The lives of America's first astronauts a group known as the Mercury 7 have been etched into modern-day history. Chronicled in the now-classic 1983 movie "The Right Stuff," based on the 1979 book of the same name by Tom Wolfe, these military test pilots were also all men.

Lesser known is the story of the 13 women who could have qualified for NASA's astronaut program. Dubbed the Mercury 13, these fearless pilots had all the qualifications and experience to be able to compete with and in some cases, outperform their male counterparts. They were simply the wrong gender.

Related: How to become an astronaut

With the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, the space race between the USSR and the United States was officially underway. As U.S. officials worked to develop and bolster the nation's fledgling space program, they decided to begin hiring astronauts who would eventually fly in space.

But how do you hire for a position no one has ever held, and before the United States had even launched an uncrewed satellite into space? According to the Harvard Medicine magazine, officials turned to Dr. William Randolph "Randy" Lovelace, an aerospace physician and the head of NASA's committee on life science, for guidance. Lovelace was in charge of developing physical and mental tests to ensure that astronauts would be able to handle the rigors of operating in microgravity. The testing was incredibly thorough in order to confront all of the known and unknown challenges of space travel.

Related: What it's like to become a NASA astronaut: 10 surprising facts

Lovelace accepted NASA's many astronaut candidates with grace, and put them through his rigorous testing regimes in order to select the best men for the job. But unbeknownst to the agency, Lovelace also decided to conduct his own tests in secret, but on female candidates who also met NASA's astronaut qualifications. The women who qualified were known as the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, or FLATs, and later as the Mercury 13.

The female candidates were hand-picked by Lovelace, and visited his clinic individually or in pairs to complete testing. The women weren't tested as a group, as the Mercury 13 name implies; nor were they officially included in any NASA program. At the time, there was no government-sanctioned program to recruit, test or train women astronauts. Lovelace ran the entire program on his own.

Lovelace started his tests in 1960 with Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb, and eventually expanded the program to 25 more female pilots after Cobb's well-documented success. By the end of 1961, a total of 13 women, including Cobb, made the final cut: Myrtle Cagle, Janet Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Sarah Gorelick, Jane "Janey" Briggs Hart, Jean Hixson, Rhea Woltman, Gene Nora Stumbough, Irene Leverton, Jerri Sloan and Bernice Steadman.

There were three testing phases that the final selection of astronauts completed. A 2009 review published in the journal Advances in Physiology Training describes the first phase of testing as a grueling spate of physical tests and exams, including complete X-rays, a gynecological exam, electrocardiograms (EKGs) to measure heart rate, electroencephalograms (EEGs) to measure brain activity, other neurological tests, pulmonary exams, tests of oxygen capacity and more.

Related: Women in space: A gallery of firsts

The second phase of testing included psychological screenings, personality tests, additional neurological exams, isolation tests and more. The final phase consisted of flight simulations. Because this was not an official NASA program, these women weren't able to take these tests in a group or even complete phases back-to-back. Instead, the tests were administered over the spring and summer of 1961.

All of the women successfully completed the first phase, and three of the women also completed the second phase. Jerrie Cobb was the only woman to officially finish all three phases, and she scored in the top 2% of all candidates of any gender, outperforming some of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Unfortunately, the FLATs program was canceled in 1962 before many of the women even had the chance to attempt all of the tests.

Funding wasn't the problem, as the FLATs program was privately funded by Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran, who was a pilot and pioneer in women's aviation. But the ability to actually test these women is ultimately what stopped the program. Lovelace only had the capacity to perform the physical and medical exams at his clinic. The third phase of testing, which involved space simulation, required the use of military facilities. But the government would not allow Lovelace to use military equipment for testing women when NASA had no intention of sending them to space, or even considering women as astronaut candidates at the time. As a result, the FLATs program was canceled.

Despite being denied their opportunity to fly in space, the FLATS are memorable because of their dedication and work toward a more equal future. "The women who took the astronaut medical tests were remarkable for their willingness to try something hard," said Amy Shira Teitel, author of"Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and Their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight" (Grand Central Publishing, 2020). "Even though they weren't qualified to fly in space by NASA's standard of the day, their commitment to pursuing a dream is inspiring," Shira told Space.com in an email.

Related: Record-breaking women in spaceflight history

After Lovelace's program was canceled, Jerrie Cobb continued to work toward putting women in space. In 1961, before the program's cancellation, NASA Administrator James Webb named Cobb a consultant to the agency on the role of women in space, according to NASA. When she received notification that the FLATs program's final tests would not take place, she began campaigning Congress for a hearing on women in space. Her efforts came to fruition in July 1962.

Surprisingly, and for reasons that haven't been made public, it was Jackie Cochran who put the final nail in the coffin for the FLATs program during the 1962 Congressional hearings. She opposed reinstating the program, and instead voiced her support for sending men to the moon. Some have speculated that her motivations were political, The Verge reported. Cochran may have been hoping to end the program in the hopes of spearheading an even larger one perhaps even one where she would take center stage and fly in space herself, Popular Science reported.

While none of the Mercury 13 members ever made it into space, these women paved the way for other female astronauts who shattered the glass ceiling for women at NASA, such as Sally Ride, Eileen Collins, Mae Jemison, Peggy Whitson and more.

Related: Major milestone: 50 years of women in space

The FLATs' journey has been chronicled in books such as "Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight" (Thorndike Press, 2003) by Martha Ackmann and the aforementioned "Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and Their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight," a dueling biography of Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb, written by Amy Shira Teitel. The 2017 Netflix documentary "Mercury 13" brought the stories of these women into the mainstream discussion of women in history, and Amazon ordered a television series about the FLATs in 2017.

Additional resources:

Read more:

The Mercury 13: The women who could have been NASA's first female astronauts - Space.com

The next nearest star to Earth, not counting our sun, is a star named Alpha Centauri and it takes light from that star four years to get to our eyes.

We must accept the fact that until our technological expertise gets to the point we can accelerate a living being at the speed of light, travel to the distant stars remains a moot point.

For the sake of conversation say we wanted to embark on a space venture to Alpha Centauri and our spacecraft had the capability of traveling at a speed of 40,000 miles per hour. Youll have to admit that is pretty fast but even at that speed, the trip is going to take 150,000 years to cover the distance.

Some might suggest we should place a space crew in some kind of suspended animation for the trip. If we cannot do that, our only solution would be to have a least one female on the crew.

No less than 6,240 generations of offspring will be born, live and die on the spacecraft before they reach their destination. And that, again, is just to our nearest star and only one way.

At a NASA meeting several months ago, the subject of births in space came up and the question was asked: Can you get pregnant in space?

Based on a study that was made last fall, it was predicted that cosmic radiation would bombard the body at such a high rate during a long space trip or even an extended stay on Mars that sperm count would decrease and the fetuses wouldnt be able to properly develop in a space environment.

See the original post:

A trip to Earths nearest star is mind-boggling - The Daily Nonpareil

In the recent decision in Lalibert v Canada, 2020 FCA 97, [Lalibert] the Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that the $41.8-million costs of a shareholder's visit to outer space as a "space tourist" should be taxed as a shareholder benefit, and not as a deductible marketing expense as was claimed by the shareholder and the company, Cirque du Soleil. While the circumstances of that case are unusual and exotic, the case illustrates that the shareholder benefit rules should be considered any time a shareholder receives an economic benefit from the corporation because of their position as a shareholder.

The Income Tax Act (ITA) includes a shareholder benefit regime, which is intended to ensure that a shareholder is subject to tax on any economic benefit received from a corporation, subject to certain specified exclusions for bona fide business transactions, certain reorganizations, rights offerings, dividend payments, and capital reductions. The provisions have a broad scope, with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) stating that a shareholder benefit may arise from "just about any payment, appropriation of property or advantage conferred on a shareholder by the corporation."

The consequence of a shareholder benefit is significant: the value of the benefit is included in the shareholder's income for the year as regular income (taxed at a higher rate than a dividend), but the ITA does not allow a corresponding deduction to the corporationthus resulting in an element of double tax. For non-resident shareholders, the ITA deems the benefit to be a dividend to which the normal non-resident withholding tax rules apply.

When Is a Shareholder Benefit Taxable?

ITA subsection 15(1) includes in a shareholder's income the amount or value of a benefit conferred on the shareholder by a corporation. The key issues are thus determining whether a "benefit" exists, whether such benefit has been "conferred," and how to determine the amount of the benefit.

Benefit

The term "benefit" is not defined in the ITA but is broad and can include any type of payment or advantage to a shareholder that is outside of the ordinary course of business. In the view of the CRA, "benefits" include:

In Lalibert, the Federal Court of Appeal noted that the analysis often focuses on whether or not the transaction in question was made for a business or personal purpose.

Conferral of a Benefit

Notably, the existence of an economic benefit does not necessarily mean that the shareholder has received a taxable benefit. The benefit will attract liability for tax only if it was "conferred" on the shareholder. The word "confer" implies the bestowal of bounty or largesse, to the economic benefit of the conferree and a corresponding economic detriment of the corporation. What is key is that the corporation is impoverished and the shareholder enriched.

The case law has also found that subsection 15(1) does not always require an intent on the part of the corporation to confer a benefit or knowledge on the part of the shareholderthe requirement is whether either party knew or should have known that a benefit was conferred. In Lalibert, the Federal Court of Appeal noted that the inquiry is highly fact specific, and corporate intent will be more relevant in certain circumstances, such as when the benefit is the result of a bookkeeping error or other mistake.

Determining the Amount or Value of a Benefit

The ITA requires that the benefit be quantifiable in monetary terms. The courts have applied different valuation methods depending on the circumstances, focusing on using simple common-sense approaches where possible. One typical approach is to determine what the shareholder would have had to pay for the same benefit in the same circumstances if he or she had not been a shareholder of the company.

Lalibert v Canada

The above principles are illustrated in the Lalibert case. The facts, in brief, are as follows. In 1984, a street performer named Guy Lalibert co-founded Cirque du Soleil. Fast-forward 25 years to 2009 when the astronomical success of Cirque du Soleil landed Lalibert in outer space as Canada's first space tourist. One of the corporations in the Cirque du Soleil group paid $41.8 million for Lalibert's 12-day trip to the International Space Station. At the time, Lalibert was the controlling shareholder of the Cirque du Soleil group of companies.

The Minister of National Revenue assessed Lalibert with a shareholder benefit equal to the full cost of the trip. Lalibert appealed, arguing that he went to space for a stunt-type promotional activity on behalf of Cirque du Soleil and the One Drop charity.

To determine whether Lalibert's corporate-paid trip to space was a taxable benefit, the Tax Court considered the purpose of the trip, the circumstances surrounding the commitment made to take the trip, the nature of the promotional activities, and the corporate accounting and tax treatment of the expense. Justice Boyle provided 27 reasons to support the conclusion that the "motivating, essential and overwhelmingly primary purpose of the travel was personal." In addition, the Tax Court found that Lalibert committed to the trip before seeking approval from anyone in the Cirque du Soleil group, and structured the payment so that the external shareholders did not bear any of the economic costs of the trip.

Since very few taxpayers will find themselves in the similar position of trying to determine whether their trip to outer space is a taxable benefit or not, Justice Boyle drew an analogy with a shareholder taking a personal cross-country trip with the occasional business stop along the way:

I have approached my decision in this case as I would have had it involved an owner-manager of a business who decided that he personally wanted to go on a cross-country trip, and then decided that, he would stop in to visit business clients and suppliers and potential clients and potential suppliers along the way. One would expect his incremental direct costs associated with his business promotion activities and sidetrips should be deductible, but that little, if any, of the trip itself would be. If he could have his company pay for his whole trip, even if it did not deduct the cost for tax purposes, it would allow him to pay for his trip in pre-tax dollars. The shareholder benefit provisions exist for just such reasons, and going offside can often result in double taxation once corrected.

