Category Archives: Futurist

Talk about shock and awe.War From Space

Russian forces are continuing their all-out assault on Ukraine a catastrophic and needless humanitarian crisis that isn't likely to end any time soon.

The extensive shelling of several Ukrainian cities has been so severe,in fact, that the invasion can literally be seen from space, in a shocking reminder of the devastating scale of the ongoing war.

"When you're in space, you feel so far away at first," European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer, who recently completed his 177 day stint on board the space station, told German broadcaster ARD.

The invasion "was clearly visible to the naked eye from space," he recalled, adding that he could spot "huge black columns of smoke over cities like Mariupol," a port city that has been leveled by Russian forces.

Maurer recalls spotting the earliest signs of the conflict from the ISS.

"At the beginning of the war, the whole country went dark at night," he told ARD.

"People actually only recognized Kyiv," he added. "Then you could also see the impacts in the first days of the war. In Kyiv, you could see lightning at night," even when individual rockets made impact with their targets.

Despite Russia's ongoing presence on the International Space Station, Maurer argued that that all crew members agreed pretty quickly on the fact that "terrible things are happening in Ukraine."

It's hard to get a full grasp of what it must be like, cohabitating with Russian forces within the tight confines of the space station.

But according to other first hand accounts, things have remained civilized and peaceful so far, with the only notable difference being the occasional awkward conversation.

War, unsurprisingly,is hard to watch unfold,evenfrom hundreds of miles above the Earth.

"War seen from above is a hundred times more irrational than from the ground," Maurer told ARD. "Why don't we humans stick together?"

More on the invasion: NASA Astronaut Heard Rumor of Being Abandoned in Space From His Wife

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Astronaut Says the Ukraine War Is So Brutal He Could See It From Space - Futurism

It might not be too long until robots are whizzing around your home picking up mess and doing the daily dishes. Dyson has just announced that it's investing heavily in this futuristic technology with plans to create a new robotics centre at Hullavington Airfield in Wiltshire plus a huge recruitment drive which will see almost 1,000 new staff being employed over the next five years.

This new breed of bots could help consumers with those tedious everyday chores such as cleaning, tidying and unpacking the dishwasher. To show the firm is serious about its plans it has released a video showing some of its upcoming inventions including a robot that vacuums the sofa and a hand that's capable of picking up objects without damaging them.

There's no word just yet on exactly what Dyson has planned for the homes of the future or when they will arrive in your kitchen the company is clearly serious about its ambitions.

This latest robotics makeover is the next stage in Dysons 2.75bn investment plan in new technologies, products and facilities; 600m of which is to be spent this year.

Speaking about the new venture, Jake Dyson, Chief Engineer at Dyson, said: Dyson employed its first roboticist 20 years ago and this year alone we are seeking 250 more experts for our team. This is a big bet on future robotic technology that will drive research across the whole of Dyson, in areas including mechanical engineering, vision systems, machine learning and energy storage. We need the very best people in the world to come and join us now.

Of course, it's not just about robotics with Dyson also about to launch its new Zone headphones.

These music-makers not only belt out your favourite playlists but also clean the air you are about to breathe in.

Fans and filters in each earcup suck in the polluted air around you with things then purified before being blown into your noise and mouth via a face shield.

They may look pretty whacky but with the latest figures from the World Health Organisation suggesting that billions of us are constantly breathing in highly polluted air, the famous vacuum might just be onto something.

Read more here:
Forget vacuums! Dyson is developing futuristic robots that will live in your home - Express

Jason Silva, futurist and host of National Geographics Brain Games,recently published a mind-bending YouTube video combining the technological prowess of AI with the artistic creativity of someone who believes in the power of psychoactive experiences.

Its called Dreaming while awake: a journey into ourselves. The description on Silvas YouTube channel describes the video as:

The first art piece of the singularity: born from a human-AI collaboration by Jason Silva, Hueman Instrument and digital intelligence.

Personally, Id describe it as a surrealistic experience that seems equal parts Ted Talk and Burning Man. And, Id add, it makes me want to eat a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms and think about the future.

