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

View post:

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

Far outside our solar system and out past the distant reachers of our galaxyin the vast nothingness of spacethe distance between gas and dust particles grows, limiting their ability to transfer heat. Temperatures in these vacuous regions can plummet to about -455 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 kelvin). Are you shivering yet?

But why is the vacuum of space this cold? Well, it's complicated.

For physicists, temperature is all about velocity and motion. When we talk about the temperature in a room, thats not the way a scientist would talk about it," astronomer Jim Sowell of the Georgia Institute of Technology tells Popular Mechanics. We would use the expression heat to define the speeds of all the particles in a given volume.

Most scientists use the kelvin instead of Fahrenheit to describe extremely cold temperatures, so we'll be doing that here, too.

Most, if not all of the heat in the universe comes from stars like our sun. The inside of the sun, where nuclear fusion occurs, temperatures can swell to 15 million kelvin. (On the surface, they only reach up to about 5,800 kelvin.)

The heat that leaves the sun and other stars travels across space as infrared waves of energy called solar radiation. These solar rays only heat the particles in their path, so anything not directly in view of the sun stays cool. Like, really cool.

At night, the surface of even the closest planet to the sun, Mercury, drops to about 95 kelvin. Plutos surface temperature reaches about 40 kelvin. Coincidentally, the lowest temperature ever recorded in our solar system was clocked much closer to home. Last year, scientists measured the depths of a dark crater on the surface of our moon and found that temperatures dropped to about 33 Kelvin, according to New Scientist.

Thats SUPER cold, like -400 Fahrenheit cold.

Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.

But our universe is vastunimaginably vast. (And possibly a loop?) What about the vacuum of space?

Well, thats where things get tricky. Within near and distant galaxies, the mesh of dust and clouds that weaves between the stars has been observed at temperatures between between 10 and 20 kelvin. The sparse pockets of space that contain little but cosmic background radiation, leftover energy from the formation of the universe, hover in at around 2.7 kelvin.

These temperatures dip perilously close to an elusive measurement: absolute zero. At absolute zero, which to -459.67 degrees Fahrenheitno motion or heat is transferred between particles, even on the quantum level.

In the vacuum of space, gas particles are few and far betweenabout one atom per spoonful, or 10 cubic centimeters, according to Quartzso they arent able to readily transfer heat to each other through conduction and convection. Heat in space can only be transferred through radiation, which regulates how particles of light, or photons, are absorbed or emitted, according to UniverseToday.

The further you travel into interstellar space, the colder it gets. I dont know that youll ever get down to absolute zero, Sowell says. Youre always going to see some light and therell be some motion. There may be pockets of the universe where temperatures drop to 1 Kelvin above absolute zero, he notes, but so far, the closest measurement to absolute zero has only been observed in laboratories here on Earth.

"Humans are actually pretty good at creating extreme temperatures," Alasdair Gent, a graduate student in astroparticle physics also of the Georgia Institute of Technology tells Popular Mechanics. Scientists are able to recreate the same temperatures seen in the vacuum of space as well as inside the core of stars like our sun.

Back here on Earth, we have it easy. You can have high-speed particles zipping by us outside the Earth's atmosphere, but if you took off your space suit, you would feel cold because there aren't that many particles hitting you, says Sowell. Here on the surface of the earth, particles aren't moving really fast, but there are zillions of them.

Earths atmosphere does an excellent job of circulating the suns heat through conduction, convection and radiation. Thats why we feel temperature changes so acutely on Earth. The particles are moving just a bit faster due to the sunlight or weather patterns, says Sowell.

When we venture out past the safety and confines of our planet, we wear spacesuits and travel in spacecraft that help protect us from these extreme temperatures. Here, a large dose of creativity and a whole lot of insulation is critical.

The Apollo-era spacesuits, for example, had heating systems that included flexible coils and lithium batteries. Modern suits come equipped with tiny, microscopic balls of heat-reactant chemicals that helped protect astronauts from the frigid temps. The Artemis spacesuits, which will take the next man and first woman to the moon in 2024, come equipped with a portable life support system that will help future moonwalkers regulate their temperature on the moon and beyond.

Were you to weave between galaxies in the vacuum of space without a spacesuit, the heat from your bodyabout 100 watts, according to Space.comwould start to radiate away from you. (Remember, conduction and convection don't work here.) This would be a slow, frigid way to go, and, eventually, you'd freeze to death. But... it's likely you'd asphyxiate first.

After all, space is all about extremes.

Update: A previous version of this article referred to the kelvin as being measured in degrees. The kelvin is not measured in degrees. We regret the error.

Read more here:

The Weirdly Nihilistic Reason Why Outer Space Is So Cold - Popular Mechanics

The answer to efficient and cheap space travel might just be simpler than you think; all it requires is a cable and a weight.

Above, we have a video from Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, and this time around, the scientific YouTube Channel is exploring the idea of cheap and effective space travel. The idea that is proposed begins with what is called a 'Tether,' which is simply a weight with a cable attached to it. Kurzgesagt suggests that humans build extremely long versions of these tethers and place them at a safe distance around our planet and use them as a 'free' means of propulsion to other planets.

Since the tether would be spinning around our planet, spaceships would be able to attach onto the tether and use its rotational force to be pushed towards a designated planet. The video says that there will be a few problems in doing this; humans would have to create smaller spacecrafts that would be able to match the tethers speed throughout our atmosphere (12,000km per hour). While that might sound extremely difficult, it should be noted that traditional spacecrafts need to reach 45,000km per hour to exit our planet's gravity.

The idea is also extended to other planets such as Mars and even smaller asteroids that we could land on, mine, and then return the plundered minerals from. Kurzgesagt estimates that if tethers were used, the time it takes to get to Mars will be reduced from 9 months to just 5 or even 3 months. Tether use would also reduce the size of the rockets by about 84%-96%, due to most of their body not needing to carry monumental amounts of fuel.

* Prices last scanned on 11/22/2019 at 9:50 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, please click for very latest pricing

Read more:

The answer to cheap space travel to other planets is a 1,000km Skyhook - TweakTown

A prototype of a SpaceX rocket designed to carry people to Mars has suffered a major failure during tests in Texas.

A video of the incident recorded by a local space enthusiast captured the moment the top of the Starship MK-1 rocket exploded.

SpaceXsaid there were no injuries and that the incident in such an early-stage test of the rocket was not a serious setback.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The purpose of todays test was to pressurise systems to the max, so the outcome was not completely unexpected, a spokesperson for the space firm said.

SpaceX CEO revealed on Twitter that tests would now proceed with the Starship MK-3 prototype design, which is more refined and features a much-improved flight design.

