Soon after the moon landing, the vast majority of Americans were unable to remember Neil Armstrongs name. Illustration: Kate Hazell

On 30th May, five days after the death of George Floyd, two astronauts were sent to the International Space Station in a mission named Launch America. The launch marked the first time since 2011 that astronauts had departed American soil for the International Space Station.

A rat done bit my sister Nell, my partner said aloud, while reading a BBC headline about this supposedly historic event. And Whiteys on the moon.

He was quoting a 1970 spoken word poem by the African-American poet and jazz singer Gil Scott-Heron. Whitey on the Moon plays like a macabre nursery rhyme, growing more disturbing with each line, and more true. Her face and arms began to swell (and Whiteys on the moon) / I cant pay no doctor bill (but Whiteys on the moon) / Ten years from now Ill be payin still

The Space Race of the 1960s shared a timeline with the USs fight for racial equalityeven then, there was criticism over what race Americans should be paying attention to. Who benefited from sending Whitey to the moon? Who benefits from sending two more white astronauts to the International Space Station, now? Space travel has inspired Americans, but it has never united them wrote Marina Koren recently in the Atlantic. Not in the late 60s, and certainly not in the present moment. Koren is right to say it has never united Americans, but funnily enough, it hasnt always interested them either.

In 1969, an estimated 123m Americans watched the moon landings, some 61 per cent of the population. Internationally, the event was just as captivating. Paris had to rely on extra generators to keep so many televisions firing on throughout the night; West Germany reported a sharp drop in crime while the moonwalk was airing. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins went on a world tour, drawing millions of revellers.

But before long, the vast majority of Americans were unable to remember Neil Armstrongs name. Whatever Happened to Neil Whosis? asked the Chicago Tribune in 1974, in an article that revealed that most Americans could not remember the astronauts name. In his 2014 No Requiem for Space Travel, history professor Matthew Tribbe charts this instant disenchantment: Any explanation for why Apollo faded so quickly from the national consciousness needs to start with the fact that Americans were never as keen on the moon programme as current public memory and myth suggest. Poll after poll in the years leading up to Apollo revealed a public that was sceptical of the amount of money being spent on the moon race, the rush to complete the task before 1970, and the misplaced priorities it represented.

The press at the time seemed to imply that Armstrong and his colleagues had gone missing, or had become hermits. In fact, the astronauts were just as baffled. I had hoped that the impact would be more far-reaching than it has been, Armstrong said on the first year anniversary. Im certainly a little disappointed, said Aldrin, who by 1977 was working at a Cadillac dealership in Beverly Hills (where, according to his own book, he failed to sell a single car). Just three years after Apollo 11, after an array of problematic, dangerous and badly publicised missions, Nasa cancelled Apollos 18, 19 and 20 due to budget cuts and lack of public interest.

There is no single explanation for the sharp decline in astronaut interest that carried on throughout the 1970s. Watergate and the Vietnam War cast a shadow over the optimism of the 1960s. But also important was the evolution in the longstanding cultural fascination with loners, who came to be viewed with a certain pity. For what was more loner-like than floating around for months at a time in space?

In popular music, astronauts became the ultimate symbol of loneliness. From Elton Johns mournful declarations that hes not the man they think I am at home to David Bowies Major Tom, there was a sense that the astronauts fate was both a symptom of and metaphor for a world that was moving too fast and leaving too many behind. Mad Mens Don Draper may have summed it up best when dismissing a space-themed advertising poster. Who is this moron, flying around space? he growls at his creatives. He pees his pants.

While science fiction remains robustly popular todayeven now, children rapturously watch Star Warsits difficult to imagine what kind of space news would be big enough to grab our stretched and overstimulated attentions. Would we literally need confirmation of alien life to care again? My ennui runs deep. I did not watch the online footage of Launch America. I cannot name a single modern astronaut. Perhaps in todays world, we are all just too hard to dazzle.

Read more:

Who is this moron, flying around?: A short history of our disillusionment with space travel - Prospect

During his six month stint in orbit in 2010, American astronaut Scott Kelly accidentally started a fire in the toilet of the International Space Station.

The floating habitats complex filtration system applies an acidic chemical known as a pretreat to spacefarers urine, and a leak in the system caused a cannonball-sized globe of this acid to leak out when Kelly opened a maintenance panel to see why the toilet wasnt working.

A floating ball of acid isnt an ideal travel companion when youre orbiting the Earth in a sealed tube, so Kelly had to act quickly. He grabbed an old t-shirt to try and soak up the acid but the water molecules in the sweat on the shirt reacted with the acid, creating a fireball.

A fictionalised version of this scene described in detail in a brilliant 2014 Esquire article by Chris Jones kicks off the action in Away, a new Netflix drama launching this week. The series, loosely based on Jones reporting on the realities of life in orbit, follows the five-person crew of the first manned mission to Mars at some point in the near future.

The three year mission is an international effort, with astronauts from Russia, China, India, the USA and the UK clearly still maintaining its international influence despite Brexit, and presumably on the verge of signing a galaxy-beating trade deal with Mars.

But while previous entries in the space genre have focussed on what happens when things go wrong with the ship, Away does something different. Toilet fires aside, it instead tries to paint a picture of the emotional trauma associated with a long mission, and the hardships caused by being away from your family on both sides. The action takes place as much on Earth as it does in space.

The show follows American commander Emma Green, played by Hilary Swank, and chosen to lead the mission against the wishes of some of her crewmates. Green has a husband (The Good Wife's Josh Charles)and a teenage daughter at home, and the plot of Away centres on her struggles to balance her work and her life as she travels further and further away during a family crisis.

The show was commissioned in 2018, and you might have expected the current situation to have lent it some extra poignancy video calls with friends and loved ones are something weve all had to get used to in the last six months. Maybe a year ago, screen-mediated communication would have hammered home the difficulties of life as an astronaut, but now it just feels normal at times, Im actually jealous of how good their internet speeds seem to be up there.

Each of the crew members has some personal baggage back home, but they also have to contend with office politics which, in collaborative space travel, is less about who took someones lunch from the communal fridge, and more about navigating the intricacies of soft power and international relations. An American gets to command the mission, on the proviso that a Chinese woman will be the first person to set foot on Mars, for instance.

The result is a show that strips some of the thrill and the sense of danger from space travel. There are some heart-racing moments in the first few episodes but not a whole lot of action instead, expect lots of tense stares and passive aggressive comments.

