Daily Archives: November 28, 2019

At NASA, 2019 could be called the year of the woman. In October, astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir completed the first all-female spacewalk. Koch also is on her way toward 328 days aboard the International Space Station - the longest single space mission by a woman.

Meanwhile, NASA is planning a lunar mission called "Artemis," named after the twin sister of Apollo, which, the agency says, would put "the next man and the first woman on the moon" by 2024. The aerospace industry also boasts an unprecedented number of women in high-ranking positions, including Leanne Caret, who leads Boeing's defense and space division and Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX.

But for all the high-profile appointments and record-breaking feats, women remain an overwhelming minority among the rank and file at NASA and in the wider industry. Women make up only about a third of NASA's workforce. They comprise just 28% of senior executive leadership positions and are only 16% of senior scientific employees, according to a survey done by the agency.

In the aerospace industry, only 24% of employees are women, and there has been little change in years, according to a study done by Aviation Week.

For many, another example of how far the agency has to go came just a few weeks ago when NASA announced its "honor awards," what it calls its "highest form of recognition" to employees and contractors.

In total, 42 people were honored. All but two were men.

"We haven't moved very much in the last 30 years in overall diversity," said Mary Lynne Dittmar, the president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, an industry group. "Aerospace is still heavily male and white, and we're not moving very quickly."

Though perhaps not as overt as the early days of the space agency, when women were "hidden figures," sexism persists in an industry long dominated by white men. That has led women to leave science and engineering jobs at rates higher than their male counterparts. Women still struggle to get a foothold in the industry and often find themselves the only women in meetings dominated by men. Or being asked to fetch coffee. Or being called "honey."

"That's Dr. Honey to you, and the coffee machine is down the hall and to the right," is how Dittmar, who has worked in senior positions at Boeing and as an adviser to NASA, responds.

"Frankly, those attitudes have gotten better but they haven't completely gone away," said Ellen Stofan, the head of the National Air and Space Museum who previously served as NASA's chief scientist. "To pretend they have does not help us understand why women get paid 80 cents on the dollar and are still only making up 16 to 30% of the workforce."

While the aerospace industry hasn't been swept up in the recent #MeToo movement, it has over the years been hit by the occasional high-profile scandal. In 2012, Lockheed Martin's incoming CEO was forced out because of an affair with a subordinate, and in 2010, Boeing settled a pair of lawsuits filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging sex discrimination.

In one, two female engineers said they were subjected to sexist remarks and then suffered retaliation when they complained. In the other, a female employee alleged that her male counterparts harassed her and broke her tools, making it harder for her to do her job.

The employee reported the behavior, the EEOC said at the time, "but the company did nothing to address it. As a result, the harassment continued."

At NASA, which has about 17,000 employees, there were 62 EEOC complaints last year, 27 of which were on the basis of sex, according to agency statistics.

While that is not a large number, EEOC spokeswoman Christine Nazer said "it can be [a] difficult decision for individuals to come forward to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. Employees often fear retaliation such as being fired or demoted if they assert their legal rights. Indeed, retaliation is the most frequently filed charge with the EEOC."

Major corporations such as Boeing and Lockheed say that they go to great lengths to ensure that all employees are welcomed and that they have robust programs to prevent harassment and to protect those who do report it.

Women in the industry acknowledge some improvement in the way they are treated, but cultural change has been slow. Even a term such as "manned spaceflight" continues to be controversial.

In the early 2000s, NASA's style guide was updated to include a section urging that "all references to the space program should be non-gender specific (e.g. human, piloted, unpiloted, robotic, as opposed to manned or unmanned)."

The word "manned" should only be used, the style guide said, when referring to any "historical program name or official title that included 'manned.'"

During an interview with reporters from the International Space Station about the first all-female spacewalk, Koch said she was happy to see the term fading from use. "It's been really nice to see that in the last several years, a lot of that language has been replaced," she said. "Even though that language is meant to represent all of humanity, it does conjure up images of men being the main participants."

But debate still surrounds it. In October, a chat board for members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) hosted a spirited discussion of the term, with some arguing that "manned" refers to all humans and, as one put it, "the word itself has nothing to do with gender."

That incensed Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy administrator, who wrote on the message board that "if we want to encourage women or non-conforming genders to be a part of our next grand adventure, it would serve us well to remove 'manned' from our lexicon."

AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher responded on the board that the institute "prefers to use 'crewed' or 'human' rather than 'manned' when referring to space travel in our publications and on AIAA.org. Increasing the diversity of the aerospace community and the future workforce has been - and continues to be - a mission priority for AIAA."

The debate became so heated that ultimately the organization decided to shut down the discussion board, asking members to write statements "with empathy and respect for your fellow members."