"The striking colour and texture of Africa Illizi, Algeria"

"Every day spent living in space is a great day, but today was particularly special. I got to speak with one of my inspirational heroes Prof Stephen Hawking and his amazing daughter Lucy, who developed the Principia Space Diary to engage children with STEM subjects. As well as talking about dark matter, quantum entanglement, alien life and light beam powered nanocraft we also got to see an amazing pass over the Bahamas and this - my favourite reef smile emoticon"

"Sunrise approaching Russia's frozen north-east coast"

"Hello London! Fancy a run? 🙂 #LondonMarathon"

"50 shades of blue: Bahamas"

"Snow on the mountains next to Yinchuan in China"

"Is it just me or do I see some rocket flames down there? These strange land features are in the Erg Iguidi desert, with its yellow stripes of sand stretching from Algeria to northern Mauritania in the Sahara"

"Sunlight reflecting the stunning colours of this Himalayan lake"

"The real thing: found Everest! Last picture turned out to be third-tallest mountain Kanchengjunga"

"Go #Exomars have a great mission. Earth has more in common with Mars than you might think #AfricaArt"

"Amazingly clear view of Tenerife"

"Some midday winter sun glinting off Greenlands snow-capped peaks"

"Great texture in these huge sand dunes, Saudi Arabia"

"The dam makes this river look like a dragons tail. Oahe Dam north of Pierre, South Dakota in the United States. (North is to the right)"

"Spotted volcano smoking away on Russias far east coast this morning heat has melted snow around top"

"New Zealand looking stunning in the sunshine. Mt Cook centre left with the Grand Plateau to the front and Mt Tasman (3,497m) to the right of the Grand Plateau. Fox Glacier in the middle then Franz Josef curving right. Tasman Lake (largest at front) is at the foot of the Tasman glacier which runs along the front of them. The Hooker Glacier flows out behind Mt Cook coming down to meet the Mueller Glacier on the left of the photo. The Murchison Glacier is at the front of the photo running parallel with the Tasman Glacier"

"Another great pass over Patagonia and a swirling plankton bloom off the coast"

"We dont often get such clear views of Alaska"

"Lights along the Nile stretching into the distance from Cairo"

"The Pacific Ring of Fire clear to see amongst the volcanoes of Kamchatka, Russia"

"Im guessing there was an impressive storm going on under that cumulonimbus cloud"

"Night-time Sahara you can really see how thin the Earths atmosphere is in this picture"

"Tokyo and Japanese coast. This image shows most of Japan with the largest mass of light corresponding to Tokyo. The white lights on the left are fishing boats"

"Morning sun striking active volcanoes in Guatemala"

"The vast waters of the Tapajos river, Amazonia"

"Beautiful glacial river water flowing from this Patagonian ice field Lake Viedma, West is up"

"Minus the #Dragon photobomb this time..."

"Sediment spilling into this mountain lake, Ethiopia"

"We have phases of short nights on the International Space Station sunlight is nearly always visible right now. No prizes for guessing where this is"

"From one mighty ocean to another ships passing through the Panama canal"

"The striking colour and texture of Africa Illizi, Algeria"

"Every day spent living in space is a great day, but today was particularly special. I got to speak with one of my inspirational heroes Prof Stephen Hawking and his amazing daughter Lucy, who developed the Principia Space Diary to engage children with STEM subjects. As well as talking about dark matter, quantum entanglement, alien life and light beam powered nanocraft we also got to see an amazing pass over the Bahamas and this - my favourite reef smile emoticon"

"Sunrise approaching Russia's frozen north-east coast"

"Hello London! Fancy a run? 🙂 #LondonMarathon"

"50 shades of blue: Bahamas"

"Snow on the mountains next to Yinchuan in China"

"Is it just me or do I see some rocket flames down there? These strange land features are in the Erg Iguidi desert, with its yellow stripes of sand stretching from Algeria to northern Mauritania in the Sahara"

"Sunlight reflecting the stunning colours of this Himalayan lake"

"The real thing: found Everest! Last picture turned out to be third-tallest mountain Kanchengjunga"

"Go #Exomars have a great mission. Earth has more in common with Mars than you might think #AfricaArt"

"Amazingly clear view of Tenerife"

"Some midday winter sun glinting off Greenlands snow-capped peaks"

"Great texture in these huge sand dunes, Saudi Arabia"

"The dam makes this river look like a dragons tail. Oahe Dam north of Pierre, South Dakota in the United States. (North is to the right)"

"Spotted volcano smoking away on Russias far east coast this morning heat has melted snow around top"

"New Zealand looking stunning in the sunshine. Mt Cook centre left with the Grand Plateau to the front and Mt Tasman (3,497m) to the right of the Grand Plateau. Fox Glacier in the middle then Franz Josef curving right. Tasman Lake (largest at front) is at the foot of the Tasman glacier which runs along the front of them. The Hooker Glacier flows out behind Mt Cook coming down to meet the Mueller Glacier on the left of the photo. The Murchison Glacier is at the front of the photo running parallel with the Tasman Glacier"

"Another great pass over Patagonia and a swirling plankton bloom off the coast"

"We dont often get such clear views of Alaska"

"Lights along the Nile stretching into the distance from Cairo"

"The Pacific Ring of Fire clear to see amongst the volcanoes of Kamchatka, Russia"

"Im guessing there was an impressive storm going on under that cumulonimbus cloud"

"Night-time Sahara you can really see how thin the Earths atmosphere is in this picture"

"Tokyo and Japanese coast. This image shows most of Japan with the largest mass of light corresponding to Tokyo. The white lights on the left are fishing boats"

"Morning sun striking active volcanoes in Guatemala"

"The vast waters of the Tapajos river, Amazonia"

"Beautiful glacial river water flowing from this Patagonian ice field Lake Viedma, West is up"

"Minus the #Dragon photobomb this time..."

"Sediment spilling into this mountain lake, Ethiopia"

"We have phases of short nights on the International Space Station sunlight is nearly always visible right now. No prizes for guessing where this is"

"From one mighty ocean to another ships passing through the Panama canal"

Mr Musk unveiled the Starship spacecraft in September, claiming it would be ready to carry humans to Mars within a few years.

This is going to sound totally nuts, but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months, he said at the event in Texas.

The billionaire polymath also reiterated his belief that humanity needs to colonise the Moon, Mars and other parts of space in order to ensure its survival.

Elon Musk shared a picture of what the Starship rocket will look like(Elon Musk)

In order to achieve this, the company has ushered in a number of groundbreaking innovations to vastly reduce the cost of space travel, including reusable rockets that can land vertically following take off.

We need to make space travel like air travel. Any other mode of transport is reusable so the critical breakthrough is a rapidly reusable orbital rocket this is the holy grail of space, he said.

"I think we should really do our best to become a multi-planet species, and we should do it now."

Social media is an increasingly important battle ground in elections - and home to many questionable claims pumped out by all sides. If social media sites won't investigate the truth of divisive advertising, we will. Please send any political Facebook advertising you receive todigitaldemocracy@independent.co.uk, and we will catalogue and investigate it.Read more here.

See the article here:

SpaceX rocket that Elon Musk wants to take people to Mars in explodes during tests - The Independent

If you're looking to plan a space-themed trip but you've already been to NASA's Kennedy and Johnson space centers, Atlas Obscura's new book can offer off-the-beaten-path cosmic destinations.

"Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders" (Workman Publishing, 2019) offers around-the-world destination recommendations for travelers looking for something unusual. Based on the website of the same name, the book was written by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton and covers oddities of every nature. Plenty of those recommendations touch on spaceflight and related topics.