The Esquire article which the series is based on does a great job of describing in detail how living in space changes you the complex, multi-stage process required to go to the toilet, the way the calluses on your heels start to slough away because youre not walking on them anymore, the way everything from eating to moving around is fundamentally changed by a lack of gravity. But in Away, most of the crew's interactions with each other seem to take place around a table they could be sat in the break room at work, bitching about the boss. It doesnt give you much of an insight into an astronauts life, other than the fact that theyre away from their families, and they occasionally have to use handrails to move around.

You could argue that this leaves Away feeling kind of flat, and maybe a bit boring an uncharitable reviewer could argue that its basically Gravity without the action, Space Force without the comedy, Armageddon without the giant asteroid heading towards Earth.

But if we do succeed in sending people to the surface of Mars, this is exactly what it will be like. There will be moments of high tension interspersed with long periods of doing nothing. There wont be malevolent AIs or hastily improvised repairs, or aliens running amok in the air ducts. They wont send miners. Itll be a team of professionals slowly, calmly and patiently doing their jobs, and missing their families. Away might not have the thrills and spills of a summer blockbuster, but it nails the boring, emotional reality of space travel.

Amit Katwala is WIRED's culture editor. He tweets from @amitkatwala

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Netflix's Away perfectly captures the boring reality of space travel - Wired.co.uk

(CNN) -- Genetically enhanced "mighty mice" that were part of a health experiment on the International Space Station have shown that blocking a molecular signaling pathway can protect against muscle and bone density loss in the absence of gravity.

The new study also revealed this treatment promoted the recovery of muscle and bone mass once the mice returned to Earth.

The results are promising to researchers because they could be used to develop therapies that might help astronauts mitigate the muscle and bone loss they experience during long-term spaceflight.

Targeting this pathway could also be used to help people on Earth who experience muscle and bone loss due to various conditions such as muscular dystrophy, osteoporosis and diseases that cause muscle wasting like cancer, heart disease, sepsis and AIDS.

The study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. NASA astronauts Drew Morgan, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, who participated in the experiment while it was on the space station, are included as authors and investigators on the study.

The 40 female mice, provided by the nonprofit Jackson Laboratory in Maine, were genetically manipulated for muscle growth in an experiment to better understand how zero gravity affects the human body.

They launched and arrived at the space station in December and splashed down in a SpaceX Dragon capsule on January 7 in the Pacific Ocean.

The SpaceX cargo vehicles are unique in that they can bring new materials and experiments to the space station and return to Earth 30 days later. This means that samples can be returned to the ground in a timely manner, which enabled the live mice to be returned to Earth, said Morgan, who also serves as an emergency physician with the US Army.

These mice are just one of many groups of rodents that have flown on the space station over the years in the name of research.

The experiment was called Rodent Research-19, and it was used to study both myostation and activin, which are the molecular signaling pathways that can influence and regulate bone density and skeletal muscle mass, according to NASA. These pathways, researchers believe, could be targets to prevent muscle and bone loss during missions and help with recovery efforts once astronauts return to Earth.

While on the space station, some of the mice were treated with an agent, the ACVR2B receptor, that actually blocked the pathways to see how it impacted their bone and muscle loss. Blocking these pathways has also been known to induce muscle and bone growth.

Because some of these mice were genetically engineered to lack myostatin, they had twice the average muscle mass -- hence, the nickname "mighty mice."

The mice who flew on the space station were compared with a control group of 40 female mice who remained on Earth.

The mice in space and on Earth that received the receptor treatment largely maintained and even increased their muscle and bone mass in comparison with the untreated mice. Meanwhile, the untreated mice experienced significant muscle and bone mass loss.

After returning to Earth, mice receiving the receptor treatment also showed an enhanced recovery of muscle mass. This was compared with the control mice that were not given the treatment upon returning to Earth.

"Mice that were hypermuscular as a result of having a mutation in the myostatin gene were able to retain most, if not all, of that extra muscle during spaceflight," said study authors Se-Jin Lee and Emily L. Germain-Lee in an email.

"These findings show that blocking the activities of these hormones does work to enhance both muscle and bone even when mice are unable to bear weight."

Dr. Lee is a professor at The Jackson Laboratory and presidential distinguished professor at the University of Connecticut's School of Medicine. Dr. Germain-Lee is a pediatric endocrinologist at Connecticut Children's Medical Center and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut's School of Medicine.

"One thing that we found somewhat surprising is how resilient mice are even when subjected to all of the stresses associated with space travel," they said. "We knew that mice had been sent to space in the past, but we still found it remarkable that after spending a month at the ISS, they seemed to resume normal activity very quickly after returning to Earth."

Astronauts on the space station exercise every day to mitigate muscle and bone loss, but experiments like this can help scientists understand how the loss occurs and establish better ways to manage it.

The exercise countermeasures astronauts use, which include two hours of resistance training and cardiovascular workouts, may not always be possible during long-term spaceflight.

"The potential for a drug treatment that could prevent (bone and muscle loss) shows a lot of promise in long-duration spaceflight," Morgan said.

But there are potential side effects that need to be considered and understood, the researchers said.

"Although myostatin's major role is to regulate muscle growth, a drug that targets other hormones besides just myostatin can affect other tissues besides muscle," the researchers said.

The doctors cited an example including Acceleron, a biotechnology company, which used its version of this receptor in clinical trials to treat patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Some of the patients experienced nosebleeds, but the reason for that is not entirely understood. But it sheds light on the fact that these receptors can block other things beyond myostatin.

"The challenge moving forward will be to understand the reasons for this and other effects with the goal of figuring out how to modify these drugs to avoid such problems," the researchers said.

The study has revealed new questions for the researchers. Going forward, they want to better understand the changes caused by microgravity in blood, muscle and bone. They also want to consider how to conduct further investigation on a future space mission.

"Our hope is that this could be used both for astronauts during extended space travel and for people on Earth suffering from muscle and bone loss," the doctors said. "There is still a lot of work that would need to be done in this regard, but we believe that this type of strategy holds promise.

"We would like to focus on figuring out ways to engineer better drug candidates that might avoid some of the potential side effects. Only by understanding the underlying science will we be able to try to translate this work into new medical treatments."

Astronauts themselves are also the basis for understanding how the space environment can affect humans.

