Astra plans to become the first small rocket maker to go public, the company announced Tuesday, after reaching space for the first time in December. It’ll become the second publicly traded space venture after Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

The Northern California-based rocket firm’s “3.2” launch vehicle blasted to space for the first time in December from its Kodiak, Alaska launch site, a key test mission that “far exceeded our team’s expectations,” Astra CEO Chris Kemp told reporters at the time. The launch demo, though just barely missing orbit, propelled Astra into a small group of firms that have reached space.

Read more at The Verge.

Ever submit a job application into the ether of the internet and subsequently hear nothing about it in the days, weeks, or even months to follow? If so, you’re in good company—both with having that experience and being annoyed by it: According to the Human Capital Institute, 75 percent of job applicants never hear back after applying for a job, and 60 percent are met with silence after an interview. Furthermore, according to a 2018 survey by Glassdoor and the Harris Poll, 47 percent of job seekers said potential employers not responding to them was one of their biggest job-hunt annoyances.

Not getting a response is undoubtedly frustrating, which makes following up an important step. But, what’s the best advice for how to follow up on a job application without coming across as desperate or unprofessional? Or even bugging a hiring manager to the point that lands you outside their good graces?

Read more at Well + Good.

24 hours…

Everyone has the same amount of time to achieve their business goals each day.

But are you using your allotted time as well as your competitors?

It’s easy to get lost in “busy work” rather than genuinely shifting the needle on the growth and progress of your business.

Working in the business rather than on it.

Read more at Jeff Bullas.

As shares of GameStop continued to fall for the second day in a row on Tuesday, billionaire Mark Cuban offered words of wisdom to Reddit users who may have seen their fortunes take a turn for the worse after last week’s astounding rally.

“I learned some expensive lessons when I first started trading stocks,” the Shark Tank investor said during an AMA session when asked what advice he had for people who have lost money over the last few weeks. “It was painful. But I tried to learn what I got right and wrong. Right now, right here. The game is changing. The hard part is ask yourself if what you believed in has actually changed.”

Read more at Fast Company.

Many people feel too intimidated to invest in stocks. It is scary to commit your hard-earned money when you have the chance to lose some or even all of it. But while stocks can fluctuate over the short run, they have produced higher returns than other investments such as U.S. government bonds. In other words, you get paid for the higher risk.

So if you are ready to make a long-term commitment, putting your cash into stocks can prove lucrative. The question comes down to which companies to invest in.

Read more at The Motley Fool.

ith working from home still going strong and fewer opportunities to eat out, the kitchen has become a high traffic area in many homes. In the early days of the pandemic, scratch cooking became a badge of honor and a homage to grandma, even spiking conversations with her on how to make meatloaf. While preparing all our meals daily was initially found to be fun and nostalgic, unfortunately, the novelty of this daily grind has taken its toll after months and months of slicing and dicing.

According to a survey conducted by the Food Industry Association, there has been a steady rumble among many people looking to downsize the amount of time they’re spending in the kitchen. Dubbed as COVID cooking fatigue, many folks, especially culinary newbies, want to “scratch” the laborious time needed in scratch cooking and get the heck out of the kitchen in record time. They’re hungry for short cuts to help them prepare and flavor their meals in nanoseconds.

Read more at US News.

Work crews ignite dynamite blasts in the remote and rugged southeast corner of Arizona, forever reshaping the landscape as they pulverize mountaintops in a rush to build more of President Donald Trump’s border wall before his term ends next month.

Each blast in Guadalupe Canyon releases puffs of dust as workers level land to make way for 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel columns near the New Mexico line. Heavy machines crawl over roads gouged into rocky slopes while one tap-tap-taps open holes for posts on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property.

Read more at US News.

President-elect Joe Biden's inaugural committee is urging Americans to stay home next month when he gets sworn in as the next president due to the coronavirus pandemic across the country.

The committee tweeted on Tuesday that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris "will be inaugurated during a time of unprecedented crisis for our country," adding that "it is their top priority to protect the health and safety of Americans, while demonstrating the strength and resilience of our country."

Read more at US News.

Emma Gao says that "when people taste our wine they're happy".

Ms Gao runs the Silver Heights winery and vineyards in China's Ningxia province, about 1,000 km (620 miles) west of Beijing.

They sit in the foothills of the Helan Mountains, where it's dry and sunny with mild temperatures in summer and plenty of irrigation from the Yellow River.

Read more at BBC News.

With infections rising and worries about the festive period growing, some families have decided Christmas isn't worth the risk and are either cancelling their plans or making last-minute changes.

Mick Thompson is still annoyed about placing third with his wife, Debbie, in the family Zoom quiz at the weekend. Perhaps that's an understatement - "quite distraught" is how he puts it. But when the initial red mist cleared, the pair had to address another issue that came up during the call: the annual Boxing Day get-together.

Read more at BBC News.