Category Archives: Space Travel

On the anniversary of an ill-fated monkey's journey into space, there's a growing belief that genetic engineering could hold the key to exploring the universe.

Seventy years ago today, a monkey named Albert IV was strapped into a small spacecraft, hooked up to monitors and propelled into orbit.

The US launched a series of V-2 rockets carrying monkey astronauts throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s as a precursor to the space race.

Albert II became the first monkey in space on June 14 1949, a year after the original Albert suffocated before his rocket could make it past the Karman line - the 100km height above Earth marking the beginning of space.

Albert II survived his flight, which reached a height of 134km, but died on impact after his parachute failed.

He was followed by Albert III, who made it just 10km up before his rocket exploded.

On December 12, 1949, Albert IV was launched from New Mexico and successfully made it into space. He stayed safe and well throughout the flight until it was time to land, when yet another parachute failure killed him on impact.

Albert IV was the last of the V-2 monkeys, but the experiments continued in other forms.

Eventually, advances in space technology meant that the US and the Soviet Union were able to send animals into space and bring them back alive.

But the enormous stress of space travel had a huge impact on them, with many suffering heart attacks brought on by dehydration.

The weightlessness also affected their bodily functions: when the European Space Agency sent crickets into space for 16 days in 1998, the insects failed to develop the organs needed for balance that they would on Earth.

Human astronauts suffer a huge range of side-effects as well, from muscle atrophy to congestion to eyesight problems.

The rise of the animal rights movement means that even as space agencies look to Mars as the next destination to conquer, they may refrain from testing the technology on animals due to public pressure.

But Elon Musk may have found a way around it. Last week SpaceX sent a 'crew' of genetically modified mice and worms into space.

The rocket docked at the International Space Station where its precious cargo will be used in a variety of experiments investigating how to improve space travel.

Of the 40 mice onboard the 'Dragon' capsule, eight have been genetically engineered to have twice the muscle mass of a normal mouse. They're known as 'mighty mice', and they'll be able to better cope with the muscle-shrinking and bone density-decreasing effects of space.

Scientists hope these results will help them to understand how to limit muscle and bone loss in humans while they're in space.

SpaceX intends to send humans to Mars in 2024, with the eventual goal of colonising the red planet into a "self-sustaining civilisation".

It would take between six and eight months for a spacecraft to travel from Earth to Mars. That's a long exposure to space radiation, which has been proven to have devastating effects on humans including an increased risk of cancer.

But if scientists were able to strengthen our cells to better withstand the radiation, astronauts could stay healthier in space for longer.

US geneticist Chris Mason recently spoke about the possibility of changing human DNA to allow us to explore the universe further than we are currently able to.

One potential method would involve splicing human DNA with that of tardigrades - tiny micro-animals capable of surviving extreme conditions including direct exposure to deep space.

While genetic engineering is controversial, Mr Mason says in the future it may be more unethical not to enhance our DNA.

"In terms of a question of liberty, you're engineering it [a future human] to have lots more opportunities, again assuming we haven't taken away opportunities," he told Space.com.

"If we learned that, in some way, when we decided to try and prove the ability of humans to live beyond Earth, and we take away their ability to live on Earth, I think that would be unjust."

In his words: "It's not if we evolve, it's when we evolve."

Link:

Modifying DNA 'will get humans on Mars' 70 years after monkey in space - Daily Star

SaturdayNov30,2019at12:01AM

Among the many problems that face us here on Earth is the question: Should we leave Earth? More specifically, should our government be funding travel into space.

One side believes space travel is an important and interesting branch of science that has more potential and should be researched. The other believes the government has much more important things to be spending money on, and that it's too dangerous.

I believe space does, in fact, have more to offer us. We should go back. NASA takes up less than 0.5% of the government's budget, which seems a bit low no matter how you look at it.

Space holds many possibilities for Earth. Just within our solar system, there are other bodies like our moon that hold resources that would highly benefit nations back on Earth.

If our government doesn't take advantage of this, then other nations or even some company will. Just look at SpaceX. I suggest a new attitude towards space and an increase in NASA's minuscule budget by 2021, a year not too far away but still not too abrupt of a change. And it's after the elections.

Jackson Rodosta, Eugene

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Should we go back to space? - Opinion - The Register-Guard

This artists rendering shows a night view of the Extremely Large Telescope in operation on Cerro... [+] Armazones in northern Chile. The telescope is shown using an array of eight sodium lasers to create artificial stars high in the atmosphere, and can accomplish tasks that cannot be accomplished in space.

There is an existential threat to astronomy as we know it, and it comes from humanity itself. On two simultaneous fronts, Earth's night sky, as seen from the surface, is being polluted as never before. Over the past few decades, the growth of human populations, sprawling urban areas, and technological advances like LED lighting have led to an explosion of light pollution, where truly dark skies have become an increasing rarity.

At the same time, the coming advent of mega-constellations of satellites where networks of thousands to tens-of-thousands of large, reflective satellites are poised to become commonplace in the night sky will translate into hundreds of bright, moving objects visible from any location where telescopes are common. If we ruin Earth for ground-based astronomy, we won't be able to simply replace them with space-based observatories for a number of important reasons. Here's why.

This image compares two views of the Eagle Nebulas Pillars of Creation taken with Hubble 20 years... [+] apart. The new image, on the left, captures almost exactly the same region as in the 1995, on the right. However, the newer image uses Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009, to capture light from glowing oxygen, hydrogen, and sulphur with greater clarity. Having both images allows astronomers to study how the structure of the pillars is changing over time.

