Category Archives: Space Travel

The cynical narrative around the private space racefeelsunique to this moment of growing discontent about wealthy technologists and inequality, but it perfectly mirrors cynical (often forgotten) reactions to the early pursuit of air and space travel. We did a round up.

George W. Melville, Engineer-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, wrote a scathing article about the pursuit of manned flight. He began with a Shakespeare quote that implied the goal was a childishvain fantasythatis as thin of substance as the air:

On the very first page he declared the entire notion a wasteful and delusional endeavor:

There probably can be foundno better example of the speculative tendency carrying manto the verge of the chimerical than in his attempts to imitate the birds, or no field where so much inventive seed has been sown with so little return as in the attempts of man to fly successfully through the air.

The New York Times predicted manned flight would take between 1 and 10 million years to achieve, in an article titled Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly. The piece ended: To the ordinary man, it would seem as if effort might be employed more profitably.

Only nine weeks later, the Wright Brothers achieved manned flight.

Once the Wright Brothers proved flight was possible, some assumed it was just a pointless rich play thing. Famed astronomer William H. Pickering said, The expense would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist who could use his own yacht.

We conquered the skies, then space beckoned

In 1955, President Eisenhower announced the first U.S. satellite program. When asked about the project, a British astronomer replied:Space travel is utter bilge,saying it would be a frightful waste of public money.

When President Kennedy announced his moonshot, there was some enthusiasm, but soon a movement grew against the idea. Barry Goldwater said it was a big waste (at a $100-a-plate dinner) and that the U.S. was moon-struck, saying:While our eyes are fixed upon it, we could lose the earth or be buried in it.

Many Americans and even astronomers opposed the plan for various reasons. Even former President Eisenhower (who created NASA) said:Anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts.The term moondoggle was coined, and it stuck.

When the day of the moon landing arrived, public approval was higher. The entire world was excited but not quite everyone. The Guardian quoted a teachers union organizer who said he had decided to go to bed early on the night of July 20th, 1969 because it was a trivial prestige exercise which ignored the social conditions existing in the world.

These are important reminders that pathological cynics alwayswill find a way to complain. Before air and space travel were possible, they said it was impossible. When they were proven wrong, they said it was an egotistical waste of money with no real utility.The pattern continues today.

This article was originally published on the Pessimists Archive. It is reprinted with permission of the author.

Go here to read the rest:

NYT once said airplanes would take 10 million years to develop - Big Think

Team chemistry

Lindgren said the group has had several opportunities to bond, including sea kayaking off the coast of Washington state.

That team spirit, crew cohesion, is one of those things you cant really train for, he said, adding that its exciting to serve on a team that inspires the next generation and shows what is possible when we work together in an international partnership.

Lindgren said the mission patch, which is worn on the shoulder of their uniforms and features a dragonfly, was designed by his daughter.

We wanted to reconnect with the earth with our patch, he explained. The dragonfly is a beautiful and agile flyer, and in many cultures is a sign of good fortune.

Lindgren said blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center for the first time, where his friends and family can attend the launch, is especially meaningful to him since his last launch was from Kazakhstan.

Space travel feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so to be able to do it a second time seems surreal, he said, adding that his pre-flight traditions include launching model rockets on the beach with his family.

While Lindgren said there wont be bagpipe playing this time around, there may be other surprises in store.

What an amazing time to be part of NASA, he concluded. I feel like we won the lottery. We have programs that are figuring out how to get our astronauts to the moon, with Mars in our sights. There used to always be a running joke that Mars is 30 years away, and I have felt that horizon shrink.

Go here to see the original:

CSU astronaut alum will command mission leaving for space station April 23 - Colorado State University

The QUID was designed using polytetrafluoroethylene, a polymer that is heavily favoured on space missions for its durability and versatility. But while the age of space travel for people with deep pockets seems to be here, adoption of the QUID hasn't kept pace so far. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

The unexpected and aggressive bid to buy Twitter, his favorite marketing platform, is not deterring Elon Musk from pursuing his holy grail of space travel for private human beings. Work on Starship, SpaceXs 400-foot tall rocket which will be the vehicle to carry groups of people beyond Earth, ostensibly to colonise Moon and Mars, is under way. As of now only prototypes have been tested with multiple high-altitude flight tests and going into space seems a long way off.

