Image: European Space Agency A render of a nuclear-powered rocket.

Nuclear rocket engines could be the next giant leap for mankind.

There is a lot of incredible research being done around space travel right now. At NASA, theyre developing new engines that could power us onto Mars, private rocket firms are looking at ways to make space travel more economical and the European Space Agency just launched a round of funding to investigate the potential of nuclear-powered spacecraft.

As part of the Future Launchers Preparatory Program, the European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded funding to seven studies across Europe that are investigating the next-generation of rocket engines. As part of the investment, the ESA is supporting the work of a team from the Czech Republic, which is behind the RocketRoll program.

The program is in development at the Czech Technical University in Prague and the Institute of Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart. As part of the project, scientists are studying the practicalities of a new type of nuclear-based electric propulsion.

Currently, space craft rely on a chemical propellant like hydrogen or rubber to provide them with the energy they use to travel. Once in the vacuum of space, some also work with electricity that is generated through solar cells attached to the craft. But, the RocketRoll program says such power plants are approaching their physical limits.

Nuclear propulsion can be more efficient than the most efficient chemical propulsion or overcome solar-limited electric propulsion, enabling exploration of places no other technology can reach, said Dr Jan Frbort, principal investigator of nuclear technology at the Czech Technical University, in a statement.

This is a big challenge for future space missions beyond our Solar System.

Space rockets traditionally use a chemical propellant.

But before the team could begin working to solve this looming question surrounding space travel, it had to settle on a name for the program. It had to be a catchy acronym, this is space after all, so the team settled on RocketRoll.

Thats a pretty long acronym, I hear you cry, but just wait until you read what its actually short for.

According to Space.com, the projects full title is the Preliminary European Reckon on Nuclear Electric Propulsion for Space Applications. In order to turn this into that catchy name, the researchers plucked out a whole selection of random letters from each word to shoehorn them into the catchy title.

So, on the research projects own website, they list the full name as pReliminary eurOpean reCKon on nuclEar elecTric pROpuLsion for space appLications to try and point out how it came up with the name. And Ive looked; the acronym doesnt even work properly if you translate it into Czech or French.

Daft names aside, it is a pretty exciting-sounding project even if it should really be known as PERNEPSA instead. The next step for the team will be to uncover the experience and technology available across Europe to develop a nuclear-based propulsion system. They will also develop a concept design for such a craft that could one day travel through the cosmos.

RocketRoll says its results will be published next year.

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European Space Agency Is Funding the Worst Acronym in Space Travel - msnNOW

David M. Shribman

I saw it lift into the dusky heavens, reaching upward in a stunning ballet of determination and grace, creeping across the sky in an orange streak, stretching toward Earths orbit. And somehow, the rise of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket defied the notion that there is no revelation in repetition.

Americans have been launching rockets from Florida for 73 years; the first one was on July 24, 1950, a date hardly anyone marks or even is aware of. Since Project Apollo, which catapulted men to the moon, ended 48 years ago, and the eclipse of the space shuttle, which mounted 135 missions, spaceflight has prompted a certain ennui.

The days when a black-and-white television atop a tall metal tower was wheeled into classrooms for schoolchildren to witness a Project Mercury launch have become a fading memory, like the lyrics of a Shelley Fabares song.

But suddenly it is pass to say that spaceflight is pass.

The past few weeks have proved that. The astronauts who will return to lunar orbit on Artemis II were identified to much fanfare and public interest.

A Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer satellite, known as Juice, took off from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on a mission that will take it through 25 flybys of Jupiters Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede moons one of the most exciting missions we have ever flown in the solar system, in the characterization of Josef Aschbacher, the head of the European Space Agency, and by far the most complex.

And there is more. The Starship rocket lifted off the pad in southern Texas, cleared the launchpad and flew for four minutes before collapsing into a spectacular fireball and yet SpaceX declared the mission a great success.

Mission personnel from a private Japanese company may have lost contact with the ispace lunar lander, but the Hakuto-R Mission 1 vehicle is presumed to have crashed in the Atlas crater on the near side of the moon like the Starship, an achievement amid disappointment.

The $97 million SpaceX rocket that slipped the surly bonds of Earth Sunday night was carrying satellites designed to improve internet service in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region, with another satellite designed to provide high-speed internet to remote areas in Alaska.

Neither their form nor function was remotely conceivable when the Apollo 8 astronauts circled the moon at Christmastime in 1968, sending unforgettable pictures of their home planet and reading from the Book of Genesis.

That was 55 years ago, and yet the parallels between 1968 and 2023 are unmistakable: social tensions. Cultural upheaval. Political divisions. A sense of despair. And yet when Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman began reading the verses of the Bible, there was a glimmer of hope on the old planet.

