Category Archives: Space Travel

ORLANDO, Fla. Can a roller coaster dance?

The new Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at Walt Disney Worlds Epcot aims to answer that question with ride vehicles that twist and turn in time to a beat. They move, swiftly and smoothly, in a journey that will take guests back in time to randomly selected songs such as the Trammps Disco Inferno, Miami Sound Machines Conga and Tears for Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World, among others, transforming an area of the park that was once dedicated to the edu-tainment of the Universe of Energy into one where good times and save-the-world heroics take precedence over classroom lessons.

Cosmic Rewind is part of a multi-year transformation of Epcot, a park once loosely based on Walt Disneys concept of an altruistic future city dedicated to innovation and experimentation. Opened in October of 1982, Epcot was ultimately designed as a sort of permanent Worlds Fair, with attractions in pavilions dedicated to the land, the sea and various science and engineering topics, all of them sitting across from World Showcase, a celebration of international cultures.

But today its out with the old and in with the Marvel, as Cosmic Rewind is also Walt Disney Worlds first proper superhero-themed attraction, and only the third Marvel-based ride at a Disney park in the U.S. Its one piece of a multi-pronged update to place more Disney characters in a park that has long stood on its own and with its own mascot, the little purple dragon Figment. Cosmic Rewind is arguably the boldest shift yet away from Epcots cultural and once educational focus.

The good news: Its a fresh infusion of theme park vitality to a park that has badly needed some reinvention among aging attractions.

The Universe of Energy, a ride once described by Disney as documenting how oil, coal and natural gas [became] so important to our way of life, was no modern classic, as its various revamps over the years never quite divorced the ride from its roots as borderline oil industry propaganda. It did, however, have a dramatic scene involving larger-than-life robotic dinosaurs. Cosmic Rewind is generally screen-based, with the exception of some impressive pre-show illusions that want to trick us into believing we teleported into space.

But lack of dinosaurs aside, the ride still attempts to make overtures to Epcots traditional themes. Though irreverent and self-reflexive the raccoon-like character of Rocket jokes about Epcots name at one point the ride takes a science-rooted explanation to the birth of the universe. Though the ride is essentially a chase through a darkened show building filled with floor-to-ceiling screens, its ultimately a roller coaster that places an emphasis on feeling over high-speed thrills or any fake sense of danger.

The power of song to unite us is a theme, as is the joy of discovery through space exploration. Theres a villain that wants to destroy Earth, but what I remember more is the wonder of rocking in time over a vision of the Milky Way, a moment that felt like a triumphant treatise on space travel. In that way, Cosmic Rewind nods to the classic Space Mountain, just with far more pop and Chris Pratts Peter Quill (other Hollywood personalities who make appearances include Glenn Close and Terry Crews, in addition to the full roster of Guardians).

The goal of our transformation is that Epcot is a park about whats possible, its about inspiring people and people are our subject, says Zach Riddley, the creative executive with Walt Disney Imagineering who has been overseeing Epcots rebranding and additions, which include a ride inspired by Ratatouille, a new nighttime show and the upcoming walk-through attraction Journey of Water, inspired by Moana. The idea of what a global community means is something that we focus on in different ways. It can be an intergalactic community.

Where Epcot has been and where its heading is perhaps exemplified and contrasted by Cosmic Rewinds neighbor, Spaceship Earth. Both rides are centered on imaginative concepts of time travel but Spaceship Earth is a slow-moving attraction that takes us through visions of the Renaissance as well as the birth of space travel and the World Wide Web the ride as an essay centered on human communication. Cosmic Rewind, in contrast, is around a 3-minute blast of infectious melody, modern intellectual property, and a unique ride system that marries Haunted Mansion-style Omnimover vehicles that can turn and rotate with roller coaster fluidity and speed.

The conceit is that its Epcots first other-world showcase pavilion, one dedicated to showing the similarities among humans, aliens and the residents of the planet of Xandar, the fictional Marvel world that figures heavily into the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Here, in the queue of the ride, there are nods to the Xandar way of life Riddley notes, for instance, that we can learn a little about Xandars urban planning but these are fantasy history lessons. Thats not necessarily a bad thing; just a change from Epcots original mission, but Cosmic Rewind still ultimately succeeds as a jukebox roller coaster.

One of the big themes here is Xandar is this other planet that has come to Epcot and essentially put their version of a World Showcase pavilion here, says Steve Spiegel, a story editor executive at Imagineering. We really wanted that theme to be that even though theyre from another planet two and a half million light years from us that were more alike than we are different. Theyre reaching out across the stars to make friends, because we all came from the Big Bang and we all were born with the same stardust.

