The 14th annual St. Petersburg Conference on World Affairs took place February 10–11, 2026, at USF St. Petersburg, organized by SPWAC. Themed around the new space race, it brought together experts to examine how nations and private companies are competing and collaborating beyond Earth’s orbit. NASA astronaut Nicole Stott delivered the keynote, drawing on her ISS experience to advocate for people to behave as crew mates on planet Earth. Retired General Frank McKenzie warned that space is shifting from a collaborative domain to a theater of conflict. Panels covered space law, commercial industry, and the intensifying rivalry among the U.S., China, India, the UAE, and private players like SpaceX.
After 40 years of advocacy, astronomer Jack Burns is finally close to placing a radio telescope on the moon’s far side. Launching in early 2027, LuSEE-Night aims to detect faint radio signals from the cosmic dark ages — a period just 380,000 years after the Big Bang. These ancient signals, blocked by Earth’s ionosphere and drowned out by human-made interference, can only be captured from the moon’s far side, the quietest electromagnetic location in the inner solar system. If successful, LuSEE-Night could open the door to FarView, a massive 100,000-antenna array planned for the lunar surface in the 2030s.
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