Category Archives: Space Travel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more from the original source:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go here to see the original:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We promise these aren't all NPR podcasts.

Image: bob al-greene / mashable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: Uncredited / AP / Shutterstock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: Amblin/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock

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

Episode to start with: The very first one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: bbc

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overwhelmed by the headlines? Get the facts behind them.

Image: vicky leta / mashable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go here to read the rest:

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

Were living in a time right now, one that some movies like Contagion kind of predicted. But there are plenty of films and shows that portray a far different version of 2020 where aliens invaded Earth, robots have taken over boxing... or maybe dragons have even taken root.

Below weve put together a list of several films and shows that either took place in 2020 or had key plot points within that year. Just goes to show that things could always be worse at least we dont have radioactive sharks...

Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) tells William (Tom Cruise) how not to die again.

Edge of Tomorrow starring Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise takes place five years after a race of nearly invincible aliens called Mimics invaded Earth, turning 2020 into a futuristic hellscape where soldiers of the newly minted United Defence Force have to don bulky mech-suits just to stand a chance against them. It shows how quickly society can adapt when faced with an unprecedented threat though in this case, it was by creating a massive military-industrial complex.

Space: The terrible CGI frontier.

In this Brian De Palma film inspired by the ride at Walt Disney Worlds Epcot, space travel has grown to support expeditions to Mars. The astronauts embarking on these missions discover that the planet was previously inhabited by highly sophisticated aliens. Billions of years ago, theyd abandoned the planet, sending one alien to Earth to create lifeforms who could one day land on Mars and discover their true extraterrestrial ancestry. Astronaut Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) is chosen as the ambassador of Earth, and the movie ends with him being summoned to the Martians new home.

The Abbott family is on the move again.

A Quiet Place fast forwards two years into its future, to a world devastated by an invasion of alien monsters who could hunt by sound. As a result, vocal speech is impossible and largely replaced by sign language. Its a world similar to ours, except without any form of functioning government or society, because anything that makes a sound will draw deadly attention.

Part of the poster for Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet.

This is the kind of futuristic flick that can only come from 35 years of far-future speculation and the fact that it was a Soviet film that was slightly retooled with new scenes in English and repackaged for the U.S at the height of the Cold War.

In this version of 2020, the Moon has already been colonised because its the future, baby! A pair of astronauts have been sent 200 million miles to explore Venus i.e., the one thats famous for being an uninhabitable gas planet. Upon landing there, the astronauts discover that its actually a prehistoric world filled with strange monsters and murderous plants, and theyre forced to launch a daring escape. Its perfectly schlocky 60s sci-fi akin to Voyage To the Planet Of Prehistoric Women. Not a lot of plot, but definitely some cheesy special effects.

This robot is ready to rumbleeeeeee.

This sci-fi sports flick presents a 2020 where human boxers have been replaced by robots, turning it into a mix of Detroit: Beyond Human and that BattleBots show. Hugh Jackmans Charlie Kenton trains a robot called Atom to become a champion boxer, and the movie ends not with humans returning to the ring but robot boxing continuing to reign supreme. The focus of the story was more about the strained relationship between Charlie and his son Max (Dakota Goyo), with robot boxing being the thing that brings them together, but the framework was this strange, disjointed world that mixed futuristic robotic technology with old timey state fairs.

Oh hey Drogon.

Dragons have awakened from beneath the Earth to bring about the next apocalypse. In Rob Bowmans Reign of Fire, its 2020 and theyve nearly completed their goal, with humanity on the brink of extinction. The few pockets of people remaining have gathered in small communities one of them led by Christian Bales Quinn Abercromby and daily life is a challenge. They cant even grow food without dragons coming in to burn all their crops. Luckily for Bale and his co-star Matthew McConaughey, theres only one boy dragon and if you kill that one, they all go down.

Behold the future of sharknado hunting.