Perhaps you'd like to see icons of spaceflight itself: the book recommends stops like Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where Russian Soyuz vehicles still launch to the International Space Station. Or visit Australia's museum dedicated to the Skylab station that fell out of the sky.

Related: 5 Great Summer Vacation Ideas for Space Lovers

Or, if you're more interested in science destinations, consider visiting facilities like Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia or the Large Zenith Telescope with its mercury mirror in Canada.

Museum options abound, including historic planetariums, Germany's space travel museum, a museum dedicated to Galileo Galilei (and his preserved middle finger) and the Shanghai Astronomical Museum.

"Atlas Obscura" also offers places to see where space and Earth intersect, from finding Libyan desert glass to visiting Namibia's massive Hoba meteorite, left where it fell since it's too massive to move.

Or, of course, you could take the alien route. Consider the Betty and Barney Hill Archive in New Hampshire, dedicated to alien abduction accounts; stop by memorials of encounters with UFOs in Poland and Sweden, or even visit a would-be alien welcome center in South Carolina.

The book explores plenty of other space-related destinations as well. It's not quite the same as visiting space but we can't all be astronauts.

You can buy Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders at Amazon.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

See the rest here:

New 'Atlas Obscura' Book Offers Host of Space Oddities to Visit on Earth - Space.com

A FORMERFife miner who has devised a series of inventions around dissolving materials including bandages and wipes has linked up with scientists at Strathclyde University to develop ways of tackling waste in space.

Brian McCormack has already developed a suite of dissolvable products he believes could transform the way healthcare professionals would treat burns, as well as flushable wipes.

The 62-year-old, who set up McCormack Innovation to develop his products, has now entered a five-year agreement to explore ways of tackling waste in space.

The next stage of the race will be in deep space, and Mr McCormack hopes Scotland will be at the forefront of developing sustainable space travel.

Mr McCormack has created a group of inventions that include a dissolvable bandage that works like conventional crepe dressings, yet can be removed by placing in water.

READ MORE:SpaceX launches supplies to International Space Station after power delays

He is also in advanced discussions with a number of global companies over taking his products to market.

Now he has linked up with experts at the to Strathclyde Aerospace Centre of Excellence to develop new products for space use.

The growing problem of waste in space prompted NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to launch a contest for ideas for tackling rubbish and other waste generated by space crew on long-range human space exploration missions, such as to the Moon or Mars.

Four astronauts can generate 2,500 kilograms of waste in a one-year mission.

Above:NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Expedition 30 flight engineer, is pictured among stowage bags in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. The bags, containing waste, will be transferred to the docked Progress 45 spacecraft for disposal. Credit: NASA

There is already an issue of waste material in space left over by earlier rockets, with between 16,000 and 20,000 pieces being tracked orbiting Earth.

Waste disposal methods on the International Space Station involve astronauts manually processing refuse by placing it into bags then loading it onto a designated vehicle for short term storage, which depending on the craft, returns the refuse to Earth or burns up in the atmosphere.

However, this disposal method will not be available for missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

READ MORE: Former Fife miner invents soluble bandages that could ease pain of millions

Mr McCormack said: Currently general waste on the international space station - packaging, wipes, everything - is put in bags and stored in a capsule.

The capsule is then released from the space station, the capsule enters the Earths atmosphere and burns up on entry like a meteor would.

This is planned so the burn up happens above the Pacific Ocean and at times the rubbish is taken away by a visiting commercial vehicle that returns to Earth.

This system works for low Earth orbit but not for deep space travel. In deep space there will not be the luxury of visiting commercial vehicles to take the rubbish away."

Above: NASA: 'We are going to the Moon by 2024.' Credit: NASA

Mr McCormacksaid:In deep space if you released a waste capsule it would not be pulled back into the Earths atmosphere and burn up, it would travel at dangerously high speeds and pollute space.

NASA has reached out to innovators and industry to develop a system that could solve this problem of disposal of waste in deep space. This is a major challenge.

McCormack Innovation, who have developed the worlds first dissolving wipe, could see opportunity to introduce items of every day use in space travel that would dissolve after use.

The biomedical tested wipe is one. Dissolving toilet paper and other packaging is also included.

READ MORE: Watch: Former Fife miner's soluble bandage 'could revolutionise trauma and burns care'

The company agreed the link-up after a meeting with a team of space academics led by Professor Max Vasile and Dr Monica Oliveira.

Mr McCormack said: It will be an honour for McCormack Innovation to work alongside this team on this project of dissolving waste in space, and making a very important contribution to deep space travel. Again, first-class innovation coming out Scotland.

Dr Oliveira, senior lecturer in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, said: Waste management is a great challenge in space, especially in the context of long-duration space missions. Any innovative solutions that help to mitigate issues of waste are key for sustainable long-duration human space travel.

Original post:

Former miner turned inventor in link-up with space centre to tackle waste in space - HeraldScotland

Putting astronauts into a state of suspended animation during long distance space travel is a staple of science fiction. Now, the European Space Agency (ESA) has investigated how such a technologyif it existed in real lifecould work and what its impacts would be on the designs of potential missions to Mars or other worlds.

The key finding of this investigation is that missions which made use of human hibernation would require much less physical space than normal, according to the space agency's Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) and SciSpacE team.

The research assessed human hibernation on a hypothetical mission to send six humans to Mars and back over five years.

"We worked on adjusting the architecture of the spacecraft, its logistics, protection against radiation, power consumption and overall mission design," Robin Biesbroek from the CDF said in a statement.

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

The CDF assumed that the astronauts would be induced into hibernation using drugs while inside small individual "soft-shell pods." The pods would be darkened and cooled to keep the bodies of the astronauts at a low temperature for most of the 180-day journey from Earth to Mars.

Before going into hibernation, the crew would have to put on extra body fatjust like hibernating animals do in the wild. Furthermore, the astronauts would go through a 21-day recuperation period after waking up in order to give their bodies time to recover.

An added bonus of human hibernation is that mission designers may be able to better protect astronauts from harmful radiationone of the main hazards of deep space travel. The crew would spend most of the mission in their pods, which could be protected by special shielding.

However, one challenge in any mission involving human hibernation, the CDF said, is that it would have to be largely automated and equipped with an artificial intelligence system that could deal with technical issues until the crew can be revived.

Importantly, the study found that hibernation technology may enable mission designers to reduce spacecraft mass by a third because the crew quarters would no longer be necessary, not to mention several tons of consumable items. The hibernation pods would double as cabins while the astronauts are awake.

"For a while now hibernation has been proposed as a game-changing tool for human space travel," Jennifer Ngo-Anh from the SciSpacE team said in a statement. "If we were able to reduce an astronaut's basic metabolic rate by 75 percentsimilar to what we can observe in nature with large hibernating animals such as certain bearswe could end up with substantial mass and cost savings, making long-duration exploration missions more feasible."

It is important to note that currently there is no proven technology available that can place humans into a hibernation-like state. However, this is not to say that it is beyond the realms of possibility in the future.

"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," Ngo-Anh said.

"Most major medical centers 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," she said.