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Take a look:

The video comes to us from Silvas Shots of Awe channel which features inspirational videos. Most touch upon the human condition and how what we create ultimately shapes who we are.

Silvas bent, in general, seems to be that our brightest future will come from a dedication to developing human-centered technologies.

In the above video, Silva spends six minutes riffing on the nature of being human. At one point, he explains that were both gods and worms, creatures able to shape the world around us with the power of deity, yet destined for death regardless.

Its an existential trip (pun intended) into a place where Silvas words exist only for the purpose of inspiration. Its difficult to describe the exact point of the video, except to call it a meditation on perspective and what it means to be human.

Did you know Jason Silva, futurist, and host of National Geographics Brain Games, is speaking at the TNW Conference on June 17? Check out the full list of speakers here.

Read more:
Watching this AI-assisted art video is like tripping on acid in the Matrix - The Next Web

Memorial Day is for barbecues, reflection on the American spirit, and mattress sales. Buying a new mattress outside of Memorial Day is almost criminal, considering the deals you can typically nab, and this year is no outlier. Here are some of the cant-miss deals from some of the best brands in sleep.

Purple mattresses feature inspired design, with a layer of flexible gel that supports your frame while reducing tension and pressure. For a limited time, you can save up to $300 on different styles and sizes of mattresses, along with another $500 off the gorgeous and sturdy Ascent adjustable base.

Nectar isnt just shaving almost half the price of its queen-size mattress, its throwing in a bunch of freebies as well. Nectar is tossing in a free mattress protector, sheet set, and cooling pillow on top of the amazing discount.

How eco-friendly is your mattress? Odds are, the answer is not very, unless youre sleeping on a Nolah Natural mattress. This sustainably made mattress cools naturally year-round and provides plenty of pressure relief. For Memorial Day, you can score one of these lovely mattresses for only $1,199 (regularly $1,799)

Sleep brand Lessa understands that better sleep starts with better materials like denser foams and sturdier springs. Of course, quality comes at a premium, but in honor of Memorial Day, you can save up to $700 on original, kids, hybrid, and other mattress styles and sizes.

Get Up to 20 Percent Off Casper Mattresses

Save 29 Percent on Lucid Smart Bed Frames

Get More Than Half Off Zinus Bed Frames

If its been a decade since youve replaced your mattress or frame, nows your chance to take full advantage of these Memorial Day mattress sales. A better mattress means better sleep, which means better health. Act fast, because these offers are only available for a limited time.

To kick summer off right, check out more greatMemorial Day sales from some of your favorite brands and on home appliances from Best Buy.

This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurisms owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.

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Keep Calm and Save Big During These Memorial Day Mattress Sales - Futurism

David Houle| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Sarasota has undergone a transformation this century. Boomers flooding into the area for pre- and actual retirement. Beaches getting nationally and globally ranked. Cities being named in national top 10 lists. Downtown Sarasota has been transformed from what it was even 10 years ago into the beginning of a pedestrian lifestyle.

COVID-19 accelerated changes that were totally unexpected. Vast numbers of Americans left congested cities for more room and to be closer to the outdoors. Millions moved from colder to warmer states. The digital nomad trend benefited areas that had affordable real estate, good climate and amenities.

From Tampa down to Naples,all were near the top of the Florida and national lists for greatest influx of people relocating due to the pandemic. This resulted in a breathless rise in residential real estate values up and down the coast. It was recently reported that the average home sale in Sarasota County had reached $500,000, up substantially from 2020.

The rental market exploded as well, with rents up almost 50% in the area.

Layer on dynamics like historically high inflation resulting from the now-waning pandemic buying spree, supply-chain problems and the war in Ukraine and the problems begin to become very clear. It is increasingly expensive to live here.

One of the key problems is that Sarasotaspecifically, and the Gulf Coast generally, are becoming relatively expensive to live compared to both elsewhere and our recent past. I have spoken to senior executives on the Gulf Coast who all say that affordability has become the key issue when trying to recruit top talent from out of state. They tell me that when the chosen applicant shows interest in a job, the company brings them down to the area to close the deal, at which time the potential hire explains that they cannot afford to make the move unless the compensation package is increased significantly.

