Daily Archives: May 4, 2020

Humanity began in Africa. But we didnt stay there, not all of usover thousands of years our ancestors walked all over the continent, then out of it. And when they came to the sea, they built boats and sailed tremendous distances to islands they could not have known were there. Why?

Probably for the same reason we look up at the moon and the stars and say, Whats up there? Could we go there? Maybe we could go there. Because its something human beings do.

Photograph by Dan Winters; Nebula by Ash Thorp

Space is, of course, infinitely more hostile to human life than the surface of the sea; escaping Earths gravity entails a good deal more work and expense than shoving off from the shore. But those boats were the cutting-edge technology of their time. Voyagers carefully planned their expensive, dangerous journeys, and many of them died trying to find out what was beyond the horizon. So why keep doing it?

I could tell you about spin-off technologies, ranging from small products of convenience to discoveries that might feed millions or prevent deadly accidents or save the lives of the sick and injured.

I could tell you that we shouldnt keep all our eggs in this increasingly fragile basketone good meteor strike and we all join the non-avian dinosaurs. And have you noticed the weather lately?

I could tell you that it might be good for us to unite behind a project that doesnt involve killing one another, that does involve understanding our home planet and the ways we survive on it and what things are crucial to our continuing to survive on it.

I could tell you that moving farther out into the solar system might be a good plan, if humanity is lucky enough to survive the next 5.5 billion years and the sun expands enough to fry the Earth.

I could tell you all those things: all the reasons we should find some way to live away from this planet, to build space stations and moon bases and cities on Mars and habitats on the moons of Jupiter. All the reasons we should, if we manage that, look out at the stars beyond our sun and say, Could we go there? Maybe we could go there.

Its a huge, dangerous, maybe impossible project. But thats never stopped humans from bloody-mindedly trying anyway.

Humanity was born on Earth. Are we going to stay here? I suspectI hopethe answer is no. Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie is the Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author of Ancillary Justice.

problem: takeoff

Getting off Earth is a little like getting divorced: You want to do it quickly, with as little baggage as possible. But powerful forces conspire against youspecifically, gravity. If an object on Earths surface wants to fly free, it needs to shoot up and out at speeds exceeding 25,000 mph.

That takes serious oomphread: dollars. It cost nearly $200 million just to launch the Mars Curiosity rover, about a tenth of the missions budget, and any crewed mission would be weighed down by the stuff needed to sustain life. Composite materials like exotic-metal alloys and fibered sheets could reduce the weight; combine that with more efficient, more powerful fuel mixtures and you get a bigger bang for your booster.

But the ultimate money saver will be reusability. As the number of flights increases, economies of scale kick in, says Les Johnson, a technical assistant at NASAs Advanced Concepts Office. Thats the key to getting the cost to drop dramatically. SpaceXs Falcon 9, for example, was designed to relaunch time and again. The more you go to space, the cheaper it gets. Nick Stockton

problem: propulsion

Hurtling through space is easy. Its a vacuum, after all; nothing to slow you down. But getting started? Thats a bear. The larger an objects mass, the more force it takes to move itand rockets are kind of massive. Chemical propellants are great for an initial push, but your precious kerosene will burn up in a matter of minutes. After that, expect to reach the moons of Jupiter in, oh, five to seven years. Thats a heck of a lot of in-flight movies. Propulsion needs a radical new method. Heres a look at what rocket scientists now have, or are working on, or wish they had. Nick Stockton

problem: space junk

Congratulations! Youve successfully launched a rocket into orbit. But before you break into outer space, a rogue bit of broke-ass satellite comes from out of nowhere and caps your second-stage fuel tank. No more rocket.

This is the problem of space debris, and its very real. The US Space Surveillance Network has eyes on 17,000 objectseach at least the size of a softballhurtling around Earth at speeds of more than 17,500 mph; if you count pieces under 10 centimeters, its closer to 500,000 objects. Launch adapters, lens covers, even a fleck of paint can punch a crater in critical systems.

Whipple shieldslayers of metal and Kevlarcan protect against the bitsy pieces, but nothing can save you from a whole satellite. Some 4,000 orbit Earth, most dead in the air. Mission control avoids dangerous paths, but tracking isnt perfect.

Pulling the sats out of orbit isnt realisticit would take a whole mission to capture just one. So starting now, all satellites will have to fall out of orbit on their own. Theyll jettison extra fuel, then use rocket boosters or solar sails to angle down and burn up on reentry. Put decommissioning programs in 90 percent of new launches or youll get the Kessler syndrome: One collision leads to more collisions until theres so much crap up there, no one can fly at all. That might be a century henceor a lot sooner if space war breaks out. If someone (like China?) starts blowing up enemy satellites, it would be a disaster, says Holger Krag, head of the Space Debris Office at the European Space Agency. Essential to the future of space travel: world peace. Jason Kehe

problem: navigation

The Deep Space Network, a collection of antenna arrays in California, Australia, and Spain, is the only navigation tool for space. Everything from student-project satellites to the New Horizons probe meandering through the Kuiper Belt depends on it to stay oriented. An ultraprecise atomic clock on Earth times how long it takes for a signal to get from the network to a spacecraft and back, and navigators use that to determine the crafts position.

But as more and more missions take flight, the network is getting congested. The switchboard is often busy. So in the near term, NASA is working to lighten the load. Atomic clocks on the crafts themselves will cut transmission time in half, allowing distance calculations with a single downlink. And higher-bandwidth lasers will handle big data packages, like photos or video messages.

The farther rockets go from Earth, however, the less reliable this method becomes. Sure, radio waves travel at light speed, but transmissions to deep space still take hours. And the stars can tell you where to go, but theyre too distant to tell you where you are. For future missions, deep-space navigation expert Joseph Guinn wants to design an autonomous system that would collect images of targets and nearby objects and use their relative location to triangulate a spaceships coordinatesno ground control required. Itll be like GPS on Earth, Guinn says. You put a GPS receiver on your car and problem solved. He calls it a deep-space positioning systemDPS for short. Katie M. Palmer

problem: radiation

Outside the safe cocoon of Earths atmosphere and magnetic field, subatomic particles zip around at close to the speed of light. This is space radiation, and its deadly. Aside from cancer, it can also cause cataracts and possibly Alzheimers.

When these particles knock into the atoms of aluminum that make up a spacecraft hull, their nuclei blow up, emitting yet more superfast particles called secondary radiation. Youre actually making the problem worse, says Nasser Barghouty, a physicist at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center.

A better solution? One word: plastics. Theyre light and strong, and theyre full of hydrogen atoms, whose small nuclei dont produce much secondary radiation. NASA is testing plastics that can mitigate radiation in spaceships or space suits.

Or how about this word: magnets. Scientists on the Space Radiation Superconducting Shield project are working on a magnesium diboride superconductor that would deflect charged particles away from a ship. It works at 263 degrees Celsius, which is balmy for superconductors, but it helps that space is already so damn cold. Sarah Zhang

problem: food and water

Lettuce got to be a hero last August. Thats when astronauts on the ISS ate a few leaves theyd grown in space for the first time. But large-scale gardening in zero g is tricky. Water wants to float around in bubbles instead of trickling through soil, so engineers have devised ceramic tubes that wick it down to the plants roots. Its like a Chia pet, says Raymond Wheeler, a botanist at Kennedy Space Center. Also, existing vehicles are cramped. Some veggies are already pretty space-efficient (ha!), but scientists are working on a genetically modified dwarf plum tree thats just 2 feet tall. Proteins, fats, and carbs could come from a more diverse harvestlike potatoes and peanuts.

All thats for naught, though, if you run out of water. (On the ISS, the pee-and-water recycling system needs periodic fixing, and interplanetary crews wont be able to rely on a resupply of new parts.) GMOs could help here too. Michael Flynn, an engineer at NASA Ames Research Center, is working on a water filter made of genetically modified bacteria. He likens it to how your small intestine recycles what you drink. Basically you are a water recycling system, he says. with a useful life of 75 or 80 years. This filter would continually replenish itself, just like your innards do. Sarah Zhang

problem: bone and muscle wasting

Weightlessness wrecks the body: It makes certain immune cells unable to do their jobs, and red blood cells explode. It gives you kidney stones and makes your heart lazy. Astronauts on the ISS exercise to combat muscle wasting and bone loss, but they still lose bone mass in space, and those zero-g spin cycles dont help the other problems. Artificial gravity would fix all that.

In his lab at MIT, former astronaut Laurence Young is testing a human centrifuge: Victims lie on their side on a platform and pedal a stationary wheel as the whole contraption spins around. The resulting force tugs their feetjust like gravity, but awkward.

Youngs machine is too cramped to use for more than an hour or two a day, though, so for 24/7 gravity, the whole spacecraft will have to become a centrifuge. A spinning spaceship could be shaped like a dumbbell, with two chambers connected by a truss. As it gets easier to send more mass into space, designers could become more ambitiousbut they dont have to reinvent the wheel. Remember the station in 2001: A Space Odyssey? The design has been around since 1903. Sarah Zhang

problem: mental health

When physicians treat stroke or heart attack, they sometimes bring the patients temperature way down, slowing their metabolism to reduce the damage from lack of oxygen. Its a trick that might work for astronauts too. Which is good, because to sign up for interplanetary travel is to sign up for a year (at least) of living in a cramped spacecraft with bad food and zero privacya recipe for space madness. Thats why John Bradford says we should sleep through it. President of the engineering firm SpaceWorks and coauthor of a report for NASA on long missions, Bradford says cold storage would be a twofer: It cuts down on the amount of food, water, and air a crew would need and keeps them sane. If were going to become a multiplanet species, he says, well need a capability like human stasis. Sleep tight, voyagers. Sarah Zhang

problem: touchdown

Planet, ho! Youve been in space for months. Years, maybe. Now a formerly distant world is finally filling up your viewport. All you have to do is land. But youre careening through frictionless space at, oh, call it 200,000 mph (assuming youve cracked fusion). Oh yeah, and theres the planets gravity to worry about. If you dont want your touchdown to be remembered as one small leap for a human and one giant splat for humankind, follow these simple steps. Nick Stockton

problem: resources

When space caravans embark from Earth, theyll leave full of supplies. But you cant take everything with you. Seeds, oxygen generators, maybe a few machines for building infrastructure. But settlers will have to harvest or make everything else.

