Science fiction has always been a medium for futuristic imagination and while different colored aliens and intergalactic travel are yet to be discovered, there is an array of technologies that are no longer figments of the imagination thanks to the world of science fiction. Some of the creative inventions that have appeared in family-favorite movies like "Back to the Future" and "Total Recall," are now at the forefront of modern technology. Here are a few of our favorite technologies that went from science fiction to reality.

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From: "Star Trek: The Original Series"

It's something that almost everyone has in their pockets. Mobile phones have become a necessity in modern life with a plethora of remarkable features. The first mobile phone was invented in 1973, the Motorola DynaTAC. It was a bulky thing that weighed 2.4 lbs. (1.1 kilograms) and had a talk time of about 35 minutes. It also cost thousands of dollars.

The Motorola DynaTAC was invented by Martin Cooper, who led a team that created the phone in just 90 days. A long-standing rumor was that Cooper got his inspiration from an episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk used his hand-held communications device. However, Cooper stated in a 2015 interview that the original inspiration was from a comic strip called Dick Tracy, in which the character used a "wrist two-way radio."

From: "Star Trek: The Original Series"

While exploring space, characters such as Captain Kirk and Spock would come across alien life who spoke a different language. To understand the galactic foreigners, the Star Trek characters used a device that immediately translated the alien's unusual language. Star Trek's universal communicator was first seen on screen as Spock tampered with it in order to communicate with a non-biological entity (Series 2 Episode 9, Metamorphosis).

Although the idea in Star Trek was to communicate with intelligent alien life, a device capable of breaking down language barriers would revolutionize real-time communication. Now, products such as Sourcenext's Pocketalk and Skype's new voice translation service are capable of providing instantaneous translation between languages. Flawless real-time communication is far off, but the technological advancements over the last decade mean this feat is within reach.

From: "Star Trek: The Original Series"

The idea behind "beaming" someone up was that a person could be broken down into an energy form (dematerialization) and then converted back into matter at their destination (rematerialization). Transporting people this way on Star Trek's USS Enterprise had been around since the very beginning of the series, debuting in the pilot episode.

Scientists haven't figured out how to teleport humans yet, but they can teleport balls of energy known as photons. In this case, teleportation is based on a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. This refers to a condition in quantum mechanics where two entangled particles may be very far from one another, yet remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, regardless of distance. The information exchange between the two photons occurs at least 10,000 times faster than the speed of light.

Related: Chinese Scientists Just Set the Record for the Farthest Quantum Teleportation

From: "Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope"

Not long into the first Star Wars movie, Obi-Wan Kenobi receives a holographic message. By definition, a hologram is a 3D image created from the interference of light beams from a laser onto a 2D surface, and can only be seen in one angle.

In 2018, researchers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, created a real hologram. Their technique, called volumetric display, works like an Etch-A-Sketch toy, but uses particles at high speeds. With lasers, researchers can trap particles and move them into a designated shape while another set of lasers emit red, green and blue light onto the particle and create an image. But so far, this can only happen on extremely small scales.

Related: Cool! 'Star Wars'-Like Tech Warps Light into 360-Degree 3D Images

From: "Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back"

Imagine getting your hand chopped off by your own father and falling to the bottom of a floating building to then have your long-lost sister come and pick you up. It's unlikely in reality, but not in the Star Wars movies. After losing his hand, Luke Skywalker receives a bionic version that has all the functions of a normal hand. This scenario is now more feasible than the previous one.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, have been developing a way for amputees to control each of their prosthetic fingers using an ultrasonic sensor. In the movie, Skywalker's prosthesis uses electromyogram sensors attached to his muscles. The sensors can be switched into different modes and are controlled by the flexing or contracting of his muscles. The prosthesis created by the Georgia Tech researchers, however, uses machine learning and ultrasound signals to detect fine finger-by-finger movement.

From: "Blade Runner"

Director Ridley Scott presents a landscape shot of futuristic Los Angeles in the movie "Blade Runner." While scanning the skyscrapers, a huge, digital, almost-cinematic billboard appears on one of the buildings. This pre-internet concept sparked the imagination of Andrew Phipps Newman, the CEO of DOOH.com. DOOH which stands for Digital Out Of Home is a company dedicated to providing live, dynamic advertisements through the use of digital billboards. The company is now at the forefront of advertising as it offers a more enticing form; one that will make people stop and stare.

Digital billboards have come a long way since DOOH was founded in 2013. They have taken advantage of crowded cities, such as London and New York, to utilize this unique advertising tactic. Perhaps the more recent "Blade Runner 2049" will bring us even more new technologies.

From: "Blade Runner"

The "Blade Runner" story heavily revolves around the idea of synthetic humans, which require artificial intelligence (AI). Some people might be worried about the potential fallout of giving computers intelligence, which has had disastrous consequences in many science-fiction works. But AI has some very useful applications in reality. For instance, astronomers have trained machines to find exoplanets using computer-based learning techniques. While sifting through copious amounts of data collected by missions such as NASA's Kepler and TESS missions, AI can identify the telltale signs of an exoplanet lurking in the data.

Related: Why You Shouldn't Expect to See 'Blade Runner' Replicants Anytime Soon

From: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Orbiting Earth in "2001: A Space Odyssey" is Space Station V, a large establishment located in low-Earth orbit where astronauts can bounce around in microgravity. Does this sound familiar?

The Space Station V provided inspiration for the International Space Station (ISS), which has been orbiting the Earth since 1998 and currently accommodates up to six astronauts at a time. Although Space Station V appears much more luxurious, the ISS has accomplished much more science. The ISS has been fundamental to microgravity research since the start of its construction in 1998.

The Space Station V wasn't just an out-of-this-world holiday experience, it was also employed as a pit-stop before traveling to the Moon and other long-duration space destinations. The proposed Deep Space Gateway would be a station orbiting the moon that would serve a similar purpose.

Related: The 25 Greatest Spaceships of Science Fiction

From: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Tablets are wonderful handheld computers that can be controlled at the press of a finger. These handy devices are used by people across the globe, and even further upwards on the ISS. Apple claims to have invented the tablet with the release of its iPad. However, Samsung made an extremely interesting case in court that Apple was wrong: Stanley Kubrick and Sir Arthur C. Clarke did, by including the device in 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968.

In the film, Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Frank Poole watch news updates from their flat-screen computers, which they called "newspads." Samsung claimed that these "newspads" were the original tablet, featured in a film over 40 years before the first iPad arrived in 2010. This argument was not successful though, as the judge ruled that Samsung could not utilize this particular piece of evidence.

From: "Back to the Future Part II"

The Back to the Future trilogy is a highly enjoyable trio of time-traveling adventures, but it is Part II that presents the creators' vision of 2015. The film predicted a far more outlandish 2015 than what actually happened just five years ago, but it got one thing correct: hoverboards, just like the one Marty McFly "borrows" to make a quick escape.

Although they aren't as widespread as the film perceives, hoverboards now exist. The first real one was created in 2015 by Arx Pax, a company based in California. The company invented the Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA) used to provide the levitation of a hoverboard. The board generates a magnetic field, which in turn creates an eddy current, which then creates another opposing magnetic field. These magnetic fields repel each other against a copper "hoverpark" that provides lift.

From: "Total Recall"

In the 1990 film, set in 2084, Total Recall's main protagonist Douglas Quaid (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) finds himself in the middle of a sci-fi showdown on Mars. In one scene Quaid is on the run from the bad guys and jumps into a driverless car. In the front is "Johnny Cab," which is the car's on-board computer system. All Johnny needs is an address to take the car to its intended destination.

Although the driverless car wasn't seen in action before the protagonist yells profanities and takes over the driving, the idea of having a car that takes you to your destination using its onboard satellite navigation has become increasingly popular. The company at the forefront of driverless cars is Waymo, as they want to eradicate the human error and inattention that results in dangerous and fatal accidents.

In 2017, NASA stated its intentions to help in the production of driverless cars, as they would improve the technologies of robotic vehicles on extraterrestrial surfaces such as the Moon or Mars.