To start, it's absolutely vital to understand what advantages astronomy has from space versus on the ground, because the benefits are enormous. For one, there's never daytime or any light pollution to contend with; it's always night from space when you point away from the Sun. You don't have to worry about clouds, weather, or atmospheric turbulence from space, whereas on Earth, you're basically looking out at the Universe from the bottom of a giant, atmosphere-filled swimming pool.

All the confounding factors that have to be dealt with on Earth, from molecular absorption and emission signatures like ozone, sodium, water vapor, etc., are eliminated by going to space. You can observe anywhere you want, all across the electromagnetic spectrum, and there's no atmosphere blocking your view. And can get incomparably large, wide, precise fields-of-view without any directional biases.

The transmittance or opacity of the electromagnetic spectrum through the atmosphere. Note all the... [+] absorption features in gamma rays, X-rays, and the infrared, which is why they are best viewed from space. Over many wavelengths, such as in the radio, the (unpolluted) ground is just as good, while others are simply impossible. Even though the atmosphere is mostly transparent to visible light, it still distorts incoming starlight substantially.

In short, your views of the Universe are wholly unobstructed if you leave the bonds of Earth. If you're willing to go a little farther away out of low-Earth orbit and farther away, such as to the L2 Lagrange point you can cool yourself down tremendously, avoid the noisy signals originating from Earth, and still respond to any Earth-issued command in just 5 seconds: the light-travel time from Earth's surface to L2.

No matter what pollutants we wreak upon the Earth, even if we lose all our dark skies and our ability to track and image objects from the ground due to a catastrophic set of satellites, we'll still have space to help us achieve our astronomical dreams. Which is good, because even if all we had were the first 12,000 Starlink satellites added to the mix, this is what the night sky (below) would look like to professional astronomers.

But the loss of ground-based astronomy, if we aren't careful to preserve both darkness and our window to the Universe, will be extraordinarily harmful to our most carefully planned scientific endeavors. At a moment in history where we are on the cusp of reaching into the distant, faint past farther and to greater precision than ever before a combination of thoughtless and careless forces, under the questionable guise of human progress, threatens to derail our dreams of discovering the Universe.

Astronomy's near-term plans include large (10-meter class) telescopes that are being commissioned to perform differential imaging on the entire sky. They will search for variable stars, transient events, Earth-hazardous objects, and more. These plans include the world's first 30-meter class telescopes, including the GMT and the ELT. Unfortunately, unless we're careful, these upcoming, cutting-edge observatories may never be able to fulfill their science goals.

This diagram shows the novel 5-mirror optical system of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).... [+] Before reaching the science instruments the light is first reflected from the telescope's giant concave 39-metre segmented primary mirror (M1), it then bounces off two further 4-metre-class mirrors, one convex (M2) and one concave (M3). The final two mirrors (M4 and M5) form a built-in adaptive optics system to allow extremely sharp images to be formed at the final focal plane. This telescope will have more light-gathering power and better angular resolution, down to 0.005", than any telescope in history.

While it's easy to point to the ways that space-based astronomy has superiority to ground-based astronomy, there are still substantial advantages that being on the ground offers, and that astronomers continue to take advantage of even in a post-Hubble era. We can create images, collect data, and perform scientific investigations that simply cannot occur with space-based observatories alone.

There are five major metrics where ground-based observatories should always remain leaps and bounds ahead of space-based ones, and they generally include:

If we can keep our skies dark, clear, and unobstructed, ground-based astronomy is sure to enter a golden age as the 21st century unfolds. Here's what's great about the ground.

The 25-meter Giant Magellan Telescope is currently under construction, and will be the greatest new... [+] ground-based observatory on Earth. The spider arms, seen holding the secondary mirror in place, are specially designed so that their line-of-sight falls directly between the narrow gaps in the GMT mirrors. This is the smallest of the three 30-meter class telescopes proposed, and it is larger than any space-based observatory that has even been conceived. It should be complete by the mid-2020s, and will incorporate adaptive optics as part of its design.

1.) Size. Simply put, you can build a larger ground-based observatory, with a larger primary mirror, than you can build or assemble in space. There's a common (but incorrect) line of thinking that if we just spent enough money on the task, we could build a telescope as large as we wanted on the ground and then launch it into space. That's only true up to a point: the point that you have to fit your observatory into the rocket that's launching it.

The largest primary mirror ever to be launched into space belongs to ESA's Herschel, with a 3.5-meter mirror. James Webb will be bigger, but that's due to its unique (and risky) segmented design, and even that (at 6.5 meters) cannot compete with the large, ground-based telescopes we're building. The largest space-based telescope ever proposed, LUVOIR (with a segmented design and a 15.1 meter aperture), still pales in comparison to the 25-meter GMT or the 39-meter ELT. In astronomy, size determines your resolution and your light-gathering power. With the addition of adaptive optics, there are some metrics by which space is simply non-competitive withbeing on the ground.

This time-series photograph of the uncrewed Antares rocket launch in 2014 shows a catastrophic... [+] explosion-on-launch, which is an unavoidable possibility for any and all rockets. Even if we could achieve a much improved success rate, the comparable risk of building a ground-based observatory versus a space-based observatory is overwhelming.

2.) Reliability. When we build a new telescope on the ground, there's no risk of a launch failure. If there's a piece of equipment that malfunctions, we can easily replace it. But going to space is an all-or-nothing proposition. If your rocket explodes on launch, your observatory no matter how expensive or sophisticated is lost. You'll never hear what the results are from NASA'sOrbiting Carbon Observatory, which was designed to measure how CO2 moves through the atmosphere from space, because it failed to separate from the rocket and crashed into the ocean 17 minutes after takeoff.