Such themes of togetherness come at a time when the Walt Disney Co. has been embroiled in a tussle with Florida Republicans over the companys statement against the anti-LGBTQ legislation known as the Dont Say Gay bill, which has led to state leadership taking retaliatory moves to dismantle long-held operational privileges given to Walt Disney World. Theres no indication that anyone at any of Walt Disney Worlds crowded parks gives a hoot, but Cosmic Rewind includes one moment where its implied humans may not always have their act together.

Park aficionados, for instance, will certainly hear some words that would have once been blasphemy to echo in Epcot. The villain here is out to destroy all humans and Earth, with the justification that this species has failed. Striking words for a park built on concepts of human ingenuity, but Guardians doesnt dive deep into human foibles and instead plays the line off as humor.

Thats why its the villain saying it, says Spiegel. Because Epcot is all about the aspirational and how were all more alike than we are different. We all live on this Spaceship Earth together. So its about saving humanity from a person who just doesnt get it.

Cosmic Rewind is the loudest piece of Epcots reinvention, which will also include a new plaza dedicated to festivals and the Moana walk through. Other promised initiatives, such as a pavilion dedicated to the art of play and a Mary Poppins"-inspired attraction, have fallen off the current docket in the wake of extended pandemic closures with no word yet as to when they may re-materialize. But in the meantime, Ridley promises Moanas Journey of Water will tap into Epcots original themes.

The Epcot-ness of this story is to focus on learning about the water cycle how it moves through various ecosystems, Ridley says. We use Moana as references and a jumping off point, but were not telling that story of that film or of her. Its about this message. Epcot again is a park about people and possibility. So our way in on an Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom story is that it is about us, and what we can learn and do, and what it should inspire us to do in terms of action.

Hitting all those marks in a roller coaster is a challenge, but I look forward to revisiting Cosmic Rewind. No ride before this, after all, has ever inspired me to want to dance on a roller coaster.

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'Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind' puts an exclamation point on Disney World's reinvention of Epcot - Greater Milwaukee Today | GMToday.com

If astronauts are going to take on space crusades that'll potentially last beyond their lifetimes, they'll probably need to take the Hollywood sci-fi movie route to be capable of artificially inducing hibernation to survive the trip.

This would meandrastically reducing the bodys metabolic activities and needs to make sure the astronauts will make it to the other side. And that'sa concept we are familiar with -- astronauts eerily asleep in a frosty tube-shaped pod as their spaceship glides through time and space. However, is this sci-fi trope really possible in real life?

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society by a group of researchers from Chile has now revealed a mathematical hurdle to turning the potential of human hibernation into reality. And if their research holds true, that might mean it's forever beyond our reach,metabolically speaking.

Hibernation is a method through which animals store energy in order to withstand harsh weather conditions or a shortage of food. It is characterized by physiological changes such as a decrease in body temperature and a slowing of metabolism.Hibernation is not just a long period of sleep, as many animals periodically do wake up during this process.

When smaller animals like ground squirrels and bats hibernate, body temperature drops and metabolism slows down, as well as heart rate and respiration dropping. In extreme situations, this method can minimize energy expenditure by up to 98 percent.

The recent study investigated how much energy different mammals save during hibernation and the possibility of human hibernation, and reached two conclusions about how hibernating animals save energy.

The researchers uncovered a bare minimum of metabolism that permits cells to survive in freezing, low-oxygen environments, and saw that most larger bears, for example, are not saving energy during hibernation, but losing it. This is because, during hibernation, the energy consumption per gram remains constant regardless of body size, causing a hibernating bat to have the same metabolism as a 20,000-fold larger hibernating bear.

This would imply that artificially induced hibernation in humans for long-term space travel saves no more energy than regular sleep.

Applying the same principles to a hibernating adult human would mean that you'd need 6.3 grams of fat each day to hibernate in space. Over the course of a year, this would amount to about two kilos of weight.

While these figures may make sense for shorter travels, the average adult wandering through interstellar space to a neighboring star would need to gain a few hundred kilos of fat or wake up every day to refuel their engines with high-fat meals.

"Humans are simply too large, so the benefits of hibernation are little as in bears if we think just on energy savings,"Roberto Nespolo, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Universidad Austral de Chile, told Newsweek.