Koch and Morgan both participated in extended stays on the station, with Koch spending 11 months aboard and Morgan staying for nine months. Currently, astronauts typically spend about six months on the space station, but some like Scott Kelly have stayed for nearly a year to test how the human body reacts to long-term spaceflght.

These health studies could be applied to future long-term spaceflight as NASA looks ahead with the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon in 2024 and could eventually land them on Mars.

Continued here:

The 'mighty mice' that went to space could help protect astronauts' muscles and bones - FOX10 News

SERIES "Away"

WHERE Streaming now on Netflix

WHAT IT'S ABOUT An international space crew led by Hillary Swank's Emma Green departs on the first mission to Marsin "Away," a new Netflix series from creator Andrew Hinderaker that's based on a Chris Jones article for Esquire.

The others on this pioneering journey aboard the spaceship AtlasareLu (Vivian Wu) from China; Russia's Misha (Mark Ivanir); Kwesi (Atoh Essandoh), a British-Ghanaian; and Ram (Ray Panthaki), of India. Over the course of 10 episodes, the series chronicles their yearslong trip to the Red Planet, paying especially close attention to the emotions in leaving loved ones behind to make such an unprecedented journey.

Back on Earth, Emma's husband Matt (Josh Charles) and teenage daughter Alexis (Talitha Bateman) must adjust to three years without mom in person and an unexpected health challenge that adds to the difficulty.

MY SAYThis is a perfect premise for a TV show: you don't have to be a sci-fi aficionado or obsessed with space travel to be fascinated by the particulars involved in conquering the next extraterrestrial frontier.

In the coming years, NASA has plans to begin the process of launching just such a mission to Mars and "Away" derives a lot of its appeal from the fact that nothing on-screenseems especially far-fetched. This isn't "Total Recall" or even "The Martian" it's a glimpse at a future that's much closer than one might think.

We want to learn about the science, the stresses and the otherspecifics of how this major moment in exploration might unfold to understand what astronauts can expect on the arduous trip through the cosmosand upon arriving on another world, and precisely why this is such a priority for not only the space agency, but humankind.

With the exception of a handful of moments, "Away" offers preciously little of that through its first five episodes.

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It is instead painstakingly focused on the back stories of the astronauts, rife with flashbacks to traumaand difficult moments with the family members back home who seem to recede further into the distance with each passing day.

We're talking tear-streaked conversations between Swank's Emma and Bateman's Alexis that come complete with dialogue that would be a better fit for a bad family drama.

"And boys," mom says to daughter, "I know they're beautiful, I get that, I do, but honey they're bucks is what they are, wild bucks."

There's a Christmas episode, another onebuilt around the married Lu's love for a female co-worker and a whole lot of time spent on Alexis and Matt adjusting to their new reality. None of this is inherently objectionable, were it balanced with a focus on the mission at hand, but other than some drama involving a spacewalk, the characters might as well have been self-isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic, or just about anywhere else.

Their spaceship is a metaphor, you see, their journey through the stars representing the walls that are built even among those closest to us.

Hinderaker and the various directors, including the Oscar winner Edward Zwick ("Glory") on the pilot, achieve some moments of transcendent beauty, including a gift for montage linking the experiences of Emma with her family. If you're going to take the "Away" plunge, do it on the biggest possible screen.

It's just sad that the primary emotion that resonates above all else is boredom.

BOTTOM LINE: "Away" should be much better than it is, squandering a fascinating subject on pedestrian family drama.

See original here:

'Away': Hilary Swank series should be much better than it is - Newsday

Space travel can be challenging, and astronauts will have to handle conditions such as handling life in isolation over long periods of time, space disorientation, and microgravity the condition of weightlessness that astronauts experience in their spacecraft on space missions.

To train for such circumstances, simulator training is crucial. The Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM) has simulators that are capable of simulating or 're-creating' the conditions of microgravity for the training of astronauts. IAM also boasts of a simulator that can simulate temperatures ranging from minus 20 degrees centigrade to 60 degrees, for training purposes.

The astronauts will also undergo training in the isolation and disorientation chambers. In this training, different illusions are created to disorient the trainees. Another simulator provides training in handling atmospheric pressures as high as six times that on earth.

Similar training will be provided to these astronauts at Russias Yuri Gagarin Centre as well, which is named after the first person ever to travel to space.

See the article here:

Mission Gaganyaan: Training Indias Astronauts for Space Travel - The Quint

Imagine you could throw the perfect bullseye, but you'd have to wear glasses to do it. That's a trade-off some space travellers may unwittingly make when they venture off the planet.

A study published Friday examined the brains of eight male Russian cosmonauts roughly seven months after they returned from lengthy missions to the International Space Station.

The researchers discovered minor changes in the cosmonauts' brains that suggested the men were more dexterous but had slightly weaker vision.

"They actually acquired some kind of new motor skill, like riding a bike," Steven Jillings, the study's lead author, told Business Insider.

The researchers used a type of MRI to produce 3D images of the cosmonauts' brains.

The scans showed an increased amount of tissue in the cerebellum: the part of the brain responsible for balance, coordination, and posture (shown in green in the video below).

Illustration from Steven Jillings and Ben Jeurissen using MRtrix3. (University of Antwerp)

But the scans also showed that people living in space could wind up with trouble seeing up-close. Both of those changes could potentially be long-lasting.

Any human brain, whether it has been to space or not, can adapt to new environments and experiences. Many athletes, for instance, acquire specific motor skills directly related to their sport.

"If you were to do an MRI study where you compare normal people to athletes or people who really use motor skills like dart players, for example, you would hypothesize to find changes in the cerebellum," Jillings said.

"This is not just because they trained once and then it changes and goes back. It's actually something that lasts in the brain."

On average, the Russian cosmonauts in the study spent six months onboard the space station. Researchers expected to see temporary changes in the cosmonauts' brains, but they were surprised to discover that the improved motor skills were still there several months after they'd returned to Earth.

"The difficulty with studying these cosmonauts is you don't really have a reference - nothing on Earth that it really can be compared to," Jillings said.

"It's possible that when they go to their next mission that they actually are able to adapt more quickly."

Many previous studies have revealed that astronauts experience physical changes in microgravity, including muscle and bone loss.

Astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS typically exercise more than two hours a day to combat this process. They can also feel disoriented or motion-sick while their body adjusts to a weightless environment.

One important difference between life in space and on Earth is that our blood and bodily fluids normally move against the downward tug of gravity, whereas in space, astronauts' bodily fluids shift upward.