Luckily, space is far from barren. Every planet has every chemical element in it, says Ian Crawford, a planetary scientist at Birbeck, University of London, though concentrations differ. The moon has lots of aluminum. Mars has silica and iron oxide. Nearby asteroids are a great source of carbon and platinum oresand water, once pioneers figure out how to mine the stuff. If blasters and drillers are too heavy to ship, theyll have to extract those riches with gentler techniques: melting, magnets, or metal-digesting microbes. And NASA is looking into a process that can 3-D-print whole buildingsno need to import special equipment.

In the end, a destinations resources will shape settlements, which makes surveying the drop zone critical. Just think of the moons far side. Its been pummeled by asteroids for billions of years, says Anita Gale, a space shuttle engineer. Whole new materials could be out there. Before humanity books a one-way ticket to Kepler-438b, itll have to study up. Chelsea Leu

problem: EXPLORATION

Dogs helped humans colonize Earth, but theyd survive on Mars about as well as we would. To spread out on a new world, well need a new best friend: a robot.

See, settling takes a lot of grunt work, and robots can dig all day without having to eat or breathe. Theoretically, at least. Current prototypes bulky, bipedal bots that mimic human physiognomycan barely walk on Earth. So automatons will have to be everything we arentlike, say, a lightweight tracked bot with backhoe claws for arms. Thats the shape of one NASA machine designed to dig for ice on Mars: Its two appendages spin in opposite directions, keeping it from flipping over as it works.

Still, humans have a big leg up when it comes to fingers. If a job requires dexterity and precision, you want people doing itprovided they have the right duds. Todays space suit is designed for weightlessness, not hiking on exoplanets. NASAs prototype Z-2 model has flexible joints and a helmet that gives a clear view of whatever delicate wiring needs fixing. When the jobs done, just hop on an autonomous transporter to get home. Attaboy, Rover. Matt Simon

problem: space is big

The fastest thing humans have ever built is a probe called Helios 2. Its dead now, but if sound traveled in space, youd hear it screaming as it whips around the sun at speeds of more than 157,000 miles per hour. Thats almost 100 times faster than a bullet, but even at that velocity it would take some 19,000 years to reach Earths first stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. Itd be a multigenerational ship, and nobody dreams of going to space because its a nice place to die of old age.

To beat the clock, you need powerand lots of it. Maybe you could mine Jupiter for enough helium-3 to fuel nuclear fusionafter youve figured out fusion engines. Matter-antimatter annihilation is more scalable, but smashing those pugilistic particles together is dangerous. Youd never want to do that on Earth, says Les Johnson, technical assistant for NASAs Advanced Concepts Office, which works on crazy starship ideas. You do that in deep space, so if you have an accident, you dont destroy a continent. Too intense? How about solar power? All youd need is a sail the size of Texas.

Far more elegant would be hacking the universes source codewith physics. The theoretical Alcubierre drive would compress space in front of your craft and expand space behind it so the stuff in betweenwhere your ship iseffectively moves faster than light. Tweaking the Alcubierre equations gets you a Krasnikov tube, an interstellar subway that shortens your return trip.

All aboard? Not quite. Humanity will need a few more Einsteins working at places like the Large Hadron Collider to untangle all the theoretical knots. Its entirely possible that well make some discovery that changes everything, Johnson says. But you cant count on that breakthrough to save the day. If you want eureka moments, you need to budget for them. That means more cash for NASA and the particle physicists. Until then, Earths space ambitions will look a lot like Helios 2: stuck in a futile race around the same old star. Nick Stockton

problem: THERES ONLY ONE EARTH

A couple decades back, sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson sketched out a future utopia on Mars built by scientists from an overpopulated, overextended Earth. His Mars trilogy made a forceful case for colonization of the solar system. But, really, other than science, why should we go to space?

The need to explore is built into our souls, goes one argumentthe pioneer spirit and manifest destiny. But scientists dont talk about pioneers anymore. You did hear that frontier language 20, 30 years ago, says Heidi Hammel, who helps set exploration priorities at NASA. But since the New Horizons probe passed by Pluto last July, weve explored every type of environment in the solar system at least once, she says. Humans could still go dig in the dirt to study distant geologybut when robots can do it, well, maybe not.

As for manifest destiny? Historians know better. Western expansion was a vicious land grab, and the great explorers were mostly in it for resources or treasure. Human wanderlust expresses itself only in the service of political or economic will.

Of course, Earths impending destruction could provide some incentive. Deplete the planets resources and asteroid-belt mining suddenly seems reasonable. Change the climate and space provides room for humanity (and everything else).

But thats a dangerous line of thinking. It creates a moral hazard, Robinson says. People think if we fuck up here on Earth we can always go to Mars or the stars. Its pernicious. His latest book, Aurora, again makes a forceful case about settlement beyond the solar system: You probably cant. As far as anyone knows, Earth is the only habitable place in the universe. If were going to leave this planet, lets go because we want tonot because we have to. Adam Rogers

This article appears in the March 2016 issue.

Illustrations by 520 Design; Nebula by Ash Thorp

Continued here:

The 12 Greatest Challenges for Space Exploration | WIRED

Hypothetical travel between stars

Interstellar travel is crewed or uncrewed travel between stars or planetary systems. Interstellar travel would be much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight. Whereas the distances between the planets in the Solar System are less than 30 astronomical units (AU), the distances between stars are typically hundreds of thousands of AU, and usually expressed in light-years. Because of the vastness of those distances, practical interstellar travel based on known physics would need to occur at a high percentage of the speed of light, allowing for significant travel times, at least decades to perhaps millennia or longer.[1]

The speeds required for interstellar travel in a human lifetime far exceed what current methods of spacecraft propulsion can provide. Even with a hypothetically perfectly efficient propulsion system, the kinetic energy corresponding to those speeds is enormous by today's standards of energy development. Moreover, collisions by the spacecraft with cosmic dust and gas can produce very dangerous effects both to passengers and the spacecraft itself.[1]

A number of strategies have been proposed to deal with these problems, ranging from giant arks that would carry entire societies and ecosystems, to microscopic space probes. Many different spacecraft propulsion systems have been proposed to give spacecraft the required speeds, including nuclear propulsion, beam-powered propulsion, and methods based on speculative physics.[2]

For both crewed and uncrewed interstellar travel, considerable technological and economic challenges need to be met. Even the most optimistic views about interstellar travel see it as only being feasible decades from now. However, in spite of the challenges, if or when interstellar travel is realized, a wide range of scientific benefits is expected.[3]

Most interstellar travel concepts require a developed space logistics system capable of moving millions of tonnes to a construction / operating location, and most would require gigawatt-scale power for construction or power (such as Star Wisp or Light Sail type concepts). Such a system could grow organically if space-based solar power became a significant component of Earth's energy mix. Consumer demand for a multi-terawatt system would automatically create the necessary multi-million ton/year logistical system.[4]

Distances between the planets in the Solar System are often measured in astronomical units (AU), defined as the average distance between the Sun and Earth, some 1.5108 kilometers (93million miles). Venus, the closest other planet to Earth is (at closest approach) 0.28 AU away. Neptune, the farthest planet from the Sun, is 29.8 AU away. As of January 25, 2020, Voyager1, the farthest human-made object from Earth, is 148.7 AU away.[5]

The closest known star, Proxima Centauri, is approximately 268,332AU away, or over 9,000 times farther away than Neptune.

Because of this, distances between stars are usually expressed in light-years (defined as the distance that light travels in vacuum in one Julian year) or in parsecs (one parsec is 3.26 ly, the distance at which stellar parallax is exactly one arcsecond, hence the name). Light in a vacuum travels around 300,000 kilometres (186,000mi) per second, so 1 light-year is about 9.4611012 kilometers (5.879trillion miles) or 63,241 AU. Proxima Centauri, the nearest (albeit not naked-eye visible) star, is 4.243 light-years away.

Another way of understanding the vastness of interstellar distances is by scaling: One of the closest stars to the Sun, Alpha Centauri A (a Sun-like star), can be pictured by scaling down the EarthSun distance to one meter (3.28ft). On this scale, the distance to Alpha Centauri A would be 276 kilometers (171 miles).

The fastest outward-bound spacecraft yet sent, Voyager 1, has covered 1/600 of a light-year in 30 years and is currently moving at 1/18,000 the speed of light. At this rate, a journey to Proxima Centauri would take 80,000 years.[6]

A significant factor contributing to the difficulty is the energy that must be supplied to obtain a reasonable travel time. A lower bound for the required energy is the kinetic energy K = 1 2 m v 2 {displaystyle K={tfrac {1}{2}}mv^{2}} where m {displaystyle m} is the final mass. If deceleration on arrival is desired and cannot be achieved by any means other than the engines of the ship, then the lower bound for the required energy is doubled to m v 2 {displaystyle mv^{2}} .[7]

The velocity for a manned round trip of a few decades to even the nearest star is several thousand times greater than those of present space vehicles. This means that due to the v 2 {displaystyle v^{2}} term in the kinetic energy formula, millions of times as much energy is required. Accelerating one ton to one-tenth of the speed of light requires at least 450 petajoules or 4.501017 joules or 125 terawatt-hours[8] (world energy consumption 2008 was 143,851terawatt-hours),[9] without factoring in efficiency of the propulsion mechanism. This energy has to be generated onboard from stored fuel, harvested from the interstellar medium, or projected over immense distances.