We could have a moment like that in a year or so from now when the Artemis astronauts return to moon orbit, said Jennifer Levasseur, curator at the National Air and Space Museum. There is something about the state of the world today that seems similar to 1968. It makes me think that this is just the right time for something like this. We are building to a pretty big moment.

Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian astronaut who will travel aboard the first manned Artemis mission, believes so. How do we actually get eight billion people to row in the same direction and work on [our] problems? he asked when the Artemis astronauts submitted to a Canadian Press interview. Because these are global problems. We can do great things together. We can do better as a human race. And heres one small example.

The editorialists at Canadas Globe and Mail newspaper picked up the theme. Ours is a world and a moment that sorely needs a reason to look up in astonished unison, they wrote. We dont get many shared experiences anymore. Our histories, our entertainment, our windows on the world even the facts of our basic reality are fragmented into choose-your-own-adventure shards.

Col. Hansen is the lineal descendant of Marc Garneau, the first Canadian in space, the way the three American Artemis astronauts are the descendants of Alan Shepard, the first American in space.

The Apollo lunar missions drove innovation in ways never imagined, but they brought us more, Garneau told me. They left us proud and even awed by what we accomplished. They gave us confidence. They made us realize we could achieve the extraordinarily difficult. They brought us together and inspired humanity. They moved us forward. We need to build on that.

Everyone who has been into space feels that way. Jay Apt, who flew on four space-shuttle missions, one as commander, believes space travel is an antidote to earthbound lassitude and public pessimism.

Optimism is essential to provide the energy people need to do almost anything outside of their daily routine, whether it be founding a small business, discovering the secrets of electricity or having children, he said. Exploration in pretty much any era is inherently optimistic and draws the best from optimistic people, which is why I personally get a thrill seeing the images from space telescopes, Earth views from the space station, and cant wait for the photos and videos from the crews that will circle and land on the moon in the decades to come.

He is not alone. Levasseur, the museum curator, sees a definite change in the way people mingle amid the space capsules on the display floor. I see a connection that young people have with the space program I havent seen before, she said. Its palpable.

Americans havent always felt that way. Dwight Eisenhower, who was no romantic, was skeptical of mounting a space effort even after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957.

Id like to know whats on the other side of the moon, Eisenhower said, but I wont pay to find out this year. When his successor, John F. Kennedy, launched the American effort to reach the moon, Eisenhower said, Anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts.

Nuts we were, and nuts we are.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, Kennedy said in his challenge to NASA, but because they are hard.

It still is hard, but away we go.

David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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The optimism of space exploration - Itemlive - Daily Item

The veteran astronaut returns to her alma mater for a building dedication and another day of inspiring kids to pursue STEM careers.

Nearly 30 years to the day after first returning to San Diego State University as an experienced Space Shuttle astronaut, alumna Ellen Ochoa was welcomed back to campus Friday for the dedication of a building bearing her name.

About 300 people, including students and several excited young children brought to the ceremony by a parent, gathered for a ribbon-cutting at Ellen Ochoa Pavilion, formerly West Commons.

Its wonderful to be recognized with my name on a building by my alma mater, said Ochoa, the first Latina to go into space and a former director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. And certainly an honor that I could not have imagined when I was a student here.

Continuing her long-standing and tireless role as an advocate for underrepresented students in science and technology, Ochoa said she still is dedicated to getting the word out about the rewarding and challenging careers available in STEM fields.

Just as others inspired me, I hope that this building will serve to inspire a generation of Aztecs to reach for the stars, she said.

Ochoa, who grew up in neighboring La Mesa, graduated from SDSU in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree. A class schedule brimming with as many as four physics courses at a time music as the sole respite helped pave her way to graduate school at Stanford University.

I honestly dont think Id be an astronaut today if I hadnt gone here, she said.

SDSU President Adela de la Torre said Ochoas accomplishments have had a tremendous impact on all of us.

The Ellen Ochoa Pavilion will serve as a daily reminder to this campus community to pursue their interests (and) passions, regardless of the challenges and obstacles that stand in their way, said de la Torre.

She is a champion for education. She has used her own success to inspire and fuel the success of generations that follow, in a whole host of fields.

Ellen Ochoa and her husband Coe Miles (front row in blue shirt) are joined by SDSU president Adela de la Torre. 300 people attended Friday's dedication ceremony of the Ellen Ochoa Pavilion at SDSU, May 5, 2023. (Rachel Crawford / SDSU)

STEM representation

Ochoa visited SDSU on May 11, 1993, just one month after her first trip into orbit on the shuttle Discovery. In a one-hour program with 700 middle and high school students that day, Ochoa shared pictures and videos from her mission. Included was a clip of her in orbit playing a flute, her instrument as a member of the Marching Aztecs and in the Wind Ensemble.

