla ditches India after years of broken promises
Tesla has ditched its plans to build a factory in India after years of failed negotiations.
Tesla’s long-running effort to establish a manufacturing presence in India is officially over. India’s Minister of Heavy Industries H.D. Kumaraswamy confirmed on May 19, 2026 that Tesla has informed authorities it will not proceed with a manufacturing facility in the country.
Tesla first signaled serious interest in India around 2021, when it began hiring local staff and lobbying the Indian government for lower import tariffs. The ask was straightforward: reduce duties enough for Tesla to test the market with imported vehicles before committing capital to a local factory. India’s position was equally firm, with an ask of Tesla to commit to manufacturing first, then receive tariff relief. Neither side moved, and the talks quietly collapsed.
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India had offered a policy that would reduce import duties from 110% down to 15% on EVs priced above $35,000, provided companies committed at least $500 million toward local manufacturing investment within three years. Tesla declined to participate. The tariff standoff was only part of the problem. Analysts pointed to significant gaps in India’s local supply chain, inadequate industrial infrastructure, and a mismatch between Tesla’s premium pricing and the purchasing power of India’s automotive market as additional factors that made the investment difficult to justify.
First signs of an unraveling relationship came in April 2024, when Musk abruptly cancelled a planned trip to India where he was set to meet Prime Minister Modi and announce Tesla’s market entry. By July 2024, Fortune reported that Tesla executives had stopped contacting Indian government officials entirely. The government at that point understood Tesla had capital constraints and no plans to invest.
The more fundamental issue is that Tesla’s existing factories are currently operating at approximately 60% capacity, making a commitment to building new manufacturing capacity in a new market difficult to defend to investors. Tesla will continue selling imported Model Y vehicles through its existing showrooms in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram, and Bengaluru, but local production is no longer part of the plan.
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