Category Archives: Space Travel

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While airplane engines have become quite efficient over recent decades, rocket engine technology has not progressed significantly in 70 years. Reaction Engines is a company looking to push both types of propulsion technology forward by merging an airplane engine and a rocket engine in one system to create a hybrid hypersonic engine. The result is a light, powerful system called the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which could open the door to more sustainable aviation.

In October 2019, Reaction Engines hit a major objective with the successful testing of SABREs essential pre-cooling technology.

As the propulsion system in a "space plane", SABRE would enable supersonic commercial flight, which has not been available since the Concorde was grounded in 2003. Whereas Concorde used a conventional aero engine, SABRE can change from one that consumes oxygen from the atmosphere to one that can operate in the vacuum of space.

SABRE is designed to enable hypersonic travel, which is more than five times the speed of sound. These speeds are very difficult to achieve with a standard airplane engine. This is because moving at such a high rate creates enough heat to melt the engine. Military fighter jets can achieve hypersonic speed via an intricate cooling system, but engines are costly and inefficient.

The hybrid hypersonic engine from Reaction Engines involves two different modes. In air-breathing mode, the craft is capable of Mach 5 (hypersonic travel) and, in spaceflight mode, it is capable of Mach 25. According to the company, SABRE would be the first air-breathing rocket engine, as conventional rocket engines use on-board liquefied oxygen.

Ideally, SABRE would allow for single-stage-to-orbit rockets, as opposed to the US Space Shuttle model of solid-fuel booster rockets and a massive liquefied fuel tank. With less waste, SABRE may be a cheaper and easier mode of travel.

To achieve such high speeds, it is essential to pre-cool air that is going into the engine because the friction and the compression of air at supersonic speeds causes extreme temperatures of around 1000 C (1800 F). While the Concorde used variable ramps to slow down incoming air for its engines, the precooler in the hybrid hypersonic engine uses 16,800 tubes filled with supercooled helium. Hot air entering the system contacts these cold pipes and heat from the air is then transferred into helium.

After the air has been cooled, it is passed through a compressor and channelled into a combustion engine, where it mixes with nitrogen fuel. The heat captured from the pre-cooling system is utilized in various ways, including in an afterburner system seen on military jets.

In addition to being useful on the SABRE system, the precooler technology developed by Reaction Engines is expected to have many other possible uses, including in areas such as motor sport, industrial operations and the oil industry.

According to Reaction Engines, test evaluations of the engine core is expected to begin in 2020 and flight trials are projected for about a decade from now. Company officials have said their system is sound from a scientific point of view, and it is time to move on to the physical testing phase. The company successfully tested the pre-cooling system at its Colorado testing facility, operating at 420 C , which is associated with travel at Mach 3.3. Reaction Engines is currently building a new test centre in the UK.

Reaction Engines was founded in 1989 with the goal of hypersonic commercial travel. In 2012, the company announced successful trials of the technology behind the pre-cooling system, and in 2013, Reaction Engines received 60 million in funding from the UK government to develop SABRE.

The company also recently received financial backing from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), European Space Agency, as well as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Boeings venture capital division HorizonX.

According to experts, the SABRE system could enable travel from the UK to Australia in less than four hours, and travel from New York to London in slightly more than an hour. The fastest UK-Australia flight currently lasts around 18 hours.

An aircraft utilizing the SABRE engine for commercial travel would take off horizontally, potentially switching to rocket-mode for long intercontinental trips. Reaction Engines said the SABRE system could also be used in automotive applications.

The system enables a more sustainable aviation approach than using a vertically launched rocket. A rocket needs a large amount of fuel to lift an aircraft and its cargo into orbit, and the more fuel it needs, the heavier the rocket is. This means even more fuel is needed. Essentially, its a feedback loop of unsustainability.

Video Source: Reaction Engines/YouTube.com

Many other organizations are also pursuing aeronautics technologies that would enable flight in the Earths atmosphere and in space, including SpaceX and the US Air Force.

According to reports and press releases from the company, SpaceX is currently developing its BFR rocket-ship combination system to take passengers halfway around the globe in under an hour. BFR would achieve this by launching into space like a typical rocket and releasing the rocket booster once the craft is above the Earths atmosphere, allowing the BFR craft to land on a landing pad similar to the way the companys reusable rockets land back on Earth. The system enables sustainable aviation by using a booster that is also recovered and reused.

Shrouded in mystery as a classified project, the US Air Forces Boeing X-37B space plane recently completed a 780-day mission in orbit. Experts have said the plane is radiation-hardened and automated to make it both robust and reusable.

Like the SpaceX system, the Boeing X-37B launches as a rocket, but flies like a plane. Unlike the SpaceX system, the Boeing X-37B lands on a runway as a plane.

Brit rocket boffins Reaction Engines notch up first supersonic precooler test. The Register.https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/08/brit_rocketeers_notch_up_first_supersonic_precooler_test/

Reaction Engines mach 5 engine is just the tip of the new aerospace boom. Tech Crunch.https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/01/reaction-engines-mach-5-engine-is-just-the-tip-of-the-new-aerospace-boom/

SpaceX plans to use spaceships for earth passenger transit. Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/spacex-plans-to-use-spaceships-for-earth-passenger-transit/

New hypersonic engine poised to cut London-Sydney flight times to just four hours by 2030s. The Telgraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/24/british-tourists-will-able-fly-australia-4-hours-2030-uk-space/

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author expressed in their private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited T/A AZoNetwork the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and conditions of use of this website.