She made three more trips into space on the shuttles Discovery and Atlantis for a total of nearly 1,000 hours. She also kept up a busy schedule of school appearances, promoting the value of educating and encouraging girls in particular to follow her example and pursue careers in STEM fields.

Just Thursday, she revisited a middle school in La Mesa, Parkway Sports & Health Science Academy, which she attended as a child, for the dedication of a mural bearing her image. Parkway Middle School, as it was known at the time, also had been one of her speaking stops 30 years ago.

In an interview with SDSU NewsCenter before the ceremony, Ochoa said some things have changed over those three decades, while others havent.

Despite this increasingly routine nature of space travel, she said, young people still are just really excited whenever I talk, anywhere around the country, about space.

Its true.

I love astronauts, said 7-year-old Annalies Naluz, who is writing a report on Ochoa for her class at Hickman Elementary School in Tierrasanta and got to have a picture taken with her subject.

Naomi Webb, who is transferring from San Diego City College to SDSUs aerospace engineering program in the fall, was also thrilled by the chance to see the guest of honor. I think Ellen Ochoa is really inspiring, Webb said. I want to be the second astronaut to graduate from here.

That kind of talk elates Ochoa.

Diversity has increased in the STEM fields but not nearly as I would have predicted 30 years ago (for) what it would look like today, Ochoa said during her interview. I think theres a lot more voices talking about it now and more opportunities for kids to have at least some kind of experience when theyre younger.

But when some of them think about a scientist, she said, theyre not picturing themselves or somebody who looks like them.

To help change that, Ochoa last year wrote Dr. Ochoas Stellar World: We Are All Scientists/Todos Somos Cientficos (2022, Lil Libros), first in a planned series of bilingual board books for pre-K children on STEAM fields. The next volumes, due in the fall, will touch on the next two letters of the acronym: technology and engineering.

Ellen Ochoa is photographed outside the newly named Ellen Ochoa Pavilion, formerly West Commons, at SDSU on Friday, May 5, 2023. (Rachel Crawford / SDSU)

New audience

In the plethora of astronaut books since NASAs Mercury program, Ochoas may be the first one aimed at a preliterate audience. Ochoa said she was approached to write it by a publisher specializing in bilingual childrens books. The result is a book describing scientists as investigators driven by curiosity, illustrated very noticeably with a racially diverse population of boys and girls.

Planning what to convey in the book, I just had to think about, what do I wish I had known about science when I was young, said Ochoa.

Public appearances have traditionally been part of an active astronauts job duties, and Ochoa said the fact that she was on the road barely a month after her first flight was partly because the school year was nearly over. (Her most recent previous visit to SDSU was in October 2019, when she was awarded an honorary doctorate but also spoke to hundreds of university and public-school students.)

What keeps her going 30 years later, she said, is the thought that its really important to do. We need people to study STEM in our country and there are a lot of groups that really arent well-represented at all, so were missing out on a lot of right minds, a lot of people who could ask good questions or come up with good solutions to challenges.

Oftentimes, nobody has really talked to them about it.

In February Ochoa joined the board of directors of SRI International, a nonprofit research institute founded in 1946 by her other alma mater, Stanford University. Ive been involved in research or engineering or technology development really throughout my career, she said. Thats exactly what they do at SRI. Thats something I wanted to stay involved with.

Ellen Ochoa is photographed inside the Ellen Ochoa Pavilion, formerly West Commons, at SDSU, May 5, 2023. (Rachel Crawford / SDSU)

More firsts

Ochoas status as a prominent first in the astronaut corps is being replicated by others today in the announcement of a maiden crew for NASAs Artemis program, which will send astronauts back to the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. It includes the first woman and first Black person to be sent into lunar orbit.

NASAs astronaut corps is just more representative of the American population, Ochoa said in the interview. And she hopes that helps young people understand they can think big and set high goals for themselves, even if it doesnt involve going into space.

Ochoas husband, Coe Miles, attended the ceremony along with two brothers, Wilson and Monte Ochoa, and extended family members.

The newly renamed, two-story structure is an SDSU potpourri, comprising classrooms, a food sciences lab, some eateries, a bank and the Native Resource Center.

Fridays dedication was the second of two renamings of SDSU buildings this spring. In April, a ceremony was held at the Charles B. Bell Jr. Pavilion (formerly East Commons), honoring a mathematics and statistics professor who was the first Black faculty member to achieve tenure.

Both renamings are the product of a presidential task force and a campuswide invitation for nominations intending to increase representation for diverse communities across campus.