A knowledge of the properties of the interstellar gas and dust through which the vehicle must pass is essential for the design of any interstellar space mission.[10] A major issue with traveling at extremely high speeds is that interstellar dust may cause considerable damage to the craft, due to the high relative speeds and large kinetic energies involved. Various shielding methods to mitigate this problem have been proposed.[11] Larger objects (such as macroscopic dust grains) are far less common, but would be much more destructive. The risks of impacting such objects, and methods of mitigating these risks, have been discussed in literature, but many unknowns remain[12] and, owing to the inhomogeneous distribution of interstellar matter around the Sun, will depend on direction travelled.[10] Although a high density interstellar medium may cause difficulties for many interstellar travel concepts, interstellar ramjets, and some proposed concepts for decelerating interstellar spacecraft, would actually benefit from a denser interstellar medium.[10]

The crew of an interstellar ship would face several significant hazards, including the psychological effects of long-term isolation, the effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, and the physiological effects of weightlessness to the muscles, joints, bones, immune system, and eyes. There also exists the risk of impact by micrometeoroids and other space debris. These risks represent challenges that have yet to be overcome.[13]

The physicist Robert L. Forward has argued that an interstellar mission that cannot be completed within 50 years should not be started at all. Instead, assuming that a civilization is still on an increasing curve of propulsion system velocity and not yet having reached the limit, the resources should be invested in designing a better propulsion system. This is because a slow spacecraft would probably be passed by another mission sent later with more advanced propulsion (the incessant obsolescence postulate).[14]

On the other hand, Andrew Kennedy has shown that if one calculates the journey time to a given destination as the rate of travel speed derived from growth (even exponential growth) increases, there is a clear minimum in the total time to that destination from now.[15] Voyages undertaken before the minimum will be overtaken by those that leave at the minimum, whereas voyages that leave after the minimum will never overtake those that left at the minimum.

There are 59 known stellar systems within 40 light years of the Sun, containing 81 visible stars. The following could be considered prime targets for interstellar missions:[14]

Existing and near-term astronomical technology is capable of finding planetary systems around these objects, increasing their potential for exploration

Slow interstellar missions based on current and near-future propulsion technologies are associated with trip times starting from about one hundred years to thousands of years. These missions consist of sending a robotic probe to a nearby star for exploration, similar to interplanetary probes such as used in the Voyager program.[20] By taking along no crew, the cost and complexity of the mission is significantly reduced although technology lifetime is still a significant issue next to obtaining a reasonable speed of travel. Proposed concepts include Project Daedalus, Project Icarus, Project Dragonfly, Project Longshot,[21] and more recently Breakthrough Starshot.[22]

Near-lightspeed nano spacecraft might be possible within the near future built on existing microchip technology with a newly developed nanoscale thruster. Researchers at the University of Michigan are developing thrusters that use nanoparticles as propellant. Their technology is called "nanoparticle field extraction thruster", or nanoFET. These devices act like small particle accelerators shooting conductive nanoparticles out into space.[23]

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, has suggested that clouds of "smart dust" be sent to the stars, which may become possible with advances in nanotechnology. Kaku also notes that a large number of nanoprobes would need to be sent due to the vulnerability of very small probes to be easily deflected by magnetic fields, micrometeorites and other dangers to ensure the chances that at least one nanoprobe will survive the journey and reach the destination.[24]

Given the light weight of these probes, it would take much less energy to accelerate them. With onboard solar cells, they could continually accelerate using solar power. One can envision a day when a fleet of millions or even billions of these particles swarm to distant stars at nearly the speed of light and relay signals back to Earth through a vast interstellar communication network.

As a near-term solution, small, laser-propelled interstellar probes, based on current CubeSat technology were proposed in the context of Project Dragonfly.[21]

In crewed missions, the duration of a slow interstellar journey presents a major obstacle and existing concepts deal with this problem in different ways.[25] They can be distinguished by the "state" in which humans are transported on-board of the spacecraft.

A generation ship (or world ship) is a type of interstellar ark in which the crew that arrives at the destination is descended from those who started the journey. Generation ships are not currently feasible because of the difficulty of constructing a ship of the enormous required scale and the great biological and sociological problems that life aboard such a ship raises.[26][27][28][29]

Scientists and writers have postulated various techniques for suspended animation. These include human hibernation and cryonic preservation. Although neither is currently practical, they offer the possibility of sleeper ships in which the passengers lie inert for the long duration of the voyage.[30]

A robotic interstellar mission carrying some number of frozen early stage human embryos is another theoretical possibility. This method of space colonization requires, among other things, the development of an artificial uterus, the prior detection of a habitable terrestrial planet, and advances in the field of fully autonomous mobile robots and educational robots that would replace human parents.[31]

Interstellar space is not completely empty; it contains trillions of icy bodies ranging from small asteroids (Oort cloud) to possible rogue planets. There may be ways to take advantage of these resources for a good part of an interstellar trip, slowly hopping from body to body or setting up waystations along the way.[32]

If a spaceship could average 10percent of light speed (and decelerate at the destination, for manned missions), this would be enough to reach Proxima Centauri in forty years. Several propulsion concepts have been proposed [33] that might be eventually developed to accomplish this (see Propulsion below), but none of them are ready for near-term (few decades) developments at acceptable cost.

Physicists generally believe faster-than-light travel is impossible. Relativistic time dilation allows a traveler to experience time more slowly, the closer their speed is to the speed of light.[34] This apparent slowing becomes noticeable when velocities above 80% of the speed of light are attained. Clocks aboard an interstellar ship would run slower than Earth clocks, so if a ship's engines were capable of continuously generating around 1g of acceleration (which is comfortable for humans), the ship could reach almost anywhere in the galaxy and return to Earth within 40 years ship-time (see diagram). Upon return, there would be a difference between the time elapsed on the astronaut's ship and the time elapsed on Earth.

For example, a spaceship could travel to a star 32 light-years away, initially accelerating at a constant 1.03g (i.e. 10.1m/s2) for 1.32 years (ship time), then stopping its engines and coasting for the next 17.3 years (ship time) at a constant speed, then decelerating again for 1.32 ship-years, and coming to a stop at the destination. After a short visit, the astronaut could return to Earth the same way. After the full round-trip, the clocks on board the ship show that 40 years have passed, but according to those on Earth, the ship comes back 76 years after launch.

From the viewpoint of the astronaut, onboard clocks seem to be running normally. The star ahead seems to be approaching at a speed of 0.87 light years per ship-year. The universe would appear contracted along the direction of travel to half the size it had when the ship was at rest; the distance between that star and the Sun would seem to be 16 light years as measured by the astronaut.

At higher speeds, the time on board will run even slower, so the astronaut could travel to the center of the Milky Way (30,000 light years from Earth) and back in 40 years ship-time. But the speed according to Earth clocks will always be less than 1 light year per Earth year, so, when back home, the astronaut will find that more than 60 thousand years will have passed on Earth.

Regardless of how it is achieved, a propulsion system that could produce acceleration continuously from departure to arrival would be the fastest method of travel. A constant acceleration journey is one where the propulsion system accelerates the ship at a constant rate for the first half of the journey, and then decelerates for the second half, so that it arrives at the destination stationary relative to where it began. If this were performed with an acceleration similar to that experienced at the Earth's surface, it would have the added advantage of producing artificial "gravity" for the crew. Supplying the energy required, however, would be prohibitively expensive with current technology.[36]

From the perspective of a planetary observer, the ship will appear to accelerate steadily at first, but then more gradually as it approaches the speed of light (which it cannot exceed). It will undergo hyperbolic motion.[37] The ship will be close to the speed of light after about a year of accelerating and remain at that speed until it brakes for the end of the journey.

From the perspective of an onboard observer, the crew will feel a gravitational field opposite the engine's acceleration, and the universe ahead will appear to fall in that field, undergoing hyperbolic motion. As part of this, distances between objects in the direction of the ship's motion will gradually contract until the ship begins to decelerate, at which time an onboard observer's experience of the gravitational field will be reversed.

When the ship reaches its destination, if it were to exchange a message with its origin planet, it would find that less time had elapsed on board than had elapsed for the planetary observer, due to time dilation and length contraction.

The result is an impressively fast journey for the crew.

All rocket concepts are limited by the rocket equation, which sets the characteristic velocity available as a function of exhaust velocity and mass ratio, the ratio of initial (M0, including fuel) to final (M1, fuel depleted) mass.

Very high specific power, the ratio of thrust to total vehicle mass, is required to reach interstellar targets within sub-century time-frames.[38] Some heat transfer is inevitable and a tremendous heating load must be adequately handled.

Thus, for interstellar rocket concepts of all technologies, a key engineering problem (seldom explicitly discussed) is limiting the heat transfer from the exhaust stream back into the vehicle.[39]

A type of electric propulsion, spacecraft such as Dawn use an ion engine. In an ion engine, electric power is used to create charged particles of the propellant, usually the gas xenon, and accelerate them to extremely high velocities. The exhaust velocity of conventional rockets is limited by the chemical energy stored in the fuel's molecular bonds, which limits the thrust to about 5km/s. They produce a high thrust (about 10 N), but they have a low specific impulse, and that limits their top speed. By contrast, ion engines have low force, but the top speed in principle is limited only by the electrical power available on the spacecraft and on the gas ions being accelerated. The exhaust speed of the charged particles range from 15km/s to 35km/s.[40]

Nuclear-electric or plasma engines, operating for long periods at low thrust and powered by fission reactors, have the potential to reach speeds much greater than chemically powered vehicles or nuclear-thermal rockets. Such vehicles probably have the potential to power solar system exploration with reasonable trip times within the current century. Because of their low-thrust propulsion, they would be limited to off-planet, deep-space operation. Electrically powered spacecraft propulsion powered by a portable power-source, say a nuclear reactor, producing only small accelerations, would take centuries to reach for example 15% of the velocity of light, thus unsuitable for interstellar flight during a single human lifetime.[41]

Fission-fragment rockets use nuclear fission to create high-speed jets of fission fragments, which are ejected at speeds of up to 12,000km/s (7,500mi/s). With fission, the energy output is approximately 0.1% of the total mass-energy of the reactor fuel and limits the effective exhaust velocity to about 5% of the velocity of light. For maximum velocity, the reaction mass should optimally consist of fission products, the "ash" of the primary energy source, so no extra reaction mass need be bookkept in the mass ratio.