This movie takes place five years after the previous Sharknado film and focuses on a private space company loosely modelled after Elon Musks SpaceX. The company developed a technology that can diffuse tornadoes from space, which has not only helped save millions from annual tornadoes, its effectively killed the whole sharknado thing but not for long. Lo and behold, in comes a sharknado thats so big, it contains boulders, fire, oil, even lava. Eventually, it becomes nuclear, meaning weve got radioactive sharks floating around in a giant tornado. The only thing it was missing was space sharks. I wanted space sharks.

Hell yeah were cancelling the apocalypse.Image: Warner Bros.

The bulk of Pacific Rim takes place in 2025, but the events of 2020 had a huge impact on the plot. After the Kaiju came to Earth through the Breach, celebrity fighters teamed up in gigantic Jaeger mech suits to take them on including brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket. Together, the two manage to kill the first Kaiju in 2020, but it cost Yancy his life. Afterward, Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) quit the Jaeger program and humanity started losing the war. In 2025, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi)joined Raleigh and together they managed to journey into the Breach and seal it once and for all. Oh, that whole sequel thing? Never heard of it.

The Dollhouse doesnt feel so safe in 2020.

Dollhouse was a show about a secretive group called the Rossum Corporation that had the ability to wipe peoples personalities and implant them with characteristics that served the wealthy. However, this technology took a darker turn in two episodes: Epitaph 1, which was a bonus episode on the season one DVD, and the series finale, Epitaph 2.

These episodes jumped forward to 2020, after the Rossum Corporation had succeeded in wiping the minds of everyone around the world turning them into mindless zombies that could be imprinted with whatever traits the select few in power wanted. Main character Echo (Eliza Dushku) and her friends managed to stop them and restore everyones minds, but were sure waking up to that post-apocalyptic nightmare sucked.

An apocalypse sucks until you have someone to share it with.

This series opens in 2020, about one year after a virus swept the world and seemingly killed everyone. Phil (Will Forte) thinks hes the only survivor and decides to die by suicide rather than live alone. However, he ends up coming across another survivor named Carol (Kristen Schaal). Together, they manage to bring together more people and build their own society, though its not always a happy bunch. Just imagine if The Walking Dead were combined with The Office. The colourful and complicated cast of characters end up turning the series into a sort of family sitcom only instead of putting someone in time out, you get banished like Phil.

Originally posted here:

10 Movies and TV Series That Predicted Very Different 2020 Disasters - Gizmodo UK

Space junkis a growing problem, and an issue that could go eventually jeopardize space travel if not correctly handled. If we have learned anything over the past decade, it is that humans continue to be eager to get into space. Private andgovernment-funded organizationsare planning to expand our presence in space, build bases, and even have plans for livable habitats within the next few decades. However, for us to reach Mars and beyond, we first need to be able to get off this planet safely.

However, there are more immediate dangers. The space debris floating around the planet could threaten the lives of astronauts on the International Space Station. And, it is not just the big pieces of junk we have to worry about.

According to the European Space Agency, there are128 million objects the size of 1 mm to 1 cm, 900,000 objects the size of 1 cm to 10 cm, and 34,000 objects greater 10 cm currently whizzing around our planet. Many of these objects are traveling around our planet at roughly 28,163.52 kph,or about 10 times faster than a bullet.

According to senior NASA scientist Jack Bacon, the collision of a piece of aluminum with a piece of space debris roughly the size of about 10-centimeters would be the equivalent to detonating 7 kilograms of TNT. Properly tackling this problem will not be easy. Today we are going to explore everything you need to know about space debris and what organizations are doing to track and manage the situation.

As described by Agnieszka Gautier in an article for NASA, The remains of these communication satellites, along with sixty years of space activity, have littered outer space. An orchestra of objects swirls in various orbits: decommissioned satellites, burnt-out rocket stages, lost tools, and fragmented particles from explosions and collisions. When tiny flecks of paint travel with enough force to cut cables, damage space shuttle windows, or kill astronauts, accurately tracking debris matters.

