Category Archives: Space Travel

Why Is This Dragon Special?

Tomorrow (June 1, 2017) will be a landmark date for commercial space travel. SpaceX is set to become the first privately owned company to perform multiple orbital flights to space using the same aircraft. On 21st September 2014, using the Falcon 9 rocket, this same Dragon CRS-4 delivered 2.5 tons of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

Since, this time,it has been refurbished. The launch window for its second cargo flight opens at 5:55pm ET, and when it happens, this launch will transform humanitys future in spacethusting us into an age where space is accessible to every individual, not just nations.

CRS-4 Dragon About to Land. Image Credit: SpaceX, Wikimedia

To break down the significance further, it is one of only a handful of previous multi-orbit space flights and all of the others were undertaken by governments. They include: the NASA orbiters Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery, and Endeavour, which made dozens of missions but were hideously expensive to repair. There was alsothe X-37B, which Boeing built under commission by the U.S Air Force, and the Soviet VA spacecraft, which only orbited the Earth once on its second voyage.

While it is unclear how much the Dragon CRS-4 has had to be repaired, and exactly how much it cost, the savings are expected to be considerable, which will play a major role in making space both commercially available and also affordable. However, even taking financial considerations out of the equation, this is nonetheless a landmark in breaching the final frontier,as private individuals are truly entering the space race.

Yet,ultimately, SpaceX is about far more than just making spaceflight affordable. SpaceX started with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets the first planet Musks space company aims to colonize is Mars. In order to do so, Musk plans to build the BFR . This stands for, in his own words, the Big F*cking Rocket, which will ferry the reusable Mars Colonial Transporter to the Red Planet.

He has stated previously that he plans to put the first person on Mars by 2025. A test launch of the Falcon Heavy, the rocket that bridges the gap between the Falcon 9 and the BFR was recently completed, and its first full launch is planned for sometime this summer.

Musk argues that humanity reaching Mars and other planets is pivotal. As he stated in an interview with aeon: I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary, and that this has to start with Mars because, if we can establish a Mars colony, we can almost certainly colonise the whole Solar System, because well have created a strong economic forcing function for the improvement of space travel.

The process, though, has to move in gradations and this relaunch of the Dragon is a major milestone in Musks plan.

At the Wall Street Journals D: All Things Digital Conferencein 2013, Musk explained his feelings regarding the importance of reaching other worlds, stating,Either we spread Earth to other planets, or we risk going extinct. An extinction event is inevitable and were increasingly doing ourselves in. The goal is to improve rocket technology and space technology until we can send people to Mars and establish life on Mars.

Of course, this will be no simple task. Mars is, currently, a wasteland of dirt and sand.

Mars is a fixer-upper of a planet, Musk said. But we could make it work. And honestly, even if we cant make it work, it seems that we have no real choice but to try. Musk concludes, I agree this is an unlikely outcome, but if we dont keep improving technology every year, we wont get there.

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Tomorrow, SpaceX Will Forever Transform Spaceflight - Futurism

NASA May Build GPS for Space Travel - VOA News Voice of America Today's travelers on land, sea and air rely on one of the satellite-based navigational systems commonly known as GPS, where the G stands for Global. Scientists ... and more »

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NASA May Build GPS for Space Travel - VOA News - Voice of America

To one day, reach the stars.

When discussing the possibility of interstellar travel, there is something called the giggle factor. Some scientists tend to scoff at the idea of interstellar travel because of the enormous distances that separate the stars. According to Special Relativity (1905), no usable information can travel faster than light locally, and hence it would take centuries to millennia for an extra-terrestrial civilization to travel between the stars. Even the familiar stars we see at night are about 50 to 100 light years from us, and our galaxy is 100,000 light years across. The nearest galaxy is 2 million light years from us. The critics say that the universe is simply too big for interstellar travel to be practical.

Similarly, investigations into UFOs that may originate from another planet are sometimes the third rail of someones scientific career. There is no funding for anyone seriously looking at unidentified objects in space, and ones reputation may suffer if one pursues an interest in these unorthodox matters. In addition, perhaps 99% of all sightings of UFOs can be dismissed as being caused by familiar phenomena, such as the planet Venus, swamp gas (which can glow in the dark under certain conditions), meteors, satellites, weather balloons, even radar echoes that bounce off mountains. (What is disturbing, to a physicist however, is the remaining 1% of these sightings, which are multiple sightings made by multiple methods of observations. Some of the most intriguing sightings have been made by seasoned pilots and passengers aboard air line flights which have also been tracked by radar and have been videotaped. Sightings like this are harder to dismiss.)

