Category Archives: Space Exploration

October 31, 2023

For decades, scientists have studied the seasonal dynamics of upper-atmosphere weather that causes atmospheric waves using imagery and radar data. How and why the waves form and what causes them may provide clues on the conditions that support the wave events.

The atmosphere is full of waves. Sound waves, for example, are easy for our ears to detect, especially if youve ever visited an amusement park with roller coasters. However, some of the most powerful waves in the atmosphere are silent and much harder to detect. These atmospheric waves are known as gravity waves. Earth's airglow at the edge of space. Image courtesy Bossert and Berkheimer/ASU Download Full Image

Jessica Berkheimer, an astrophysics PhD student at Arizona State Universitys School of Earth and Space Exploration, and Assistant Professor Katrina Bossert, a space physicist in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, are among a team of scientists who have set out to learn more about gravity waves with the help of volunteers or citizen scientists.

The project, Gravity Wave Zoo, asks citizen scientists to identify gravity waves, instabilities and aurora using images and short video clips.

Based at the Poker Flat Observatory, just north of Fairbanks, Alaska, the project and the images are taken using an OH (hydroxyl)airglow imager that views the near-infrared at an altitude of 86 kilometers (53.5 miles above the Earth's surface) thats approaching the near-space environment where satellites orbit.

We wanted to create something that invites the public to participate in scientific thinking and data collection: a project that contributes to learning, scientific understanding, science awareness and enjoyment. Most importantly, Gravity Wave Zoo is designed to be fun, Berkheimer said. To help people get started, the project offers easily accessible tutorials and a field guide with example videos, pictures and demonstration classifications. Using Gravity Wave Zoo, citizen scientists engage in real scientific data while helping us evaluate large data sets. Ideally, its a win-win situation.

The three main science aims for Gravity Wave Zoo are to:

Identify gravity waves, instabilities and breaking.

Learn what conditions are needed for these different events to take place.

Compile observations over multiple years to study seasonal variations in gravity wave events.

Gravity waves have become of great interest to scientists because of their essential role in energy and momentum transport throughout the atmosphere and their huge impacts on weather and climate.

Citizen scientist contributions to the Gravity Wave Zoo project will help the research team provide valuable data to weather and climate models and provide helpful training data for machine learning algorithms.

Thousands of images from the hydroxyl airglow imager in central Alaska will be used to classify events of instabilities and waves in the lower thermosphere. The project will engage a broad range of people including K12 students, college students and any interested person from the general public.

We want to know if there are certain times of the year or seasons where there are more instabilities and waves present in this region known as the 'edge of space,'" Bossert said. "Just as ships sailing in the ocean may encounter rougher waters or seasons with more storms, spacecraft orbiting Earth can also be impacted by weather both from Earths atmosphere and the sun. Citizen scientists will be able to help us answer the question of whether there are seasonal aspects of this polar region of the lower thermosphere that can potentially impact spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

Gravity Wave Zoo is part of Zooniverse, the worlds largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. This research is made possible by volunteers more than a million people around the world who come together to assist professional researchers. Their goal is to enable research that would not be possible, or practical, otherwise. Zooniverse research results in new discoveries, data sets useful to the wider research community, and many publications.

Additional scientists on the Gravity Wave Zoo team are Jessica Norrell and Sophie Phillips of ASU, and Denise Thorsen, Richard Collins and Jintai Li at Alaska State University.

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Under the CAREER awards NSF AGS 1944027 and NSF FDSS 1936373.

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Surf's up: Catch an atmospheric wave as ASU research team ... - ASU News Now

By Nathan Vardi

The billionaire investor has beaten the market by betting on Elon Musk. He lands on the MarketWatch 50 list and, in this interview, remains as bullish as ever.

When Ron Baron was starting an investment business, he got some advice from Steve Wynn. The casino magnate told Baron to name his investment company after himself as a way to show clients and customers that he promised to stand behind it. Some four decades later, Baron Capital has made its most important investment in Elon Musk, Inc.

Baron invested $570 million in Tesla (TSLA), mostly between 2014 and 2016, which was about 2% of his assets under management at the time. Today, after selling some shares, Tesla represents about 10.9% of Baron Capital's $41 billion under management, and the winning position has helped Baron's main mutual fund become the only mutual fund to beat the Nasdaq COMP over the last 5, 10 and 15 years, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis, during which time it returned 17% annualized.

"You get rich by being long-term and by being focused, by owning a small amount of companies," Baron said in an interview.

Baron epitomizes a bullish buy-and-hold investing style that has worked in the current environment, where a few big tech stocks, like Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL), have accounted for a disproportionate share of the stock market's gains. Baron runs a concentrated portfolio and owns one of the best performing big tech companies, Tesla, and has benefitted from the electric-car maker's remarkable stock-market run. As a result, he lands on The MarketWatch 50 list of the most influential people in markets.