Additional resources:

This article was adapted from a previous version published in All About Space magazine, a Future Ltd. publication. Email Lee Cavendish at lee.cavendish@futurenet.com. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcomand onFacebook.

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Welcome to the future: 11 ideas that went from science fiction to reality - Space.com

Multiple missions and launches have now been put on hold.

Space companies and organizations have continued to announce a swathe of delays and closures, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to have a lasting impact on the space industry.

Already last week, several rocket launches and space missions had been affected by the pandemic. A European mission to Mars was postponed for two years in part due to the pandemic, for example, while launches from a spaceport in French Guiana had ceased

Now the COVID-19 pandemic has led to more recent shutdowns in the UK and US, limiting the ability of employees to work on key missions and in some instances, shutting down entire companies for the foreseeable future.

NASA

NASA is continuing to limit how many of its employees work on site, moving most of its workforce to remote working. After two NASA employees contracted the virus, the agency has moved many of its centres to mandatory telework.

This has put the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope on hold, raising fresh doubts about its launch. The much-delayed telescope had been expected to finally launch in 2021.

And key questions remain over whether the agency will be able to launch humans on SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft in May, its Perseverance rover to Mars in July, and even its planned Artemis mission to the Moon.

However, other NASA operations are continuing, including its operation of the International Space Station (ISS). NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner remain on schedule to launch to the ISS on April 9.

Astronauts are continuing to live and work on the ISS.

Bigelow Aerospace

According to media reports, Nevada-based company Bigelow Aerospace laid off its entire workforce on Monday, March 23. SpaceNews quoted one source as saying that the coronavirus pandemic was just one of a perfect storm of problems.

Bigelow installed a module on the ISS in 2016, called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM). The impressive module launched in a compact form and inflated to its full size once attached, a technology that could be useful for future missions to Mars and elsewhere.

However, reports suggested the layoffs could be permanent rather than temporary, leaving the future of BEAM and other developments at Bigelow including plans for an orbiting space hotel in partnership with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) up in the air.

ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced yesterday, Tuesday, March 24 that it was putting four of its ongoing missions on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement, they said that the Earth-observing Cluster spacecraft, the Mars-orbiting Trace Gas Orbiter and Mars Express, and the Sun-orbiting Solar Orbiter, were all being put into standby mode and would cease scientific operations for the time being.

Our priority is the health of our workforce, and we will therefore reduce activity on some of our scientific missions, especially on interplanetary spacecraft, which currently require the highest number of personnel on site, ESA's Director of Operations Rolf Densing said in a statement.

These have stable orbits and long mission durations, so turning off their science instruments and placing them into a largely unattended safe configuration for a certain period will have a negligible impact on their overall mission performance.

Other missions that required more essential human involvement, such as the BepiColombo spacecraft that is currently on its way to orbiting the planet Mercury, would continue to be more directly supported.

BepiColombo is scheduled to arrive at Mercury in 2025.

Rocket Lab

The U.S. company Rocket Lab, which launches its Electron rocket from New Zealand, has postponed its next launch on Monday, March 30 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement, the company said it had paused launch preparations for the time being, in response to instructions from the New Zealand government for businesses to close and for people to stay at home.

We are working with the government, health officials, and our customers to determine when launch operations can resume, Rocket Lab said. The launch vehicle and ground systems will remain in a state of readiness for launch as the evolving situation allows it.

Virgin Orbit

The California-based company Virgin Orbit, which hopes to begin launching rockets from a carrier aircraft in the near-future, said it was sending its employees home for a week, in line with the states recommendations for all 40 million residents to work from home.

The company noted it had been deemed an essential service, however, and would resume operations next week. We will continue our essential work with fierce determination and perseverance, the company said in a statement.

But they noted that this would likely affect their plans to start launching soon. Unavoidably, this will have some impact on our launch date, and on the launches that immediately follow, they said.

Virgin Orbit hopes to complete its first launch this year.

SpaceX

Elon Musks California-based company is continuing to operate, following somewhat controversial comments from the founder and CEO that downplayed the pandemic.

SpaceX launched its sixth Starlink mission last week, taking its total number of satellites in orbit up to about 360, and is continuing preparations to launch humans for the first time on the Crew Dragon mission with NASA in May.

However, the company's next launch, a mission for the US Air Force on Monday, March 30, has now been put on indefinite hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.

And reports yesterday said that two workers at SpaceX had tested positive for coronavirus, with the company sending some of its employees home. SpaceX has so far been deemed a critical infrastructure business, and thus is allowed to remain open despite the pandemic.

OneWeb

Despite launching 34 more satellites in its planned space internet mega constellation on Sunday, March 22, the U.K.-based and Softbank-backed company OneWeb is facing growing problems

A report in Bloomberg last week claimed the company was considering bankruptcy owing to financial difficulties, prior to launching its satellites. In a subsequent statement, the company confirmed it had laid off employees and would likely experience launch delays owing to the coronavirus.

Like others, we are impacted by the global health and economic crisis and we need to dynamically adjust our workforce, the company said, reported TechCrunch.

"Therefore, we made the difficult decision to eliminate some roles and responsibilities as we work to focus on core operations. We are sorry to have had to take this step and were doing everything we can to support those affected.

OneWeb launched 34 satellites on Saturday, March 21, on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Small satellites

Small satellite industry body ACCESS.SPACE warned yesterday, Tuesday, March 24 that several companies in Europe faced difficulties due to the ongoing pandemic.

The body said that cash flow constraints, delays in research projects, and difficulties in networking posed a number of challenges for the operations of various NewSpace companies.

It recommended governments taking extraordinary measures to counteract the crisis and anticipate long term consequences, such as financial support for companies, protect workers against income losses, and introduce support measures to allow companies to operate remotely.

See original here:

The Coronavirus Is Starting To Have A Serious Impact On The Space Industry - Forbes

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A NASA astronaut whos about to leave the planet for six months will blast off without any family or fanfare because of the coronavirus.

Chris Cassidy said Thursday that he wont have any guests at his April 9 launch from Kazakhstan. He expects to say goodbye in Russia to his wife, Julie, on Friday, three weeks earlier than planned.

Because of the coronavirus outbreak, shes going back home to Houston. One of their three children, meanwhile, is trying to get back to the U.S. from New Zealand.

There will be a smaller team than usual at the launch pad, too.

It really is going to be strange, Cassidy told The Associated Press from cosmonaut headquarters in Star City, Russia.

He said hes already in quarantine ahead of his launch to the International Space Station.

The things that are stressing the rest of the world and the rest of America, are the same things that are stressing me right now, said Cassidy.

Its not like any other time in our lives as a generation, really, right? said the 50-year-old Navy captain and former Navy SEAL. Ill have my own interesting story to tell in years to come.

Cassidy is also dealing with a rare late-in-the-game crew switch. Hell spend 6 months on the space station with two Russians assigned to the flight just a month ago, after one of the original cosmonauts suffered an eye injury.

While training together to catch up, Cassidy, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner have been taking precautions to stay germ free, frequently washing their hands and keeping a safe distance from others.

The space station crew will drop from six to three a week after his arrival. It will remain at three people until SpaceX launches two NASA astronauts, as early as May, or another crew arrives on a Russian Soyuz capsule in the fall.

With only three people on board, it promises to be extraordinarily busy.

That doesnt bother me at all, Cassidy told the AP. In fact, Im excited. Bring it on.

Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner leave Tuesday for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They will be isolated there in a special hotel for astronauts, as is customary. But on launch day, there wont be the usual cheering, back-slapping throngs of well-wishers or journalists either.

Their families, bosses and dozens of others normally jam a special room behind a glass wall while the astronauts put on their spacesuits before liftoff.

Not this time.

Well be looking through the glass at maybe one video camera or something like this and then well get on the bus to go to a launch pad with a minimal team there, Cassidy said.

As for the Feb. 19 crew switch, Cassidy, from York, Maine, initially was crushed by the news. The former chief of NASAs astronaut corps and two-time space flier, Cassidy already knew the backup cosmonauts..

