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Elon Musk Responds to Reports He Welcomed Twins & Nick Cannon Sent a Message of Support – Yahoo Life

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

After reports circulated this week that Elon Musk welcomed twins with Shivon Zilis in Nov. 2021, the SpaceX founder took to Twitter yesterday to seemingly address the news that he is now a dad of 10 and he received a message of support from fellow dad Nick Cannon.

Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis, the Tesla CEO wrote on Twitter. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far. He added, Mark my words, they are sadly true.

Twitter Is Ready for a Potential Legal Battle With Elon Musk – The New York Times

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Elon Musk may be preparing for the next chapter in his Twitter takeover journey: court.

A $44 billion deal was reached in April between Mr. Musk and Twitter, and the two sides have since been working to close the deal. Mr. Musk requested information on how many Twitter accounts are bots, and Twitter has provided Mr. Musk access to its firehose, or stream of tweets. It has continued to share additional information with him.

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that the deal was in jeopardy, and that Mr. Musks team was expected to take potentially drastic action. The articles claims, which could not be confirmed by the DealBook newsletter, took Twitter and its advisers by surprise, because they did not consider the deal to be in any further peril than at any other point in recent months.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for a comment. Twitter reiterated that it intended to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.

There are many drastic actions Mr. Musk could take, but as it pertains to the deal, there are two clear possibilities: He could deliver a letter to Twitter saying he is terminating the deal, and he could sue Twitter. Those two actions would most likely, but not necessarily, happen simultaneously.

There are no clear grounds for Mr. Musk to try to break the deal, because Twitter has publicly disclosed that roughly 5 percent of its users are bots since it went public. But he may try to claim that this disclosure is intentionally misleading, a very high bar to meet legally.

In that case, Twitter could countersue. Twitter strongly believes that the deal contract is on its side, and that it would be an uphill battle for Mr. Musk. The deal has a specific performance clause, which gives the company the right to sue him and force him to complete the deal so long as the debt financing he has corralled remains intact. And even if that 5 percent estimate is off, Twitter warns in its regulatory filings that the number is an estimate and that it could be higher than we have currently estimated. The bar for using that as grounds to get out of a deal is high.

A case could be heard in Delaware, where Twitter is registered. Twitter would almost certainly seek an expedited case, given the size of the deal. A possible judge is Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, who is also overseeing the Orlando Police Pension Funds suit over the deal.

The stakes are high. The most valuable part of Twitter right now is its acquisition agreement with Mr. Musk. Its shares are down about 24 percent since April, and trade well below the price agreed with Mr. Musk. Twitters stock fell 4 percent in premarket trading on Friday.

Twitter is seeing pressure on its advertising business, has frozen hiring and is laying off some staff members. To accept less than the price it originally negotiated with Mr. Musk could expose Twitter to shareholder lawsuits. So while litigation could be costly, losing the deal may be even worse.

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Twitter Is Ready for a Potential Legal Battle With Elon Musk - The New York Times

Elon Musk Drops The Curtain On His Natures – TheStreet

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Elon Musk has been part of our daily lives since January.

His omnipresence on social media and in particular on the microblogging website Twitter, which he wants to buy for $44 billion, makes it difficult to escape a post, an article or a thundering statement from the world's richest man. His fortune is estimated at $208 billion as of June 30, according toBloomberg Billionaires Index.

He is the only person in the world to be part of the $200 billion club.

His daily presence has an impact: we have the impression that we know him. Everyone has their own opinion about him. His fans swear by him. To listen to them, Musk is the only genius of our time. They would entrust him with the key to the planet if there was one.

To his detractors, Musk is an egomaniac, a narcissist whose sole purpose is to get people talking about him. Consequently, they fear its acquisition of Twitter (TWTR) - Get Twitter Inc. Report, which Musk describes as the de facto Times Square of our time.

Even those who are neutral have an opinion on the whimsical and charismatic serial entrepreneur. They reproach him for his rowdy statements. They would like to see him more nuanced, less black or white. They believe that gray is sometimes good.

In the end, it turns out that we know little about the tech tycoon. Indeed, that is what he seems to tell us. Musk just gave us a guide to understanding him. And this guide is super hero character Bruce Bannerin the Marvel Comics' universe.