It wasn't until 1978, nearly two decades after John Glenn and the rest of the Mercury Seven had been chosen to go to space, that NASA selected its first female astronauts - six of a class of 35. One of those was Sally Ride, who five years later would become the first American woman in space.

Kathy Sullivan was a part of that class and said NASA was welcoming to the women. "Very open and evenhanded," she said. Then again, "walking in the door of NASA with the title of astronaut is like walking around the Navy with the title of admiral."

If they were accepted inside NASA, the rest of society was adjusting.

A reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times posed what he conceded "may seem like a male chauvinist pig question" when he asked about Shannon Lucid's fitness for space given that she "has three children and from her age I gather that the children are rather young."

Did NASA give any consideration "to her responsibilities to her children versus her responsibilities to the program?"

"If I gave you a one-word answer to Shannon Lucid's family situation, the answer is, 'none,' Chris Kraft, the legendary NASA flight director, responded.

Rather, he said "the most rewarding thing was that we found that there are a large number of very highly qualified women in the United States that can make the qualifications that we set out as astronauts."

Still, there were some embarrassing moments, as the male-dominated agency adjusted to the presence of women.

Before her first flight, the engineers asked Ride how many tampons she would need for her week-long mission.

"Is 100 the right number?" they asked, according to her biographer, Ann Friedman.

"That would not be the right number," she responded.

In many ways, the NASA astronaut class of 2013 was typical: full of overachievers, the best of the best, chosen from more than 6,000 applicants. The group of eight all had the right stuff, and more - six military officers, two scientists.

Typical except for one detail: For the first time, there were as many women as men.

Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said the agency is making great strides in hiring and promoting women, and he pointed out that three of the agency's four science mission directorates now are led by women.

"We're making significant progress in this area and have been for a number of years," he said. "We're not done. There's a lot more to do." And he said events like the all-female spacewalk last month are "what inspires tomorrow's astronauts, and we want tomorrow's astronauts to represent all of America."

It's not just at NASA. Several major aerospace firms have women in top leadership positions. Marillyn Hewson is the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, and Aerojet Rocketdyne's CEO is Eileen Drake.

But for more women to get to the C-suite, many think that more opportunities should be available to women earlier in life. That's why Garver, the former NASA deputy administrator, started a fellowship for undergraduate women that places them at aerospace companies across the country.

"It's important to support them, not just through mentorship, but get them actual jobs," she said.

The program has graduated 114 women over three years, creating a support group of women who can talk about the difficulties of breaking into an industry where women have long been a minority and faced discrimination.

When Stofan became head of the National Air and Space Museum, she saw it as not only a "symbolic" opportunity but also as a chance to showcase women in aerospace. "Whose stories are we telling in the museum?" she asked, shortly after starting the job, and decided to highlight the contributions of Margaret Hamilton, who worked on computer guidance systems during Apollo, and Katherine Johnson, one of the African American women whose work on the Mercury program was told in the film "Hidden Figures."

Stofan also oversees a summer camp for middle school girls at the museum called "She Can."

Women are still an overwhelming minority in many university engineering programs, something that remains a drag on female employment in the industry. Harvey Mudd College in California has been working for more than 15 years to attract women to its science, math and engineering programs, where they now represent nearly 50% of the enrollment. One of the biggest steps in that effort was to hire female professors.

"People always talk about how representation matters," said Nancy Lape, an engineering professor who is the interim chair of the engineering department. "I think this is one of those cases. So right away, when students come into our program, they see women, and they see women in leadership positions."

Much of the work focuses not just on lectures but also on hands-on learning - students get into a pool with an underwater robot for their introductory course - which she said has been shown to reduce learning gaps between the general student population and underrepresented groups.

Professors also encourage teamwork among students, which can help women and minorities "get a chance to really feel like they belong."

Female participation also has been on the rise at Space Camp, where adults and children go to learn about space, aviation and robotics at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama. When it started 37 years ago, 32% of Space Camp attendees were women. Today, women are 42%.

"That's a little bit of a slow climb over 37 years," said Deborah Barnhart, the camp's director. "I hope it doesn't take us another 37 years to get to 52%, but that's where we should be." The camp works with the Girl Scouts to make space-related badges attendees can earn.

It also highlights the accomplishments of its graduates, who include Koch, the NASA astronaut on the space station. One of 12 women serving in the astronaut corps, she could be chosen by NASA to be the first woman to walk on the moon and become a Neil Armstrong for a new generation.

"The idea of having the honor of being the first woman to walk on the moon is almost too great to fathom," she told reporters, speaking from the space station. "Of course it would be a dream of mine and has been my entire life. But for now I'll settle for knowing that I'll probably at least know the first woman to walk on the moon.