We are rapidly developing a dual market, where the rich are fine and everyone else isbeginning to struggle. This is both a global and national phenomenon, but the statistics and trends suggest that on the Gulf Coast of Florida the situation is worse than most other U.S. locations.

My grandparents moved from Ontario to Sarasota around 1900. My father was born here in 1913 and he and his four siblings grew up here. My father was the only sibling who left, getting bachelor's and masters degrees from the University of Florida during the Depression. He then moved to Chicago where he hadan illustrious academic career at the University of Chicago, largely being acknowledged as having created the field of adult education. So I am a third-generation resident of Sarasota, though most of my life I lived elsewhere.

I mention this because, as a child, my parents and I traveled down to Florida to visit the family in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, much of what Sarasota was can still be seen on north U.S. 41 as one drives from downtown to the airport. It was a quiet fishing and resort community with motels instead of convention hotels,with ranch homes instead of condo high-rises. In the 1990s, my parents had retired to Plymouth Harbor, in their 70s, and soon they were having major health problems. As an only child I was down here several times a year during that decade. At that time, the only residential high rises were on the harbor, facing Marina Jack,which was a moderate family restaurant at the time.

So, for me, the clear demarcation line was the beginning of the new century, 2000. I have spoken to many lifelong residents of the area who wistfully speak of how the beaches werent crowded, the traffic was minimal and the living was easy and inexpensive. Until this century.

There are many stories about really wonderful, places, mostly vacation destinations, where the affluent visited, fell in love and bought second homes to spend more than vacation time. This resulted in the explosion in real estate values, higher-priced restaurants and ever more costly services. This meant that the ski bums and beach bums who lived for the lifestyle and worked to serve the new visitors could no longer live in-market. The Colorado ski towns solved this by creating low-cost dorms and cheap apartments miles down the road and bussed the workers into town.

Affordable housing is something that politicians and developers only gave lip service to. The NIMBY dynamic (Not In My Back Yard)was joined by NOMBL from developers (Not On My Bottom Line). One of the most erudite and knowledgeable people on affordable housing in our area is Jon Thaxton, a senior VP at the Gulf Coast Foundation. He recently gave a talk on affordable housing and there were two quotes worth noting:

Affordable housing has graduated from a moral dilemma to an existential threat to our economy.

And: There is no quick fix.It took Sarasota 30 years to get in this hole and were not going to get out of it overnight.

Tenyears ago I found myself speaking of this as a possible future for our area. It is common now to go to a restaurant and see vacant seating areas and be told there would be a wait, simply because the restaurant does not have enough staff. Walk into most retail establishments and there are never enough people working.

Now this is a huge national trend, often referred to as the great resignation. As this column is being written, it was just reported that 5.9 million people left their jobs in April and at the same time there were 11 million job openings,a 2-1 ratio.

Folks, we live in a bifurcated economy; the affluent and those who are struggling. Sarasota the Gulf Coast town I know best is not awell-balanced market. It is a high-priced real-estatemarket, heavy onservice industry jobs that don't pay enough for workers to live here.This could have been foreseen, and avoided.

Yes, a lot of the developments mentioned in this column are trends, dynamics and macro forces that were not our doing and to which we must respond. But a lot of the problem can be laid at the feet of business owners, politicians and real estate developers and the zoning variances that were allowed. In addition, the development of the future by the areas leaders was to create affluent retirement communities and high-end tourist hotels and restaurants, with visions of money and profit. I am sure some investigative reporter can uncover numerous cases where the authorities did not force the building of affordable housing that was required or at the least, clearly needed.

Rapidly escalating real estate valuations drove interest in the Gulf Coast. It has now become one of the main inhibitors to what used to be called living in paradise.

Sarasota resident David Houle is a globally recognized futurist. He has given speeches on six continents, written seven books and is futurist in residence at the Ringling College of Art andDesign. His website isdavidhoule.com. Email him at david@davidhoule.com.

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DAVID HOULE: Remember when Gulf Coast living was easy and inexpensive? - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

It's more like a dog door.Drink Me

Unless you have Alices Wonderland potion that shrinks humans to a tiny size, its unlikely any of us will be coming or going through that tiny door NASA spotted on Mars earlier this month.