The bigger the mission, the bigger the cost of failure. In January of 2018, the rocket that will launch the James Webb Space Telescope,the Ariane 5, suffered a partial failure(that would have been catastrophic for Webb) after 82 consecutive successes. Hubble's infamous defective mirror was only fixable because it was within our reach. In space, you get one shot at success per mission, and 100% reliability will never be achieved.

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) with open telescope doors. This... [+] joint partnership between NASA and the German organization DLR enables us to take a state-of-the-art infrared telescope to any location on Earth's surface, allowing us to observe events wherever they occur.

3.) Versatility. Once you're in space, gravity and the laws of motion pretty much fix where your observatory is going to be at any given time. While there are plenty of astronomical curiosities that can be seen from anywhere, there are a few events, many of them spectacular, that require you to control (to extreme precision) where you'll be located at a particular moment in time.

Solar eclipses are one such phenomenon, but astronomical occultations offer an incredible opportunity that require just the right positioning. When Neptune's moon Triton or486958 Arrokoth occult a background star, we can leverage ground-based (and in some cases, mobile) observatories to control our position exquisitely; when Jupiter occults a quasar, we can use it to measure the speed of gravity.

If we were to put all our eggs in the space telescope basket, these ultra-rare events would cease to be scientifically meaningful, as we cannot control our position andmotion over time from space the way we do on Earth.

Hubble uses some very basic physics to turn itself around and look at different parts of the sky.... [+] Located on the telescope are six Gyroscopes (which, like a compass, always point in the same direction) and four free-spinning steering devices called reaction wheels.

4.) Maintenance. This is at the root of an infrastructure problem: you have more of it on the ground than you'll ever have in space. If some component fails or wears out, you make do with what you've got in space, or you spend an enormous amount of resources to attempt to service it. Run out of coolant? You need a mission. Gyroscopes or other pointing mechanisms wear out? Mission. Have an optical component that degrades? Mission. Sunshield failure? Struck by a micrometeor? Instrument failure? Electrical short? Run out of fuel? For any and all of these, you have to send a servicing mission.

But from the ground, you can have even extravagant facilities on-site. A faulty mirror can be swapped out. More coolant can be obtained for your infrared telescope. Repairs can be made by human or robotic hands in real-time. New parts and even new personnel can be brought in at a moment's notice. Hubble has lasted for nearly 30 years, but ground-based telescopes can last over half a century with maintained infrastructure. It's no contest.

The science instruments aboard the ISIM module being lowered and installed into the main assembly of... [+] JWST in 2016. These instruments were complete years before, and won't even get their first use until 2019 at the earliest.

5.) Upgradability. By the time that a space telescope is launched, the instruments aboard it are already obsolete. To get a space telescope designed and built, you have to decide what its science goals will be, and that informs what instruments will be designed, built, and integrated on-board the observatory. Then you have to design them, manufacture the components, build and assemble them, install, integrate and test them, and finally launch them.

This necessarily means that the instruments that are proposed (and then built) are years out of date even when the space telescope takes data for the very first time. On the other hand, if your observatory is on the ground, you can simply pop out the old instrument and replace it with a new one, and your old telescope is state-of-the-art once again, a process that can continue as long as the observatory remains in operation.

The same cluster has been imaged with two different telescopes, revealing very different details... [+] under very different circumstances. The Hubble Space telescope (L) viewed globular cluster NGC 288 in multiple wavelengths of light, while the Gemini telescope (from the ground, R) viewed only in a single channel. Yet, once adaptive optics is applied, Gemini can see additional stars at better resolution than Hubble, even at its best, is capable of.

There's no doubt that going to space provides humanity with a window on the Universe that we'd never get to exploit if we remained on Earth. The sharp, narrow-field images we can construct are incomparable, and as we move into the next generation of space-based observatories like Athena, James Webb, WFIRST and (maybe) even LUVOIR, we'll answer many of today's mysteries concerning the nature of the Universe.

Yet there are some scientific tasks that are far better suited to ground-based astronomy than space-based astronomy. In particular, deep spectroscopic imaging of distant targets, direct exoplanet studies, identification of potentially hazardous objects, hunting for objects in the outer Solar System (like Planet Nine), all-sky surveys for variable objects, interferometry studies and much more are all superior from the ground. Losing the benefits of ground-based astronomy would be both catastrophic and unnecessary, as even a small effort can prevent it. But if we continue to be reckless and careless with our skies two all-too-human traits they'll disappear, along with ground-based astronomy, before we know it.

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This Is Why We Can't Just Do All Of Our Astronomy From Space - Forbes

YOU probably didnt read earlier this week in the Brexit-mad Unionist media, but the UK has just quietly signed up to the 14 billion five year plan of the European Space Agency (ESA) which includes the real possibility of the first woman and the first European landing on the moon.

This being a Tory Government, the UK is not putting in as much as the Germans, French or Italians, and the UK space industry is fuming at that, but at least Britain is in there and will play some sort of a role in the very exciting Artemis programme being organised by Americas National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

Retaining membership of ESA was probably not on the agenda of the Brexiteers but even Boris Johnson seems to have realised that, as far as outer space is concerned, co-operation is everything. Space is a reserved matter for Westminster, even though Glasgow builds more space satellites than any other place in Europe and the UKs first space launch centre is set for Scotland, but it will be no surprise that the views of the Scottish Government very positively for more space-related developments were not taken on board.

ARTEMIS?