But if and when it does happen, and space travel becomes as common as going for a holiday to the south of France, there will be the issue of how to pay for products and services that you want to buy en route. Surely, the spaceship will have a cafon board and some duty-free shopping too.

Musk neednt worry about that bit since a 15-year-old technology is all but ready to be deployed as a space currency. For obvious reasons cards, cash and digital apps arent going to work when you are some 50 million kilometres from Earth and all along the way too since most would probably get destroyed by cosmic radiation.

Which is why in 2007 scientists at Britain's National Space Centre and the University of Leicester developed the Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination (QUID). Quite appropriately, it was designed for the London-based company Travelex which deals in international payments, foreign currency exchange and prepaid credit cards for use by travellers and for global remittances. The challenge for the scientists was to develop a currency that could withstand the rigorous demands of space travel. So no sharp edges or chemicals that might hurt space tourists.

According to science.com, using the polymer polytetrafluoroethylene, heavily favoured on space missions for its durability and versatility, the scientists created a currency with rounded edges and also encompassing the eight planets orbiting a sun. Each of the orbiting planets contained a serial number and taken together, these numbers would give each QUID disc a unique code to prevent counterfeiting. Yes, even in space that is a threat.

Of course, the currency was created as part of a viral marketing campaign by Travelex. As a public relations exercise it was clearly successful with most publications including the venerable BBC carrying reports on it though the Wired piece was a bit caustic. It said: If you're wondering why people would be (a) spending money while wearing NASA space suits and (b) while floating in space rather than inside some kind of space-shop... Well, I don't think you're supposed to be wondering that.

At the time, the new coin was pegged at an exchange rate of 6.25 to 1 QUID, not that many transactions took place. But the demand seemed real enough coming just when Bigelow Aerospace was developing an inflatable space hotel in the US, and Virgin Galactic was developing its own SpaceShip. Space travel seemed a very real possibility and Travelex really backed its new product declaring: "It's only a matter of time before people will be walking up to our shops and asking for QUIDs for their two weeks in a space hotel." Indeed, such was the optimism in 2007 that the National Space Centre predicted that regular trips to space would be commonplace within five years with tourist facilities on the moon a distinct possibility by 2050.

That deadline may have been extended a bit, but earlier this month, a SpaceX rocket carried a private crew to the International Space Station in a historic launch. The era of ordinary people, with deep pockets, flying into space is clearly here.

Download your money calendar for 2022-23 here and keep your dates with your moneybox, investments, taxes

See the original post here:

Fly me to the moon with a QUID or two - Moneycontrol

When a trio of paying customers and their astronaut chaperone were blasted off to the International Space Station, their voyage was touted as a milestone for the commercialisation of spaceflight.

For the Michelin-starred Spanish chef Jos Andrs, however, the recently departed mission ushered in another albeit more niche breakthrough: the first time paella was sent into orbit.

Astronauts from different countries and nationalities and backgrounds and they are all going to be eating, at once, paella Valenciana, he said on social media. And this makes me so proud.

Andrs is the latest in a string of top chefs around the world who have turned their attention to space food, seeking to push fine dining beyond a frontier long marked by offerings such as dehydrated versions of mac n cheese or prawn cocktail.

Among the first to pioneer chef-approved space food were the renowned French chefs Thierry Marx and Alain Ducasse, each of whom carved out a repertoire of space-ready classics dishes that ranged from beef bourguignon to almond tarts.

Some of Spains top chefs have gone further, seeking to bring their brand of boundary-pushing cuisine into space. Last year, ngel Len of the three Michelin-starred restaurant Aponiente proffered to Nasa a nutrient-dense dish of rice cooked in collagen extracted from fish scales and flavoured with freeze-dried plankton.