But to an astronomer, the existence of intelligent life in the universe is a compelling idea by itself, in which extra-terrestrial beings may exist on other stars who are centuries to millennia more advanced than ours. Within the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are over 100 billion stars, and there are an uncountable number of galaxies in the universe. About half of the stars we see in the heavens are double stars, probably making them unsuitable for intelligent life, but the remaining half probably have solar systems somewhat similar to ours. Although none of the over 100 extra-solar planets so far discovered in deep space resemble ours, it is inevitable, many scientists believe, that one day we will discover small, earth-like planets which have liquid water (the universal solvent which made possible the first DNA perhaps 3.5 billion years ago in the oceans). The discovery of earth-like planets may take place within 20 years, when NASA intends to launch the space interferometry satellite into orbit which may be sensitive enough to detect small planets orbiting other stars.

So far, we see no hard evidence of signals from extra-terrestrial civilizations from any earth-like planet. The SETI project (the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) has yet to produce any reproducible evidence of intelligent life in the universe from such earth-like planets, but the matter still deserves serious scientific analysis. The key is to reanalyze the objection to faster-than-light travel.

A critical look at this issue must necessary embrace two new observations. First, Special Relativity itself was superceded by Einsteins own more powerful General Relativity (1915), in which faster than light travel is possible under certain rare conditions. The principal difficulty is amassing enough energy of a certain type to break the light barrier. Second, one must therefore analyze extra-terrestrial civilizations on the basis of their total energy output and the laws of thermodynamics. In this respect, one must analyze civilizations which are perhaps thousands to millions of years ahead of ours.

The first realistic attempt to analyze extra-terrestrial civilizations from the point of view of the laws of physics and the laws of thermodynamics was by Russian astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev. He based his ranking of possible civilizations on the basis of total energy output which could be quantified and used as a guide to explore the dynamics of advanced civilizations:

Type I: this civilization harnesses the energy output of an entire planet.

Type II: this civilization harnesses the energy output of a star, and generates about 10 billion times the energy output of a Type I civilization.

Type III: this civilization harnesses the energy output of a galaxy, or about 10 billion time the energy output of a Type II civilization.

A Type I civilization would be able to manipulate truly planetary energies. They might, for example, control or modify their weather. They would have the power to manipulate planetary phenomena, such as hurricanes, which can release the energy of hundreds of hydrogen bombs. Perhaps volcanoes or even earthquakes may be altered by such a civilization.

A Type II civilization may resemble the Federation of Planets seen on the TV program Star Trek (which is capable of igniting stars and has colonized a tiny fraction of the near-by stars in the galaxy). A Type II civilization might be able to manipulate the power of solar flares.

A Type III civilization may resemble the Borg, or perhaps the Empire found in the Star Wars saga. They have colonized the galaxy itself, extracting energy from hundreds of billions of stars.

By contrast, we are a Type 0 civilization, which extracts its energy from dead plants (oil and coal). Growing at the average rate of about 3% per year, however, one may calculate that our own civilization may attain Type I status in about 100-200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in about 100,000 to a million years. These time scales are insignificant when compared with the universe itself.

On this scale, one may now rank the different propulsion systems available to different types of civilizations:

Type 0

Type I

Type II

Type III

Propulsion systems may be ranked by two quantities: their specific impulse, and final velocity of travel. Specific impulse equals thrust multiplied by the time over which the thrust acts. At present, almost all our rockets are based on chemical reactions. We see that chemical rockets have the smallest specific impulse, since they only operate for a few minutes. Their thrust may be measured in millions of pounds, but they operate for such a small duration that their specific impulse is quite small.

NASA is experimenting today with ion engines, which have a much larger specific impulse, since they can operate for months, but have an extremely low thrust. For example, an ion engine which ejects cesium ions may have the thrust of a few ounces, but in deep space they may reach great velocities over a period of time since they can operate continuously. They make up in time what they lose in thrust. Eventually, long-haul missions between planets may be conducted by ion engines.

