30th August 2022
Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond
Good morning Yesterday marked Netflix’s 25th anniversary. The streaming giant started out by shipping DVDs to customers by mail. Now it consumes more than 15% of the world's internet bandwidth and has 222m subscribers in more than 190 countries.
Today's stories
British tech firm in £5bn takeover bid
Why NASA wants to go back to the moon
TECHBritish tech firm in £5bn takeover bid
Other stories to keep you in the loop
Store closures at lowest level for seven years
Chancellor visits US for cost of living talks
Energy bills forecast to reach £7,700 average from next year in latest expert price cap prediction
Asda eyes up Co-op’s petrol business in £450m bid
New lottery operator says cost-of-living crisis has had ‘limited’ impact
Wave of Goldman Sachs workers quit en masse at ‘toxic’ Wall Street giant
Microsoft co-founder's $1bn art collection set to be most expensive auction in history
SPACEWhy NASA wants to go back to the moon
What happened?Space: not just for billionaires, anymore. Or at least that’s what NASA hopes to prove with the launch of its most powerful rocket it has ever built. Lift off was planned for yesterday but had to be postponed due to an engine failure.Why it matters: The mission, dubbed Artemis I, is the first step to returning people to the moon, a goal NASA hopes to achieve by 2025. Humans haven’t stepped foot on the lunar surface since 1972.The stakes are high: it’s expected to cost almost $100bn in total and crewed missions always come with risk, but success could kick start a new era of space exploration for the agency.The launch – which could be as soon as this Friday - will send an uncrewed space capsule on a 42-day journey around the moon and back to Earth, a test to make sure everything is working smoothly before putting astronauts on board.If all goes well, NASA will launch another orbital flight in 2024, this time with four astronauts aboard. That will be followed by a mission in 2025 that will land two astronauts on the moon. The agency plans to send people to the moon every year thereafter, and eventually build a permanent settlement.Zoom out: While the venture is costly, NASA hopes that Artemis will have positive spin-off effects that make it worthwhile, like igniting technological innovation needed for longer flights to Mars and jump-starting businesses involved in transporting goods to and from the moon.
Stat of the day
Harvard is the richest university in the world with an endowment of $53bn
Interesting links from around the web
The best (and worst) airlines for delays at UK airports
How to save when you really like to spend
What a normal day is like for Mark Zuckerberg