So no issues there, he said. However, my heart hurt for my two friends who thought they were so close to a rocket launch and were not going to get one, he told the AP.

Invanishin, like Cassidy an experienced spaceman, said earlier this week that hes surprised to be suddenly rocketing away, but life happens. He said the crew swap could have occurred even closer to launch and so the three have had some time for the news to settle in.

Cassidy acknowledges his stress level is higher than usual right now from worrying about his loved ones.

Were only human, he said, and well work through it and be fine.

See more here:

NASA astronaut to head to space station without fanfare - Las Vegas Review-Journal

- 'Have a schedule' -

Scott Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station. He told AFP that mindset was crucial.

"People need to have the right expectation, we don't know when this is gonna be over," he said.

"We could be in this for the long haul so your mindset needs to be: I'm living a similar thing to living in space for a year, I need to have a schedule, I need to get up at a regular time, to go to sleep at a regular time."

He also said exercise was key for both physical and mental well-being while confined.

"You need to schedule time for exercise. If you cannot get out if you don't have a garden, raise the window shade, open the window and stick your head outside, make that part of daily routine."

- Find your mission -

For Vincent Larnaudie-Eiffel, a former commander of a nuclear submarine, working well in confinement means finding and investing in your own personal "mission".

Just like on board the sub, "stuck in our apartments, we all share a mission and that is to protect others, medical workers and successfully navigate this ordeal."

He said it was important to establish a daily routine and stick to it.

"You can't give in... you need to do something with this suspended time."

For Larnaudie-Eiffel and his crewmates, this involved building models or growing plants under artificial light during their spare time.

"It's also important that everyone has their own space," he told AFP. "In a submarine it might be a cramped bed-space. It's the same in a cramped apartment."

- 'Try new things' -

Sailor Isabelle Autissier was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe alone. This involved a lot of time to herself.

But she said she never felt lonely because "I chose to be alone."

For people stuck at home she recommends using the time "to try new things, reading, listening to different music, write your journal, take photos, start drawing."

Above all it's important that people don't look too far ahead.

When she was at sea, facing an indeterminate amount of time alone "the first thing is not to count the days," said Autissier.

"You can't constantly be thinking I'll get there in three months, in a month, in 10 minutes."

- 'Morale dips are normal' -

Cyprien Verseux, an astrobiologist at Germany's University of Bremen, once spent over a year in a small pod with five other volunteers simulating conditions in a future mission to Mars.

"It's normal for your morale and productivity to dip," he said. "That's not a sign of weakness. Don't add guilt to your problems."

When in confinement for the experiment, Verseux wasn't allowed outside and was forbidden from communicating in real time with the outside world.

"Even if we don't all react the same to confinement we can adopt good practice that makes these periods more manageable," he said.

He recommends choosing one or two activities and practising hard.

"Also do your sport, light weights, do yoga, zumba... even if there's a lack of space there are solutions to stay in shape," he said.

- Stay in touch -

In 2009 astronaut Frank de Winne became the first European to command the International Space Station.

He said it was vital to maintain human contact, even if only electronically.

"Means of communication are there, you have to make the effort and use them," he said.

The Belgian, now in quarantine on Earth, makes sure to video call his elderly mother at the same time each day.

"That allows her to see me. It also creates a bit of structure for her because she knows that I'm going to call her," he said.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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In space, at sea: Professionals thriving in confinement have some Covid-19 work-from-home tips - Livemint

When lockdown was lifted in XiAn on March 1, queues of people were photographed outside marriage registry offices. They werent so inspired by their recent togetherness that they wanted it to go on forever. They were married couples filing for divorce.

Its not clear whether this sudden uptick in divorce requests is a genuine result of the isolation, or just a backlog from the few months when the offices were closed. But its not hard to imagine how being trapped in an enclosed space with someone for an extended period could lead to disdain - especially if you were having problems before it started.

It does have the potential to increase divorce rates, says Sarita Robinson, cognitive psychology lecturer at Central Lancashire University. If theres been any animosity in the past or if people are dragging a marriage on when its not working, itll bring it into very sharp focus. Youre also more likely to notice if your partner is having an affair. More close contact means youre going to be able to observe your partner more, she says, so if theyre secretly messaging, youre going to spot if more easily.

Even without bringing cheating into the mix, isolation is going to be a stressful experience. Nathan Smith, psychology and security researcher at Manchester University, has worked with astronauts and others isolated in extreme environments, and psychologically, he says, were on a par. The physical comparison between being isolated in Antarctica or space is obviously different from being in your home, but the psychological and social similarities are quite close, he says. The monotony and boredom, repetition, lack of variety, the feelings of anxiety and fear, the social proximity. Sound familiar?

Tensions that high are bound to lead to some conflict. To put it in perspective: Russian cosmonaut Valentine Lebedev, who spent 211 days aboard the Mir Space Station in 1982, estimated (based on his experiences and those of other Russian cosmonauts) that 30 per cent of the time spent in space involved crew conflict. The Mir Space Station core module had 90 cubic metres of living and working space, the average UK home has 67.8.

Were bunking up with our chosen partners, not random colleagues, but the astronauts still have one big advantage: training. A lot of people we work with are going to very dangerous places, but theyve been trained, so their relative fear is at a certain point, says Smith. We, on the other hand, are totally unprepared - both mentally and in our supply of toilet paper. Not only does that mean were likely to feel a similar amount of fear as an astronaut going into space, well also need to adapt much more quickly to deal with it. Its caught a lot of people off guard, says Smith, and preparedness is a big contributor to whether things like this are a success.

The ideal thing, says Robinson, would be to carefully choose your perfect isolation partner. But now that were in lockdown, thats not really an option. And realistically it doesnt matter who youre with, says Smith, if youre with them for a long enough time, things will eventually get too close. Whoever youre trapped with, its important to establish a new stay-at-home routine.

It will probably take a few days to adjust, says Robinson, its not insurmountable, you just have to find a new normal. Get up at a regular time, add an activity to your morning to replace your commute, schedule some afternoon exercise, divide up the space into individual offices. Co-working space Hubble suggests 30 square metres is the optimal office space per person so get your tape measures out.

The first few days are going to be very hard, says Smith. When youre adjusting to a new routine, youre going to have ups and downs. Its an uncertain time for everyone; for some, who have lost their jobs or are running businesses in jeopardy, its even more traumatic. Its not traumatic in the sense that its an earthquake or a hurricane, says Robinson, but actually subjectively some people will take this quite hard.

This is where we have one up on the astronauts. If you look at things like the space missions, youve got people who dont know each other very well, says Robinson, thats much more difficult than if youve got people who are couples.

You get social support from the people that youre close to. They provide you with a social buffer and if youre worried or anxious or upset, they help you deal with it.

So, when youre down, take advantage of the fact that your partner is with you, and lean on them for support (no more crying in the office toilets). But also be aware of how much youre complaining - and, if you can help it, try and cut down.

Covid-19 isnt the only thing thats contagious. One persons mood can be infectious to someone else, says Robinson, explaining that survival studies have found that if people pull together as a team and have structure, they do really well, but if someone becomes despondent then the whole group feels worse. So its about both trying to be optimistic.

Different people respond to partner support in different ways. In 1993, Clemens Kirschbaum invented the Trier Social Stress Test, a combination of different stress-inducing tasks, including preparing a presentation for a mock job interview and counting back from 1,022 in multiples of 13.

When the German biopsychologist used this test to stress out men, he found that if they were supported by their female partners, their cortisol levels were much lower. The men really benefitted from that social support, but that was reversed when the women were doing the public speaking and counting backwards, says Robinson. Womens cortisol levels increased when their partner was with them.

The study was repeated and refined last year, and the results followed a similar pattern. Immediately after stress, both sexes benefited from their partner being there. But the anti-stress impacts wore off for the women after an hour, whereas the men saw a sustained drop in cortisol levels. If these results are generalisable, we may find that men find being isolated with a partner quite nice, and the women go a little nuts, says Robinson.