"Hint. Hint," she added, poking Meir, who was floating beside her.

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At NASA, 2019 was the year of the woman, yet women still are a big minority at the space agency - Houston Chronicle

Image Credit: Alican Akcol/Shutterstock.com

While airplane engines have become quite efficient over recent decades, rocket engine technology has not progressed significantly in 70 years. Reaction Engines is a company looking to push both types of propulsion technology forward by merging an airplane engine and a rocket engine in one system to create a hybrid hypersonic engine. The result is a light, powerful system called the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which could open the door to more sustainable aviation.

In October 2019, Reaction Engines hit a major objective with the successful testing of SABREs essential pre-cooling technology.

As the propulsion system in a "space plane", SABRE would enable supersonic commercial flight, which has not been available since the Concorde was grounded in 2003. Whereas Concorde used a conventional aero engine, SABRE can change from one that consumes oxygen from the atmosphere to one that can operate in the vacuum of space.

SABRE is designed to enable hypersonic travel, which is more than five times the speed of sound. These speeds are very difficult to achieve with a standard airplane engine. This is because moving at such a high rate creates enough heat to melt the engine. Military fighter jets can achieve hypersonic speed via an intricate cooling system, but engines are costly and inefficient.

The hybrid hypersonic engine from Reaction Engines involves two different modes. In air-breathing mode, the craft is capable of Mach 5 (hypersonic travel) and, in spaceflight mode, it is capable of Mach 25. According to the company, SABRE would be the first air-breathing rocket engine, as conventional rocket engines use on-board liquefied oxygen.

Ideally, SABRE would allow for single-stage-to-orbit rockets, as opposed to the US Space Shuttle model of solid-fuel booster rockets and a massive liquefied fuel tank. With less waste, SABRE may be a cheaper and easier mode of travel.

To achieve such high speeds, it is essential to pre-cool air that is going into the engine because the friction and the compression of air at supersonic speeds causes extreme temperatures of around 1000 C (1800 F). While the Concorde used variable ramps to slow down incoming air for its engines, the precooler in the hybrid hypersonic engine uses 16,800 tubes filled with supercooled helium. Hot air entering the system contacts these cold pipes and heat from the air is then transferred into helium.

After the air has been cooled, it is passed through a compressor and channelled into a combustion engine, where it mixes with nitrogen fuel. The heat captured from the pre-cooling system is utilized in various ways, including in an afterburner system seen on military jets.

In addition to being useful on the SABRE system, the precooler technology developed by Reaction Engines is expected to have many other possible uses, including in areas such as motor sport, industrial operations and the oil industry.

According to Reaction Engines, test evaluations of the engine core is expected to begin in 2020 and flight trials are projected for about a decade from now. Company officials have said their system is sound from a scientific point of view, and it is time to move on to the physical testing phase. The company successfully tested the pre-cooling system at its Colorado testing facility, operating at 420 C , which is associated with travel at Mach 3.3. Reaction Engines is currently building a new test centre in the UK.

Reaction Engines was founded in 1989 with the goal of hypersonic commercial travel. In 2012, the company announced successful trials of the technology behind the pre-cooling system, and in 2013, Reaction Engines received 60 million in funding from the UK government to develop SABRE.

The company also recently received financial backing from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), European Space Agency, as well as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Boeings venture capital division HorizonX.

According to experts, the SABRE system could enable travel from the UK to Australia in less than four hours, and travel from New York to London in slightly more than an hour. The fastest UK-Australia flight currently lasts around 18 hours.

An aircraft utilizing the SABRE engine for commercial travel would take off horizontally, potentially switching to rocket-mode for long intercontinental trips. Reaction Engines said the SABRE system could also be used in automotive applications.

The system enables a more sustainable aviation approach than using a vertically launched rocket. A rocket needs a large amount of fuel to lift an aircraft and its cargo into orbit, and the more fuel it needs, the heavier the rocket is. This means even more fuel is needed. Essentially, its a feedback loop of unsustainability.

Video Source: Reaction Engines/YouTube.com

Many other organizations are also pursuing aeronautics technologies that would enable flight in the Earths atmosphere and in space, including SpaceX and the US Air Force.

According to reports and press releases from the company, SpaceX is currently developing its BFR rocket-ship combination system to take passengers halfway around the globe in under an hour. BFR would achieve this by launching into space like a typical rocket and releasing the rocket booster once the craft is above the Earths atmosphere, allowing the BFR craft to land on a landing pad similar to the way the companys reusable rockets land back on Earth. The system enables sustainable aviation by using a booster that is also recovered and reused.