The space agency gave more details about the rock feature on the Red Planets surface in a blog post this week and said the opening in the side of Mount Sharp is about 12 inches tall and 16 inches wide, similar in size to a dog door.

NASAs Curiosity rover captured the initial imagine using its Mastcam, and the new post stitched together more than 100 images into a wonky panorama that shows much more detail. The panorama is processed to approximate the color and brightness of the scene as it would look to the human eye under normal daytime conditions on Earth, NASA said.

Curiosity has been studying Mars surface features for just more than 10 years, but it may not be on its own for much longer.

According to SpaceX the company wants to put boots on Mars within the next decade, and just this week NASA previewed its plans for what a 30-day crewed expedition to the Red Planet might look like. Two astronauts would orbit Mars in such a mission, while two others would go down to the surface and rely on supplies sent to the surface before their arrival. Given that both SpaceX and Boeing make cargo-carrying craft that have since made it into orbit and docked to the International Space Station, the proposed 25-ton Mars supply lander isnt so difficult to image.

Someday soon, astronauts may laugh at the comically small Mars door in person.

More on SpaceX news: SpaceX Reportedly Paid $250,000 to Silence Sexual Allegations Against Elon Musk

Go here to read the rest:
It Turns Out That "Door" on Mars Is Hilariously Tiny - Futurism

You can never be too sure what technologies companies will develop each year, but this year they look both strange and wondrous. From a nibbling cat robot to autonomous delivery trucks, the most bizarre and futuristic tech gadgets in 2022 offer surprising takes on technology and its place in the future.

Related: The best NFT frames that display your collections in style

These gadgets certainly raise a few eyebrows. The Udelv Transporter autonomous delivery vehicle, for one, promises to deliver consumer goods at an exact location and timewithout a human driver. Even more surprisingly, you can already reserve one.

Then, Googles AR Glasses give AR a practical, everyday application; translating languages in real time. Now you can see your overseas colleagues words translated right on your glasses.

Get ready to be impressedand maybe even perplexedby some of the oddest gadgets of 2022 so far.

It looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the Gravity Industries Jet Suit allows you to soar through the air using its 5 gas turbine engines. It offers a gravity-defying experience and has possible use as rescue equipment.

This gadgets price is TBA. Visit the official website for inquiries.

AR isnt just for games and workplace simulations with the Google AR Glasses. They have a pretty incredible real-world application, translating languages in real time on the lenses.

This gadget is a concept, and its price is TBA. Check out the official website for more information.

Get the foot data you never knew you needed with the Aetrex Albert 2 Pro 3D foot scanner. While the measurements may seem excessive, how often have you been disappointed by shoes you bought at a store or online? This comprehensive gadget solves the issue but is still one of the most bizarre and futurist tech gadgets weve seen in 2022.

This gadget is coming soon, and its price is TBA. Visit the official website for more information.

In the future, a robot may deliver products to your grocery store. The Udelv Transporter autonomous delivery vehicle is an extraordinary step in that direction, relying on AI software and EV components. You can schedule it in 15-minute delivery windows, get real-time notifications, and reschedule easily.

Reserve it for $2,500 on the official website.

Show off your floor plans, product designs, and much more in 3D when you have the Acer ConceptD 7 SpatialLabs Edition laptop. It looks pretty futuristic, unbelievable even, but this laptop allows you to design and present your ideas in 3D thanks to eye-tracking cameras, AI, and a high-quality screen.

This gadget is coming soon for about $3,795. Learn more on the official website.

The TP-Link Archer AXE200 Omni Wi-Fi 6e router captured our attention back in January at CES with its antennas that rotate to provide you with the best internet coverage. Its cool and weird, which is why it made our list of the most bizarre and futuristic gadgets of 2022.

This gadget is coming soon for $499.99. Visit the official website for more information.

The Yukai Engineering AMAGAMI HAM HAM is a cute robotic kitty designed to soothe stress by nibbling on your finger like an infant. Its adorable but one of the strangest robots weve seen.