For a Type I civilization, one can envision newer types of technologies emerging. Ram-jet fusion engines have an even larger specific impulse, operating for years by consuming the free hydrogen found in deep space. However, it may take decades before fusion power is harnessed commercially on earth, and the proton-proton fusion process of a ram-jet fusion engine may take even more time to develop, perhaps a century or more. Laser or photonic engines, because they might be propelled by laser beams inflating a gigantic sail, may have even larger specific impulses. One can envision huge laser batteries placed on the moon which generate large laser beams which then push a laser sail in outer space. This technology, which depends on operating large bases on the moon, is probably many centuries away.

For a Type II civilization, a new form of propulsion is possible: anti-matter drive. Matter-anti-matter collisions provide a 100% efficient way in which to extract energy from mater. However, anti-matter is an exotic form of matter which is extremely expensive to produce. The atom smasher at CERN, outside Geneva, is barely able to make tiny samples of anti-hydrogen gas (anti-electrons circling around anti-protons). It may take many centuries to millennia to bring down the cost so that it can be used for space flight.

Given the astronomical number of possible planets in the galaxy, a Type II civilization may try a more realistic approach than conventional rockets and use nano technology to build tiny, self-replicating robot probes which can proliferate through the galaxy in much the same way that a microscopic virus can self-replicate and colonize a human body within a week. Such a civilization might send tiny robot von Neumann probes to distant moons, where they will create large factories to reproduce millions of copies of themselves. Such a von Neumann probe need only be the size of bread-box, using sophisticated nano technology to make atomic-sized circuitry and computers. Then these copies take off to land on other distant moons and start the process all over again. Such probes may then wait on distant moons, waiting for a primitive Type 0 civilization to mature into a Type I civilization, which would then be interesting to them. (There is the small but distinct possibility that one such probe landed on our own moon billions of years ago by a passing space-faring civilization. This, in fact, is the basis of the movie 2001, perhaps the most realistic portrayal of contact with extra-terrrestrial intelligence.)

The problem, as one can see, is that none of these engines can exceed the speed of light. Hence, Type 0,I, and II civilizations probably can send probes or colonies only to within a few hundred light years of their home planet. Even with von Neumann probes, the best that a Type II civilization can achieve is to create a large sphere of billions of self-replicating probes expanding just below the speed of light. To break the light barrier, one must utilize General Relativity and the quantum theory. This requires energies which are available for very advanced Type II civilization or, more likely, a Type III civilization.

Special Relativity states that no usable information can travel locally faster than light. One may go faster than light, therefore, if one uses the possibility of globally warping space and time, i.e. General Relativity. In other words, in such a rocket, a passenger who is watching the motion of passing stars would say he is going slower than light. But once the rocket arrives at its destination and clocks are compared, it appears as if the rocket went faster than light because it warped space and time globally, either by taking a shortcut, or by stretching and contracting space.

There are at least two ways in which General Relativity may yield faster than light travel. The first is via wormholes, or multiply connected Riemann surfaces, which may give us a shortcut across space and time. One possible geometry for such a wormhole is to assemble stellar amounts of energy in a spinning ring (creating a Kerr black hole). Centrifugal force prevents the spinning ring from collapsing. Anyone passing through the ring would not be ripped apart, but would wind up on an entirely different part of the universe. This resembles the Looking Glass of Alice, with the rim of the Looking Glass being the black hole, and the mirror being the wormhole. Another method might be to tease apart a wormhole from the quantum foam which physicists believe makes up the fabric of space and time at the Planck length (10 to the minus 33 centimeters).

a) one version requires enormous amounts of positive energy, e.g. a black hole. Positive energy wormholes have an event horizon(s) and hence only give us a one way trip. One would need two black holes (one for the original trip, and one for the return trip) to make interstellar travel practical. Most likely only a Type III civilization would be able harness this power.

b) wormholes may be unstable, both classically or quantum mechanically. They may close up as soon as you try to enter them. Or radiation effects may soar as you entered them, killing you.

c) one version requires vast amounts of negative energy. Negative energy does exist (in the form of the Casimir effect) but huge quantities of negative energy will be beyond our technology, perhaps for millennia. The advantage of negative energy wormholes is that they do not have event horizons and hence are more easily transversable.

d) another version requires large amounts of negative matter. Unfortunately, negative matter has never been seen in nature (it would fall up, rather than down). Any negative matter on the earth would have fallen up billions of years ago, making the earth devoid of any negative matter.