Shrouded in mystery as a classified project, the US Air Forces Boeing X-37B space plane recently completed a 780-day mission in orbit. Experts have said the plane is radiation-hardened and automated to make it both robust and reusable.

Like the SpaceX system, the Boeing X-37B launches as a rocket, but flies like a plane. Unlike the SpaceX system, the Boeing X-37B lands on a runway as a plane.

Brit rocket boffins Reaction Engines notch up first supersonic precooler test. The Register.https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/08/brit_rocketeers_notch_up_first_supersonic_precooler_test/

Reaction Engines mach 5 engine is just the tip of the new aerospace boom. Tech Crunch.https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/01/reaction-engines-mach-5-engine-is-just-the-tip-of-the-new-aerospace-boom/

SpaceX plans to use spaceships for earth passenger transit. Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/spacex-plans-to-use-spaceships-for-earth-passenger-transit/

New hypersonic engine poised to cut London-Sydney flight times to just four hours by 2030s. The Telgraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/24/british-tourists-will-able-fly-australia-4-hours-2030-uk-space/

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author expressed in their private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited T/A AZoNetwork the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and conditions of use of this website.

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Reaction Engines' Hybrid Engine for Revolutionary Hypersonic Air Travel and Space Access - AZoCleantech

Ecclesiastes was not accurate when he stated that there is nothing new under the sun. In about a billion years the sun will brighten up so much that it will boil off Earths oceans. This raises concerns for people who think long-term, such as the BBC radio reporter who asked me recently for my thoughts on how to mitigate this risk for the future of humanity.

The simplest solution that came to my mind is to spray a blanket of particles into the stratosphere that would reflect sunlight and cool the Earth, in a way similar to the effects of a natural volcanic eruption, a nuclear war or an asteroid impact (the same technique has been proposed to limit anthropogenic global warming). Blocking sunlight this way serves the same purpose as using sunglasses to moderate the impact of harmful UV radiation on our eyes.

Billions of years later, however, when the sun will brighten even more and eventually inflate to become a red giant star that will engulf the Earth, there would be no option left for our civilization but to relocate further out in the solar system. Since the natural real estate of planets and moons is available only at specific locations, however, and because the sun will change its brightness continuously, it would be prudent to manufacture a gigantic structure that will be able maneuver to the optimal orbital distance at any given time.

Being able to adjust our distance from the furnace based on its changing brightness would be most helpful towards the end, when the sun will reverse course and dim considerably, turning into a white dwarf. The solar systems habitable zone will shrink by a factor of a hundred relative to the current Earth-sun separation, down to a scale that is comparable to the size of the sun today.

Needless to say, the movable industrial complex of metal rods and equipment that would make up our future habitat would represent a very major upgrade to the International Space Station. This artificial world might not look as beautiful as the pale blue dot we now live on, with its green forests and blue oceans. But since modern humans needed merely 100,000 years to adapt from living in the savannahs and forests of Africa to squeezing into a tiny apartment in Manhattan one can reasonably expect them to transition from Manhattan to living in space over a time span that is ten thousand times longer.

Ultimately, we should contemplate space travel out of the solar system. The longer-term solution to our existential threats is not to keep all of our eggs in one basket. We should make genetically identical copies of the flora and fauna we hold dear and spread these copies to other stars in order to avoid the risk of annihilation from a single-point catastrophe. Our destinations could be habitable planets around nearby stars, such as Proxima b, or other desirable environments. The Breakthrough Starshot project represents the first well-funded initiative to traverse interstellar distances over a short time.

The transition to spreading multiple copies of our genetic material would resemble the revolution brought about by the printing press, when Gutenberg mass-produced copies of the Bible and distributed them throughout Europe. As soon as many copies of the book were made, any single copy lost its unique value as a precious entity. In the same way, as soon as we learn how to produce synthetic life in our laboratories, Gutenberg-DNA printers could be distributed to make copies of the human genome out of the raw materials on the surface of other planets so that any one copy would not be essential for preserving the information.

The BBC reporter did not let me easily off the hook, however: But what about our personal lives as individuals? Most people care about themselves. Your solution will not secure their personal safety so as to give them a peace of mind.

My reply was simple. In our daily life, we worry about protecting our own skin because we are focused on timescales much shorter than our lives. But when dealing with timescales that are far longer than a century, it is not the individual that counts but rather the genetic information of the human species as a whole. Despite what some insist, people we know right now will not be around within a century in any case, so there is no reason to focus on preserving them individually when strategizing our future over a billion years.

On such a long timescale, we better stay focused on preserving our species. The instinct of any parent is to care for the offspring and secure longevity this way; nature enabled us to extend the lifetime of our genome well beyond our own life span in this way. As an extension, modern science might enable us to construct printers that are capable of mass-producing copies of ourselves on other planets by merely exporting our genetic blueprint without requiring that our bodies will physically travel the distance. We should be satisfied with this renewed sense of security and retire happily when our mission is accomplished.