As one can imagine, our space junk problem all started at the beginning of the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. When the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in history into orbit around the Earth, the beach ball-sized craft sparked a race to the stars that would eventually create new space programs around the world.

Over the decades, companies and governments have developed satellites for military defense, cell phones, television, and GPS, launching hundreds of them into space each year. In fact, much of the debris in space consists of pieces of old rockets. You can find nuts and bolts, garbage bags, a lens cap, a screwdriver, and even a spatula, if you look hard enough. So if you were to go junk collecting in space, what would you find?

Lets start with some of the more common objects that you might find floating around the planet. NASAs Orbital Debris Space Program Officelists the types of space junk found in orbit, and is constantly monitoring them as the amount of space junk continues to increase each year. The first thing you might find in our space junkyard are stages from rockets and old satellites that no longer work.

Going out to retrieve these larger pieces of debris is expensive and not practical. The sad reality is that when parts of a spacecraft falls off, they end up floating around the planet until they fall back to earth or collide with another piece of space junk.

You might even come across tiny bits of paint. In fact, there aremillions of pieces of paint that have flaked off of other pieces of space junk, or even spacecraft, and they are growing exponentially. As mentioned above, even these little pieces of junk can pose a serious threat to astronauts. But wait, there's more.

While out in space, junk scavenging, you might come across the occasional upper stages of launch vehicles and even solid rocket motor effluent. However, people there are even weirder pieces of space junk floating around, including gloves, tanks of ammonia, pee, and Gene Roddenberry's ashes.

The NASA Orbital Debris Program Office is currently the leading program monitoring the space debris currently orbiting our planet. The team is constantly collaborating with other governments and private institutions to gain a better scope of the issue, but the Orbital Debris Program Office is also hard at work coming up with creative solutions for potentially removing the space debris. As described by NASA, The OPDO, has taken the international lead in conducting measurements of the orbital environment and in developing the technical consensus for adopting mitigation measures to protect the users within it."

Located at the Johnson Space Center, the Office continues to develop an improved understanding of the orbital debris environment and measures that can be taken to control debris growth. Explore Orbital Debris. The OPDO is tracking, detecting, and archiving space junk using a large collection of global telescopes. The OPDO is even able to track objects as small as 0.12 inches using ground-based radars. Space debris around the size of 10 inches are cataloged consistently and monitored diligently.

However, it is not just one organization's or country's responsibility. Space junk is not one countrys responsibility, but the responsibility of every spacefaring country. The problem of managing space debris is both an international challenge and an opportunity to preserve the space environment for future space exploration missions," says NASA

Yes, but not anytime soon. First and foremost, you might think the simple solution is to develop a more effective and junkless process of launching objects into space. There are private companies and institutions doing just that, but it could be decades before we make any commercially viable progress. Even more so, if we stopped launching objects into space, things would get worse. Pieces of space junk collide with each other on a regular basis, multiplying the problem.

It is well understood that we are past the point of no return. Relying solely on improved tracking and avoidance is not enough it is simply a technical form of sticking your head in the sand and crossing your fingers, Texas A&M Ph.D. student Jonathan Missel told SPACE.com. We are at a point where the problem needs to be solved, with active removal, not just avoided.

Computer simulations completed by OPDO have shed some light on this problem and how things could get dramatically worse. One simulation, covering a 200-year time period, showcased how debris larger than about 20 cm across will increase by 1.5 times,while space debris 10-20 cmcan be expected to multiply 3.2 times, and debris less than 10 cm will grow a factor of 13 to 20. In addition, we will consistently be launching spacecraft and satellites in the coming years. The good news is that NASA, alongside other organizations from around the world, are developing a series of potential solutions that could make a dent in the space junk problem.