Andoni Luis Aduriz of the top-ranked Mugaritz, meanwhile, has sought to recast freeze-dried creations such as a marshmallow-like cauliflower with strawberry cream as the perfect space food, marrying nutrition and functionality while also playing to a sense of taste that can at times be dulled by microgravity conditions.

Aduriz pointed to the commercialisation of space to explain the interest. Until now, space travel was done by men and women who were very trained to have a spartan spirit and mentally prepared to live in extreme situations, he said.

With companies such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic looking to court deep-pocketed passengers, this profile is set to change. Were talking about people who will likely not want to do without anything and who will want to eat well, said Aduriz.

He saw the discussion on space travel as one that would intensify in the coming years. Im convinced that our species, especially in the long term, will be spending much more time in space. And they will colonise some spaces, said Aduriz. And then food will be an important tool related to the mental health of the people who are there.

The entry of chefs into an area long dominated by food scientists, however, is far from a seamless transition. The team behind Andrs spent more than a year tweaking the paella and secreto de cerdo y pisto a cut of Iberian pork with tomatoes, onions, eggplant and peppers that were sent to space, said Charisse Grey, who leads research and development for the chefs ThinkFoodGroup.

Food scientists think a lot about nutrition, they think a lot about calories, said Grey. My goal is to meet your palates expectations for food.

The rules were strict; dishes had to be nutritious, survive microbe-killing sterilisation of 121C (252F), and largely avoid the use of free-floating liquids.

Things that are crumbly, like cookies and chips, wont make it up there because if theres little crumbs that come off it while youre eating, they just float into space and can get caught up in the air filtration systems and create issues, said Grey.

There was also no escaping the foil-laminated pouch used to serve the meals. I recall one of my first conversations that I had with Nasa and some of the food scientists They were, like, You have to let go of the feeling that the food has to look good.

While the team had yet to hear any feedback from the crew, Grey said she had been impressed by how the dishes turned out.

I wont say that theyre perfect and I wont say that theyre exactly what you would get out of a paella pan, as you cant mimic the actual cooking process of the paella pan or the stew process of a pot, said Grey. But theyre probably some of the best meals Ive had out of a pouch.

Read more:

Paella that is out of this world: Spains top chefs take space food to next level - The Guardian

NASA has teleported a doctor to Space via holoportation! Know all about this new technique for virtual travel.

Virtual travel to space is possible! Thanks to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which did it through what it calls the holoport. NASA virtually teleported a doctor hundreds of kilometres into space via holoportation. This also meant that this was the first human from teleported from Earth into space. The project happened late last year. In this remarkable development, NASA's flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid, who is the industry partner of AEXA Aerospace CEO Fernando De La Pena Llaca and their team members, is orbiting a space laboratory, the International Space Station (ISS), NASA revealed. So, what is holoportation? How does it work? NASA answers all the queries. Read on.

Dr. Schmid explains that Holoportation is a type of imaging technique that permits high-quality 3D models of humans to be reconstructed, compressed, and broadcast in real-time anywhere. When used in connection with mixed reality displays like the HoloLens, users may see, hear, and interact with remote participants in 3D as if they really were physically present in the same place. Microsoft has been using holoportation since at least 2016, but this is the first time it has been used in such an extreme and remote setting as space.

Due to the holoportation, a European Space Agencys astronaut Thomas Pesquet held a two-way chat with live images of Dr. Schmid and his teammate De La Pena placed in the middle of the International Space Station using the Microsoft Hololens Kinect camera and a personal computer with special software from AEXA. This was the first time in history when someone from Earth met an astronaut as if they were right beside them.

NASA is referring to the holoportation as a new form of communication as a staging point for wider usage on future missions. The next step is to employ this technology for two-way communication, in which people on Earth will be holoported to space and astronauts will be returned to Earth. We'll use this for our private medical conferences, private psychiatric conferences, private family conferences and to bring VIPs onto the space station to visit with astronauts.

NASA further shared its plan to integrate holoportation with augmented reality to fully enable Tele-mentoring. NASA said that Holoportation could have great implications on the future of deep space travel. Also, it has some direct applications on Earth. Such as it will bring people together in situations and places such as Antarctica, offshore oil rigs or military operation theaters.