And the elephant in the room, of course, is how to get humans to hibernate in the first place. While a team of researchers from the University of Tsukuba was able to identify neurons in the brains of rodents that can be artificially stimulated to induce a state similar to hibernation, humans cannot hibernate, and potential research on hibernation in humans is fraught with ethical quandaries. And based on the results of this study, going through all the danger and effort of cooling our bodies, lowering our heart rate and breathing, and artificially slowing our metabolism may not provide the desired benefits.

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Could we sleep all the way to Mars? Future astronauts might be too big - Interesting Engineering

By Maureen O'Hare, CNN

(CNN) -- In this week's travel news roundup, we look at space hotels through the ages, Sicily's new "Little America" and a new glass-bottomed bridge in Vietnam that might just be the world's longest.

CNN Travel often covers beautiful and touching moments between passengers on life's journey. But every so often, CNN becomes a character in the story, too.

That happened this week when an article published last weekend helped two former refugees find the kind stranger who gave them $100 on a plane more than 20 years ago. Here's how it happened.

In another story back in 2021, we helped solve the mystery of some 60-year-old photos that had been uncovered in an Amsterdam flea market.

The finder of the photos, Jennifer Skupin of Germany, was featured in our story. Susanna Stevens-Johnson -- a 71-year-old Yup'ik woman who is part of Alaska's indigenous community -- was then amazed to see long-lost childhood images online of her old classmates, neighbors and friends in a village that had since been abandoned. Watch our video and read the full story here.

Concepts for space hotels have been floating around since the very dawn of space exploration. Back in 1967, before Neil Armstrong even set foot on the moon, the Hilton hotel chain was planning a lunar hotel with rooms underneath the moon's surface.

In 2011, Russian firm Orbital Technologies announced its plans for a hotel floating 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) above Earth. There was no bar or even showers, but you could clean up with wet wipes.

California-based Orion Span had hopes in 2018 to launch $10 million trips to its luxury Aurora Space Station this year, but the company shut down operations before that happened.

Now another California company is reaching for the stars. Orbital Assembly has just revealed new information and concepts for its space hotel designs, first touted in 2019. Its futuristic vision is for a rotating wheel orbiting Earth -- but will our planet's high rollers ever get a spin?

Australia's Qantas airline has revealed new plans for the world's longest nonstop flights -- an 18-hour schlep that it hopes to launch between Sydney and London by the end of 2025.

And in the UK, a date has been set for the launch of London's new "Super Tube." (And if you're a fan of trains, check out this beautiful rail experience fresh out of Taiwan).

New Zealand has reopened to tourists for the first time in two years, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downgraded Mexico's travel risk level for Covid-19.

The situation has been very different under the zero-Covid policy in China, however, where Beijing banned all restaurant dining and shut down Universal Studios as its five-day Labor Day holiday got under way.

The Italian town of Sambuca in Sicily pioneered a trend when, in 2019, it began selling homes for just over a dollar.

The catch was that the new owners would be responsible for revitalizing the local community by refurbishing the crumbling buildings within three years.

Now, the town is home to a fresh wave of largely North American buyers who took on the challenge. Here's how they're getting on.

Vietnam's newest attraction for adventurous visitors is Bach Long bridge, a glass-bottomed walkway suspended between two mountains in Son La province. It's 632 meters (2,073 feet) long and nearly 152 meters (500 feet) above the ground. It's yet to be verified by Guinness World Records, but its owners claim it's the world's longest glass-bottomed bridge.

Brazil has a brand-new statue of Jesus.

And it's nearly 5 meters taller than Rio's Christ the Redeemer.

We looked at the world's most expensive passports.

Two of the priciest are neighboring countries in the Middle East.

The surprising origins of the classic American hamburger.

It began with raw mutton warmed in a horse rider's saddle.

Which do you want to see more of on your vacation: Your loved ones or your phone screen? If it's the former, you might want to invest in some travel games. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have put together this roundup of the best on the market for kids and adults.

The-CNN-Wire & 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Travel news: Glass bridges, space hotels and a beautiful reunion after 23 years - WDJT

Since the dawn of the space age in the last century, humans have sent animals into the nether regions to find out if living creatures could survive, to test for various benefits and risks for us humans. It is the way One Health uniquely integrates animals and environmental concerns, in a multidisciplinary context.

We need to recognize that these animals are our explorers, our pathfinders, and heroes even if it isnt by their choice.

To be sure, the use of animals to test human survival in space has caused controversy: Even though animals have been successfully used to pave the way for space exploration, without in most cases loss of life or hurting the animal, many feel this is the wrong approach, that other methods should be used the argument is that animals have no choice in the matter and therefore should not be used for testing.