The new study found that microgravity causes the brain to shift upward as well. This in turn redistributes the fluids in which the brain floats.

Jillings said his study found evidence that the fluid may pile up behind the eye, causing swelling. This could impair astronauts' near vision, resulting in a condition called spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome.

A 2012 survey found the same effect among many NASA astronauts - up to 60 percent of those studied said they were seeing less clearly onboard the ISS. NASA even flies prescription glasses to space just in case an astronaut's vision changes.

But Jillings said there's still more to learn about this phenomenon, especially because not all astronauts or cosmonauts return to Earth with bad vision, and most astronauts studied only developed impaired vision in one eye. Some also recover their vision shortly after returning to Earth.

What's more, many Russian cosmonauts have extremely sharp sight to begin with, so even after they complete a stint in space, their vision is still normal compared to the average person.

"The fact that we do see the small decrease probably means that there are some common effects across all people who spend six months in space," Jillings said.

Scientists are still trying to determine the degree to which the impaired eyesight could be permanent.

An April study from the University of Texas found that swelling in astronauts' brains persisted one year after their return to Earth. But Jillings said there are no long-term follow-up studies to see how long the condition really lasts beyond that.

"There are not many studies looking into the brains of astronauts," he said.

Overall, Jillings added, it's good news that his study didn't pick up on any serious health effects linked to space travel.

Previous studies, by contrast, have suggested that radiation in space could lead to neurodegeneration, which might accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease among astronauts.

"We did not find any evidence of detrimental changes to the brain," Jillings said. "It's actually more of an adaptation."

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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Cosmonaut Brain Scans Show Space Does Weird Things to Motor Skills And Vision - ScienceAlert

I've been in this business for 29 years, so to find projects that are authentic and unique is hard, Hilary Swank tells me. Away, now streaming on Netflix, was that rare jewel: a heartwarming family drama that showed real reactions to the (mostly) real situations playing out onscreen. Think This Is Us or Friday Night Lights, just with more space travel.

Swank plays Emma Green, the commander of the first-ever mission to Mars. It's dangerousand to go, she must leave behind her teen daughter (Talitha Eliana Bateman) and husband (Josh Charles) for three years. That dynamic is the heart of the show's drama: How do you navigate being a good partner or parent when you're literally on a different planet? And is there anything we non-space-travelers can learn from that experience?

Here, we invited Hilary Swank, showrunner and writer Jessica Goldberg, and Karen Nyberg, the real-deal astronaut who helped Swank with research for the show, to discuss.

Glamour: To start, tell me what drew you to Away?

Jessica Goldberg: I had never seen a working mother portrayed like this onscreen. A woman can love her work and her family equally, and I felt so excited to tell that story truthfully. Also, we were already in a divisive moment internationally when I got the show. The knee-jerk reaction seems to be in television to write dystopian bleak programs, but I wanted to be a part of something that imagined the world coming together.

Hilary Swank: [I appreciated] the idea of being a commander on a mission to Mars where the drama isn't that she's a womanshe's the person best suited for the job. The drama is around normal stuff, like building trust. You have these human beings who are all on this journey toward a common goal with no borders. Jessica, you talked so beautifully in one of the episodes you wrote about hope and how it is really everything. It's what we all can understand and relate to in life, no matter your gender, no matter your race, no matter your creed. Hope is what you have to hold on to in order to persevere. This show encapsulated all of these things without forcing it.

Story continues

Glamour: Karen, as an astronaut, what stuck out to you as being particularly resonant?

Karen Nyberg: When they were showing the family experience before Emma goes to Mars, I was tearing up. I was feeling what I've felt before I went to space, as well as when my husband [Doug Hurley, who is also an astronaut] went just a couple months ago. I think the show really captured that. I felt it as a memory. My son is 10 now. He was only three when I went for my six-month-long flight. I didn't have to explain things quite the same, but there was still things to deal with.

Hilary: Karen, if you wouldn't mind sharing the story you told me. You don't have to, but I find it really fascinating.

Karen: Yeah, I don't mind sharing it because there was a lot of emotion with it. After my first space shuttle flight, in 2008, I was really eager to go again. Extremely eager. But Doug and I were trying to have a child when I was assigned to the space mission STS-132. I was assigned to the flight and going to do spacewalksand then I got pregnant. The frustrating part was that my baby was due well before the mission. I had gone to my commander, and we thought I could continue training, have the baby, and then do this mission. We had a planwe had a backup in case something happened and I couldn't continue training.

And then I was taken off the flight. It was disappointing. But, like most things, it all worked out fine in the end. Peggy Whitson was the chief of the astronaut office at the time, and as soon as I came off maternity leave, she assigned me to a long-duration mission. She took care of me.

Hilary: Didn't they call it a health crisis or something?

Karen: The official word that went out from NASA was that I was removed from the flight for a temporary medical condition. My son wasn't quite so temporary. [Laughs.]

Glamour: One thing that struck me was watching Emma, a mother, trying to parent from space. Karen, you can actually speak to that unique experience.

Karen: I had to travel a lot for training. It was hard, but I had to learn to give up control. Doug was training when we first had my son Jackfor the first 18 months he was training for a space flight, so he was very busy. I was in control of Jack's schedule, what he ate, and any activities he did. So when I was training, I would try to micromanage what was happening in Jack's life. I had to let go of that. By the time I flew in space, I had worked through it.

The key is to have support and people you trust. My husband was home, but he was working. We had an amazing nanny, Lucy, who we just adored, and my mother-in-law helping. When I was in space, my husband and I had very good communication. I could talk to him on the phone every single day. But for a three-year-old, it was a little difficult. I made a video for him every single day on my iPad that I sent home. I had 166 videos saying, "Good night, I love you."

I did prepare myself for something, and I'm glad I did: coming home and him not wanting to come to me as the primary caregiver. And it happened. Jack had spent a lot of time with my mother-in-law. So the first night I was home, he wanted her to put him to bednot me. Luckily, I prepared myself for that. I told myself, I haven't been here. I haven't been the motherly figure to him for six months. It only took a few days, and he was back to coming to me.

Jessica: Now that your son is 10, would it feel harder to go to space?

Karen: I think so. I think it would be a lot harder to go right now than when he was three. I think he was fine with my husband going [a few months ago], but it probably was a little stressful for him. I anticipate it might have been more so if it had been me going this time.