SHE was a Greek goddess, the twin sister of Apollo, and since the Apollo programme landed men on the moon, Nasa thought it only right that the distaff side should get a namecheck. From the outset the Artemis programme has been intended to land a woman on the moon, with a hub being established at the moons South Pole which will become the launch platform for the bid to send humans to Mars. New space technology, mostly from Europe, is driving Artemis.

WHY IS ESA INVOLVED?

PUT simply, the costs of Artemis are eye-watering at anywhere up to $30bn and probably a lot more, but apart from sharing the finances, ESA has acquired tremendous skills and talent which Nasa recognises. Nasa may be leading it, but Artemis truly is an international effort. Its not just governments putting in cash, as private companies are going to be heavily involved, too.

WHATS THE PLAN?

LET Nasa explain: With the Artemis programme, Nasa will land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with our commercial and international partners and establish sustainable exploration by 2028. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the moon to take the next giant leap sending astronauts to Mars.

Simples, no?

WHAT IS EUROPES CONTRIBUTION?

THE European Service Module is a core essential of the whole Artemis programme, and is at the centre of the Artemis 2 mission, set for 2023.

Before that, Nasa will launch its new Orion spacecraft which is being built to take humans farther than theyve ever gone before. Extensive testing of Orion began this week in Ohio.

Orion will launch on Nasas new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System, and Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew into space, provide emergency abort capability, and sustain the crew during the space travel, before providing safe re-entry from deep space return .

ESA have already released details about Artemis 2. It will be launched by Space Launch Systems from pad 39B, at the Kennedy Space Center. Mission control will perform checks while the spacecraft is in low-Earth parking orbit.

After injection into elliptical high Earth demonstration orbit there will be a 42-hour checkout period of systems (orbit of 185 km at closest point to Earth and 2600km at farthest point).

Orion will then fly to the moon but no landing will take place. Instead there will be a flyby of the Moon followed by the return trip to Earth for which no engine firing will be required. During that return trip there will be the separation of the Crew Module from the expendable elements of Orion, namely the European Service Module, before re-entry of the Crew Module and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Artemis 3 and its successors will be the missions that land people on the moon expect a woman and a European to be selected.

WHAT OTHER NEW TECHNOLOGY CAN WE EXPECT?

REMEMBER those old bulky Apollo spacesuits? Nasas scrapped them. They stated: When astronauts are hours away from launching on Artemis missions to the moon, theyll put on a brightly coloured orange spacesuit called the Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS) suit.

It is designed for a custom fit and equipped with safety technology and mobility features to help protect astronauts on launch day, in emergency situations, high-risk parts of missions near the moon, and during the high-speed return to Earth.

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Artemis: The multi-billion plan to land a woman on the moon - The National

Establishing an enduring presence on the Moon will mean making a lot of landings and NASA researchers want to make those landings as reliable and cheap as possible. This robotic pallet lander concept would be a dead simple (as lunar landers go) way to put up to 300 kilograms of rover and payload onto the Moons surface.

Detailed in a technical paper published today, the lander is a sort of space pallet: a strong, basic framework that could be a unit in many a future mission. Its still a concept and doesnt really have a name, so space pallet will do for now.

Its an evolution of a design that emerged in studies surrounding the VIPER mission that was intended to minimized cost and schedule and just get the rover to the surface safely. In a rare admission of (at least theoretically) putting cost over performance, the papers introduction reads:

The design of the lander was based on a minimum set of level 1 requirements where traditional risk, mass, and performance trade parameters were weighed lower than cost. In other words, the team did not sacrifice good enough for better or best.

It should be noted, of course, that good enough hardly implies a slapdash job in the context of lunar landers. It just means that getting 5 percent more tensile strength from a material that costs 50 times more wasnt considered a worthwhile trade-off. Same reason we dont use ebony or elm for regular pallets. Instead theyre using the space travel equivalent of solid pine boards that have been tested into the ground. (The team does admit to extrapolating a little but emphasizes that this is first and foremost a realistic approach.)

While most subsystems use off-the-shelf parts, one emerging technology needed for a lander like this would be Terrain Relative Navigation used for precision landing, said Logan Kennedy, lead systems engineer for the concept. Testing is under way!

The space pallet would go up aboard a commercial launch vehicle, such as a Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The vehicle would get the pallet and its rover payload into a trans-lunar injection trajectory, and a few days later the space pallet would perform the necessary landing maneuvers: attitude control, landing site selection, braking, and a soft touchdown with the rovers solar panels facing the sun.

Once on the surface, the rover would go on its merry way at some point in the next couple hours. The lander would take a few surface images and characterize its surroundings for the team on Earth, then shut down permanently after 8 hours or so.

Yes, unfortunately the space pallet is not intended to survive the lunar night, the researchers point out. Though any presence on the moons surface is a powerful resource, its expensive to provide the kind of power and heating infrastructure that would let the lander live through the freezing, airless cold of the Moons weeks-long night.

Still, its possible that the craft could be equipped with some low-key, self-sustaining science experiments or hardware that could be of use to others later a passive beacon for navigation, perhaps, or an intermittent seismic sensor that detect nearby meteorite impacts.

One concept involved unfolding solar panels to last for a whole lunar day (~14 Earth days) and technology exists to survive the lunar night and even longer, said Kennedy in response to a question about putting science instruments on board. NASAs Science Mission Directorate aims to take advantage of all opportunities for science investigations and intends to provide scientific experiments/instruments for all landers traveling to the lunar surface as long as they align with our needs and goals.

Even should the space pallet not be pursued further than concept stage, the team writes in the paper, it is important to note that these and other derived technologies are extensible to other lander designs and missions.