Stress is directly linked to conflict, especially in confined spaces. In one mock space mission, 85 per cent of conflicts involved the two crew members with the highest stress ratings. Astronauts have procedures for dealing with it: its part of their job. Theres a lot of self restraint, biting your tongue, not saying things in the moment and revisiting it later when youre calmer, says Smith.

Thats a lot easier said than done when your partner is doing something annoying so try pre-empting conflict instead. One of the best ways of managing conflict is physically removing yourself from the presence of the person whos annoying you, says Robinson. If you cant go outside for a jog (or if youve already used up your daily allocation), then designate a space in your flat where you can go for some personal space. Any size works, and a door helps; one quarantinee trapped on the Diamond Princess cruise liner recommends the closet.

Calming conflicts has more than just emotional benefits. An Ohio State University study found that couples who regularly argue have reduced immune function. Wound healing has been found to be impaired in married couples who showed higher levels of conflict, says Robinson. And not just a little. High-conflict couples healing abilities decreased by 40 per cent versus their low-conflict counterparts.

But its not all doom and gloom. Smith tells me that, in 2014, researchers did a preparatory study for a future Mars mission. They confined a group of six people in a very small space for 520 days, he says, it was basically a garage with crew quarters. Some were more scathed than others, but they all made it through.

One Covid couple, also stuck on the Diamond Princess, credited quarantine for improving their relationship. Greg and Rose Yerex, a Canadian couple in their sixties, tested positive for the virus. They were asymptomatic, but were still put in quarantine for 14 days. It was there they learned to talk to each other again. Weve been married thirty-four years, and wed drifted into some pretty serious bad habits, Greg told the New Yorker. Being put together for twenty-four hours a day for two weeks, we wound up learning a lot about each others fears, hopes, and dreams.

While we can all strive to be like the Yerexs, its always good to have a backup plan. My partner and I have come up with a code phrase, so we can call a truce on little arguments without actually having to apologise or be nice to each other. Feel free to pick one of your own. Ours is Cuban Missile Crisis, which also doubles as a handy reminder that things could be a lot worse.

Digital Society is a digital magazine exploring how technology is changing society. It's produced as a publishing partnership with Vontobel, but all content is editorially independent. Visit Vontobel Impact for more stories on how technology is shaping the future of society.

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A Houston-based organization affiliated with NASA has teamed up with a video game company to advance virtual simulation in space medicine.

The Translational Research Institute for Space Health, known as TRISH, in partnership with NASA in a consortium led by Baylor College of Medicine, California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge has advanced a new approach for space medicine using video game technology by collaborating with video game company, Level Ex.

"We discovered Level Ex through a process of landscaping the many virtual simulation companies that were out there," says Andrew Peterman Director of Information System at TRISH. "We especially noted those that were on the cutting edge of the technology."

Based in Houston, TRISH aims to collaborate with the best and the brightest to revolutionize space health, providing grants to companies with innovative concepts. With Level Ex, they found a new approach to decode earthly medical technologies in space.

Level Ex, a Chicago-based company created in 2015 was founded to provide training games for doctors to use to practice surgeries and procedures. The games are interactive, with the virtual patient reacting to the actions of the player. The training simulations consist of in-depth and physics-driven medical simulations that are verified by doctors in their advisory board.

"We're hoping to completely change the ways that doctors stay up to speed," says Level Ex founder-and-CEO Sam Glassberg.

With their ongoing collaboration with TRISH, they have a challenge that's out of this world. In space, astronauts have limited space for medical tools and run on a limited crew. This makes providing basic medical training to all astronauts especially important.

Especially since the body begins to react to the new environmental conditions of space missions. The effects can be small or lead to new changes or challenges for astronauts who take on long-range missions. Astronauts may see their bodies slowly start to lose bone and muscle mass. Their fluid begins to shift toward their head, leading to increased risks of hypertension and thrombosis.

All of these are challenges NASA is working to address with the help of gaming technology from Level Ex that innovates the technology with higher-level capability and training. Combining video game technology and medical simulation applications to incorporate and explore the interplay of environmental conditions found in space.

"What we really liked about Level Ex is that they have an amazing team both on the clinical and technical side, says Peterman. "They are a group of former big-name game developers who along with clinical experts have married technology and medicine with their platform producing full in engine physics-driven real simulations rather than video playback."

The astronauts will train using simulations that allow them to practice a procedure in zero gravity conditions and even simulate the gravity conditions of Mars. The game will also allow astronauts to get their own on-screen avatar with their medical information thus allowing fellow astronauts to gain more practice and experience with fewer variables in space.

The advanced medical simulation platform has potential for commercial uses on earth, improving the range of the technology to simulate new, rare, and complex scenarios across a range of medical specialties, allowing doctors to practice a range of difficult scenarios without putting patient lives at risk.

Peterman says that the partnership is expected to continue into the future for immediate applications along with other innovations in astronaut healthcare, including autonomous frameworks to provide medical knowledge in outer space.

Original post:

Houston-based research organization taps video game makers to advance space medicine - InnovationMap

UAE students have been invited to take part in a challenge that allows them to programme robots to save the International Space Station from disastrous situations.

The Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC) is being held by Japans space agency, Jaxa, in collaboration with Nasa.

The UAE Space Agency and Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre made the challenge available to all students in the country too.

The competition requires students to come up with breakthrough programming for Jaxas free-flying camera robot, Int-ball, and Nasas free-flying robotic system, Astrobee, so they can solve emergencies that may arise on the ISS.

For this specific competition, the emergency scenario given to students is a meteor having crashed into the ISS, causing a life-threatening air leakage on the outpost.

Pupils will work in teams to create their own programme which allows Int-ball to support Astrobee as a camera drone in order to stop the leakage. They will use Jaxas online simulation environment to develop the programmes.

Participants will have the chance to learn cutting-edge methodologies and to hone their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics through this programme, the competition guidebook read.

The KiboRPC will also expand international exchange by encouraging students to interact with other participants from around the world.

The competition aims to promote the study of Stem subjects among young people.

Engineering teaches us that a simulation can only approximate the real world. Thus, participants are expected to learn techniques for creating simulation programmes that perform well in the real world despite uncertainties and within margins of error, the guidebook said.

Students will learn the necessity of controlling and correcting positions and orientation of a free-flying robot and how to perform assigned tasks in the onboard environment through simulation trials.

The Astrobee and Int-ball are functioning robots used on the ISS. UAE astronaut, Maj Hazza Al Mansouri, gave a presentation using the Int-ball onboard the station during his space mission last year.

Competition applications must be submitted by April 19.

The preliminary round will be hosted by UAEs Space Agency in June. The winning teams will go on to the final round hosted at Jaxas Tsukuba Space Centre, with real-time connections to the ISS.

The final, expected to take place in September, will also be broadcasted worldwide.

More information on the competition is available online at UAE Space Agencys website.

Updated: March 21, 2020 08:52 PM

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UAE students invited to programme heroic space robots - The National

After decades of fighting to be taken seriously, meteorologists say space weather is beginning to get the attention it deserves.

The Trump administration continued the Space Weather Operations, Research and Mitigation (SWORM) working group established by the Obama Administration. SWORM is an interagency panel focused on coordination of federal work aimed at building resilience to the effects of space weather. In addition, space weather legislation is pending in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Everyone agrees this issue is important and it has to be addressed, Bill Murtagh, NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center program coordinator, said at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) conference in Boston earlier this year.

For years, space weather experts in government, industry and academia have been pointing out how vulnerable the electric power grid and Global Positioning System satellites are to solar storms.

The U.S. government has finally figured out that the potential for catastrophic economic impacts from a large space weather event is cause for concern, David Klumpar, director of Montana State Universitys Space Science and Engineering Lab, said by email.

Meanwhile, NASA is preparing to send people beyond low Earth orbit for the first time in 50 years, exposing astronauts to higher levels of the suns radiation. Sun activity is likely to rise in the 2020s as the current solar minimum makes way for solar maximum. And the Defense Department is creating a U.S. Space Force.

As solar maximum comes again and the Space Force stands up, we will start having a lot more specific requirements, Maj. Janelle Jenniges, Air Force Space Weather Integration chief, said at the AMS conference.