Read the rest here:

This Is How Putting Astronauts Into Hibernation Could Work on a Mission to Mars - Newsweek

Journeys to other star systems will forever be out of reach unless a massive breakthrough in physics makes faster-than-light travel a reality, or a breakthrough in medicine makes suspended animation possible.Now, at least, one of those things has happened.

Samuel Tisherman, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is the leader of a team that has successfully put a human being in suspended animation.

Describing the successful operation as a little surreal, Professor Tisherman told New Scientist how he removed the patients blood and replaced with ice-cold saline solution.

The patient, technically dead at this point, was removed from the cooling system and taken to an operating theatre for a two-hour surgical procedure before having their blood restored and being warmed to the normal temperature of 37C.

Prof Tisherman says he will be producing a full account of the procedure in a scientific paper in the new year.

He says that his focus is on pausing life long enough to perform emergency surgery rather than sending astronauts on interstellar journeys.

He tells the story of a young man who was stabbed over a row in a bowling alley: He was a healthy young man just minutes before, then suddenly he was dead. We could have saved him if wed had enough time.

His suspended animation technique is intended as a way of securing that extra time.

I want to make clear that were not trying to send people off to Saturn, he says. Were trying to buy ourselves more time to save lives.

But inevitably space agencies such as NASA and the ESA as well as more ambitious tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will be taken a keen interest in Prof Tishermans paper when it is published in 2020.

A journey to Saturn can take up to seven years, so keeping the crew on ice might be easier than keeping them healthy and happy for all that time.

While Prof Tisherman has released this news of one successful trial, there is no word on how many previous attempts were made with critical patients before this.

The experiment was given the go-ahead by the US Food and Drug Administration. The FDA waived the usual requirement for patient consent in this case as the patient could not be saved by any other means.

At the moment, the biggest obstacle to reliable animation of a patient who has been super-cooled in this way is cell damage as they are re-warmed so-called reperfusion injuries.

Prof Tisherman says that there may be a drug, or cocktail of drugs, that can help minimise these injuries but, he says: but we havent identified all the causes of reperfusion injuries yet.

Once he has, whether or not he wants to send a refrigerated crew to Saturn, its likely that sooner or later thats exactly what will happen.

Read more here:

Space travel barrier removed as docs freeze and revive human for first time - Daily Star

In this episode of the podcast Unwrap Your Candies Now, Ernie Manouse interviews Jeff Miller (director) and Tamarie Cooper (cast member and co-artistic director) about Baby Screams Miracle by Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Clare Barron. Described as a funny, moving tale of faith and survival, the show is being produced by The Catastrophic Theatre from November 22 December 15 at MATCH.

Then, Catherine Lu chats with Houston Symphony Composer-in-Residence Jimmy Lpez Bellido about his World Premiere Symphony No. 2, Ad Astra, dedicated to NASA and inspired by space travel. A culmination of his three-year residency, the piece is also a kind of love letter to Houston. Performances are December 5, 7 and 8 at Jones Hall.

Share your comments, questions and ideas at UYCN@houstonpublicmedia.org.

Music used: Invention No. 13 by J.S. Bach performed by Andrs Schiff and Symphony No. 2, Ad Astra by Jimmy Lpez Bellido (rehearsal excerpts) performed by the Houston Symphony, Music Director Andrs Orozco-Estrada

View original post here:

Catastrophic Theatre Produces A Tale Of Faith And Survival For The Holidays, Plus Composer Jimmy Lpez Bellido Writes A Musical Love Letter To NASA -...

Is our fundamental reality continuous or is it chopped up into tiny, discrete bits?

Asked another way, is space-time smooth or chunky? The question cuts to the heart of the most fundamental theories of physics, linking together the way space and time intersect with the material of our everyday existence.

However, experimentally testing the nature of space and time has been impossible, because of the extreme energies needed to probe such tiny scales in the universe. That is until now. A team of astronomers has proposed an ambitious new plan to use a fleet of tiny spacecraft to detect subtle changes in the speed of light, a hallmark of some of the most mind-bending theories of the cosmos. If space and time are indeed broken up into little bits, the research could pave the way for a completely new understanding of reality.

Related: The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

The question of "what is space and time?" goes back thousands of years, and our modern understanding rests on two strangely incompatible pillars: quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity.

In general relativity, space and time are woven together into the unified fabric of space-time, the four-dimensional stage that underpins our universe. This space-time is continuous, which means that there are no gaps anywhere; it's all a smooth texture. Space-time isn't just a platform for us to act our parts, however; it's also a player too: The bending and warping of space-time gives us our experience of gravity.

Related: 8 Ways You Can See Einstein's Theory of Relativity in Real Life

In the opposite corner, a set of rules called quantum mechanics governs the interactions of the very tiny things in the universe. Quantum mechanics rests on the idea that not much of our everyday experience is smooth and continuous, but chunky. In other words, it's quantized. Energy, momentum, spin and so many other properties of matter come in only discrete little packets.

What's more, quantum mechanics itself also splits itself into two camps. On one hand, we have the familiar particles of our everyday existence, such as electrons and protons, that interact and do other interesting things. These are obviously very chunky, as they're discrete "things." On the other hand, we have the quantum fields. In the subatomic world, each kind of particle has its own field that spreads throughout space-time; when we think of particles, we think of little vibrations in their fields, which in turn interact with other particles, and do some other interesting things. The fields are understandably very smooth.

So, we have some smooth pictures of our universe and some chunky ones. When it comes to space-time itself, we can easily imagine extending the concepts of quantum mechanics all the way to their logical conclusion, and ruling that space and time are discrete: The very fabric of reality is divided up like pixels on a computer screen, and what we experience as smooth, continuous movement is nothing but a grid of discrete pixels at the tiniest of scales.

Related: The Illusion of Time: What's Real?

Many theories of merging together quantum mechanics and general relativity, like string theory and loop quantum gravity, predict some form of discrete space-time (although the precise predictions, interpretations and implications of that chunkiness are still poorly understood). If we could find evidence for discrete space-time, it would not only completely rewrite our understanding of reality, but also open the door to a revolution in physics.

This discreteness can reveal itself only in the most subtle ways; otherwise we would've spotted it by now. Various theories have predicted that if space-time were indeed chunky, then the speed of light may not be entirely constant it may shift ever so slightly depending on the energy of that light. Higher energy light has a shorter wavelength, and when the wavelength becomes small enough, it can "see" the chunkiness of spacetime. Imagine walking down sidewalk: with big feet you don't notice any small cracks or bumps, but if you had microscopic feet you would trip over every little imperfection, slowing you down. But this shift is incredibly tiny; if space-time is discrete, it's on a scale more than a billion times smaller than what we can currently probe in our most powerful experiments.

Enter GrailQuest: the Gamma-ray Astronomy International Laboratory for Quantum Exploration of Space-Time. A team of astronomers submitted a proposal for this mission in response to a call for new space-time-hunting ideas from the European Space Agency (ESA). Their proposal is detailed in the arXiv database, meaning that it hasn't yet been reviewed by peers in the field.

Here's the scoop: In order to see if the speed of light changes with different energies, we need to collect a huge amount of the highest-energy light in the universe, and GrailQuest hopes to do just that.