Banner is a nerd and scientist, who when angry transforms into Hulk, the Jade Giant,known for his multiple personalities.

"Twitter me & real-life me are quite different haha!" Musk posted on June 21.

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The billionaire accompanied the tweet with two images: on the left we see Bruce Banner transformed into an angry Hulk. On the right,Banner is calm, wears the glasses. It's hard to imagine that he too is on the right.

Above each image, Musk inscribed a message. Regarding the image of Banner transforming into an angry Hulk he wrote: "Elon Musk in Twitter." As for the image on the left, the mogul presents it as: "Elon Musk in interviews."

These posts are Musk's last messages before he retreated into silence. Since that date the mogul has not appeared on social media.

Chief executive office of Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc. Report seems to say that on Twitter he is unfiltered. He lets himself go, does not control himself and lets burst everything he has in him, everything he wants to say without worrying about what people will say. He is less restrained. He doesn't really think when he's on social media.

On the other hand, once he is in front of the media, he is another Musk. He is more calm, more thoughtful, and less spontaneous.

Hulk is the alter ego of the shy scientist Banner. This appeared after Banner was accidentally exposed to a massive dose of gamma rays. Therefore, as soon as the researcher feels a strong emotion such as anger or stress and fear, he turns into a real, almost invincible monster that destroys everything in his path.

Hulk is nevertheless one of the most popular heroes of the Marvel universe and is often a victim since all he wants is to live in peace but he is constantly hunted down by the other heroes or the government who either want to use him or destroy him because they fear his strength.

Stan Lee, the co-creator of the Hulk, confessed in interviews that to create the Jade Giant, he was inspired by two mythical fictional characters, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde because of the double personality. The character Dr. Jekyll was a researcher who turns into a monster.He was also inspired by Frankenstein, a monster who only aspires to live in peace but who is constantly hunted down by other people who fear him.

But the most important thing is that Hulk draws his strength from anger and hatred because in times of stress or nervousness his strength increases and then knows no limits. Hulk is almost invincible and often the only way to defeat him is to appease him and calm his fury.

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Elon Musk Drops The Curtain On His Natures - TheStreet

Twitter lays off a third of its recruiting team amid Elon Musk takeover drama – Business Insider

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Twitter has laid off some of its recruiting teams two months after implementing a hiring freeze amid a takeover bid from Elon Musk.

About a third of the talent acquisition team was affected, according to Thursday reports from various media outlets including The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch. A representative for Twitter confirmed the layoffs to Insider.

Fewer than 100 people were affected by the layoffs, The Journal reported, citing Twitter. Twitter employs more than 7,000 people globally.

In May, the company said it was pausing most hiring and backfilling. The layoffs on Thursday were to align Twitter with its new business needs, the representative for the company said.

Twitter's layoffs came after Musk who has put in a $44 billion bid to buy the social media platform hinted at job cuts during a town hall meeting on June 16, reported Insider's Dominick Reuter and Kali Hays.

"We need to make more than we spend," Musk said, per the Insider report, citing a person who was at the meeting.

Musk's Twitter acquisition still hangs in balance. Since he put in his offer in April, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has zoomed in on spam and bot accounts on the social media platform.

In May, Musk said he was putting the deal "on hold" until Twitter proves that fewer than 5% of its accounts are fake, as his bid was based on the company's SEC filing being accurate. Twitter said in a May 2 SEC filing that fewer than 5% of accounts on its platform were fake.

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Twitter lays off a third of its recruiting team amid Elon Musk takeover drama - Business Insider

Elon Musk Has a Solution to Solve a Global Crisis – TheStreet

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Elon Musk keeps his word.

The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc. Report, who has become one of the world's most influential voices, has been warningabout what he considers the most serious global threat: the decline of the world population and mainly in rich countries.

"Unless something major changes on the human birth rate level. But this, by the way, is, I think, the biggest single threat to civilization right now," Musk, 51, said during a virtual appearance at the recent All-In Conference held in Miami on May 16.

To back up his claim and warning, the tech tycoon hasfor several weeksbeen posting news articles focused on the continued population decline in Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, and Italy and the decline in the birth rate in the U.S.