Continue reading here:

NASAs space pallet concept could land rovers on the moon cheaply and simply - TechCrunch

The European Space Agency is currently exploring human hibernation as a means of addressing the problem of sending humans into deep space. A recent study conducted by the agency determined that putting people to sleep for long voyages would save money, provide health benefits, and allow for more efficient space ship designs.

Itll take about seven months, under the right conditions, for humans to get to Mars. Elon Musk has a plan to get us there, NASAs all in, and the ESA is exploring its options. Theres just one big problem: it might be a suicide mission.

Theres a bunch of reasons why the trip to Mars could be deadly for humans, not the least of which are harmful space radiation, space psychosis, and space atrophy. But, according to the results of the ESAs study, these problems could be mitigated if people were placed into a state of hibernation.

Per an article from the ESA (on Phys Org):

We looked at how an astronaut team could be best put into hibernation, what to do in case of emergencies, how to handle human safety and even what impact hibernation would have on the psychology of the team. Finally we created an initial sketch of the habitat architecture and created a roadmap to achieve a validated approach to hibernate humans to Mars within 20 years.

Credit: ESA

Human hibernation is more than just science fiction. Its a problemscientists from various fields and disciplines are working on because it has huge potential benefit for humankind. Research indicates that inducing such a lowered metabolic state could slow disease and provide restorative benefits. Theres also evidence to suggest that the body would be more resistant to the harmful effects of radiation in such a state.

Toss in the fact that hibernating people dont need entertainment or exercise in nature, animals dont suffer negative physical side effects such as muscle atrophy during their hibernation and hibernation seems like a great option. Furthermore, assuming that remaining in a restful state for long periods of time doesnt have a negative effect on our mental health, there shouldnt be any concerns over isolation or space psychosis.

Of course, all of this is purely speculative given the fact that humans dont currently hibernate. Growing interest in the field has resulted in some incredible research over the past few years, but were still nowhere close to the kind of results that would translate into something useful for astronauts.

For more information on human hibernation check out Shelly Fans article on Singularity Hub, and this presentation from NASA.

Read next: Rumor: Capcom's giving us a Resident Evil 3: Remake in 2020

Read more from the original source:

The ESA wants to put humans in hibernation for long-term space travel - The Next Web

The next SpaceX resupply launch to the International Space Station, scheduled for Dec. 4, will bring a host of science material to astronauts living and working on the orbiting laboratory.

This flight, called CRS-19, marks the 19th mission for SpaceX under its commercial cargo resupply services contract with NASA, with launch scheduled for 12:51 p.m. EST (1751 GMT). Perched atop a Falcon 9 rocket will sit a cargo Dragon capsule filled with more than 5,700 lbs. (2,585 kilograms) of supplies, including more than 2,100 lbs. (952 kg) of science equipment.

"The Dragon spacecraft is an important component of space station delivery," Bryan Dansberry, an associate administrator of science at NASA, said during a news conference held Nov. 20. The scientific cargo will support a host of experiments across Expeditions 61 and 62 about topics including seed germination, combating muscle wasting and a new way of stowing tools on the station.

Related: In Photos: SpaceX's Amazing CRS-18 Dragon Flight for NASA!

Anheuser-Busch and its Budweiser brand are sending the team's fourth experiment to the space station to evaluate how seeds germinate in the harsh environment of space.

"Germination is a key step in the life cycle of any plant," Gary Hanning, director of global barley research for Anheuser-Busch explained during the same news conference. "This investigation will look at environmental impacts that affect seed germination."

Researchers on the project want to better understand why different plant genes are turned on and off in space than on the ground. To that end, the scientists will send up barley seeds to germinate on orbit before their growth is halted during a process known as malting.

Malting, a three-step process that turns barley into malt, which is one of the main ingredients of beer and is responsible for the taste and color variations that give each beer its unique flavor profile. Malting involves hydrating, germinating and drying the grain. "It's all about moving air, moving water and controlling temperature," Hanning said.

Once the experiment is over, it will come back to Earth, where Budweiser scientists will analyze the malt quality to better understand how the plants germinated in space. Researchers will also compare gene expression in space plants to that of plants here on Earth that have been exposed to environmental stressors like extreme heat and cold.

Hanning said that this research is important to the future of space travel as it will help botanists better understand how plants grow in microgravity and could help researchers figure out the best ways to grow crops in space.

"As we move farther and farther from Earth into space, we need to understand how plants will react," Michael Roberts, interim chief scientist for the International Space Station's national laboratory, said during the same briefing. "We need to develop new ways to propagate plants for food consumption."

Also on board the Dragon capsule will be a group of 40 mice that will allow researchers to investigate muscle degradation in space. Se-Jin Lee, a professor at the Jackson Laboratory and University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and his team are sending a group of moustronauts to the space station.

Those mice don't have a key protein called myostatin, which inhibits muscle growth. "When we engineered the mice to lack myostatin, they grew to twice their normal size," Lee said during the news conference. "We call them mighty mice."

Myostatin can be used to treat a variety of muscle-wasting disorders, Lee said, and microgravity mimics the type of human muscle loss associated with common disorders seen on Earth. So the team wants to test whether blocking myostatin in orbiting mice can prevent muscle loss in space.

The mice visiting the station are divided into five groups of eight: a group of mighty mice with no myostatin, a control group of normal lab mice, a group given a compound that blocks myostatin, and two groups that won't experience any treatment in space.

All 40 mice are due to return alive, at which point the last two groups will be given a myostatin blocker. Lee and his colleagues hope that this format will let them determine whether the mice can recover any of the muscle mass they lose in space.