Musk himself may have just thrown cold water on Tesla's long-anticipated cybertruck and expressed concern about the ability of consumers to buy his expensive cars in the face of high interest rates. But Baron says Tesla's stock will keep rising over time and its market capitalization can grow from its current $630 billion to as much as $4 trillion in 10 years.

"In the case of Tesla, we are convinced that people cannot do what they're doing and that, ultimately, it's not just going to be a car company and it's not just going to be a battery company," said Baron. "All the other car companies, which 50 years ago, elected to become much more profitable and outsource supplies and compute to other people. We're going to be like Intel was inside of computers. This is going to be Tesla inside of cars. All the cars are going to be using Tesla autonomous driving. No one else can possibly compete."

But Baron is even more bullish on Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX. The world's busiest rocket-launching company and its large satellite-Internet subsidiary remain private, but Baron said he expects SpaceX will go public and list on a stock exchange within the next three years.

Baron invested about $700 million in SpaceX several years ago and a recent secondary share sale in the private market implied a nearly $150 billion valuation recently for the entire company.

"We think that by 2030 it likely will be worth somewhere around $500 or $600 billion," Baron said. "And then in the 2030s, that's when I expect to make another 10 times our money. So we can make over the next 15 or 20 years, we can make 30 to 50 times our money in SpaceX."

Baron added, "I think SpaceX has a chance to be even bigger than Tesla in the 2030s."

Baron called SpaceX's satellite-Internet business as "Internet for the planet" and said that it will be much lower cost in many places than what any competitor could hope to provide.

"In the case of SpaceX, what they're going to be doing there, the innovation that other people can't possibly do, is the fact that they are able to launch rockets and re-use them over and over and over again," said Baron. "So as a result of that, it costs other people to get to space $100 million, $200 million. It costs us a fraction of that amount ... Basically, we can get our satellites to space for a very low cost."

What is the risk of betting so big on one man? Baron said the risk was greater when Tesla and SpaceX were smaller companies with fewer people, a period when he thinks the two companies were even more dependent on Musk. But now, Baron said, those companies are teeming with excellent engineers and talented professionals. He added that 3.5 million people applied for jobs at Tesla and SpaceX last year.

"It's harder to get a job at Tesla and SpaceX than to get into Harvard," said Baron. "He has the most brilliant people working there, and that isn't going to change."

At the same time, Baron said, Musk is a unique and irreplaceable force.

"I'm betting he's going to stay alive for at least 5 or 10 years," said Baron. "I think that's a good bet."

-Nathan Vardi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-04-23 1316ET

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Ron Baron says Tesla's valuation can hit $4 trillion, but 'SpaceX has ... - Morningstar

Mars itself is a world of puzzlement, particularly when it comes to whether or not the planet is the home of ancient or even present-day life. But put that aside for the moment. Even without the possible presence of life, the Red Planet is mysterious enough due to the fact that it's circled by a couple of oddballs.

Nobody knows for sure how the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, got where they are or what they are made of.

But now an audacious, adventurous undertaking is being readied for launch that can help us better understand the moons of Mars. Japan's planned Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft mission involves drilling and sampling Phobos, then rocketing the coveted collectibles back to Earth.

Related: This is our 1st detailed look at Mars' most mysterious moon Deimos (photos)

Why all the fuss?Those two moons of Mars are celestially eccentric oddities. Both moons are in nearly circular equatorial orbits; Phobos slowly spiraling into Mars while Deimos is gradually spiraling away.

As theories go, they might be captured asteroids following the formation of Mars. Or perhaps they are leftovers from a huge impact with Mars that then coalesced.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's MMX is geared to help sort out this dilemma by on-site detective work.The mission involves a notable level of cooperation with Europe and the United States, including the development of onboard science instruments and hardware.

If all remains on schedule, MMX heads to its destination next year. About one year after launch, the MMX spacecraft will arrive at Mars to start its long-distance duties. Once its mission is complete, the probe will then journey back to Earth for nearly a year, delivering the collected samples home in 2029. Its sample return capsule will come to to full-stop within a targeted zone of remote outback in Australia.

Nearly a dozen scientific instruments will be onboard the MMX spacecraft, seven of which are dedicated to remote sensing and on-the-spot observation of the Martian moons. Two are sampling mechanisms for collecting material from Phobos, and two instruments are designed to test and develop exploration technology.

The MMX spacecraft is outfitted with two different mechanisms for collecting material from Phobos: The C (corer) Sampler and P (pneumatic) Sampler. The Phobos goodies from the moon's surface are to be stored in a sample return capsule.

The corer sampler uses a robotic arm that will gather subsurface material from the Martian moon, storing that material in a tube for placement in the sample return capsule.

The pneumatic sampler approach uses pressurized gas to loft material from the surface of Phobos for transfer into the sample container.