Simply put, there is a difference between a business trip which involves or includes personal enjoyment aspects, and a personal trip with business aspects, even significant ones, tacked on.

As the Lalibert case illustrates, a personal trip may incorporate bona fide business activities, and it is appropriate in those circumstances to identify and deduct the incremental, direct costs associated with those business activities. With respect to Lalibert's trip, Justice Boyle allocated 10 percent of the cost of the space trip to business activities and the remaining 90 percent as a taxable shareholder benefit. The Federal Court of Appeal agreed with the Tax Court, confirming Lalibert's $37.6-million shareholder benefit and resulting income inclusion.

Down-to-Earth Examples

Shareholders should remain aware of the potential income tax implications if they use corporate assets for personal use or if a benefit is provided in some other way. For shareholders who are not preparing for a trip to outer space, the following is a list of the more common scenarios that may result in a shareholder receiving a taxable benefit:

Continue reading here:

Space Travel and Taxes: A Cautionary Tale of Shareholder Benefits - Lexology

LAS CRUCES, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) (Virgin Galactic or the Company), a vertically integrated aerospace and space travel company, will reveal the cabin interior design for SpaceShipTwo on July 28, 2020. The virtual event will be streamed live on YouTube at 1.00pm ET.

As previously mentioned, the Company will also be announcing plans to bring immersive experiences of Virgin Galactics spaceflight and cabin interior to aspiring astronauts around the world.

To set a reminder to watch the reveal of the cabin interior design live, please follow the link: YOUTUBE LIVE LINK

You can download all press materials including images and broll from the Virgin Galactic Press FTP.

About Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic is a vertically-integrated aerospace and space travel company, pioneering human spaceflight for private individuals and researchers, as well as a manufacturer of advanced air and space vehicles. Using its proprietary and reusable technologies and supported by a distinctive, Virgin-branded customer experience, it is developing a spaceflight system designed to offer customers a unique, multi-day, transformative experience. This culminates in a spaceflight that includes views of Earth from space and several minutes of weightlessness that will launch from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company believe that one of the most exciting and significant opportunities of our time lies in the commercial exploration of space and the development of technology that will change the way we travel across the globe in the future. Together we are opening access to space to change the world for good.

Original post:

Virgin Galactic to Reveal World's First Virtual Design of Its Spaceship Cabin - Business Wire

WICHITA, Kan., July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Space adventure, family, friendship and faith take center stage in Albert M. Manafords new book titled Jason Jupiter: Lost and Found (published by Archway Publishing). This sci-fi novel chronicles the tale of a 10-year-old boys exciting experiences after he stumbles onto a spaceship with a 5-year-old humanoid inside.

One night, as Jason Jupiter stares into the heavens from his porch swing and dreams of space travel, an object falls out of the sky and vanishes along the horizon, seemingly in close proximity to his house. Overwhelmed with curiosity, Jason decides to investigate without telling his parents. He walks through a forest and into a clearing where, to his surprise, he finds a damaged spaceship without occupants. After he enters the ship to explore, Jason eventually encounters a small craft inside the cargo bay with a humanoid boy inside. When Jason inquires how to start the tiny spaceship, Michael happily shows him a decision that quickly sends the boys on a dangerous joyride. After they barely escape the fighter jets in pursuit, the boys zoom in the craft to Jasons house in Los Alamos, where they cloak the ship and become friends. Now, Jason must determine how to keep Michael and the spaceship a secret from his parents and an undercover government agency with a lofty goal. He is about to discover that his adventure has only just begun.

Jason Jupiter: Lost and Found is designed to intrigue the readers imagination by intermixing the attributes of religion and family relationships into a science-fiction novel. With it, they will also have the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of children a 10-year-old human boy who shares close bonds with his younger sibling and parents; and a humanoid who is filled with an immense amount of advanced scientific understanding.

When asked what he wants people to take away from his writings, Manaford states, That nothing is outside the reach of the human imagination, especially the imagination of kids.

Visit https://www.archwaypublishing.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001237049 to get a copy.

Jason Jupiter: Lost and Found

By Albert M. Manaford

Hardcover | 6 x 9in | 572 pages | ISBN 9781480890374

Softcover | 6 x 9in | 572 pages | ISBN 9781480890398

E-Book | 572 pages | ISBN 9781480890381

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Albert M. Manaford has always had an interest in the sciences, theologies and philosophies. He earned an engineering degree. He is passionate about encouraging younger generations to become interested in science, and helping bridge the gaps between science and theology. Manaford has written around 10 stories in the last 20 years. Five are childrens stories ranging from science fiction to mystical/fairy tales with religious undertones, which adults would also enjoy. The other five are science/science fiction oriented and are written for the young adult and adult audience.

Simon & Schuster, a company with nearly ninety years of publishing experience, has teamed up with Author Solutions, LLC, the worldwide leader in self-publishing, to create Archway Publishing. With unique resources to support books of all kind, Archway Publishing offers a specialized approach to help every author reach his or her desired audience. For more information, visit http://www.archwaypublishing.com or call 844-669-3957.

Originally posted here:

New novel follows 'Jason Jupiter' on an unexpected adventure and a dangerous joyride with a humanoid boy - GlobeNewswire

Space is all the rage these days, but it cant hold a glowing anglerfish to the mysteries of the deep blue sea.

Just ask one group of researchers, who will eschew the cool-kid cosmos to study the complexities of the ocean by living on its floor. Swiss designer Yves Bhar has unveiled plans for a new underwater research station that will be situated 60 feet underwater. Named Proteus for the Greek ocean god, the structure will span 4,000 square feetthree or four times as large as previous underwater habitats, which are typically the size of a school bus. The station will allow 12 researchers to live in the ocean full time while studying sea life.

Proteus is the brainchild of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center, a nonprofit committed to educating people about our oceans and conserving them. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, envisioned Proteus as an underwater version of the International Space Station. Like its star-flung cousin, this sea station will house scientists and academics, who will live there and conduct research for over a month. The high-tech center will offer all the tools youd find in a oceanographers lab, so the researchers can study climate changes effect on the sea, extract valuable bio-compounds and discover of new species of marine life. It may even be used to help train astronauts for space travel.

A top-down view of Proteus.Yves Bhar and fuseproject

Related: This NASA Astronaut Just Became the First Woman to Dive to the Oceans Deepest Point

It certainly looks sufficiently sci-fi. Bhar envisions the underwater station as one large, main habitat, with a series of modular pods attached all around. They can be used as labs, sleeping quarters, bathrooms, life support systems, medical bays and more.

Proteus will also be home to the first underwater video production studio, which will provide continuous livestreaming for educational purposes. There will also be a greenhouseanother first in the marine worldwhere residents can grow fresh fruits and vegetables.

The pods jutting off from the main habitat are modular and have many different functions.Yves Bhar and fuseproject

In many ways, Proteus is our generations Moon landing, said Costeau in a statement. Before it was reality, the Moon landing was just a dream that hardly anyone thought could come true. I want to explore the oceans of Marsbut until we can go there and return safely, the Earths oceans still hold quite a few secrets that are the keys to our future.

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Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea? This New Research Center Is Like an Underwater Space Station - Robb Report

Hexagon Purus, a subsidiary of Hexagon Composites, has been awarded a contract for the design, development, qualification and production of high-performance Type 4 composite pressure vessels to a new major aerospace customer for its launch vehicle. The total sales value of the current order is approximately USD 5.2 million (approx. NOK 48 million). Future orders are expected to follow the successful delivery of the first shipment.

Driving energy transformation

This is the second project that Hexagon Purus has collaborated on in the aerospace industry in the past two years. Hexagon Purus smart technology combined with its world leading expertise in lightweight, reliable and safe high-pressure gas storage is being leveraged to support pioneering developments in space travel.

We are excited to be working on this project and to be partners in the future of spaceflight, says Jim Harris, Managing Director, Hexagon Purus.

Timing

The pressure vessels are due to be delivered in the first quarter 2021.

Contacts:

Karen Romer, SVP Communications, Hexagon Composites Telephone: +47 950 74 950 | karen.romer@hexagongroup.com

David Bandele, CFO, Hexagon Composites Telephone: +47 920 91 483 |david.bandele@hexagongroup.com

About Hexagon Purus

Hexagon Purus, a Hexagon Composites company, enables zero emission mobility for a cleaner energy future. Hexagon Purus is a world leading provider of Hydrogen Type 4 high-pressure cylinders, complete vehicle systems and battery packs for fuel cell electric and battery electric vehicles (FCEV and BEV) including hybrid mobility applications on light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles, transit buses, ground storage, distribution, marine, rail, aerospace and backup power solutions.

Hexagon MasterWorks, a unit within Hexagon Purus, has over 20 years of experience with new composite product design, process development, and production supporting aerospace, automotive, energy, and manufacturing markets. Together with our sister Hexagon facilities worldwide, there is over 50 years of experience designing, developing, qualifying, and producing both commercial and aerospace pressure vessels. We use proven design and continuous improvement methodologies to custom engineer our products to meet our customer's exacting requirements.

Learn more at http://www.hexagongroup.com and follow @HexagonASA on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Excerpt from:

Hexagon Purus to produce high-performance cylinders for a major new aerospace customer continuing the drive to modernize spaceflight - GlobeNewswire

Now Playing100 Best Shows: The Best Streaming Shows

There are two kinds of people: Those who love time travel and those who easily get headaches. If you fall into the former category, you're in luck because the number of TV shows that deal with time travel is astounding, and most of them even follow some of the basic rules of screwing around with the timeline.

Some of the shows on this list are action-packed dramas, while others take a more whimsical approach to history, but all of them are absolutely binge-worthy masterpieces. Whether you want to travel back hundreds of years or just a couple of decades, you'll find the perfect time travel show recommendation in the list below!

Looking for more recommendations of what to watch next?We have a ton of them!And if you're looking for more hand-picked recommendations based on shows you love,we have those too.

Watch it on: HBO Max

This one is a gimme, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Doctor Who, and honestly, if you haven't watched this long-running British sci-fi series already, we're not sure you can even call yourself a fan of time travel. Doctor Who follows a centuries-old alien known as the Doctor who has the ability to regenerate and take on different faces (hence the "long-running" bit). The Doctor, currently portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, takes unsuspecting ladies (and a few dudes) on ridiculous trips through time and space. Yep, this one checks the space travel box too! If you do choose to watch Doctor Who though, be warned you will end up in a fight with someone on Tumblr about which Doctor is the best. It's unavoidable.

Watch it on: Netflix

Netflix'sTravelers, initially a co-production with Canada's Showcase, doesn't get even half the recognition it deserves for constructing impossibly complex time travel mythology that is still understandable and engaging for its audience, so we're recognizing it by putting it on this list. In the series, squads of elite soldiers travel to the present from hundreds of years in the future in order to change history and save the human race. If that doesn't sound cool enough, let us just add that they do so by sending their consciousnesses into the bodies of people about to die and assuming their identities. So. Freaking. Cool.

Watch it on: Hulu

Based on the 1995 movie with the same name, 12 Monkeys follows a time traveler who travels from 2043 to 2015 to stop a deadly virus from wiping out most of the planet's population. However, what starts out as a simple mission to the past turns into a mind-boggling journey through some of the biggest historical events of the 20th century and a pretty epic love story. This series really digs into the rules of time travel like causation and paradoxes, so while it may give you one of the aforementioned headaches, it's seriously worth it.