Visit link:

Wow! NASA teleports first human into Space! Man holoported to the International Space Station - HT Tech

Today, theres yet another Blue Origin tourism flight into space.

This will be the 20th mission for Blue Origins New Shepard and it will be taking off from a spaceport in West Texas. This flight will have six passengers. You might even recall a few weeks ago, it was announced that a Saturday Night Live comedian, Pete Davidson. would be one of those passengers on this mission. However, he withdrew his participation a week before the flight, which lead to the flights postponement from March 23 to todays date.

This is a suborbital flight that takes its passengers about 350,000 feet above the ground. It lasts about 10-minutes and allows passengers to experience weightlessness for a few minutes. You might remember last year when company owner Jeff Bezos and Star Trek actor William Shatner took a similar suborbital flight, which left William Shatner astonished and speechless when interviewed after landing.

This flight includes a married couple Sharon Hagle and Marc Hagle. Sharon Hagle founded SpaceKids Global in 2015, which is a non-profit that provides assistance and encourages young people, especially girls, in subject areas like science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Marc Hagle is the president and chief executive of a residential and commercial property development company, Tricor International.

The flight also includes:

Gary Lai is replacing Pete Davidsons spot on the flight, but Lai is extremely familiar with New Shepard and Blue Origin since he has been responsible for leading the team through designing and developing many key safety systems on the crew capsule. Lai joined Blue Origin in 2004 and was one of the companys first employees.

According to a report by Research and Markets, the global market for space tourism was estimated at $651 million in 2020 and is expected to reach $1.7 billion by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 15.2% over the period from 20202027. The market growth for space tourism is growing significantly.

More importantly, its becoming more common and acceptable. Ordinary people are being launched into suborbital space, and its shifting peoples views on space travel. Instead of being this unattainable thing, it's becoming a real possibility (of course, that's if you have the money to spare for your 10-minute space trip).

You could compare whats happening right now to when the opportunity was first available for the average person to fly on an airplane. A ticket on a commercial flight was most likely very expensive, but the people who could afford it at the time knew that they were making history. An article from Business Insider says that the first commercial flight, which occurred in 1914, lasted for 23 minutes and cost $400. And in 1914, $400 was a hefty price tag.

The Best Free Investment You'll Ever Make

Join Wealth Daily today for FREE. We'll keep you on top of all the hottest investment ideas before they hit Wall Street. Become a member today, and get our latest free report: "How to Make Your Fortune in Stocks"It contains full details on why dividends are an amazing tool for growing your wealth.

Now, after more than a century, people are ready for the next innovation and opportunity and thats leading them into space. As space tourism becomes wildly popular and accepted, it brings up the need for the U.S. government to create and maintain a presence in the aerospace industry. And that need is already being explored

The U.S. military has been planning to extend its reach in space. One of its priorities includes extending space awareness capabilities beyond geostationary orbit with a new satellite called the Cislunar Highway Patrol System (CHPS). This new satellite will be a moon-patrolling probe to get a better understanding of the area around Earth that stretches past the moons orbit.

Brian Weeden, director of program planning for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, spoke about this new initiative and said:

Its the first step for them to be able to know whats going on in cislunar space and then identify any potential threats to U.S activities.

Becoming a leader in space innovation and exploration is going to cost the U.S. a lot of money. President Bidens $773 billion budget request for the Defense Department for the fiscal year 2023 includes $24.5 billion for the U.S. Space Force. Thats $7 billion more than what was requested in 2022 from the White House. In a recent budget summary, the White House said:

Space is vital to U.S. national security and integral to modern warfare. The budget maintains Americas advantage by improving the resilience of U.S. space architectures to bolster deterrence and increase survivability during hostilities.