Yet another MMX mission component is a German-French rover being jointly developed by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

To be dropped from an altitude of between roughly 130 feet to nearly 330 feet (40 and 100 meters) above Phobos, this robot will autonomously upright itself and do its business for some three months. During that time, the rover will approach scientific targets of interest, helping to discern which specimens of Phobos will be collected by the mother spacecraft for hauling to Earth in its return module.

But dealing with Phobos first-hand won't be easy.

The closer of the two heavily-cratered Martian moons, Phobos is the largest of the twosome at 17 x 14 x 11 miles (27 by 22 by 18 kilometers) in diameter. It circuits the Red Planet three times a day. Phobos is in a microgravity environment, having just 1/2000th of Earth's gravity.

What the MMX spacecraft will find there isn't a sure bet. Will the moon's surface material be hard enough to land on, or will be be soft and fluffy?

Terik Daly is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland and is on the MMX science working team. Selected early this year as a NASA-funded participating scientist, he will search for surface changes on Phobos and Deimos by comparing MMX photo data with past imagery of the two moons.

"The MMX mission is ambitious," Daly told Space.com, "no one has ever returned samples from the moons of Mars," pointing out that the MMX mission builds upon JAXA's successful Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions, which returned samples from two near-Earth asteroids Itokawa (June 2010) and Ryugu (December 2020).

"One of the big questions is whether Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids or the aftermath of a giant impact at Mars," Daly said. "Being able to answer that question will help us better understand the origin and evolution of the solar system, and bringing back samples from Phobos will help resolve that mystery."

APL's David Lawrence is the science lead for the MMX mission's GAmma-rays and NEutrons (MEGANE) gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. It will gauge the elemental composition of Mars' moon Phobos using gamma-rays and neutrons.

"Right now, we know little to no information about Phobos' elemental composition," Lawrence told Space.com, "and yet this information is key for understanding how Phobos formed."

In Phobos 101 fashion, Lawrence said there's one "back of the envelope" way to appraise how composition helps decide between the two theories.

"If Phobos formed via a giant impact, it likely would have gotten quite warm, and baked off easily volatilized elements. In contrast, if Phobos is a captured object, maybe from the more volatile rich outer solar system, then one expects such elements to have higher abundances," said Lawrence.

Another NASA-sponsored piece of hardware on MMX is the P-Sampler designed by Honeybee Robotics.

This equipment is mounted along the leg of the MMX lander, crafted to perform sampling operations as soon as five seconds after spacecraft landing on Phobos and up to three seconds before liftoff.

"Two of the greatest challenges of sampling on Phobos are very low gravity and unknown properties of Phobos regolith at the scale of the sampling system," said Kris Zacnyvice president of the company's exploration systems and a senior research scientist. "The Pneumatic Sampler was designed to address both challenges," he told Space.com.

Zacny said the use of compressed nitrogen gas to stir up and loft regolith into a sample container solves the unknown nature of regolith.

Since the pneumatic system is fundamentally a rocket engine that generates thrust, the Honeybee Robotics group also had to eliminate resulting thrust to make the system suitable for low gravity. This was achieved, Zacny said, by implementing additional gas nozzles that were pointed up in the opposite direction to the excavation nozzles that were pointed down.

"To verify that the Pneumatic Sampler is ready for the mission, we did a lot of tests in a vacuum chamber with Phobos regolith simulant provided by Exolith lab at the University of Central Florida," Zacny said.

As far as the overall MMX mission itself, APL's Lawrence said it is indeed a bold and ambitious undertaking, "but of course, that is what makes it exciting."

Given the two past, highly-successful sample return missions to asteroids by Japan, "this is a great next step for JAXA to show their prowess in carrying out such planetary science missions."

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New Japanese spacecraft aims to explore the mysterious moons of ... - Space.com

Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and visionary behind SpaceX, has forever changed the landscape of space exploration. His relentless pursuit of advancing technology and his bold ambitions have propelled humanity forward in our quest to reach the stars.

Musks extraordinary achievements have brought us closer to the realization of interplanetary travel. Through SpaceX, he has made significant strides in developing reusable rocket technology, drastically reducing the cost of space missions. This breakthrough has laid the foundation for a new era in space exploration, making it more accessible and sustainable.

Furthermore, Musks audacious goal of establishing a self-sustaining colony on Mars has reinvigorated our collective imagination. While this may seem like science fiction, Musks determination and unwavering belief in the potential of humanity have inspired countless individuals to dream bigger and push the boundaries of what is possible.

In addition to his groundbreaking work with SpaceX, Musks influence extends to other areas of technological innovation. His ventures in electric vehicles with Tesla have revolutionized the automotive industry, paving the way for a future of sustainable transportation. Musks dedication to renewable energy has also led to the creation of SolarCity, a company focused on solar power solutions.

Despite facing numerous challenges and skeptics along the way, Musk has remained undeterred. His relentless pursuit of his vision has inspired a new generation of entrepreneurs and engineers to embark on audacious endeavors.