Based on work in the late 1950s to the early 1960s, it has been technically possible to build spaceships with nuclear pulse propulsion engines, i.e. driven by a series of nuclear explosions. This propulsion system contains the prospect of very high specific impulse (space travel's equivalent of fuel economy) and high specific power.[42]

Project Orion team member Freeman Dyson proposed in 1968 an interstellar spacecraft using nuclear pulse propulsion that used pure deuterium fusion detonations with a very high fuel-burnup fraction. He computed an exhaust velocity of 15,000km/s and a 100,000-tonne space vehicle able to achieve a 20,000km/s delta-v allowing a flight-time to Alpha Centauri of 130 years.[43] Later studies indicate that the top cruise velocity that can theoretically be achieved by a Teller-Ulam thermonuclear unit powered Orion starship, assuming no fuel is saved for slowing back down, is about 8% to 10% of the speed of light (0.08-0.1c).[44] An atomic (fission) Orion can achieve perhaps 3%-5% of the speed of light. A nuclear pulse drive starship powered by fusion-antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion units would be similarly in the 10% range and pure matter-antimatter annihilation rockets would be theoretically capable of obtaining a velocity between 50% to 80% of the speed of light. In each case saving fuel for slowing down halves the maximum speed. The concept of using a magnetic sail to decelerate the spacecraft as it approaches its destination has been discussed as an alternative to using propellant, this would allow the ship to travel near the maximum theoretical velocity.[45] Alternative designs utilizing similar principles include Project Longshot, Project Daedalus, and Mini-Mag Orion. The principle of external nuclear pulse propulsion to maximize survivable power has remained common among serious concepts for interstellar flight without external power beaming and for very high-performance interplanetary flight.

In the 1970s the Nuclear Pulse Propulsion concept further was refined by Project Daedalus by use of externally triggered inertial confinement fusion, in this case producing fusion explosions via compressing fusion fuel pellets with high-powered electron beams. Since then, lasers, ion beams, neutral particle beams and hyper-kinetic projectiles have been suggested to produce nuclear pulses for propulsion purposes.[46]

A current impediment to the development of any nuclear-explosion-powered spacecraft is the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which includes a prohibition on the detonation of any nuclear devices (even non-weapon based) in outer space. This treaty would, therefore, need to be renegotiated, although a project on the scale of an interstellar mission using currently foreseeable technology would probably require international cooperation on at least the scale of the International Space Station.

Another issue to be considered, would be the g-forces imparted to a rapidly accelerated spacecraft, cargo, and passengers inside (see Inertia negation).

Fusion rocket starships, powered by nuclear fusion reactions, should conceivably be able to reach speeds of the order of 10% of that of light, based on energy considerations alone. In theory, a large number of stages could push a vehicle arbitrarily close to the speed of light.[47] These would "burn" such light element fuels as deuterium, tritium, 3He, 11B, and 7Li. Because fusion yields about 0.30.9% of the mass of the nuclear fuel as released energy, it is energetically more favorable than fission, which releases <0.1% of the fuel's mass-energy. The maximum exhaust velocities potentially energetically available are correspondingly higher than for fission, typically 410% of c. However, the most easily achievable fusion reactions release a large fraction of their energy as high-energy neutrons, which are a significant source of energy loss. Thus, although these concepts seem to offer the best (nearest-term) prospects for travel to the nearest stars within a (long) human lifetime, they still involve massive technological and engineering difficulties, which may turn out to be intractable for decades or centuries.

Early studies include Project Daedalus, performed by the British Interplanetary Society in 19731978, and Project Longshot, a student project sponsored by NASA and the US Naval Academy, completed in 1988. Another fairly detailed vehicle system, "Discovery II",[48] designed and optimized for crewed Solar System exploration, based on the D3He reaction but using hydrogen as reaction mass, has been described by a team from NASA's Glenn Research Center. It achieves characteristic velocities of >300km/s with an acceleration of ~1.7103 g, with a ship initial mass of ~1700 metric tons, and payload fraction above 10%. Although these are still far short of the requirements for interstellar travel on human timescales, the study seems to represent a reasonable benchmark towards what may be approachable within several decades, which is not impossibly beyond the current state-of-the-art. Based on the concept's 2.2% burnup fraction it could achieve a pure fusion product exhaust velocity of ~3,000km/s.

An antimatter rocket would have a far higher energy density and specific impulse than any other proposed class of rocket.[33] If energy resources and efficient production methods are found to make antimatter in the quantities required and store[49][50] it safely, it would be theoretically possible to reach speeds of several tens of percent that of light.[33] Whether antimatter propulsion could lead to the higher speeds (>90% that of light) at which relativistic time dilation would become more noticeable, thus making time pass at a slower rate for the travelers as perceived by an outside observer, is doubtful owing to the large quantity of antimatter that would be required.[33]

Speculating that production and storage of antimatter should become feasible, two further issues need to be considered. First, in the annihilation of antimatter, much of the energy is lost as high-energy gamma radiation, and especially also as neutrinos, so that only about 40% of mc2 would actually be available if the antimatter were simply allowed to annihilate into radiations thermally.[33] Even so, the energy available for propulsion would be substantially higher than the ~1% of mc2 yield of nuclear fusion, the next-best rival candidate.

Second, heat transfer from the exhaust to the vehicle seems likely to transfer enormous wasted energy into the ship (e.g. for 0.1g ship acceleration, approaching 0.3 trillion watts per ton of ship mass), considering the large fraction of the energy that goes into penetrating gamma rays. Even assuming shielding was provided to protect the payload (and passengers on a crewed vehicle), some of the energy would inevitably heat the vehicle, and may thereby prove a limiting factor if useful accelerations are to be achieved.

More recently, Friedwardt Winterberg proposed that a matter-antimatter GeV gamma ray laser photon rocket is possible by a relativistic proton-antiproton pinch discharge, where the recoil from the laser beam is transmitted by the Mssbauer effect to the spacecraft.[51]

Rockets deriving their power from external sources, such as a laser, could replace their internal energy source with an energy collector, potentially reducing the mass of the ship greatly and allowing much higher travel speeds. Geoffrey A. Landis has proposed for an interstellar probe, with energy supplied by an external laser from a base station powering an Ion thruster.[52]

A problem with all traditional rocket propulsion methods is that the spacecraft would need to carry its fuel with it, thus making it very massive, in accordance with the rocket equation. Several concepts attempt to escape from this problem:[33][53]

A radio frequency (RF) resonant cavity thruster is a device that is claimed to be a spacecraft thruster. In 2016, the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory at NASA reported observing a small apparent thrust from one such test, a result not since replicated.[54] One of the designs is called EMDrive. In December 2002, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd described a working prototype with an alleged total thrust of about 0.02 newtons powered by an 850 W cavity magnetron. The device could operate for only a few dozen seconds before the magnetron failed, due to overheating.[55] The latest test on the EMDrive concluded that it does not work.[56]

Proposed in 2019 by NASA scientist Dr. David Burns, the helical engine concept would use a particle accelerator to accelerate particles to near the speed of light. Since particles traveling at such speeds acquire more mass, it is believed that this mass change could create acceleration. According to Burns, the spacecraft could theoretically reach 99% the speed of light.[57]

In 1960, Robert W. Bussard proposed the Bussard ramjet, a fusion rocket in which a huge scoop would collect the diffuse hydrogen in interstellar space, "burn" it on the fly using a protonproton chain reaction, and expel it out of the back. Later calculations with more accurate estimates suggest that the thrust generated would be less than the drag caused by any conceivable scoop design.[citation needed] Yet the idea is attractive because the fuel would be collected en route (commensurate with the concept of energy harvesting), so the craft could theoretically accelerate to near the speed of light. The limitation is due to the fact that the reaction can only accelerate the propellant to 0.12c. Thus the drag of catching interstellar dust and the thrust of accelerating that same dust to 0.12c would be the same when the speed is 0.12c, preventing further acceleration.

A light sail or magnetic sail powered by a massive laser or particle accelerator in the home star system could potentially reach even greater speeds than rocket- or pulse propulsion methods, because it would not need to carry its own reaction mass and therefore would only need to accelerate the craft's payload. Robert L. Forward proposed a means for decelerating an interstellar light sail in the destination star system without requiring a laser array to be present in that system. In this scheme, a smaller secondary sail is deployed to the rear of the spacecraft, whereas the large primary sail is detached from the craft to keep moving forward on its own. Light is reflected from the large primary sail to the secondary sail, which is used to decelerate the secondary sail and the spacecraft payload.[58] In 2002, Geoffrey A. Landis of NASA's Glen Research center also proposed a laser-powered, propulsion, sail ship that would host a diamond sail (of a few nanometers thick) powered with the use of solar energy.[59] With this proposal, this interstellar ship would, theoretically, be able to reach 10 percent the speed of light.

A magnetic sail could also decelerate at its destination without depending on carried fuel or a driving beam in the destination system, by interacting with the plasma found in the solar wind of the destination star and the interstellar medium.[60][61]

The following table lists some example concepts using beamed laser propulsion as proposed by the physicist Robert L. Forward:[62]

The following table is based on work by Heller, Hippke and Kervella.[63]

Achieving start-stop interstellar trip times of less than a human lifetime require mass-ratios of between 1,000 and 1,000,000, even for the nearer stars. This could be achieved by multi-staged vehicles on a vast scale.[47] Alternatively large linear accelerators could propel fuel to fission propelled space-vehicles, avoiding the limitations of the Rocket equation.[64]

Scientists and authors have postulated a number of ways by which it might be possible to surpass the speed of light, but even the most serious-minded of these are highly speculative.[65]

It is also debatable whether faster-than-light travel is physically possible, in part because of causality concerns: travel faster than light may, under certain conditions, permit travel backwards in time within the context of special relativity.[66] Proposed mechanisms for faster-than-light travel within the theory of general relativity require the existence of exotic matter[65] and it is not known if this could be produced in sufficient quantity.