"Past two years have been a demographic disaster," Musk wrote on Twitter on June 14, speaking about the U.S. The post brought back a tweet from May, in which he was already worried about the declining U.S. birth rate.

"USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years," Musk tweeted at the time.

A recent study projects that the world's population will peak at 9.7 billion in 2064, before decreasing to 8.8 billion in 2100. But if we follow the curve of the growth rate of world population, demographers say, the population would begin to decline around 2060.

The annual growth rate of world population was 2.1% in the 1970s. Today, this rate is around 1%. And it should go to zero between 2060 and 2070, demographers also say.

The serial entrepreneur -- he founded the rocket developer SpaceX, infrastructure provider Boring Co., andmedical-technology company Neuralink -- says that one way to solve this major problem is to have children and celebrate humanity.

"I mean, Im doing my part haha," Musk said in another tweet on June 14

This last sentence can be understood in different ways. The first is that the billionaire is already doing everything to warn about this issue.

On a personal level, the billionaire also seems to be following his own advice: He expanded his family at the end of last year by welcoming a seventh child, a girl named Y, with the Canadian singer Grimes.

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But we have to believe that he did not stop there since the charismatic business manager seems to confirm a report from Insider stating that he has two other children, twins, with a seniorNeuralinkexecutive, Shivon Zilis.

The two babies were born last November. Musk and the executivein Aprilasked a Texas judge to change the children's names to reflect both their surnames, according to Insider. The request was granted.

"Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis," Musk tweeted on July 7, several hours after the Insider article was published. "A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far."

Five minutes later he posted a second tweet saying: "Mark my words, they are sadly true."

These messages were followed by other tweets including one celebrating big families.

"I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!"

"Far too many people are under the illusion that Earth is overpopulated, even though birth rate trends are so obviously headed to population collapse," Musk said in another tweet.

The twins bring Musk's offspring to nine. Indeed, the billionaire already has two children, Y and X, with Grimes. He also hasa set of twins and a set of triplets -- Griffin, Vivian, Jenna, Kai, Saxon, and Damian -- from an earlier marriage with Canadian author Justine Wilson.

Musk and Wilson lost their first child, Nevada, from sudden infant death syndrome at just 10 weeks old.

The billionaire's tweets about having a large family have been met on social media with comments from users who believe he can afford to have as many children as he wants because he is wealthy. But the billionaire had already anticipated this criticism several weeks ago.

"It's somewhat counterintuitive, because people will say, like, well, 'it's too expensive to have a baby'. No. The wealthier they are, the fewer kids you have; the more educated you are the fewer kids you have," he said in May.

The expansion of his family and alarm about the decline of the world's population come as Musk wants to conquer other planets, Mars in particular, through hisSpaceX exploration company. He wants to build the project into a global ambition.

"Population of Mars is still zero people!" Musk repeated in a July 7 tweet.

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Elon Musk Has a Solution to Solve a Global Crisis - TheStreet

Elon Musk running ‘anti-5G’ narrative, SpaceX lied to customers about 5G – Economic Times

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Elon Musk has been accused of running an anti-5G narrative in the US that is harmful to millions of consumers who are seeking better connectivity options and innovation.

Non-profit '5G for 12 GHz Coalition' has accused SpaceX of lying to customers about how expanding certain airwaves for 5G could disrupt its affordable Starlink satellite internet service, thus conducting "a public misinformation campaign" against 5G.

According to non-profit '5G for 12 GHz Coalition', SpaceX submitted a "manipulated filing" in the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to prove the expanded 5G usage would lead to substantial interference, while there is no risk of harmful interference alongside 5G.

The dispute is over a band of radio frequencies known as the 12GHz spectrum for 5G.

Since the FCC initiated the 12 GHz proceeding 18 months ago, the coalition has worked with top experts, "to submit robust, data-driven technical analyses into the record".

After failing to submit any expert technical input during the public comment and reply comment periods in the proceeding, "Starlink has only now submitted a self-produced political document in the guise of a technical analysis", it argued.

This "study", which was not produced by an independent expert, is both scientifically and logically flawed, the coalition further said.

Starlink has publicly stated that its service will serve a limited number of customers in high-density areas and is really targeted for sparsely populated regions.