The reporter insisted: But would we truly be satisfied if we will not be around to see it happening? To which I replied: Frankly, this may not matter. Perhaps we already are one copy out of many in existence, so it is not essential for this copy to survive. But after reading this mornings newspaper, I am inclined to believe that our civilization will disappear as a result of self-inflicted wounds long before the sun will pose its predictable threat. Why do I believe that? Because the dead silence we hear so far from the numerous habitable exoplanets weve discovered may indicate that advanced civilizations have much shorter lives than their host stars.

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What Will We Do When the Sun Gets Too Hot for Earth's Survival? - Scientific American

captionA NASA visualization of the surface of the sun. In a billion years, the sun will get brighter, and cause all the water in Earths oceans to evaporate.sourceNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Follow/Shutterstock

One day, billions of years in the future, the sun will destroy our planet.

As the star runs out of hydrogen and helium atoms to burn in its core, it glows brighter and brighter. Eventually, the sun will bombard Earth with enough high-energy light to incinerate the worlds oceans, melt the polar ice caps, and strip our atmosphere of all moisture effectively killing all life.

But dont fret. Well likely all be dead by then anyway.

A BBC reporter recently asked Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb what a possible solution to humanitys imminent demise might be.

Loeb outlined his response in a recent Scientific American blog post, where he stated how imperative it is for our species to relocate to other parts of the universe that are less close to our suns vacillating brightness.

The astronomer doesnt want us to remain shackled to existing planets and moons, either he said itd be best if humanity could manufacture a gigantic structure that will be able [to maneuver] the optimal orbital distance at any given time from the suns deadly energy.

Once we successfully colonize both nearby and interstellar space, Loeb added, we can make genetically identical copies of ourselves and the flora and fauna we hold dear to seed other planets with life.

That being said, Loeb ended his blog post on a depressing note. In his opinion, humanity will wipe itself out long before the sun might.

Loeb, who is the chair of Harvard Universitys astronomy department, wrote that humanity needs to contemplate space travel out of the solar system.

In order to do so, he added, we need to build an artificial world capable of bouncing between stars and their neighboring, potentially habitable planets. This industrial spacecraft and human habitat would represent a very major upgrade to the International Space Station (ISS), he said.

Once our means of traveling to other planets and moons in the universe is secured, humanity needs to focus on duplicating itself, and other existing species, before we all get annihilated.

The longer-term solution to our existential threats is not to keep all of our eggs in one basket, Loeb wrote. To him, that means making genetically identical copies of ourselves, plants, and animals, and spreading those copies to other stars.

Obviously, the astronomer pointed out, that future solution wont do much for preserving people alive on Earth today. But to Loeb, its more important to ensure the longevity of our species as a whole rather than protecting our own skin.

All of his ideas aside, Loeb isnt that sure that humanity will be around to experience its demise at the hands of a brightening, expanding sun.

I am inclined to believe that our civilization will disappear as a result of self-inflicted wounds long before the sun will pose its predictable threat, he wrote. Why do I believe that? Because the dead silence we hear so far from the numerous habitable exoplanets weve discovered may indicate that advanced civilizations have much shorter lives than their host stars.

Loeb is confident that extra-terrestrial life exists, or existed, in the universe. He is in part famous for the idea that the first interstellar object to pass through our solar system a rock named Oumuamua was an advanced alien spaceship scouting Earth and nearby planets for life. That hypothesis has since been dismissed by multiple astronomers.

In September, scientists announced theyd detected water vapor on a potentially habitable planet for the first time. The planet, named K2-18b, is a super-Earth that orbits a star 110 light-years away.

K2-18b is the only known planet outside our solar system with water, an atmosphere, and a temperature range that could support liquid water on its surface, which makes it our best bet for finding alien life.

But, as Loeb mentioned in his blog post, so far researchers have yet to discover anyone else out there.

Loebs ideas offer a solution to a very real problem that will one day plague our planet and its species. His future version of the ISS could ensure that humanity would remain mobile in the face of a changing sun.

Our sun survives by burning hydrogen atoms and converting them into helium at its core. In fact, it burns through 600 million tons of hydrogen every second.

And as the suns core becomes saturated with this helium, it shrinks, causing nuclear fusion reactions inside it to speed up which means that the sun spits out more energy.

For every billion years the sun spends burning hydrogen, it gets about 10% brighter. One day in the far future about 1 billion years, according to Loeb that brightness will become too much for Earth to handle.