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Reaction Engines' Hybrid Engine for Revolutionary Hypersonic Air Travel and Space Access - AZoCleantech

Ecclesiastes was not accurate when he stated that there is nothing new under the sun. In about a billion years the sun will brighten up so much that it will boil off Earths oceans. This raises concerns for people who think long-term, such as the BBC radio reporter who asked me recently for my thoughts on how to mitigate this risk for the future of humanity.

The simplest solution that came to my mind is to spray a blanket of particles into the stratosphere that would reflect sunlight and cool the Earth, in a way similar to the effects of a natural volcanic eruption, a nuclear war or an asteroid impact (the same technique has been proposed to limit anthropogenic global warming). Blocking sunlight this way serves the same purpose as using sunglasses to moderate the impact of harmful UV radiation on our eyes.

Billions of years later, however, when the sun will brighten even more and eventually inflate to become a red giant star that will engulf the Earth, there would be no option left for our civilization but to relocate further out in the solar system. Since the natural real estate of planets and moons is available only at specific locations, however, and because the sun will change its brightness continuously, it would be prudent to manufacture a gigantic structure that will be able maneuver to the optimal orbital distance at any given time.

Being able to adjust our distance from the furnace based on its changing brightness would be most helpful towards the end, when the sun will reverse course and dim considerably, turning into a white dwarf. The solar systems habitable zone will shrink by a factor of a hundred relative to the current Earth-sun separation, down to a scale that is comparable to the size of the sun today.

Needless to say, the movable industrial complex of metal rods and equipment that would make up our future habitat would represent a very major upgrade to the International Space Station. This artificial world might not look as beautiful as the pale blue dot we now live on, with its green forests and blue oceans. But since modern humans needed merely 100,000 years to adapt from living in the savannahs and forests of Africa to squeezing into a tiny apartment in Manhattan one can reasonably expect them to transition from Manhattan to living in space over a time span that is ten thousand times longer.

Ultimately, we should contemplate space travel out of the solar system. The longer-term solution to our existential threats is not to keep all of our eggs in one basket. We should make genetically identical copies of the flora and fauna we hold dear and spread these copies to other stars in order to avoid the risk of annihilation from a single-point catastrophe. Our destinations could be habitable planets around nearby stars, such as Proxima b, or other desirable environments. The Breakthrough Starshot project represents the first well-funded initiative to traverse interstellar distances over a short time.

The transition to spreading multiple copies of our genetic material would resemble the revolution brought about by the printing press, when Gutenberg mass-produced copies of the Bible and distributed them throughout Europe. As soon as many copies of the book were made, any single copy lost its unique value as a precious entity. In the same way, as soon as we learn how to produce synthetic life in our laboratories, Gutenberg-DNA printers could be distributed to make copies of the human genome out of the raw materials on the surface of other planets so that any one copy would not be essential for preserving the information.

The BBC reporter did not let me easily off the hook, however: But what about our personal lives as individuals? Most people care about themselves. Your solution will not secure their personal safety so as to give them a peace of mind.

My reply was simple. In our daily life, we worry about protecting our own skin because we are focused on timescales much shorter than our lives. But when dealing with timescales that are far longer than a century, it is not the individual that counts but rather the genetic information of the human species as a whole. Despite what some insist, people we know right now will not be around within a century in any case, so there is no reason to focus on preserving them individually when strategizing our future over a billion years.

On such a long timescale, we better stay focused on preserving our species. The instinct of any parent is to care for the offspring and secure longevity this way; nature enabled us to extend the lifetime of our genome well beyond our own life span in this way. As an extension, modern science might enable us to construct printers that are capable of mass-producing copies of ourselves on other planets by merely exporting our genetic blueprint without requiring that our bodies will physically travel the distance. We should be satisfied with this renewed sense of security and retire happily when our mission is accomplished.

The reporter insisted: But would we truly be satisfied if we will not be around to see it happening? To which I replied: Frankly, this may not matter. Perhaps we already are one copy out of many in existence, so it is not essential for this copy to survive. But after reading this mornings newspaper, I am inclined to believe that our civilization will disappear as a result of self-inflicted wounds long before the sun will pose its predictable threat. Why do I believe that? Because the dead silence we hear so far from the numerous habitable exoplanets weve discovered may indicate that advanced civilizations have much shorter lives than their host stars.

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What Will We Do When the Sun Gets Too Hot for Earth's Survival? - Scientific American

captionA NASA visualization of the surface of the sun. In a billion years, the sun will get brighter, and cause all the water in Earths oceans to evaporate.sourceNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Follow/Shutterstock

One day, billions of years in the future, the sun will destroy our planet.

As the star runs out of hydrogen and helium atoms to burn in its core, it glows brighter and brighter. Eventually, the sun will bombard Earth with enough high-energy light to incinerate the worlds oceans, melt the polar ice caps, and strip our atmosphere of all moisture effectively killing all life.