The team is using an experimental myostatin blocker that also blocks another protein called actavin, which regulates bone mass and increases bone density and that means it could counteract another key side effect of spaceflight.

"Astronauts lose muscle and bone mass, so anything to prevent this can help maintain astronauts during space flight," Lee said. "It's also a huge problem for people here on Earth, in both children and adults. We hope to test a therapeutic strategy that will help [people with] lots of different conditions."

The cargo shipment will also include a new science package for NASA's Cold Atom Lab (or CAL for short), which has been in orbit since May 2018. CAL produces clouds of ultra-cooled atoms called Bose-Einstein condensates, which are just a fraction of a degree warmer than absolute zero. The ultra-cold temperatures act like a magnifying glass on atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate, giving researchers a chance to better study the quantum characteristics of this material.

Here on Earth, gravity affects Bose-Einstein condensates in such a way that their quantum characteristics can only be observed for a fraction of a second; however, in microgravity, these properties can be observed for up to 10 seconds. This gives researchers more time to study the atoms' exotic physical properties and how they interact with each other.

According to Robert Thompson, CAL project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this Dragon launch will send the lab a new science package that will help researchers in their quest to probe fundamental theories of gravity.

"We're extremely excited to fly our first upgrade to the CAL," Thompson explained during the pre-launch briefing. "[The Dragon] will deliver a new module called Science Module 3. This will be the heart of the CAL instrument."

CAL is operated from the ground but requires astronaut time for any maintenance or upgrades, including this one.

"One of the things we're going to be doing with [the new module] is a test of Einstein's equivalence principle," Thompson said, referring to the idea that gravity should affect all forms of matter in the same way. "If that breaks down, we need new physics rules."

He explained that Galileo performed a famous experiment to test this same theory. Galileo dropped two different items off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to show that they fell at the same rate, no matter the material. Thompson says that with CAL, researchers will do a similar experiment on station, using rubidium and potassium atoms, which are easy to work with and have a similar atomic structure. "With our equipment, we can measure precisely how far they move to a few nanometers," he said. "We will try to show that they fall at the same rate."

The space station will also receive a small, portable tool shed as part of its next cargo shipment. The structure will serve as a long-term storage option for robotic equipment that will be mounted on the station's exterior but remain safe from the harsh environment of space. Essentially a miniature two-car garage, the storage facility will protect twin robotic leak detectors that act as bloodhounds to sniff out potential gas leaks that can develop on the orbital outpost.

The station's cooling system, a network of thousands of feet of exterior plumbing, relies on ammonia to function properly, according to Mark Neuman, a mechanical systems engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Small leaks are common and typically occur at joints or because of micrometeor impacts, Neuman said. There's typically no safety risk to the crew, but in the past, astronauts have had to perform spacewalks to search for the tiny leaks.

Instead, in 2015 NASA launched the first Robotic External Leak Locator, which can zero in on the ammonia source, reducing the time the crew spends searching for leaks. "The original version was so useful that a second one was built," Neuman said during the briefing. "That version arrived on station in April, and is currently stored inside space station."

Both leak-locating robots will be installed in the storage locker once it's unpacked from Dragon's trunk after arrival.

Related: See the Evolution of SpaceX's Rockets in Pictures

The star of the upcoming launch will be a shiny, new Falcon 9 booster, internally dubbed B1059.1. Unlike the Falcon 9, this Dragon has flown before; CRS-19 will be the spacecraft's third trip to the space station.

The next flight for SpaceX is scheduled for less than two weeks later as a veteran booster makes its third flight to loft the JSCAT-18 communications satellite co-owned by Japanese and Singaporean companies.

According to Dansberry, the CRS-19 Dragon capsule will return to Earth about a month after launch, carrying with it 1,800 lbs. (816 kg) of science samples and other materials.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SANDUSKY, Ohio (WJW) - NASA's Artemis I Orion spacecraft is taking a trip through Northeast Ohio before its mission around the moon.

NASA's Super Guppy aircraft delivered the space capsule Sunday at Mansfield Lahm Airport.

Tuesday, the spacecraft will travel on a flatbed trailer to NASA's Plum Brook Station.

There, it will undergo testing that will imitate the extreme conditions it will face in space.

According to NASA, that will mean putting the spacecraft in extreme temperatures, ranging from -250 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

NASA says that will replicate flying in-and-out of sunlight and shadow in space.

The second phase will test the spacecraft's electronics with electromagnetic interference.

According to NASA, the testing will take about 2 weeks.

Orion will then return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

There, NASA will begin prepping Orion for the Artemis I mission.

The goal of the mission is to enable human exploration to the Moon and Mars.

You can read more about the mission here.

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Once the preserve of science fiction, through films such as Alien (pictured) and 2001: A Space Odyssey, hibernation or suspended animation may one day become an important enabler of deep space travel. 20th Century Fox

The European Space Agency (ESA) is daring to dream big, with the organizations latest project to implement human hibernation for space travel. The concept of sleeping while traveling to distant planets is a mainstay of sci-fi movies like Alien, Interstellar, and Passengers.

The ESA has assembled a team to study hibernation with the aim of using it in manned space missions as part of the Future Technology Advisory Panel. The team began by looking at current attempts to create hibernation technologies and considering what the impact would be on mission design. As a reference point, they considered a theoretical mission that would send six people to Mars and back within five years.

We worked on adjusting the architecture of the spacecraft, its logistics, protection against radiation, power consumption and overall mission design, Robin Biesbroek of the ESAs Concurrent Design Facility said in a statement. We looked at how an astronaut team could be best put into hibernation, what to do in case of emergencies, how to handle human safety and even what impact hibernation would have on the psychology of the team. Finally, we created an initial sketch of the habitat architecture and created a roadmap to achieve a validated approach to hibernate humans to Mars within 20 years.

