Axios

The Orion spacecraft — designed to bring astronauts to deep space destinations — is slowly but surely preparing for its first mission to the Moon.

Why it matters: Orion is a major part of NASA's Artemis plans, which are expected to bring astronauts to the Moon by 2024.

The Moon is one of the most deeply studied objects in our solar system, and yet there is a lot we don't know about our nearest neighbor.

Why it matters: Most of our lunar knowledge comes from the samples brought home during the Apollo era and robotic spacecraft sent to the Moon. Future missions could help researchers piece together the solar system's early history and even give us an idea of what Earth was like right around the time life developed.

Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, today announced that it will go public via a complex financial transaction called a reverse merger. Dan digs into the deal and its ramifications with Axios Space editor Miriam Kramer.

Go deeper: Virgin Galactic is going public

Virgin Galactic is going public, joining with former Facebook senior executive Chamath Palihapitiya's Social Capital Hedosophia in a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that will see SCH invest $800 million for a 49% stake in the company.

Details: The company is expected to finish the merger by the second half of the year, according to a press release sent this morning, making Richard Branson's space-tourism venture into the first publicly traded human spaceflight company.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is pushing Snap to "take action to prevent more children from being exposed to sexual predators and explicit adult content while using Snapchat" in a letter seen by Axios and due to be sent to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel Monday.

Why it matters: Blackburn's complaint suggests that message services that offer users more privacy and make messages more fleeting — as Snap does now, and Facebook is promising — will not be immune to policymakers' scrutiny and regulatory efforts.

Details:

• Blackburn's letter says that the messaging service's "disappearing videos are a child predator’s dream," citing cases in which predators allegedly used the application.
• The letter also raises issues with Snap's map feature, which shows the locations of some users.
• The lawmaker, who is one of several conservative critics of major tech companies, says in the letter than she is "concerned that Snapchat’s age ratings in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store fail to adequately warn parents and unsuspecting minors of the material they will encounter."

The big picture: Children's online privacy is one area of tech policy that members of both parties frequently agree on.

What they're saying: "Nothing is more important to us than the trust and safety of our community, and we take a zero tolerance approach around these issues," said a Snap spokesperson in a statement. "We’ve designed Snapchat with no browsable public profiles, and by default you can’t receive a message or share location with someone you haven't added as a friend on the app. We work hard to detect, prevent and stop any abuse on our platform, and continue to work proactively with governments, law enforcement and best in class safety organizations to ensure that Snapchat continues to be a positive and safe environment."

Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from Snap.