But dont fret. Well likely all be dead by then anyway.

A BBC reporter recently asked Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb what a possible solution to humanitys imminent demise might be.

Loeb outlined his response in a recent Scientific American blog post, where he stated how imperative it is for our species to relocate to other parts of the universe that are less close to our suns vacillating brightness.

The astronomer doesnt want us to remain shackled to existing planets and moons, either he said itd be best if humanity could manufacture a gigantic structure that will be able [to maneuver] the optimal orbital distance at any given time from the suns deadly energy.

Once we successfully colonize both nearby and interstellar space, Loeb added, we can make genetically identical copies of ourselves and the flora and fauna we hold dear to seed other planets with life.

That being said, Loeb ended his blog post on a depressing note. In his opinion, humanity will wipe itself out long before the sun might.

Loeb, who is the chair of Harvard Universitys astronomy department, wrote that humanity needs to contemplate space travel out of the solar system.

In order to do so, he added, we need to build an artificial world capable of bouncing between stars and their neighboring, potentially habitable planets. This industrial spacecraft and human habitat would represent a very major upgrade to the International Space Station (ISS), he said.

Once our means of traveling to other planets and moons in the universe is secured, humanity needs to focus on duplicating itself, and other existing species, before we all get annihilated.

The longer-term solution to our existential threats is not to keep all of our eggs in one basket, Loeb wrote. To him, that means making genetically identical copies of ourselves, plants, and animals, and spreading those copies to other stars.

Obviously, the astronomer pointed out, that future solution wont do much for preserving people alive on Earth today. But to Loeb, its more important to ensure the longevity of our species as a whole rather than protecting our own skin.

All of his ideas aside, Loeb isnt that sure that humanity will be around to experience its demise at the hands of a brightening, expanding sun.

I am inclined to believe that our civilization will disappear as a result of self-inflicted wounds long before the sun will pose its predictable threat, he wrote. Why do I believe that? Because the dead silence we hear so far from the numerous habitable exoplanets weve discovered may indicate that advanced civilizations have much shorter lives than their host stars.

Loeb is confident that extra-terrestrial life exists, or existed, in the universe. He is in part famous for the idea that the first interstellar object to pass through our solar system a rock named Oumuamua was an advanced alien spaceship scouting Earth and nearby planets for life. That hypothesis has since been dismissed by multiple astronomers.

In September, scientists announced theyd detected water vapor on a potentially habitable planet for the first time. The planet, named K2-18b, is a super-Earth that orbits a star 110 light-years away.

K2-18b is the only known planet outside our solar system with water, an atmosphere, and a temperature range that could support liquid water on its surface, which makes it our best bet for finding alien life.

But, as Loeb mentioned in his blog post, so far researchers have yet to discover anyone else out there.

Loebs ideas offer a solution to a very real problem that will one day plague our planet and its species. His future version of the ISS could ensure that humanity would remain mobile in the face of a changing sun.

Our sun survives by burning hydrogen atoms and converting them into helium at its core. In fact, it burns through 600 million tons of hydrogen every second.

And as the suns core becomes saturated with this helium, it shrinks, causing nuclear fusion reactions inside it to speed up which means that the sun spits out more energy.

For every billion years the sun spends burning hydrogen, it gets about 10% brighter. One day in the far future about 1 billion years, according to Loeb that brightness will become too much for Earth to handle.

A 10% increase in brightness every billion years means that 3.5 billion years from today, the sun will shine almost 40% brighter, which will boil Earths oceans, melt its ice caps, and strip all of the moisture from its atmosphere.

The suns high-energy light will bombard our atmosphere eventually bleeding Earth dry of water, Jillian Scudder, an astrophysicist at the University of Sussex, previously told Business Insider.

Our planet, once bursting with life, will become unbearably hot, dry, and barren like Venus.

And if that didnt kill us, what comes next would.

One day, about 4 billion or 5 billion years from now, the sun will burn through its last gasp of hydrogen and start burning helium instead.

Once hydrogen has stopped burning in the core of the sun, the star has formally left the main sequence and can be considered a red giant, Scudder said. It will then spend about a billion years expanding.

Its atmosphere will stretch out to Mars current orbit, swallowing Mercury and Venus.

Earth, Scudder said, might either escape the expanding suns orbit or be consumed by it. But even if our planet slips out of the suns reach, the intense temperatures will burn it to a sad, dead crisp.

In either case, our planet will be pretty close to the surface of the red giant, which is not good for life, Scudder said.

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The human species will likely destroy itself long before the sun kills everyone on Earth, a Harvard scientists says - Business Insider

Navigating the complexity of todays workplace is challenging, yet once we give way to looking at behaviors instead of the generational hoopla, it can be manageable.

Theres a growing trend for employers to allow groups to work cohesively, regardless of generation. This means that employees are part of an environment where they feel a sense of belonging, have value, and commit to the organizations goals because the organization has committed to them, first. I call this a Cohesion Culture.

As leaders, we simply need to understand the characteristics in the marketplace that aid in making well-informed decisions. This understanding can then be used to offer open positions to the right candidates by putting the right HR Strategies & Practices in place to retain the talent we worked so hard to hire.