The breakdown of the enormous $24.5 billion budget for the Space Force includes:

In addition to this, the budget will also include $1.1 billion for three national security space launches (NSSL) and $314 million to launch three batches of Space Development Agency satellites to low Earth orbit. Obviously, this is a massive investment into space and securing space. Government spending will most likely only increase in the years to come when it comes to the Space Force. Keeping an eye on this budget and how the U.S. government plans to spend money for space initiatives is going to be important for investors. And the time to explore these types of opportunities is right now

My colleague Jason Simpkins is ready to pull back the curtain on the Black Budget, which consists of clandestine military programs that the U.S. government spends billions on. All of these important details about these programs are only shared with a small group of insiders giving this small group the chance to become incredibly wealthy.

Jason wants to change that. Thats why he created a new investigative series that exposes investors like yourself to the type of information thats crucial to turning small investments into astonishing wealth.

On behalf of Jason, I want to invite you to a prescreening of his brand-new investigative series, Secret Stock Files. You can add your name to the prescreen list here.

Until next time,

Monica Savaglia

Monica Savaglia is Wealth Dailys IPO specialist. With passion and knowledge, she wants to open up the world of IPOs and their long-term potential to everyday investors. She does this through her newsletter IPO Authority, a one-stop resource for everything IPO. She also contributes regularly to the Wealth Daily e-letter. To learn more about Monica, click here.

Sign up to receive the Wealth Daily newsletter - it's absolutely free! In each issue, you'll get our best investment research, designed to help you build a lifetime of wealth, minus the risk. Plus, by signing up, you'll instantly receive our new report: Surviving the Coming Economic Collapse.

We never spam! View our Privacy Policy

After getting your report, youll begin receiving the Wealth Daily e-Letter, delivered to your inbox daily.

View original post here:

Space Exploration Will Cost You - Wealth Daily

A SpaceX Dragon rocket is due to take off this week with some unusual cargo on board: an EEG headset.

The device will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) for a first-of-its-kind experiment.

The mission? Analyzing the neurological activity of astronauts to understand how microgravity affects the brain.

There is still little known about the effects of space travel on the brain. While astronauts are typically measured for various physiological changes, from heart rate to muscle mass, there is currently no high-quality longitudinal data about neural changes during space missions.

This information could be crucial in understanding how the brain adapts to long-term space travel.

In future missions, the journeys will last much longer, and the effects of microgravity on the condition of astronauts will have a major impact, said Yair Levy, the CEO of brain.space, the company behind the device.

Then we will have a tool that can measure the impact on cognition and we can invent tools that can regain cognitive capacity during the mission.

The first step towards this goal is testing the headset on the astronauts of Axiom-1 (AX-1), the worlds first all-private mission to the ISS.

The brain.space system uses electroencephalography (EEG) to pick up tiny electrical signals produced when neurons in the brain communicate with each other. AI then denoises the signals and interprets the data.

Previous neural studies in space used low-resolution gel-based EEG systems, but these were complex to set up and only measured basic brain signals.

Brain.space replaced the gel with a dry system comprised of around 500 sensors that look like tiny brushes. The company says this makes the headset easier to use and more effective.

The device has already taken baseline measurements of the astronauts cognition on Earth. Upon arrival at the ISS, the systems software will be set up on a laptop at the space station.

Each of the three crew members will then wear the device for three 20-minute periods spread across the eight-day mission. Data collected in orbit will be transferred to brain.space and Ben-Gurion University researchers after each session for analysis.

After the astronauts return to Earth, the same experiments will be performed to assess the after-effects of microgravity.

Brain.space was initially founded to analyze neurological activity during treatment for brain injuries.

Ultimately, the company wants to develop a big data platform that researchers, developers, and medical practitioners can use to integrate brain activity into their products and services.

The company hopes the ISS experiment will join the list of space projects that have improved life on Earth. But for now, its focused on preparing our brains for long-term space travel and off-world living.

Excerpt from:

New EEG headset to analyze impact of space travel on astronauts' brains - The Next Web

The mad team of geeky stargazers populating Netflix's hilarious sci-fi parody "Space Force" returned with a second season last month with all-new bureaucratic hijinks, bird-eating astronauts, and massive budget cuts.

