| | | | | | | Presented By Wells Fargo | | | | Axios AM | | By Mike Allen · Sep 03, 2022 | | Happy holiday Saturday. Smart Brevity™ count: 1,190 words ... 4½ mins. Edited by Donica Phifer. 🚨 Breaking: A pilot of a small plane is circling over Tupelo, Miss., and has threatened to crash into a nearby Walmart. Get the latest. | | | | | | 1 big thing: Moon is jumping-off point for Mars |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | NASA's vision of astronauts walking on Mars hinges on first getting them back to the Moon. - NASA hopes to launch its first test flight of its new Moon rocket today, marking one of the agency's first major steps along a decades-long journey to Mars, Axios Space author Miriam Kramer reports.
⚡ Today's launch could get scrubbed: A leak disrupted fueling. Whenever Artemis finally lifts off, NASA will be using the Moon as a proving ground for the technology needed for missions to Mars. - NASA will closely watch how astronauts fare during long stints in low gravity on the Moon and monitor their radiation doses, which will be far higher during a trip to and from Mars and could put their health at serious risk.
Trips to Mars could also require using resources found on the planet — manufacturing oxygen or rocket fuel from Martian resources for example — so NASA will also start testing that technology on the Moon first. - NASA administrator Bill Nelson has said the agency plans to land people on Mars by 2040.
🖼️ The big picture: NASA has been studying Mars from orbit and using rovers on the surface for decades. But a well-trained astronaut on the ground could be a game-changer for science on the Red Planet. - A rover's every move tends to be precisely planned out. But a person on Mars can simply walk over to an interesting-looking rock or area and sample it or take a closer look.
Share this story. |     | | | | | | 2. 🏍️ 52 Senate seats, via a Harley seat | | Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) in Harrietta, Mich., last weekend. Photo: Hans Nichols/Axios Riding through upper Michigan on his Harley-Davidson Pan America™ 1250 last weekend, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) surveyed Trump country and gamed out his own party's chances in November. - Democrats, he told Axios' Hans Nichols, can still think bigger than holding the Senate — with a chance to expand their hold to 52 seats.
"The environment is rough, just given that people are exhausted after the pandemic and we've had inflation issues," Peters, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Hans, who trailed him (by car) past a washed-out road north of Traverse City. "And that's never good for the party in the White House." - "That's the bad news," Peters said. "The good news is that people don't really like Republicans."
Photo: Hans Nichols/Axios Peters — who won his own seat in 2020 by less than 2 points — logged 1,000 miles — from Muskegon to the Upper Peninsula, and back down to the Lansing area, on his annual motorcycle tour. 🍕 Zoom in: At Chandlers Café, a roadside joint known for its homemade pizza and fresh coffee, Peters got credit just for showing up. The population of Harrietta, Mich., is 151. - "It makes a huge difference for someone in high power to come to a small town and show a face," said the owner, Amanda Chandler, a self-described independent who struggled to stay open during the lockdown.
🗳️ Zoom out: Democrats in tight Senate races are inching up ahead of Biden, whose polls have been inching up. - That's fueling hopes for retaining incumbent Democratic seats in the Senate — while working toward potential pickups in states including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Cook Political Report even says that a GOP victory in the House is no longer a "foregone conclusion."
But Senate leaders are bracing for their candidates to get roughed up by an onslaught of negative TV ads. - "I don't want to sugarcoat this too much," Peters said. "I'm a real realist."
Peters isn't advising every candidate to hop on a Harley. - "That may not be authentic," he said. "The number one rule of authenticity is: You actually have to be authentic."
Share this story. | | | | | | | | 3. 📦 Inside Trump's boxes | | Graphic: CNN The line in the new Mar-a-Lago inventory that jumped out at me was: "28 Empty Folders Labeled 'Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide.'" - Why it matters: Maybe he should've returned 'em!
Former President Trump didn't seem to be a fastidious archivist or aspiring memoirist. So I had been a bit puzzled about all the boxes. - But consider this reporting by the N.Y. Times' Julian Barnes, Michael Bender and Maggie Haberman:
When Mr. Trump decided to keep some material, he would sometimes place it in a cardboard box near his desk. The box was originally meant for unanswered letters, unread briefing books and unread newspapers. While Mr. Trump often read the newspapers and magazines, he rarely, if ever, got to the briefing books, a former senior official said. When one box was filled, it would be taken away and a new box would appear. Staff members would take the boxes with Mr. Trump when he traveled, allowing him to complete correspondence or catch up on news stories while on Air Force One. The bottom line: That could help explain how one "Box/Container" seized by the FBI from Trump's Mar-a-Lago office could include both "99 Magazines/Newspapers/Press Articles and Other Printed Media" + "43 Empty Folders with 'CLASSIFIED' Banners." | | | | | | | | A message from Wells Fargo | | Supporting small business recovery | | |  | | | | Wells Fargo's roughly $420 million Open for Business Fund has provided over 200 CDFIs and nonprofits with resources to help a projected 152,000 small business owners. Why it's important: These grants also help small businesses access capital and preserve an estimated 255,000 jobs. Learn more. | | | | | | 4. 🇵🇰 Satellite eye: Before and after |  Base map images by Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory. Graphic: Will Chase/Axios These striking side-by-side images show flood devastation in Pakistan. - Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers have affected 33 million people and killed at least 1,265, including 441 children, Reuters reports.
The inundation is still spreading. | | | | | | | | 5. 🔋 Charted: Tesla swoon |  Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios Tesla spiked when Elon Musk revealed his Twitter stake, then fell as his plan to buy it sputtered, per Kia Kokalitcheva in Axios Pro Rata Weekend. 🎧 Hear the trailer for our podcast series, "How It Happened: Musk vs. Twitter," coming later this month. | | | | | | | | 6. 🎾 Celebrating "The Greatest" | | Photo: Mike Stobe/Getty Images Serena Williams thanked 23,859 fans last night after what's expected to be her final pro match. - Right down to what were, barring a change of heart, the final minutes of her quarter-century of excellence on the tennis court — and an unbending unwillingness to be told what wasn't possible — Williams, 40, tried to mount one last classic comeback.
U.S. Open fans were on their feet in a full Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens, cellphone cameras at the ready, AP's Howard Fendrich writes: - The 23-time Grand Slam champion staved off five match points to prolong the epic three-hours-plus proceedings, but could not do more, and was eliminated from the U.S. Open in the third round by Ajla Tomljanovic, a 29-year-old Australian, 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1.
Photo: Frank Franklin II/AP "I've been down before. ... I don't really give up," Williams said. "In my career, I've never given up. In matches, I don't give up. Definitely wasn't giving up tonight." - Tomljanovic is unabashedly a fan of Williams, having grown up watching her play on TV.
Asked during an on-court interview whether she might reconsider walking away, Williams replied: "I don't think so, but you never know." - A little later, pressed on the same topic at her post-match news conference, Williams joked: "I always did love Australia," the country that hosts the next Grand Slam tournament in January.
Photo: Jean Catuffe/GC Images via Getty Images Among the celebrities attending last night's match was Spike Lee, who posed with a new TIME cover: "THE GREATEST." | | | | | | | | A message from Wells Fargo | | Expanded support for diverse students | | |  | | | | Wells Fargo has provided $107 million in scholarships and programming to help students at 25 HBCUs and minority-serving institutions realize their dreams of attending college. The goal: Wells Fargo is committed to creating equitable educational opportunities. Learn more about the impact. | | | | 📬 Invite your friends to sign up to get their daily essentials — Axios AM, PM and Finish Line. |  | | Are you a fan of this email format? It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 300 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications. | | | |
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