Even with the renewed attention, experts say, it will take years for the U.S. government to improve the coordination of space weather activities and to fill the gaps in its space weather observing systems.

The National Academies plans to hold a workshop in mid-2020 in the Washington area to examine the U.S. space weather infrastructure and proposals for improving it.

We want to take a holistic approach rather than an ad hoc opportunistic approach, Elsayed Talaat, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Office of Projects, Planning and Analysis, said at AMS.

As those discussions take place, key U.S. and European space weather satellites are approaching the end of their lives. NASAs Advanced Composition Explorer, sent to Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1 in 1997 to monitor solar wind and energetic particles, is expected to run out of propellant around 2024. NASAs remaining Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellite, launched in 2006 to orbit the sun and provide imagery of coronal mass ejections and other phenomena, will detect solar activity days before it reaches Earth for about two more years. The solar panels on NASA-European Space Agency Solar and Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO) are set to stop working by 2025. SOHO has monitored coronal mass ejections from Lagrange Point 1 since 1995.

The job of replacing aging space weather satellites and launching new ones is shared by federal agencies. NASA and the National Science Foundation contribute to space weather research and modeling. NOAA issues space weather forecasts. The Defense Department creates additional classified and unclassified space weather analysis and forecasts.

U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) introduced the Space Weather Research and Forecasting Act in 2019 to clarify the roles and responsibilities of each agency with respect to space weather. The bill also calls on NOAA to develop a replacement for SOHO and directs the Department of Homeland Security to identify critical infrastructure that could be disrupted by space weather. The Senate passed similar legislation in 2017.

In the House, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) introduced a bill, Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow, to delineate federal agency roles and encourage greater information sharing among federal, academic or commercial space weather forecasters. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee approved the legislation in January.

Space weather can cause significant damage to our infrastructure and our economy, Perlmutter told SpaceNews by email. We need to make sure we are all working together to have the best research which informs the best modeling and forecasting possible.

Although the Senate and House bills are not identical, their intent is very much the same, said a congressional aide who asked not to be identified. Our goal over the coming months is to get together on the same text of the bill. Then, we have a good shot at getting it passed in both the House and the Senate.

Meanwhile, federal agencies are developing and launching new space weather sensors.

The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded contracts to Applied Technology Associates of Albuquerque New Mexico, and Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville, Alabama, to build prototype Energetic Charge Particle sensors. In 2015, then-Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James issued a memo calling for future Air Force satellites to include an energetic charged particle sensor. The sensors are designed to improve Air Force space weather models and pinpoint which anomalies are caused by the actions of an adversary versus space weather.

NOAA is developing Space Weather Follow On (SWFO), a satellite destined for Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1 to house the Naval Research Laboratorys Compact Coronagraph and suite of instruments to measure solar wind. Scheduled for launch in 2024, SWFO is designed to carry on the work of SOHO and NOAAs Deep Space Climate Observatory launched in 2015.

NOAA also plans to send a second Compact Coronagraph into orbit in 2025 on Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U.

The joint European Space Agency-NASA Solar Orbiter launched Feb. 9 to observe the suns poles, outer atmosphere and solar wind.

In 2024, NASA plans to send Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) to Lagrange Point 1 to study particles and radiation streaming from the sun toward Earth. In addition to providing real-time solar wind data, IMAP is designed to host SWFO.

NASA plans to mount another space weather instrument, the Atmospheric Waves Experiment, on the exterior of the International Space Station in 2022 to observe the light in Earths atmosphere called airglow and determine how this combination of forces drives space weather in the atmosphere, Nicola Fox, NASAs Heliophysics Division director, said at AMS.

In 2022, NASA is set to launch the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere mission to observe and track solar wind leaving the sun as well as coronal mass ejections. The PUNCH mission includes four small satellites.

Three act together to make a widefield imager and the fourth makes a narrow-field imager, Fox said. We are already talking to NOAA about how that can help with real-time aspects of space weather.

Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, a mission designed to ride into orbit as a secondary payload on PUNCH, is focused on gathering information on particles and fields in the region near the North Pole where magnetic field lines curve down toward Earth.

We are making tremendous progress, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate, said at AMS. The most important thing is to take the measurements and start driving them toward predictive power in the space weather domain.

This article originally appeared in the March 16, 2020 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

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US government aims for better coordination in space weather campaign - SpaceNews

SpaceX will be launching a resupply mission to the International Space Station from Florida this week.

SpaceX and NASA are set to send a Dragon capsule filled with supplies and science to the International Space Station this weekend, and you can follow the journey live here.

A Falcon 9 rocket will launch the cargo ship from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Friday evening if all goes according to plan. The Dragon spacecraft for this mission will make its third trip to the space station and the first-stage booster of the Falcon 9 will make its second flight. Its first mission was the most recent resupply mission to the ISS that launched in December.

You can watch the launch live Friday via the embedded video below. Launch is scheduled for 8:49 p.m. PT, and NASA's live coverage should start streaming about 20 minutes prior to then.

In addition to supplies to support the astronauts living on the ISS, the Dragon is also carrying scientific experiments that will help researchers learn more about 3D printing in space, test the production of heart cells in microgravity and also study its effects on chemical reactions.

Adidas will also send a payload to see how its Boost shoe technology and the foam that it's made up of responds to microgravity.

After the launch, the Falcon 9 booster will attempt to return and make a dry ground landing back at Cape Canaveral.

This is the 20th and final Dragon mission of NASA's original Commercial Resupply Services program, but it has been renewed and the second contract will see SpaceX as well as competitors Sierra Nevada and Northrop Grumman resupplying the ISS in the months and years to come.

The launch is just the beginning of the Dragon's journey. Once it docks with the ISS, it will spend about a month in orbit there before returning to earth for a splash down sometime in April.

Read the rest here:

How to watch SpaceX send another Dragon to the International Space Station - CNET

Airbus has sent a new fluid experiment, FOAM-C, to the International Space Station (ISS). FOAM-C, which was developed and manufactured for the European Space Agency (ESA), is scheduled to be activated this month by astronaut Jessica Meir, who has been on the ISS since September 2019.

The FOAM-C experiment studies the stability of foams away from the influence of Earth's gravity. The scientists are interested in the behaviour of the foams at different liquid fraction and in particular around the point of un-jamming (transition from a solid-like to liquid-like structure), which can be studied only in microgravity.

In addition this experiment might provide useful insights for the manufacture, use and ageing behaviour of foams, which are utilised in a wide range of areas, including in cosmetics and personal-hygiene products, in the food industry, in cleaning products, sealing products and for firefighting.

The FOAM-C experimental set-up comprises five segments with a total of 20 small test cells containing a variety of liquid mixtures. The Fluid Science Laboratory on the ISS Columbus module will automatically shake and analyse these mixtures using complex laser optics, highly sensitive photodiodes and high-resolution cameras that can take up to 10,000 images per second.

Each test cell weighs only 20 grams and contains less than 2 cm of the liquid mixture, while each segment comprises four test cells and weighs a total of 320 grams.

Related LinksAirbusSpace Technology News - Applications and Research

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Airbus now 'foaming' on board the International Space Station - Space Daily

UFO fans were very active this week when an unidentified object appeared to fly alongside the International Space Station. The video which lasts over 20 minutes was captured on NASA's live TV as the ISS orbited about 220 miles above Earth.

The views of UFOs are not new to the Space Station. Several timessince the Station began orbiting the Earth in 2000other objects have been seen. They usually turn out to be space debris but some are unidentified. What makes the February 22 encounter different is that after pacing along next to the ISS the object appears to fly off at a different angle.

About a third of Americans believe UFOs are alien visitorsand two thirds think the government knows more than they are telling us. Here's the entire 22 minutes of the NASA video so you can determine for yourself what the cone shaped visitor may be:

On the audio feed the astronaut seems to not be seeing the object on the NASA live broadcast. Look out the window please!