"In addition to this manipulated filing, Starlink has initiated a public misinformation campaign by falsely telling customers and the public that coexistence is not possible in the band among Starlink and 5G services -- despite nationwide data proving otherwise," said the coalition.

"It also stands to threaten America's global leadership in the 5G and technology sector as other countries outpace the nation in delivering next-generation services".

The coalition has 35 public interest groups, trade associations and telecom companies, which are calling on the US FCC to act swiftly to allow the 12GHz band to unlock the power of 5G.

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Elon Musk running 'anti-5G' narrative, SpaceX lied to customers about 5G - Economic Times

Brain Stimulation Can Rewire and Heal Damaged Neural Connections, But it Isn’t Clear How – Nextgov

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

The connections between the neurons in your brain enable you to do amazing things, from brushing your teeth to solving calculus equations. When these connections become damaged, often as a result of conditions like stroke or traumatic brain injury, these abilities can be lost. Directly activating neurons with tiny pulses of electricity, however, can help rewire these connections and potentially restore function.

Doctors currently use this technique, called neurostimulation, to treat conditions like Parkisons and depression. We believe that neurostimulation has the potential to not only treat symptoms but also cure a wider range of diseases by repairing damaged connections. However, it has been unclear how to best fine-tune stimulation to specifically target damaged connections within the brain.

New forms of neurotechnology and statistical modeling that have developed over the past few years have made answering this question possible. Our team of biomedical engineers and statisticians used these tools to show that the changes neurostimulation makes to neurons depend on how they were connected in the first place. In other words, for neurostimulation to work, it needs to be tailored to each individuals brain.

To investigate what factors most strongly influence the effects of neurostimulation, we stimulated the brains of two monkeys and recorded how the connections between different regions changed. We focused on brain regions involved in motor movement and sensory processing areas that are often impaired in neurological disorders like stroke.

We recorded our data with a large-scale neural interface a device that rests directly on the surface of a live brain and records the activity of the neurons below it. Our neural interface was able to precisely stimulate each area through optogenetics, a technique that shines a light on genetically modified neurons to activate them. While not yet approved for use in people, optogenetics has unique advantages over other forms of neurostimulation that make it especially useful for understanding how stimulation affects the brain. This includes its ability to make higher-quality recording of the electrical signals generated by the brain.

We then analyzed our data with an artificial intelligence algorithm designed to predict how preexisting brain connections and different stimulation parameters will affect the brain.

This algorithm is similar to other AI techniques like deep learning that find complex relationships in data that are otherwise difficult or impossible to identify. But unlike these black box models that make it impossible for researchers to understand how they arrived at their findings, our technique allows us to see why and how it makes its predictions. Using this algorithm, we were able to test different factors that influence connection changes and visualize how they each contributed to the overall prediction the model provided. These factors included pauses between stimulation sessions, the distance between stimulation locations in the brain and the region of the brain in which the electrodes were placed, among others.

We found that it was the existing connections in the brain, not how the stimulation was delivered, that was the most important factor to predicting changes in the brain. What this suggests is that the unique qualities of each individuals brain are crucial to understand how it will respond to stimulation, pointing to a need for treatment personalization to maximize its benefits. This could look like tailoring the strength, frequency and location of the neurostimulation to each persons brain.

Brain stimulation has the potential to treat a wide range of neurological diseases. Our work suggests that studying how existing brain connectivity affects neurostimulation response may be a new direction worth further investigation. We believe that changing neural connections themselves for long-term effects, as opposed to stimulating neurons for short-term changes in neural activity, may help move treatments from just treating symptoms to curing diseases outright.

One health condition for which personalization could lead to improved brain stimulation therapies is stroke, one of the leading causes of serious long-term disability and death in the U.S. While the brain is able to partially repair the damage caused by stroke, it has only a two-week window to do this before the chances of recovery significantly drop off.

A failed 2008 clinical study one of us was involved with, the Everest trial, explored the possibility of using brain stimulation to extend this recovery period and help stroke survivors regain their ability to move. Based on our recent study, we hypothesize that the clinical trial may have failed because researchers applied the same generic stimulation to all patients instead of tailoring it to each individual brain. Applying the same brain stimulation parameters may have worked in rodent studies, but human brains are much more complex. While we cant know for sure if this is the reason the clinical trial failed, our research suggests that stimulation may have needed to be much more personalized to be effective.