Watch it on: Netflix

In a sea of series that focus on saving the world with time travel, DC's Legends of Tomorrow easily could have gotten lost in the shuffle. Luckily, this CW series quickly established itself as one part nonsense, two parts pure fun, which set it apart from all the rest. If you're looking for a lighter series to help you while the days away, this one is definitely for you. The Legends team does end up saving the world quite a few times, but most of the time they just wind up turning themselves into singing puppets or fighting giant stuffed animals.

Watch it on: Starz, Hulu with Starz add-on, Amazon Prime with Starz add-on

If you're looking for something a little more romantic to binge-watch, Outlander is your ticket. This series follows Claire Beauchamp (Caitriona Balfe), an English WWII nurse who accidentally travels from 1945 back to 1743 while on a trip to Scotland with her husband (Tobias Menzies). Thrown into the past and desperate to get home, Claire finds herself embroiled in a Scottish uprising while slowly but surely falling in love with a ruggedly handsome redhead named Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).

Watch it on: Hulu

Though Timeless was canceled twice, its devoted fanbase, known as Clockblockers, were so passionate that the NBC series ended up getting a two-hour series finale to wrap things up, so you won't have to worry about a cliffhanger ending. The show follows a history professor (Abigail Spencer), a soldier (Matt Lanter), and an engineer (Malcolm Barrett) who use a government-created time machine to track down a mysterious villain who is trying to rewrite American history. This series pairs the whimsy of DC's Legends of Tomorrow with the high stakes of 12 Monkeys, making it the perfect "middle of the road" option for time travel fans.

Watch it on: Amazon Prime Video

Though it was canceled after just one season, we're still including Terra Nova on this list because DINOSAURS. Set in a dying world where overpopulation has humans on the brink of extinction, scientists have found a way to send people back in time to the Cretaceous Period where the air is breathable, food is plentiful, and the human race can start over. Unfortunately, it's also where dinosaurs are hungry for human flesh, so that's a problem. This show wasn't executed very well (hence its cancellation), but it's worth a watch anyway just to see hot people running away from raptors.

Watch it on: BritBox

When you're ready to take a break from all the action and adventure, Lost in Austen is a great time travel alternative. Rather than traveling through time per se, lead character Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) travels into the world of her favorite novel, Pride & Prejudice. Caught up in the Georgian Era and the fictional lives of Mr. Darcy (Elliot Cowan) and the Bennet family Amanda unwittingly ends up as a character in the story she loves so dearly, and falling in love with Darcy herself.

Watch it on:Netflix

The critically acclaimed Netflix seriesDarkis not only a complicated time travel drama, it's also a German series, so get ready to turn those subtitles on! The series, which just wrapped up its third and final season, follows multiple generations of four interconnected families living in the German town of Winden (once you've finished the show, our family tree will help explain how everyone is connected), which just so happens to be home to an underground tunnel and wormhole. Time travel and family drama make for an extremely complicated series (we don't recommend just having this one on in the background, folks), but once you get into it, you'll never look back.

Read more from the original source:

The Best Time Travel TV Shows to Watch Right Now - TV Guide

Following on the heels of Contact, Gravity and Hidden Figures, Anna Winocours Proxima is the latest feminine corrective to a traditionally butch genre. Proxima stars Eva Green, who gives a career-best performance as Sarah, an astronaut who has been chosen to be a part of a year-long space mission. Its the culmination of years of training and study but, inevitably, it places a strain on Sarahs relationship with her eight-year-old daughter Stella (Zlie Boulant).

Its a film about the dream of space, says Winocour. The attraction for me is the world of space. Ive been fascinated by space since I was a little girl. But I didnt know anything about it. So the process for me was discovering why I was attracted to that world.

What I did know about was the very complex relationship between a mother and daughter. Its something I know very well because Im a mother myself. I have a little girl who is the same age as the girl in the movie. Space was a way to talk about that. The separation that a rocket goes through as it journeys beyond the atmosphere is called umbilical separation by the Russian space agency. And we call our own planet Mother Earth.

In the character of Sarah, Winocour, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jean-Stphane Bron, has fashioned a new kind of protagonist, one who juggles motherhood and astrophysics, gruelling physical training and everyday sexism. When her American mission leader (Matt Dillon) welcomes her to the team, he suggests that, being a French woman, she must be a great cook; he later dismisses her as a space tourist.

While researching the script, a female trainer at the European Space Agency told the director that the male astronauts talk proudly about their children while the women tend to conceal the fact that they are mothers.

My first idea was to make a film about a superheroine who is also a mother, says Winocour. They are two things that are not represented in cinema together. I think women dont talk about it, because they are made to feel guilty. It is a construction of society that you have to choose between your career and your kids. I wanted to show how hard it is for women, but the worst obstacles are the obstacles that women have inside themselves.

Society makes you think that you have to choose between your career and having children. Our film says that you can be both: a good mother and a good astronaut.

In order to join the Proxima Mission which will take European Space Agency employee Sarah to the International Space Station for a year as it prepares a manned probe for Mars Sarah travels to Star City outside of Moscow for preparation. In order to tackle the role, Eva Green met female astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Claudie Haigner, trained extensively and made several trips to Star City and the European Space Agency in Cologne.

Winocours preparations were more extensive and required negotiations with the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency so that she might gain access to Star City, the worlds most advanced space training facility, where American, Japanese and European astronauts all train, and the Cosmodrome in Baikonur.

It took two years to write the script and for those two years I was constantly travelling from Cologne where the European Space Agency to Star City which is in the middle of a forest 1 hours from Moscow. And also Baikonur in Kazakhstan, from where they launch rockets. There were two parts to getting authorisation. At the very beginning I went to to see the European Space Agency to ask them if they would be okay to be partners and to collaborate with the film. Because we need their support to be able to shoot in real training facilities.

At first they were a bit amazed by this request because these have been really closed spaces and astronauts are really training there. But I explained to them that there are so many movies about Nasa. And that American movies have monopolised the representation of space travel. And that we needed the European movie about these preparations. So they thought that was something interesting for them. Afterwards it was quite difficult to get authorisation from the Russian Space Agency and the Kazakh Space Agency because theyre all different agencies.

Happily, at Star City Winocours crew were granted the same level of passes as the scientists who worked there, which allowed for access to the prophylactorium, where real-life astronauts train. The film-maker additionally sought advice from the French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who was preparing for his first flight.

It was like discovering a different world for us, says the writer-director. The exoskeleton you see Eva with at the beginning of the film: thats a real exoskeleton that is a prototype from the European Space Agency for travel to Mars. Because you have to have bodies that will work in all conditions. In that way at the beginning Eva is a bit like a cyborg. She has to become a space person in order to go into space. But the more she becomes a space person, the more she feels attached to the Earth. Thats the paradox.

The screenplay is littered with small details taken from the astronauts Winocour spoke to. The heroines Russian crewmate, Anton (Aleksey Fateev), records nature sounds so that he can take them with him into space.

I get asked about the astronauts all the time, says Winocour. They are interesting. Theyre not really grounded. Theyre already in space. They are not earthbound. They never complain. They think that everything is possible. They dont see that failure is an option. Its a mental set.

In a way, astronauts are a bit like special forces soldiers. They have the same training. Theyre very strong people and when they look at movies and space, they laugh. Because those movies tend to show things that they deal with everyday. Like crashing. And that was one reason I chose Eva. Because she is not of this world. That is why she is in all those Tim Burton movies.

This is not the first time that Winocour has immersed herself in a project. For Disorder, her 2015 thriller concerned a recently discharged soldier Vincent (Matthias Schoenaerts) struggling with PTSD, she interviewed dozens of soldiers returning from war.

I love to discover new worlds, she says. And I love actors that have a strangeness about them. I think I can relate more to them and Im more attracted to them. I also like actors that are really physical like Matthias and Eva because Im obsessed with our relationships with the body.

Winocour was born in Paris. She graduated from La Fmis and directed the short films Kitchen (2005), Magic Paris (2007) and Pina Colada (2009). Her first two features, Augustine (2012) and Disorder (2015), premiered at Cannes, as did highly decorated Mustang (2015) which she co-wrote with director Deniz Gamze Ergven. She attributes her lifelong love of film to half-watched videos, Hitchcocks Psycho, and Wim Wenders Alice in the Cities.

Since my childhood I have watched a lot of Hitchcock movies, she says. But Psycho was really the film of my childhood. I know its a bit weird, but that was the film that obsessed me and my little brother. We would watch it up to three times a day. We had games about the film. We played the characters.

Then I discovered Frances Ford Coppola and Wim Wenders. My mother brought me to Alice in the Cities around that time I was supposed to choose the second language I had to study at school. I didnt want to learn German because of the Jewish origins of my family. But my mother told me: oh, you have to see that film and you will see German can be a beautiful language.

So that was a movie that was really important for me. And also because the little girls name was Alice.

Proxima is on limited release from July 31st

Read more:

Our film says you can be both: a good mother and a good astronaut - The Irish Times

Metabar Technology Oy develops and produces intelligent cleantech solutions like washing and cleaning applications, products and services e.g. for the promotion of public hygiene. Inventor, founder, CTO and Design, Jarmo Lehtonen tells HEQ about the history, goals and future of Metabar.

My educational background is in industrial design and interior architecture; I have a Masters degree in Industrial and Product Design from Aalto University. Essentially I am a dedicated designer for user interfaces, bases and special materials. As an industrial designer I am well versed in practical creativity and especially 3D design and 3D printing methods, but I also take a keen interest in front line technologies: I used to work with physics and exercise training environment, and while performing as founder of in-house industrial design department in world leading heart rate monitoring company Polar Electro, functional and operative electronics and product design work in the mid-1990s I was able to devise a vision and concept with my final thesis (Aalto) of a prototypical tablet and smart watch, around 20 years ahead of the iPad. In my thesis scenario I wore the smart watch every day while it collected essential data from my body; and then when I came home from work, I could use the tablet to generate information on the daily status of my health.

After completing my diploma, I spent five years working in consumer sport and fitness product design and user experience design; following which I spent a total of 15 years working for Nokia as a category design lead designer, business unit design manager and Nokia Design strategy research manager, where I learned how to define, design and create world class business, products and services: that set me on the path to where I am today. In mid-2008 I became an entrepreneur working with my own companies I have operated two consulting companies focusing on business, technology and design development then in 2014 I invented the key Metabar technology, a new intelligent water tap solution and system.

The initial washing system and station I devised in my summer cottage was based on a compressed water system there are existing companies which already make these but then during my cottage renovation I introduced air compression technology to the system to create a new kind of washing process and the first Metabar prototype was created. The most remarkable aspect of this system was its minimal water consumption: it used up to 90% less water than the compressed water system. From that initial concept, the Metabar company was founded late 2016; in 2017 we received first funding (TEKES), produced proof of system and concept, filed patent application to the core technology we now have patent (pending) filed in Finland, the US, China, Japan, Europe and the Middle East. Metabar is three+ years old and is available on the market. We are working with customers and currently strengthening company team; since February 2020 we have been focusing on creating solutions in the fight against COVID-19. With hygiene solutions we use Metabar low PSI technology.

The Metabar washing system (patent focus) adds liquid this can be water, disinfectant or soap to compressed gas and releases it at speed through innovative 3D metal printed nozzle design: this creates customised three-dimensional mist, which can then be used to clean objects. Because the system is intelligent, we are able to scale the power of pressure on demand, meaning it can be suitable for a vast range of cleaning types and processes while reducing the consumption of liquids: the system uses up to 90% less liquid, depending on the use case and the scale of the operation.