In physics, the Alcubierre drive is based on an argument, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, that it is possible to modify spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed by a local expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it.[67] Nevertheless, this concept would require the spaceship to incorporate a region of exotic matter, or hypothetical concept of negative mass.[67]

A theoretical idea for enabling interstellar travel is by propelling a starship by creating an artificial black hole and using a parabolic reflector to reflect its Hawking radiation. Although beyond current technological capabilities, a black hole starship offers some advantages compared to other possible methods. Getting the black hole to act as a power source and engine also requires a way to convert the Hawking radiation into energy and thrust. One potential method involves placing the hole at the focal point of a parabolic reflector attached to the ship, creating forward thrust. A slightly easier, but less efficient method would involve simply absorbing all the gamma radiation heading towards the fore of the ship to push it onwards, and let the rest shoot out the back.[68][69][70]

Wormholes are conjectural distortions in spacetime that theorists postulate could connect two arbitrary points in the universe, across an EinsteinRosen Bridge. It is not known whether wormholes are possible in practice. Although there are solutions to the Einstein equation of general relativity that allow for wormholes, all of the currently known solutions involve some assumption, for example the existence of negative mass, which may be unphysical.[71] However, Cramer et al. argue that such wormholes might have been created in the early universe, stabilized by cosmic strings.[72] The general theory of wormholes is discussed by Visser in the book Lorentzian Wormholes.[73]

The Enzmann starship, as detailed by G. Harry Stine in the October 1973 issue of Analog, was a design for a future starship, based on the ideas of Robert Duncan-Enzmann. The spacecraft itself as proposed used a 12,000,000 ton ball of frozen deuterium to power 1224 thermonuclear pulse propulsion units. Twice as long as the Empire State Building and assembled in-orbit, the spacecraft was part of a larger project preceded by interstellar probes and telescopic observation of target star systems.[74]

Project Hyperion, one of the projects of Icarus Interstellar.[75]

NASA has been researching interstellar travel since its formation, translating important foreign language papers and conducting early studies on applying fusion propulsion, in the 1960s, and laser propulsion, in the 1970s, to interstellar travel.

The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (terminated in FY 2003 after a 6-year, $1.2-million study, because "No breakthroughs appear imminent.")[76] identified some breakthroughs that are needed for interstellar travel to be possible.[77]

Geoffrey A. Landis of NASA's Glenn Research Center states that a laser-powered interstellar sail ship could possibly be launched within 50 years, using new methods of space travel. "Ithink that ultimately we're going to do it, it's just a question of when and who," Landis said in an interview. Rockets are too slow to send humans on interstellar missions. Instead, he envisions interstellar craft with extensive sails, propelled by laser light to about one-tenth the speed of light. It would take such a ship about 43 years to reach Alpha Centauri if it passed through the system without stopping. Slowing down to stop at Alpha Centauri could increase the trip to 100 years,[78] whereas a journey without slowing down raises the issue of making sufficiently accurate and useful observations and measurements during a fly-by.

The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) is the name of the overall effort that will, over the next century, work toward achieving interstellar travel. The effort will also go by the moniker 100YSS. The 100 Year Starship study is the name of a one-year project to assess the attributes of and lay the groundwork for an organization that can carry forward the 100 Year Starship vision.

Harold ("Sonny") White[79] from NASA's Johnson Space Center is a member of Icarus Interstellar,[80] the nonprofit foundation whose mission is to realize interstellar flight before the year 2100. At the 2012 meeting of 100YSS, he reported using a laser to try to warp spacetime by 1 part in 10 million with the aim of helping to make interstellar travel possible.[81]

A few organisations dedicated to interstellar propulsion research and advocacy for the case exist worldwide. These are still in their infancy, but are already backed up by a membership of a wide variety of scientists, students and professionals.

The energy requirements make interstellar travel very difficult. It has been reported that at the 2008 Joint Propulsion Conference, multiple experts opined that it was improbable that humans would ever explore beyond the Solar System.[92] Brice N. Cassenti, an associate professor with the Department of Engineering and Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, stated that at least 100 times the total energy output of the entire world [in a given year] would be required to send a probe to the nearest star.[92]

Astrophysicist Sten Odenwald stated that the basic problem is that through intensive studies of thousands of detected exoplanets, most of the closest destinations within 50 light years do not yield Earth-like planets in the star's habitable zones.[93] Given the multitrillion-dollar expense of some of the proposed technologies, travelers will have to spend up to 200 years traveling at 20% the speed of light to reach the best known destinations. Moreover, once the travelers arrive at their destination (by any means), they will not be able to travel down to the surface of the target world and set up a colony unless the atmosphere is non-lethal. The prospect of making such a journey, only to spend the rest of the colony's life inside a sealed habitat and venturing outside in a spacesuit, may eliminate many prospective targets from the list.

Moving at a speed close to the speed of light and encountering even a tiny stationary object like a grain of sand will have fatal consequences. For example, a gram of matter moving at 90% of the speed of light contains a kinetic energy corresponding to a small nuclear bomb (around 30kt TNT).

Explorative high-speed missions to Alpha Centauri, as planned for by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, are projected to be realizable within the 21st century.[94] It is alternatively possible to plan for unmanned slow-cruising missions taking millennia to arrive. These probes would not be for human benefit in the sense that one can not foresee whether there would be anybody around on earth interested in then back-transmitted science data. An example would be the Genesis mission,[95] which aims to bring unicellular life, in the spirit of directed panspermia, to habitable but otherwise barren planets.[96] Comparatively slow cruising Genesis probes, with a typical speed of c / 300 {displaystyle c/300} , corresponding to about 1000 km/s {displaystyle 1000,{mbox{km/s}}} , can be decelerated using a magnetic sail. Unmanned missions not for human benefit would hence be feasible.[97]

In February 2017, NASA announced that its Spitzer Space Telescope had revealed seven Earth-size planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star 40 light-years away from our solar system.[98] Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water. The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water the key to life as we know it under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

See the original post here:

Interstellar travel - Wikipedia

No one knows long-term isolation like astronauts. Confined in space for months on end, they orbit thousands of miles above their homes, their loved ones, and anything remotely familiar about human life. For veteran astronaut Michael Lpez-Alegra, some elements of life during the coronavirus pandemic are not so different from life in space, where he's completed four NASA space flightsone aboard the International Space Station and three aboard the Space Shuttle. He also holds the NASA record for the most spacewalks (10 spacewalks, totaling 67 hours of cumulative time), and his longest spaceflight of 215 days is the third-longest spaceflight of any American astronaut. In 2012, Lpez-Alegra retired from NASA; he now consults with space companies, and sits on several advisory boards and committees for space travel organizations both public and private.

This year, Lpez-Alegra was honored as one of three inductees into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, though like so much else about public life, the ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex was postponed due to the pandemic. While social distancing down here on the ground, Lpez-Alegra was kind enough to talk to Esquire about being alone in space, working through conflict with your isolation team, and appreciating the uniqueness of Earth.

ESQ: Would you say you've ever felt lonely in space or far from your loved ones?

MLA: We had some ample ways of communicating, which included email. We actually had a telephone where we could call pretty much anybody on Earth. Most any time during the day, we were in constant communication with the mission control team in Houston. You don't really feel like you're by yourself up there. In todays world, you can imagine people in Antarctica or people on nuclear submarines in the Navy that are probably more isolated than we were in space. Plus, in space, the view's a lot better.

ESQ: When youre that isolated, where do you go in your mind when your mind wanders?

MLA: The most tranquil moments are when you're looking out the window at the Earth. Often when you look out the window, you see clouds or ocean, because it turns out there's a lot of them on our planet. You're not necessarily looking for something or at something. You're looking at a landscape going by. Where your mind wanders is not terribly different from where it wanders when you have a moment like that on Earth. Its whatever's on your mind, whether thats your family, your work, or the Red Sox.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data from Miguel Romn, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

ESQ: When you were in space, what did you most look forward to about your return to Earth?

MLA: You miss Earth smells like rain and freshly mowed grass. Things like that that are just impossible in space. I miss a glass of wine with dinner. I miss cooking, actually, because all the food on orbit is pre-prepared and you just heat it up. The routine, mundane stuff of living on Earth is what you miss the most.

ESQ: What kind of mental preparations did you go through to stay positive as time passed in space?

MLA: That's another thing that's very different when you're an astronaut or on a submarine: You have an end date. You know that on such and such a day, you're going to de-orbit and come back to Earth. That's what's hard about this particular situation, because we dont have a hard end date, and even when our current phase ends, life certainly wont go back to normal right away. When youre preparing for something where youre going to endure some hardship, especially isolation and separation, your organism goes through a process where you become prepared for it. It happens subconsciously and emotionally. That contributes a lot to the fact that I never felt anxious about when the heck this is gonna be over?

ESQ: When you were on the Space Station, how did you create boundaries between living space and working space?

MLA: When I launched, that was my expectationthat I would be living and working and eating and playing and exercising in the same space. We did hours of simulation prior to launch, and after a while, it just became the new norm. If youre lucky enough to be able to work from home, youre still working. It should not be that you're working in your PJs or sitting on your bed with your laptop. You should try to sit at a desk, even if it's a much smaller environment. You just have to set up boundaries in your head to partition whatever space you have into different areas for different purposes. A peril of working from home is there's really no stop timethe emails keep coming and the phone calls keep coming, which means you need to set some time apart for yourself and do something that interests you. Have a hobby.

NASA

ESQ: Did you have a daily stop time on the Space Station?

MLA: Yes, we did. We had an artificial clock, because you go around the Earth once every 90 minutes, so wed see a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes. You can't obviously sleep by that rhythm, so wed use Greenwich Mean Time, and wed wake up at a certain hour. We had a routine that would last through a work day, and then wed have what we call pre-sleep activities, and after wed wake up, wed have post-sleep. Post-sleep includes getting hygiene, getting dressed, having breakfast, connecting a little bit with the world. Then we'd have a conference with the ground, then wed work, wed have lunch, wed work some more. Then wed have another conference with the ground, and then wed have pre-sleep, where wed do basically the same thing. Hygiene, dinner, play around.

ESQ: Another feeling that many people are confronting for the first time is the sensation that danger is all around us. Did you feel that way in space?