GrailQuest consists of a fleet of small, simple spacecraft (the exact number varies, from just a few dozen if the satellites are larger to well over a few thousand if they're smaller) to constantly monitor the sky for gamma-ray bursts. These are some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Like their name suggests, these bursts release copious amounts of high-energy photons, a.k.a. gamma rays. These gamma rays travel across billions of years before reaching the fleet of spacecraft, which record the energy of the gamma rays and the differences in timings as the burst washes over the fleet.

With enough accuracy, GrailQuest might be able to reveal if space-time is discrete. At least, it has the right setup: It's examining the highest-energy light (which is affected the most in theories that predict that space-time is chunky); the gamma rays have been traveling for billions of light-years (allowing the effect to build up over time); and the spacecraft are simple enough to produce en masse (so the entire fleet can see as many events as possible, all across the sky).

How would our conceptions of reality change if GrailQuest were to find evidence for the discreteness of space-time? It's impossible to say our current theories are all over the map when it comes to implications. But no matter what, we're going to have to wait. This round of ESA proposals is for launches sometime between 2035 and 2050. While we're waiting, we can debate if the time elapsed between now and then is fundamentally smooth or chunky.

Paul M. Sutteris an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of Your Place in the Universe.

Originally published on Live Science.

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What If Space-Time Were 'Chunky'? It Would Forever Change the Nature of Reality. - Livescience.com

A couple of years ago, I brought you guys news that Star Citizen was collaborating with a company called MyRadar that makes a weather app for phones. Its a terrestrial weather app but has a twist. The CEO of MyRadar, Andy Green also happens to be a Star Citizen backer so he decided to add some of the in game planets into MyRadar and this partnership with Cloud Imperium Games was announced 2 years ago at CitizenCon.

Well, that collaboration has continued, and today we bring you exclusive news of its latest evolution, an evolution which will see MyRadar and Star Citizen going to space properly! MyRadar is launching a satellite into space and in a crazy twist, the Star Citizen backer decided that he would put the Star Citizen logo on the satellite itself so that it will make Star Citizen the first videogame in space! This is no glory project and as you'll see in the video and interview below, has real world implications that will help real people.

Star Citizen Introduces Theatres of War Game Mode Foot, Vehicles and Space Combat

This news obviously comes ahead of this years CitizenCon event tomorrow which well be covering. Lets just say that a weather app with in game weather may just prove useful in future versions if some of the rumours circulating are to be believed...

For now though, I got to ask Andy Green a few questions about the satellite that MyRadar will be launching. They've made a video talking a bit about it and from the (admittedly little) I understand about real world space and satellites this sounds amazing. Check the video out here:

Wccftech: Space! It's amazing, what the Star Citizen community is doing and launching a satellite is unbelievable! Given MyRadar is a weather app, can I assume that the satellite will be for giving you guys more granular data to use within the app?

Andy Green: This first satellite is an introductory satellite that will be a testbed for the aviation side of our business; it will listen to aircraft tracking signals from space and transmit them back down to the ground. This is incredibly helpful as present day infrastructure requires an aircraft to be in range of a ground-based tracking station in order to receive timely information on it. Receiving the signals from space will allow us to track trans-oceanic aircraft, which would have been a tremendous help locating some high-profile missing aircraft tragedies in the last decade.

Our second satellite, already in development, will be our testbed for weather-related sensing. It will look down upon the earth using a patent-pending imaging technique, and the data we get back from the observations will help with everything from hurricane predictions to agricultural analysis.

Star Citizen Introduces microTech Planet and Anvil Carrack, Pisces Ships

W: How did the idea to launch your own satellite first come about? I can't imagine that many other weather companies have their own satellites.

AG: Essentially, we saw a gap in the ability to provide some of the data we're about to start collecting with the new satellites, and with launch costs coming down and our in-house technical capabilities up to the challenge, we decided to move ahead and launch our own. The aircraft tracking data will be able to provide an important safety service that frankly should have been in place long ago, and the weather/environmental observation satellite with its unique image processing will give us some incredible insight that no one else is able to provide. We'll be able to provide all of this data through the MyRadar app to the millions of people who use it every day, including the ability to task satellites to take custom imagery.

W: What type of satellite is it? Who makes it? What company will launch it?

AG: We are engineering and building both satellites in-house. The first satellite is a pocket-cube satellite. It'll be launching into space very shortly on the Rocket Labs "We're Running Out of Fingers" mission, with our launch partner Alba Orbital. The launch window opens this month on November 28th

W: I assume given it's a satellite, it'll have lots of sensing equipment in it, which ship would you most closely associate it with from Star Citizen? The Carrack perhaps as an explorer?

AG: Given its smaller size and specific mission, I think I'd most closely associate it with the Terrapin! It's designed to hide out quietly in space, slipping "under the radar", and its main mission is to track other vehicles and relay that data back to command

W: Star Citizen stuff, what specific artwork will be going up on the satellite? Will it be on the outside? Inside? Both?

AG: The cubesat will have the Star Citizen logo emblazoned on the exterior of one size of the satellite. Check out this promo video we made where you can see it!

W: Do you REALLY need a satellite for myradar or is this just your way of getting in to space while we wait for affordable commercial space travel??

AG: As the initial satellites are just the testbeds, their early-stage purpose is to establish the workflow and proof of concepts, but both of them will still be fully functional. It's the intention to launch a constellation of the satellites to allow us more global coverage for both services each satellite was designed to address.

In the case of the aircraft tracker (the one launching soon), this is part of ACME AtronOmatic, LLC's original core business (ACME is the parent company of the MyRadar app). MyRadar currently provides aircraft tracking services as well as arrival and departure delay information, gate information, and other flight details that can assist both the casual traveler and aircraft pilots/operators.

In the case of the weather/environmental satellite, the new types of imagery we'll be able to collect will, among a plethora of other tasks, be able to look inside the eye wall of a hurricane with a 3D perspective, allowing us to get greater details on the intensity and temperatures at the center of these storms. This data can then in turn be used as inputs to existing forecast models to provide for greater accuracy in tracking these deadly storms. The satellite will also be equipped with a visual-spectrum camera, so we'll be able provide both the custom data imaging and regular visual imaging of the earth below, and we'll be able to offer these on-demand to users right from the app.

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Exclusive Star Citizen Goes to ACTUAL SPACE with MyRadar! - Wccftech

AS NASA gears up to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, scientists are brewing new ways to help them survive the trip.

One wacky option is to modify the DNA of space explorers to make them super strong and cancer or pain resistant using controversial gene-editing technology.

Much like Sam Worthington in the 2018 Sci-Fi flick The Titan, astronauts would be engineered to deal with the toll of long-distance space travel.

Nasa-backed researchers have already begun to investigate the possibility, reports The Times.

One experiment at Cornell University in New York is looking at taking a gene from a tiny but hardy creature and inserting it into humans.

The tardigrade, also known as the water bear, is smaller than a grain of table salt with a remarkable resistance to cosmic radiation.

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Scientists hope to take the gene that grants them this resistance and implant it into astronauts to help them survive the cancer-causing cosmic rays they'll face during space missions.