In addition to working with companies to provide washing services, during the COVID-19 pandemic the key focus has been hand hygiene as a means of infection control. We offer a number of different process solutions for cleaning hands; and because Metabar technology is intelligent and has a very low rate of liquid consumption, we can create products and service solutions which are functionally long lasting. One of the services we offer is essentially Metabar in a box, so we believe that we can build on that to create a product with no need for any external connection to electricity or water outlets; meaning that our standalone products wont need to be fixed to a wall or in a specific area and they can be placed in strategic locations where they are accessible to everyone and most needed, such as like pathways at airports, cafes, restaurants, and shopping centres.

Metabars primary business aim is technological development. We want to develop further cleaning, washing and hygiene technologies based on the Metabar system and interlinked intelligence software platform; and we have limitless possibilities and opportunities to create new innovative concepts and collaborate with technology and research institutes and universities (Aalto). We also offer the opportunity for companies to create their own brand products and solutions and Metabar can license the technology to them in order to work collaboratively; or if companies approach us with an idea or concept using our technology and we can design and develop the solution for them.

Within industry, Metabars products are game-changing: our products are totally different to existing ones. The washing function is different; the washing process is different; the planning process is different, so we dont need to restrict our system to traditional environments. This means that we can adapt the space, service and product designs with our technology.

We have three territories at the moment; we are working on creating new solutions in focus areas such as handwashing; we are also looking to focus on other areas of personal hygiene we have been asked to create a new shower based around our technology. Two other future key areas for us are the food sector, where we can develop products for cleaning fruits and vegetables; and industry, where there are commonly still strict standards on washing, cleaning and chemical processes.

We will patent both the design and the technology behind each of our products and solutions. We focus on minimalistic, functional design using high quality materials: each material used in our designs is selected for a particular purpose in order to optimise the final product quality. The key phrase is that we optimise everything: we optimise air and liquid consumption; we optimise energy use; we optimise components size and materials; we optimise service time duration; we optimise all costs.

Metabar is aiming to play a significant role in the fight against COVID-19 through our focus on hand hygiene: our service is very well suited to meet this challenge. The main goal here and now is to create a service solution to cover the most critical areas and continue to maintain a high standard of public hygiene even once the pandemic is over it is likely that it may soon become mandatory to install hand hygiene points in public spaces. Its not enough to only have those facilities in public toilets; they must be offered in places where people congregate, like air terminals, train and metro stations, and ports; as well as buses, trains, ships, aeroplanes and other public methods of passenger transport. There must be more hand hygiene points in the future, and Metabar is preparing a solution to address that. In addition, because Metabar is an intelligent system, we are also prepared to track user and passenger conditions and raise the alarm if a user may be infected.

Metabar is also appropriate for domestic use: I am creating and testing the first prototypes at home and I use one hand hygiene concept in my home; I have used it regularly and it works perfectly. Other feasible use cases could include kindergartens, schools and universities; as well as hospitals, libraries, trade shows, office environments and sports arenas, just to mention a few.

One future use case which we are excited about is the potential use of Metabar technology in space travel: spacecraft are necessarily subject to strict requirements regarding the storage, reuse and optimisation of liquids so Metabar may well be able to provide the solution to those limitations.

In a global sense Finland is in a good position, because we have entrenched systems in place to ensure we are able to easily access clean water. There are so many places around the world where there is no water, or the water which is accessible is not clean. Metabar is willing to co-operate with other companies to develop large scale solutions to these issues, based around our technology, solutions and products; we are partnering with an NGO to provide big volume hand hygiene stations to villages and schools in African and Asian regions experiencing water poverty. Because these stations can operate with wireless communication, without electricity or water connection, they are well suited to be deployed in these areas the same NGO solution also works with army armament in war zones and refugee camps, why not in festivals and outdoor concerts where tens or hundreds of thousands of people are crowded together; and where hygiene solutions like this are badly needed.

We are developing and creating new technological concepts; and we are working with other companies to create required solutions. In business terms, we can sell our products, we can sell our concepts and our services with the licensed technology; and we can also rent out fixed term licences for our technology and services. As we grow, we are seeing more and more opportunities to create and expand further through building new partnerships and reaching new markets. Our business is always open for discussions and there are many ways to build on our strategy going forward.

Metabars concept and technology can save huge amounts of water. We want to fight water wastage around the world; and because we use the latest modern technology and processes, all our devices are designed to provide sustainable, resource efficient solutions. When we collaborate with other companies, we expect them to have some kind of sustainability strategy in place, comprising both efficient rates of water and energy consumption and low or reduced emissions: essentially, we support and offer solutions to our client companies to invest and achieve sustainability goals in general.

We know that technology can solve so many things. We can do so many things so much better; we can take less time over things. People are noticing we must change as a society; and thats why Metabar is a game-changer. We will continue to test all our operations and processes carefully to ensure they are superior to traditional systems there is no reason to use the amounts of soap and water that they do. Many of the regulations currently in place in the US, the UK, the EU and Finland are based on outdated technology and information; Metabar wants to work with regulators to enact change and modernise the regulatory landscape, to make regulatory standards more up to date and rational and more responsive to real world needs and lifestyles.

In order to arrest the spread of infection, we must find ways to make it easier and accessible to maintain hand hygiene people do not always want to go out of their way to keep their hands clean, so we must make it logical and easier for them. The need to wash and keep our hands and the public environment cleaner will not go away once the pandemic is over; hygiene is a constant necessary standard. There are many directions which Metabar could go in the future, but at this point we are particularly focused on hand hygiene and the food industry; as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, which remains a significant current issue maybe for a longer period than we hope. Traditional technological solutions are not helping: we need to get rid of the old methods and mindsets and look to the future.

All images and concepts are supplied and used with permission from Metabar vision projects.

The government of Finland declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 on 16 March, by which point laboratory testing had confirmed 272 cases across the country. The majority of schools and public facilities were closed down; public meetings were restricted to 10 or fewer attendees; and Finns over the age of 70 were encouraged to stay home. By 27 March, with 1025 confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout Finland, the borders of the populous Uusimaa region which includes Helsinki, the Finnish capital, and houses just under a third of the total population of Finland were closed, with the hope of slowing the spread of the virus.

The prompt response of the government and citizens of Finland in taking steps to address the spread of infection appears to have been largely successful. On 15 April, the border restrictions around Uusimaa were lifted without incident; libraries reopened in early May and were shortly followed by kindergartens and primary schools. Throughout May and June, restrictions were gradually lifted on secondary education; international travel for work purposes; outdoor sports and entertainment events; and restaurants and other public indoor spaces. The government has pledged to continue domestic production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other healthcare equipment even after the pandemic, in order to avert a recurrence of the global supply issues which affected the worlds health sectors in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak.

As of 25 July, the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper reports, Finlands total COVID-19 figures are as follows:

Jarmo LehtonenFounder, CTO & DesignMetabar Technology Oy+358 50 405 1188jarmo.lehtonen@metabar.fiwww.metabar.fi

This article is from issue 14 of Health Europa. Clickhere to get your free subscription today.

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Metabar's products and services are game-changing - Health Europa

In the recent decision in Lalibert v Canada, 2020 FCA 97, [Lalibert] the Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that the $41.8-million costs of a shareholder's visit to outer space as a "space tourist" should be taxed as a shareholder benefit, and not as a deductible marketing expense as was claimed by the shareholder and the company, Cirque du Soleil. While the circumstances of that case are unusual and exotic, the case illustrates that the shareholder benefit rules should be considered any time a shareholder receives an economic benefit from the corporation because of their position as a shareholder.

The Income Tax Act (ITA) includes a shareholder benefit regime, which is intended to ensure that a shareholder is subject to tax on any economic benefit received from a corporation, subject to certain specified exclusions for bona fide business transactions, certain reorganizations, rights offerings, dividend payments, and capital reductions. The provisions have a broad scope, with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) stating that a shareholder benefit may arise from "just about any payment, appropriation of property or advantage conferred on a shareholder by the corporation."

The consequence of a shareholder benefit is significant: the value of the benefit is included in the shareholder's income for the year as regular income (taxed at a higher rate than a dividend), but the ITA does not allow a corresponding deduction to the corporationthus resulting in an element of double tax. For non-resident shareholders, the ITA deems the benefit to be a dividend to which the normal non-resident withholding tax rules apply.

ITA subsection 15(1) includes in a shareholder's income the amount or value of a benefit conferred on the shareholder by a corporation. The key issues are thus determining whether a "benefit" exists, whether such benefit has been "conferred," and how to determine the amount of the benefit.

The term "benefit" is not defined in the ITA but is broad and can include any type of payment or advantage to a shareholder that is outside of the ordinary course of business. In the view of the CRA, "benefits" include:

In Lalibert, the Federal Court of Appeal noted that the analysis often focuses on whether or not the transaction in question was made for a business or personal purpose.

Notably, the existence of an economic benefit does not necessarily mean that the shareholder has received a taxable benefit. The benefit will attract liability for tax only if it was "conferred" on the shareholder. The word "confer" implies the bestowal of bounty or largesse, to the economic benefit of the conferree and a corresponding economic detriment of the corporation. What is key is that the corporation is impoverished and the shareholder enriched.

The case law has also found that subsection 15(1) does not always require an intent on the part of the corporation to confer a benefit or knowledge on the part of the shareholderthe requirement is whether either party knew or should have known that a benefit was conferred. In Lalibert, the Federal Court of Appeal noted that the inquiry is highly fact specific, and corporate intent will be more relevant in certain circumstances, such as when the benefit is the result of a bookkeeping error or other mistake.

The ITA requires that the benefit be quantifiable in monetary terms. The courts have applied different valuation methods depending on the circumstances, focusing on using simple common-sense approaches where possible. One typical approach is to determine what the shareholder would have had to pay for the same benefit in the same circumstances if he or she had not been a shareholder of the company.

The above principles are illustrated in the Lalibert case. The facts, in brief, are as follows. In 1984, a street performer named Guy Lalibert co-founded Cirque du Soleil. Fast-forward 25 years to 2009 when the astronomical success of Cirque du Soleil landed Lalibert in outer space as Canada's first space tourist. One of the corporations in the Cirque du Soleil group paid $41.8 million for Lalibert's 12-day trip to the International Space Station. At the time, Lalibert was the controlling shareholder of the Cirque du Soleil group of companies.

The Minister of National Revenue assessed Lalibert with a shareholder benefit equal to the full cost of the trip. Lalibert appealed, arguing that he went to space for a stunt-type promotional activity on behalf of Cirque du Soleil and the One Drop charity.

To determine whether Lalibert's corporate-paid trip to space was a taxable benefit, the Tax Court considered the purpose of the trip, the circumstances surrounding the commitment made to take the trip, the nature of the promotional activities, and the corporate accounting and tax treatment of the expense. Justice Boyle provided 27 reasons to support the conclusion that the "motivating, essential and overwhelmingly primary purpose of the travel was personal." In addition, the Tax Court found that Lalibert committed to the trip before seeking approval from anyone in the Cirque du Soleil group, and structured the payment so that the external shareholders did not bear any of the economic costs of the trip.