MLA: Not really. The launch is dangerous, and there are certainly dangers in spaceyou could get hit by a meteoroid, which would ruin your daybut NASA does a good job understanding and mitigating the risks. The launch is dicey, the landing is dicey, doing a space walk is dicey, but day-to-day inside operations? Not so bad.

ESQ: Many people are also reporting feeling bored. Did you ever feel bored in space?

MLA: No. You never got bored in space. We did our routine Monday through Friday; on Saturday wed work a half day, and Sunday was a day off. Even when we had no activity going on, there was always something to do. People would keep up with their friends and family, or they'd read a book, or they'd look out the window at the Earth and try to test their geography, or theyd do a home improvement task on the Space Station. I can imagine that in the conditions we're in now, it's perhaps not as easy. Looking out the window is not as interestinglet's put it that way.

ESQ: When you're stuck together with a handful of other people in space, how do you deal with conflict?

MLA: For a long time, NASA only flew on the Space Shuttle, so the flights were generally two weeks long and you're sprinting the whole time, which means you dont have much opportunity for conflict. When you're up there for six months or longer on the Space Station, it's certainly a possibility. NASA put together a training syllabus, which I was skeptical of, but it does in fact help. You do a lot of training with your crewmates and you get to know them; everybody can sense each other's strengths and weaknesses, hot buttons and thresholds, and all that. Its the same phenomenon I described before about how your organism subconsciously gears up. What might be irritating for me in day-to-day life on Earth might not irritate me in space, because I've said to myself, This is a much more intimate situation. I'm just not going to let things bother me.

NASA

ESQ: What was in the training syllabus from NASA?

MLA: We did a lot of practical exercises that would involve putting you in physiologically uncomfortable situationsyou're hot or you're cold or you're hungry or you're thirstyand those stressors are meant to lower that threshold of tripping before you display some unsportsmanlike behavior, for lack of a better word. Those kinds of behaviors would come out every once in a while; then we would take a time out and talk about what just happened, what are the coping mechanisms I can learn from that, how can I see the signs in my crewmate when this is about to boil over, how can I diffuse that. They're just techniques that most of us, me included, would've said were common sense. But until you really think about it and, more importantly, have it demonstrated to you under the guidance of instructors, it doesnt sink in as well. It really does work.

ESQ: Could any of those techniques be applicable to someone experiencing tension with other people in isolation?

MLA: If there's conflict that seems to be occurring, take a second to think about it. What were the signs of that coming? How could I have avoided that from boiling over? What is it that this person is doing to me that's irritating, and how can I make that not be such a big deal to me? If you think about those things, its not rocket science.

ESQ: What was the lowest you ever felt in space, and how did you get through it?

MLA: The thing that bothers astronauts the most is when they feel like theyve let the team downwhen they made a mistake, or they forgot to do something, or a task took them too long. You have a real sense of working as part of a team, and the things that might affect you about your personal life, you think, That's my problem to deal with and I can manage that. Even managing those things feels like something that you're doing for the team. What helps you is the rest of the team saying, Its no big deal. I got your back. We're still flying and everythings going okay. Thats what team members do for each other.

ESQ: How did space travel change your outlook on life?

MLA: Theres this thing called the Overview Effect. When people fly in space, they come back slightly altered. Its very slight, but having had that perspective of the Earth without borders and seeing the beauty and the uniqueness of our planet compared to everything else that's out there, you gain a greater appreciation for it. You also gain a sense of its fragility. You can actually look through and see how thin the atmosphere is; you realize that this thin layer is all that protects us from what's out there in space, which is radiation and freezing temperatures. You become not only concerned about stewardship of the planet, but also of each other. We're all in the same space ship together down here on Earth, so to speak. It makes you feel like we ought to be able to figure out a way to get along with each other a little bit better, because we're all team members.

It also makes you more tolerant of other cultures and other ways of thinking, as well as more averse to conflict. It doesn't hit you over the head, but it's definitely a change, and if you imagine that in the history of humanity, something like 560 people have ever been to orbit, its remarkable. I remember after my first mission, I thought, If I could take a head of state of every nation on one orbit of the Earth, the Earth would be a better place. It's because of this sense of perspective and connectivity that we have with both the Earth and the people on it. If more people had it, it would make the world a better place to live.

That said, the experience of flying in space is absolutely magnificent, but it's all in the context of coming back to Earth. As great as flying in space is, I don't want to live the rest of my life there. I'm happy to be home, and I think we need to appreciate the place that we live and take better care of it.

Original post:

NASA Astronaut Talks Surviving Isolation, Daily Life in Space, and Earth's Beauty - Esquire.com

Tom Cruise and Elon Musk's SpaceX are reportedly making a movie in space. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

If you've spent any of your time quarantined contemplating how you can take your career to the next level, you are not alone.

Tom Cruise, the ageless movie star who's attempted increasingly treacherous stunts over the past few Mission: Impossible sequels, is reportedly planning to shoot his next action thriller in outer space, and with the help of futurist billionaire tech titan Elon Musk and NASA.

That's according to a Monday report from Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr.

"Im hearing that Tom Cruise and Elon Musks SpaceX are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film an action adventure to be shot in outer space," Fleming Jr. writes, referencing the private space travel program the Tesla founder launched in 2002. "Its not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage but look for more news as I get it. But this is real, albeit in the early stages of liftoff."

Late last month it was announced that Cruise's next two outings as IMF super agent Ethan Hunt, Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8, were being delayed by Paramount due to coronavirus shut-downs, with new release years of November 19, 2021 and November 4, 2022. The plan was for both installments to be shot back to back, and filming on Part 7 was only a few days underway in Italy when it was shut down on Feb. 24. (Another Cruise sequel, the long-awaited 80s follow-up Top Gun: Maverick, was also recently delayed, from June 24 to Dec. 23.)

That's to say Cruise, 57, still has a lot of missions on Earth to pull off before he can focus his attention toward the stars.

It's unclear how well or how long Cruise and Musk have known one another. But Cruise did make his appreciation for Musk's work known in 2013 when he tweeted an image of Musk's project that mirrored some of the tech used in his futuristic 2002 thriller Minority Report.

Musk, meanwhile, has been in the news recently for proclaiming on Twitter that he's "selling almost all physical possessions" and "will own no house." Musk listed two of his California homes for sale on Sunday.

Story continues

Among Cruise's recent wave of death-defying stunts in the M:I movies: He scaled the world's tallest building in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011), hung from the side of a plane in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) and performed an actual HALO jump in Mission: Impossible Fallout (2018).

"The older Tom Cruise gets, the more fun it is to watch him risk death in elaborate and age-and gravity-defying ways," the New York Times wrote in 2018.

Attempting a new round of stunts in zero gravity, then, seems like the next logical progression.

Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:

Follow this link:

Tom Cruise teaming with Elon Musk, NASA to shoot action movie in space - Yahoo News

On March 9, I was headed east around 9 p.m. and saw a spectacular sight a supermoon. It appeared huge on the horizon with an orange hue and wisps of clouds. Beautiful.

This year, supermoons have occurred in three consecutive months in March, last month and this month. I did catch the April event, but it was a different sight. The moon was not as big, was a bright white and not a wisp of cloud was in sight.

With these back-to-back occurrences on my mind, I checked out The Moon to learn more about what I saw.

OLIVER MORTONs THE MOON: A HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE is much more than just a book to answer my simple questions about full moon events. He does explain about all phases of the moon and the moons orbit. So, periodically, some of the full moons that occur every 29 days happen when the moons orbit is closer to the earth (perigee), and we get to experience supermoons.

From the content of the book, I surmise that Morton has read almost everything there is to read on the moon. He employs both fact and fiction in this study of Earths natural satellite. He intersperses chapters of factual information on the moon with chapters exploring the perception of the moon in history, literature and art.

The author reflects on the moon as seen through artists such as Jan Van Eyck and Leonardo da Vinci and through history, starting with Galileo Galilei. This is not a chronological history but a contemplation of the people and ideas that advanced our understanding.

Of course, there cannot be a book about the moon without something about Project Apollo. This section starts long before the actual missions with the technological advances that occurred to make space travel possible. Morton goes from gunpowder to World War II rockets to the Saturn V rocket. He also relates how science fiction authors influenced the interest in space travel.

From the engines to the space suits, Morton details the work that went into sending men to the moon not once but several times. He includes the transcripts of the communications between people on Earth and the astronauts on the moon for Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 from Thats one small step for man to as I take mans last step from the surface.

From the great achievement of the Apollo missions he moves on to how the race to the moon lost momentum. Even though the focus moved to other areas of space, the significance of the Apollo mission cannot be discounted. Morton explains the different thoughts on the earths geologic age and one of those is that when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon it began a new age. The technology that made that step possible is significant on a planetary scale.

The remainder of the book speculates on why the promise of Apollo came to nothing and the reason why we will and should go back. He explores mining, tourism and colonies on the moon. He also touches on ongoing programs in China, India and other countries, including the U.S.

He devotes some pages to Elon Musk and SpaceX and to Jeff Bezos (Amazon) commitment to Blue Origin. Morton also touches on the issues that need to be resolved, especially for plans to stay on the moon. Where do you land and how will space on the moon be allocated?

My initial interest in this book was for a simple question, and I got so much more. It did answer my question but also provided a great philosophical look at an object that we take for granted.

The library only has this title in paper form. My wish is that by the time you read this review, the library will have reopened. If not, and you want to read about the moon, try the Ebsco Ebook collection. You can find the link on the library website at http://www.joplinpubliclibrary.org.

Youll find titles for both adults and juveniles and access is unlimited, so you never have to wait to read the title you choose. You might try The Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor by Maggie Aderin or Moon by Lynn Stone.

Patty Crane is the reference librarian at the Joplin Public Library.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

View post:

Patty Crane: Book shows importance of the moon, Earth's iconic satellite - Joplin Globe

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its very first crew to the International Space Station (ISS), targeting May 27, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The mission is being hailed as the beginning of a new era of human spaceflight. The flight test, dubbed Demo-2 will send two astronauts to the ISS as part of NASAs Commercial Crew Program. The mission will mark the first launch of astronauts aboard an American rocket and spacecraft since the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011. In the last nine years, NASA astronauts have relied on Russias Soyuz rocket to get to and from the International Space Station, costing the space agency $81 million per seat.

