💓 She's on the moon

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Happy Tuesday, {{first_name | friend}}. You’ve seen the moon your whole life. Full moon, half moon, harvest moon rising over the backyard. But here’s something nobody ever told you about it.

👃 Every Apollo astronaut who walked on the lunar surface came back inside the Lunar Module, took off their helmet and immediately noticed something strange. A smell. Not nothing. Not clean space air. Something specific, something sharp and something nobody expected.

What did Apollo astronauts say the moon smelled like? A) Rotten eggs and sulfur, B) Fresh rain on hot pavement, C) Spent gunpowder or D) that strange musty scent at the DMV. You’ll find the answer brewing at the end. 

🤩 Quick favor before we dive in. See those ads in today’s newsletter? Click the ones that catch your eye. I know, I know. But that’s what keeps this thing free, in your inbox, every single day. No subscription fee. No paywall. Just you, me and occasionally a product I think you’ll actually like. So if something looks interesting, give it a click. It takes two seconds, and it matters more than you know. OK. On to the good stuff. — Kim

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⚡ TL;DR

📖 Read time: 3 minutes

Yesterday, four humans flew 252,757 miles from Earth, swinging around the lunar far side in a spacecraft the size of a minibus. They broke a record that had stood since 1970 when Apollo 13 limped past the moon, trying to get its crew home alive.

The Artemis II voyagers woke up to Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” (NASA cut it before the chorus. Commander Reid Wiseman was not pleased. I respect that.)

During the flyby, the Orion spacecraft was completely behind the moon. No radio contact. Mission Control in Houston had to sit there and wait.

The computers were on their own.

Apollo 11 flew to the moon on 4 kilobytes of memory. The guidance computer that landed Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface had less power than your phone’s calculator.

Orion’s computers process data 20,000 times faster and carry 128,000 times more memory. Orion runs five independent flight computers simultaneously. They’re derived from the Boeing 787’s flight management system, the hardware keeping your cross-country trip on course, but rebuilt from scratch for deep space. The reason? Radiation.

The Van Allen belts, two massive zones of high-intensity radiation surrounding Earth, would fry a laptop in minutes. These computers are hardened against it.

And if one takes a radiation hit and starts producing bad data? The other four outvote it instantly. No astronaut intervention required.

Apollo ran on fuel cells. Orion runs on sunshine.

Four X-shaped solar wings span over 60 feet tip to tip. They generate 11.2 kilowatts of power. Enough to run two average American homes at the same time.

Inside, the cockpit looks nothing like Apollo’s switches. Digital glass displays. 

A $23 million toilet took six years to develop and, on day three, smelled like an old electric heater someone turned on for the first time in years.

They had 58 tortillas up there. BBQ brisket. Five varieties of hot sauce. The Apollo guys ate toothpaste tubes of food. Progress is real.

When the astronauts were back in communication after the fly by, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told Mission Control they wanted to name two unnamed craters they spotted on the moon.

The first one they called Integrity, after the name they'd given their Orion spacecraft. Then Hansen paused. "In our close-knit astronaut family, we lost a loved one." Carroll Wiseman was a nurse, a mother to two daughters, and she died at 46 after a five-year battle with cancer.

Her husband Reid, commander of the mission, was the farthest from Earth any human being has traveled. "It's a bright spot on the moon," Hansen said, his voice shaking. "And we would like to call it Carroll."

Mission control came back: "Integrity and Carroll Crater, loud and clear." There is now a crater named Carroll. Her daughters Ellie and Katie can look up at the sky on certain nights and actually see it. (Is someone cutting onions around me?)

ICYMI, here’s the link to photos and videos from the mission on NASA’s site.

📩 Send this to someone who needs a reminder this week that humans still do extraordinary things. Use those links below.

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Your TV has been watching you back. Smart TV manufacturers pulled in $46 billion this year selling your viewing habits to advertisers, and most people have no idea it's happening.

I'm sitting down with Aaron Alva, a technologist, attorney, and former FTC insider who actually took Vizio to court over this in 2017. We're getting into exactly how it works, what they're collecting, and the one question I couldn't resist asking him: which TV would he never let in his own home.

You'll want to hear his answer before you buy your next screen.

Watch on YouTube →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

🕳️ Hide and beep: You know Apple’s anti-stalking feature that makes the AirTag beep? It’s getting a boost. The AirTag 2 firmware update, version 3.0.45, changes the unwanted tracking alert so people can find an unknown AirTag more easily during Precision Finding. This is the first update since AirTag 2 launched, and that model’s speaker is already up to 50% louder than the old one. Glad they fixed it, hate that they had to.

Engine nap time: That car auto stop-start feature might be on its way out. You know, the thing that makes your car take a quick snooze (paywall link) when you pull up to a red light. I hate that. Drivers have spent years trying to kill the little pause. It spread from less than 1% of 2012 gas cars to 58% of 2024 models after federal emissions credits made it worth automakers’ while.  Looks like that feature might finally stall out for good.