The second possibility is to use large amounts of energy to continuously stretch space and time (i.e. contracting the space in front of you, and expanding the space behind you). Since only empty space is contracting or expanding, one may exceed the speed of light in this fashion. (Empty space can warp space faster than light. For example, the Big Bang expanded much faster than the speed of light.) The problem with this approach, again, is that vast amounts of energy are required, making it feasible for only a Type III civilization. Energy scales for all these proposals are on the order of the Planck energy (10 to the 19 billion electron volts, which is a quadrillion times larger than our most powerful atom smasher).

Lastly, there is the fundamental physics problem of whether topology change is possible within General Relativity (which would also make possible time machines, or closed time-like curves). General Relativity allows for closed time-like curves and wormholes (often called Einstein-Rosen bridges), but it unfortunately breaks down at the large energies found at the center of black holes or the instant of Creation. For these extreme energy domains, quantum effects will dominate over classical gravitational effects, and one must go to a unified field theory of quantum gravity.

At present, the most promising (and only) candidate for a theory of everything, including quantum gravity, is superstring theory or M-theory. It is the only theory in which quantum forces may be combined with gravity to yield finite results. No other theory can make this claim. With only mild assumptions, one may show that the theory allows for quarks arranged in much like the configuration found in the current Standard Model of sub-atomic physics. Because the theory is defined in 10 or 11 dimensional hyperspace, it introduces a new cosmological picture: that our universe is a bubble or membrane floating in a much larger multiverse or megaverse of bubble-universes.

Unfortunately, although black hole solutions have been found in string theory, the theory is not yet developed to answer basic questions about wormholes and their stability. Within the next few years or perhaps within a decade, many physicists believe that string theory will mature to the point where it can answer these fundamental questions about space and time. The problem is well-defined. Unfortunately, even though the leading scientists on the planet are working on the theory, no one on earth is smart enough to solve the superstring equations.

Most scientists doubt interstellar travel because the light barrier is so difficult to break. However, to go faster than light, one must go beyond Special Relativity to General Relativity and the quantum theory. Therefore, one cannot rule out interstellar travel if an advanced civilization can attain enough energy to destabilize space and time. Perhaps only a Type III civilization can harness the Planck energy, the energy at which space and time become unstable. Various proposals have been given to exceed the light barrier (including wormholes and stretched or warped space) but all of them require energies found only in Type III galactic civilizations. On a mathematical level, ultimately, we must wait for a fully quantum mechanical theory of gravity (such as superstring theory) to answer these fundamental questions, such as whether wormholes can be created and whether they are stable enough to allow for interstellar travel.

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The Physics of Interstellar Travel : Explorations in ...

Update: Todays launch has been delayed due to lightning and is rescheduled for Saturday, June 3 at 5:07 pm ET 2:07 pm PT.

SpaceX, the interplanetary space travel company run by CEO Elon Musk, is launching another of its Falcon 9 rockets at 5:55 pm ET / 2:55 pm PT tonight from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The rocket will be hauling cargo to the International Space Station with one of its Dragon capsules. This isnt the first time this particular Dragon has been to the ISS. The same craft traveled through space in 2014 to send supplies to the International Space Station, too.

In this mission, the space travel company will try to land its Falcon 9 rocket after launch. But instead of attempting to land on a ship in the middle of the ocean, SpaceX will try to land the rocket on a landing pad in Cape Canaveral. The previous four attempts to return a Falcon 9 on land have been successful.

Reusing rockets and spacecraft is core to SpaceXs mission of bringing down the cost of space travel. Rockets are typically too damaged after launching to be used again, and building a new rocket can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Watch the launch live here:

In this particular mission, the Dragon will be ferrying nearly 6,000 pounds of cargo, which will, in part, support research happening onboard the International Space Station.

The last time SpaceX launched was only two weeks ago, when it sent a gigantic satellite, about the size of a double-decker bus, into orbit on May 15 with one of its Falcon 9 rockets. And its launch before that was only two weeks prior on May 1, when a Falcon 9 successfully landed after launching a military satellite into space. SpaceX has another rocket launch scheduled for June 15.

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Watch live as SpaceX launches a used Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station - Recode

If Peter Jorgensen has his way, astronauts of the future will never be locked out of their spacecraft by a computer uttering the phrase, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" when they try to get back in.