The rest is here:

What the heck is this thing flying beside the Space Station? - wkdq.com

Courtesy of WikiImages (Pixabay)

About two weeks ago, the NASA live feeds on YouTube picked up footage of an object flying rather close to the International Space Station (ISS), and UFOologist Scott C. Waring, the creator of the site UFO Sightings Daily and YouTube channel ET Data Base, spotted it as he watched from back here on Earth.

During a routine maintenance procedure on the ISS,he saw the objecta cone-shaped metallic objecthovering near the space station.The footage lasts for about 22 minutes, then the object starts increasing speed and shoots upward into deep space.The camera can be seen zooming in on the cone-shaped object, which Waring says is NASAs doing, not his.

Is it an alien ship from deep space, or some sort of secret craft the government is working on? NASA says no, releasinga statement that the object was likely space debris, light from Earth, or a reflection.

This is certainly not the first time someone has claimed to see a UFO on the NASA live feeds. Another space feed watcher, John Craddick, from the U.K. was certain he saw one in January after the feed cut out then came back online. Craddick says, in that case, the object grew bigger after about 25 seconds then disappeared. Waring also says he saw a UFO in the NASA live feeds back in January 2020, where he saw a glowing object matching speed with the space station; it was visible on the feeds for about 15 minutes.

Waring has been vocal for many years about possible UFO sightings and has several theories about life on other planets that he has shared on his website, as well as television shows and print.

NASA uses theHigh Definition Earth-Viewing System(HDEV) to record and stream live views from the ISS. The externally mounted camera system is called Node 2, and it'slocated on the forward portion of the ISS with the camera angle looking forward.

You can check out the footage below:

While we really dont know what the live feed captured, we know what NASA says and what the UFO hunters say, so ... we guess we'll just have to wait and see.

What do you think about all this UFO talk? Is it aliens, secret spycraft, or just space trash? Sound off with your theories in the comments.

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VIDEO: NASA Catches a Possible UFO on Live Feed From the International Space Station - Our Community Now at Maryland

When SpaceX conducted an in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft in January, few people appreciated the importance of such a system more than Nick Hague. In October 2018, he launched on a mission to the International Space Station with Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. But, just two minutes after liftoff, their Soyuz rocket malfunctioned, triggering the abort system on their Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft. The spacecraft landed safely about 400 kilometers from the launch site, with Hague and Ovchinin unhurt.

Hague did get to space on his second try, launching on another Soyuz with Ovchinin and NASAs Christina Koch in March 2019 to the ISS. He spent 203 days in space before returning in October. His time on the station overlapped with another NASA astronaut, Anne McClain, who launched to the station in December 2018, remaining there for 204 days through late June. Her time on the station included being there for the arrival of SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft on its uncrewed DM-1 test flight.

The two astronauts spoke with SpaceNews during a trip to Washington in mid-January, just before SpaceXs in-flight abort test, that included both outreach events and meetings with members of Congress. A condensed version of that interview follows.

Hague: Its pretty amazing how quickly you bounce back. You know, Im three months after landing and Im out and running and everything is pretty much back to normal. The countermeasures we have in place on the station the ARED [Advanced Resistive Exercise Device] resistive weightlifting, the treadmill, the cycle all of those things do a really great job of keeping us fit and keeping us strong so that when we land we dont have to worry about that. Its more just balance and stabilization muscles and getting used to feeling weight again, which is shocking.

McClain: Gravity is a shockingly strong force when you havent felt it for a long time. Getting used to being in gravity is far harder than getting used to not being in gravity. Its harder to come back than it is to go up.

Hague: They ease us into it a little bit. We land and then the scientists want their data, which are little bits and pieces of us. We spend the next several weeks following landing getting scans and giving blood samples and just going through all of those experiments, helping them complete the studies that they started on orbit. Its a pretty hectic schedule for the first couple of weeks that youre back before you get a chance to really catch your breath. But part of it all is getting the chance to give your wife and kids a hug. That was super huge for me, and then just getting reintegrated back in the house and starting to live a little bit of a normal life.

McClain: I think one of the things that I noticed when I landed was how many sensory inputs we as humans have every single day. Even just sitting here, its how many people are in the room, and theres emails and phone calls and everything. Station life was complicated. It required your focus. But you had one thing to do at a time and you were very clear on the mission. Our planners in Houston deconflict our schedules for us. Coming back and getting used to how complicated it is to be a human living on Earth was actually kind of interesting.

McClain: I wanted to go to space since I was three years old, and I spent 39 years wanting to go to space. I had the experience and then I came back. And what Im left with is this desire, 10 times what I ever felt before in my life, of wanting to go to space. Whats neat about living on the International Space Station is that we do just that: we live on the International Space Station, and it becomes our home. So, where most people see this complicated engineering marvel, which it absolutely is, we also have memories of home. I think well probably spend the rest of our lives reflecting back, and I think the meaning of that flight will change over time. I wish we could take every human up and just show them what Earth look like from space. Its an amazing perspective and one that we will always have the honor and the burden of trying to articulate and share.

Hague: You live at home with your family and so were up there with our family and theyre from all over the world. Something that Ive taken away from this whole experience is just the power of our common interest in space to unite us.

Hague: Theres so many things. Theres pinch me moments all the time: just playing with water or playing with your food. It doesnt have to be the huge experience of doing a spacewalk, although that was something that was very memorable. Both of us got to do our first spacewalk together.

McClain: I dont know if theres any one particular moment, although if I have to picture the ahh moment, it was the first moments we came out of the hatch on our spacewalk. There was this moment I went out and, about a minute later, Nick came out, so I had this minute of being the only person outside the space station, looking at this amazing view that I could never have even expected. You know, we see the Earth out of the cupola all time, but for some reason when you go outside that station, you look at the Earth, theres something very different about it when its just you in space.

Hague: It absolutely changes your perspective to look down at the Earth, and see all its detail, in these most vivid colors in Northern Africa or glaciers in South America. Its just so vibrant. You can look down and see the Earth as this distinct thing, and at the same time, look up and see the depth of space, and you get a true sense for just this little oasis that we have here that we live on. And for me, its this deep sense of ownership: not my personal ownership of the planet, but humanitys ownership of the planet and that is something that we need to take care of.

McClain: People talk about the Overview Effect and how it changes you. For me personally, my change perspective came from all the people that we worked with. I mean, its become such a clichd phrase to say you put your lives in the hands of someone, but when you are walking to the launchpad in Kazakhstan, you are surrounded by people from multiple different countries. When you walk to that launchpad, you are just a human. And Im standing next to a Russian and a Canadian. Suddenly, we are just humans, and were about to go be ambassadors for this planet in outer space. We put our lives on the line in the hands of people from all over the world. And its successful: weve pulled off this amazing space station for the last 20 years because there are people all over the world every single day solving problems together. When we can be united not through fear, but through a common desire to explore, thats powerful.

Hague: I was confident in the system. Having gone through that, and just seeing the response and the information that came back to us in terms of what happened and getting to the root cause, I was confident to get back into it. But Id also watched somebody else do it right before me. Right after my abort, two months later, Annes getting into a Soyuz rocket and getting ready to launch.

The Soyuz system is a very robust and dependable system. We spend a quarter to 50% of our time during those two years leading up to launch over in Star City, working through all those contingencies: if this breaks, what do you do? And that abort is something that we had simulated. Im super excited to watch the [SpaceX] launch abort.

McClain: We like to say we were the first crew of the Dragon because we got to go inside. The night before DM-1 showed up, we had been on the space station for three months by ourselves. The forward hatch had not been opened since the last space shuttle was there. And we had all this cargo there: it had just become like that area in your house you didnt go to. David [Saint-Jacques] and I were looking at that and, first of all, we called Houston and said we probably want to move that. They said, Oh, yeah.

We cleaned it up and then were just looking at that. It was so quiet. And were thinking, on the front of the space station is about to be our next major leap in spaceflight, this next era. So it was very special to watch DM-1. And it had that new spaceship smell.

Hague: Who doesnt want to go to the moon, right? But one of the key things is the magnitude of the program and how its all interconnected. Weve got 20 years of people living on the station helping us learn about how to live in space. During our time up there, were helping shake out some of the hardware thats going to be used to get us back to the moon. You see every one of the things that youre doing contributing to this larger program thats pushing us forward.