Jessica: When we met, Hilary, one of the things that struck me was that you take care of your father. That resonated with a lot of the themes we were discussing in the writers room, which is: How do you go away when there's someone...

Hilary: Yeah, there was a conversation at one point if we could film the show in Bulgaria or something. At that point I wouldn't have been able to commit because my dad wasn't in a position where I could be on a flight that long as his health advocate. Vancouver quickly became the obvious choice, thankfully, so that I could get back home within three hours.

Jessica: For some reason I've never been able to work in Los Angeles. Nothing shoots here. So I always have to leave my daughter. Luckily, my mother lives a mile down the street, but you do miss things like the tooth fairy. It's amazing how much those little thingsa toothcan really spiral you.

Karen: When I left for space, Jack was at the level where he could take a crayon and draw lines and shapes. When I came home, he was turning those shapes into people. In that amount of time, he had gone from just doodling to actually drawing people. I made a little quilted art piece of his first drawing that he made when I came back, because it was so special. Things like that made me realize the length of time.

Jessica: Would you go to Mars, like Emma?

Karen: It's easy right now to say no because it's not a possibility. I think we're far enough away from that. It's such a commitment. If we were in a position where we were actually doing Mars missions right now, I don't know how I would feel.

Jessica: With COVID, did your experience of being isolated on a ship prepare you for the isolation people are doing now? And the way people are communicating now?

Karen: I was telling Hilary earlier that I don't mind being alone. I don't mind being stuck in my house. That part of being on the space station wasn't challenging. Of course, being away from Doug and Jack was.

One thing we deal with when we're talking to mission control is that when you don't have a face-to-face, all you're doing is talking via the communication loops. You lose that human connection, and you can find yourself getting angry at the other person or thinking, Well, that's a dumb idea. Why are they making me do that? You wouldn't do that if you were in the same room with them. I can imagine that happens with Zoom calls too.

Jessica: Yeah, that makes sense. Did you two talk before the show?

Hilary: Yeah, I spent a lot of time one-on-one with Karen down at mission control. We had a whole day together. I feel like we really got to know one another.

Swank and Nyberg at the Johnson Space Center in February 2020

Glamour: Did anything really surprise you?

Hilary: The story she just shared about getting pregnant and not being able to go on that mission really paralleled what Jessica had written in one of my favorite episodes. Also, Karen told me that the press always asks the women, Oh, what's it going to be like for you when you leave your family? But they asked 20% of the men that question. It boggles my mind that a man wouldn't feel the same about leaving his family, or that the family doesn't feel the same about losing their dad for a certain amount of time. They doit's just stereotypes.

Glamour: In the pilot we learn Emmas husband dreamed of going to space as well but didnt meet the requirements. I thought it was really beautiful that his reaction was to tell her, Okay, were all in on you.

Hilary: Karen and her husband, Doug, are both astronauts, so they understand on a deep level what that's like for the other person. Emma is going on this mission, and her husband is left behind, but it's not a masculinity thing. That's not the drama of the story. There's sadness that he's not fulfilling a dream of his, which is understandable, but it's not about her. It's not about how she has to underplay her joy or shining her light in order to make him feel better about himself.

That was a plus for me. That there was this man who was like, Oh, hell yeah, you're going to go. Every time I think about that in the through line of the story, how it's woven in, it makes me cry. Josh Charles was an anchor to me. His ability to have understated strength and the way he delivers his lines in support of herit's so beautiful.

Jessica: To me, it's the sexiest man in the world that can say, You go. When we first started thinking about this couple, we were like, What couples share a vision? We thought of the Obamas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband. Usually you see a husband get jealous, but what if there was a shared dream at the heart of this love story? It's something I haven't seen a lot of couples portray on television. Karen, you must have that in your marriage?

Karen: Absolutely. I could not have left a three-year-old for six months if my husband wasn't completely on board and supportive. He was fine being the primary caregiver. If he was at all jealous, it wouldn't have worked. He wanted me to reach my dream too. We talked about it when Peggy offered me the six-month flight. I asked, Should I not go because of our son? He helped me make the decision to do it.

Glamour: Karen, we talked the experience of mothering from space, but Id also love to hear from your experience about being a partner as well. Is your marriage dynamic different when youre so far away?

Karen: Communication is key. We speak every day, and I would still participate in the household. When Doug was in space recently, I was going to make sure the bills got paid and everything. But he had an internet access, so sometimes I would log on and a bill's already been paid. When he had time, he would take care of those things. Another important thing is that when you are gone for that amount of timeand a three-year mission to Mars would be even more soyou have to realize that your family has come up with their own routine and ways of doing things. You have to assimilate back into that and not expect things are going to be exactly how they were when you left.

Hilary: That's like being on a movie set. You leave for six months, things were run a certain way, and you have to reassimilate back in after having a journey with all these other people. Can you imagine going into space without Wi-Fi anymore?

Glamour: Hilary, what do you hope people take away from the show?

Hilary: I feel like the show, now more than ever, resonates because we've all been in this type of isolation. Sometimes our only way of communicating with loved ones is via Zoom. I think we'll have a deeper appreciation for what the crew is going through with missing their loved ones and only being able to have this way of communicating. That deep desire to see your loved one and hope that they're making it through this.

Jessica: I have a 13-year-old daughter, and there's so few things that you can watch with your kid that you enjoy as much as they do. For the first time, she got what I did. That's an amazing thing. Karen, do you experience that feeling with your son?

Karen: He's now old enough to understand it more. He's not interested in being an astronaut and following in our footsteps. He told me one time, a few years ago, Mom, all you do is go to space and do stupid interviews. I think seeing Doug go and all the hoopla around that and watching the launch, he's now old enough to feel it and understand it.

Also, that feeling [on the show] of hope and no borders and people just working togetherthe International Space Station has been doing that for 20 years. It goes beyond politics. It's working together for this common goal. Sometimes I'd be up at the space station and think, Why aren't we all doing this? Don't we all have the same goal? It works so well in exploring spaceit's too bad it doesn't translate so easily to other areas.

Jessica: That is something that blew us away, that none of the politics of earth mattered. Can you describe what it's like seeing earth from up there?

Karen: It's more than just what you're seeing; it's what you're feeling as you're looking at it. One morning I was watching the news while eating breakfast, and there was a conflict in Syria at the time. And you know when you're watching the news and you don't fully understand it because you're not there? Later that day I was looking out the window and realized we were right over Syria. I'm looking down and thinking, They're right there. There was this connection I started feeling. Those types of experiences really increased my empathy for others. If everybody could get that feeling, I think it would be a good thing.