The line, of course, is from a famous scene in director Stanley Kubrick's enigmatic "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Jorgensen, 26, is a graduate research assistant in the University of South Florida's Department of Electrical Engineering. For him, the malfunctioning artificial intelligence of the fictional HAL 9000 computer is more than an iconic film moment. It is a lesson for the future. That's because, in the future, Jorgensen wants to develop artificial intelligence satellites that can help guide manned spacecraft on trips to Mars and beyond.

That's down the road. For now, Jorgensen is helping U.S. Special Operations Command with its satellite program.

SOCom, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, is working with USF to support and develop payloads for the command's cube satellite program. The program puts small satellites into orbit to give commandos the ultimate high ground when it comes to communications and other needs.

Jorgensen is working through Sofwerx, an Ybor City-based business accelerator that is run by the Doolittle Institute through a SOCom contract. He'll be helping the command figure out what kinds of payloads to launch.

Being that this is for commandos, a largely secret force, Jorgensen won't offer specifics. But he says that currently, he is researching the kinds of technology that might interest SOCom.

Payloads, devices that contain technology such as cameras and sensors, will be shot into low Earth orbit from the Kennedy Space Center within the next 12 to 18 months, according to a USF news release last month.

The payloads "will help the U.S. military solve battlefield problems by providing real-time communication," according to the release.

"If satellites are becoming more capable and yet smaller, cheaper, require less power, more technology packed into small areas, that really is the future," Robert H. Bishop, dean of the USF College of Engineering, said in the release "It's a future of communications, future of weather, it's the future for remote sensing. So for us to be at that the leading edge, it's going to be a good thing for the state of Florida and for Tampa Bay and the nation."

For SOCom, working with USF makes sense.

"For the challenges of the future, we think it's important to team with top tier academic institutions to enable the innovation and the rapid decision making, idea generation, and capability development we need," said SOCom's acquisition chief, James "Hondo" Geurts.

"USF, by nature of being close to SOCom as well as their diverse and accomplished academic capabilities are the perfect partner for us on this project, and we think low cost space vehicles are a key capability for the future, and we're very proud to work with USF on that important project."

For Jorgensen, who grew up dreaming of being an astronaut, working on the CubeSat program is a way to achieve dreams his body wouldn't allow.

"I'm 6-8," he says with a laugh. "That's too tall to be an astronaut."

The Pentagon last week announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.

Spc. Etienne J. Murphy, 22, of Loganville, Georgia, died May 26, in Al-Hasakah, Syria, of injuries sustained during a vehicle rollover related incident. The incident is under investigation. Murphy was assigned to 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia..

There have been 2,347 U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan; 36 U.S. troop deaths and one civilian Department of Defense employee death in support of the follow-up, Operation Freedom's Sentinel in Afghanistan; 31 troop deaths and one civilian death in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the fight against the Islamic State; one troop death in support of Operation Odyssey Lightning, the fight against Islamic State in Libya; and one death under classified as other contingency operations as part of the global war on terrorism.

Contact Howard Altman at haltman@tampabay.com or (813) 225-3112. Follow @haltman

Howard Altman: USF researcher, too tall for space travel, works on SOCom satellites 06/01/17 [Last modified: Wednesday, May 31, 2017 3:56pm] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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Howard Altman: USF researcher, too tall for space travel, works on SOCom satellites - Tampabay.com (blog)

It was 40 years ago today, on May 25, 1977, that Star Wars first burst onto cinema screens, and from that time the world changed for the better.

Star Wars introduced the world to Jedi knights with lightsabers, an evil empire building a moon size planet killer weapon, a rebel alliance with X-wing fighters and countless cool droids that were often smarter than their owners.

Quite why Star Wars was such a massive hit has been debated ever since. It was clearly not for the dialogue.

It was probably due to the fast-paced action. In fact, Star Wars popularised the notion that some films do not need opening credits, just an opening crawl to set the scene.

Director George Lucas wanted the action to start as soon as the film did, and for audiences to be engrossed from the first few seconds.

What made Star Wars different to the already loved Star Trek TV series was that Star Wars was not a prediction of our human future. Instead it was a story set in another galaxy in the ancient past.

Some of us had our lives and careers shaped by Star Wars, and by longing to create the things we saw when we were young.

Forty years on, who and what has been shaped by this revolutionary movie?