The "Space Force" TV series (not to be confused with the real-life U.S. Space Force) first launched on Netflix back in May 2020, and chronicled the misadventures of Mark R. Naird (Steve Carell), a four-star general who's assigned command of a polarizing division of America's military aimed to bolster the nations dominance in space and getting boots back on the moon.

Now for "Space Force" Season 2, General Naird is dealing with a new administration in the White House that's skeptical about this freshly-formed unit of the armed forces. With mounting scrutiny regarding the bumbling organization, Naird and his offbeat crew of scientists and space voyagers are given five months to prove their worth before the President cancels his position.

Series regulars Jimmy O. Yang, John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Tawny Newsome, Diana Silvers, Lisa Kudrow, Patton Oswalt, and Don Lake are all on board for Season 2. Some behind the camera changes have been made this time around with Canadian screenwriter Norm Hiscock ("Parks & Recreation," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine") uniting with series co-creator Greg Daniels as co-showrunner.

Ken Kwapis, the award-winning director of such Hollywood feature films as "He Said, She Said," "A Walk in the Woods" and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," has signed on to helm all seven episodes. In contrast, the premiere season of "Space Force" was shot by a variety of directors. Here, Kwapis delivers a master class on deftly orchestrating an ensemble cast thats operating at maximum comedic thrust.

Besides working with Carell and Daniels directing the pilot episode of "The Office," the Hollywood veterans impressive resume includes directorial gigs for "The Office," "Malcolm in the Middle," "Freaks and Geeks" and "The Larry Sanders Show."

Space.com spoke with Kwapis about the synthesis of his talented actors, what's new for the second season, balancing jokes with grounded drama, creating chemistry and improvisation on set, and if Netflix might approve a "Space Force" Season 3.

Space.com: How did you score the 'Space Force" gig and why were you the best person for the job?

Ken Kwapis: Well, Season 2 of "Space Force" was an important reunion for me. It was the first time I'd working with Steve and Greg since The Office. I didn't work on the first season but I did enjoy it. Steve and Greg told me that they tried to create a show that was as visually different as possible from "The Office." They encouraged the directors to put on their Stanley Kubrick hats and create things that were visually bold and they did. The first season is very striking in that way.

For Season 2 they wanted to focus less on the look of the show and more on the characters and the ensemble feeling and that's why they enlisted me. They wanted to get to each character's emotional arc and the arc of the Space Force team.

Related: The best sci-fi movies and TV shows to stream on Netflix

Space.com: What changes can fans expects in "Space Force" Season 2?

Kwapis: One of the great things about the scripts in the new season is that the stakes are high. In the first episode we learn that Space Force is on probation and Steve Carrels character has a few months to prove himself or hell be replaced. Its an underdog story and my job as a director is how to get the audience involved. And every character is very well drawn this season.

Malkovich's character Dr. Mallory is fighting to maintain his integrity as a scientist as the budget is slashed.And Diana Silvers playing Erin Naird, Steve's characters daughter, is struggling to figure out what direction her life should go in. Tawny Newsomes character battles with PTSD after the near-calamity on the Moon. And Jimmy O. Yangs character pining after Tawny and worried that hes in a go-nowhere relationship with her.

They all have a distinct journey and for me, the job is how to balance the character comedy and the emotional content. The best kinds of scenes are ones that start in one direction, then surprise you and go in another. What appears to be a comic moment turns on a dime and suddenly it's an emotional moment.

All credit to the writers and to Greg, Steve and Norm for overseeing the stories. They gave me such rich material to work with.One of the things I hear from viewers who love the second season is that it does have strong emotional content.

There are a lot of laughs but there's also a lot of heart. Being able to deliver that is in my skill set. Sometimes I feel like my superpower as a director is that I know how to take a comedic scene and ground it in reality, and conversely, I know how to take a dramatic scene and find the humor hiding in it. Its also a first for me in that Ive never directed an entire season of anything.

Space.com: What sort of improvisation occurred while filming and did you encourage it?