Anna Moeslein is the senior editor at Glamour. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Originally Appeared on Glamour

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What Is It Like to Actually Parent From Space? - Yahoo Lifestyle

BERLIN, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The production site of the German rocket start-up Isar Aerospace near the city of Munich was inaugurated by Bavaria's minister president Markus Soeder on Monday.

"We believe that the next big technological revolutions will take place in space," the German start-up announced on Linkedin. "We are building the first German launch vehicle in Bavaria and feel proud to lead the way as local pioneering project."

The 27-meter-long launch vehicle, a rocket called Spectrum designed for satellite constellation deployment, is expected to reach earth orbit for the first time next year, Isar Aerospace co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Daniel Metzler confirmed to the German Press Agency (dpa).

Isar Aerospace which was founded in 2018 closed an investment round of 17 million U.S. dollars at the end of last year, said the company.

A total of around 100 million euros would be available by the end of the year through a second investment round. "We want to build a European SpaceX, a privately financed company for the construction of space rockets," Metzler told the German newspaper Handelsblatt on Monday.

To support German start-ups, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) called for a German launch platform for small carrier rocket. "A mobile launch platform in the North Sea is technically feasible and makes strategic and economic sense," said BDI Director General Joachim Lang on Monday.

The BDI presented a concept to the German government for the realization of a mobile launch platform in the North Sea which could be realized within two years as a private operator scheme with state support.

Germany's Federal Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier already expressed interest in the idea of a spaceport in Germany at the end of last year. "Space travel inspires many people and secures thousands of jobs in Germany. We are a leader in satellite technology," he noted.

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German rocket start-up inaugurates production site in Bavaria - The Star Online

That's it. You have decided 2020 has been enough. You have created a spaceship and have made the choice to leave for the closest habitable planet. None of the traditional potentially habitable nearby neighbors like Mars, Venus, or Titan will make the cut. Rather than risk living through anymore 2020 catastrophes, your best bet is to fly out to one of our closest interstellar neighbors. In 2017, astronomers reported that our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, has several potentially habitable exoplanets. It looks like this may be your next destination. However, how long will it take for you to get to your new home with our current technology? For reference, consider that the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 11 spacecraft into space traveled at just over 40,000 kilometers per hour.

However, let's assume that your spaceship can reach the same top speed as the Parker Solar Probe, right under 700,000 kilometers per hour. How long will it take you to get to Proxima Centauri, which lies approximately 4.2 light-years from Earth? A few months? Years? Decades? Assuming that you can travel as fast as the Parker Solar Probe, it would take approximately 6,600 years to arrive at your destination. No amount of gameplay will keep you entertained for that long, given that you have found a way to survive. Say, if you were only able to travel at the speed of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, it would take you 113,000 years to get to Proxima Centauri.

Perhaps we have a solution to your conundrum. A warp drive. Before we even jump into warp speed, you need to fully grasp our universe's massive size and the concept of light-years.

As the universe is unimaginably big, researchers tend to use light-years to describe the distance between objects. In short, a light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. Light is the fastest thing in our universe, traveling at a speed of approximately 186,000 miles or 300,000 km per second. One light-year is approximately 6 trillion miles or 9 trillion km. If you wanted to travel to something a little closer like the Sun it would take 8.3 minutes to reach your destination traveling at the speed of light.

However, if you wanted to go to our closest big galaxy, Andromeda, it would take you 2.5 million light-years. Even if humans were able to create a ship that could travel at the speed of light, our potential destinations would still be limited. Much easier, but still annoying. As we said, the universe is unimaginably large. However, could we create a ship that travels faster than light? Though this sounds like something out of your favorite science fiction show or movie, a warp drive may not be as unrealistic as once thought.

In fact, it may be crucial to our survival. "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars," said the late Stephen Hawking.

17 FACTS ABOUT INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL THAT WILL HAVE YOU DREAMING OF SPACE

In the legendary Star Trek film and television show franchise, warp drive technology was described as a machine designed "to manipulate space, to violate the laws of motion. You make the tiniest mistake, you'll collapse the warp field, you'll crush this ship."

Sounds cool, right?

Basically, a warp drive allows space explorers to travel faster than the speed of light. In Star Trek, it worked by generating "warp fields" to form a subspace bubble that enveloped the starship, distorting the local space-time continuum and moving the starship at velocities that could significantly exceed the speed of light. This fictional 24th-century device makes all interstellar exploration and commerce possible in Star Trek. However, what about in reality?

As mentioned, in our fictional world, a warp drive would allow us to manipulate space-time itself, very literally taking advantage of a loophole in physics to move faster than light. The closest thing to a real warp drive is known as the Alcubierre Warp Drive, which is still only a theoretical construct. It is based on a highly speculative physics paper published in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, who proposed a purportedly valid solution to how space-time and energy interact.

Why would we do something like this? You can thank Einstein. Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity has driven our understanding of the universe for over a century. Scientists have been operating under the restrictions imposed by a relativistic universe. One of these proposed restrictions centers around the idea that the speed of light is an unbreakable universal speed limit.

This means things like faster-than-light space travel is impossible. Alcubierre's answer? He believes that bending space-time could be the solution. How would that work?

Let's go back to our space trip to Proxima Centauri example. In this case, rather than have a standard space ship, we have a new and improved ship with Alcubierre's warp drive technology installed. How would it work? Simply put, as your ship travels to Proxima Centauri, it would cause space ahead of it to contract while the space behind it would expand. Your ship would be moving in space-time within a bubble, or what is known as a "warp bubble" of flat space.

The solution to Einsteins field equations that would allow this warp-speed travel is called the "Alcubierre metric". Imagine you and your roommate picked up the sheet on your bed and straightened it, holding each corner so that it was suspended above the bed, completely flat and stable. If you were to drop a round crystal ball and let it sit on this sheet, it would create an indent, "bending" the fabric. This is going to be your spaceship within its warp- bubble, and the sheet is space-time. Our spaceship is not only making a dent in space; it is pulling part of space-time towards it (expanding) and pushing space-time behind it (contracting).

Two-dimensional visualization of an Alcubierre drive, showing the opposing regions of expanding and contracting spacetime that displace the central region,Source: Allen McC/WikimediaCommons

As described by Matt Williams of Universe Today, "Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but is being carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic effects such as time dilation would not apply. Hence, the rules of space-time and the laws of relativity would not be violated in the conventional sense."