There are, however, testing procedures using animals that are not harmful to the animal and yet result in insightful findings that make for important scientific progress that ultimately benefits not only humans but also animals. Indeed, now new experiments are carried out here on Earth at least those carried out in the West. While there is much talk of NASA and Elon Musks Space X collaboration to go on Mars, nobody is suggesting that dogs go to Mars with the astronauts as their pets.

Significantly, NASA is launching this year a simulation of space living here on Earth and the four selected astronauts for the experiment will live in close quarters for a whole year a 158-square-meter station in the Texan desert without any pet animal to keep them company.

Here, we shall look at how research into animal survival under extreme conditions, first in space and more recently on Earth, is helping us not only to reach the stars but also to improve life for humans, here and now.

Animals in spaceoriginally served us to test the survivability ofspaceflight, well beforehuman spaceflightswere attempted.

The first animals in space were insects. In 1947 fruit flies were put on a U.S. V-2 rocket to test the effects of radiation at high altitudes on a living creature. Reaching an altitude of 109 kilometers, the capsule carrying the flies was ejected, parachuted back to Earth, and it showed they were able to remain intact and alive.

Thereafter, a wide variety of animals were launched into space, includingmonkeys and apes,dogs,cats, tortoises, mice, rats, rabbits, fish, frogs, spiders, and other insects. Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was the first animal to orbit the earth in the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 in 1957:

As shown in the above video, a sampling includes two tortoises and a variety of insects that were the first inhabitants from Earth to circle the Moon in 1968. In 1972 five mice, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey accompanied the US Apollo crew in orbiting the Moon for a record 75 times.

To date, seven national space programs have flown animals into space including the Soviet Union (Russian Federation), United States, France, Argentina, China, Japan, and Iran.

The range of studies that rely on animals to garner critical information for human-planned space travel and in understanding our environment is simply breathtaking; and it hasnt been limited to experiments in space but moved to a wide range of studies here on Earth, thus broadening the scope of the research.

Research has also been boosted by successful international collaboration, notably on the International Space Station (ISS).

For example, the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space Project (ICARUS) tracks migratory bird patterns from ISS in order to provide information on natural disasters and infectious diseases.

This is far from a purely academic exercise: The course of the growing outbreak of Avian Flu may benefit from these efforts, an example of how the view from space can assist in addressing earthly problems.

As to understanding the impact on humans of future space travel to Mars or living for extended periods on the moon, the field is exploding with research and experiments. Here are a few notable examples.

While it is virtually impossible on Earth to approximate the partial gravity of Mars, researchers have developed a partial-gravity model totest rodentsin a Moon and Mars simulation.

An experimental facility has been designed to re-create the partial gravity environment using rats as human analogs. These animals, partially suspended with a harness system, were thus placed in a condition inducing muscle disuse atrophy and bone mineral density reductions similar to space travel, with the objective to learn about the effects of microgravity on people in space.

This experiment exposed mice to different levels that astronauts would encounter on long-duration terrestrial spaceflight missions; they were subjected to specific antibody treatments to prevent or contain the damaging effects.

The results demonstrated that this therapy could be of benefit in preventing astronaut bone loss during terrestrial solar system exploration.

The analysis of the brains of mice flown in space for 13 days found significant changes related to neuron structure and metabolic function that could, in time, lead to injury and neurodegeneration.

This suggests that spaceflight affects the brain negatively at a cellular level and that countermeasures to protect brain function may be needed.

The fruit fly has been used extensively to study biological processes, including genetics and physiology. One such important area of study is fruit fly immunity.

Fruit flies have an innate immune system similar to that of humans, which acts as the first responder to defend an organism from initial infection by a foreign pathogen.

NASA-funded studies of immune cells have shown that spaceflight alters immune function.

Wasps lay their eggs into the fly larvae which induce a fly larval immune response against the wasp larvae and eggs, similar to a response to bacterial infection.

Continuing research is looking into how the space environment affects the fruit flys anti-parasitic immune response to the wasp pathogen where the fruit fly lays its eggs It will determine if the parasitic virulence of the space-cultured wasps is different from the ground control wasps.

The results will provide insight into how long-duration spaceflight impacts a key immune response mechanism and pathogen infection. This may lead to a greater understanding of how the spaceflight environment alters human innate immunity.

There are space research projects looking into which non-human species can survive and which do poorly.

For example, space-bound spiders learned to spin their webs without the benefit of gravity, while crickets failed to develop the organs that usually assist with their sense of balance. With no up or down, Mummichog minnows initially pitched forward and swam in tight circle.