Since very few taxpayers will find themselves in the similar position of trying to determine whether their trip to outer space is a taxable benefit or not, Justice Boyle drew an analogy with a shareholder taking a personal cross-country trip with the occasional business stop along the way:

I have approached my decision in this case as I would have had it involved an owner-manager of a business who decided that he personally wanted to go on a cross-country trip, and then decided that, he would stop in to visit business clients and suppliers and potential clients and potential suppliers along the way. One would expect his incremental direct costs associated with his business promotion activities and sidetrips should be deductible, but that little, if any, of the trip itself would be. If he could have his company pay for his whole trip, even if it did not deduct the cost for tax purposes, it would allow him to pay for his trip in pre-tax dollars. The shareholder benefit provisions exist for just such reasons, and going offside can often result in double taxation once corrected.

Simply put, there is a difference between a business trip which involves or includes personal enjoyment aspects, and a personal trip with business aspects, even significant ones, tacked on.

As the Lalibert case illustrates, a personal trip may incorporate bona fide business activities, and it is appropriate in those circumstances to identify and deduct the incremental, direct costs associated with those business activities. With respect to Lalibert's trip, Justice Boyle allocated 10 percent of the cost of the space trip to business activities and the remaining 90 percent as a taxable shareholder benefit. The Federal Court of Appeal agreed with the Tax Court, confirming Lalibert's $37.6-million shareholder benefit and resulting income inclusion.

Shareholders should remain aware of the potential income tax implications if they use corporate assets for personal use or if a benefit is provided in some other way. For shareholders who are not preparing for a trip to outer space, the following is a list of the more common scenarios that may result in a shareholder receiving a taxable benefit:

Go here to see the original:

Space Travel and Taxes: A Cautionary Tale of Shareholder Benefits - JD Supra

Earlier this year, it was reported that an astronaut in space had developed a potentially life-threatening blood clot in the neck. This was successfully treated with medication by doctors on Earth, avoiding surgery. But given that space agencies and private spaceflight companies have committed to landing humans on Mars in the coming decades, we may not be so lucky next time.

Surgical emergencies are in fact one of the main challenges when it comes to human space travel. But over the last few years, space medicine researchers have come up with a number of ideas that could help, from surgical robots to 3D printers.

Mars is a whopping 33.9 million miles away from Earth, when closest. In comparison, the International Space Agency (ISS) orbits just 248 miles above Earth. For surgical emergencies on the ISS, the procedure is to stabilise the patient and transport them back to Earth, aided by telecommunication in real time. This wont work on Mars missions, where evacuation would take months or years, and there may be a latency in communications of over twenty minutes.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

As well as distance, the extreme environment faced during transit to and on Mars includes microgravity, high radiation levels and an enclosed pressurised cabin or suit. This is tough on astronauts bodies and takes time getting used to.

We already know that space travel changes astronauts cells, blood pressure regulation and heart performance. It also affects the bodys fluid distribution and weakens its bones and muscles. Space travellers may also develop infections more easily. So in terms of fitness for surgery, an injured or unwell astronaut will be already at a physiological disadvantage.

But how likely is it that an astronaut will actually need surgery? For a crew of seven people, researchers estimate that there will be an average of one surgical emergency every 2.4 years during a Mars mission. The main causes include injury, appendicitis, gallbladder inflammation or cancer. Astronauts are screened extensively when they are selected, but surgical emergencies can occur in healthy people and may be exacerbated in the extreme environment of space.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield usesa cardio lab at the ISS (Nasa)

Surgery in microgravity is possible and has already been carried out, albeit not on humans yet. For example, astronauts have managed to repair rat tails and perform laparoscopy a minimally invasive surgical procedure used to examine and repair the organs inside the abdomen on animals, while in microgravity.

These surgeries have led to new innovations and improvements such as magnetising surgical tools so they stick to the table, and restraining the surgeonaut too.

One problem was that, during open surgery, the intestines would float around, obscuring the view of the surgical field. To deal with this, space travellers should opt for minimally invasive surgical techniques, such as keyhole surgery, ideally occurring within patients internal cavities through small incisions using a camera and instruments.

A laparoscopy was recently carried out on fake abdomens during a parabolic zero-gravity flight, with surgeons successfully stemming traumatic bleeding. But they warned that it would be psychologically hard to carry out such a procedure on a crewmate.

No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

Bodily fluids will also behave differently in space and on Mars. The blood in our veins may stick to instruments because of surface tension. Floating droplets may also form streams that could restrict the surgeons view, which is not ideal. The circulating air of an enclosed cabin may also be an infection risk. Surgical bubbles and blood-repelling surgical tools could be the solution.

Researchers have already developed and tested various surgical enclosures in microgravity environments. For example, Nasa evaluated a closed system comprising a surgical clear plastic overhead canopy with arm ports, aiming to prevent contamination.

Could a hypothetical traumapod be the answer? (Nasa)

When orbiting or settled on Mars, however, we would ideally need a hypothetical traumapod, with radiation shielding, surgical robots, advanced life support and restraints. This would be a dedicated module with filtered air supply and a computer to aid in diagnosis and treatment.

The surgeries carried out in space so far have revealed that a large amount of support equipment is essential. This is a luxury the crew may not have on a virgin voyage to Mars. You cannot take much equipment on a rocket. It has therefore been suggested that a 3D printer could use materials from Mars itself to develop surgical tools.

Tools that have been 3D printed have been successfully tested by crew with no prior surgical experience, performing a task similar to surgery simply by cutting and suturing materials (rather than a body). There was no substantial difference in time to completion with 3D printed instruments such as towel clamps, scalpel handles and toothed forceps.

Robotic surgery is another option that has been used routinely on Earth and tested for planetary excursions. During Neemo 7, a series of missions in the underwater habitat Aquarius in Florida Keys by Nasa, surgery by a robot controlled from another lab was successfully used to remove a fake gallbladder and kidney stone from a fake body. However, the lag in communications in space will make remote control a problem. Ideally, surgical robots would need to be autonomous.

There is a wealth of research and preparation for the possible event of a surgical emergency during a Mars mission, but there are many unknowns, especially when it comes to diagnostics and anaesthesia. Ultimately, prevention is better than surgery. So selecting healthy crew and developing the engineering solutions needed to protect them will be crucial.

Nina Louise Purvis is a postgraduate researcher in space medicine and a medical student at Kings College London. This article first appeared on The Conversation

Read more here:

From surgical robots to 3D printers, this is how to do surgery in space - The Independent

Louis Nguyen July 26th, 2020 - 9:00 AM

Ever since it started as a side project for Matt Sharp in 1994, The Rentals never escaped comparisons to Sharps previous bandWeezer. Still fronting The Rentals as its vocalist, Sharp is the groups only permanent member. Now, Sharp is joined by guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr., delivering an album about space travel, Q36, whose concept is reminiscent of the Weezers scrapped project Songs From the Black Hole. Beyond the comparisons, Q36 holds its own ground as Sharps distinct songwriting style delivers a brilliantly vivid, high concept project.

The album borrows bizarre and clever imagery to convey complex, timely and deeply human emotions. In Above This Broken World, Sharp calls out to a Mothership to rescue a loved one from her secular plight. This lyrical theme underlies a complex and evolving tone in the instrumentations to make for an incredibly nuanced track whose chorus travels from poignant to yearning to hopeful and cathartic with every repetition. Elon Musk Is Making Me Sad uses a different approach to tackle and expand this theme of escapism. The clever and wistful closing track brilliantly borrows an imagined childhood with Elon Musk to express a keen sense of self-regret, returning to his desire to escape and be saved from his bleak reality. The use of imagery to convey complex emotions is also seen in Spaceships. The tracks joyful performances are contrasted with the dark lyrical themes of the mentally ill being shipped off into space, making for a wonderfully nuanced and ironic track.

Sharps keen sense of irony through the use of contrast makes his songwriting especially poignant. Great Big Blue further exemplifies this. While the subtle vocal harmonies float over the evolving and energetic instrumentals, the lyrics constantly juxtapose the dreams and hopes for Challenger Space Shuttle and the specific details of its unfortunate crash, giving the track a sublime poetic feel: Filled with pride to watch their children fly/ Eleven Thirty, Eastern Standard Time. Similarly, Nowhere Girl features a bombastic beat under sweet and nostalgic vocal melodies that are accented by occasional haunting harmonies, reflecting the ironic and eerie lyrics that describe a group of fifth-graders coming across a female cadaver by a scenic river: Nowhere Girl, under the clear autumn skies/ Breathless and exposed/ Nowhere Girl, under the tender moonlight/ Naked and alone. Through irony and contrasts, Sharp brings unmatched nuances to every story he tells.

Musical and thematic parallels between The Rentals and Weezer dont make Sharps recent works feel derivative of his previous collaborations. They show Sharps consistency as a musician who has crafted a signature sound that trademarks his work: the wistful synths-infused alt-rock that is heard throughout Q36. The project is both ambitious and bizarre, yet it finds tremendous success through being thematically vivid, sonically focused and lyrically nuanced.

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Album Review: The Rentals Q36 - mxdwn.com

By Kevin McDonough| Times Herald-Record

Animal stories both ennobling and depressing dominate Saturday's programming. Richard Attenborough narrates "Wild India" (8 p.m.), debuting on BBC America. With its billion-plus population of human beings, India still has vast territories filled with exotic creatures, unique landscapes and a large percentage of the world's tiger and elephant populations.

Much of the excitement on "Wild" takes place in the Karnataka region, where arid winds have carved forbidding sculptures out of some of the planet's oldest rock formations. As always, it's a colorful eyeful animated by critters both fearsome and cuddly, sometimes both at the same time.

-- If "Wild India" inspires with the absence of human contact, "Surviving Joe Exotic" (10 p.m. Saturday, Animal Planet, TV-14) concentrates on such human traits as selfishness, pride and avarice. "Surviving" lives up to its name, profiling some of the former employees of the "colorful" character at the center of Netflix's "Tiger King" documentary, as well as following the stories of the big cats and other wild animals who found safer "forever" homes after being taken from Exotic's down-market "empire" after his arrest.

-- If "Solo" represents the backstory of a mega franchise, the 2020 feature "Red Dwarf: The Promised Land" updates a space comedy from the 1980s and '90s. Streaming on BritBox, "Dwarf" always put the emphasis on the unglamorous aspects of space travel, focusing on the drudgery and nuts-and-bolts aspects of technology and bureaucracy, the surreal nature of interplanetary and interspecies interaction as well as the mind-bending potential of human isolation.

-- "Todd McFarlane: Like Hell I Won't" (11 p.m. Saturday, Syfy) profiles an artist associated with the "Spider-Man" comic franchise and the creator of "Spawn," and follows his iconoclastic nature as he rebelled against the conventions of the comic book and toy industries. Speaking of conventions, this documentary is part of Syfy's "Fan Fest," filling a void created by the cancellation of this summer's usual Comic-Con gatherings. It can also be streamed on Syfy.com and Syfy's YouTube page.

Speaking of cult favorites that offer twisted takes on comics and toys, "Robot Chicken" (12:15 a.m. Sunday, Cartoon Network, TV-14) celebrates its 200th episode.

SATURDAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

-- The Nationals and Yankees meet as "MLB Baseball" (7 p.m., Fox) enters its shortened season.

-- Players anticipate renewed competition on "NBA Countdown" (8 p.m., ABC).

-- A new romance unravels when a woman is "Stalked by My Husband's Ex" (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).

-- It's now or never when a fetching former tour guide meets a single dad in the 2019 romance "Christmas at Graceland: Home for the Holidays" (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).

-- Shaun makes a big assumption on "The Good Doctor" (10 p.m., ABC, r, TV-14).