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Ellen Ochoa and the Multiverse of Motivation | NewsCenter | SDSU - SDSU Newscenter

Science & Exploration

02/05/20231922 views73 likes

What are the next steps for making human spaceflight more inclusive, accessible, and safer? How can designing for space accessibility improve accessibility on Earth? Where does ESAs parastronaut feasibility project stand?

On Thursday, 11May 2023 at 15:00-17:00 CEST, join the webinar organised by ESAs Advanced Concepts Team and ESAs Chief Diversity Officer, with the support of the non-profit BIRNE7 e.V.

Click here to register to the seminar on Thursday, 11May 2023, 15:00 to 17:00 CEST.

For the past six decades, humanity has witnessed approximately 630 astronauts leave Earth for orbital missions of short or long duration. In recent years, diversity in human spaceflight has increased, in terms of gender, culture, age, nationality and disability.

The launch of ESAs parastronaut feasibility project, along with the selection of the first astronaut with a physical disability, has brought greater attention to the conversation about accessibility. As we prepare to return to the Moon, making space travel accessible to all is a game-changer.

The purpose of this webinar is to shed light on the importance of designing space architecture and technologies that are safe, accessible, and sustainable. We will explore how designing for space accessibility can improve accessibility on Earth and learn more about ESAs parastronaut feasibility project.

The webinar is open to all. However, participation will be limited to 250 people during the live session.

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Join the webinar on Accessibility in Human Spaceflight - European Space Agency

Sci-fi has been telling us for decades that in order to truly travel the stars, were going to have to knock ourselves out for a while. Well need to enter whatever kind of suspended animation pod the space industry has designed and just go to sleep, and when we wake up, well be in another galaxy.

The thing is, that kind of futuristic tech might not be that far off. According to Jennifer Ngo-Anh, a research and payload coordinator with the European Space Agency, we may be able to start testing human hibernation in as little as 10 years.

Of course, we need to finetune everything before we can apply it to humans, Ngo-Anh said in an article for Space.com. But I would say that 10 years is a realistic timeline.

More From Popular Mechanics

This kind of hibernation, also known as torpor, is more than just a long sleep. And beyond just making it less boring to get from point A to point B, it has the potential to solve several of the major issues with extended space travel, the first of which being the physical impacts of long-term microgravity exposure on the human body.

Studies have shown that living for a significant amount of time in microgravity can have the same kinds of effects on the body as being confined to bed rest, including a loss of bone and muscle mass. Humans deteriorate fast when we arent using our bodies in the gravity theyre built for, and even though astronauts follow very strict fitness routines when in space, they often come back far weaker than they left.

When a mission both begins and ends on Earth, thats not a huge problem, as doctors can nurse the astronauts back to health as needed. But if they took a long trip to, say, Mars, there wouldnt be space rehabilitation specialists waiting on the other side of the trip.

Interestingly, however, the same deterioration doesnt happen if a body is in torpor. Research has shown that the bodies and minds of animals who hibernate suffer from almost none of these issues upon waking up from their long sleep. Figuring out how to induce a man-made hibernation in humans could functionally save them from wasting away on a road trip through the stars.

In addition, humans in torpor would need a lot less to keep going. There is always a weight concern when trying to launch a spacecraft, as more weight is both more difficult and more expensive to get off the ground. On a long distance journey like the one to Mars will be, astronauts will have to pack a substantial amount of food, water, and oxygen to make sure they will make it thereand backsafely. People in torpor need significantly less of all three of those things, thereby minimizing how much cargo needs to come on the trip.

And to top it all off, astronauts are not the only people who could benefit from this technology. Considering many of the effects space travelers are trying to ward off are nearly identical to those of a patient on bedrest, it stands to reason that the technology could also be used to protect the bodies of people on bedrest, or in such states as medically-induced comas. In fact, Alexander Choukr, a researcher and professor of anesthesiology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Germany, believes that the first place well see torpor tested in a human subject wont be an astronaut, but a person in severe medical distress.

At a certain point, there is a case number one where you apply [the new technique] because the risks and benefits are in a balance, and leaning more to the benefits of the subject. And then you can start from there, Choukr said in an article for Space.com.

The benefits are numerous, and the claims that we might be able to access this tech just 10 years from now doesnt come from nowhere. Researchers have already figured out how to induce torpor in rats (which do not naturally hibernate) and bring them safely back into the waking world a few days later.

Obviously, theres still a lot to work outeverything from getting tech that works on rats to work on humans, to figuring out how to get AI to effectively monitor people in a state of torpor while theyre off-world. But we may be ready to fall asleep and wake up above another planet sooner than we thought.

Associate News Editor

Jackie is a writer and editor from Pennsylvania. She's especially fond of writing about space and physics, and loves sharing the weird wonders of the universe with anyone who wants to listen. She is supervised in her home office by her two cats.