The mission will also be a significant milestone for SpaceX. The private company was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 and set out to revolutionise space travel with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. Since then, SpaceX has successfully reduced the cost per launch by developing reusable orbital-class launch vehicles. In 2014, NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing as the two companies that will be funded to develop systems to transport U.S. crews to and from the ISS. Since then, SpaceX has carried out several tests on its Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft.

The Dragon is a free-flying spacecraft designed to deliver both cargo and crew to orbiting destinations. In its first iteration, Dragon 1 was developed and used as a cargo vessel, to transport science experiments and supplies to the ISS. After flying multiple successful missions, SpaceX developed its successor, the Dragon 2. This reusable spacecraft comes in two variations: The Cargo Dragon, which is an updated version of the Dragon 1, and the Crew Dragon, which is able to carry up to seven astronauts into orbit. The Crew Dragon will be the spacecraft used for the crewed mission to the ISS in May 2020.

The Crew Dragon had its first orbital flight test, Demo-1, in March last year. In this uncrewed mission, the spacecraft autonomously docked with the International Space Station and later safely returned by splashing down into the ocean. However, the Crew Dragon does not have a flawless history. In April 2019, about a month after the successful Demo-1 mission, the Crew Dragon was destroyed during a static fire engine test. An investigation by SpaceX found that during the ignition of the spacecrafts eight SuperDraco thrusters, a leaking component allowed liquid oxidiser (nitrogen tetroxide) to enter high-pressure helium tubes. This resulted in a structural failure sufficient to cause an explosion.

Nevertheless, SpaceX rectified the issues and conducted an in-flight abort test in January 2020 to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

This brings us to the situation today. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, NASA and SpaceX remain on track to launch their important Demo-2 mission. Employees at all of NASAs centres are already being asked to work from home except for those who are mission essential, and SpaceX employees have been told to stay home if they feel sick. In its press call for the Demo-2 mission, NASA stated that it is proactively monitoring the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation as it evolves and that it continues to follow guidance by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. Protocols are already in place to ensure the astronauts are in peak health before they fly. Even before the pandemic began, NASA required all astronauts to undergo a two-week quarantine to ensure they dont carry any illnesses with them into space.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will take part in the mission, continue to be monitored and have been training for the launch in a SpaceX flight simulator. Michael Hess, Manager of Operations Integration for NASAs Commercial Crew Program, said: The simulations were a great opportunity to practice procedures and to coordinate decision-making for the mission management team, especially with respect to weather. He added: Whats happening in commercial crew is a big deal. It will be the first time to launch astronauts from U.S. soil since the end of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011, and it will be the first time since STS-1 that we will launch astronauts in a new spacecraft.

Due to current social distancing guidelines, it is expected that fewer visitors than usual will be allowed to witness the launch of Demo-2. The Crew Dragon is scheduled to lift off at 4.32 pm EDT on 27 May, from Launch Complex 39A in Florida.

Read more from the original source:

SpaceX to launch first crewed spacecraft to International Space Station | Forge - ForgeToday

A real-life astronaut has been making virtual visits to Dundee families who are home schooling during the coronavirus lockdown.

Jim Reilly is a geoscientist and explorer who has completed three space shuttle missions and five spacewalks during his 13-year career, logging almost 900 hours in space.

He has sent a video from his home in Virginia to Dundee Science Centre for its home learning programme to give youngsters an insight into his career in space travel.

It forms part of the science centres Space Week, which includes free, themed activities for children to do from the safety of their own home.

Yesterday was astronaut day and Jim who is now director of the US Geological Survey took children and families on a journey through space with stories, photos and videos of his three missions.

His 30-minute video covered everything from training for life in space, lift-off, an astronauts diet and the future of space travel.

Go here to see the original:

Video: Astronaut teaches Dundee kids about space travel with virtual visits - Evening Telegraph

Now that were all practicing social distancing, it might be time to also think about it in different, long range terms as in where you might want to travel moving forward big places with few residents.

When travel resumes, and space is a concern, there are a number of what we might call remote possibilities.

Australia is certainly a good candidate. It is a huge land mass with a very low population density.

New Zealand, which may open its doors first, is another strong candidate.

And while Argentina is also a country with few residents, it has just announced its closing its air space until September. So adjust your travel plans accordingly.

And one of the more interesting extra space destinations in the summer months is Greenland, which has the lowest population density anywhere outside of Antarctica. In fact, there are many American towns that have a population larger than all of Greenland.

Read the original post:

Destinations That Have Extra Space - Peter Greenberg.com Travel News

From the posts of my friends, it seems that the last 60 days or so of this COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a tremendous amount of learning new skills and refining or reconnecting with ones theyd forgotten.

Many of my friends have been baking and cooking whole meals from scratch in home kitchens that have been rarely used for more than boxed dinners and pre-made party platters from the deli section. Theyre dusting off expensive appliances from their wedding registries and researching how to make sourdough starters from scratch now that they have added time at home. Necessity has them researching how to prepare chuck roasts or debone chicken breasts since thats all they can find at the local store when they venture forth from their homes.

The individually portioned, heat-and-eat items either arent available to them, or theyre finding they can save more money by prepping their food at home themselves.

The pandemic has given rise to a crop of home seamstresses, dusting off inherited sewing machines to whip up batches of homemade masks. The last garments those machines saw were drop waist Laura Ashley print collared dresses for a 4-H fashion review 30 years ago. Actually, some of those masks are re-purposed fabric from those same 4-H projects found in their inherited fabric stashes in cabinets and plastic tubs. Still, everyone must pitch in and do his or her part.

My friends who are parents are now suddenly thrust into a changing role as homeschool teachers. They find themselves needing childhood education enrichment exercises to complement the online education that their kids teachers are providing via Zoom. They need solid advice for questions that were once answered by their childrens childcare providers or teachers.

Im seeing more friends using their forced home stays to turn random Pinterest dreams into reality with more gardens planted, new chicken coops being built and new home DIY projects started and finished.

Its ironic though that many turn to YouTube instructional videos from strangers to find the answers, when the answers were always a phone call away at their county Cooperative Extension Service offices.

For more than 100 years, Extension agents have been providing advice and knowledge for home, family and farm. No other country has such a fount of knowledge like that collected under our Extension Services umbrella. Farmers rely on it for research into seed variety performances and crop input recommendations. Families rely on Extension agents for advice on nutritional guidelines, food preparation, childcare and safety trainings. Gardeners rely on their agents for advice on soils and amendments and how to preserve the bounty once its harvested.

And the crown jewel has been the 4-H program, which since its inception has gathered all of this collected knowledge and passed it along through active learning to youth members and their families. By reaching young people at the start, and including parents and siblings in the project learning, the knowledge gets disseminated faster and further.

Its why in the 1950s post-war America we had a surge in rural American prosperity4-H taught youth how to harness the new technologies available to them and their families through project work and competitions. From tractors to home electrical appliances, they were able to improve the quality of life on the farm and in the home.

Its why in the 1990s 4-H expanded to include STEM projects like rocketry and computer scienceto better prepare our youth for the fields of tomorrow and the betterment of our nation as a whole. Some of todays astronauts researching how to grow food in space for extended space travel started out as 4-H members planting gardens or building rockets for the county fair.

This was all done through pamphlets, in-person seminars, field days, and 4-H project learning, long before there were TikTok videos and HGTV. And this education is provided to the public for free or at minimal cost, because its financially supported by tax dollars.

So, if theres one thing to come out of this COVID-19 pandemic, let it be a renewed appreciation for the staff at our county, district and state Extension offices who share the answers we all need each and every day.

Who else do you trust to have the reliable answers to why your sourdough starter died or patterns for that homemade face mask youre seeking?

Read the original:

Extension always had the answer | Home And Family - High Plains Journal

Sure, you can listen to podcasts on politics, true crime, or even just chats about everything in between. "And then," as Science Vs host Wendy Zuckerman would say, "there's science."

If you're a curious person, keen to understand exactly how the world around, inside, and beyond us works, you should try a science podcast.

Whether you want the latest space news, expert commentary on what's making headlines, a thorough debunk of scientific theories, want to know what it's like to live on Mars, or just want to listen to something smart, these are the best science podcasts worth your time (presented in no particular order).

If youre hearing a lot of noise about something in your feed whether its the effects of 5G, the war on plastic straws, or anti-vaxxers and youd like someone to clear up the facts for you with absolute glee, Science Vs is your jam. The podcast and its infectiously enthusiastic host/science journalist Wendy Zuckerman were snapped up by Gimlet Media from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2015, and it is hands down one of the best science podcasts in the game. Theyve done a heap of episodes about the coronavirus, debunking misinformation and fear-mongering rumours. There's also a shorter version called Shots of Science Vs if you need just a tiny hit of science in your day.

Episodes to start with: The one on DNA kits, sharks, nuclear power, or heartbreak.

Its not a best science podcast round-up without Radiolab, right? NPRs Peabody-winning, textbook example of rich, expertly-produced documentary podcast-making was started by Jad Abumrad way back in 2002. Hosted by Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, Radiolab tasks itself broadly with investigating a strange world. Its constantly referred to in the same breath as their friends at This American Life, but tends toward the more science-related topics.

Episode to start with: The one on sleep, space, or shared immunity.

An offshoot of Radiolab hosted by Alix Spiegel, Hanna Rosin, and Lulu Miller, NPR's Invisibilia doesn't cover hard science, but instead has a goal to investigate unseeable forces [that] control human behavior and shape our ideas, beliefs, and assumptions. The team expertly unpack dense behavioral and social scientific studies in a relatable way through the stories of actual humans. More recently, theyve looked at how technologists and biologists are tackling climate change using AI and machine learning to try to translate animal communications into human language. What?!

Episode to start with: The very first episode ever, or skip forward to their celebrated Batman episode.