FAQs:

Q: What is SpaceX? A: SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company founded Elon Musk.

Q: How has Elon Musk reduced the cost of space missions? A: Elon Musk has developed reusable rocket technology, which allows rockets to be reused multiple times, significantly reducing the cost of space missions.

Q: What is Tesla? A: Tesla, Inc. is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company founded Elon Musk.

Q: What is SolarCity? A: SolarCity is an American solar energy services company founded Elon Musk and his cousins.

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Elon Musk's Impact on the Future of Space Exploration - TickerTV News

Its genuinely refreshing to see Giovanni celebrated for having a personality that extends beyond faux-universal plaudits. Yes, shes rightfully shown speaking to and lighting up auditoriums full of fans, many of whom are Black women, but not just because they presumably share similar experiences or skin color. Rather, Brewster and Stephenson keenly show and contextualize scenes of Giovannis public appearances, some televised and others filmed at recent speaking engagements, as proof of her animating presence. Its one thing to hail Giovanni as an iconic presence and another to show her talk about and exemplify the qualities that have made her and her work so indispensable.

The documentary's title hints at the focuson Giovanni as an iconoclast who skillfully avoided easy classification. This seems crucial when it comes to praising Giovanni, given how shes written and talked about refusing to be treated as a victim despite having witnessed her father repeatedly abuse her mother.

We see Giovanni, in a 1971 interview TV interview with British TV host Ellis B. Haizlip, talking a little about her reluctance to be part of the cycle of domestic abuse, which she sees as part of a greater societal mistreatment of black men in America. She talks further about related concerns in one or two of a few excerpts from another televised conversation from 1971, still on Haizlips pioneering Soul! program, but this time in an interview with James Baldwin. In her considerate, sometimes qualified answersI chose not to grieveyou see Giovannis commanding personality, the kind that cant be reduced to general and too faint praise.

In Going to Mars, Brewster and Stephenson lovingly and observantly connect the modern-day Giovanni, the one they were able to film, with Giovanni in her youth. Giovanni is consistently thoughtful and warm when speaking to different kinds of public audiences, from the Apollo to a small church congregation. Throughout the movie, we see Giovanni as a rare public figure who has and continues to refuse to simply confirm her audiences tastes.

Some of Giovannis poems and writing are dramatized through voiceover narration by Taraji P. Henson. Giovannis recitation of her work is also featured at key moments throughout, which can sometimes give them an extra emotional kick. Its one thing to hear Giovanni talk about why shes convinced African-American women are destined to be space exploration pioneers, and another thing to see and hear Giovanni recite some Afrofuturist poems to a rapt audience, as in a climactic scene shot at the 2016 edition of the Brooklyn-based AfroPunk musical festival. Filmed in beatific close-ups, sometimes in slow-motion, the audience seems to look at Giovanni like shes a rock star. Brewster and Stephenson make a convincing case.

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Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project movie review (2023) - Roger Ebert

Nasa and the University of California at Berkeley are to collaborate on the development of a 36-acre site in San Jose for research into aviation and space exploration.

The 1.4 million sq ft Berkeley Space Centre will be built on land leased from Nasa and will accommodate facilities for companies active in the field, as well as Berkeley researchers.

The project will be built by San Francisco developer SKS Partners and designed by HOK and Field Operations.

The subject of research could include AI, vertiports and drones.

The site will also contain 18 acres of open space. Later phases will add short-stay facilities as well as student and faculty housing.

Gavin Newsom, Californias governor, said: Californias innovation and drive is not limited to Earth. Berkeley Space Centre will help lead the states space tech development by bringing together leaders in academia, government and industry to foster new technologies and breakthroughs.

Carol Christ, Berkeleys chancellor, said: We are thrilled by the prospect of collaborations that can speed the translation of discoveries by our world-class research enterprises.

Green features of the project include photovoltaic panels, water recycling and the diversion of onsite waste. The project is pursuing LEED certification.

Construction on the centre is due to begin in 2026.

Link:

Nasa and Berkeley to build 36-acre space centre near San Francisco - Global Construction Review

PRESS RELEASE

Published May 10, 2023

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Major Players in This Report Include,ABL Space Systems Company (United States), CubeCab (United States), EUROCKOT Launch Services GmbH (Germany), IHI AEROSPACE Co., Ltd. (Japan), IAI (Israel), Lockheed Martin Corporation (United States), Northrop Grumman Corporation (United States), Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (United States), SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP. (United States), Spacefleet (United Kingdom), Boeing (United States), VIRGIN ORBIT (United States).

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The Small Launch Vehicle (SLV) market refers to the market for rockets or launch vehicles with a payload capacity of less than 2,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). These launch vehicles are primarily used for launching small satellites, such as CubeSats and SmallSats, which have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their lower cost and greater flexibility. The SLV market has seen significant growth in recent years, driven by the increasing demand for small satellite launches, particularly for Earth observation, remote sensing, and communication applications. This growth has been further fuelled by the emergence of new space companies and startups that are developing innovative launch solutions. The SLV market is highly competitive, with numerous players operating in the market, including established aerospace companies, startups, and government agencies.