The Space Junk Slingshot - This project is the brainchild of the engineering minds at Texas A&M University. The simple, cheap but ingenious project would be able to fly from one piece of space junk to another using little fuel. Dubbed the Sling-Sat Space Sweeper, it would capture various objects, swinging them towards Earths atmosphere, and using the momentum generated to move on to the next group of debris.

The Space Debris Elimination system - Developed by Raytheon BBN Technologies, this NASA funded project would fire targeted puffs of air into lower orbit and into the paths of unsuspecting space trash. This process increases the drag of the space junk,causing it to de-orbit. According to Dan Gregory of Raytheon BBN, "The air pulse creates a cloud that impacts any piece of debris that flies through while the cloud is still coherent. In other words, it depends on how much debris flies through the cloud you create while that cloud is still intact."

Go Space Junk Fishing - First conceived in 2014, the e.DeOrbit's mission would go out hunting for space junk lying in a polar orbit and at an altitude between 800 and 1,000 kilometers. Various means of capturing the junk have been propsed, including the use of harpoons, magnets, massive nets, robotic arms, and even tentacles.

Sail it away - This project is fairly straightforward. The British-proposed CubeSail would utilize the power of drag to push orbiting space debris down to lower orbits. Solar sails are garnering a lot of attention beyond just debris collection, with researchers looking at using them for interplanetary travel.

Humans have big plans of reaching beyond Earth to the Moon, and other planets. New space stations will make their way into orbit into our orbit in the near future. In order for humans to reach their space goals safely in the near future, we will need to keep a close eye on space junk. Poet S. Thuy Nguyen-Onstott summed this up perfectly,writing:

"The Universe is infinite

But space has its limits

Rockets a launching

Satellites are orbiting

Explosions in Space

Oh what a waste

Fragments go flying

And we go crying Space junk weve got Man-made or not

Then comes Kessler Who knows the better

When things collide

Their debris do multiply

Thanks to partnering

And NASAs gathering

We look for ways

To manage the spray"

Do you think humans should be worried about space debris? What solutions have caught your attention?

Read more:

Our Space Junk Problem Is Getting Serious; Here Is What You Need to Know - Interesting Engineering

Imaginary worlds, absorbing nonfiction and daft belly-laughs are hopefully providing some relief to frustrated kids during lockdown. In picture books, Smriti Halls and Ella Okstad offer a cheeky rhyming romp through a house invaded by animals, including a badminton-playing panda and a tiger doing something smelly, in Elephant in My Kitchen! (Egmont). But the rowdy displaced creatures just want their own habitats to be protected in this blithe, engaging introduction to ideas of conservation for the very young.

From Richard Jones, illustrator of The Snow Lion, comes Perdu (Simon & Schuster), his first title as author-illustrator. Perdu, an appealing, diminutive dark-brown dog with a jaunty red scarf, is lost, with no place to call home. From countryside to uncaring city he wanders, fearful and hungry, until a gesture of kindness draws him in. It may not be an unusual story, but its delicate pathos and warmth imbue it with a salutary sense of reassurance.

I Am Brown (Lantana) by Ashok Banker and Sandhya Prabhat is a joyful celebration of brown skin and wide-ranging achievement I am brown, I am beautiful, I am perfect. I ran this race, I won this prize, I wrote this book. Full of all the different and wonderful ways to be brown, whether worshipping, working, playing or eating, its uplifting without being preachy, rolling out an inspiring range of possibilities.

Meanwhile Avocado Asks (Orchard) by debut illustrator Momoko Abe is a delightful, boldly graphic wander down the supermarket aisles, as Avocado asks: What am I? Fruit or veg, cheese or egg Avocados quest for self-knowledge eventually brings him to the exuberantly confident Tomato, who declares that when youre as fabulous as Avocado, it simply doesnt matter.