The first Star Wars film was revolutionary in its depiction of high-speed battles between spaceships.

The dog fights around the Death Star seemed so realistic, even though it was not obvious how some of the spaceships actually manoeuvred so well.

When I took spacecraft design courses at university in the late 1980s (as part of my undergraduate degree), I did not dream that fellow Star Wars fans might one day be influential enough to actually design real spacecraft.

We were taught that bringing a rocket back to Earth from space was impossible. I now realise that my lecturers were probably not Star Wars fans.

The billionaire inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk is one of those millions of mega Star Wars fans. He says that Star Wars was the first movie that he ever saw, and from that he has had an obsession with space travel and for turning humans from a single planet species into a multi-planet civilisation.

In 2002, Musk created the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX, with the stated aim of creating spacecraft to regularly fly hundreds of humans to and from Mars.

Musk named his series of rockets Falcon, after Han Solos Millennium Falcon. And in 2017, a Falcon rocket became the first orbital class booster to return from space, land and later re-fly back into space.

In 2000, fellow billionaire inventor Jeff Bezos started his rocket and spaceship company Blue Origin off the back of his success creating Amazon. His New Shepard rocket was the first suborbital booster to return from space, land and later re-fly back into space.

Bezos is more of a Trekkie. He is so obsessed with Star Trek that he has even acted in it, appearing as an alien in the 2016 movie Star Trek Beyond.

At this point, the Star Wars mega-fan (Musk) is ahead of the Trekkie (Bezos) in delivering commercial space flight with reused rockets. But only time will tell who will win.

Star Wars introduced us to the Landspeeder. This is the car-like vehicle that Luke Skywalker uses to get to and from the family moisture farm, and which he sells so he can part-pay Han Solo to fly with him to the Alderaan system.

Lukes X-34 landspeeder is very much like a hovercraft that did exist long before Star Wars. But hovercraft are noisy and kick up a lot of dust, which is not great in the desert driving situations encountered on Tatooine!

In 1978, a toy landspeeder was the must have toy, and I was lucky enough to have one. I still have it of course. The way it appeared to float across the floor on its highly sprung and hidden wheels was brilliant design.

Subsequent Star Wars films such as Return of the Jedi showed us speeder bikes, and since then engineers have tried to replicate these amazing vehicles.

Some great engineering efforts include the Jetovator speeder bike that works over water and connects to a jet ski. The makers were clearly inspired by Star Wars.

Others have recently created and tested hoverbikes that if they were fully commercialised would be very close to the speederbikes of Star Wars.

One group have even made a speeder, the Aero-X, to test in the desert to ensure that Luke would be able to use it if need be.

But for me, it was the droids of Star Wars that had the greatest impact. There can be no greater pair of onscreen robots as R2-D2 and C-3PO. They were perfect.

I have written before about Star Wars and robots. The vision that George Lucas and his team had in creating these robots (and the others that are found in the original 1977 movie) has had a major impact on robotics development, by inspiring many current day roboticists.

We are beginning to see real high quality automatic translation services something C-3PO was designed to do. We have medical robots, military robots and even farm robots.

All of these were shown in Star Wars. Our present-day robots are not as capable as the Star Wars robots, but us roboticists are working hard to make that happen.

It is unlikely that any film in the future will be as surprising as Star Wars was. It was new and exciting and surely that is one of the reasons for its success.

But yet there are new Star Wars fans being born every day. It helps that many of their parents and grandparents are possibly also Star Wars fans, and that at the moment there is a new Star Wars film out every year.

If the love of Star Wars is handed down the generations then who knows what it will have inspired in another 40 years time.

Jonathan Roberts, Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of Technology

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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How Star Wars is influencing modern space travel - MyGaming

Rocket Lab, a Silicon Valley-funded space launch company, on Thursday launched the maiden flight of its battery-powered, 3D-printed rocket from New Zealand's remote Mahia Peninsula.

"Made it to space. Team delighted," Rocket Lab said on its official Twitter account.

The successful launch of a low cost, 3D-printed rocket is an important step in the commercial race to bring down financial and logistical barriers to space while also making New Zealand an unlikely space hub.

The Los Angeles and New Zealand-based rocket firm has touted its service as a way for companies to get satellites into orbit regularly.