"We'll protect the astronauts physically, we'll protect them pharmacologically," Dr Christopher Mason, lead scientists on the project, told The Times.

"But could we protect them genetically, with armour on the inside of their cells?"

The technology faces huge ethical and legal hurdles, and remains decades away from ever being implemented.

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It involves taking the super-gene in question and using a virus to permanently weave it into a person's DNA.

Scientists still have no idea what the long-term effects such a change might have on someone's mental and physical health.

More than 40 other genes that could benefit astronauts have been tracked down by Harvard University geneticist Professor George Church.

One, found in Tibetans, allows them to function at the top of mountains, where there is very little oxygen.

What is gene editing?

Here's what you need to know...

Transferred to astronauts, the trait could help them survive on a limited supply of the gas.

Other genes promise to boost memory and strength, or make someone less sensitive to pain or anxiety.

One, known as the ABC11 gene, is linked with sweat that doesn't smell as bad, potentially benefiting space explorers in cramped spaces.

Gene scientists Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the Francis Crick Institute in London, told The Timesthat the tardigrade DNA idea was "an interesting one, but I suspect rather premature".

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Each change to human DNA would need to go through lengthy assessments for safety and efficacy, he added.

"And there is a question as to who would volunteer to have probably permanent changes made to their [DNA]," Professor Lovell-Badge said.

"It's a type of enhancement which could be considered to be for social rather than personal gain."

Even those behind the experiment admit it's a long way off from a fully-fledged Nasa programme.

How long does it take to get to Mars?

It's not that short of a trip...

"I don't have any plans of having engineered astronauts in the next one to two decades," lead scientist Dr Mason told an audience at a US space conference last month.

Speaking at the 8th Human Genetics in NYC Conference, he said he hoped to have confirmed the modification worked on humans some time in the next two decades.

"If we have another 20 years of pure discovery and mapping and functional validation of what we think we know, maybe by 20 years from now, I'm hoping we could be at the stage where we would be able to say we can make a human that could be better surviving on Mars," Dr Mason said.

In other space news, a bug expert claimed this week that he'd found evidence of insects living on Mars.

A crackpot conspiracy theorist said he'd dug up evidence of asarcophagus on the Red Planet in Nasa photos published in August.

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And, Nasa recently managed to record the incredible sound of a "Marsquake" -which you can listen to here.

What do you think of the bonkers GM plan? Let us know in the comments!

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Nasa could create GM astronauts designed to be super-strong and feel no pain and send them to Mars - The Sun

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In the 21 years since the launch of the International Space Station (ISS), 239 astronauts from 19 countries have visited.

This includes 151 Americans, 47 Russians, three Germans and just one Brit Timothy Peake.

Selected as an ESA astronaut in 2009, 47-year-old Peake graduated from basic astronaut training in 2010 before three years conducting further training and working as a communicator with the ISS prior to being assigned a long-duration mission in 2013.

The Chichester-born astronaut spent six months at the space station from December 15, 2015 to June 18, 2016. During this time Peake conducted a spacewalk to repair the Stations power supply, drove a rover across a simulated Mars terrain and ran the London marathon using the space stations treadmill.

NASA discovers 'mind boggling' oxygen fluctuations on Mars

Upon his arrival back to earth, Peake was awarded a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the Queens 2016 Birthday Honours for services to space research and scientific education.

US President Ronald Reagan first directed NASA to build the ISS within the next 10 years in 1984 but it wasnt until 1998 that the first segment of the ISS launched, taking over 10 years and more than 30 missions to assemble

Two years later, on November 2, 2000, American Commander Bill Shepherd, and Russian Flight Engineers Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev became the first crew to reside for several months in the station.

Expedition 1's crew, American Commander Bill Shepherd, and Russian Flight Engineers Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev (AFP/Getty Images)

There are currently five members on board the ISS: NASA astronaut Drew Morgan, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, plus the newest arrivals, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka.

In June this year, NASA announced it will allow tourists to visit the ISS from 2020 at a price of $35,000 (27,100) per night. The space agency saidthere will be up to two private short astronaut missions per year and the tourists will be permitted to travel to the ISS for up to 30 days - the beginning of a new era of space tourism.

Click through the gallery above to see some of the most incredible images of the International Space Station from the past 21 years.

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The most incredible images of the International Space Station as it turns 21 - Evening Standard

A self-declared space nation that wants to operate a fully-functioning society in space has started laying out its vision for establishing an off-world colony.

The Space Kingdom of Asgardia is a genuine project to set up a nation entirely in space, with hundreds of thousands of members paying "residency'" fees and a parliament that is in the process of forming the foundations for its society.

Ambitiously, the space nation is looking to the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to get them there. Both billionaires have also set up commercial space firms.

The project, founded by billionaire Russian scientist and politician Igor Ashurbeyli, is currently chaired by former British politician Lembit Opik.

"The obvious candidates are SpaceX and Blue Origin," Opik told Business Insider, citing Musk and Bezos' respective ventures in interstellar travel. "They're the best game in town in terms of space launches. Their rockets are the taxis that can take us where we want to go."

But can the dream of Asgardia ever become a reality? In an interview with Business Insider, Opik showed a passion for statecraft, detailing every facet of his space-based society, including an overview in foreign policy, banking regulation, business opportunities, and the creation of a new digital currency called "Solar."

"First, there will be the businesses operating within Asgardia itself, and we've already got a small list of candidates there, who could provide us with goods and services, such as ballpoint pens designed to be used in space, specific types of insurance for space-dwellers - whatever," he said.

"Then of course, there will be businesses who want to sell us things, like Mr Musk or Mr Bezos... If you've got a big rocket and can take us into space, we might buy it off you," he added.

Asgardia was founded by Ashurbeyli in 2016 - or "Year 0" in the Asgardian calendar - and it now boasts an elected body of 150 members from all over the world, after online elections last year. Its incumbent Prime Minister is Ana Diaz, a lawyer from Venezuela, and its chief justice is Zhao Yun, a fellow lawyer from Hong Kong. Opik was voted in last year as head of parliament.

Ashurbeyli is understood to have invested around $12 million of his own money into the project to date, while another $2 million has been paid in by members of the public.

At present, Asgardia has three tiers of members: "followers", "residents", and "citizens."

According to Opik, more than a million followers have already signed up for free worldwide, while another 300,000 are paying an annual 100 ($110) residency fee. This weekend, he and his colleagues in the Asgardian parliament will debate how much to charge for citizenship (i.e. those eligible to live on Asgardia when it is launched).

"We are planning for the long-term," he said. "So we've got to make sure we get everything absolutely right."

"I'd rather be a day-tripper than a homesteader," he said. "My job is to help the settlement of space but probably not settle there myself."

In 2017, the kingdom sent its first satellite into Earth's orbit, making it, in its own words, "the first nation to have all of its territory in space".

The tiny satellite, Asgardia-1, is currently floating around Earth and about the size of a loaf of bread. It contains a 512GB hard drive loaded with "the nation's constitutions, national symbols, and the personally-selected data of the Asgardian citizenship".