Among the most fascinating animals adapted to extreme environments are tardigrades. They are microscopic, multicellular animals that can live for decades without food or water and survive temperature extremes from near absolute zero to well above the boiling point of water.

Tardigrades have been known to survive a number of extreme stresses, including desiccation, freezing, and boiling temperatures, intense ionizing radiation, and extremes in pressureincluding the vacuum of outer space.

A new study will examine the cellular adaptions to the extremes of space. This new experiment will seek to identify genes that respond to and are required for tardigrades to survive different stress conditions, examine both immediate and long-term, multigenerational changes onboard the International Space Station.

One day these experiments may lead to the development of ways to provide food for space travelers. The expectation is that more drought- and temperature-resistant crops and new methods for stabilizing sensitive pharmaceuticals and other biological materials will be found.

At the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, a researcher, Cyrille Przbylas current project is the Lunar Hatch Programme.This groundbreaking project involves determining if fish eggs would hatch after enduring simulated effects of a rocket launch and space flight. If they were to do so, the theory is fish eggs could then be brought to a future Moon base, hatched in an aquaculture system, and become a vital source of protein for deep space residents and other extraterrestrial dwellers.

Przybyla is convinced that the future of human spaceflight will feature plants, animals, and other organisms. He points to the 1972 filmSilent Running, in which giant spaceships with greenhouse-like domes preserve a collection of plant and animal species in a future era when Earths forests have almost gone extinct.

It is certain animal research in space will benefit both our knowledge of how humans will need to cope as well as what can be learned about our environment on Earth from such animal research efforts.

From May 27-29, 2022, the next gathering of the International Space Development Conference will take place. Attendees include space leaders, astronauts, scientists, and others interested. You can be sure that the animal/human/ecosystem nexus will be on the agenda given its vision:

People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

In short, one thing is certain: The dramatic betterment of humanity cannot be achieved without help from animal research proving once again, that the One Health approach is essential.

Perhaps one of the most groundbreaking results of this space research effort will come from observations here on Earth of those rare organisms living under the most extreme space-like conditions. One can expect that they will allow scientists to come closer to answering what is perhaps the most basic question of all: What is life and what defines the limits between life and non-life?

This definition is absolutely necessary because, without knowing precisely what we are looking for when we search for life on other planets, we wont know life when we see it.

Editors Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com In the Featured Photo: Spider weaving a web in space Source: NASA article April 23, 2014

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Animals In Space: We Owe Them Now And In Future - Impakter

Humanity could reach the Red Planet and the Moon sooner than we think.

SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Gwynne Shotwell said a crewed mission to Mars could happen before the end of the 2020s.

I think it will be in this decade, yes. People on the Moon, sooner, Shotwell told CNBC recently.

"I think we need to get a large delivery to the surface of Mars, and then people will start thinking harder about it," she added. "And then, I think within five or six years, people will see that that will be a real place to go".

Elon Musks company has set itself the ambitious task to make space travel more accessible for humanity.

SpaceX is developing a reusable rocket called Starship that aims to take people to the Moon, Mars and elsewhere. The Japanese billionaire Yasaku Maezawa, for instance, has booked the rocket for a round-the-Moon trip in 2023.

While SpaceX has yet to bring humans to the Moon, the company has had successful trips to the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA has also picked Starship for its Artemis programme, which aims to put astronauts near the Moons south pole in 2025.

But another of Artemiss missions is to go from the Moon to Mars in about 2040, which is about 10 years later than Shotwells prediction.

It means that SpaceX could beat NASA to the punch but as Musks company provides a lot of tech equipment to NASA, they may end up working together.

The most recent mission between NASA and SpaceX occurred last Friday after the third long-duration astronaut team launched by SpaceX to the ISS safely returned to Earth to end months of orbital research ranging from space-grown chillies to robots.

SpaceX is also working towards Starships first-ever orbital test flight, launching from its Texas base.

However, it is currently awaiting an environmental assessment from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

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Elon Musks SpaceX COO says manned missions will reach Mars by 2030. NASA says otherwise - Euronews

What previously seemed like science fiction and the prediction of futurologists is now becoming much more of a reality - you do not have to be a professional astronaut to be able to fly into space.

Billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic (SPCE), successfully flew to the edge of space on in 2021. His flight took about an hour, included several minutes of weightlessness, and reached an altitude of 90km. In the same year, Jeff Bezos, successfully flew into space in the New Shepard spacecraft built by his company Blue Origin. Billionaire private space travel enthusiasts also include SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Last year, his Falcon 9 rocket began transporting astronauts to the ISS in the Dragon spacecraft. Musk himself has not yet flown into space but has booked a ticket on Virgin Galactic flights.