"Our focus with the Electron has been to develop a reliable launch vehicle that can be manufactured in high volumes - our ultimate goal is to make space accessible by providing an unprecedented frequency of launch opportunities," said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab founder and chief executive in a statement.

The firm had spent the past four years preparing for the test launch and last week received the go-ahead from the US Federal Aviation Administration, which is monitoring the flight.

Bad weather had delayed the rocket from taking off three times this week.

New Zealand has created new rocket legislation and set up a space agency in anticipation of becoming a low-cost space hub.

Ships and planes need re-routing every time a rocket is launched, which limits opportunities in crowded US skies, but New Zealand, a country of 4 million people in the South Pacific, has only Antarctica to its south. The country is also well-positioned to send satellites bound for a north-to-south orbit around the poles.

But many locals in the predominantly Mori community were not happy with access to public areas blocked.

"People come to Mahia so they can go to the beach and it's been chopped off now and by the sounds of it one of these rockets are going to be launching one every 30 days so they've taken over our lifestyle," said Mahia farmer Pua Taumata.

But Taumata also said the programme could bring opportunities.

"I'm for technology ... a lot of things could come of it through education. It gives our children something different in their careers. Nobody thought to get into the space industry (before now)," he said.

Rocket Lab is one of about 30 companies and agencies worldwide developing small satellite launchers as an alternative to firms jostling for space on larger launches or paying around $50 million for a dedicated service.

The company said in a statement it has now received $148 million in funding and is valued in excess of $1 billion.

Rocket Lab's customers include NASA, earth-imaging firm Planet and startups Spire and Moon Express.

The firm will carry out two more tests before it starts commercial operations, slated to begin towards the end of this year.

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3D-printed rocket launched into space for first time in giant leap for low-cost space travel - Mirror.co.uk

Newswise La Jolla, Calif., May 25, 2017 Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) today announced six boxes of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) will travel to the International Space Station (ISS) to study the impact of weightlessness on the heart. The fruit flies are scheduled to launch on June 1, 2017, from NASAs Kennedy Space Center and will travel to the ISS via a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. NASA is hosting a discussion about this and additional scientific investigations aboard the spacecraft via a livestream at 10 a.m. on Friday, EDT May 26.

Living in zero gravity is known to negatively impact the bodys cardiovascular system. Roughly 75% of disease-causing genes in humans are also found in the fruit fly, and most of the components found in human heart cells are also found in the fly heart, thus providing a model for studying cardiovascular changes. A total of 1,800 fruit flies will travel to the ISS and reside in space for one month. Both eggs and parents that will lay eggs onboard the ISS will be sent, enabling study of flies that have spent their whole life in an almost zeromicrogravityenvironment. Wild type (normal) flies and those that lack an important ion channel, which models a heart disorder, will travel to the ISS.

As interest in space travel growsfor both research and commercial aimsit is increasingly important to understand the effect a microgravity environment can have on the human heart for both the traveler and their potential future children, said Karen Ocorr, Ph.D., assistant professor of the Development, Aging and Regeneration Program at SBP. This experiment will help reveal the short- and long-term effects of space travel on the cardiovascular system, using fruit flies as a model. Once we understand these molecular changes we can work on creating interventions that could help protect the heart in space, and potentially help us treat cardiovascular disorders in humans on Earth as well.

Once the fruit flies return from the ISS, comprehensive measurements of cardiac function will be taken, including climbing assays to measure skeletal muscle function, heart function assays as well as genetic assays. Generational studies of the offspring of the flies that traveled to space will be conducted, which will help reveal the impact space travel could have for individuals considering having children.

We know that environmental stress can cause epigenetic changesmodifications to our DNAthat are passed along to future generations, said Ocorr. In addition to potential therapeutic value, studying the progeny of these fruit flies will help us better understand the effects space travel could have on our children or grandchildren.

A preliminary experiment was competitively selected for launch to the space station by the Space Florida International Space Station Research Competition and was supported by NanoRacks, and the Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). The current mission is funded by a research grant from NASA to Rolf Bodmer, Ph.D., and Karen Ocorr, Ph.D., professors at SBP and Sharmila Battacharya, Ph.D., from NASA-Ames Research Center.