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Astronauts Might Be Able to Hibernate Within Just 10 Years - Popular Mechanics

Alan Shepard Jr., a Navy Commander and one of NASA's first seven astronauts, became the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961.Watch the video above to learn more.Shepard was launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, which only had enough room for one person.The flight, which did not orbit Earth, lasted about 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was a success.Shortly after NASA was established in 1958, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to become the first country to put a person in space and return them to Earth. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, put in orbit around the planet and safely returned to Earth.One month later, Shepard's successful suborbital flight helped to restore faith in the U.S. space program.Shepard went on to take part in several other NASA missions, including Apollo 14, which landed on the moon in 1971. He became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon and the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.Shepard left NASA in 1974. He died in 1998 at the age of 74.

Alan Shepard Jr., a Navy Commander and one of NASA's first seven astronauts, became the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961.

Watch the video above to learn more.

Shepard was launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, which only had enough room for one person.

The flight, which did not orbit Earth, lasted about 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was a success.

Shortly after NASA was established in 1958, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to become the first country to put a person in space and return them to Earth. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, put in orbit around the planet and safely returned to Earth.

One month later, Shepard's successful suborbital flight helped to restore faith in the U.S. space program.

Shepard went on to take part in several other NASA missions, including Apollo 14, which landed on the moon in 1971. He became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon and the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.

Shepard left NASA in 1974. He died in 1998 at the age of 74.

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This Day in History: Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space - WBAL TV Baltimore

THE GREAT WALL FROM SPACE

No, you cant see the Great Wall of China from outer space Buzz Aldrin repeatedly tried to end this urban myth. Only from a few hundred kilometres above Earth can shuttle astronauts see the Great Wall when the sun hits it at the right angle. You can see plenty of other objects from low orbit, such as airports, dams, bridges, big highways and Dubais reclaimed Palm Islands. See

Do the Yupik and Inuit have exceptional numbers of words to describe snow? Thats debatable, because it depends how you define a word. Eskimo-Aleut languages, like German, create compound words, for example for snow that is falling or snow suitable for sleds that are short phrases but still shared concepts in English. English incidentally has 30-something words for snow and ice. See

No, not that one. Its the Great Pyramid of Cholula near Puebla in Mexico, whose volume of 3.3 million cubic metres is almost 50 per cent greater than that of Egypts largest pyramid. Its base is four times larger. The Mexican pyramid can probably claim to be the largest monument ever built. However, much of it remains buried, and its now topped with a church. See

Your parents probably warned you about swimming right after lunch; the theory is that blood rushes to your stomach so your limbs just flop, and youll drown. Actually, normal meals create no problem for swimmers, although heavy meals can cause discomfort after any vigorous exercise. Just before they set off, marathon swimmers tuck into meals high in carbohydrates without sinking to the bottom. See

Ships and aircraft are said to mysteriously vanish into this section of the North Atlantic in a myth that can be traced back to American newspaper and magazine articles from the 1950s. Credible research from the likes of the US Coast Guard, Lloyds shipping insurers and scientific investigators have found no disproportionate disappearances within the Bermuda Triangle, only plenty of inaccurate, exaggerated and inventive reporting. See

Many people assume the famous Cape of Good Hope is Africas southernmost point. In fact, the less-well-known Cape Agulhas is 55 kilometres further south and the geographic tip of Africa, as well as the official divider between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The name means Cape of Needles in Portuguese and its a notorious shipping hazard thanks to storms and rogue waves. See

This legend arose when the Earl of Carnarvon, who financed the discovery of King Tuts tomb in 1923, died shortly afterwards. The death rate of others associated with the discovery was no more than normal. Archaeologist Howard Carter lived another 16 years and tomb guard Richard Adamson survived until 1982. Arthur Conan Doyle was a prominent voice in promoting the curse, but he also believed in fairies. See

Marco Polo didnt introduce pasta from China in the thirteenth century. His book never mentions noodles, and writing about pasta in Italy predates his return from China. This myth has been traced to an article in the American Macaroni Journal in the 1920s. Pasta almost certainly originated in Sicily under its ninth-century Islamic rulers, likely thanks to the influence of Persian and Arab cuisine. See

Its frequently said that medieval Europeans and even 1492 explorer Christopher Columbus feared falling off the Earth. Rubbish. The ancient Greeks knew the Earth was spherical Aristotle proved it in 330 BCE and so did early Christians and early Muslim scholars. This myth was promoted in the nineteenth century by prominent writers such as Washington Irving, often in an attempt to discredit the Catholic Church. See

Okay, this wont be a myth until mid-2023, but it will be an ongoing one if we dont update our general knowledge. The United Nations says India will soon have a population of 1.42 billion, three million more than Chinas. The figures are inexact, since no Indian census has been carried out since 2011, but Indias population continues to rise, while Chinas is shrinking. See

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Dont be fooled: 10 of the biggest travel myths, busted - Sydney Morning Herald

Guardians of the Galaxy shows that Marvel space travel is mostly based on wormhole mechanics.

