Category Archives: Transhuman News

18 hours ago by Marcia Dunn In this Sept. 25, 2014, file photo, Russian cosmonaut Elena Serova, the crew member of the mission to the International Space Station, ISS, attends pre-launch preparations at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Samantha Cristoforetti, Italy's first female astronaut, is set to rocket into orbit this weekend from Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station. There, she will join Serova. It will be just the second time in the International Space Station's 16-year history that two women make up the six-member crew. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

For the 21st-century spacewoman, gender is a subject often best ignored. After years of training for their first space mission, the last thing Samantha Cristoforetti and Elana Serova want to dwell on is the fact they are women.

Cristoforetti, Italy's first female astronaut, is set to rocket into orbit this weekend from Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station. There, she will join Russia's Serova, a rarity in her homeland's male-dominated cosmonaut corps.

It will be just the second time in the space station's 16-year history that two women make up the long-term, six-member crew.

Just don't ask Cristoforetti or Serova about the gender issue.

"Space is what I do for work, and that's what I think about it: It's my work," Serova said in a NASA interview before launch in late September.

Cristoforetti, 37, a fighter pilot and captain in the Italian Air Force, has managed to sidestep most if not all gender questions leading up to Sunday's planned launch.

Serova tried to do the same. But before the 38-year-old engineer climbed aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, Russian reporters asked if she was taking up makeup and wondered how she would wear her hair during her six-month mission.

Serova ignored the makeup question. As for her hairdo, she shot back:

"I have a question for youwhy don't you ask the question about Alexander's hair, for example," she said, referring to crewmate Alexander Samokutyaev seated next to her at the news conference. "I'm sorry, this is my answer. Thank you. More questions?"

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Space station rarity: Two women on long-term crew

Samantha Cristoforetti, 37, will join crew of ISS this Sunday Will be sent into space with other members on rocket in Kazakhstan Her arrival will mark first time since 2010 two women have been on board Elena Serova went up in September, after being hassled about make-up In Italian style, Cristoforetti will take first space-ready espresso maker along

By Kieran Corcoran for MailOnline and Associated Press

Published: 12:02 EST, 21 November 2014 | Updated: 17:31 EST, 21 November 2014

The International Space Station will have its most female-heavy crew in years as when Italy's first female astronaut joins the vessel this weekend.

Samantha Cristoforetti, 37, will launch into space from a facility in Kazakhstan this Sunday, where she will join Russian Elena Serova, who has been in orbit since September.

It will only be the second time that two women have been on board the ISS at once, making the six-member crew one third female.

Space-bound:Samantha Cristoforetti, posing above with the spacesuit she will wear, is Italy's first female astronaut

Companion: Elena Serova, a Russian, is already in orbit on the International Space Station. Cristoforetti's arrival will make the crew more women-heavy than it has been since 2010

Cristoforetti's arrival will also bring a new first to space, as she will bring a specially-designed Italian espresso machine along with her.

The so-called ISSpresso machine, which weighs 44lbs, is designed to work in zero gravity, and will be the first device of its kind outside the earth's atmosphere, the Guardian reported.

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International Space Station to have two women on board for first time in years

Astronauts on the International Space Station will soon be waking up to the refreshing aroma and taste of authentic Italian coffee.

ISSpresso, an espresso machine designed by engineering company Argotec and coffee roaster Lavazza in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency, is one of the many items headed to space in April 2015.

"We have been thinking about taking the espresso into space for some time...In fact, today we are in a position to overcome the limits of weightlessness and enjoy a good espresso the indisputable symbol of made in Italy products," said the Giuseppe Lavazza, vice-president of Lavazza in a press release.

The device is the first capsule-based coffee machine to be sent to space and the first designed to handle its microgravity conditions in which the physics behind the dynamics and movement of liquids differ from that on Earth. Microgravity refers to "zero gravity" or weightless.

"The fluid dynamic in a microgravity environment is different from the one observed on Earth," Antonio Pilello, a spokesperson for Argotec told ABC News in an email. "Since you are weightless in orbit, there is no up, down, left nor right. For this reason we designed our system to be capable of making coffees without being affected by gravity."

The machine is comprised of a steel tube to transport water while being able to tolerate over 400 bars of pressure. The machine, weighing 20 kilograms, also has extra important components to maintain safety protocols issued in accordance with specific regulations set by the Italian Space Agency.

Courtesy Lavazza

PHOTO: The Italian Space Agency is sending the first espresso coffee machine to the International Space Station. Made by Lavazza and Agrotec, it is designed to withstand extreme amounts of pressure and can operate in microgravity conditions.

ISSpresso will also offer other options, including caffe lungo, tea, infusions and broth, allowing food to be re-hydrated. Astronauts will be able to drink these substances using small pouches with valves that are inserted into and draw coffee from the machine.

Pilello told ABC News that only instant coffee is available for astronauts right now.

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A Giant Step for Coffee Lovers: Italian Espresso Headed To Space

The Columbus module is installed on the International Space Station in 2008. Pictured is NASA astronaut Rex Walheim. Credit: NASA

Need a part on the International Space Station? Youre going to have to wait for that. That is, wait for the next spaceship to arrive with the critical tool to make a repair, or replace something that broke. You can imagine how that slows down NASAs desire for science on the orbiting laboratory.