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On 14th March 2022, In August 2021, Gilmour Space Technologies partnered with Exolaunch to sell a full suite of launch and deployment services to a growing number of small satellite operators using the Gilmour designed and built Eris launch vehicle.

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Extracts from Table of ContentsSmall Launch Vehicle Market Research ReportChapter 1 Small Launch Vehicle Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3 Global Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4 Global Revenue (Value, Volume*) by RegionChapter 5 Global Supplies (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Global Revenue (Value, Volume*), Price* Trend by TypeChapter 7 Global Market Analysis by Application.continued

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Small Launch Vehicle Market Sets the Table for Continued Growth ... - Digital Journal

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) shakes hands with Elon Musk on November 8, 2017

Elon Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," agreed to censor Twitter in Turkey on Saturday, the day before a critical election, at the request of the nation's autocratic government. The decision is a sharp break from how Twitter responded to the censorship requests of the current regime, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoan, before Musk bought the company. Musk has lucrative business dealings with the incumbent Turkish government through his company SpaceX.

Erdoan is facing a serious challenge from opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who has vowed to restore Turkey's democratic system. Before the election, polls showed Kilicdaroglu with a slight lead over Erdoan, despite Erdoan's extensive use of state power, including state-controlled media, to swing the contest in his favor. In April, "state broadcaster TRT devoted 32 hours of coverage to Erdoans speeches but just 32 minutes to those of Kemal Kilicdaroglu," according to a recent study.

Twitter announced the decision to censor content in Turkey in a vaguely-worded tweet.

Musk later pledged to "post what the government in Turkey sent us." As of this writing, however, Twitter has not released that information. Therefore, the scope of the censorship remains unknown.

The Turkish Minute, a publication run by Turkish journalists living in exile in Germany, provided details on some of the accounts being censored by Twitter. One account belonged to "Kurdish businessman Muhammed Yakut" who "had previously shared shocking revelations about the Turkish government." Yakut had announced that "he would provide details on Saturday about the true nature of a failed coup in 2016," which Yakut has previously claimed was staged by Erdoan.

Another censored account belonged to "investigative journalist Cevheri Gven," who produces popular videos "in which he talks about the Turkish governments corruption and shady relations." Gven blasted Twitter's move to censor his content, calling it "a disgrace to democracy and freedom of expression."

Social media is a critical source of information for the Turkish electorate because, according to Reporters Without Borders, "90% of the national media [is] now under government control." Journalists that are critical of the government face threats, intimidation, and prosecution. On Friday, shortly before Musk acquiesced to the Turkish government, Human Rights Watch stressed that as "election night draws near it is imperative that social media platforms and the wider internet remain accessible so the public can follow the work of independent election monitors and reporting around the vote count."

Musk's censorship will likely have a significant impact in the days ahead. In the first round of voting, it appears neither candidate will receive more than 50% of the vote. A second round of voting is likely to occur on May 28.

In 2014, the Erdoan regime shut down access to Twitter entirely in Turkey "after a series of leaks on social media helped fuel a corruption scandal ensnaring his government." Turkey also obtained an order "to take down an account with Tweets that accused a former government minister of corruption."

Twitter publicly blasted the government's actions and quickly filed petitions in Turkish court to reverse the takedown order and the ban. The takedown order was reversed two days later. In a blog post, Twitter said the decision was "an exceptionally strong win for freedom of expression, and it will be of paramount value for us in protecting Twitters users against other attempts at censorship in the future." A couple of weeks later, following other losses in court, Erdoan rescinded the ban.

The Twitter executive who led the pushback against Turkey, Vijaya Gadde, was one of the first people fired by Musk.

In contrast, neither Musk nor Twitter has said anything criticizing Erdoan's actions. Musk defended his decision to acquiesce to the government's demands, saying the only options were to "have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets." Musk argued that providing Turkish citizens with a version of Twitter that was censored to Erdoan's specifications was preferable to having no access to Twitter at all.

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, disagreed. Wikipedia was banned in Turkey for nearly three years, beginning in 2017, after it "refused to delete articles critical of the country's government." Instead, Wikipedia challenged the Turkish government's actions in court. In January 2020, Wikipedia won, and access was restored. Wales argued that Wikipedia's actions demonstrated what it "means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan."

A report by the publication Rest of the World, revealed that, under Musk's leadership, "the company has complied with hundreds more government orders for censorship or surveillance especially in countries such as Turkey and India." In the six months following Musk's takeover in October 2022, Twitter did not report "a single request in which the company refused to comply." Twitter refused to comply with three requests in the six months prior to Musk's takeover and five requests in the six months before that. Last month, Twitter stopped sharing the censorship demands it receives from governments.