Kwapis: Oh, I definitely encouraged it and there were some major league improvisers in the cast. Don Lake for example. He's so brilliant at improvisation. He can take any line of dialogue and spin twenty-five different variations of it without breaking a sweat. And Tawny Newsome, like Steve Carell, a Second City alum. Just a marvelous improviser. Ben Schwartz is able to pull things out of a hat that surprised me take after take. Everybody in the core ensemble had strong improv skills.

The goal for me was to get all these different actors to see they were part of the same family. As a director I tried to shoot scenes where the characters are in the frame together so I often favored two-shots, three-shots, four-shots, just to reinforce the idea of chemistry. Its not about my joke versus your joke, it's about the energy between people. Thats the secret weapon of Season 2 as far as Im concerned.

Space.com: The practical joke montage is the series is a fan favorite. Were there a lot of goofy pranks going on with the actors between takes?

Kwapis: There weren't as many as there might have been if we'd shot this in the pre-pandemic era. Because of COVID protocols it was a little more restricted. Someone should right a book about famous pranks done on sets over the years.

Space.com: What was your gateway into space travel and sci-fi. growing up and how did they serve you on "Space Force" Season 2?

Kwapis: I was definitely a fan of science fiction movies as a kid, but not so much sci-fi novels. I was always captivated by films about space travel and in addition to famous movies like 2001, I was also a super fan of "Silent Running." I remember when I first saw the film in 1972 I was so taken by Joan Baezs theme song in it. I was a big "Lost in Space" fan too.

"Space Force" Season 2 is pretty Earth-bound compared to Season 1. What I really drew upon was my experience directing a number of wonderful workplace comedies, certainly "The Office," but also a show I helped developed for NBC, "Outsourced." The only broadcast network show ever set in India.

Going back to the early '90s, I helped launch "The Larry Sanders Show" for HBO. And I love films about a group of people having to work together to solve a problem, like "The Flight of the Phoenix" and "Only Angels Have Wings."

Space.com: Patton Oswalt has an extraordinary cameo in Season 2 as Mars mission astronaut Capt. Lancaster.How did that performance play out?

Kwapis: That's a great example of a scene that seems at first to be simply a comic scene. Patton enlists Diana Silvers to go find different types of food so he can enjoy some human food vicariously while he's en route to Mars.Over the course of the sequence its revealed that he also misses a lot about being on Earth and that hes actually quite depressed being isolated in this capsule. All of that is something that Dianas character is unprepared to deal with to the point where she wonders if Pattons character is suicidal. All credit to the writers for taking us down a comedic road then taking a terrific left turn into something thats more poignant. Patton did the heavy lifting on that. I reminded him that it's ultimately a scene about being lonely and isolated. It's like that David Bowie song, "Space Oddity."

Space.com: A lot of fans are excited to see how the Space Force team is going to deal with the season finale cliffhanger! Will there be a "Space Force" Season 3 and will you be a part of it?

Kwapis: I can't say too much except that we've received such a lot of positive feedback from Season 2 that it would be a shame if we couldn't continue.

Netflix is now streaming all seven episodes of "Space Force" Season 2.

Today's best Netflix deals

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

See original here:

Director Ken Kwapis talks 'Space Force' Season 2 and wrangling a crazy comedic crew - Space.com

French cuisine got a galactic boost recently when some of the countrys top chefs, Thierry Marx and Alain Ducasse, concocted some special dishes for French astronaut Thomas Pesquet during his missions aboard the International Space Station. So while the famous dish of boeuf bourguignon was in the spotlight for that mission, during the next SpaceX trip, which will be the very first private flight to the ISS, an iconic Spanish dish, paella, will be the featured dish for astronauts to nosh on. But not just any paella, paella con during the next SpaceX trip, which will be the very first private flight to the ISS, an iconic Spanish dish, paella, will be the featured dish for astronauts to nosh on. But not just any paella, paella concocted by star chef Jos Andrs.cocted by star chef Jos Andrs.

The history of privatized space travel is about to reach a new milestone. While last Septembers first-ever orbital mission with no professionals on board was a success, a private flight to the International Space Station is now scheduled for April 3. A collaboration between Axiom Space, SpaceX and NASA, the trip will be shared by four individuals, including Spanish-born former NASA commander Michael Lopez-Alegria. The mission will last ten days in total, and the group will spend eight days on the International Space Station.