Our ship is not violating Einstein's equations thanks to the "Alcubierre metric". This phenomenon would give our unique spaceship special properties. We could reach our destination faster within our bubble than a beam of light traveling outside our warp bubble. Interestingly, the fabric of space-time is not limited by the speed of light as proposed by Einstein.

What type of spaceship would we need to create to do this? We would need to create a football-shaped spacecraft with a massive ring encircling it for our faster than light travel to be possible. Think of the enormous ship presented in Interstellar or even in 2001: Space Odyssey. The ring circling the ship would be made of "exotic matter" that would cause space-time to warp around it, creating the scenario described above. Going back to our warp bubble explanation we would be able to travel about ten times the speed of light.

So why are we not funding this? To build a space-ship powerful enough to warp, space-time would need to be massive. The minimum amount of energy required would be about equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.

Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center says, "There is hope." At the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss interstellar spaceflight, he talked about the possibility of creating an Alcubierre warp drive. Initially, it was believed the ring on our ship needed to be a perfect circle, making further complicating its design. However, White's new calculations propose that the ring circling our ship be more donut-shaped.

This could power a spacecraft with the mass-energy of the Voyager 1 probe. Even more recently, a report published by NASAhas insinuated that the space agency has at least taken a serious look at warp drive technology there are multiple steps required to achieve interstellar travel, and it could take countless years before we become an interplanetary species. Whats more, there are multiple other steps we need to take to get there. Simply, creating a self-sustaining civilization on Mars is going to be a monumental task.

As Elon Musk once said, There needs to be an intersection of the set of people who wish to go, and the set of people who can afford to go...and that intersection of sets has to be enough to establish a self-sustaining civilization."

However, warp drive technology could be an important first step. Until then we can put our hopes in the development of ion propulsion.

Do you think we will have warp drive technology in the near future? Where would you travel?

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A NASA Warp Drive Could Be a Reality in the Distant Future - Interesting Engineering

The UK's rural areas are being scouted for a big space tourism project by Virgin Galactic, a British spaceflight company within the Virgin Group.Space tourism seeks to give tourists the ability to become astronauts and experience space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes.Conservative Chair of the Parliamentary Space Committee David Morris spoke to Express.co.uk about why this was good news for the UK.

He said: "The reason that Virgin want to have a space port down in the southwest of England is because space tourism would work so well from that point there.

"If you put a spaceship up into the upper atmosphere of the Earth into lower space, from there you will see literally everything from the north down to the equator.

"You will see quite a large area of the Earth from up there so space tourism is very beneficial for the UK.

"We're placed to do that and the weather is more conducive further south we go to doing this kind of a project."

READ MORE:WATCH: SpaceX rocket booster fails to land correctly - misses ship

Mr Morris continued: "The UK is not just about putting up satellites. We've got space tourism coming along, we've also got other applications that we can use, and we're very good at doing that.

"So I do think it's a very positive outlook for the UK industry.

"The UK Space Agency has been working very hard over the years to ensure that.

"I do think it's now time that we had a dedicated Space Minister that brings all of this together and brings partners in touch with one another under a banner of where we want to go with it."

The Space Committee Chair also spoke about why it was necessary for the UK to develop its space industry.

He told Express.co.uk: "You can see there's quite a lot of people employed in the space sector, it's a high tech, high quality jobs industry.

"This is how we can actually spread it out across the UK and bring all the talent together."

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Mr Morris added: "To give you an example, the preferred areas for space ports are rural areas.

"We have mainly ballistic capabilities that we're trying to develop so we can send our own satellites up into orbit in the more remote rural areas, the ones that are more north because of trajectories and securities as far as sending any ballistic missiles into the air.

"So we're looking at trying to put investment into those areas so that we can enhance the capabilities of ballistics.

"We have the ITAR agreement with the Americans so if we send anything up it doesn't contravene anything to do with ballistic missiles and military.

"It's very beneficial for Scotland and the rest of the UK to remain a united kingdom in that respect."

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UK's big advantage that will spark European dominance in post-Brexit space tourism - Daily Express

As Nashville's hospitality and food service industry fights to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, the city is eyeing a potential lifelinefrom the pages of the European restaurant playbook: al fresco dining.

Metro Council is considering legislation for final approval on Sept. 15 that could give way for Nashville restaurants to temporarily allow sidewalk cafe dining.It's aimed at giving restaurants an avenue to expand their outdoor seating while still complying with capacity limitations imposed by the city.

While Metro's existing sidewalk cafe permit program predates the pandemic, it's only been an option offered to businesses downtown. If approved, the ordinance would extend the choice throughout the the county, and also allow businesses to utilize some of their private parking spots not includingAccessible Parking Spaces for additional seating.

"Thiswas a result of the conversations I had with small business owners in the East Nashville community sort of about finding ways that we could, within the context of safe social distancing and reduced capacity, allow them to see some more customers and provide some opportunity for people to better weather this unprecedented situation," said Council Member Sean Parker, who is sponsoring the bill.

The legislation has wide support on council and comes at a time when businesses have had tofind creativeways to adjust their operations under health restrictions.

Puckett's Wayne Johnson takes Jonathan and Leslie Godfrey's lunch order on Puckett's outdoor patio in downtown Nashville on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020.(Photo: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean )

Supporters hope the ordinance, which would expire at the end of the calendar year unless extended by council, will be a time to learn lessons and see how it could change how Nashville utilizes public space and right-of-way in the future with potential shifts and changes in a post-pandemic world.

"Maybe some of this will be a permanent fixture and the city will be better off,"Metro Public Works Assistant Director Jeff Hammon said. "We're happy to use bad situations like we're in with COVID, and experiment and change minds."

While "sidewalk" is in the title of the permit, it's notjust limited to sidewalks. Public Works has the authority to extend the use of other public right-of-way to businesses, including on-street parking, travel lanes and curbs.

It willall be determined on a case-by-case basis, Hammon told The Tennessean.

Restaurants must still get a permit fromPublic Works the $100 fee is waived during the duration of the ordinanceand comply with existing provisions, including at least a 4-foot sidewalk clearance as required by theAmericans with Disabilities Act.

In some cases more clearance for pedestrians might be required.

While safety remainsparamount, Hammon said thedepartment is trying to strike a balance between due diligence and not overthinking the process.