Its Best Practice for leaders to first focus on the success of the individual before seeking a commitment from the employee to meet organizational goals. Leaders are then in a better position to actively align the employee achievement with desired organizational outcomes, resulting in success for everyone.

Its important to note that today an unprecedented five generations are working within many organizationsat the same time. But all that really means is people born from 1927 to 2010 are gainfully employed and that everyone can not be easily labeled with behavioral tendencies simply based on their year of birth.

The Millennial generation will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025. SPOILER ALERT: Every generation at one time or another has made up 75% of the workforce. This is not new and Im still surprised so many people think this is unique.

What we are failing to see are the actual characteristics of ALL the potential employees and how they tend to actnot based on a year of birthbut based on how they interpret and live out core values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Certainly, it is overwhelming to know that this generational group reflects at least 80 million people. However, what we do know is that not everyone within a generational group acts the same.

It is simply unsophisticated for the purposes of talent acquisition and talent retention to apply this thought process across the board, hoping to find the right talent.

Of course, there are historical and social events that occur during a persons lifetime that can shape how they feel or react. But those life events actually shape all people living at that time, not just those within a generation.

Take the Challenger Shuttle disaster or Neil Armstrongs walk on the moon. It would be insane to think that these two opposing experiences would somehow only impact the generation born around the time these events occurred.

In reality, these events shaped everyone who was alive when they occurred and, to some degree, shape how people now think about space travel from a historical view. People reflect upon these occurrences, as well as other non-significant life events that happen everyday, in a manner to help them make sense of their world. Its called the theory of implication or attribution, and its application is not restricted to just one generation.

Technology Savvy vs. Technology Dependent

What is more important, for the purpose of selecting candidates and retaining them, is to study the characteristics or behaviors of todays workforce and not just generational facts. These characteristics form the basis of how people think and respond to others. We know for a fact that technology is the real game-changer. It is the use of technology that influences how people of all generations conduct themselves in both work and social settings.

According to Dr. Tim Elmore, author of Generation iY, the Millennial group (Gen Y) was the first generation born within a timespan to have the capacity to surpass the previous generation in its use and understanding of technology. This group of people has become what we call techno-savvy, meaning, that during the 1980s to 2000s, individuals began seeking clarity of how technology worked, then using it for innovative solutions.

All other individuals living during 2000 and beyond have adopted characteristics that suggest they are techno-dependant. Once a person becomes dependant upon the technologyregardless of agethey cannot live without it, nor do they want to live without it. The benefits of these advancements can be enjoyed and celebrated by all.

So, in a very short time, people have moved from knowing and understanding technology to not being able to live without it.

From my vantage point, it is technology and how it is integrated into ones life that establishes our understanding of how people behave in the workplace. Leaders are far better equipped to make intelligent business decisions to hire, train and retain employees when they base their intel on common behaviors shared by a large population of potential candidates.

Going beyond a generational perspective to understand how people interact with each other can avoid costly employment mistakes later.

These four specific and identifiable characteristics set the stage for the employees now working in the new workplace. They reflect behaviors of current and potential employees not by generationbut by attribute.

What are the attributes of these characteristics?

1. Entrepreneurial Spirit and Autonomy

By default, new employees entering an organization bring with them an entrepreneurial spirit. They want to know their boundaries and they prefer to handle tasks and responsibilities without someone micro-managing their every move. These individuals may act like a CEO, yet they do not necessarily aspire to be the one in charge.

Employers would do well to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit, channeling its positive impact on belonging, value, and commitment, positively impacting performance. Employers wanting to acquire and retain top talent should also make sure job duties and responsibilities are well defined, provide latitude for making decisions, and give sufficient decision-making parameters to promote personal and group success.

Being an entrepreneur congers certain types of actions individuals take toward spending money, making decisions, and leading others. As mentioned earlier, not everyone who joins a company yearns to be the CEO and we do not want that either. What is needed, however, are people who act like it is their company, making choices without established and flexible guidelines that impact the bottom line. In other words, consistent with how an owner would think and act.

2. Collaboration

People want to be heard; they want a voice. The number one rule of collaboration is an agreement that everyone at the table needs each other. Then and only then can individuals assure they have an equal voice.

The collaborative spirit has been around for a long time. Take the Knights of the Round Table, for example. This group of warriors did not necessarily like or get along with each other, yet while at the table they had an equal voice and representation. King Arthur knew exactly what he was doing when he commissioned that table. With a round shape, there is no head of the table and, therefore, its less likely for individuals to be confused with whose voice carries the most weight in decision-making.

The second aspect of collaboration deals with trust. Leaders should think of their Cohesion Cultures as spaces where individuals freely exchange trust with one another. From my perspective, gaining trust occurs in the highest form of engagement when it is given away to others. Meaning, others are trusted quickly as needed contributors and everyone accepts the intentions as being pure to the outcomes of the group. This is especially important because the biggest contributor to dysfunction within a group is the absence of trust. With trust comes value and forms the basis for commitment.