In September 2021, Musk's space exploration company, SpaceX, signed a deal with the Turkish government to "to launch Turkey's first domestically produced communications satellite." After years of delays, the satellite was launched last month. The terms of the deal are not public, but one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, which was used to launch the satellite, costs $62 million. SpaceX is slated to help Turkey launch another satellite later this year.

Musk met with Erdoan via video conference in December 2021 to discuss "satellite and space technologies," "autonomous electric vehicles," and "lithium batteries for Turkey's indigenous electric car TOGG." The pair also greeted each other during the 2022 World Cup.

Meanwhile, in India, Musk has complied with government requests to censor tweets about "a new documentary from the BBC that focuses on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, delving into accusations that the politician allowed religious-based violence against Muslims." It has also blocked, at the government's request, "more than 120 accounts" critical of Modi. Before Musks leadership, Twitter "had been seen as one of the remaining avenues for Indian people to express dissent, after traditional media houses largely caved in to pressure from the government to toe its line."

SpaceX is currently seeking "a permit to launch satellite internet services in India under its Starlink brand." The company is also pursuing "statutory approvals from the government for landing rights and market access." Last year, Musk "acknowledged that Tesla was thinking about opening a factory in India" if the government would allow it to sell vehicles in the country.

In 2020, according to a report in Bloomberg, Musk's Tesla sought to leverage the power of China's authoritarian regime to suppress critical comments about Tesla cars on social media. Tesla allegedly "asked Beijing to use its censorship powers to block" posts from consumers claiming there were problems with Tesla's brakes.

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Musk bows to Turkey's autocratic government, censors Twitter ... - Popular Information

On April 12, 1961, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey to outer space. The age of space exploration started that day.

But why are we so interested in spending so much time, money, and resources to visit chunks of rock that are most likely empty? Why purposely go to environments that are dangerous and even deadly to humans?

Well, the answer is simple.

The benefits of space exploration outweigh the dangers of it. Becoming a space-faring civilization is the most important goal we must achieve for humanity to survive long-term.

In this article, well the major 10 benefits of space exploration. These include medical, technological, and economic benefits. They are listed in no particular order of importance.

NASA employs more than 18,000 people. SpaceX more than 12,000. And thats not counting outside contractors with whom those numbers at least double.

A lot of those jobs are positions for engineers, data analysts, mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, doctors, biologists, geologists, etc.

Space exploration is one of the industries that require the largest percentage of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) jobs.

These positions require highly qualified people to fill them but are also some of the highest-paid jobs in the market. The average entry-level STEM job pays approximately 26% higher than non-STEM fields for college graduates.

So, in summary, the growing space industry creates high-paying jobs.

In space, there are many valuable resources in big quantities that are scarce on Earth. For example, the asteroid Pysche 16 is estimated to contain over $700 quintillion dollars worth of gold. Enough to give each person on Earth more than $100 billion dollars. And thats not even close to being the most valuable object.

Economists have predicted the space mining industry will create the first trillionaire.

But the real benefit for the advancement of humankind might come from a much more unlikely substance. Water.

Learning to capture asteroids full of ice and crashing them safely, could help us solve one of the biggest challenges of inhabiting planets. The lack of liquid water.

The biggest dream some of us have is being able to take a trip to outer space. It is the ultimate destination. And because unfortunately, not many people can become astronauts, the rest of us will have to wait until the space tourism industry develops a bit more. It is still too expensive to go to space.

In 2021, a trip in one of the first trips offered by Blue Origin, the space company created by Jeff Bezos, was auctioned. The winner paid $28 million for the privilege to be one of the first space tourists.

As reusable rockets improve, the costs of these trips will become significantly lower. Hopefully one day theyll be within the reach for all of us.

The space tourism industry will indubitably create tens of thousands of jobs. From travel agents to pilots, to manufacturing jobs in the factories that make the rockets.

Studying the effects of space travel has helped us better understand the human body. For example, analyzing the effects of zero-gravity on blood circulation led to many discoveries on how arteries age and how to prevent some types of heart failure.

The experiments and measurements of bone strength and bone loss in astronauts have helped doctors better understand osteoporosis and other bone diseases.

The medical benefits of space exploration extend to pretty much every area of the human body. From muscle physiology to mental health.

One of the biggest challenges of space travel is solving problems when you cant send any new equipment, experts, or any other help. You have to fix things with whatever is available on the ship.

So what happens when theres a medical emergency on a spaceship?

This question has led doctors and engineers to develop tools and machines that can perform medical procedures and diagnostics remotely.

That same technology has many applications on Earth too. It allows doctors to assist patients that are located in remote rural areas or villages that are difficult to access.

All this knowledge that has been collected has yielded many developments in medical procedures.

