Rae Paoletta

Over the last three months, Inverse spoke to Joshua Richards, a current applicant with Mars One, two executives at Mars One, three former applicants, representatives from SpaceX and Lockheed Martin, and a former head NASA scientist on human research. These conversations, in concert with Mars One financial data obtained by Inverse, suggest without a modicum of doubt that the company’s chief officers appear to be recklessly piloting a company in serious financial and strategic crisis. At best, they are willfully ignorant about the company’s rapidly depleting resources, which are filled by astronaut hopefuls, donations, and a pool of investors. At worst, the project’s leaders are intentionally disregarding the chaos of their organization and taking participants along for a wild ride — but not one that’s going to Mars.

There's a big difference between putting a few boots on the ground and setting up a long-term base on another planet. Regarding human colonization of Mars, there are a host of concerns—in particular, how will humans fare, both physically and psychologically, in such a harsh environment?

On Valentine’s Day, Roberto and I went to a restaurant called Trawen, tucked away in the resort village of Pucón. After perusing the drink selection, I decided on a mojito with something called “Träkál” in it. I am assumed it was rum, but it wasn’t. It was better. The first sip of my mojito con frutilla was almost transcendentally good, and not in a saccharine Eat, Pray, Love way. It tasted the way listening to Enya and looking at corgis on Instagram makes you feel; like waking up three hours b

In the spring of 2013, Kate Gallagher Leong called Anthony William. She was desperate for help. Forty-eight days later, her son, Gavin, was dead.

It’s like clockwork: every month or so, you’ll be scrolling through your Facebook feed and stumble across a video about a new ring or underwear, color-changing straws or color-changing nail polish, or “smart stickers” that claim to help prevent sexual assault. There’s the inevitable swarm of uncritical media coverage that garners hundreds of thousands of views in a few days. But after a fleeting moment in the news cycle, the stories—and ostensibly, the products themselves—disappear. This is because most of these products are ultimately bullshit. We looked at several previously hyped gadgets that have never made it to market, many of which are based on shoddy science, nonexistent technology and misleading claims. Most egregiously, while advertising the sensation of safety, they seem reliant on the idea that it’s the potential victim’s responsibility to prevent being sexually assaulted with their magic cups and “anti-rape wear.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.—It’s 7pm, and the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University, which was packed with investors, aerospace tycoons, and scientists just hours ago, has dwindled to a dedicated few. It’s a very different crowd than the folks who came earlier in the day to watch Buzz Aldrin and other space veterans speak—for one thing, a group of Girl Scouts has crowded the front row. For the first time all day, two women have taken the stage at the Humans to Mars summit in Washington, D.C. And that’s part of the problem.

Revelist spoke to three women who survived the mental and emotional torture of cults. These are their stories.

Santiago is a husband, father to two accomplished and athletic girls, and in danger of being deported to Ecuador, after living in America for the last 17 years. Santiago also happens to be a family friend who recently told me that he's been fighting in court for the last 10 years to finally gain his citizenship.

As a writer, former history major and a generally curious person, I often wonder how history will treat us; how the textbooks of the future will encapsulate this profoundly weird period of time.

One writer reflects on her experiences as a 9-year-old on 9/11, and how the deadly terror attacks reshaped her world.

If you were born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, you've probably been called lazy, narcissistic, incapable of human interaction, digitally savvy, highly educated, your family's go-to tech expert, socially conscious, a millennial -- but let's just call you what you really are: young.