Our work shows that tailoring treatment to each individual brain could help improve brain stimulation outcomes, and puts forward tools to study how neural connectivity influences stimulation. But further research is needed to figure out how personalization would best be done by precisely strengthening or weakening specific neural connections.

It is also worth noting that we have tested our technique on only two brain regions thus far. We plan on replicating this study in other brain regions to verify that our findings can be generalized across the brain as a whole and are applicable to different neurological and psychiatric disorders. We are also in the process of using our neural interface and AI algorithm to design stimulation patterns that can induce specific changes in the brain to repair dysfunctional connections.

The full potential of brain stimulation will not be realized until scientists have a better understanding of how it affects the brain. We believe that figuring out how existing patterns of brain connectivity interact and change with stimulation could open doors to more treatments and therapies for neurological and psychiatric diseases.

Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Washington; Alec Greaves-Tunnell, Visiting Researcher in Computational Neuroscience, University of Washington, and Julien Bloch, PhD Candidate in Neural Engineering, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Brain Stimulation Can Rewire and Heal Damaged Neural Connections, But it Isn't Clear How - Nextgov

OpenBCI and Varjo Partner to Bring Neurotechnology to Spatial Computing

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

OpenBCIs new platform Galea, will be combined with the cutting-edge Varjo Aero VR headset to provide developers and researchers a powerful new tool for understanding and augmenting the human mind

BROOKLYN, NY May 31, 2022 OpenBCI, a Brooklyn-based neurotechnology company, announced today that it has partnered with Varjo, the leader in professional-grade VR/XR, for the launch of Galea, OpenBCIs eagerly anticipated new product.

Galea is a hardware and software platform that merges next-generation brain-computer interface technology with head-mounted displays. Galea beta systems will come integrated with the Varjo Aero headset and will be the worlds first device that simultaneously measures the users heart, skin, muscles, eyes, and brain.

The Galea Beta Program has already received significant interest from applicants spanning consumer technology, healthcare, research, training, and gaming & interactive media. Galea beta units will come fully-integrated with the industry-leading Varjo Aero and include robust SDKs with ready-to-use building blocks for accessing the sensor data inside of Unity, Python, and several other common development environments. The Aero is Varjos newest VR headset that offers industry-leading visual fidelity, featuring true-to-life, edge-to-edge clarity across 115 degrees field of view designed for professionals and leading-edge VR users alike. By combining Galeas multi-modal sensor system, integrated software and Varjo VR hardware, users are equipped with powerful tools to help accelerate innovations within the neurotechnology industry.

For nearly a decade, OpenBCI has been at the forefront of expanding consumer access to neurotechnology. What started as a movement among makers and early-adopters, has grown into a global community of scientists, developers, educators, and increasingly, innovation teams of major technology companies. Galeas unique multi-modal sensor network and complementary software dramatically simplifies the process of collecting tightly-synchronized data from the body and unlocks new techniques for anyone looking to objectively measure user experiences and cognitive states.

Ultimately, I see the combination of neurotechnology and mixed reality as the future of personal computers, says OpenBCI founder and CEO, Conor Russomanno. Weve been watching carefully as neuroscience, BCI, and consumer technology have converged over the past several years. Varjos headsets are some of the best Ive ever experienced and I cant wait to see what our Beta users will be able to create with Galea.

Varjo is proud to join forces with OpenBCI and expand access to the highest-fidelity VR to the research and developer community looking to pioneer new understandings of the human body and mind, said Urho Konttori, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Varjo. The integration will allow Galea users to unlock the most immersive VR experience available on the market today and truly push the boundaries of innovation in a number of fields.

Pre-orders for Galea will initially be open to the thousands of companies, developers, and researchers who have already applied to the Galea Beta Program. Remaining units will be available for pre-order by the general public on July 1, 2022.

For more information on the partnership, please contact press@varjo.com.