Some examples of medical advancements that have been created thanks to space exploration are:

The NASA spinoff site keeps track of some of the health and medicine advancements that have been made possible thanks to space exploration.

The space race is one of the eras that has birthed the most technological advancements in the shortest period of time. It is probably only third behind both world wars. Throughout the years, companies have found consumer uses for many of these developments. To this day we still use them in our day-to-day lives without even knowing that some NASA engineers originally developed them for the Apollo program that took humankind to the Moon.

Listing all the technologies that have been derived from space exploration would be impossible, but here are some notable examples.

As you can see, it is important for us to keep pushing the limits of space exploration. Who knows what kind of new technologies could be developed that will make our lives easier in the future.

Space exploration sparks the curiosity of children who will become the next Elon Musk, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, or Guion Bluford.

It inspires students to dream and gets them interested in science and technology.

Not only is this good for them as STEM jobs can secure them a comfortably future, but it also helps humanity. It is through invention, research, and knowledge that humanity will be able to overcome the big challenges it will be facing in the future.

We only have one planet where we can live without the help of spacesuits. It would be nice to keep it in good condition until we can figure out a way to find other habitable planets or terraform others.

To do that, we need to learn more about the dangers of space. We know about extinction events like asteroids, but thats not the only potential threat to our survival. Solar flares, radiation, magnetic pole changes, and greenhouse effects are just some of the challenges Earth might face at some point.

Exploring space is the only way we will learn more about them so we can develop strategies and technology that could help save us from such events.

Theres one thing we are certain of about when it comes to space. If we humanity dont become a space-faring civilization. We will become extinct sooner or later.

Earth will eventually become uninhabitable and will probably be devoured by the Sun as it expands during the later years of its life cycle. And thats hoping nothing else happens before, like an asteroid impact, an ice age, atmospheric loss, climate change, or any other potential threats that could wipe us out, to put it bluntly.

Space exploration is not a luxury for the richest nations. It should be a worldwide priority and every country needs to come together in this effort. It is simply the only way we can hope to survive as a species.

We dont know if we have millions of years or hundreds of years before any of these events happen. So its better to get started today.

Read more here:

10 Benefits of Space Exploration. (Including Medical and Economical)

The year 2021 was one of major scientific expansion. Thanks to a variety of exploratory missions and their cutting-edge instruments, astronomers have been able to peer into the cosmos like never before.

Researchers have turned the Earth into a giant telescope to view powerful jets from a black hole. Solar system surveys have revealed new moons and massive comets previously lurking undetected by scientists. The sun has also been a main attraction for research as it reawakens from its recent slumber.

Here's our look back at the 10 biggest space stories of 2021.

Two researchers unexpectedly discovered the largest-known comet to date.

Graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli was looking through Dark Energy Survey data to find objects that live beyond Neptune's orbit when he noticed an object significantly farther from the sun than the objects he planned to study. He asked his advisor, cosmologist Gary Bernstein, to have a look.

They had actually detected a comet that is much larger than any of the ones known so far to science: It may be 10 times wider and 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet.

On top of that, this comet has not swung around the sun since the hominid ancestor Lucy walked on the Earth approximately 3 million years ago.

Their finding was officially designated a comet on June 23, 2021 and named Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers.

In a big sweep of scientific luck, astronomers will only have to wait a decade to see this comet approach the sun. Comets come from very far away, originating from one of the outermost regions of the solar system known as the Oort Cloud. Comets journey through our cosmic neighborhood in long elliptical orbits and can take thousands of years to complete one trip around the sun.

Scientists should be able to get a more accurate reading of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein's size and composition when the comet makes its closest to Earth in the year 2031, although it will still be beyond Saturn's average orbit when it swings nearby.

A previously-unknown moon has been detected around the largest planet in the solar system.

Jupiter is a giant, so it gravitationally attracts many objects into its vicinity. Earth has one major moon, Mars has two: but Jupiter boasts at least 79 moons, and there may be dozens or hundreds more of them that astronomers have yet to identify.

The latest discovery was made by amateur astronomer Kai Ly, who found evidence of this Jovian moon in a data set from 2003 that had been collected by researchers using the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea. Ly they confirmed the moon was likely bound to Jupiter's gravity using data from another telescope called Subaru.

The new moon, called EJc0061, belongs to the Carme group of Jovian moons. They orbit in the opposite direction of Jupiter's rotation at an extreme tilt relative to Jupiter's orbital plane.

Mars is a popular target for space agencies, but Earth's other neighbor has been garnering more attention recently.

In 2020, researchers announced that they had detected traces of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere. It is a possible biosignature gas, and the news certainly reawakened interest in the planet.

In early June 2021, NASA announced it will launch two missions to Venus by 2030. One mission, called DAVINCI+ (short for Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging, Plus) will descend through the planet's atmosphere to learn about how it has changed over time. The other mission, VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) will attempt to map the planet's terrain from orbit like never before.