This gadget currently available only in Japan. Visit the official website to learn more.

The Dyson Zone Air-Purifying headphones with ANC offer a futuristic way to combat air pollution with their 2-stage air purification system. They purify air pollution indoors and out. They even keep you entertained with high-fidelity audio and ANC.

This gadget is coming soon, and its price is TBA. Visit the official website for more information.

Weve never seen anything quite like the COMODO shoe storage device, but we totally get it. Shoes get stinky and contact all sorts of debris. But who wants to deodorize and disinfect them every day? This bizarre and futuristic gadget takes care of it with its HEPA filter and UV lamp.

This concept gadget may or may not be realized. Learn more about it on Designerdot.

Incredibly, the MyndPlay MyndHub brain-training wearable trains your mental focus and meditation, allowing you to interact with your devices using your mind. Of course, you have to wear the EEG brainwave headset, and your device must be plugged into other gadgets for it to work. Still, the gadgets react in response to your intentions.

Preorder it for about $218 on Kickstarter.

Will these odd gadgets become part of everyday life in the not-too-distant future? Let us know your thoughts!

Want more news, reviews, and guides from Gadget Flow? Follow us on Apple News, Google News, Feedly, and Flipboard. If you use Flipboard, you should definitely check out our Curated Stories. We publish 3 new stories every day, so make sure to follow us to stay updated!

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Lauren has been writing and editing since 2008. She loves working with text and helping writers find their voice. When she's not typing away at her computer, she cooks and travels with her husband and two daughters.

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The most bizarre and futuristic tech gadgets we've seen in 2022 - Gadget Flow

A controversial new study zeroes in on a possible and potentially habitable star system candidate that may have been the origin of the Wow! signal, one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy that has puzzled scientists ever since its detection in 1977.

The signal, a 72 second data sequence of narrowband radio waves, first observed by Jerry Ehman using the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University 43 years ago, was so unusual that Ehman jotted Wow! in the margin of its printout.

Decades later, researchers still have no idea where exactly the signal came from or what caused it, prompting a number of theories over the years, ranging from it being a pair of comets passing by which was debunked days later to wild speculation about it being proof that we are not alone in the universe.

Now, astronomer Alberto Caballero searched through data collected by the European Space Agencys Gaia space observatory to hone in on a star system candidate of where the signal could be coming from, as detailed in a new paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

The goal was to determine if there were any habitable star systems within the region where the Wow! signal appeared to be coming from, working from the assumption that it came from a star system similar to ours, according to the paper.

Caballero managed to narrow down his search to a single Sun-like star called 2MASS 19281982-2640123, located 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.

There is a solar analog in the region where the most alien-like signal has come from, Caballero told Inverse.

Despite this star is located too far for sending any reply in the form of a radio or light transmission, it could be a great target to make observations searching for exoplanets around the star, he wrote in the paper.

This star has an estimated temperature only five degrees higher than the Sun, and a radius and luminosity almost identical, he argued in a 2020 YouTube video on the subject (yes, hes been floating this theory for a while).

While its certainly a bit of a stretch Caballero makes some rather sweeping assumptions to arrive at his candidate other astronomers say its not as crazy as it sounds.

I think this is perfectly worth doing because we want to point our instruments in the direction of things we think are interesting, Rebecca Charbonneau, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics historian and SETI expert who was not involved in Caballeros research, told Live Science. There are billions of stars in the galaxy, and we have to figure out some way to narrow them down.

Charbonnaeu did, however, note that limiting the search to habitable stars that resembles our own may have been the wrong move.

Why not just look at a bunch of stars? she asked.

It would take hundreds of years for a signal to make its way to 2MASS 19281982-2640123 from Earth, making it very difficult to return a sign of life that is,ifthe Wow! signal both came from thereandwas sent by an extraterrestrial civilization.

Its a tantalizing conclusion that should, of course, be taken with a healthy grain of salt.

But our search for other intelligent life in the universe needs to start somewhere, right?