McClain: The Artemis program is super-exciting. I would love to get to be one of the people to put boots on the moon. I would take a space station mission again. As Sheryl Sandberg says, if somebody offers you a seat on a rocket, you dont ask what seat. You just get on.

This article originally appeared in the Feb. 24, 2020 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

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'Gravity is a shockingly strong force': Astronauts Nick Hague and Anne McClain talk about life after their space station missions - SpaceNews

If you've always wanted to fly to the International Space Station or go on to the moon, NASA's next recruitment effort promises to bring future astronauts to both locations.

The agency began accepting applications for its next class of astronauts today (March 2), and U.S. citizens can apply here until March 31 at 11:59 p.m. EDT (0459 GMT April 1). The application process will take awhile, but NASA expects to make its final selections for astronaut candidates in mid-2021.

There's no word yet on how many people will be chosen, but competition will be fierce; the agency only picked 12 out of 18,300 applicants during the last selection, which wrapped up in 2017. One of the finalists resigned during training, leaving 11 people who graduated and became eligible for spaceflight early this year.

Related: What it's like to become a NASA astronaut: 10 surprising facts

The basics for qualification are rigorous, and accepted astronaut candidates usually exceed the mark. That said, NASA said applicants should hold a master's degree (or equivalent) in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) field, which could include engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics.

Some applicants may be accepted without the master's degree, if they hold one of these qualifications:

Outside of basic education, NASA demands experience either two years of "related, progressively responsible" work in your field, or a minimum of 1,000 hours command-piloting a jet aircraft. Candidates also must pass a NASA long-duration spaceflight physical, as you may spend anywhere from six months to a year in space on the International Space Station (ISS) after being selected for a flight.

NASA often asks new recruits about their experience working in isolated or dangerous environments, since it builds up useful skills for work on the ISS. For example: Christina Koch, who recently wrapped up nearly a year in space, did research for months at a time in Antarctica during her career before NASA.

New recruits typically spend about 2.5 years in basic training before being eligible for missions, and ISS missions often require 18 months or more of crew training before liftoff. This means new recruits likely won't fly until after 2024, when the first crewed moon landings of NASA's Artemis program are scheduled to take place, unless the schedule changes. That said, the agency plans to build a permanent presence on the moon in future flights and, if the funding and will persist, to go on to Mars in the mid-2030s.

"Becoming an astronaut is no easy task, because being an astronaut is no easy task," Steve Koerner, NASA's director of flight operations and chair of the astronaut selection board at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.

"Those who apply will likely be competing against thousands who have dreamed of, and worked toward, going to space for as long as they can remember. But somewhere among those applicants are our next astronauts, and we look forward to meeting you."

For more information on how to apply to be a NASA astronaut, visit the agency's application page here.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Excerpt from:

Want to go to the moon? NASA is now taking new astronaut applications - Space.com

Miramar Beach, FL The Multilateral Medical Operations Panel Acoustics Sub-Working Group for the International Space Station is the recipient of the 2020 NIOSH Safe-in-Sound Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention Award.

The award recognizes organizations and professionals who implement effective practices or innovations to help prevent noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus among workers exposed to noise on the job. The National Hearing Conservation Association presented the award in conjunction with NIOSH and the Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hearing Conservation.

According to a Feb. 18 NIOSH press release, the crew of the ISS which houses about six astronauts and cosmonauts at a time has not experienced a permanent mission-related hearing change since crews began residing there in November 2000.

While in orbit, crew members are constantly exposed to noise from equipment that controls basic amenities and sounds related to various experiments conducted on board. The MMOP acoustics subgroup comprising acoustical engineers, audiologists, industrial hygienists and physicians representing NASA; the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency; and the Canadian, European and Russian space agencies earned commendation for managing varied occupational noise hazards by:

Through this extraordinary program, astronauts really are truly safe in sound, Dennis Driscoll, past president of NHCA and an award panel member, said during the Feb. 21 award presentation at the associations annual meeting.

NIOSH, NHCA and CAOHC are accepting nominations for the 2021 award through July 15. Anyone interested in submitting a nomination can email nominations@safeinsound.us. The winner will be recognized at NHCAs next annual conference, set for Feb. 11-13 in Albuquerque, NM.

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International Space Station acoustics subgroup wins NIOSH's annual Safe-in-Sound award - Safety+Health magazine

LEE COUNTY

Twenty Lee County students took a trip out of this world Thursday without leaving Southwest Florida. They all celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing along with the International Space Station.

Hundreds of people packed Fort Myers High School to talk to astronaut Jessica Meri live from the International Space Station.

I started saying I wanted to be an astronaut since I was 5 years old, said Oren Philpott, a fifth-grade student. And I always had this idea that I really wanted to be in space looking back at the Earth and feeling what that would felt like with human eyes, looking back at the Earth with human eyes.

The event was a hit with all the students. Those we spoke to were both excited and encouraged by the experience. Students such as Philpott showed great enthusiasm for space field.

It made me want to go to space a little bit more, to go and explore the unknown, Philpott said.

But hes not so sure about being an astronaut. Oren told us he really liked events other special guest. Steven Zoeller worked as an advanced planner on Apollo 11.

The astronauts are the tip of the spear, Zoeller said. And what a lot of people forget is the spear behind the tip.

Zoeller hopes Oren follows in his footsteps.

Maybe hell help someone take the next giant leap for mankind, Zoeller said. We are going to have to have people there that are advanced in agriculture, that can grow things, that can prepare food, medical, they can take care of people, and that sort of thing.

The days pace talk was part of Lee Countys 50 years 50 schools initiative. Fifty schools across the district joined in space themed lessons and activities.

I really think it would be cool to do what he does, Oren said.

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Lee County students celebrate moon landing 50th anniversary with International Space Station - Wink News

Its days on Earth are numbered - the external platform Bartolomeo is currently waiting for its launch to the International Space Station (ISS) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule. "With the 'research balcony' Bartolomeo, the ISS is entering a new era," says Walther Pelzer, Member of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Executive Board and head of DLR Space Administration.

"This project 'made in Germany' is making a significant contribution to the commercialisation of the ISS. Bartolomeo is Europe's first private external platform on the ISS and offers companies and research institutions the unique opportunity to develop their project quickly and easily in space."

Following extensive vibration tests at the DLR Institute of Aeroelasticity in Gottingen, and successful final tests in Florida, SpaceX-20 is now set for launch on 6 March 2020. The platform was built by Airbus in Bremen and will be operated jointly with the Columbus Control Center at DLR's site in Oberpfaffenhofen.

An external laboratory to expand the ISSNamed after the younger brother of Christopher Columbus - the explorer and namesake of the European ISS laboratory - Bartolomeo is to be installed this spring as the first commercial platform on the exterior of the aforementioned Columbus laboratory.

To do this, the Canadian robotic arm will first move the platform to its destination and attach it there. Two astronauts will then carry out the electrical installation during an extravehicular activity.

With its dimensions of two by two and a half metres and a weight of 484 kilograms, the new platform will extend the available space on the ISS by adding a kind of research balcony with 12 payload slots and three antenna positions.

The payloads can be around half a cubic metre in size and have an unobstructed view of Earth or space from an altitude of approximately 400 kilometres. Bartolomeo is therefore particularly suitable for experiments that require an open space environment.

A wide range of possible uses"Radiation biologists, solar physicists and astrophysicists, Earth observers and atmospheric and climate researchers will all benefit from the new platform," says Julianna Schmitz, who is responsible for ISS commercialisation at the DLR Space Administration.

"Bartolomeo is particularly suitable for technology testing and validation. There are unique possibilities here that cannot be achieved in any laboratory on Earth because optical sensors, materials, robotic components and antennas can be tested directly in the space environment."

For example, the OSIRIS laser communications terminal of the DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation in Oberpfaffenhofen is also expected to be located on Bartolomeo from 2021. The system was developed in cooperation with the industrial partner TESAT in Backnang, near Stuttgart, and is intended to transmit the constantly growing volume of data from experiments on the ISS quickly and securely down to Earth.