By Sckylar Gibby-Brown| Updated 4 days ago

When it comes to superhero movies like Marvel, space travel, magic, and weird science are just part of the narrative. The MCU films and TV shows hold on to the viewers suspension of disbelief as long as possible so they can tell captivating stories without making the shows feel like a graduate school-level science class by taking the time to explain all the rules of how characters like The Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel are able to travel through space and time. But after 15 years of the MCU, its time to dive into how Marvel space travel science actually worksmostly, its wormholes and convenient space magic.

When it comes to creating the science behind Marvel space travel, The Guardians of the Galaxy and the other MCU movies are all over the place, depending on what each movies narrative needs, unlike other space adventures like Star Wars, which bases everything on the singular god-like power of Force, or Star Trek which has its foundation in quantum mechanics. For Marvel, the science comes from whatever is needed to move the story along in the moment, so sometimes Marvel uses sci-fi elements like wormholes, while other times they simply blame it on space magic without diving too deep into the explanation.

For a long time, Marvel didnt draw too much attention to how exactly space travel worked. The first glimpse of it came from Thor when the Bifrost Rainbow Bridge was introduced as a type of wormhole that allowed Asgardians to reach Earth. But space travel during that phase of the MCU didnt really need more explanation other than a magical bridge that was somehow connected to wormhole science. That is until The Guardians of the Galaxy came along in 2014.

Suddenly, there were characters who were using spaceships to travel not just between Earth and one other galaxy, but were traveling between multiple galaxies and planets like it was as normal as driving down the highway. The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 brought up a ton of questions for Marvel fans about space travel, questions that James Gunn was happy to address in Vol. 2.

It turns out, in the Marvel Galaxy Andromeda, space travel is as normal as driving down the highway. The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 explains that long ago, space-exploring civilizations built these space freeways of sorts with jump points that carried ships mega distances, as long as the driver stuck to the road. The movie doesnt dive more into the science than that, but the context given through the visuals shows that the jump points are likely based in wormholesa sci-fi fail-safe for explaining space travel.

These jump points (also known as the Universal Neural Teleportation Network) are interconnected throughout the entire universe and are used in Marvel for space travel in more than just The Guardians of the Galaxy. In Infinity War, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Thor, Bruce Banner, James Rhodes, Rocket Raccoon, Nebula, and Carol Danvers embarked on a mission to Planet 0259-S via the Benatar and a jump point. Following Thanos defeat by Thor, they successfully returned to Earth using the same transportation method.

However, while the jump points are a convenient way of explaining how beings from every corner of the universe end up on Earth at some point before the events of Endgame, Marvel did include at least a few rules for space travel to help make it feel more realistic. For instance, in The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Yondu explains to Rocket that it isnt healthy for mammals to pass through more than 50 jump points at a time, just as the ship is about to pass through 700 consecutive jumps.

A hilarious scene then shows what happens to someone who jumps too far as everyone on the ships faces begins to morph and disconfigure temporarily until the crew gets to their destination on the planet Ego.

However, wormholes are not the only way Marvel characters space travel. As seen in Captain Marvel, unlike the Guardians of the Galaxy, Carol Danvers doesnt need a wormhole or even a spaceship to travel to another galaxy as she has superhuman powers that allow her to travel at the speed of lightpowers that were given to her by the space magic conduit, the Tesseract.

So, whether its through wormholes or space magic, Marvel has at least figured out some explanations for space travel. And, as long as you dont think about it too much, it kind of makes sense. Kind of.

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How Space Travel Works In Guardians Of The Galaxy And The ... - Giant Freakin Robot

Last week, Professor of Integrated Media and Chair of the StudioArt department Julia Christensenpresented her ongoing project, TheTree of Life, at the California Institute of Technology. Christensenswork explores the intersection ofart and technology.

This interview has been edited forlength and clarity.

You just presented your project, The Tree of Life, at theInterplanetary Small SatelliteConference at Caltech. What isThe Tree of Life?

The Tree of Life is a global public art piece that includes a seriesof living trees around the globe,which we are harnessing to actas living terrestrial antennae thatcan communicate with a spacecraft were designing to push theconstraints of obsolescence thatare maintained by a capitalisttechnology structure, to thinkabout technology as long-lastingand sustainable. So thats the beginning. The trees have sensorson them that are reading dataabout light, moisture, and temperature, and we are sonifyingthat data continuously. The treeantennae have been sending outthe song about their light, moisture, and temperature experience,and the spacecraft receives thatfile. Meanwhile, the spacecraftis sending a similar song aboutits operational experience to thetrees. So both songs are put together to make a duet about ourlife on Earth in conversation withtechnology that we built.