So with space tourism now being seen as a reality, what space related companies should invest keep an eye out for?

The top companies to invest in

1. Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic went public in October 2019 and was the first space company to do so. The flotation took place via the SPAC merger. At the time of publication, its shares are trading on the NYSE at almost $7.5 (6) each.

Virgin Galactic is a three-stage growth company. In the first phase, it will gain revenue from ticket sales for private flights, and from microgravity research, space infrastructure and services. In the second phase, Virgin Galactic plans to offer long-haul (hypersonic and supersonic) flights and tap into a staggering $900 billion (713bn) aviation market. In the long term, the company wants to enable customers to buy real estate in space and use space resources and energy.

2. Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000. He financed the company by selling $1 billion (79m) in Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares a year. Since 2015, Blue Origin has flown 15 test flights. Apart from an emergency landing on the booster on the first launch, all flights have been successful.

If Blue Origin continues to conduct more successful tester flights then an IPO launch could very well happen in the near future.

3. SpaceX

Elon Musk's company is actively developing two space projects: Starlink and Starship. If all goes well financially, Starlink will go public.

Although the last two test flights organised by SpaceX have not been very successful, the company has seen them as steps forward and may launch the next Starship prototype in the coming weeks.

4. ETF ARKX

The ARK ETF Space Exploration & Innovation ETF opened on the 30th of March 2021. Companies have been added to the ETF that are not only directly related to the space exploration industry, but also those that will use technologies developed for space to improve life on Earth.

Analyst Predictions

Switzerland's largest financial holding company, UBS, estimates the current potential of the space tourism market at $4 billion (3.2bn). Northern Sky Research (NSR), in its "Space Tourism and Travel Markets" report, says that an estimated 57,000 passengers will fly into space by 2031. Revenues from these space tourists and orbital travel will account for most of the industry's total combined revenues of $20.3 billion (16.07bn).

UBS expects several major space tourism trips to be organised during the 2022. There are already plenty of people wishing to fly. Among the first to go into space will be 600 people who have already paid the full price for their tickets - $250,000 (197,958), including Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber. Virgin said it expects to increase the waiting list to 1,000 people by the time flights resume. With the flight plan in place and the VSS Unity (4 passengers once a month) and VSS Imagine (6 passengers twice a month) fully loaded, Virgin Galactic could carry 16 customers a month, or 192 people a year.

The profits of Bezos, Musk and Branson's companies will increase at a cosmic rate as the industry grows in popularity. Investors in the stock market can also make good money on this. The obvious advantage of the space industry is the early stage of its development, which can provide super-profits with a well-chosen securities strategy.

ENDS

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The space stocks expected to skyrocket - Marketscreener.com

A live David Bowie tribute performance is set to take place at the UKs largest planetarium later this month.

The planetarium, located at the National Space Centre in Leicester, will host the four special performances titled Bowie: Oddity to Mars from 20th-22nd May 2021. The concerts will celebrate the late Starmans music between 1969 and 1972, a period that saw Bowie shoot to global stardom under his alter ego Ziggy Stardust.

The music will be performed by a five-piece Bowie tribute band named David Live in the Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium. Meanwhile, the planetarium dome will give visitors a 360-degree screening of NASA footage depicting the journey of Apollo 17 and one of the centres own shows to accompany the music.

It is really fitting this hit show is our first big evening event, following the pandemic, said Malika Andress, head of marketing for the National Space Centre in a statement. David Live are phenomenal, bringing the music of David Bowie to life in our planetarium alongside stunning visuals created by our in-house team.

The shows are to be held in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Apollo 17 marked the last manned journey to the moon.

In 1969, Bowie rose to fame with his first hit single Space Oddity. The single was inspired by the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey and the 1960s zeitgeist surrounding space travel and astronomy.

Discussing the writing of the song in 1969, Bowie said: The publicity image of a spaceman at work is of an automaton rather than a human being and my Major Tom is nothing if not a human being. It came from a feeling of sadness about this aspect of the space thing, it has been dehumanised, so I wrote a song-farce about it to try and relate science and human emotion. I suppose its an antidote to space fever, really.

The song was released on July 11th, 1969, as the label had wanted to capitalise on the concurrent Apollo 11 Moon Mission, which launched five days later. The mission became the first successful manned flight to the moon and earned Bowie his first glimpse of fame in the USA.