About OpenBCI:

About Varjo:Varjo (pronounced var-yo) makes revolutionary VR/XR hardware and software that together allow you to see and experience virtual and augmented content just as clearly as you see the analog world around us. Our virtual and mixed reality headsets take you to another level of performance and emotional immersion recreating the exact feeling and conditions of real life, allowing you to perform better and learn faster.www.varjo.com

OpenBCI and Varjo Partner to Bring Neurotechnology to Spatial Computing

What Elon Musk’s tweets on his children and Mars say about inequality – Quartz

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

In November 2021, the month before a surrogate mother delivered his second child with Canadian musician Grimes, Elon Musk became father to twins, a report from Insider has revealed. The mother is Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink, a neurotechnology company founded by Musk.

This puts the total count of Musks living children to ninetwo sets of twins, one set of triplets, and two single births. (Musks first child died suddenly as an infant in 2002.)

Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis, the worlds richest man tweeted to his 100 million followers, seemingly referring to the news. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far. Musk, who has expressed his belief in promoting population growth before, continued to note that the reason behind falling birthrates is that far too many people are under the illusion that Earth is overpopulated.

Its possible that hes correct about the general perception of overpopulation, but that is unlikely to be the reason behind negative population growth, especially in the US. Musk frames the combination of privileges that allows him to continue to father children in his 50s, and financially support nine of them, as a form of social action, a moral position of sortsa world view that is blind to inequality.

This view is consistent with another idea he expressed in recent tweetsthat going to the Moon in 1969 brought humanity together and stove off conflict, and so would heading to Mars. In a world that is dealing with challenges such as climate change, a pandemic, and increasing poverty, the colonization of Mars seems about as unifying as the Moon landing was in Gil Scott-Herons Whitey on the Moon: I cant pay no doctor bill/(but Whiteys on the Moon)/Ten years from now Ill be payin still/(while Whiteys on the Moon).

That Musk would brag about his fertility as an act at service to the world in the aftermath of the Supreme Courts overturning Roe v. Wade comes across as tone deaf, if not outright dangerous. After all, fighting the myth of overpopulation, and discussing the supposed role of abortion in causing population decline is a frequent talking point of anti-choice doctrine.

Although there are some arguments in favor of delaying having childrento help the planet, population decline can indeed be worrisomein wealthy nations at least. Shrinking countries such as Japan and Italy are already facing the consequences of dealing with a shortage of young people to support their aging populations. Having more children might be essential to ensure growth and wellbeing, and perhaps even encourage economic equality (pdf) in wealthy nations that already have relatively low levels of inequalitybut only when combined with policies that support child care and families, and make raising said children a sustainable proposition.

Musks ability to father so many children in such a short span of time is predicated upon many privileges: his wealth, women willing to parallel-carry his offspring, and a support system in which to raise them. Its likely that the mothers of his children had agency. Grimes didnt carry her second, a surrogate did, and all of them likely have had the privilege of having significant child care support that they can afford. I just assume that there will be nannies, Musk told his first wife, when they were dating, while discussing how many children hed like to have.

But even leaving aside the many who cannot have children, or arent able to afford fertility treatments, millions of American women and people who can get pregnant no longer have reproductive choices, and are at risk of having to birth children they do not wish to have. The inability to afford a child (or more children) is the most commonly cited reason behind abortions. In a country where child care costs are unsustainable even for many middle-class families, and one in six children suffer from hunger, 20% miss at least a meal a day, and 30% Black children miss a meal during the weekend, the large families Musk congratulates people on having are either a great privilege, or a complete nightmare.

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What Elon Musk's tweets on his children and Mars say about inequality - Quartz

MindMaze Receives Recognition as one of Switzerland’s Best Managed Companies – Business Wire

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

LAUSANNE, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MindMaze, a global pioneer in neurotechnology and digital therapeutics (DTx) for neurological recovery and care, has been recognized as one of Switzerlands Best Managed Companies in 2022. This programme, sponsored by Deloitte Private, SIX Swiss Exchange, and Julius Baer, awards Swiss companies who operate at the highest level of business performance.

We are thrilled to receive this distinguished recognition for our efforts, said COO of MindMaze, Jean-Marc Wismer. As a team we are focused on innovation and quality because when it comes to developing groundbreaking technologies and therapies to treat those suffering from neurological conditions and injuries, good business practices and processes are vital to attract and retain great talent and grow sustainably.