3. Social Connection

People want to belong; we are born to cohabitate and mingle. People like to associate with people who share common thoughts, values, and beliefs. Although there may be some who prefer to be alone, they do not reflect the majority.

Technology is another way people obtain a sense of belonging. Through the use of social platforms, it is a simple way of allowing people to interact and be involved in conversations. This need is typically fueled by a persons desire to be part of what is going on around them. Its not always convenient to engage with others on a face-to-face basis given geographical expansion, as well as the growing adoption of virtual and cross-cultural teams. Therefore, many folks turn to technology to solve how they connect.

4. Purpose and Drive

People seek to have meaning and purpose in their life, turning to a higher power, the universe, and even other people to help them determine why they were born. From an employment standpoint, people want to know that their contributions make sense and have valuenot only for them but for the group and the organization as a whole.

Once individuals feel connected, they are generally more productive. One way leaders can impact how people feel about their role is to acknowledge the work and connect it to desired organizational outcomes. When leaders explain the why behind the importance of what an employee does, meaningful work naturally occurs.

When leaders create a Cohesion Culture, they include activities that allow value-driven behaviors to exist. More importantly for people to be recognized and their work celebrated. Leaders who understand how to tap into a persons purpose can release an employees passion, which can result in the employee having a more positive attitude and greater commitment to the organization.

Within this realm, the leader must understand how to align personal success with company objectives. As the gap between the leaders focus on the employee and the employees success narrows, the level of production increases and desired outcomes are achieved.

Cross-Characteristic Perspective

These four marketplace characteristics are a way to look beyond the generational aspect and into the behaviors and interactions of the workforce. Leaders may want to keep in mind that individuals who live and work in the United States will first look at cohesion from a personal perspective, then think about its impact on others. This further supports why commitment within a Cohesion Culture has the leader focusing on employee development and tying personal success with organizational outcomes for optimal achievement and engagement.

Leaders want to heed this advice because it means that the practice of creating a culture where employees feel they fit is consistent with the views of all the generations working today in organizations.

Having a cross-characteristic perspective arms leaders with the mindset to adopt and implement the behaviors consistent with creating Cohesion Cultures. When employees feel they belong, have value and offer commitments to both personal and organizational success, then performance abounds. The resulting by-product of this level of performance is whats known as engagement.

Dr. Troy Hall is the Chief Strategy Officer for South Carolina Federal Credit Union, a $1.8B financial cooperative with over 165,000 members.

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Skip the generational hoopla and look for these 4 workplace characteristics - Ladders

Functional areas of the hibernation module: (1) private crew quarters, (2) exercise, (3) hygiene and waste, (4) dining and wardroom, (5) workstation, (6) galley and food, (7) medical supplies, (8) life support systems and stowage, (9) operational and maintenance supplies. (Image: ESA)

The European Space Agency (ESA) is exploring the possibilities of human hibernation to solve the problem of sending humans into deep space. The human hibernation has been the subject of initial research because of its potential benefits for space travel and featured in multiple Sci-Fi movies like Passengers, Alien, and more where astronauts are put into suspended animation to cross the vastness of space.

The ESA has assembled a dedicated Topical Team to study hibernation for manned space missions, which is accessing the advantages of human hibernation for a trip to a neighbouring planet, such as Mars. As its reference, the team took an existing mission study to send six humans to Mars and back in a five-year timescale, the ESA writes in an article on the Phys.org.

ESA is also doing an assessment on the current state of the art in human hibernation as well as the potential impact of hibernation on system-level mission design that involves adjusting the architecture of the spacecraft, its logistics, protection against radiation, and power consumption.

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, said Robin Biesbroek of the Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) a multimedia facility within ESA.

The study found that the hibernation would take place in small individual pods and allow the spacecraft mass to be reduced by a third by removing the crew quarters and consumables.The soft-shell pods of astronauts would be darkened and their temperature greatly reduced to cool their occupants during their projected 180-day Earth-Mars cruise.

The hibernating cruise phase would end with a 21 day recuperation periodalthough based on the experience of animal hibernation, the expectation would be that the crew would not experience bone or muscle wastage, ESA said.

Since the hibernating crew will be spending so much time in their hibernation pods, they could be shielded from radiation exposure could be concentrated around them. But with all the crew incapacitated for extended periods of time, the mission would have to be designed for largely autonomous operations, with optimum use of artificial intelligence and fault detection, isolation and recovery to maintain a minimum level of system performance until the crew could be revived, the ESA said.

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

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European Space Agency wants to put astronauts in hibernation for deep space travel - The Indian Express

Image Credit: Pixabay

Washington DC: Researchers have recommended using typical resistance exercises such as leg press to overcome the problem of muscle inactivity.

Several years of hospitalisation, one example of muscle inactivity, causes a disproportionate decline in the muscle strength known to affect balance, increase the risk of joint injuries, and hinder movements involved in sports, according to research from the University of Roehampton, published in --Experimental Physiology.

Thus, rehabilitation programmes should work to build the strength involved in these types of activities, using typical resistance exercises, but with the attention of lifting the resistance as rapidly as possible.

The effects of long-term muscle inactivity (via e.g., sedentary behaviour, hospitalisation, or space travel) have proven difficult to study in a laboratory environment, as there are ethical issues with enforcing prolonged physical inactivity.