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David Bowie tribute to be staged at National Space Centre - Far Out Magazine

Peter Thiel, co-founder and chairman of Palantir Technologies Inc., pauses during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, Nov. 18, 2019.

Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading Monday.

Palantir Shares of the software company dropped 21.3% after Palantir's first-quarter earnings came in below expectations. The company reported 2 cents of adjusted earnings per share on $446 million of revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv expected 4 cents of earnings per share on $443 million of revenue. Palantir's second-quarter guidance for revenue and adjusted operating margin was also below expectations, according to StreetAccount.

Rivian Shares of the electric vehicle maker fell 20.9% following a CNBC report that Ford Motor will sell 8 million sharesas the insider lockup for the stock is set to expire. Ford currently owns 102 million shares of Rivian. Ford shares fell 4%.

Uber The ride-sharing company's stock dropped 11.6% after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi revealed plans to slash marketing and incentives spendingand treat hiring as a "privilege," according to an email to employees obtained by CNBC. "It's clear that the market is experiencing a seismic shift and we need to react accordingly," he said.

Coty Shares tumbled 7.4% despite an earnings beat from the cosmetics company. Coty earned 3 cents per share on revenues of $1.19 billion in its most recent quarter. Analysts polled by Refinitiv were expecting earnings of 1 cent per share on revenues of $1.15 billion. Coty also raised its full-year outlook based on strong consumer demand.

Tyson Foods Shares of the beef and poultry producer gained 2.2% on the back of better-than-expected quarterly results. Tyson reported earnings of $2.29 per share on revenue of $13.12 billion. Analysts had expected a profit of $1.91 per share on revenue of $12.85 billion, according to Refinitiv.

BioNTech The stock rose 3.1% after BioNTech posted a better-than-expected first-quarter report. BioNTech earned $14.24 per share on revenue of $6.37 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected a profit of $9.16 per share on revenue of $4.34 billion.

Twitter Shares of the social media company fell 3.7% after The New York Times reported on Elon Musk's financial goals for Twitter, citing an investor presentation. The billionaire who is acquiring Twitter for $44 billion aims to quintuple revenue by 2028, cut Twitter's reliance on advertising and reach 931 million users by 2028, among other objectives set out in the presentation.

Dish Network Shares dipped 4.5% after JPMorgan downgraded Dish to neutral from overweight, citing "weaker than expected PayTV and wireless results." Meanwhile, Credit Suisse upgraded Dish to outperform from neutral, saying it sees "sufficient upside" for the company.

Match Shares of the online dating company slid 4.5% after Wells Fargo upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. Wells said shares are "compelling" at current levels.

Virgin Galactic Shares of Virgin Galactic pulled back by 10.7% as Truist downgraded the space travel company to hold from buy amid concerns over additional flight delays.

CNBC's Jesse Pound, Tanaya Macheel, Samantha Subin and Sarah Min contributed reporting.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Palantir, Rivian, Uber and more - CNBC

Most people are familiar with the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, with its spectacular curtains of light rippling across the night sky.

But theres another type of aurora called a patchy pulsating aurora with irregular shapes and pulses turning on and off every few seconds or so, like a lava lamp.

Like all aurora, pulsating aurora are emissions of light caused by electrons and other particles coming from near-Earth space. These particles plunge into the ionosphere (Earths upper atmosphere) and collide with atoms and molecules, causing them to glow in distinctive colours.

But the physical process that creates the pulsating aurora is very different than the process that creates the curtain-type of auroral arcs, says Dr. Emma Spanswick, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science, and a member of UCalgarys Auroral Imaging Group.

Scientists know that high-energy particles coming from sub-storms, a type of energy release in the geospace environment, are involved in pulsating aurora as are waves in Earths magnetic field.

We know a lot of the pieces of whats involved. But no one has really stitched it all together into a coherent, detailed picture, says Spanswick, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Geospace Dynamics and Space Plasma Physics.

The international Loss through Auroral Microburst Pulsations (LAMP) mission, led by U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), aims to determine whether the pulsating aurora is connected to another phenomenon called microbursts higher-energy electrons from Earths magnetic field that occur in bursts lasting about one-tenth of a second.

Emma Spanswick

Riley Brandt, University of Calgary

On March 5, 2022, a NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket launched from the Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The rocket flew directly through a pulsating aurora, measuring particles and magnetic fields, before falling back to Earth.

Many kilometres below, two new ground-based radio instruments listened carefully for any disturbance caused in the ionosphere by high-energy particles in the pulsating aurora.

It was the first test for these protype instruments, built at UCalgary and designed in collaboration with Merrimack College near Boston.