🗂️ Office ghosts: Apparently, death isn’t the end. You can leave a job, torch the polo shirt, forget everyone’s name, and your old spreadsheets may still come back as AI training fuel. One AI hiring company is reportedly shopping for ex-workers’ output from prior employers, then feeding that material into models. Reports, code, memos, research, etc. Your most enduring legacy may be a budget forecast some chatbot regurgitates in 2027. If your contract says the company owned it then, they still own it now. Hard pass for a little cash.

 Paging Dr. Bot: Ever waited three days for a two-minute prescription refill? Utah wants to be the first state to let AI autonomously renew meds, no doctor visit, for 190 routine prescriptions like diabetes and blood pressure drugs. Classic pharm to table. The catch, and boy, is there one: Researchers already tricked the bot into suggesting a 3x OxyContin dose. Thankfully, controlled substances are off-limits, for now. At this rate, my tombstone will read: She died as she lived, clicking confirm on a liability waiver.

Take my order, robot: Your Echo Show became your personal waiter. Amazon’s Alexa+ lets you order from Uber Eats and Grubhub the way you’d talk to an actual person. “I want something spicy, not too heavy, skip the onions.” Alexa figures it out, builds your cart and lets you change your mind mid-order. No app switching, no scrolling. Works on Echo Show 8 and larger. Link your account first: Alexa app > More > Alexa+ Store > Food & Reservations. Prime members get free Grubhub+ delivery thrown in. Neat.

⚾ Paperless is heartless: I hate when companies cram tech in places it doesn’t really need to be. Take the Dodgers, who told Errol Segal, 81, a season-ticket holder since the Nixon years, that 2026 is digital-only. No paper tickets, no exception. He uses a flip phone, doesn’t do computers and even offered to pay extra. Still no. This is a team worth about $8 billion telling a guy who’s shown up for 50 years that the app gets the seat, not him. Give me a break. 

Google has a secret diary for you: years of your life, time-stamped and searchable. Here’s how you can read every single page.

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: On your iPhone, open the built-in Magnifier app. Not your home screen? Swipe down and search for “Magnifier.” Voila, your camera’s a magnifying glass. I used this to see my router’s model number this morning. On Android, go to Settings > Accessibility > Magnification, then use gestures to zoom in anywhere. Might be different depending on your make and model. 

Who dat? Set up bank alerts for every purchase, so you’ll know right away if someone steals your card or is using your account online. In your banking app, go to Settings > Alerts or Notifications and turn on Text and Email. So smart.

🔋 iOS 26.4 battery drain is real: You’re not imagining it. Before panicking, look at Settings > Battery for an “Update Finishing in Background” prompt. Nothing? Try these fixes: Update your third party apps like Facebook. Then open Settings > Battery > Battery Health and make sure it says Normal.

Amazon does not want you to find this: The callback option is buried under layers of menus, but here is the cheat code. Visit Amazon’s Customer Service page, click Something else, then Contact Us. Type “Request a phone call” in the chat. If the bot plays dumb, keep choosing Something else until Call me now shows up. Enter your number and make Amazon do the chasing.

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🖥️ Access any computer remotely for free: Chrome Remote Desktop lets you connect to your home or work PC from anywhere. We’re talking full control. Mouse, keyboard, files, everything. Look at documents, launch apps or type text that will appear on the other screen. Takes less than a minute to set up, and your office is wherever you go. No subscription needed.

Some crimes you hear about feel low-stakes, like packing hotel towels or folks yanking Amazon packages off porches. This was not that.

In St. Paul, someone tried to steal copper from an electrical vault and triggered a surge that knocked out power lines at two intersections and set multiple vehicles on fire, including a minivan. It’s like tugging one wire and unplugging a whole neighborhood.

No injuries, no arrests, just a reminder the grid is not a vending machine.

🔜 Tomorrow: Customs can search more than your luggage. Border agents may legally go through your phone, texts, photos and other devices without a warrant. I’ll explain what they can access and the one thing you should do before you land. You need to know this. In your inbox tomorrow.

The answer: C) Spent gunpowder. Every astronaut who set foot on the lunar surface reported the same thing: Moon dust smells like a shooting range. Sharp, acrid, unmistakably metallic. 

Scientists debate the exact cause. Some think it was a chemical reaction triggered when the bone-dry lunar dust hit moist cabin air for the first time. Others believe it’s the result of billions of years of solar wind bombarding the moon’s surface, fundamentally changing the chemistry of the rock. The moon. Four billion years old, 238,000 miles away and apparently smells like your uncle’s gun cabinet.

Neil Armstrong used to tell really bad jokes about walking on the moon. When nobody laughed, he would follow with, “Ah, well. I guess you had to be there.”

🗣️ You’re in the room but not in the conversation. Stop nodding and guessing at the dinner table. You deserve to hear every word without the exhaustion. Put Horizon IX to the test for 45 days and see the difference for yourself. If it doesn’t change your life, send it back.*

🐒 Somewhere a kid tried something for the first time today and absolutely nailed it on attempt number seven. You’ve got more attempts left than you think. — Kim

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Photo credit(s): NASA, Levoit, Minnesota Department of Transportation

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