We promise these aren't all NPR podcasts.

Image: bob al-greene / mashable

If you want to dig into the niches of study that professionals choose to dedicate their lives to, check out Ologies with science correspondent and humorist Alie Ward. Each episode, Ward takes on a different "ology," from conventional ones like palaeontology and molecular neurobiology, to more niche ones like philematology (the study of kissing).

Episode to start with: The one on virology (the study of viruses), or the one when Ward even chatted to an electrochemist to unpack Potterology a made-up word, but its a whole episode on wizard science.

A long-running favourite for folks who love a panel-style podcast, The Infinite Monkey Cage is a BBC Radio 4 show presented by famed British physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince. First launched in 2009, the show sees each episode delve into a particular science-related topic, with Cox and Ince usually alongside two scientists and one famous comedian to balance it out think Noel Fielding, Katy Brand, Stephen Fry, and Eric Idle (who also wrote the theme song). Its really engaging and easy to follow, whether you want to get your head around quantum mechanics or how dreams work, or figure out how we measure the universe.

Episode to start with: The one on dinosaurs, UFOs, or the origin of numbers. Or ditch them all and head to the one where they talked about space travel with, I don't know, Sir Patrick Stewart.

What will a typical day on Mars look like? What does it take to set up a colony? How will people live in isolation, all up in each others faces for lengthy periods of time? Well, that last one we know a lot about now, but the others, well need journalist Lynn Levy for. Gimlet Media's podcast series The Habitat tracks six volunteer scientists who spent a year in an imitation Mars habitat on a mountain in Hawaii, as part if a project called the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. The goal? Help NASA and the University of Hawaii understand how daily life on Mars will go, from crew tasks and responsibilities, to more fun stuff like games and romance. Levy was smart enough to send recording devices in with the crew when they sealed up the habitat so we can have a peek too.

Episode to start with: The first one (it's a narrative).

It's Mars! Or rather a geodesic dome located 8,200 feet above sea level on Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii.

Image: Uncredited / AP / Shutterstock

If you want a regular dose of science to end your week, WNYCs Science Fridays got you covered. Hosted by Ira Flatow, each episode is like a fact-check for your feed, asking questions of the biggest science stories going around that week through interviews with experts who call in. Theyve done a lot of coverage on the coronavirus pandemic, and its highly useful. On the other hand, Science Friday also digs into other stories to balance the episode out. If you like what you hear, the Science Friday crew have two other podcasts: Science Diction, which traces the stories behind words including quarantine and vaccine, and Undiscovered, about the mistakes and lucky breaks that have led to some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs.

Episode to start with: Whatever the most recent one is.

If you want the latest space news combined with chats with astronauts, check out NPRs Are We There Yet?, a great podcast that zooms in on our mission to explore the universe. Space journalist Brendan Byrne interviews astronauts and engineers, and raises questions you might not think about for example, how do NASAs team drive the Mars Rover while working from home during a pandemic? And what would happen if a cat walked across the keyboard?

Episode to start with: Whatever the most recent one is.

Will we ever be able to turn invisible like The Invisible Man? Can meditation change your brain to Doctor Strange levels? Could we create Frankensteins monster, or a whole island of dinosaurs like Jurassic Park? If you love popular culture (right here) and debating whether or not certain elements of films and movies are scientifically possible IRL, check out Science(ish). Hosted by New Scientist editor-at-large Dr. Michael Brooks and commentator Rick Edwards, Science(ish) is made for people who want to understand the science behind the fiction. And if you want more of that, check out Mashable's Science of Sci-Fi series!

Episode to start with: The one on Alien or Jurassic Park.

Would it be possible to do the whole 'Jurassic Park' thing?

Image: Amblin/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

If you're looking for hardcore, investigative journalism around climate change, dig into Drilled. Created in 2018 by journalist Amy Westervelt, the podcast investigates the propaganda campaign built around climate denial, including how it was created and meticulously rolled out. Westervelt had the idea to come at the story of climate denial within the style of true crime, dubbing it "the crime of the century." Over two intense, fascinating, and alarming seasons, Drilled looks at the campaign to shift public opinion away from urgency, at the players whose climate research was foregone for enabling denial, the history of PR campaigns drummed up by fossil fuel companies, and those folks brave enough to stand up to oil companies and take them to court. More seasons are planned for 2020 and 2021.

Episode to start with: The very first one.

If youre into food science, or just curious about the things youre popping into your mouth every day, check out Gastropod. Highly engaging co-hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley dig into the history and science of different foods each episode, looking at how nosh is produced, farmed, and processed into what ends up on our plates. Its incredibly well-produced, often features visits to related locations, and includes interviews with experts. Who knew you could learn so many interesting facts about mac and cheese?

Episode to start with: The one on mangoes, fries, or bagels.

If you're looking for a podcast that digs into medicine, this is a good one. Hosted by married couple Dr. Sydnee McElroy and podcaster Justin McElroy, and distributed by Jesse Thorns Maximum Fun, Sawbones full title is A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. Basically, each episode, the pair unpack the history of medical practices, diseases, viruses, and events which have resonance or lasting effects today. Theyve also done a lot of episodes about the coronavirus pandemic, which is inevitable when youre a podcast about medicine. The banter is strong, the info is relevant and well-researched, and listening to the McElroys fan out hard over Dr. Anthony Fauci is just what the doctor ordered.

Episode to start with: The one on cough drops, ambulances, strokes, or the the scandal behind the most famous book of medical illustrations.

If you like your science podcasts with a slight Sherlock Holmes vibe, check out the BBC's podcast, The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry. Everyday science mysteries are sent in by listeners, to be answered by the ever charming and engaging Drs Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford. What are wormholes and do they really exist? What is ASMR and why does it only affect some people? How do you discover a new chemical element? It's easy to follow and the hosts are delightful.

Episode to start with: The one about the end of the world, why not?

Drs Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford, we presume? Elementary!

Image: bbc

You know Bill Nye. Host of the popular PBS series Bill Nye the Science Guy, he's been a go-to for science talk since the 1990s, and now he's got his own podcast. The enthusiastically named Science Rules! sees Nye teaming up with science journalist Corey S. Powell to answer caller questions about what's happening in our world and beyond. They've done a bunch of episodes on the coronavirus, as well as plenty on climate change, and space. Science does rule.

Episode to start with: The latest one on climate change, the Hubble Telescope, whether vitamins actually do anything, or the one on octopuses.

If you want a quick dose of science but dont have the time or patience for a full podcast, try 60-Second Science. The bite-sized podcast of American science magazine Scientific American, the show sees leading science journalists unpacking some of the latest scientific developments. If you want more than the minuscule episodes, listen to Science Talk with articles editor and columnist Steve Mirsky its the magazines great weekly podcast sitting at 15-30 minutes per ep, and along the same lines.

Episode to start with: Whatever the most recent one is.

While not strictly a science podcast, one of the cornerstones of the explainer podcast style, Stuff You Should Know delves into the science behind things with enough regularity to make this list. Hosted by the ever-delightful Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant from HowStuffWorks, the podcast sees your pals Josh and Chuck pull apart one weird topic per episode with all the wide-eyed wonder and friendly enthusiasm of people who havent spent weeks painstakingly researching it until the wee hours (they have).

Episode to start with: The one on how grass works, how the sun works, and one of my all-time favourites, how terraforming will work.

If you like Invisibilia, you'll like Hidden Brain. NPR's popular podcast hosted by social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam delves into the recesses of the human mind, and questions why the hell we do and think the things we do. Vedantam conducts excellent, well-researched interviews with experts on complex topics that are made simple to understand, and will have you really getting in your own head.

Episode to start with: The one on the 1918 flu and what it tells us about human nature, how our memories can betray us, or the one on lying.

If youve ever wanted to know the metrics of a perfect poop, step this way. Hosted by beloved Australian scientist/radio and TV presenter Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, Shirtloads of Science digs into a wide range of scientific topics in a conversational (let's call it dad-like) way. Each episode sees Dr. Karl, as hes known, just having a chat with leading experts about everything from space archaeology to your ultimate daily crap to exactly whats going on with the Great Barrier Reef. Why Shirtloads? Dr. Karl is known in Australia for his highly extra patterned shirts. Yes, like Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus.

Episode to start with: The one on fire tornadoes, exercising after eating, and how Antarctica is melting due to global warming.

Overwhelmed by the headlines? Get the facts behind them.

Image: vicky leta / mashable

Running since 2005, The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a science podcast for those wanting to get to the truth of it all. Each episode sees host Steve Novella, clinical neurologist and Yale School of Medicine professor, joining his brothers Bob and Jay alongside panelists Cara Santa Maria and Evan Bernstein to critically analyse current news and developments in science, and debunk myths and conspiracies. Its like a big, deep-dive, fact-checking session dont expect to gloss over anything in here.

Episode to start with: Whatever the most recent one is.

If you want a science podcast presented by an actual scientist, who interviews actual scientists, this is your go-to. Started as a radio program by consultant virologist and Cambridge University lecturer Dr Chris Smith when he was a medical student in 2001, The Naked Scientists was picked up by the BBC in 2003. Now, its a weekly one-hour program aired by BBC 5 live the 5 Live Science Podcast title is shared with Australias Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki and is a truly informative science podcast, if not slightly dry. Each episode runs like a news program, checking in with scientific breakthroughs and interviewing the core scientists and researchers.

If you like this, check out the BBC's The Life Scientific too, which also features interviews with leading scientists.

Episode to start with: Whatever the most recent one is.

You cant get much more insider than the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. It sometimes feels slightly dry, but the interview access is pretty unparalleled if you want to meet the people who make space food, this is for you. NASA actually has a lot of podcasts, with NASAs Curious Universe, and Small Steps, Giant Leaps worth checking out too.

Episode to start with: The one on how to plan a spacewalk, the two-parter on the opening of the International Space Station, or the one on space food.

All done with science but still in the (twilight) zone? Chase it with some of these sci-fi podcasts.

Go here to read the rest:

The 21 best science podcasts if you're keen to learn how things work - Mashable