UCalgary wasnt originally part of the LAMP mission. However, the mission leaders learned about Spanswicks work on the radio instruments from collaborators in the U.S.

So they contacted me and asked if we could supply support for the launch, she says.

Spanswicks success in securing a Canada Research Chair enabled her to apply for and receive a Canadian Foundation for Innovation-John R. Evans Leaders Fund (CFI-JELF) grant, to develop and deploy 15 of the new instruments, called riometers.

The next-generation instruments will replace the UCalgary Auroral Imaging Groups 11 riometers across a network in northern Canada. These older instruments operate only on a single radio frequency, which limits their capability.

A riometer is essentially a radio receiver used to monitor the radio signal emanating from the cosmos the stars and galaxies. Whenever the near-Earth geospace system is active and high-energy particles are driving deep into the ionosphere, the radio signal from the cosmos starts to disappear.

We can use the dropout in radio signal from the cosmic background as an indicator that the ionosphere is disturbed, Spanswick says.

Spanswicks next-generation riometers employ multiple radio frequencies to indicate at what altitude the ionosphere is disturbed. By incorporating models with the riometer data, researchers can show what the electron density looks like at certain altitudes, which can help identify the process driving the pulsating aurora.

When Spanswick got the call from the LAMP mission leaders, she and her UCalgary team installed and field-tested one of three riometers theyd built, deploying it at Meanook, a hamlet north of Edmonton. They then shipped the other two instruments to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Lukas Vollmerahus, instrument design and maintenance engineer, built and tested the riometers. Brenden Bickner, software and electrical engineering technician, developed a real-time dashboard used to view and assess data in support of the launch mission.

Due to COVID travel restrictions, the two riometers shipped to Alaska were installed by collaborators from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, and Merrimack College.

One riometer was installed at the Poker Flat Research Range where the sounding rocket was launched. The other unit was deployed north of Fairbanks in Venetie, a town located directly below where the rocket reached its peak altitude.

Spanswick and her team are now involved with LAMP mission scientists in analyzing the data. From what Ive seen, this data is going to provide lots of discussion on mechanisms for the pulsating aurora, and its certainly going to drive more active research in this area, she says.

Being able to collaborate with new instrumentation and the experts who have developed it provides us additional ways to look at the space environment and see what is going on, says Dr. Alexa Halford, PhD, LAMPs principal investigator from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center.

When we can find these partnerships, we end up with better results providing new insights into the physics of the aurora than we would have if it was only our own experiment and were able to ask additional science questions, Halford says.

UCalgarys long-standing international reputation for auroral research and innovation opened the door to participating in the LAMP mission, Spanswick notes. We have world-leading programs here for remote sensing the space environment and studying the aurora.

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University of Calgary space physicist participates in NASA rocket mission to study pulsating aurora - University of Calgary

Canadian politicians have passed an amendment to the nation's Criminal Code to allow for the prosecution of crimes committed on the Moon.

The change to the law which MPs voted 181 to 144 in favour was described in a 443-page budget implementation bill presented to parliament this week.

Ottawa has already extended its jurisdiction over criminal acts committed by Canadian astronauts during space travel to the International Space Station.

They are treated the same as crimes committed inCanada.

The update comes as the number of space flights is increasing, and ahead of the first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years set to launch in May 2024, with a Canadian astronaut expected to be onboard the Artemis II lunar flyby.

Under the subheading Lunar Gateway, the Criminal Code amendment reads:

"A Canadian crew member who, during a space flight, commits an act or omission outside Canada that if committed in Canada would constitute an indictable offence is deemed to have committed that act or omission in Canada."

This would include crimes en route to or on the Lunar Gateway station currently in the works to orbit the Moon, and also "on the surface of the Moon", the document states.

Foreign astronauts who "threaten the life or security of a Canadian crew member" on a Canadian-supported space mission could also be prosecuted, according to the ways and means motion.

The issue of potential crimes committed in space came up in 2019 when NASA investigated what was being characterised as the first alleged space crime.

Astronaut Anne McClain was accused by her estranged spouse of improperly accessing bank records while on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Lieutenant ColonelMcClain was later cleared and her former partner charged with making false statements to federal authorities.

The Canadian Space Agency is participating in the NASA-led Lunar Gateway project, along with the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Starting as early as 2026, the outpost will act as a staging point for robotic and crewed exploration of the lunar surface, as well as travel to Mars.

AFP

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Canada warns it will prosecute astronauts for crimes in space and on the Moon - ABC News