Venus has been visited by robotic probes, but NASA has not launched a dedicated mission to the planet since 1989.

The interest in Martian exploration may be one reason why Venus has been neglected in recent decades, but the second planet from the sun is also a challenging place to study. Although it may have once been a balmy world with oceans and rivers, a runaway greenhouse effect took hold of Venus around 700 million years ago and now the planet's surface is hot enough to melt lead.

The sun was experiencing a quiet time in its roughly decade-long cycle, but it is now exiting that phase.

The sun has had very little activity in recent years, but the star's surface is now erupting in powerful events that spew out charged particles towards Earth. In early November, for instance, a series of solar outbursts triggered a large geomagnetic storm on our planet.

This eruption is known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME. It's essentially a billion-ton cloud of solar material with magnetic fields, and when this bubble pops, it blasts a stream of energetic particles out into the solar system. If this material heads in the direction of Earth, it interacts with our planet's own magnetic field and causes disturbances. These can include ethereal displays of auroras near Earth's poles, but can also include satellite disruptions and energy losses.

A whole new era of space science began on Christmas Day 2021 with the successful launch of the world's next major telescope.

NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency are collaborating on the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a project more than three decades in the making. Space telescopes take a long time to plan and assemble: The vision for this particular spacecraft began before its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, had even launched into Earth orbit.

Whereas Hubble orbits a few hundred miles from Earth's surface, JWST is heading to an observational perch located about a million miles from our planet. The telescope began its journey towards this spot, called the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), on Dec. 25, 2021 at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT) when an Ariane 5 rocket launched the precious payload from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The telescope will help astronomers answer questions about the evolution of the universe and provide a deeper understanding about the objects found in our very own solar system.

In July 2021, the novel project behind the world's first photo of a black hole published an image of a powerful jet blasting off from one of these supermassive objects.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global collaboration of eight observatories that work together to create one Earth-sized telescope. The end result is a resolution that is 16 times sharper and an image that is 10 times more accurate than what was possible before.

Scientists used EHT's incredible abilities to observe a powerful jet being ejected by the supermassive black hole at the center of the Centaurus A galaxy, one of the brightest objects in the night sky. The galaxy's black hole is so large that it has the mass of 55 million suns.

Just 1,500 light-years from Earth lies the closest-known black hole to Earth, now called "The Unicorn."

Tiny black holes are hard to spot, but scientists managed to find this one when they noticed strange behavior from its companion star, a red giant. Researchers observed its light shifting in intensity, which suggested to them that another object was tugging on the star.

This black hole is super-lightweight at just three solar masses. Its location in the constellation Monoceros ("the unicorn") and its rarity have inspired this black hole's name.

An object dropped into Earth's orbit like a second moon, and this year, it made its final close approach of our planet.

It is classified as a "minimoon," or temporary satellite. But it's no stray space rock the object, known as 2020 SO, is a leftover fragment of a 1960s rocket booster from the American Surveyor moon missions.

On Feb. 2, 2021, 2020 SO reached 58% of the way between Earth and the moon, roughly 140,000 miles (220,000 kilometers) from our planet. It was the minimoon's final approach, but not its closest trip to Earth. It achieved its shortest distance to our planet a few months prior, on Dec. 1, 2020.

It has since drifted off into space and away from Earth's orbit, never to return.

This year, NASA's sun-kissing spacecraft swam within a structure that's only visible during total solar eclipses and was able to measure exactly where the star's "point of no return" is located.

The Parker Solar Probe has been zooming through the inner solar system to make close approaches to the sun for the past three years, and it is designed to help scientists learn about what creates the solar wind, a sea of charged particles that flow out of the sun and can affect Earth in many ways.

The spacecraft stepped into the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, during its eight solar flyby. The April 28 maneuver supplied the data that confirmed the exact location of the Alfvn critical surface: the point where the solar wind flows away from the sun, never to return.

The probe managed to get as low as 15 solar radii, or 8.1 million miles (13 million km) from the sun's surface. It was there that it passed through a huge structure called a pseudostreamer, which can be seen from Earth when the moon blocks the light from the sun's disk during a solar eclipse. In a statement about the discovery, NASA officials described that part of the trip as "flying into the eye of a storm."

Last but not least, this year marked the arrival of NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars.

The mission has been working hard to find traces of ancient Martian life since it reached the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021. Engineers have equipped Perseverance with powerful cameras to help the mission team decide what rocks are worth investigating.

One of Perseverance's most charming findings has been "Harbor Seal Rock," a curiously-shaped feature that was probably carved out by the Martian wind over many years. Perseverance has also obtained several rock samples this year, which will be collected by the space agency for analysis at some point in the future.

Perseverance is taking its observations from the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which was home to a river delta and a deep lake billions of years ago.

Follow Doris Elin Urrutia on Twitter @salazar_elin. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Originally posted here:

The 10 biggest space science stories of 2021 | Space