Switzerlands Best Managed Companies Programme highlights exceptional business practices executed by Switzerlands best privately owned companies. A companys efforts, overall growth, and management abilities factor into the programmes selection. The Deloitte evaluation for these awards is based on 29 years of observed practice from the global awards programme that has been rolled out in 48 countries worldwide. Companies that are chosen for this award are upheld as examples for other businesses to follow.

The companys unique organizational model supports both rapid scalability and allows for greater flexibility in a changing environment. This model has proven to be highly effective particularly through COVID, enabling the company to seamlessly adapt its business model to balance product development, marketing and sales activities and maintain strong revenue growth with continued expansion of commercial operations across 15 countries. Deloittes recognition further validates our agile governance hierarchy, which focuses on roles instead of titles, adds Wismer. Cultivating an atmosphere of collaboration and accountability has allowed us to form efficient and ethical business practices that benefit the company, its employees, and our stakeholders.

About MindMaze

Founded in 2012, MindMaze is a global leader in brain technology and digital neurotherapeutic solutions for brain health and recovery. Its mission is to accelerate the brains ability to recover, learn and adapt. The company has two core divisions Healthcare and Labs working collaboratively at the intersection of neuroscience, bio-sensing, engineering, mixed reality and artificial intelligence. MindMaze Healthcare is advancing a universal platform for brain health with breakthrough solutions to some of the worlds most challenging problems in neurology, including stroke, Parkinsons disease and Alzheimers disease. MindMaze Labs, the companys R&D innovation hub, is focused on the future of human computing working across multiple industries to innovate and build the next generation of human-machine interfaces. The company has offices in Lausanne, Baltimore, London, Paris and Mumbai. For more information, please visit http://www.mindmaze.com.

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MindMaze Receives Recognition as one of Switzerland's Best Managed Companies - Business Wire

History of Space Travel

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

The first earthling to orbit our planet was just two years old, plucked from the streets of Moscow barely more than a week before her historic launch. Her name was Laika. She was a terrier mutt and by all accounts a good dog. Her 1957 flight paved the way for space exploration back when scientists didnt know if spaceflight was lethal for living things.

Humans are explorers. Since before the dawn of civilization, weve been lured over the horizon to find food or more space, to make a profit, or just to see whats beyond those trees or mountains or oceans. Our ability to explore reached new heightsliterallyin the last hundred years. Airplanes shortened distances, simplified travel, and showed us Earth from a new perspective. By the middle of the last century, we aimed even higher.

Our first steps into space began as a race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, rivals in a global struggle for power. Laika was followed into orbit four years later by the first human, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin. With Earth orbit achieved, we turned our sights on the moon. The United States landed two astronauts on its stark surface in 1969, and five more manned missions followed. The U.S.s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched probes to study the solar system. Manned space stations began glittering in the sky. NASA developed reusable spacecraftspace shuttle orbitersto ferry astronauts and satellites to orbit. Space-travel technology had advanced light-years in just three decades. Gagarin had to parachute from his spaceship after reentry from orbit. The space shuttle leaves orbit at 16,465 miles an hour (26,498 kilometers an hour) and glides to a stop on a runway without using an engine.

Space travel is nothing like in the movies. Getting from A to B requires complex calculations involving inertia and gravityliterally, rocket scienceto "slingshot" from planet to planet (or moon) across the solar system. The Voyager mission of the 1970s took advantage of a rare alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to shave off nearly 20 years of travel time. Space is also dangerous. More than 20 astronauts have died doing their job.

That hasnt stopped people from signing up and blasting off. NASAs shuttle program has ended, but private companies are readying their own space programs. A company called Planetary Resources plans to send robot astronauts to the Asteroid Belt to mine for precious metals. Another company named SpaceX is hoping to land civilian astronauts on Marsthe next human step into the solar systemin 20 years. NASA and other civilian companies are planning their own Mars missions. Maybe youll be a member of one? Dont forget to bring your dog.

Is Interstellar Travel Really Possible? | Space

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Interstellar space travel. Fantasy of every five-year-old kid within us. Staple of science fiction serials. Boldly going where nobody has gone before in a really fantastic way. As we grow ever more advanced with our rockets and space probes, the question arises: could we ever hope to colonize the stars? Or, barring that far-flung dream, can we at least send space probes to alien planets, letting them tell us what they see?