Previous research has shown that the thigh muscles of individuals with an amputation below the knee are used less during movement and therefore become weak.

Amy Sibley, Neale Tillin and colleagues at the University of Roehampton, therefore, used below-knee amputees as a model to understand muscular changes that happen with long-term inactivity.

Similar changes might happen in the muscles of someone who is hospitalised, sedentary, or travelling in space.

Scientific studies have previously defined two main types of strength: maximum and explosive.

Maximum strength is what it sounds like, the maximum capacity of your muscles for producing force. People rarely need to utilise this maximum capacity in daily activities.

Explosive strength is the ability to quickly produce force and is relevant during many daily activities such as recovering from a loss of balance, avoiding joint injuries, and when playing sports.

The researchers showed that when they compared maximum and explosive strength, amputees lost comparatively more explosive strength.

They also found that the muscular changes that accompanied this reduction in strength could not have been anticipated from the typical short-term bedrest studies, and were specific to the type of strength examined.

Therefore, rehabilitation regimens (for amputees or other populations who have experienced inactivity) should be tailored to help them recover explosive strength specifically.

"This research has exciting potential to help people who have been inactive long-term, due to hospitalisation, for example, regain the strength they need for daily activities such as avoiding falls," said Amy Sibley, first author of the study.

"To achieve this aim, clinicians need to be specific about the type of strength training they use, for example, typical resistance exercises (e.g., leg press) should be performed with the intention of lifting the resistance as rapidly as possible," added Sibley.

Read more from the original source:

Typical resistance exercises help in recovery from years of inactivity: Study - Gulf News

Fictional image of hibernating astronauts, via ESA.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said on November 18, 2019, that its scientists have recently been investigating the process of placing astronauts into hibernation to cross the vastness of space. These scientists met at ESAs Concurrent Design Facility to assess the advantages of human hibernation for a trip to a neighboring planet, such as Mars. They took as their reference an existing study that described sending six humans to Mars and back on a five-year timescale. They studied how crew hibernation would impact space mission design, and put some numbers to known advantages to human hibernation for space travel, for example, that a smaller space capsule could be used if the crew were hibernating, rather than awake, for the months-long journey to Mars.

Jennifer Ngo-Anh, a team leader in ESAs Science in Space Environment (SciSpacE) program, commented:

For a while now hibernation has been proposed as a game-changing tool for human space travel.

If we were able to reduce an astronauts basic metabolic rate by 75% similar to what we can observe in nature with large hibernating animals such as certain bears we could end up with substantial mass and cost savings, making long-duration exploration missions more feasible.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

Here is ESAs Concurrent Design Facility, which hosts representatives of all space mission disciplines in order to design future space missions. Image via ESA.

Why do we need to put astronauts into hibernation at all? The reason is that space is vast. Even our own neighborhood of space our solar system is subject to a space-is-vast issue that factors heavily into our missions to explore the other planets near us in space. Consider that the New Horizons mission to Pluto, for example launched in 2006 needed nine years to get to its flyby.

To get an idea of the distance scale of our solar system, visit If the moon were only 1 pixel showing the relative distances of the planets to scale on a single extra-wide page. Then try if you can to extend what youve learned to the billions of other likely solar systems in our galaxy alone.

As Joe Hansen host of the PBS series Its Okay to be Smart says in the video below:

The human brain just cant fathom how big things like the solar system are.

Robin Biesbroek of ESA who has worked in the past on the removal of space debris from low-Earth orbit was part of the recent ESA study on human hibernation. He commented:

We worked on adjusting the architecture of the spacecraft, its logistics, protection against radiation, power consumption and overall mission design.

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.

The scientists found that the mass of a spacecraft for human hibernation could be reduced by a third.

The ESA scientists quantified what might seem fairly obvious that a spacecraft for hibernating astronauts could be on the small side. This comparison shows the size of a module for a crewed Mars mission with its hibernation-based equivalent. Image via ESA.

If the crew were hibernating, you wouldnt need extensive crew quarters, or as much storage room for consumables (like food and water). Hibernation module design via ESA.

ESA said hibernation would take place in small individual pods that would double as cabins while the crew are awake. Hibernation pod design via ESA.

What would it be like for the astronauts? ESA explained:

The assumption was that a drug would be administered to induce torpor the term for the hibernating state. Like hibernating animals, the astronauts would be expected to acquire extra body fat in advance of torpor. Their soft-shell pods would be darkened and their temperature greatly reduced to cool their occupants during their projected 180-day Earth-Mars cruise.

ESA said the hibernating cruise phase would end with a 21-day recuperation period. It said that based on the experience of animal hibernation the crew would likely not experience bone or muscle wastage. ESA also explained:

Radiation exposure from high-energy particles is a key hazard of deep space travel, but because the hibernating crew will be spending so much time in their hibernation pods, then shielding such as water containers could be concentrated around them.

And ESA also spoke of the largely autonomous operations, with optimum use of artificial intelligence and fault detection, isolation and recovery needed on a spaceship where most humans are hibernating.