SATURDAY SERIES

Nobody mourns a corporate bully on "Magnum P.I." (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) ... Two hours of "Dateline" (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) ... Evidence takes Pride to New York on "NCIS: New Orleans" (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) ... "48 Hours" (10 p.m., CBS) ... A vintage helping of "Saturday Night Live" (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).

kevin.tvguy@gmail.com

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Critter's 'Wild' and 'Exotic'; 'Red Dwarf' returns - Times Herald-Record

The Smithsonian Institution announced today that the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and the National Zoo will both reopen July 24 following months of closure as a public health precaution due to COVID-19. The two facilities will greet visitors with new health and safety precautions, including timed-entry passes, hand-sanitizing stations, mask requirements for ages six and up, and limited numbers of visitors. But the massive Udvar-Hazy indoor complex, located in Chantilly, Virginia, near Dulles International Airport, should have no problem offering plenty of space for maintaining social distancing. The 17-acre aviation and aerospace museum, which opened in 2003 as an adjunct to the popular National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. houses in its huge hangars thousands of notable artifacts that could never have fit inside the much smaller museum on the National Mall.

Together, the Udvar-Hazy, along with the museum on the National Mall (currently undergoing a massive renovation) showcase the largest collection of space and aviation artifacts on Earth. Of the 6 million visitors to both last year, 1.3 million of them came out to the Virginia site.

When Hazy's doors reopen Friday, visitors will encounter partially visible artifacts drapped with plastic sheeting in the facilitys Boeing Aviation Hangar due to a two-year roof repair project currently under way. That will preclude full viewings of big planes like the Lockheed SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. And public tours, rides and exhibition interactives won't be available or operable. But there are still more than enough remarkable artifacts to warrant attentionnot the least of which is the still-controversial Enola Gay. August marks the 75th anniversary of its fateful mission to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

With fewer visitors, this will be a time for a more intimate opportunity to check out some of the museum's singular and memorable items. They include the kind of colossal things that you cant quite avoid seeing and would never expect to see indoors, from the elegant curves of the supersonic Concorde to the battered exterior of the Space Shuttle Discovery. As well as thousands of smaller, sometimes personal items crucial to key moments in space flight, from a Mission Control pocket stopwatch to a map marker from the Mercury Project. And even more surprisingly, is the carcass of one of the smallest involuntary space fliersa spider from a Skylab experiment suggested by a high school student.

Here we present a dozen of our picks not to be missed.

Millions may have just tasted their first quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic, but astronauts returning from the moon had to shelter in place as well, lest they spread any unknown lunar germs. Equipped with elaborate air ventilation and filtration systems, the Mobile Quarantine Facility was used by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins after their historic trip to the moon in July 1969. The retrofitted Airstream trailer with living and sleeping quarters and a kitchen was sealed but in motion for their first 88 hours back. First aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, it was transferred to the Pearl Harbor Naval base in Hawaii and eventually the cargo hold of a C-141 aircraft taking the trio to Houston, where a more spacious quarantine facility awaited them at the Johnson Space Center. Crews from Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 also quarantined but by July 1971, following the Apollo 15 lunar landing mission, the practice had been abandoned.

Its fitting that one of the earliest A-Series rockets from Robert H. Goddard is in the Smithsonian. It was the Smithsonian Institution that funded the man who would become known as the father of rocketry, leading to his declaration in 1920 that a liquid fueled rocket could reach the moon, a notion much ridiculed at the time. In 1935, Goddard tried to demonstrate the possibilities of such a rocket in Roswell, N.M. to a pair of big-name supporters, Charles Lindberg and Harry Guggenheim. A technical glitch prevented its launch that day but Lindbergh made sure the 15-foot rocket would be donated to the Smithsonian. It became the first liquid-fuel rocket in the collection.

Early rocketry could be surprisingly primitive, as seen in the jerry-rigged two-foot wooden sled Robert F. Goddard devised in the early 1920s to convey flasks of super-cold liquid oxygen that were much too chilly to touch. Goddard had first started experimenting with solid propellant rockets in 1915, switching to more powerful liquid propellants in 1921. The rudimentary sled, of pine, nails and twine, providing high contrast to the steely sleekness of the all the other objects in the Udvar-Hazy Center, was donated to the Smithsonian in 1959 by the scientists widow, Esther C. Goddard.

One of the smallest items at the Udvar-Hazy Center is the carcass of a Cross spider named Anita, who, with a companion named Arabella, became involuntary space travelers on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973. They were there as part of an experiment to test how weightlessness affected their web building. The idea came from a 17-year-old student from Lexington, Massachusetts, Judith Miles, who responded to a NASA initiative for student experiment ideas. It turns out the arachnid astronauts spun webs in space using a finer thread in response to the weightless environment. Neither Anita nor Arabella survived the nearly two months in space. But they were placed in glass bottles with their names on them. (Arabella is on loan to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.)

As the lunar module of Apollo 11 was fast approaching its historic target on July 20, 1969, it was also running low on propellant. Neil Armstrong approached Tranquility Base searching for a clear patch to land, as Charles Duke at Mission Control in Houston barked out the minutes remaining before the fuel ran out60 seconds, 30 Seconds, he said in those tense final minutes. Duke based his count on a handheld Swiss-made Heuer stopwatch. When Armstrong announced The Eagle has landed. Mission control responded: We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. Were breathing again. Thanks. The item was donated to the museum by the NASA in 1978.

The alien mother ship that spectacularly lands at Devils Mountain at the end of the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind was lit like the kind of disco ball youd expect from a ship equipped with such a massive sound (and, as it turned out, communication) system. Without lights it looks more like a death star a much smaller one. But the model, 63 inches round and 38 inches wide, is a surprising find in the Udvar-Hazy Center. Conceived by Steven Spielberg but made by a team led by Gregory Jein, it was built using parts from model trains and other kits. But its makers had a little fun with the parts of it that werent seen on camera, such that its affixed with the model of a Volkswagen bus, a submarine, World War II planes, and R2-D2 from Star Wars one of the modelers had just come from that production. Theres also a mailbox in there and a cemetery plot.

There are not many items in the massive space and aviation collection that are as simply drawn and so brightly painted. But the six-inch, red plastic device had an important job: Showing where the capsules of the Mercury Project were at any time of their flights. It was moved across a world map indicating international tracking stations by a pair of wires. The crude map dominated the wall at Mission Control on Cape Canaveral, Florida, for all six of the manned flights from the Mercury program from 1961 to 1963. The actual Mercury capsules themselves, that gave flight to Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra and Scott Carpenter, were uniformly gun barrel gray with a touch of Army green. But definitely not pink.

The impossibly cute Aurogiro may look like a character from Pixars Cars sequel Planes, but the idea was to build an aerial Model T that could take off from driveways and fly around, or, with the above rotor wings folded back, drive leisurely down the street at 25 mph. Test pilot James G. Ray did just that when he landed it in a downtown Washington D.C. park in 1936, folded back the wings and drove down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Commerce Department which commissioned the project. The precursor to the helicopter performed well, but with an estimated cost of $12,500, it was too expensive for the average suburbanite for whom it was intended. Only one was built.

Sometimes space explorers come from other walks of life. Take 34-year-old New Jersey truck driver and skydiving enthusiast Nick Piantanida, a skydiver who wanted to set a new record for highest jump, in his case from a balloon. His first attempt in 1965 was the victim of a wind shear; he landed in a city dump in St. Paul, MN. His second attempt in February 1966 set a world altitude record of 123,500 feet, but a mishap with an onboard oxygen supply forced controllers to cut the gondola loose. For Strato-Jump III, three months later, Piantanida reached 57,600 feet when disaster struck and the gondola had to be cut loose again. He may have accidentally depressurized his helmet; he never gained consciousness and died four months later in August 1966 at 34.

This French-made two-seat ultralight from 1992 lived up to its name it only weighed about 360 pounds empty but with its 34-foot aluminum tube and sailcloth wingspan this model was used by the conservationist group Operation Migration to help guide endangered flocks of Whooping cranes and other bird species to new migratory routes from Canada to the American South. Flying about 31 mph, it also broadcast crane calls during the flights. It was also featured in the 1996 family film Fly Away Home with Jeff Daniels and Anna Paquin.

Discovery was the third Space Shuttle orbiter in space, and racked up the most miles in its 27 years, traveling almost 150 million miles from its 39 Earth-orbital missions from 1984 to 2011. It carried 184 crew members (including John Glenn who returned to space at 77 in 1998). Among its many missions was launching the Hubble Space Telescopeand a couple of its repair missions. Discovery represented the Return to Flight in missions following the loss of the Challenger in 1986 and Columbia disaster in 2003. In all, it clocked 365 days in spacemore than any other orbiters. When it finally retired, it was flown to Virginia in April 2012 after first taking a victory lap over the Nations Capital. It was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by the Endeavour and the Atlantis a few months later.

The biggest thing by far in the Udvar-Hazy Center and maybe in all of the Smithsonian museums is the 202-foot-long Concorde from Air France. In its day, the supersonic airliner cut in half travel time across the Atlantic Ocean, but ultimately couldnt maintain its first-class service because of high operating costs. A sleek, international creation by Arospatiale of France and the British Aviation Corporation, Concorde flew at a maximum causing altitude speed of 1,354more than twice the speed of sound. Air France agreed to donate a Concorde to the Smithsonian in 1989 and lived up to the bargain in 2003, providing the Concorde F-BVFA that had been the first Concorde to open service to Rio de Janeiro, New York and Washington D.C.

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Twelve Must-Sees When the Smithsonian Reopens Udvar-Hazy Center July 24 - Smithsonian Magazine

Executive Summary

CEOs such as Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Twitters Jack Dorsey have announced plans to scale their remote-work initiatives. But, as Microsofts Satya Nadella warns, we may be at risk of replacing one dogma with another if we make a big move toward permanent remote work.

The real issue is not whose predictions turn out to be right or wrong (no one has a crystal ball), but whether those leaders are thinking deeply enough about what they want their new work paradigm to achieve and whether they can architect and construct systems that will allow them to meet their objectives.

To think through those complexities, the authors suggest using Future-back thinking, a process for developing a vision of your best possible future and a clearly laid-out strategy to achieve it. This includes (1) Articulating your grand purpose and aspirational objective (your reason for designing the new system) and envisioning the system and what it looks like; (2) considering each of the assumptions; (3) testing those assumptions; and (4) using the learnings from these experiments to adjust or pivot your systems components, but also your vision itself.

Mark Zuckerberg recently shared his plans for the future of remote work at Facebook. By 2030, he promised, at least half of Facebooks 50,000 employees would be working from home. We are going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale, he declared in a follow-up interview. A few days before, Jack Dorsey had announced that Twitter and Squares employees would be allowed to work where[ever] they feel most creative and productiveeven once offices begin to reopen.

After spending the last two decades building amenity-filled campuses that maximize the collisionability of talent and ideas while enticing their workers to stay in the office for as much time as they can, Covid-19 has shown these leading-edge technology companies that their workers can be just as productive or in some cases, even more so when they stay at home.Its not just tech. Executives in traditional industries who spent days and weeks on the road are discovering that a well-managed Zoom meeting can be as effective as a face-to-face and a lot easier (and less expensive) to organize.

Will Apples new $5 billion HQ, aka The Spaceship, turn out to be a white elephant? Will Google abandon its Googleplex? Will corporations empty out their office buildings everywhere and shrink their physical footprints? Are we on the brink of a new paradigm for work? Microsofts Satya Nadella isnt so sure. Switching from all offices to all remote is replacing one dogma with another, he said in a conversation with The New York Times. One of the things I feel is, hey, maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. Whats the measure for that?