READ MORE: Study Narrows Down Possible Source Of WOW! Signal To Potentially Habitable Sun-like Star [IFL Science]

More on the signal: Astronomer Who Discovered The Wow! Signal Says We Still Dont Understand Its Origin

Excerpt from:
Weird Signal Appears to Have Come From Habitable Star System - Futurism

Santigold has returned with her new song, High Priestess, and an accompanying video short.

The video short is a stand-alone piece that evokes the emotions and themes of High Priestess, with skittering beats, glacial synths and quick-fire vocals, it blurs the lines between rap, punk and synth wave and pulses with a primal release. Confined by the pandemic and isolated from her creative community, Santi went inward to reconnect with her personal strength and purpose to create this invocation to gather your powers.

Santi shares the songs inspiration and creation:

I had started working on this beat and I didnt have anything in mind for a topic, I just knew I wanted to do a sort of rap punk song (as dangerous as that sounds). My buddy Ray Brady and I started working on something, trying to add in all the elements that made sense, kicks, subs, new wave synths. Boys Noize ended up bringing something super cool that really built the song and made me get even more excited about it. It was coming along quickly, until it wasnt. The punk rock energy, the angst, that I wanted to come across wasnt quite there. I tried adding guitar and a live drum kit, and that was a big red buzzer X. I ended up tagging in Psymun (Simon Christensen) who brought in Ryan Olson, and they brought the final missing element. The energy I was looking for couldnt be the old version of punk rock, it had to be the future sound of punk rock. They brought the angst, the push and pull that was missing, but it was very fresh sounding and totally unexpected. It all came together in a way I could never have imagined when we started, but it was exactly what I set out to make. I want to make music that sounds like the past and the future all in one; music that makes you feel safe enough to jump in, but then takes us on a journey to where we needed to go but have never even heard of. I want my music to be the bridge.

I love working in this way, a communal effort, a meeting of minds and hearts to make something that is a true collaboration, more than any of the single parts themselves. For me, music is about community, its a way to connect, both in the making of it and in the listening to it. I made this song over the past two years during the pandemic, and was desperate for this type of connection. I started working on it in my studio with Ray a few weeks before the first lockdown in 2020, but after that, I was completely by myself in a room. Part of the time, I was in a room in a cabin in the middle of the woods in Canada, completely isolated. Technology was amazing though, because I felt like I was hanging out with these guys the whole time. My engineer recorded me on my computer in my studio from afar. Boys Noize and I hung out everyday on Zoom and talked and laughed more than wed had a chance to in years. I worked with Simon for the first time in this way, over Zoom with us in different countries, and immediately figured out what I love about him as a producer. It was like teleporting a vibe into the studio, being able to sit for hours face to face working on songs together.

I had also been in just Mom mode for months, and it was like finding gold to have found a cabin to escape to during the days, to run away and be with music and friends after having not had the opportunity to do that for months on end. It literally saved my spirit. And that brings us to the name of the song. I called this song High Priestess because this song was about my greatness. I needed to be a witness to myself at that point, calling out my own power, my own fortitude, my own wisdom, because I felt like I had become disconnected from it, having been stripped out of the rhythm of life that I had cultivated for myself, and thrust into this smaller, one-dimensional version of myself, grounded and isolated for too long. The lyrics are fun though, rap lyrics in general, boastful, cocky, but thats what I was talking about underneath it all.

High Priestessis her first solo release since 2018.Santigolds songs are entire worlds meticulously built, brick by brick, by a master architect who incisively speaks to the present while shaping the future. In the midst of all the struggles of the past couple of years, she shares, I decided to create the future, to look towards where we are going, to create beauty and pull towards that beauty. I need that for myself, but its also there for whoever else needs it.

Photo credit: Frank Ockenfels

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NEWS: Santigold returns with futuristic 'High Priestess' video - God Is In The TV - God Is In The TV

NASA Glenn Research Center is on a building binge to update its Brook Park and Perkins Township campuses as part of a multiyear master plan to replace or renovate its buildings, which are mostly mid-century structures.

The center opened a Research Support Building this past January at its headquarters, Lewis Field in Brook Park. Meanwhile, crews are raising an Aerospace Communications Facility at Lewis, due to open late this fall.