The whole idea was originally inspired when I was asked toenvision an art project to be embedded on an interstellar spacecraft that was conceptually timedto leave Earth in the year 2016. Iwanted to create a song or a storyfrom the perspective of trees onearth, rather than from the perspective of humans. A lot of mycollaborators are space scientistsat the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, and we formed a nonprofitcalled The Space Song Foundation to support the project.

Is the focus of The Space SongFoundation to support oneproject, or was the foundationstarted to expand on the conversations started by The Treeof Life project?

The mission statement of SpaceSong is to support The Tree of Lifeproject and explore and expandideas about design at the intersection of art, science, and technology, to think about sustainable design on Earth and in outer space,because there are a lot of designprinciples that are designed to dothe test or answer a question orfinish the experiment, and sometimes thats just done in a six-month window. The thing thathappens to all of that technologywhen its designed for such a specific function is something we seeon Earth all of the time, becausewere dealing with electronics onsuch an extraordinary scale. Thesame questions apply to the technology that were launching intoouter space, and were at a pointwhere dead technology is goingto create sort of this exoskeletonorbiting our planet. So these questions are super timely. Also, in order to do deep space exploration,to go to another solar system, weneed technology that is able to notonly travel, you know, 4.2 lightyears away or whatever, but alsooperate that entire time. Itll takedecades for a spacecraft to get toa destination that distant, so wealso have to be thinking about thelong-term operation and technology in order to envision interstellar missions.

So how do we start thinkingabout sustainable design forspace technology?

Theres the spacecraft itself. Wehave been working with a teamof engineers and space scientistssince 2018 to develop schematicsfor CubeSat, a small, toaster-sized spacecraft that can operatefor 200 years. The interestingthing about this process is thatengineers are trained to think inshort timelines, asking, how dowe get the data that we need in sixmonths? And so when we madethis proposition to them, to designthis CubeSat that will last 200years, they were sort of befuddled they wanted to know, Yeah,but whats it gonna do? And wesaid, Actually, what its going todo is secondary; longevity is thecentral design intention here.As soon as the engineers began toembrace that the main test waslongevity, it changed the way thatwere thinking about design.

It often seems that our current culture makes us unableto think long term. Does thismake designing with the purpose of longevity difficult?

I think that our public imaginations about the future, in away, are being constrained byupgrade culture. I wrote a bookthat was just published a coupleof years ago called Upgrade Available about this idea that becausethe upgrade is always available,its hard for us to think long terminto the future without consider-ing constant disruption. And soThe Tree of Life project is a way ofputting our imagination on a 200-year time scale so we can committo a future in a way that technology is antithetical to. And withthe trees, part of the question thatwe were asking is if a spacecraft istrying to send us data in 150 yearsfrom interstellar destination, howare we going to receive that data?How do we get a JPEG in the year2250? So, we started to thinkabout how we really need to lookback at earlier technological systems, to think about fidelity in thelong term. Radio just kept comingback. You know, a radio wave isa radio wave, its not going to become obsolete. We can change theway that we transmit it or receiveit, but if the laws of physics aretrue across the universe, whichwe think they are, a sine wave isa sine wave. My colleagues whowork on NASA projects, they lovethis project, because its so Back tothe Future. We have to look backto look forward.

What do you think being anartist doing this work providesto these conversations of technology? Does it take an artisticeye to design something thatreimagines current perceptions of longevity?

Recently, somebody was introducing me at a talk and theycalled me an embedded artist. Ivenever really thought about thatterm in relation to myself, but Ikind of like it because its sort oflike embedding an artist at the table with people who are trying tosolve some other kind of problem.Some of my engineer colleaguessay that artists help them thinkthrough their thinking, becausewe can slow things down. Werelike, Well, why dont we justmake it empty? Also, I thinkthat having an artist in the roomempowers scientists to see thework that theyre doing as creative, you know, and not so analytical. I mean, working with mycolleagues in Space Song, I thinkit helps them see that really, wereall kind of on this existential planeof asking these questions aboutwho we are and where we are.

ast week, Professor of Integrated Media and Chair of the StudioArt department Julia Christensenpresented her ongoing project, TheTree of Life, at the California Institute of Technology. Christensenswork explores the intersection ofart and technology.

This interview has been edited forlength and clarity.

You just presented your project, The Tree of Life, at theInterplanetary Small SatelliteConference at Caltech. What isThe Tree of Life?