Sound a bit creepy or lonely? Maybe. But Ngo-Anh commented:

the basic idea of putting astronauts into long-duration hibernation is actually not so crazy: 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 centres have protocols for inducing hypothermia in patients to reduce their metabolism to basically gain time, keeping patients in a better shape than they otherwise would be.

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

NASA has contracted studies on human hibernation in space, too. This image is a settlement-class Mars Transfer Habitat designed by NASA contractor SpaceWorks in 2017. Read more: Sleeping their way to Mars.

By the way, if youre interested in reading a wonderful recent science fiction series depicting deep-space travel via human hibernation two of the best sci-fi books Ive ever read (and Ive read a bunch) try Children of Time and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovksy. Both have all the things I love in science fiction: travel over millenia among the stars, how the hibernating travelers perceive time passing, strange planets, weird aliens, a human love story. Human hibernation plays a big role in these awesome books!

The cover of Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovksy.

Bottom line: The European Space Agency has been studying how real-life human hibernation would impact space mission design.

Via ESA

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ESA studies human hibernation for space travel - EarthSky

In fashion, the year 2020 not only represents the deadline for Greenpeaces Detox campaign to eliminate hazardous chemicals from clothing production, it will also be a year that brings global politics and space exploration to the runway, according to Lyst.

In the Year in Fashion 2019 report, the global fashion search platform peered into its crystal ball to identify five cultural trends that will influence fashion in 2020.

Heres a look at the next year in fashion.

Similar to Y2K, the year 2020 has been a source of inspiration for sci-fi storytellers for decades. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that fashion is feeling futuristic vibes too. Holographic fabrics, outerwear that mimics the look of space suits and otherworldy styling are among the trends Lyst has identified as trends to watch for Spring/Summer 2020.

S/S 2020 Louis Vuitton

Expect the fashion trend to lift off, Lyst said, when testing of SpaceXs reusable rocket and new human-crewed spacecrafts begin testing in 2020.

If you think the past three years of trade wars and Brexit have been turbulent for fashion, just wait until the 2020 U.S. presidential election cycle is in full swing. A turbulent political year, Lyst said, creates cultural tensions that affect consumer mindsets worldwide.

What those tensions will be is unknown, but now that cause fashion and fashion bearing political messages have become de rigueur on the runway and on high streets across the globe, expect to see designers voice their opinions on everything from equality to climate change.

With the upcoming U.S. elections, we predict to see even more political fashion statements from politicians, brands and retailers in 2020, Lyst said.

Every Olympics shines a spotlight on the host city, but what Sochi, Vancouver and even Athens lacked in style, Tokyo will more than make up for it. At least 600,000 overseas spectators are expected to visit Tokyo for the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic games, meaning they will have firsthand exposure to the citys unique style subcultures.

Tokyo street style

With all eyes on Japan 2020, prepare to be inspired by bold Harajuku street style and cult Japanese labels, Lyst said, naming Sacai, Undercover, Visvim and Neighborhood as among some of the most covetable names. Searches for Japanese brands, Lyst said, increased 8 percent this year.

The days of Jacquemus Le Chiquito bag, the 4.25-inch handbag that went from being meme fashion to becoming a coveted It item, may be numbered.

Jacquemus Le Chiquito bag was the It bag of 2019.

Following several seasons that saw handbag sizes shrink by 40 percent, Lyst predicts fashion will swing back to oversized handbags. Specifically, the supersized shopper from the early 00s. Lyst named soft leather styles by brands like Little Liffner and The Row as bags to watch.

While 2019 saw designers like Pyer Moss and Molly Goddard break out from flying under the radar, and heritage brands like Bottega Veneta enjoy a revival, a new class of brands is poised to emerge.

Based on fast-growing search terms over the past six months, Lyst suggests that 2020 will be a big year for ultra-feminine labels from Copenhagen like Rotate Birger Christensen, which has the party dress down pat, and Cecilie Bahnsen, a purveyor of peasant and baby doll dresses.

S/S 2020 Cecilie Bahnsen

Brands with a streetwear element factor in, too. Italian streetwear brand GCDS, minimalist label ALYX and Marine Serre, which got a stamp of approval by Beyonce this year when she wore the designers crescent top, leggings and boots to a basketball game, are picking up momentum, Lyst reported.

Continue reading here:

How Space Travel and Politics Will Shape Fashion in 2020 - Sourcing Journal

Credit Suisse began coverage of Virgin Galactic with an outperform rating Thursday, saying in an a note titled "The Ultimate Joyride" that the firm sees multiple factors driving the space tourism stock higher.

"Our bullish view reflects the near-term monopoly SPCE offers in an industry (commercial space tourism) where public investment opportunities are scarce. We view this as a classic tech-driven high demand, low supply story with high barriers to entry," Credit Suisse analyst Robert Spingarn wrote in a note to investors. "Not everyone will see the value, but we believe the math works nonetheless."

Virgin Galactic shares rose in premarket but later dropped, closing down 7.4% at$9.10. Credit Suisse has a $12.43 price target on the stock, essentially seeing 36% upside over the next year. The firm is the second to begin covering Virgin Galactic with a buy recommendation: Vertical Research Partners is also bullish on the opportunity.