According to the teams research, the use of hibernation could reduce the total mass of a spacecraft by one third, as well as a one-third reduction in the requirements for consumables like food and water. Instead of crew quarters, each astronaut would have a soft pod that would double as a cabin while they were awake. The astronauts would be administered a drug to induce hibernation, then their pods would be darkened and their temperature reduced for several months.

The big advantage of hibernation is that it would enable astronauts to travel on much longer space missions. If a hibernation state could be achieved in which an astronauts metabolic rate was reduced by around three-quarters, which is what happens in hibernating animals such as bears, then manned space missions could reach much further from our planet as the requirements for food, water, and oxygen would be reduced.

Despite the fact that humans clearly dont hibernate, scientists say that the idea of putting people into a hibernation-like state is not as far-fetched as it sounds. The basic idea of putting astronauts into long-duration hibernation is actually not so crazy, Jennifer Ngo-Anh, leader of the ESAs SciSpacE team, said in the same statement. A broadly comparable method has been tested and applied as therapy in critical care trauma patients and those due to undergo major surgeries for more than two decades. Most major medical centers have protocols for inducing hypothermia in patients to reduce their metabolism to basically gain time, keeping patients in better shape than they otherwise would be.

We aim to build on this in the future, by researching the brain pathways that are activated or blocked during initiation of hibernation, starting with animals and proceeding to people.

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European Space Agency wants to put astronauts into hibernation for space travel - Digital Trends

At NASA, 2019 could be called the year of the woman. In October, astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir completed the first all-female spacewalk. Koch also is on her way toward 328 days aboard the International Space Station - the longest single space mission by a woman.

Meanwhile, NASA is planning a lunar mission called "Artemis," named after the twin sister of Apollo, which, the agency says, would put "the next man and the first woman on the moon" by 2024. The aerospace industry also boasts an unprecedented number of women in high-ranking positions, including Leanne Caret, who leads Boeing's defense and space division and Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX.

But for all the high-profile appointments and record-breaking feats, women remain an overwhelming minority among the rank and file at NASA and in the wider industry. Women make up only about a third of NASA's workforce. They comprise just 28% of senior executive leadership positions and are only 16% of senior scientific employees, according to a survey done by the agency.

In the aerospace industry, only 24% of employees are women, and there has been little change in years, according to a study done by Aviation Week.

For many, another example of how far the agency has to go came just a few weeks ago when NASA announced its "honor awards," what it calls its "highest form of recognition" to employees and contractors.

In total, 42 people were honored. All but two were men.

"We haven't moved very much in the last 30 years in overall diversity," said Mary Lynne Dittmar, the president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, an industry group. "Aerospace is still heavily male and white, and we're not moving very quickly."

Though perhaps not as overt as the early days of the space agency, when women were "hidden figures," sexism persists in an industry long dominated by white men. That has led women to leave science and engineering jobs at rates higher than their male counterparts. Women still struggle to get a foothold in the industry and often find themselves the only women in meetings dominated by men. Or being asked to fetch coffee. Or being called "honey."

"That's Dr. Honey to you, and the coffee machine is down the hall and to the right," is how Dittmar, who has worked in senior positions at Boeing and as an adviser to NASA, responds.

"Frankly, those attitudes have gotten better but they haven't completely gone away," said Ellen Stofan, the head of the National Air and Space Museum who previously served as NASA's chief scientist. "To pretend they have does not help us understand why women get paid 80 cents on the dollar and are still only making up 16 to 30% of the workforce."

While the aerospace industry hasn't been swept up in the recent #MeToo movement, it has over the years been hit by the occasional high-profile scandal. In 2012, Lockheed Martin's incoming CEO was forced out because of an affair with a subordinate, and in 2010, Boeing settled a pair of lawsuits filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging sex discrimination.

In one, two female engineers said they were subjected to sexist remarks and then suffered retaliation when they complained. In the other, a female employee alleged that her male counterparts harassed her and broke her tools, making it harder for her to do her job.

The employee reported the behavior, the EEOC said at the time, "but the company did nothing to address it. As a result, the harassment continued."

At NASA, which has about 17,000 employees, there were 62 EEOC complaints last year, 27 of which were on the basis of sex, according to agency statistics.

While that is not a large number, EEOC spokeswoman Christine Nazer said "it can be [a] difficult decision for individuals to come forward to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. Employees often fear retaliation such as being fired or demoted if they assert their legal rights. Indeed, retaliation is the most frequently filed charge with the EEOC."

Major corporations such as Boeing and Lockheed say that they go to great lengths to ensure that all employees are welcomed and that they have robust programs to prevent harassment and to protect those who do report it.

Women in the industry acknowledge some improvement in the way they are treated, but cultural change has been slow. Even a term such as "manned spaceflight" continues to be controversial.

In the early 2000s, NASA's style guide was updated to include a section urging that "all references to the space program should be non-gender specific (e.g. human, piloted, unpiloted, robotic, as opposed to manned or unmanned)."

The word "manned" should only be used, the style guide said, when referring to any "historical program name or official title that included 'manned.'"

During an interview with reporters from the International Space Station about the first all-female spacewalk, Koch said she was happy to see the term fading from use. "It's been really nice to see that in the last several years, a lot of that language has been replaced," she said. "Even though that language is meant to represent all of humanity, it does conjure up images of men being the main participants."