The Tree of Life is a global public art piece that includes a seriesof living trees around the globe,which we are harnessing to actas living terrestrial antennae thatcan communicate with a spacecraft were designing to push theconstraints of obsolescence thatare maintained by a capitalisttechnology structure, to thinkabout technology as long-lastingand sustainable. So thats the beginning. The trees have sensorson them that are reading dataabout light, moisture, and temperature, and we are sonifyingthat data continuously. The treeantennae have been sending outthe song about their light, moisture, and temperature experience,and the spacecraft receives thatfile. Meanwhile, the spacecraftis sending a similar song aboutits operational experience to thetrees. So both songs are put together to make a duet about ourlife on Earth in conversation withtechnology that we built.

The whole idea was originally inspired when I was asked toenvision an art project to be embedded on an interstellar spacecraft that was conceptually timedto leave Earth in the year 2016. Iwanted to create a song or a storyfrom the perspective of trees onearth, rather than from the perspective of humans. A lot of mycollaborators are space scientistsat the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, and we formed a nonprofitcalled The Space Song Foundation to support the project.

Is the focus of The Space SongFoundation to support oneproject, or was the foundationstarted to expand on the conversations started by The Treeof Life project?

The mission statement of SpaceSong is to support The Tree of Lifeproject and explore and expandideas about design at the intersection of art, science, and technology, to think about sustainable design on Earth and in outer space,because there are a lot of designprinciples that are designed to dothe test or answer a question orfinish the experiment, and sometimes thats just done in a six-month window. The thing thathappens to all of that technologywhen its designed for such a specific function is something we seeon Earth all of the time, becausewere dealing with electronics onsuch an extraordinary scale. Thesame questions apply to the technology that were launching intoouter space, and were at a pointwhere dead technology is goingto create sort of this exoskeletonorbiting our planet. So these questions are super timely. Also, in order to do deep space exploration,to go to another solar system, weneed technology that is able to notonly travel, you know, 4.2 lightyears away or whatever, but alsooperate that entire time. Itll takedecades for a spacecraft to get toa destination that distant, so wealso have to be thinking about thelong-term operation and technology in order to envision interstellar missions.

So how do we start thinkingabout sustainable design forspace technology?

Theres the spacecraft itself. Wehave been working with a teamof engineers and space scientistssince 2018 to develop schematicsfor CubeSat, a small, toaster-sized spacecraft that can operatefor 200 years. The interestingthing about this process is thatengineers are trained to think inshort timelines, asking, how dowe get the data that we need in sixmonths? And so when we madethis proposition to them, to designthis CubeSat that will last 200years, they were sort of befuddled they wanted to know, Yeah,but whats it gonna do? And wesaid, Actually, what its going todo is secondary; longevity is thecentral design intention here.As soon as the engineers began toembrace that the main test waslongevity, it changed the way thatwere thinking about design.

It often seems that our current culture makes us unableto think long term. Does thismake designing with the purpose of longevity difficult?

I think that our public imaginations about the future, in away, are being constrained byupgrade culture. I wrote a bookthat was just published a coupleof years ago called Upgrade Available about this idea that becausethe upgrade is always available,its hard for us to think long terminto the future without consider-ing constant disruption. And soThe Tree of Life project is a way ofputting our imagination on a 200-year time scale so we can committo a future in a way that technology is antithetical to. And withthe trees, part of the question thatwe were asking is if a spacecraft istrying to send us data in 150 yearsfrom interstellar destination, howare we going to receive that data?How do we get a JPEG in the year2250? So, we started to thinkabout how we really need to lookback at earlier technological systems, to think about fidelity in thelong term. Radio just kept comingback. You know, a radio wave isa radio wave, its not going to become obsolete. We can change theway that we transmit it or receiveit, but if the laws of physics aretrue across the universe, whichwe think they are, a sine wave isa sine wave. My colleagues whowork on NASA projects, they lovethis project, because its so Back tothe Future. We have to look backto look forward.

What do you think being anartist doing this work providesto these conversations of technology? Does it take an artisticeye to design something thatreimagines current perceptions of longevity?

Recently, somebody was introducing me at a talk and theycalled me an embedded artist. Ivenever really thought about thatterm in relation to myself, but Ikind of like it because its sort oflike embedding an artist at the table with people who are trying tosolve some other kind of problem.Some of my engineer colleaguessay that artists help them thinkthrough their thinking, becausewe can slow things down. Werelike, Well, why dont we justmake it empty? Also, I thinkthat having an artist in the roomempowers scientists to see thework that theyre doing as creative, you know, and not so analytical. I mean, working with mycolleagues in Space Song, I thinkit helps them see that really, wereall kind of on this existential planeof asking these questions aboutwho we are and where we are.

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Julia Christensen: Professor of Integrated Media and Chair of the ... - The Oberlin Review