When its time to sit down to dinner, passengers will have a chance to taste the creations of legendary Spanish-American chef, Jos Andrs. While Andrs is famous around the world for his humanitarian work he is currently organizing a food distribution on the Polish border with Ukraine through his association World Central Kitchen the star chef based in Washington DC is also known for his involvement in issues concerning the food of tomorrow. Jos Andrs has long been working with the education and philanthropy branch of his ThinkFood Group to implement solutions. And meals in space is one of the topics they reflect upon.

During this private mission aboard the ISS, the passengers will share a meal composed of paella, made with chicken and mushrooms, a key recipe in Jos Andrs repertoire. Of course, the presentation has been adapted so that this iconic dish of Spanish cuisine can be packaged in soft pouches suited for space travel. But, the chefs goal is to encourage guests to share the paella, in the same way that Spaniards traditionally place the large pan in the middle of the table.

The menu will also include a dish called Secreto de Cerdo with Pisto," made with Iberian pork, tomatoes, onions, eggplant and peppers. In the passengers luggage, there will be Bellota Iberian jamn, but also a salchichon, a traditional sausage from the Iberian Peninsula, as well as Marcona almonds, considered one of the top varieties in the world, provided by companies of Fermn and that of another great Spanish chef, Albert Adri.

On board the International Space Station, astronauts are now pampered by top chefs who work on tasty meal ideas for many months before departure. Last year, Thomas Pesquet ate some gourmet dishes created by Franois Adamski, during a collaboration with Servair, the subsidiary of the Air France/KLM group dedicated to catering. The French astronaut also tasted Alain Ducasses recipes, since his Ducasse Conseil team has been working with CNES (Frances National Centre for Space Studies) since 2004. Thierry Marx, the Michelin-starred chef from the Mandarin Oriental, was also a partner of Thomas Pesquet during his first mission.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.

See the original post here:

Here is What the Passengers of First Private Mission Aboard ISS Will Be Devouring - News18

The project is being run by the Gateway Foundation, who have said that the hotel will feature a range of low-gravity activities which are not possible while on Earth

Image: Instagram)

The first ever space hotel is due to open its doors to guests in just five years time, it has been announced.

Plans for the luxury cruise ship style station include a rotating structure which will simulate gravity around its edges.

The accommodation will float above Earth's atmosphere, providing guests with low-gravity activities which are not possible on Earth's surface, the Daily Star reports.

Its structure would be made up of 24 modules which will be connected together via elevator shafts.

The whole station, set to open in 2022, would resemble a wheel, that would rotate in order to simulate gravity.

Image:

Company Gateway Foundation is part of the project, which began in 2019 when the project was called the Von Braun Station.

Since then the futuristic hotel has been named Voyager Station and is being built by Orbital Assembly Corporation.

The construction company, which focuses on gravity-enabled structures, plans on unveiling the hotel in the next few years.

Senior design architect at the Gateway Foundation Tim Alatorre told CNN : "The station rotates, pushing the contents of the station out to the perimeter of the station, much in the way that you can spin a bucket of water.

"The water pushes out into the bucket and stays in place."

Mr Alatorre also said the company was hoping to bring a slice of Earth to outer space.

He added: "We're going to have a number of different recreation activities and games that'll highlight the fact that you're able to do things that you can't do on Earth.

"Because of the weightlessness and the reduced gravity, you'll be able to jump higher, be able to lift things, be able to run in ways that you can't on Earth."

The company's former pilot John Blincow told the publication that right now is a significant time for space travel.

He concluded: "We're trying to make the public realise that this golden age of space travel is just around the corner. It's coming. It's coming fast."

It's unclear how much the accommodation will be, but it definitely won't be cheap.

The Gateway Foundation said they eventually want to make the hotel similar to a "trip to Disneyland".

Read More

Read More

See the original post here:

First space hotel due to open its doors to guests in just five years - The Mirror