Enter the first orbiting machine shop: a 3-D printer that was just installed in the stations Columbus laboratory this week. If the printer works as planned, astronauts will be able to make simple things based on instructions from the ground. Over time, the agency hopes this will save time and money, and reduce the need to rely on shipments from Earth. And keep an eye out in 2015: two other 3-D printers are scheduled to join it.

As NASA aims to send astronauts to an asteroid and perhaps to Mars, the need to manufacture parts on site is critical. Sending a valve to Phobos isnt an easy proposition. Much better that future crews will make stuff on the spot, and NASA says the space station will be a good spot to test this kind of stuff out. Adding motivation is a National Research Council report from this summer urging NASA to start 3-D printing testing as soon as possible, since the station (as of yet) is only funded by all partners through 2020. Negotiations are ongoing to extend that to 2024.

In November 2014, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore installed a 3-D printer made by Made in Space in the Columbus laboratorys Microgravity Science Glovebox on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV

Additive manufacturing with 3-D printers will allow space crews to be less reliant on supply missions from Earth and lead to sustainable, self-reliant exploration missions where resupply is difficult and costly, stated Jason Crusan, director of NASAs advanced explorations systems division at NASA headquarters in Washington. The space station provides the optimal place to perfect this technology in microgravity.

But dont get too excited yet; astronauts arent going to make screwdrivers right away. The first step will be calibrating the printer. Then, the first files (mainly test coupons) will be printed and sent back to Earth to make sure they meet up to standards compared to identical samples printed on the ground with the same printer.

Made In Space Inc. manufactured this printer (which arrived on station in September) with the aim of sending up a more advanced version in 2015. In a statement, the company said it is gratified that the printer is ready to go in space. Any science collected on it will inform the design of the new printer, which will enable a fast and cost-effective way for people to get hardware to space, the company added.

And guess what: there is yet another printer that will be launched to the space station next year. Called the POP3D Portable On-Board Printer, the European Space Agency promises that the tiny machine less than half the diameter of a basketball will be able to print a plastic part in about half an hour.

The prime contractor for this printer is Italian company Altran. POP3D will reach the station in the first half of next year, ideally while Italys Samantha Cristoforetti is still doing her Futura mission in space (which starts this Sunday, if the launch schedule holds.)

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NASA Aims To Slash Space Shipping Costs With Shiny 3-D Printer

The tomato seeds spent almost two years in outer space before making their way to Nandita Bajajs Grade 9 science class.

And after an experiment that began at the start of this school year comparing the percentage of space seeds that germinated compared to those with earthly beginnings Bajaj did the big reveal on Friday, giving the excited teens the results.

In the past weve done different experiments to teach the scientific method, but the unit after this is astronomy, so the Tomatosphere project worked well on two fronts, said Bajaj, who has a degree in aerospace engineering as well as teaching.

The best thing about the experiment is the awareness of how real science is conducted, she said, and it gives students a chance to experience something that is part of a real-world experiment on the effects of space on food growth.

Some 18,000 students across North America will take part in the Tomatosphere program this year, and about three million have since it began 13 years ago.

Bajajs class received certificates from the Canadian Space Agency, handed out on Friday, for taking part in the mass experiment.

Tomatosphere is in part sponsored by Lets Talk Science, the Canadian Space Agency and the University of Guelph.

The seeds for Bajajs class at Northview Heights Secondary School some travelled more than 450 million kilometres were brought back to Earth last year from the International Space Station by famed Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

The class received space and non-space tomato seeds, which they were asked to germinate, without knowing which was which, and to then compare success rates for each set.

Ten days ago, their work was sent to the Canadian Space Agency. Their results were close to the overall average about 65 per cent of their 113 earthly seeds germinated, while 57 per cent of the 113 space ones did.

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Toronto students' space tomatoes out of this world

Provided by Sky News

The 10-year programme being led by researchers in Norway will see foods such as cherry tomatoes, lettuce and soybeans grown on the International Space Station (ISS).

Called Time Scale, the project is being run alongside the EU and the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate how food plants grow in space and how the plants can help supply space travellers with food and air in the future.

Ann-Iren Kittang Jost, research manager at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Space (CIRIS) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, is leading the project.

"I do envision that what we can form the basis for food cultivation on the Moon and Mars sometime in the future," she told Science Nordic.

"These are just a few preliminary steps. I don't want to venture a guess regarding how long it will take before they can be used on a large scale.

"We haven't decided which food plant to cultivate yet. We've discussed cherry tomatoes, lettuce or soybeans."

Astronauts need around 30kg of water, food and air each day and despite some recycling of water on the ISS, supplies must be delivered from earth at huge cost.

Plant experiments on the ISS have been run from the CIRIS control room in Trondheim since 2006, mostly on the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana - the first to have its genome sequenced.

But Ms Kittang Jost said the cultivation of more complex organisms in space conditions required far more research.

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Bean Me Up: Scientists To Grow Crops In Space