For five- to eight-year-olds, the Pig Diaries author Emer Stamp moves from porcine to musine capers in PESTS (Hodder), kicking off a hilarious new series. Grandma has drilled into young mouse Stix that he must never let humans see him but when Stix joins the Peewit Educatorium for Seriously Terrible Scoundrels, how far will he go in his quest for the coveted accolade of pest of the year? Stamps new venture is riotously funny, with enough expressive drawings and poo jokes to delight longstanding Pig fans as well as new readers.

In the Garden (Princeton), a gorgeous oversized picture-book from Emma Giuliani, features two silhouetted siblings, Plum and Robin, as they enjoy a year of tending their patch. Under beautifully designed flaps lies information about fruit, flowers and foliage. Full of rich words (peduncle, pericarp) and the sensuous pleasures of a warm breeze, sweet smells and the enjoyment of growing things, it creates a consolatory sense of space for those with limited access to the outside world.

For seven-plus, Jack Noels Comic Classics: Great Expectations (Egmont) is a comic book exploration of the adventures of Pip, Miss Havisham, Magwitch and Estella, featuring much of the original language and packed with engaging doodles explaining or riffing on the story. A funny, thought-provoking treat, its the ideal way into an author whose verbosity is off-putting to most children, but whose meaty plots and unforgettable characters offer much.

Eight-plus readers with a taste for fantasy are in for a treat in LD Lapinskis debut The Strangeworlds Travel Agency (Orion). When Flick walks into a dilapidated travel agency and befriends Jonathan, its teenage proprietor, she makes the intoxicating discovery that the suitcases lining its walls are gateways to other worlds. But energy is draining from Five Lights, the world at the centre of everything can Flick somehow save it from collapse, and save her own world too? Assured, witty, riotously inventive, this debut has future classic written through it like Brighton rock.

From super-readable publishers Barrington Stoke comes David Longs thrilling Survival in Space, a retelling of the Apollo 13 mission published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its launch. Written with limpid simplicity, filled both with fascinating facts about the history of space travel and a tensely contained sense of dramatic excitement, it offers pent-up imaginations the chance to leave Earth on a nail-biting adventure.

Finally, Kirsty Applebaums TrooFriend (Nosy Crow) is an agreeably sinister account of artificial intelligence, sentience and corporate obfuscation. The TrooFriend 560 will never lie, steal or bully what parent wouldnt want one for their child? But when Sarah is given the TrooFriend she calls Ivy, she soon discovers that human-like responses lead to human-like emotions. What happens when an android learns to feel? Told from Ivys perspective, Applebaums second novel is a heartfelt, compelling sci-fi story.

Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists & Flaming Arrows by Robert Muchamore, Hot Key, 6.99Set in a contemporary, slightly dystopian version of the Midlands, this high-octane, rip-roaring escapist reimagining from the author of the cult CHERUB series serves up a 12-year-old Robin flush with hacking skills, quick wits and a carbon-fibre recurve bow. When his dad is arrested for a crime he didnt commit, Robin falls foul of gangster Guy Gisborne and takes refuge with the hippyish denizens of the dangerous Sherwood Forest, robbing Gisborne-controlled cashpoints with the help of Marion Maid while his half-brother Little John finds unexpected common ground with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Intensely readable, outrageously enjoyable action.

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson, Egmont, 7.99Pip Fitz-Amobi, schoolgirl star of Jacksons bestselling debut, A Good Girls Guide to Murder, is back, now running a hugely popular podcast. She is determined not to be a detective any more, however too much hate came her way in the wake of her first case. So when her friend Connors brother goes missing, and his family ask her to help, Pip is dismayed to feel a familiar tingle of excitement. As nail-biting, taut and pacy as her first book, Pips second outing confirms Jackson as a homegrown thriller writer to watch.