The two projects cost about $91 million and follow about $100 million worth of construction and renovation from 2009 to 2020. Those past projects include the 307-acre Lewis Field, next to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, and Glenns 6,740-acre Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Perkins Township, near Sandusky.

All of these projects precede another $180 million worth of proposed work at Glenns campuses over the next 10 years, pending approval from NASA leaders.

Officials say that the building boom reflects national confidence in Glenn, one of NASAs 10 major centers.

The federal governments investment in our new buildings, facility upgrades, and ongoing infrastructure improvements demonstrate the health of NASAs Glenn Research Center and its strategic importance to fulfilling the agencys mission and vision, says Glenns news chief, Jan Wittry.

During its 81 years, Glenn has revved up global science and the local economy. It spent about $800 million during fiscal 2021. It employs about 1,500 civil servants and 1,700 contract workers.

Glenn tests airplanes, spaceships, and astronauts for government and industry in some of the world s biggest wind tunnels, vacuum chambers, and zero-gravity shafts. It plays key roles in the current Artemis missionwhich aim to return astronauts to the moon and eventually take them to Mars.

The center holds 217 active patents. It has licensed 141 commercial spinoffs in the past 10 years. It has won 127 prestigious research and development (R&D) Awards, more than any other NASA center. It has even won an Emmy for improving radio technology.

But Glenns campuses hardly create the look of leaders of the space age. The campuses consist of many scattered buildingsmostly squat, mid-century, masonry structures with few windowsand Lewis is split by a lush, winding ravine.

NASA Glenn's Aerospace Communication Facility is under construction.

The master plan would reduce the campuses square footage from 3.5 million in 2008 to 2.3 million square feet in 2037. The goal is to bring workers together in contemporary, energy-efficient, time-efficient structures in better surroundings, including restored wetlands at Armstrong Test Facility and a restored outdoor gathering area at Glenn that will be renamed Wright Commons.

Namesakes Orville and Wilbur Wright, John Glenn, and Neil Armstrong were, of course, leaders in flight from Ohio. George Lewis was an exception: a leader at the headquarters of whats now NASA.

The Research Support Building and Wright Commons anchor a hub that officials call downtown Glenn. No matter where you work on campus, this is a home base to interact, says architect Aaron Hill of Bialosky, who teamed with fellow architects Andrea Steele of New York and Enrique Norten of Mexico. Bialosky is best known for its designs of Edgewater Beach House, the Van Aken District, and Cuyahoga Community Colleges Metro Campus Center.

Like other workplaces, NASA Glenn has let many employees work at home during the pandemic. But the agency now expects most of them to be on campus most days.

By May, 70 workers had moved into the new 60,000-square-foot, two-story Research Support Building. More than 90 additional employees were expected to join them by years end.

Many other workers will stop by for hoteling, networking, and conferencing, dining, and more. The building houses the campus switchboard, cafeteria, credit union, exchange store, human services department, and high-tech workspaces of different sizes and kinds.

The facility features sleek glass and aluminum reminiscent of NASAs aircrafts and spacecrafts. Natural light pours through big textured windows into two atriums and their surroundings. A new parking lot has bicycle racks and also spaces reserved for fuel-efficient vehicles. The building has won Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification for energy efficiency.

The second-story cafeteria overhangs Wright Commons and a patio with many tables. Across a campus road, a smaller building will be razed soon to restore the commons original size.

The overall Research Support project is expected to cost $44.1 million.Meanwhile, crews broke ground in March on a $47 million project to unite workers from seven buildings in an Aerospace Communications Building, designed by Chicago-based Ross Barney Architects. In 54,000 square feet, scientists will work together on one of Glenns specialtiescommunications systems for space, with spinoffs for aviation, the military and industry.

Glenns upgrade, begun last decade, has featured a new Mission Integration Center adjoining Wright Commons and a renovated building at Armstrong now called the Space Environments Complex. Officials hope over the next 10 years to build facilities for space materials, structures, propulsion, and power at Lewis and two support buildings at Armstrong.

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Cleveland's futuristic space center is modernizing its outdated spaces. - freshwatercleveland