"We have one objective right now and that is to try and do just enough to allow this to happen and then get out of the way. Time is a bit of the essence for thesebusinesses and there's pressure to make it happen," he said. "There may be less oversight than what we might normally do, but there's also not as heavy of pedestrian traffic as (pre-COVID-19). It seems like a reasonable trade-off."

Officials will do an initial look at a site plan and then examinehow operations are set up.The city already has a mechanism in place for concerns related to public rights-of-way, and deploys inspectors whenany complaints are filed with the city.

Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant on 5th Avenue and Church Street worked with the Nashville Downtown Partnership and the city to create a sidewalk dining spaceabout four years ago.

But while sidewalk dining is not new to Nashville, it's one idea that hasn't been put to much use, according to Hammon, who could think of maybe one other restaurant downtown who holds a permit.

Much of that, he suspects, has to do with little knowledge about the process.

"I have learned more about sidewalk cafes as a result of this conversation," saidDowntown Council Member Freddie O'Connell. "There's a new level of interest, especially about public spaces, and that's a good thing. Particularly because it's better for people to be outdoors right now."

COVID-19 has brought on a particular set of challenges on Lower Broadway, including enforcement of the city's mask mandate asfoot traffic remains high on weekends with tourists continueto flock to the popular street.

Images from the holiday weekend showed packed sidewalks with no social distancing as patrons mingled as they waited to get inside businesses.

Leslie Godfrey eats lunch on Puckett's outdoor patio in downtown Nashville on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020.(Photo: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean )

While the city has already closed down some lanes to extend space for walkability, including this Sunday when officials completely shut down traffic between 4th and 5th avenues, some businesses lining Lower Broadway have tried to set up tables and chairs outside to optimize sales and profits with reduced capacity indoors. But because it's a state route, they're prohibited from conducting operations on state right-of-way.

Puckett's is one of several restaurants run by A. Marshall Hospitality under CEO and founder Andy Marshall, who said the sidewalk dining option was part of an effort by the Nashville Downtown Partnership to bolster a "community feel" downtown.

Puckett's outdoor seating lines the sidewalk near the street, leaving a pathway for pedestrians between the restaurant and sidewalk dining space.

"For us, it's been popular, and now it's even more popular than it was when we started it," Marshall said.

He supports the ordinance, which he noted could boost both sales and morale in Nashville's restaurant industry during the pandemic. But he doesn't think it has to end there.

"I think if the room allows it on the sidewalks, for a clear pathway for pedestrians and the outside dining, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't want this to be a permanent ordinance for restaurants and cafes to participate in," Marshall said. "It adds a wonderful atmosphere, not only downtown but in the neighborhoods, and I think it would be something that should be long term."

Meitra Aycock, president of the 12 South Neighborhood Association, said she was surprised an ordinance like this wasn't introduced sooner.

"This has been going on in cities across the U.S. for months now, and it seems like such an obvious solution for these small business owners," she said.

The 12 South neighborhood is lauded as one of the most walkable in Nashville, with its streets particularly a half-mile stretch on 12th Avenue South lined with local small businesses and restaurants.

Aycock said she thinks the ordinance will be helpful for some businesses on 12 South that have parking spaces they could convert into seating areas, or areas where roadways could be closed to accommodate pedestrian traffic (the latter idea is not part of the ordinance currently under consideration). For other businesses, the logistics would be more complicated.

"Do I support that our merchants (would) have an enhanced ability to thrive? Absolutely," she said. "Do I want to forego the walkability of 12th Avenue? No."

Businesses thathave already pivoted and adapted operations in the past five monthswill have to decide which revenue model works best for them, said Council Member Colby Sledge, who represents the 12 South area.

For some, it might make more sense to retain parking spots for increased vehicle turnover due to upticks in take-out orders, or continue to use space out front for curbside or window pick up.

Ownersat Edley's Bar-B-Que recently redid theoutdoor dining area on their 12th Avenue South location'sexisting outdoor deck, and told Sledgedeliverieshave greatly increased making on-street parking in front of their businesses important to keep available.

Not all sidewalks are created equally, and Nashville is not known for its walkability, Sledge added.

Before the slowdown brought by COVID-19, the idea of sidewalk cafes along the popular avenue likely wouldn't have been feasible, he said. At least not without a lot of work.

Sledge said he doesn't see ordinance resulting in "cafe style" seating everywhere in Nashville in future, butthat the lesson could be the city creativelyrethinking already made spaces within the city particularly in the Urban core, such as the Gulch, or Houston Street in his district.

Adding sidewalk dining space has already benefited Lockeland Table, among the first restaurants in Nashville to request permission to do so from the city during the pandemic.

Metro worked with the restaurant and the Civic Design Center to provide a different temporary process dubbed the "tactical urbanism" permit.

Civic Design Center is an organization that works with various groups and Public Works to reclaim public space, using short-term, low costs projects to improve safety and pedestrian-friendly spaces.

The restaurant, located in the Lockeland Springs neighborhood, lined the sidewalk on one of its outside walls with seven small tables, two seats each. Co-owner Cara Graham said it's made a world of difference in helping the business survive while following mandates limiting its indoor space to half capacity.

"14 seats in a situation like this is huge for us, and people want to be there," Graham said. "That's where they request to sit 90% of the time."

East Nashville's Lockeland Table added a bunch of tables on the sidewalk on the 16th Street side of the restaurant(Photo: Submitted)

Graham said the restaurant's attorney handled the application process, which went smoothly. The planning commission inspected the sidewalk setup and determined that the sidewalk was wide enough to accommodate tables and still comply withADArequirements.

"I think it's really an example of the city recognizing that we need to re-imagine public spaces and how these public spaces can be activated in positive ways," Graham said.

Making this process easier for restaurants could be their saving grace, she added.

"We just feel like we've consistently been doing our part for the city ... we were doing the things that were mandated before they were mandated," Graham explained. "...We feel like this is just a way for the city to give back to small businesses that are trying to survive right now."

Yihyun Jeong covers politics in Nashville for USA TODAY NETWORK - TENNESSEE.Reach her at yjeong@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @yihyun_jeong.

Cassandra Stephenson covers business for The Tennessean. Reach her at ckstephenson@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @CStephenson731.

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Nashville eyes sidewalk dining as a tool to keep restaurants afloat. Could the idea outlast COVID-19? - Tennessean