A 10% increase in brightness every billion years means that 3.5 billion years from today, the sun will shine almost 40% brighter, which will boil Earths oceans, melt its ice caps, and strip all of the moisture from its atmosphere.

The suns high-energy light will bombard our atmosphere eventually bleeding Earth dry of water, Jillian Scudder, an astrophysicist at the University of Sussex, previously told Business Insider.

Our planet, once bursting with life, will become unbearably hot, dry, and barren like Venus.

And if that didnt kill us, what comes next would.

One day, about 4 billion or 5 billion years from now, the sun will burn through its last gasp of hydrogen and start burning helium instead.

Once hydrogen has stopped burning in the core of the sun, the star has formally left the main sequence and can be considered a red giant, Scudder said. It will then spend about a billion years expanding.

Its atmosphere will stretch out to Mars current orbit, swallowing Mercury and Venus.

Earth, Scudder said, might either escape the expanding suns orbit or be consumed by it. But even if our planet slips out of the suns reach, the intense temperatures will burn it to a sad, dead crisp.

In either case, our planet will be pretty close to the surface of the red giant, which is not good for life, Scudder said.

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The human species will likely destroy itself long before the sun kills everyone on Earth, a Harvard scientists says - Business Insider

Navigating the complexity of todays workplace is challenging, yet once we give way to looking at behaviors instead of the generational hoopla, it can be manageable.

Theres a growing trend for employers to allow groups to work cohesively, regardless of generation. This means that employees are part of an environment where they feel a sense of belonging, have value, and commit to the organizations goals because the organization has committed to them, first. I call this a Cohesion Culture.

As leaders, we simply need to understand the characteristics in the marketplace that aid in making well-informed decisions. This understanding can then be used to offer open positions to the right candidates by putting the right HR Strategies & Practices in place to retain the talent we worked so hard to hire.

Its Best Practice for leaders to first focus on the success of the individual before seeking a commitment from the employee to meet organizational goals. Leaders are then in a better position to actively align the employee achievement with desired organizational outcomes, resulting in success for everyone.

Its important to note that today an unprecedented five generations are working within many organizationsat the same time. But all that really means is people born from 1927 to 2010 are gainfully employed and that everyone can not be easily labeled with behavioral tendencies simply based on their year of birth.

The Millennial generation will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. SPOILER ALERT: Every generation at one time or another has made up 75% of the workforce. This is not new and Im still surprised so many people think this is unique.

What we are failing to see are the actual characteristics of ALL the potential employees and how they tend to actnot based on a year of birthbut based on how they interpret and live out core values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Certainly, it is overwhelming to know that this generational group reflects at least 80 million people. However, what we do know is that not everyone within a generational group acts the same.

It is simply unsophisticated for the purposes of talent acquisition and talent retention to apply this thought process across the board, hoping to find the right talent.

Of course, there are historical and social events that occur during a persons lifetime that can shape how they feel or react. But those life events actually shape all people living at that time, not just those within a generation.

Take the Challenger Shuttle disaster or Neil Armstrongs walk on the moon. It would be insane to think that these two opposing experiences would somehow only impact the generation born around the time these events occurred.

In reality, these events shaped everyone who was alive when they occurred and, to some degree, shape how people now think about space travel from a historical view. People reflect upon these occurrences, as well as other non-significant life events that happen everyday, in a manner to help them make sense of their world. Its called the theory of implication or attribution, and its application is not restricted to just one generation.

Technology Savvy vs. Technology Dependent

What is more important, for the purpose of selecting candidates and retaining them, is to study the characteristics or behaviors of todays workforce and not just generational facts. These characteristics form the basis of how people think and respond to others. We know for a fact that technology is the real game-changer. It is the use of technology that influences how people of all generations conduct themselves in both work and social settings.

According to Dr. Tim Elmore, author of Generation iY, the Millennial group (Gen Y) was the first generation born within a timespan to have the capacity to surpass the previous generation in its use and understanding of technology. This group of people has become what we call techno-savvy, meaning, that during the 1980s to 2000s, individuals began seeking clarity of how technology worked, then using it for innovative solutions.

All other individuals living during 2000 and beyond have adopted characteristics that suggest they are techno-dependant. Once a person becomes dependant upon the technologyregardless of agethey cannot live without it, nor do they want to live without it. The benefits of these advancements can be enjoyed and celebrated by all.

So, in a very short time, people have moved from knowing and understanding technology to not being able to live without it.

From my vantage point, it is technology and how it is integrated into ones life that establishes our understanding of how people behave in the workplace. Leaders are far better equipped to make intelligent business decisions to hire, train and retain employees when they base their intel on common behaviors shared by a large population of potential candidates.

Going beyond a generational perspective to understand how people interact with each other can avoid costly employment mistakes later.