Rules for Being a Girl by Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno, Macmillan, 7.99When Bex, her handsome teacher, is attentive to her, Marin is flattered but when he kisses her, shes appalled. Her best friend wont believe her, so, in the school paper, Marin writes an article laying out the rules for girls: dont be easy, dont be a prude, dont friendzone him, dont blame him for trying. School and social hierarchies may be poised to punish Marin instead of Bex, but that doesnt mean shes ready to stop fighting, or to lose her newly discovered voice. A fiercely feminist call to arms, from Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell.

The rest is here:

Childrens books roundup the best new picture books and novels - The Guardian

Andr Bormanis, co-executive producer and writer for the Fox/Hulu series The Orville and consulting producer on National Geographics Cosmos, picks the following five films:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey. This 1968 Stanley Kubrick film is one of the most realistic depictions of space travel in our solar system, Bormanis said.

Astronaut Poole, left (Gary Lockwood) and Mission Commander Bowman (Keir Dullea) seek the privacy of a one-man space pod in an effort to confer without being overheard by computer Hal 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

(Handout/Handout/Handout)

2. Apollo 13. This 1995 film, directed by Ron Howard, is a re-enactment of the flight of the third mission to send men to the surface of the moon, which nearly ended in tragedy.

3. The Martian. This 2015 film by Ridley Scott is a very good, scientifically credible story about one mans attempt to survive being stranded on Mars.

Matt Damon portrays an astronaut who draws upon his ingenuity to subsist on a hostile planet in the movie The Martian.

(Aidan Monaghan/Aidan Monaghan/Aidan Monaghan/Twentieth Century)

4. The Planets. This 2019 BBC documentary series, hosted by Brian Cox, offers a very good overview of our solar system and our current understanding of it.

CG illustration of Saturn in The Planets, a 2019 BBC documentary series. Credit: Lola Post Production/ BBC Studios

(Lola Post Production/ BBC Studios)

5. Star Trek, the original 1966-69 series, created by Gene Roddenberry. Fifty-plus years later, they really still hold up. And the special effects were redone for high-definition television standards a few years ago. If your cable company carries the MeTV network, which specializes in Boomer reruns, you can find original Star Trek episodes at 10 on Saturday nights.

Star Trek

(Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures)

Read this article:

Best sky-centric movies and TV shows of all time. Yes, Star Trek makes the cut - Los Angeles Times

The old friend shows up every night, big and brawny as ever. Hes on a Brooklyn familys seventh-floor balcony in Windsor Terrace, and above the Portofino Ristorante in Forest Hills, and bellowing out of a truck rolling slowly up and down the empty canyons of Manhattans avenues, right on time to with the crash of a cymbal start spreadin the news.

It is 7 p.m., and the city is already clapping, a nightly outpouring of support for health care workers that has taken place for weeks. And many have added a soundtrack to their applause, as familiar as the skyline. Its as brassy and over the top as ever and yet, playing out across a cooped-up city of crowded apartments and masks and gloves, its bottomless optimism can visibly bring smiles, a short pause to The Pause.

I want to be a part of it New York, New York.

A lot of people stop doing what theyre doing and start cheering, said George Leon, a manager at Portofino with a front-row seat to the nightly performance, when an upstairs neighbor plays it on loudspeakers from his apartment window. Its awesome.

With the city in the grip of the coronavirus, Frank Sinatras Theme from New York, New York, its actual name, has once again stepped up as its anthem, as it did after 9/11 and as it does after Yankee games and police promotion ceremonies. It seems to have always been with us, a staple of the voice instantly recognizable all over the world since his prime in the 1940s and 1950s; but in fact, its a song thats barely reached middle age.

The nightly performances are the latest stop in the unlikely journey of a song that, in more ways than one, almost didnt get made at all.

In 1977, the director Martin Scorsese was making New York, New York, and he needed a title track. The songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote a song and brought it to a meeting with the director and the films stars, Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli.

We played our songs Scorsese and Liza liked them a lot, Mr. Kander told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2015. We were just about to leave, and Bobby, over on the couch, waved his arm, and Scorsese said, Excuse me just a minute, and he went over and talked to him. It was a very animated conversation in terms of arms, but we couldnt hear what they were saying.