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About SBP

Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) is an independent nonprofit medical research organization that conducts world-class, collaborative, biological research and translates its discoveries for the benefit of patients. SBP focuses its research on cancer, immunity, neurodegeneration, metabolic disorders and rare childrens diseases. The Institute invests in talent, technology and partnerships to accelerate the translation of laboratory discoveries that will have the greatest impact on patients. Recognized for its world-class NCI-designated Cancer Center and the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, SBP employs about 1,100 scientists and staff in San Diego (La Jolla), Calif., and Orlando (Lake Nona), Fla. For more information, visit us at SBPdiscovery.org or on Facebook at facebook.com/SBPdiscovery and on Twitter @SBPdiscovery.

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Fruit Flies Journey to International Space Station to Study Effects of Zero Gravity on the Heart - Newswise (press release)

BENGALURU: On the back of raising $1.4 billion from SoftBank, Paytm is making aggressive moves to challenge existing players in verticals like movie ticketing, travel and hotels with the help of deep discounts.

The payments firm has also transferred a senior executive Nitin Misra, who was head of products for its core payments business, to lead the hotels and packages segment. Misra, a former Airtel official, is in active discussions with stakeholders in the online hotel business, including internet-based startups in the hospitality space, multiple people aware of the development said. These businesses are being allocated bigger budgets, which will be largely used for discounting and marketing to garner shares from players like MakeMyTrip, BookMyShow, Oyo Rooms and others. Paytm has been using cashbacks and discounting to get a footprint into the travel and movie ticketing sector.

TOI reported earlier that Paytm was in talks with events ticketing platform Insider.in for a majority stake, a move aimed at countering BookMyShow's event business. Paytm wants to generate about $1 billion from these businesses and adding the online hotels business would improve its chances.

A Paytm spokesperson confirmed the new role of Misra in the company. "After two years as head of payment products, Nitin is now looking forward to setting up the hotels and packages vertical in Paytm," the spokesperson said. Sources aware of the company's plans pointed out Paytm wants to aggressively penetrate these new businesses as it would also mean higher volumes of transactions on the platform. While incumbents like MakeMyTrip and BookMyShow have been investing in discounts, their quantum too has increased as Paytm is trying to disrupt the market with freebies. To be sure, MMT spent almost 50% additional funds for marketing and sales promotions in the quarter ending March 2017 at $78.8 million compared to $53 million a year ago. MMT also recently raised $330 million to take on the likes of Paytm and Oyo Rooms.

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Paytm steps on the gas in hotel, travel space - Times of India

The Neptune thruster with plasma expanding into a space simulation chamber.

Dmytro Rafalskyi

Plasma propulsion or an ion drive is common in science fiction, where it can represent a clean, futuristic alternative to the mess and blast of crudely burning rocket fuel. Though it is the most efficient space propulsion method yet devised, it is still rare in reality, where ion drives are weighed down by the bulky engineering currently required to manage the ionised gas propellant.

However, researchers from the University of York in the UK and the cole Polytechnique in Paris have taken a major step towards solving the problem.

Existing systems use an electric current to ionize propellant gas and turn it into plasma. The charged ions and electrons are then forced through an exhaust beam, creating thrust.

Current technology usually in a form known as a gridded-ion thruster generates more positively charged ions than negative ones. And while that might be useful for moving an object through space, it is also potentially self-defeating.

If the charge imbalance is allowed to remain, the spacecraft would gain a net negative charge, with mission-ending consequences.

In order to deal with this problem, current spacecraft contain an additional piece of kit, called a neutralizer, bolted near the exhaust. The neutralizer generates additional negatively charged ions, balancing the output and ensuring the craft remains electrically neutral.

In 2014 a team at the cole Polytechnique demonstrated proof-of-concept for a reconfigured gridded-ion thruster that would produce equal amounts of positive and negative ions without loss of thrust.

The scientists, led by Dmytro Rafalskyi and Ane Aanesland, named the system Neptune and unveiled their findings at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference that year.

Now, the French researchers have teamed up with James Dedrick and Andrew Gibson from the University of Yorks Plasma Institute to take the concept to its next stage.

In results published in Physics of Plasmas the scientists report highly detailed observations on how the plasma beam produced by the Neptune system varies in different locations and with varying times and particle strength.

The findings, while still lab-based, take the system a critical step closer to full development.

The direct observation of how energetic plasma species behave on nanosecond timescales in the Neptune beam will help us to better control the processes that underpin neutralization, Dedrick says.

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A better ion drive for more efficient space travel - Cosmos