Under the rules of the United Nations, Asgardia could technically qualify for recognition as a state, as more than 100,000 people look set to apply for citizenship. But it's unlikely it will be acknowledged as a sovereign nation any time soon.

Business Insider previously contacted the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to clarify whether current space law would permit the existence of a nation or territory in space. They directed us to the text of five UN treaties that govern activities in space.

Article II of the first and most important part of that legal framework, called the Outer Space Treaty, prohibits "national appropriation" of anything in outer space "by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means".

But Opik remains optimistic despite the opposition, telling us the project has "taken up so much of [his] life". Once established, he insists Asgardia will take a neutral stance on all Earthly matters. "We will not interfere in Earthly matters, and we hope they would not interfere in ours... We want what any sovereign nation wants: recognition."

Elon Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

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A self-declared space nation called Asgardia is planning a fully functioning space economy and wants help from - Business Insider India

Fans of Hugh Laurie rejoice. The talented actor will be returning to American television in a new show, Avenue 5. Laurie is probably best known for his Emmy-nominated turn as the titular doctor on the show House MD. Although, some fans may recognize him for his early work as a well-known British comedian. His new project, Avenue 5, is described as a sci-comedy about a pleasure cruise in space gone wrong. Interested viewers can tune into HBO in January 2020, to watch the shows premiere. In the meantime, heres everything you need to know about the show.

The series is set in the not too distant future, 40 years from now. It starts out with what sounds like a dream vacation: a luxury cruise through space. Unfortunately, that dream takes a dark turn. At the center of the plot is the titular spaceship, Avenue 5. The cruise will face an unspecified problem at some point in its journey, causing distress for both the passengers and the crew. Overall, the series is said to be about space tourism. Most of the action will also take place in space, with only one major character having a role set on earth. Its doubtful that the show will stay so narrow in focus though. Knowing the production team, it will probably tackle quite a few topics. In terms of tone, the show is another in a new resurgence of sci-fi comedies. As a whole, sci-fi has grown in popularity over the last few years, owing to a slew of excellent genre films. On television, shows like The Orville have proven that people enjoy smart, humorous sci-fi. Avenue 5 seeks to round out that group by adding its own spin to the space travel narrative. Expect a lot of satire and plenty of irony from this new show, setting it apart from some of the lighter fare.

Hugh Laurie takes the lead role as Ryan Clark, the captain of the ship. Hes a charming, ideal leader, who has mastered his public appearance. As for his real personality, that may not be as perfect. With him in the disaster are the ships billionaire owner, Herman Judd, and his go-to woman, Iris Kimura. (Played by Josh Gad and Suzy Nakamura, respectively.) Although on the ship with everyone else, its clear from the trailer that these two have other priorities besides passenger safety. Theyre more caught up in preserving Hermans life and fortune. Other key characters include Matt Spencer, played by Zach Woods, and Rav Mulcair, played by Nikki Amuka-Bird.

Fans of The Office will probably recognize Zach Woods from his role as Gabe. Woods gamely portrayed Gabes particular brand of strangeness, so hes sure to shine in his new role as Matt Spencer. Spencer is in charge of customer relations on the ship, although his nihilism may make that job difficult. Meanwhile, Rav Mulcair is on earth, trying to deal with the disaster as the head of mission control. Shes described as being odd, although its not clear how that aspect of her personality will come into play. Ethan Phillips, Lenora Crichlow, Rebecca Front round out the rest of the cast, as key passengers and crew aboard the vessel. Theyre all on board for different reasons, but its clear theyre not the sort to sit calmly in a disaster.

The show was created for HBO by Armando Ianucci. Fans of television may recognize Ianucci as the creator of another great comedy, Veep. Veep was a very different show, focused on modern politics, rather than future space exploration. Having run for seven seasons, the show was much loved and earned numerous awards. Despite a change in location and genre, expect Ianucci to bring his same biting wit to Avenue 5. Even though the show is set in the future, its clear that it will satirize issues currently faced by viewers. In the trailer, there are already signs that classism and capitalism are both going to get the comedy treatment. Other executive producers on the show include Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Kevin Loader and Will Smith. As a team, theyre bringing experience from movies like My Cousin Rachel, and other satirical shows like Succession. Many of them have also worked together previously with Iannucci, on Veep.

Currently, you can only watch Avenue 5 on HBO. If you have HBO through your cable provider, you can watch it on TV like any other prime-time show. Youll also have access to recording and On Demand services, depending on your plan. For anyone who has cut the cord with cable, you can still enjoy the show. Download the HBO Go app, or add HBO as part of a Hulu streaming subscription. Keep in mind, with both options you will have to pay in order to access the HBO show library. If you do use Hulu or HBO go, youll also be able to stream the show. This means you can watch it on any device, including your television. Hulu is compatible with a range of devices, including Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV Stick.

Its hard not to have high expectations for Avenue 5s premiere, especially given its cast and production crew. Veteran actors like Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad are sure to deliver. Theyve both done comedy and drama, which is ideal for satire work. And many of the other cast members have proven their comedic chops as well. The show runners are equally adept, having a wealth of successful television shows and movies between them. With so much talent at the helm, its hard to see Avenue 5 being a flop. At the very least, the show will be good for a few laughs. Check it out in January 2020 to see if you agree.

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Hugh Laurie is Back on TV With Avenue 5 - TVOvermind

Hollywood loves making movies set in outer space. But how does the actual science in these films measure up? Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut and a former director of space operations at SpaceX, reacts to 10 memorable scenes from famous space movies, rating each scenario based on its accuracy. Find out what black holes, microgravity, nitrogen jetpacks, vacuum chambers, sound waves, polycarbonate visors, centrifugal forces, the Coriolis effect, and lunar soil tell us about the accuracy of iconic space movies.

Can you hear something explode in the vacuum of space? Is it possible for spaceships to run out of fuel in the middle of space travel? Why do movies often get it wrong when it comes to rotating space stations? Reisman explains the science underlying these and many other space movie phenomena, including the physics of the Death Star in "Star Wars"; dangerous space debris in "Gravity"; artificial gravity plates in "Star Trek"; Matt Damons Iron Man stunt in "The Martian"; crash-landing on a desert planet in "Spaceballs"; and event horizons, wormholes, and Einsteins theory of relativity in "Interstellar." What went so horribly wrong in the real-life NASA Apollo 13 mission and did the 1995 Tom Hanks movie get all its facts right?

He breaks down why scuba divers and astronauts both have to worry about decompression sickness, what's with the bending light inside the tesseract in "Interstellar," why Sandra Bullock should have held on to George Clooney in "Gravity," why Chris Pratt would get something called barotrauma in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1," and whats so impressive about Stanley Kubrick's depiction of Space Station V, the fictional spinning spacecraft in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Reisman is a NASA veteran who was selected as a mission specialist astronaut in 1998 and went on to fly on all three of NASA's space shuttles: the Space Shuttle Endeavour, the Space Shuttle Discovery, and the Space Shuttle Atlantis. He's spent months at a time on the International Space Station and performed three spacewalks over the course of his missions. Post-NASA, Reisman went on to head space operations at Elon Musk's SpaceX from 2011 to 2018, helping the aerospace company prepare for human spaceflight. He continues to serve SpaceX as a senior space advisor while also teaching at the University of Southern California Viterbi School as a professor of astronautical engineering. Reisman's been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and has been featured on "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert.