We suspect that the workforces of Twitter and Facebook will be less remote in 10 years than their leaders are predicting today, but much more remote than they could have imagined six months ago. The real issue, however, is not whose predictions turn out to be right or wrong (no one has a crystal ball), but whether those leaders are thinking deeply enough about what they want their new work paradigm to achieve and whether they can architect and construct systems that will allow them to meet their objectives.

WFH is helping them muddle through the immediate crisis, but what do they want from it in the long run? Higher productivity? Savings on office space, travel, and cost-of-living adjusted salaries for workers in cheaper locations? Better morale and higher retention rates?

To know whats best for your organizations future when it comes to remote work, you have to put it in the context of all the things that you are looking to achieve. In other words, you have to have a conscious aspiration. Then you need to envision the workforce system that will make those things possible.

Having more or less remote work is not a point change in an otherwise stable system work from home is a system in and of itself, with many interfaces and interdependencies, both human and technological. These include:

While you can model such a system up to a point, its design specs will inevitably need to be revised as they come into contact with reality; as such, experimentation and learning will be key you cannot expect to have a one-time rollout.

For all of this to be developed and managed in the right way, a different innovation approach is needed.

At Innosight, where both of us work, weve developed a way of thinking and planning that we call Future-back. We cover this in detail in our new book, Lead from the Future, but heres the gist: Future-back is designed to help business leaders develop a vision of their best possible future and a clearly laid-out strategy to achieve it.

Thinking and planning from the future back allows you to fully articulate what you hope to achieve with your new work system and then design its major components from a clean sheet, unencumbered by how things work today or how they worked in the past. Once you have developed your vision, you need to consider all the things that would have to be true for that vision to be achievable, and then test those assumptions with initiatives you can begin today.

The process unfolds in four distinct stages.

You are doing two things in this stage: Articulating your grand purpose and aspiration (your reason for designing the new system) and envisioning the system and what it looks like.

To determine your grand objective your reason for re-imagining your existing system think about what you have learned from the Covid-19 emergency that led you down this path. Your initial aim is simply to develop clarity about your intended future, not achieve analytic certainty.

As you begin to sketch out your workforce system of the future, frame it as a purpose- and objective-driven narrative. This is your vision. As such, it should include: your Purpose (your ultimate inspirational why); your objectives and metrics (your tangible why); and a concise description of the components of your system and how they fit together (your what). For example:

In order to expand our talent base to the four corners of the world and ensure that they are fully-motivated by 2022, 50% of our creative workforce will work remotely for up to 50% of their time. Employees will be fully reimbursed for the costs of their home offices and work-related travel; salaries will reflect local costs of living.

Moving on to the system itself, ask yourself a series of questions about its resources and assets. What kinds of people will make up your system and where will they will be located? How will you organize your different functions and ensure that they work? What will your physical footprint look like? What remote technologies and tools will you need, and how will you combine them with in-person tools and technologies to ensure individual productivity and effective virtual collaborations?

Then you need to ask similar questions about policies and processes, and norms, and metrics.

As Donald Rumsfeld famously put it, there are known knowns and known unknowns, and also unknown unknowns that you must take account of. Work through each of them, surfacing as many of those known and unknown unknowns as you can. Each will need to be proven or disproven:that virtually-convened teams can problem-solve as well as teams that meet in person; that executive development can be carried out online as well as in-person meetings or not, as the case may be.

What do you need to learn and how can you best do it? To answer these questions, walk your vision and its key assumptions back to the present in the form of experiments. You will need more than one if there are different circumstances or contexts in which the system would work for example, if your company includes geographic locations with different societal norms or government regulations, or business units that are fundamentally different from one another (e.g., one that is more service- and manufacturing-oriented versus others that focus on knowledge work and design). People are different, too. WFH makes tremendous sense for some roles and personality types; less for others.

If you are a multinational and want to learn if WFH can work within one of your geographies, carve out a business function or small business unit; systematically apply the WFH technologies, practices, and rules and norms that you wish to use; run it in parallel for a short time; and then carefully measure its results against those of the larger unit.

Through this iterative process of exploring, envisioning, and testing, you will ultimately discover your best way forward. This learning will be an ongoing process, not a discrete event, unfolding over time as your assumptions are converted to knowledge.

Inevitably, there will be tradeoffs that must be negotiated. While you may be able to tap more talent and save money by not requiring your new hires to move, it is also likely that your creative ecosystem will become more diffuse. Some teams may need to meet in person as frequently as several days a week, so they wont have the luxury of living wherever they wish. You will likely have to beef up your technical and human capabilities before you can fully apply your new knowledge across your organization; significant investments may be required to provide sufficient bandwidth for your employees homes, reducing some of your expected savings. You may find, per those early experiments, that your new system wont work in every business unit or geography.

You will likely have to grapple with the pitfalls of causal ambiguity (the fact that what drives good results in one context may very well not in another). Any organization has constraints on its absorptive capacity; you must be prepared for systemic incompatibilities and rejection, which can stem from poor communication between units, the lack of a shared language, or longstanding rivalries and resentments.

At all times, its important to remember that your aspirational whats best should be about more than your bottom line. Back in August 2019, the Business Roundtable redefined the purpose of a corporation from one that solely serves its shareholders financial interests to delivering value to all of its stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, and communities . Ideally, a companys vision of its future workforce system or systems should reflect its leaders deepest thinking about its why, not just its what and how.

Even if remote work turns out to be less productive on some metrics than others, reducing carbon-based emissions or the improving work-life balancecould make up for it. Or not. Its possible that what works for Twitter and Facebook wont work for you, at least initially. Your struggles with it may point the way towards deeper changes that you have to make.

Future-back thinking doesnt reveal a future that is written in stone it gives you a way to shape it and own it, ensuring your organizations long-term viability. As Satya Nadella suggested, trading one dogma for another is rarely your best solution; in most cases, those dogmas themselves are your biggest problem. At the end of the day, the organizations that can develop the clearest, most inspiring visions, learn the fastest, and pivot the most capably, are the ones that win.

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Does Your Company Have a Long-Term Plan for Remote Work? - Harvard Business Review

Could airlines have a zero-emissions airliner by the early 2030s? Totally, they say. As long as everyone involved acts very quickly and gets completely on board with hydrogen technology, that is.

Glenn Llewellyn, the vice president of zero-emissions technology for Airbus, told a panel this week that the aeronautics manufacturer is fully in on hydrogen flight. Its the quickest path, he believes, to turning passenger flight into zero-emissions passenger flight.

Unlimited Pop Mech. Get best-in-class tech and transportation stories, stat.

To do that, he recommends a schema that makes sense: pull up a lot of automotive hydrogen technology thats either already fully formed or in the works, and pull down a lot of space hydrogen launch technology, like what already powers the Vulcain 2 liquid fuel engine. The Vulcain lifts the Airbus-designed Ariane launcher into space for the European Space Agency (ESA).

The European Union has recently released a hydrogen strategy to go with its EU Green Deal series of plans. Indeed, hydrogen is broadly hyped as the great green hope that can fill a stopgap for a lot of heavier industries where wind and solar arent suitable yet. But critics have pointed out some big logistical problems with that idea. Problem #1: Where will all this hydrogen come from?

Separating usable hydrogen is very costly, and the most cost efficient way today uses, you guessed it, fossil fuels. Hydrogen itself is a clean energy, but making the hydrogen isntat least not yet. The fossil fuel industry can push hydrogen as its heir apparent and seem virtuous and in touch, but the truth is it will continue to control the supply of fossil fuel-processed hydrogen for at least a while.

One of the most promising technologies to allow us to do that is hydrogen. Why hydrogen? Mainly because we believe we need to position the aviation industry to be powered by renewable energy and hydrogen is a very good surrogate, Llewelyn said in the panel. He emphasized that ramping up development and manufacturing of any hydrogen airliner must also come with an investment in hydrogen supply infrastructure to airports.

And, again, thats where the links to the fossil fuel industry become relevant. Describing hydrogen as the surrogatea word suggesting an analog and one-to-one swapsuggests its both more ready and more appropriate than it may be in reality.

In addition, as Llewelyn suggests, the only way hydrogen will be ready for passenger flight by the early 2030s is by getting a big head start from both automotive and space-travel technology.

The idea of an airliner powered by hydrogen already conjures images of the Hindenburg. Yes, liquid hydrogen is used in spaceflight, but those are the most advanced craft in the world and launched in conditions kept as isolated and pristine as is humanly possiblenot refueling in a hurry during a layover at OHare. A working hydrogen airliner within 15 years may be a reality, but it may also be flame-broiled pie in the sky.

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A Zero-Emissions Airliner Is Possible by the Early 2030sIf This Happens - Popular Mechanics

Bethesda is a studio that has found great success with its massive single-player RPG games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 3. While the companys recent fumbles with games like Fallout 76 (and to a lesser extent, Fallout 4) mightve dropped its stock with gamers, the studio is pushing forward and has some ambitious projects on the horizon. One such project is Starfield, a game that was first announced during Bethesdas 2018 E3 presentation.

We still dont know much about it, but weve gathered as much information as we could to bring you everything we know about Bethesdas upcoming sci-fi RPG.

Recommended reading:

It was probably surprising to see Bethesda unveil a new game and one set in space, at that. Starfield is a single-player sci-fi RPG and is the studios first new game in 25 years. Though the developer attempted to create a game set in space in the 90s, it ultimately failed and was canceled. It seems that Starfield wont share the same fate, as the team has prioritized its development and aims to bring it to next-generation consoles. Currently, its the studios main priority, as a smaller portion of its developers continues work on Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls: VI. Bethesda has four main studios under its belt, located in Austin, Dallas, Montreal, and Rockville, Maryland all of which are assisting with the games development.

Fans worried about multiplayer getting in the way of a quality single-player story (looking at you, Fallout 76) should rest easy. According to a Eurogamer interview with Bethesdas Peter Hines, Starfield is is decidedly single player. Well get into this in more detail later, but the company has described Starfield as a core Bethesda game weve come to expect only this time, its set in space, which is new to the studio.

Its unknown if Starfield will come to PS4 and Xbox One, but Bethesda has hinted that it probably wont. The team is currently working on the game, focusing on their vision, and will optimize afterward. Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard told GameSpot that releasing for current generation hardware is not out of the question but there is a question there. Im being honest, I dont the answer to that yet. When thinking about its possible release date, its very unlikely Starfield will be available for current-generation consoles especially if its as ambitious as the company says itll be but time will tell.

Speaking of next generation, the question of whether Starfield will be running on a new and improved engine has been on the minds of Bethesda fans since its announcement. After all, many of the studios past games have been notoriously buggy and have felt outdated, even at the time of release. With Starfield, its not clear how itll run, but Bethesda has gone on record to confirm it will use the same engine as Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76, known as Creation Engine.

This might be an immediate turnoff to some, but when you consider the engine has evolved tremendously since 2011, it might as well be something totally new. As GamesRadar explains, Bethesda has added to the engine, so much so, that calling it the same isnt as informative as youd think.

For Fallout 76 we changed a lot of it, Howard explained. All new renderer, new lighting model, new landscape system. Then when you go to Starfield, even more of it changes, and then Elder Scrolls VI, which is really out on the horizon, even more of it changes. In short, the fact that Starfield is still running on Creation Engine might not necessarily be something to worry about.