These four specific and identifiable characteristics set the stage for the employees now working in the new workplace. They reflect behaviors of current and potential employees not by generationbut by attribute.

What are the attributes of these characteristics?

1. Entrepreneurial Spirit and Autonomy

By default, new employees entering an organization bring with them an entrepreneurial spirit. They want to know their boundaries and they prefer to handle tasks and responsibilities without someone micro-managing their every move. These individuals may act like a CEO, yet they do not necessarily aspire to be the one in charge.

Employers would do well to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit, channeling its positive impact on belonging, value, and commitment, positively impacting performance. Employers wanting to acquire and retain top talent should also make sure job duties and responsibilities are well defined, provide latitude for making decisions, and give sufficient decision-making parameters to promote personal and group success.

Being an entrepreneur congers certain types of actions individuals take toward spending money, making decisions, and leading others. As mentioned earlier, not everyone who joins a company yearns to be the CEO and we do not want that either. What is needed, however, are people who act like it is their company, making choices without established and flexible guidelines that impact the bottom line. In other words, consistent with how an owner would think and act.

2. Collaboration

People want to be heard; they want a voice. The number one rule of collaboration is an agreement that everyone at the table needs each other. Then and only then can individuals assure they have an equal voice.

The collaborative spirit has been around for a long time. Take the Knights of the Round Table, for example. This group of warriors did not necessarily like or get along with each other, yet while at the table they had an equal voice and representation. King Arthur knew exactly what he was doing when he commissioned that table. With a round shape, there is no head of the table and, therefore, its less likely for individuals to be confused with whose voice carries the most weight in decision-making.

The second aspect of collaboration deals with trust. Leaders should think of their Cohesion Cultures as spaces where individuals freely exchange trust with one another. From my perspective, gaining trust occurs in the highest form of engagement when it is given away to others. Meaning, others are trusted quickly as needed contributors and everyone accepts the intentions as being pure to the outcomes of the group. This is especially important because the biggest contributor to dysfunction within a group is the absence of trust. With trust comes value and forms the basis for commitment.

3. Social Connection

People want to belong; we are born to cohabitate and mingle. People like to associate with people who share common thoughts, values, and beliefs. Although there may be some who prefer to be alone, they do not reflect the majority.

Technology is another way people obtain a sense of belonging. Through the use of social platforms, it is a simple way of allowing people to interact and be involved in conversations. This need is typically fueled by a persons desire to be part of what is going on around them. Its not always convenient to engage with others on a face-to-face basis given geographical expansion, as well as the growing adoption of virtual and cross-cultural teams. Therefore, many folks turn to technology to solve how they connect.

4. Purpose and Drive

People seek to have meaning and purpose in their life, turning to a higher power, the universe, and even other people to help them determine why they were born. From an employment standpoint, people want to know that their contributions make sense and have valuenot only for them but for the group and the organization as a whole.

Once individuals feel connected, they are generally more productive. One way leaders can impact how people feel about their role is to acknowledge the work and connect it to desired organizational outcomes. When leaders explain the why behind the importance of what an employee does, meaningful work naturally occurs.

When leaders create a Cohesion Culture, they include activities that allow value-driven behaviors to exist. More importantly for people to be recognized and their work celebrated. Leaders who understand how to tap into a persons purpose can release an employees passion, which can result in the employee having a more positive attitude and greater commitment to the organization.

Within this realm, the leader must understand how to align personal success with company objectives. As the gap between the leaders focus on the employee and the employees success narrows, the level of production increases and desired outcomes are achieved.

Cross-Characteristic Perspective

These four marketplace characteristics are a way to look beyond the generational aspect and into the behaviors and interactions of the workforce. Leaders may want to keep in mind that individuals who live and work in the United States will first look at cohesion from a personal perspective, then think about its impact on others. This further supports why commitment within a Cohesion Culture has the leader focusing on employee development and tying personal success with organizational outcomes for optimal achievement and engagement.

Leaders want to heed this advice because it means that the practice of creating a culture where employees feel they fit is consistent with the views of all the generations working today in organizations.

Having a cross-characteristic perspective arms leaders with the mindset to adopt and implement the behaviors consistent with creating Cohesion Cultures. When employees feel they belong, have value and offer commitments to both personal and organizational success, then performance abounds. The resulting by-product of this level of performance is whats known as engagement.

Dr. Troy Hall is the Chief Strategy Officer for South Carolina Federal Credit Union, a $1.8B financial cooperative with over 165,000 members.