Reisman is the author of the upcoming book "Down to Earth."

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http://garrettreisman.com/

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NASA astronaut rates space movies based on how realistic they are - Yahoo News

A crass animated television show on Adult Swim isn't the first place you'd think to turn for realistic scientific ideas. Yet, Rick and Morty finds a way to sneak in more real-world science than your average issue of Nature, between copious jokes about buttholes and existential despair.

Of course, not all of the episodes are focused on lampooning cutting edge technology and hypotheses. Take this week's episode, "The Old Man and the Seat," for instance, which focused almost entirely on Rick's particular bathroom habits.

Despite the occasional detour toward literal potty humor, though, the show's real bread and butter often comes down to scientific deep-cuts. Across its three seasons, with the fourth airing now, Rick and Morty has touched on dozens of concepts that have their roots in actual scientific inquiry, from the multiverse to hive minds and mech suits. Just to name a few.

But none of those adventures happen at all if Rick can't traverse existence with Morty in tow. One of the ways he does that is by use of his ship, which, according to the Season 1 episode "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!," is powered by concentrated dark matter.

After finding himself at the mercy of nefarious aliens (nefarious being a variable term in the Rick and Morty world), Rick realizes he's been placed inside an artificial environment with a single purpose: Uncovering his recipe for concentrated dark matter, the fuel for accelerated space travel.

It's a secret valuable enough that the Zigerions are willing to invest vast technological resources to developing several layers of photo-real simulations to uncover it.

In the end, Rick gets the better of them, delivering a false recipe of two parts plutonic quarks, one part cesium, and a bottle of water. The result is not the promised concentrated dark matter, but instead, a deadly explosion. Zigerions may have incredible simulation tech but they missed a few key chemistry lessons. Cesium is highly reactive and reacts explosively when in contact with water. No word on the impact of adding plutonic quarks.

One is forced to wonder, however, if dark matter would actually make good fuel for a spacecraft.

WHAT IS DARK MATTER?

That is the question. The answer: We don't really know. In fact, we know a whole lot more about what it isn't. For decades, physicists have suspected there was more going on in the universe than we could see. Models of the way stars move give hints at a major player just outside our view.

This is something we've been grappling with for a long time, to varying degrees. The astronomy field has always been plagued with the knowledge that there is more out there than we can see.

Going back centuries, astronomers suspected a large, "dark" object in our solar system. We knew it should be there because of the gravitational pull it exhibited on other nearby objects, yet, observing it was beyond our technological ability at the time. That changed in 1846 when Neptune's existence was confirmed.

Each new discovery chips away at our ignorance and paints a clearer picture of the universe we inhabit. The continued existence of dark matter, in the modern context, only underlines how much we still don't understand, how much there still is to learn. Because things still don't add up.

In short, when we model the universe, the way things move and interact, and the way it expands, we just can't account for our observations with the matter we've been able to identify.

According to NASA, in order to make sense of what we observe, the universe needs to be made up of roughly 68 percent dark energy and 27 percent dark matter, leaving only 5 percent for the sorts of stuff we're familiar with.

We can't account for dark matter with black holes. The number that would be needed in order to fit the bill would result in gravitational lensing all over the place, and we just don't see that. Antimatter also doesn't work, as we're missing the sorts of radiation that would come as a result of matter-antimatter explosions. Basically, all the kinds of matter we know about, in the amounts that would be needed to account for the measured gravity, would have a corresponding signature we could measure. And, yet...

What remains is the conclusion either that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of physics, or there is some other form of matter that we've yet to identify. We've given that stuff, whatever it is, the moniker "dark matter."

That isn't to say scientists have no idea what dark matter is. In fact, all we have are ideas. It's possible that dark matter is, in fact, the normal sorts of stuff, only more difficult to detect; brown dwarfs could account for some it, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and, of course, black holes. Even still, it's unlikely.

The leading hypothesis is that dark matter is comprised of WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles).

These particles are orders of magnitude more massive than protons but have weak interactions, hence the name, making them difficult to detect. There are also hypothetical particles that could fit the bill, but have yet to actually be detected (hence their being hypothetical). That's the sort of thing the Large Hadron Collider might uncover in future experiments, as it smashes protons together hoping to get a glimpse at exotic matter.

A heretofore undiscovered neutrino is another candidate. Neutrinos are common particles. So common that each of us is being bombarded with them all the time. But they rarely interact with matter. Approximately 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second, but detecting them can be difficult. Most neutrinos will pass through you and the rest of the Earth before zipping back out into space without interacting with a single atom along the way.

In an experiment published in the journal Science, researches fired trillions of neutrinos, every second, at a detector for fifteen months. In that time, they measured only 134 interactions. They are incredibly stealthy.

Those scientists banking on a new type of neutrino as a dark matter candidate propose a particle that interacts with matter only by way of gravity. If such a particle were discovered, it would explain the excess gravity in the universe and our inability to see what's causing it.

COULD IT FUEL A SHIP?

That depends entirely on what dark matter turns out to be. If, in the end, we discover that dark matter is the same sort of stuff we're used to, it likely won't offer any new avenues for space travel. But if it turns out to be exotic, if it's something totally new, then it might open the door to some truly astonishing spacecraft.

Using conventional chemical rockets, a trip even to the nearest star would take so long as to make the trip hardly worth taking, at least for humans.

NASA is planning to launch a new spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe, in December 2024. If all goes to plan, it will become the fastest spacecraft to date, clocking in at 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 km/h) at its top speed.

Even at that rate, that craft would take nearly 7,000 years to traverse the 25.67 trillion miles to our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centuari.

The strides we've taken in exploring space over the past several decades are nothing to scoff at, but chemical rockets just aren't terribly efficient and, if we hope to get beyond our own neighborhood, we'll need something new.

That's where dark matter may come in.

Some scientists believe dark matter may be made of particles with no charge, called neutralinos. If that's the case, these particles would also act as their own antiparticles. And, based on what we do know about dark matter, chiefly its abundance in the universe, they'd be free for the taking.

From a practical standpoint, this means you could launch a ship with very little onboard fuel. Additionally, dark matter could be collected while in transit and made to interact with itself, creating antimatter reactions that are 100 percent energy-efficient. Compared to current engines, which operate at less than a percent fuel efficiency, such an engine would entirely change the way we move through space.

According to a paper by Jia Lui, a physicist from New York University, such an engine could accelerate a craft to near the speed of light in a few days. And, from there, not even the sky's the limit.

Whether or not we'll ever uncover precisely what dark matter is, or if it can be utilized for space travel, remains unseen. For now, Rick is keeping that knowledge for himself.

The good news for any Zigerions out there is, once we find it, you won't need any complex recipes to make it work.

Until then, we'll have to placate ourselves with the fictionalized adventures of a mentally unstable inventor and his grandson.

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Science Behind the Fiction: Rick and Morty's time machine runs on Dark Matter. What is that? - SYFY WIRE