We do know parts of Starfield are already playable as of E3 2018. That was two years ago, so the game is likely in even better shape now. We know the game were making now, and one of the reasons we announced it is that its looking really awesome. We have runway in front of us and we know whats happening, Howard told GameSpot in 2018. When it comes to the gameplay and what to expect from Starfield in comparison to Bethesdas other games, Howard concluded, It has what youd expect and more.

Its different, but if you sit down and play it you would recognize it as something we made if that makes sense? It has our DNA in it. It has things that we like, Howard told Eurogamer in 2018.

The studio is, of course, keeping it tight-lipped when it comes to revealing information about Starfield, but the main point is that itll likely satisfy those players who love classic Bethesda games. In recent years, the company has tried new things like The Elder Scrolls: Bladesand Fallout Shelter two games that were designed with mobile devices in mind. Starfield, on the other hand, will not be like that at all, though what well be doing in it remains to be seen.

We got our first and pretty much only glimpse at Starfield during Bethesdas E3 presentation in 2018, and aside from conveying tone, it didnt reveal much. Bethesda was actually reluctant to reveal the game so early but, as Howard explained during an interview with NoClip, fans had already suspected the team was working on Starfield, following its trademark filing in 2013. The team wanted to give fans a roadmap for what to expect from Bethesda Game Studios going forward, and decided to pull the cloak off but maybe too early, as some fans have pointed out.

The more cynical side of the internet believes the company revealed Starfield when it did to distract from the announcement of Fallout 76, which didnt have the best reception, even prior to its release. The company had to have known the community wouldnt take kindly to an online Fallout game, so perhaps Starfield and The Elder Scrolls: VI were revealed to hold fans over. Bethesda would never admit that, of course.

At E3 2019, Todd Howard, Elon Musk, and The Game Awards Geoff Keighley had a discussion about developing games, among other things and Starfield was brought up. Howard told the audience he went to Musks company, SpaceX, to gather information and inspiration for Starfield. This means Bethesda is attempting to keep the game based in reality, while still making it fun to play. Howard used the word authenticity to describe the way Starfieldis supposed to feel.

In the same chat, Howard described possibly using Helium-3 to fuel rockets in-game. This, ostensibly, hints that some sort of space travel will be available in the final product. We have to game-ify it some, so its not as punishing as actual space travel, Howard added. He compared space travel in Starfield to flight in the 40s, in that its still fairly dangerous. All of this will be fully realized, thanks in part to collaboration with Musks SpaceX.

This talk occurred in 2019, so much of what was mentioned could change as games typically evolve tremendously throughout their development. Certain ideas stick, while others even if enormous amounts of time and resources are spent on them might not ever come to be.

Typically, Bethesda has multiple projects going on at once with one getting the majority of the focus, while the others sit to the side and gestate. We know the company filed for Starfields trademark in 2013, which means it had to have been thinking about it for a while prior to that. In speaking with Eurogamer, Howard said the studio had been at least discussing the game since 2004, with Bethesda fully dedicating staff to it around 2015.

Despite the company having Starfield in mind since as early as 2004, that doesnt mean its been actively working on it since then. But at the very least, we know it is past the pre-production phase and has been for around five years. Howard told Geoff Keighley during a Gamelab discussion, It took us a while to get that cohesive this is what Starfield is, and now that project is off and running in a good way and that was also why we felt good announcing it.

For context, it took Bethesda at least around five years to complete development on Skyrim, assuming the team started work on it as soon as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion shipped in 2006. With that in mind, the current COVID-19 pandemic will likely have an effect on the games development, due to studios being forced to work remotely. This practice although necessary is one that has slowed the production of many forms of media, not just video games.

Okay, maybe not light-years away, but its still very far off, based on the way Bethesdas public figures have been talking about it. During an interview with GameSpot, Howard advised that everyone should be very patient when it comes to getting their hands on Starfield. Bethesda doesnt know when itll be able to show us more, which is partially why there was an internal debate concerning its reveal at E3 2018. Nonetheless, you shouldnt expect to play Starfield until 2021 at the earliest.

Even if Bethesda was counting on shipping Starfield in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic would have likely slowed production, pushing it further out. A much more realistic time frame places it around 2022, given the circumstances. Following the poor reception to Fallout 76 in 2018, Bethesda is likely wanting its next game to be as refined and polished as possible, which will take time.

Pete Hines told Eurogamer that development times havent changed at all, when compared to the studios past games. In reference to when wed learn more about Starfield, Hines said timeframe-wise, it would still be about as long as youd expect when you look at Fallout 3 to Skyrim to Fallout 4 to Fallout 76. Its still going to be those periods of time, that hasnt changed. Or at least, I dont think it will change from that based on what I know. That could point to a Starfield update coming within the next year or two. Keep in mind, that interview was conducted in 2018, prior to the pandemic, so things might have shifted around since then.

What we do know is that itll release for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, the latter of which are scheduled to launch later this holiday. Aside from that, all we can do is speculate about when well get to play Starfield. Hopefully, the wait will be worth it.

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Everything we know about Starfield, Bethesdas upcoming sci-fi RPG - Digital Trends

The Dare County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a conditional use permit for Beachland Farms Campground, a 50-space travel trailer park partially abutting Vista Lake subdivision on Roanoke Island.

Dare County attorney Robert L. Outten outlined the steps for the quasi-judicial hearing. He told the commissioners you do not have the authority to deny the permit. He said the commissioners can put conditions on the development.

Malcolm Fearing as property owner told the commissioners we want to be good neighbors.

With Fearing were attorney Benjamin Gallop with Hornthal, Riley, Ellis and Mayland as well as engineer Dylan Tillett with Quible and Associates.

One of the issues is how much wetland will be filled. Tillett reported 2,522 square feet or 0.06 acre will be filled. The wetland filling will be reviewed by six federal and state agencies.

Commissioner Rob Ross wanted to know the flood zone. AE4 replied Tillett. Vista Lake subdivision has the same zone mapped.

Seven citizens spoke in opposition to the proposal.

Lester Page, who lives in Vista Lake, said his subdivision was flooded out two years ago by a bad hurricane. His car was totaled. About the campground, he said its going to be heavily impacted by surge from the sound.

Page also said, with a hurricane coming, the travel trailers will not get out of there. Debris will go into Vista Lake and Viccars Lane.

We need a heavy bond on this thing, said Page.

One of the conditions addresses Pages concern.

Condition No.14 states the park owner shall be responsible for the removal of any damaged travel trailers or recreational vehicles that may result from storm conditions or other natural disasters. The park owner is responsible for debris removal and damaged units cannot be placed on or abandoned on the right-of-way of any public or private road. Violations of the condition shall be considered littering.

Patricia Gale said the development will definitely impact wildlife. Any impact is too much, she said. She asked for a complete impact study.

Two people addressed concerns about property values.

Jesse Davis was concerned about declining property values. He also questioned the impact of the raised septic system. Engineer Tillett replied that a drainage ditch is available to handle runoff. Davis responded that the ditch was in his backyard.

Nevin Wescott, a 32-year resident, called the campground this terrible wrong behind our community.

He said nobody is going to sit on a back porch and see an RV park.

He said theres going to be a slip up with connections.

One of the conditions in the permit prohibits open campfires. Wescott still is concerned about grills. He remembered a marsh fire six or seven years ago. North Carolina Forest Service put it out.

He voiced concern about the size of current trailers and RVs. I can tell you that they cannot come to Bowsertown and make the turn.

He pleaded: Dont let this happen to us.

Attorney Gallop objected to testimony about traffic and land valuation as the testimony was not competent, meaning it was not offered by a professional.

Ross raised the adequacy issue of Bowsertown Road. Gallop responded that traffic concerns need to be brought by a traffic engineer. Trailer size will be self-limiting.

Fearing said it is a state-maintained road.

Commissioners went down the list of complaints raised by those offering testimony.

Board Vice Chairman Wally Overman made the motion to approve the site plan and conditions. The motion was seconded by commissioner Jim Tobin.

Overman said of Fearing: He will be a good neighbor.

The specific conditions set out for the campgrounds Conditional Use Permit are:

Minimum site area is 1,500 square feet, width at least 30 feet with gravel parking area.

Trailers permitted to park year-round but must be fully licensed and ready for highway use.

The units shall not be used as permanent dwellings.

No additions, decks, porches or other appurtenances permitted. A 100-square foot entrance landing is allowed.

A 20-foot wide gravel road built to NCDOT sub-base standards is to be used as access to sites.

Utilities include water from the Dare County system. On-site wastewater systems approved by Dare County Health Department are to be used.

A bathhouse facility is required by the countys Travel Trailer Park Ordinance.

A vegetative buffer strip must be constructed around the perimeter of the park. A solid fence six feet high must be installed along the southeast boundary adjacent to campsites 9 through 12 which abut properties in Vista Lake.

All supplemental state and federal permits must be secured before installation of any improvements.

A copy of the tenant lease must be provided to Dare County Planning Department.

Travel trailer park owner is responsible for removing any damaged trailers or recreational vehicles resulting from storms or natural disasters. Units cannot be placed or abandoned on the right-of-way of any public or private road.

Open campfires are prohibited in the park.

Signage is subject to separate review under the countys sign ordinance.

Infrastructure improvements shall be installed within 12 months of the date of the permit.

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Hayabusa2 is currently heading back home after departing from the asteroid Ryugu in November 2019. But the spacecraft might venture on an extended mission after it returns to Earth and completes its current mission of returning samples from asteroid Ryugu.

In a recent statement, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) along with the Australian Space Agency confirmed that the Hayabusa2 capsule will land on December 6, 2020. Both space agencies are working together on the re-entry and recovery operations of the capsule which is planned to land in Woomera, South Australia.

But, as revealed by the official Twitter handle of Hayabusa2, the spacecraft might swing by Earth and head on over to its next target.

The Hayabusa2 project is considering an extended mission after returning the capsule to Earth. Plans have been narrowed down to 2 possible candidate targets: asteroids 2001 AV43 or 1998 KY26. Both are small & fast spinning objects, which is a type that has not yet been explored. pic.twitter.com/OYpQAyy7ob

After deploying its capsule containing the asteroid samples so that it drops down to Earth, the spacecraft will again escape Earths orbit and go to one of the two potential targets, Asteroid 2001AV43 and Asteroid 1998KY26.

As shown in the mission outline, the spacecraft will be able to reach asteroid 2001AV43 by November 2029 after executing a Venus fly-by. Alternatively, the spacecraft will be able to reach asteroid 1998KY26 by July 2031 after flying by another asteroid.

According to the NHK, JAXA plans will be selecting the next target by September and further plans on completing the complete Hayabusa2 mission 15 years after the spacecraft was launched.

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission that was launched back in December 2014. After arriving at its target, asteroid 162173 Ryugu in June 2018, the spacecraft conducted various scientific experiments and landing operations with help from the mission lander, MASCOT for over a year.

The spacecraft is now returning to Earth after six years and might soon head to its next target for ten additional years. In May, Hayabusa2 completed 2000 days of spacelight as it passed the half-way point of its return trip. The report by NHK adds that JAXA intents to try collecting data on how equipment is affected by long-term space travel.

Today (5/25), Hayabusa2 achieved 2000 days of space flight & passed the mid-point for the return trip! The remaining distance is ~400 million km. Ion engines & flight course are good. Operations continue, hoping that Ryugus treasure will arrive at a peaceful Earth --PM Tsuda. pic.twitter.com/lBTtV9SvKA

SEE ALSO: Bennu and Ryugu Might Have Been Two Large Chunks From One Asteroid

Image Source: JAXA

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JAXA Shares Plan To Extended Its Hayabusa2 Asteroid Sample-Return Mission - Mashable India