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Skip the generational hoopla and look for these 4 workplace characteristics - Ladders

Functional areas of the hibernation module: (1) private crew quarters, (2) exercise, (3) hygiene and waste, (4) dining and wardroom, (5) workstation, (6) galley and food, (7) medical supplies, (8) life support systems and stowage, (9) operational and maintenance supplies. (Image: ESA)

The European Space Agency (ESA) is exploring the possibilities of human hibernation to solve the problem of sending humans into deep space. The human hibernation has been the subject of initial research because of its potential benefits for space travel and featured in multiple Sci-Fi movies like Passengers, Alien, and more where astronauts are put into suspended animation to cross the vastness of space.

The ESA has assembled a dedicated Topical Team to study hibernation for manned space missions, which is accessing the advantages of human hibernation for a trip to a neighbouring planet, such as Mars. As its reference, the team took an existing mission study to send six humans to Mars and back in a five-year timescale, the ESA writes in an article on the Phys.org.

ESA is also doing an assessment on the current state of the art in human hibernation as well as the potential impact of hibernation on system-level mission design that involves adjusting the architecture of the spacecraft, its logistics, protection against radiation, and power consumption.

We looked at how an astronaut team could be best put into hibernation, what to do in case of emergencies, how to handle human safety and even what impact hibernation would have on the psychology of the team. Finally, we created an initial sketch of the habitat architecture and created a roadmap to achieve a validated approach to hibernate humans to Mars within 20 years, said Robin Biesbroek of the Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) a multimedia facility within ESA.

The study found that the hibernation would take place in small individual pods and allow the spacecraft mass to be reduced by a third by removing the crew quarters and consumables.The soft-shell pods of astronauts would be darkened and their temperature greatly reduced to cool their occupants during their projected 180-day Earth-Mars cruise.

The hibernating cruise phase would end with a 21 day recuperation periodalthough based on the experience of animal hibernation, the expectation would be that the crew would not experience bone or muscle wastage, ESA said.

Since the hibernating crew will be spending so much time in their hibernation pods, they could be shielded from radiation exposure could be concentrated around them. But with all the crew incapacitated for extended periods of time, the mission would have to be designed for largely autonomous operations, with optimum use of artificial intelligence and fault detection, isolation and recovery to maintain a minimum level of system performance until the crew could be revived, the ESA said.

We aim to build on this in future, by researching the brain pathways that are activated or blocked during initiation of hibernation, starting with animals and proceeding to people, said ESAs Jennifer Ngo-Anh.

Original post:

European Space Agency wants to put astronauts in hibernation for deep space travel - The Indian Express

Image Credit: Pixabay

Washington DC: Researchers have recommended using typical resistance exercises such as leg press to overcome the problem of muscle inactivity.

Several years of hospitalisation, one example of muscle inactivity, causes a disproportionate decline in the muscle strength known to affect balance, increase the risk of joint injuries, and hinder movements involved in sports, according to research from the University of Roehampton, published in --Experimental Physiology.

Thus, rehabilitation programmes should work to build the strength involved in these types of activities, using typical resistance exercises, but with the attention of lifting the resistance as rapidly as possible.

The effects of long-term muscle inactivity (via e.g., sedentary behaviour, hospitalisation, or space travel) have proven difficult to study in a laboratory environment, as there are ethical issues with enforcing prolonged physical inactivity.

Previous research has shown that the thigh muscles of individuals with an amputation below the knee are used less during movement and therefore become weak.

Amy Sibley, Neale Tillin and colleagues at the University of Roehampton, therefore, used below-knee amputees as a model to understand muscular changes that happen with long-term inactivity.

Similar changes might happen in the muscles of someone who is hospitalised, sedentary, or travelling in space.

Scientific studies have previously defined two main types of strength: maximum and explosive.

Maximum strength is what it sounds like, the maximum capacity of your muscles for producing force. People rarely need to utilise this maximum capacity in daily activities.

Explosive strength is the ability to quickly produce force and is relevant during many daily activities such as recovering from a loss of balance, avoiding joint injuries, and when playing sports.

The researchers showed that when they compared maximum and explosive strength, amputees lost comparatively more explosive strength.

They also found that the muscular changes that accompanied this reduction in strength could not have been anticipated from the typical short-term bedrest studies, and were specific to the type of strength examined.

Therefore, rehabilitation regimens (for amputees or other populations who have experienced inactivity) should be tailored to help them recover explosive strength specifically.

"This research has exciting potential to help people who have been inactive long-term, due to hospitalisation, for example, regain the strength they need for daily activities such as avoiding falls," said Amy Sibley, first author of the study.

"To achieve this aim, clinicians need to be specific about the type of strength training they use, for example, typical resistance exercises (e.g., leg press) should be performed with the intention of lifting the resistance as rapidly as possible," added Sibley.

Read more from the original source:

Typical resistance exercises help in recovery from years of inactivity: Study - Gulf News