The stock has slid since its public debut last month, down about 20%, but that doesn't worry Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya. He expects Virgin Galactic to begin flying its first customers as early as May, saying on Wednesday that flights "will begin in about six to nine months."

"I think the story of Virgin is just so new that it hasn't been written yet. We'll start commercial operations in the middle of next year, so the full-fledged business value will become apparent very quickly to a lot more people at that point," Palihapitiya said in an interview with CNBC's Seema Mody on "Closing Bell."

Credit Suisse agrees, saying the stock's upside largely depends on how closely Virgin Galactic sticks to its schedule and begins flying people.

"We believe the greatest single catalyst would be successful completion of the first commercial flight," Spingarn said. "From here, losses should dissipate rapidly as flight activity rises."

Virgin Galactic spacecraft Unity fires its engine and heads to space with its first test passenger on board in February 2019.

Virgin Galactic | gif by @thesheetztweetz | CNBC

At $250,000 per person, Virgin Galactic's ticket revenue is about three times the cost of each flight, Credit Suisse noted, "which would drive very attractive incremental margins." The company's spacecraft holds up to six passengers along with the two pilots.

Spingarn says Virgin Galactic "has a distinct first-to-market advantage" in space tourism, estimating nearest competitor Blue Origin is at least two years behind. And even when Blue Origin does start flying people, the company is inaccessible to public investors as it is wholly owned and funded by Jeff Bezos.

Credit Suisse also mentions SpaceX, with its fully reusable Starship rocket, as a long-term threat to Virgin Galactic's business.

"While SpaceX does not appear to be as focused on space tourism, a point-to-point solution serviced by Starship could convert space travel from a novelty experience to a commodity service," Spingarn said.

Virgin Galactic is thinking about the potential of high-speed, long distance travel, also known as point-to-point space travel. Boeing's venture arm HorizonX last month invested $20 million into Virgin Galactic to explore developing a vehicle capable of flying around the world at hypersonic speeds. But SpaceX is a notable risk to Virgin Galactic's future business, Credit Suisse said.

"Unless Virgin is able to offer a similarly compelling point-to-point solution, the arrival of point-to-point by competitors could damage the overall [total addressable market] for space tourism and, therefore, the long-term demand profile," Spingarn said.

Finally, Credit Suisse warns that any major accident or malfunction would likely substantially slow Virgin Galactic's business. In 2014, an accident during a Virgin Galactic test flight killed a co-pilot.

"We assign a $0 value in the case of a catastrophic event (e.g., a fatal crash)," Spingarn said.

Read this article:

Credit Suisse says to buy Virgin Galactic stock for its 'near-term monopoly' on space tourism - CNBC

Robert Segovia, the writer and director of the new comedic two-act playLosers in Spacesuggests that the play might not exist if he hadnt lost his job a while back. I started writing it three or four years ago, and didnt think I was a good enough writer, he says And I got laid off, which is sad, but it did give me time of like,oh, its kind of now or never to write this thing.

One of the core concepts of the show is rooted in Segovias childhood love for a particular style of science fiction TV show. When I was kid, I used to think I didnt like sci-fi, but then I realized I didnt like sci-fi where theytravel. I just wanted tostay, he says. I didnt really like the Star Trekkylets go to these planets [and] fight a monster.I really like the idea of lazy spacefaring. Like youve gotten out here and youre just gonna hang out a little bit.

Hes interested in the idea of space travel becoming so common that its no longer romanticized and its just a job. Its kind of fun to think of space like that there will be a point where well be in space so long thatll itll seem notbad, butboring. Itll just be like, oh, were on this planet. Great. I gotta take out the trash still.

Thats the core comedic conceit ofLosers in Space its characters arent heroic or brilliant pioneers, theyre regular folks who are kind of bored with their jobs and arent that bright. There are very few intelligent characters in my universe, Segovia says. And they arefrustrated, because everyone around them is kind of bumbling.

The characters work at a topaz mining base on the planet Parkor (topaz is worth in the 29thcentury exactly what its worth now, which is to say not that much, Segovia says). Parkor is a planet where the natural landscape looks very much like a present-day American parking lot, largely because Segovia and his crew had to film some video scenes of the planet in Austin. Austins nothing but parking lots, so I just made the planet parking lots, Segovia says with a laugh.

True to its old-school TV sci-fi heritage,Losers in Spaceis a two-act stage show that plays kind of like a TV show. I call it a two-act play, but its really two episodes, Segovia says. If it goes well, we could do more and more and more.

The idea of creating more adventures and settings and characters for theLosers in Spaceuniverse clearly excites Segovia, and is rooted in his childhood imagination. I [was] a Mexican-American kid who grew up in a predominantly white community, and so I never saw myself on TV, he says. So I think fantasy and sci-fi and things like that writing in those forms, you can kind of project yourself into those, where you may not be able to project yourself into your regular romantic comedy because you just never see yourself in those roles. If the world that youre living in as a kid is not something that you can be a part of, then you just build a different world.

"Losers In Space' runs through December 1 at Fallout Theater

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Writer And Director Robert Segovia Creates A Universe Where Space Travel Is Boring And Hilarious - KUT