But debate still surrounds it. In October, a chat board for members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) hosted a spirited discussion of the term, with some arguing that "manned" refers to all humans and, as one put it, "the word itself has nothing to do with gender."

That incensed Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy administrator, who wrote on the message board that "if we want to encourage women or non-conforming genders to be a part of our next grand adventure, it would serve us well to remove 'manned' from our lexicon."

AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher responded on the board that the institute "prefers to use 'crewed' or 'human' rather than 'manned' when referring to space travel in our publications and on AIAA.org. Increasing the diversity of the aerospace community and the future workforce has been - and continues to be - a mission priority for AIAA."

The debate became so heated that ultimately the organization decided to shut down the discussion board, asking members to write statements "with empathy and respect for your fellow members."

It wasn't until 1978, nearly two decades after John Glenn and the rest of the Mercury Seven had been chosen to go to space, that NASA selected its first female astronauts - six of a class of 35. One of those was Sally Ride, who five years later would become the first American woman in space.

Kathy Sullivan was a part of that class and said NASA was welcoming to the women. "Very open and evenhanded," she said. Then again, "walking in the door of NASA with the title of astronaut is like walking around the Navy with the title of admiral."

If they were accepted inside NASA, the rest of society was adjusting.

A reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times posed what he conceded "may seem like a male chauvinist pig question" when he asked about Shannon Lucid's fitness for space given that she "has three children and from her age I gather that the children are rather young."

Did NASA give any consideration "to her responsibilities to her children versus her responsibilities to the program?"

"If I gave you a one-word answer to Shannon Lucid's family situation, the answer is, 'none,' Chris Kraft, the legendary NASA flight director, responded.

Rather, he said "the most rewarding thing was that we found that there are a large number of very highly qualified women in the United States that can make the qualifications that we set out as astronauts."

Still, there were some embarrassing moments, as the male-dominated agency adjusted to the presence of women.

Before her first flight, the engineers asked Ride how many tampons she would need for her week-long mission.

"Is 100 the right number?" they asked, according to her biographer, Ann Friedman.

"That would not be the right number," she responded.

In many ways, the NASA astronaut class of 2013 was typical: full of overachievers, the best of the best, chosen from more than 6,000 applicants. The group of eight all had the right stuff, and more - six military officers, two scientists.

Typical except for one detail: For the first time, there were as many women as men.

Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said the agency is making great strides in hiring and promoting women, and he pointed out that three of the agency's four science mission directorates now are led by women.

"We're making significant progress in this area and have been for a number of years," he said. "We're not done. There's a lot more to do." And he said events like the all-female spacewalk last month are "what inspires tomorrow's astronauts, and we want tomorrow's astronauts to represent all of America."

It's not just at NASA. Several major aerospace firms have women in top leadership positions. Marillyn Hewson is the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, and Aerojet Rocketdyne's CEO is Eileen Drake.

But for more women to get to the C-suite, many think that more opportunities should be available to women earlier in life. That's why Garver, the former NASA deputy administrator, started a fellowship for undergraduate women that places them at aerospace companies across the country.

"It's important to support them, not just through mentorship, but get them actual jobs," she said.

The program has graduated 114 women over three years, creating a support group of women who can talk about the difficulties of breaking into an industry where women have long been a minority and faced discrimination.

When Stofan became head of the National Air and Space Museum, she saw it as not only a "symbolic" opportunity but also as a chance to showcase women in aerospace. "Whose stories are we telling in the museum?" she asked, shortly after starting the job, and decided to highlight the contributions of Margaret Hamilton, who worked on computer guidance systems during Apollo, and Katherine Johnson, one of the African American women whose work on the Mercury program was told in the film "Hidden Figures."

Stofan also oversees a summer camp for middle school girls at the museum called "She Can."

Women are still an overwhelming minority in many university engineering programs, something that remains a drag on female employment in the industry. Harvey Mudd College in California has been working for more than 15 years to attract women to its science, math and engineering programs, where they now represent nearly 50% of the enrollment. One of the biggest steps in that effort was to hire female professors.

"People always talk about how representation matters," said Nancy Lape, an engineering professor who is the interim chair of the engineering department. "I think this is one of those cases. So right away, when students come into our program, they see women, and they see women in leadership positions."

Much of the work focuses not just on lectures but also on hands-on learning - students get into a pool with an underwater robot for their introductory course - which she said has been shown to reduce learning gaps between the general student population and underrepresented groups.

Professors also encourage teamwork among students, which can help women and minorities "get a chance to really feel like they belong."

Female participation also has been on the rise at Space Camp, where adults and children go to learn about space, aviation and robotics at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama. When it started 37 years ago, 32% of Space Camp attendees were women. Today, women are 42%.

"That's a little bit of a slow climb over 37 years," said Deborah Barnhart, the camp's director. "I hope it doesn't take us another 37 years to get to 52%, but that's where we should be." The camp works with the Girl Scouts to make space-related badges attendees can earn.

It also highlights the accomplishments of its graduates, who include Koch, the NASA astronaut on the space station. One of 12 women serving in the astronaut corps, she could be chosen by NASA to be the first woman to walk on the moon and become a Neil Armstrong for a new generation.

"The idea of having the honor of being the first woman to walk on the moon is almost too great to fathom," she told reporters, speaking from the space station. "Of course it would be a dream of mine and has been my entire life. But for now I'll settle for knowing that I'll probably at least know the first woman to walk on the moon.

"Hint. Hint," she added, poking Meir, who was floating beside her.

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At NASA, 2019 was the year of the woman, yet women still are a big minority at the space agency - Houston Chronicle