In addition to the advantage of testing experiments and technologies directly in space, it is also considerably more cost-effective to conduct these experiments on Bartolomeo than it would be on satellites.

They do not require their own rocket launch but rather are accommodated on routine supply flights to the ISS. "This simple and cost-effective operation makes Bartolomeo particularly attractive for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and can open up new business opportunities for them, for example in the field of telecommunications," explains Schmitz.

"No astronauts will need to be deployed to retrofit Bartolomeo with scientific payloads. Thanks to the payloads' standardised dimensions and interfaces, installation is much easier and can be carried out purely robotically via remote control from Earth." A robotic arm on board the ISS picks up the module at one of the two experiment airlocks and installs it at its location on Bartolomeo.

Tickets for commercial ISS useBartolomeo is intended to give commercially motivated experiments quick and simplified access to the ISS. To this end, Airbus, as the manufacturer of Bartolomeo, also sells these flight opportunities to research and industrial organisations. According to Airbus, the annual rent will range between 300,000 to 3.5 million euro depending on the size of the payload.

This includes user support for experiment development and safety certification, the flight to the ISS, installation via the robotic arm, experiment operation and finally, data handling. In doing so, Airbus is not only a contractor. The company has invested 40 million euro of its own financial resources in the development, construction and operation of Bartolomeo and has developed the platform in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). Among the ESA member states, Germany is the largest stakeholder in the ISS programme.

OutlookBartolomeo was born from ESA's call for ideas on the commercial exploitation of the ISS and is now the second partnership of its kind. The first was the ICE Cubes system for small, standardised payload containers from the Belgian company SAS, which Alexander Gerst installed in the Columbus laboratory during the horizons mission. Further commercial partnerships have already been agreed. ESA reserves 30 percent of its ISS resources for national programmes and commercial services.

These are the first steps towards a commercialised use of the ISS and are in line with the commercialisation strategies of its international partners. They should further boost the development of commercial offerings on the ISS and in low Earth orbit and open up their research opportunities to other user groups. In the long term, space agencies hope that this will provide access to the ISS at a lower cost than would be the case if it were operated purely by public institutions.

Related LinksBartolomeo at AirbusSpace Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

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The black hole appeared as a bright speck, a glowing spot against a cosmic backdrop, but one that easily could have been missed altogether especially because astronomers weren't even looking for it.

Students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University and scientists associated with NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission an expedition to robotically retrieve a sample from a near-Earth asteroid were conducting routine observations when they unexpectedly spotted the distant black hole belching out X-rays, the agency announced Friday.

What they had stumbled upon was special; it is the first time that such an X-ray outburst has been glimpsed from interplanetary space, according to NASA.

The cosmic phenomenon was captured by the Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS), a shoebox-size instrument aboard the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which is in orbit around the asteroid Bennu. The spectrometer, which is jointly operated by scientists and students at the two schools, is designed to measure the X-rays Bennu emits as it absorbs solar radiation.

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The fortuitous observation provides a nice confidence boost for those involved with the student experiment.

"Detecting this X-ray burst is a proud moment for the REXIS team," Madeline Lambert, an MIT graduate student who designed the instrument's command sequences that revealed the black hole, said in a statement. "It means our instrument is performing as expected and to the level required of NASA science instruments."

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The "flaring" black hole was spotted Nov. 11, appearing as a luminous object just off the asteroid's edge.

X-ray outbursts can occur when a black hole pulls in matter from a star in its vicinity, according to NASA. As stellar debris interacts with the disk of material that surrounds a black hole, intense bursts of energy can be unleashed. But these types of eruptions can be observed from space, because Earth's atmosphere protects the planet from X-rays and other forms of high-energy radiation.

The black hole's outburst was separately confirmed by two telescopes installed at the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit.

The surprise detection is a valuable example of how many scientific discoveries can happen in unanticipated ways, said Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary sciences at MIT who is one of the scientists working with the REXIS instrument.

"We set out to train students how to build and operate space instruments," he said in a statement. "It turns out, the greatest lesson is to always be open to discovering the unexpected."

The OSIRIS-REx mission's robotic probe, which reached Bennu in December 2018, is scheduled to return to Earth in 2023.

Bennu is thought to be a relic from the early days of the solar system. The diamond-shaped space rock measures about one-third of a mile at its equator and orbits at an average distance of about 100 million miles from the sun.

According to NASA, the mission could help astronomers understand how planets and other cosmic objects formed in the solar system, and it could help researchers study near-Earth asteroids that pose a threat to the planet.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on the environment and space.

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DENVER A Cygnus cargo spacecraft that was scheduled to reenter in late February will instead remain in orbit for another month so a payload on the spacecraft can perform additional tests.

The Northrop Grumman NG-12 Cygnus spacecraft, called S.S. Alan Bean by the company, was unberthed from the International Space Station Jan. 31 after spending nearly four months attached to the station. The Cygnus deployed several smallsats after moving away from the station, and at the time the company said the spacecraft would end its mission with a destructive reentry at the end of February.

However, there was no notice of the spacecrafts reentry by early March, and the Space Track database of objects in orbit, maintained by the Defense Department, showed March 4 that the spacecraft remained in orbit.

In a March 4 statement to SpaceNews, Northrop Grumman said a customer with a payload on the Cygnus sought extra time in orbit, a request that required Northrop Grumman to seek an extension of a Federal Communications Commission license for spacecraft communications.

The extension of our license by the FCC allows Northrop Grumman to extend our NG-12 mission beyond our original completion date, enabling us to offer increased operational flexibility for our customers, Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager of Tactical Space at Northrop Grumman, said in the statement. The NG-12 spacecraft remains in excellent health as we carry out a few more weeks of in-orbit operations.

Northrop Grumman didnt disclose the customer, but its request to amend the FCC license for the mission stated that it was for a payload from Lynk, a Virginia-based company working on technology for satellites to enable direct communications with mobile phones. The company, previously known as Ubiquilink, raised $12 million in a seed funding round in July 2019.

Charles Miller, chief executive of Lynk, said March 4 that the extension will allow for additional tests, which have been going well.

Lynk is producing great results from the space testing our third cell tower in space in many different countries around the world, he said. We asked Northrop Grumman to extend the Cygnus 12 mission because we wanted to get in more testing time on the payload and testing accomplished in additional countries.

Miller added that NASA graciously agreed to the Cygnus mission extension, and that both Northrop and SEOPS, the company that handed integration of the Lynk payload on the Cygnus, have bent over backwards to support testing of the payload.

Northrop demonstrated on the NG-11 Cygnus mission the ability for the spacecraft to remain in orbit for an extended period after departing the ISS. That spacecraft stayed in orbit for four months after leaving the station in August 2019. It successfully completed a series of tests, including showing that Northrop could operate two Cygnus spacecraft successfully once the NG-12 Cygnus launched in November 2019.

The NG-12 Cygnus mission will be extended through April 2, according the request, which the FCC approved March 3.

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Cygnus mission extended for tests of communications payload - SpaceNews

LUMBERTON, Texas Two talented student artists won an art competition and their work will be flown to space.

Alex Garrett and Giovanni Galvan's designs were selected out of dozens of kindergarten through twelfth graders who entered the art competition.

Their designs will be made into three by three patches and flown to the International Space Station.

The young artists talked to 12News about what the moment was like when they found out.

"Well we had the finalists come up on stage, like a conga line, a very suspenseful conga line. They said the winner's name and that was me," sophomore Garrett said. "I stepped forward."

RELATED: Lumberton students' project will go to outer space on rocket, allow astronauts to test concrete material in space

Giovanni Galvan is in third grade.

"I went up to the stage, and I was like 'am I going to win or not?' I don't know," Galvan said. "When they said my name for the winner, my mind was blown."

The flight into space will lift off in October, with the patches on board. They'll eventually be given the patches.

The art project competition was held in conjunction with another Lumberton project, that will send two students' experiment into space.

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