The director returned very embarrassed and said Mr. De Niro found the title number lightweight and wanted them to try again, Mr. Kander said.

The two writers, whose credits included Chicago and Cabaret, were annoyed Some actors going to tell us whats a good song and whats not? but returned to Mr. Ebbs apartment. In about 45 minutes, he said, we wrote this song called New York, New York another one. It fared better: They seemed to like it a lot, Mr. Kander said.

As he would tell The New York Times in 2015: De Niro was completely right.

Ms. Minnelli sang the number on the films soundtrack, and the song seemed to belong to her. This would not last.

Elsewhere in the entertainment world, Mr. Sinatra, then in his early 60s, had recently emerged from an early retirement to a vastly changed cultural landscape from the ring-a-ding days of the Rat Pack. He looked around and saw not fellow crooners, but acts like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and he struggled to adapt.

He had fought an ambivalent battle against the new music, sometimes trying to make it his own, almost always with heart-sinking results, wrote James Kaplan in a biography, Sinatra: The Chairman.

Frank was straining for relevance, he wrote.

The singers wife, Barbara Sinatra, suggested he cover New York, New York.

Naw, thats Lizas song, he replied, according to Mrs. Sinatras book, Lady Blue Eyes. But she persuaded him to play it at a 1978 concert at Radio City Music Hall, she wrote, and the number he almost didnt sing brought the house down.

The Sinatra historian and radio personality Jonathan Schwartz was in attendance that night. I suggested to him that he might want to record it, he recalled this week. He said something like, Well see. The music publisher Frank Military, a longtime collaborator, has also been credited with introducing the man to the song.

Mr. Sinatras daughter, Tina, in an interview Wednesday from her home in California, recalled another important voice in his ear. He was reluctant to take it from Liza, she said. She told him, Its OK, Uncle Frank.

The following year, Mr. Sinatra set about making an ambitious triple-album, Trilogy: Past Present Future. Amid a curious collection of covers Billy Joels Just the Way You Are, Neil Diamonds Song Sung Blue and a suite of songs involving space travel, he thought back to the familiar, comfortable fit of those vagabond shoes.

On Sept. 19, 1979, in a studio in Hollywood, he recorded the song at last, with Rob Fentress, a member of Sinatras large circle, among those crowded in the jubilant control room after the final take. They were playing back New York, New York, and Frank was sitting in the engineers chair, and he was just oblivious to all the noise, Mr. Fentress recalled in Mr. Kaplans book. He was just focusing on the song. And you could see how pleased he was. He wasnt laughing; he was just smiling slightly. Id seen that focused look before.

The song would close his concerts for years to come, nudging aside My Way in that spot, and was the last one he performed in public, when he joined an array of stars in 1995 at a tribute for his 80th birthday. He died in 1998.

I think he could thoroughly identify with the song, growing up in Hoboken and looking across the river at the skyline, his daughter Tina said. He wanted to be there. He wanted to be on the other side.

Twenty-four years later, Allison Garber, 45, of Windsor Terrace, one of the countless New Yorkers who grew up with the song showing up like a proud uncle at ballgames and public gatherings, heard a friend say it was blasting nightly at 7 p.m. from an apartment in Manhattan.

I wanted to bring that to my neighborhood, she said. Its undeniable when you hear that last bit, you really have to point out at your city.

She found herself a little uncomfortable with the A-number-one lyrics, not at all about community, and cast about for a replacement. From her balcony facing Prospect Park, she tried Heroes by David Bowie, Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler, and others. Below, people passed by. Only one song seemed to make them stop, so she brought it back.

Maybe New York, New York makes everybody feel like theyre that person? she said. That everyone is king of the hill, top of the heap.

See more here:

The Story Behind "New York, New York," the City's 7 P.M. Anthem - The New York Times