The truth is that interstellar travel and exploration is technically possible. There's no law of physics that outright forbids it. But that doesn't necessarily make it easy, and it certainly doesn't mean we'll achieve it in our lifetimes, let alone this century. Interstellar space travel is a real pain in the neck.

Related: Gallery: Visions of Interstellar Starship Travel

If you're sufficiently patient, then we've already achieved interstellar exploration status. We have several spacecraft on escape trajectories, meaning they're leaving the solar system and they are never coming back. NASA's Pioneer missions, the Voyager missions, and most recently New Horizons have all started their long outward journeys. The Voyagers especially are now considered outside the solar system, as defined as the region where the solar wind emanating from the sun gives way to general galactic background particles and dust.

So, great; we have interstellar space probes currently in operation. Except the problem is that they're going nowhere really fast. Each one of these intrepid interstellar explorers is traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, which sounds pretty fast. They're not headed in the direction of any particular star, because their missions were designed to explore planets inside the solar system. But if any of these spacecraft were headed to our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, just barely 4 light-years away, they would reach it in about 80,000 years.

I don't know about you, but I don't think NASA budgets for those kinds of timelines. Also, by the time these probes reach anywhere halfway interesting, their nuclear batteries will be long dead, and just be useless hunks of metal hurtling through the void. Which is a sort of success, if you think about it: It's not like our ancestors were able to accomplish such feats as tossing random junk between the stars, but it's probably also not exactly what you imagined interstellar space travel to be like.

Related: Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)

To make interstellar spaceflight more reasonable, a probe has to go really fast. On the order of at least one-tenth the speed of light. At that speed, spacecraft could reach Proxima Centauri in a handful of decades, and send back pictures a few years later, well within a human lifetime. Is it really so unreasonable to ask that the same person who starts the mission gets to finish it?

Going these speeds requires a tremendous amount of energy. One option is to contain that energy onboard the spacecraft as fuel. But if that's the case, the extra fuel adds mass, which makes it even harder to propel it up to those speeds. There are designs and sketches for nuclear-powered spacecraft that try to accomplish just this, but unless we want to start building thousands upon thousands of nuclear bombs just to put inside a rocket, we need to come up with other ideas.

Perhaps one of the most promising ideas is to keep the energy source of the spacecraft fixed and somehow transport that energy to the spacecraft as it travels. One way to do this is with lasers. Radiation is good at transporting energy from one place to another, especially over the vast distances of space. The spacecraft can then capture this energy and propel itself forward.

This is the basic idea behind the Breakthrough Starshot project, which aims to design a spacecraft capable of reaching the nearest stars in a matter of decades. In the simplest outline of this project, a giant laser on the order of 100 gigawatts shoots at an Earth-orbiting spacecraft. That spacecraft has a large solar sail that is incredibly reflective. The laser bounces off of that sail, giving momentum to the spacecraft. The thing is, a 100-gigawatt laser only has the force of a heavy backpack. You didn't read that incorrectly. If we were to shoot this laser at the spacecraft for about 10 minutes, in order to reach one-tenth the speed of light, the spacecraft can weigh no more than a gram.

That's the mass of a paper clip.

Related: Breakthrough Starshot in Pictures: Laser-Sailing Nanocraft to Study Alien Planets

This is where the rubber meets the interstellar road when it comes to making spacecraft travel the required speeds. The laser itself, at 100 gigawatts, is more powerful than any laser we've ever designed by many orders of magnitude. To give you a sense of scale, 100 gigawatts is the entire capacity of every single nuclear power plant operating in the United States combined.

And the spacecraft, which has to have a mass no more than a paper clip, must include a camera, computer, power source, circuitry, a shell, an antenna for communicating back home and the entire lightsail itself.

That lightsail must be almost perfectly reflective. If it absorbs even a tiny fraction of that incoming laser radiation it will convert that energy to heat instead of momentum. At 100 gigawatts, that means straight-up melting, which is generally considered not good for spacecraft.

Once accelerated to one-tenth the speed of light, the real journey begins. For 40 years, this little spacecraft will have to withstand the trials and travails of interstellar space. It will be impacted by dust grains at that enormous velocity. And while the dust is very tiny, at those speeds motes can do incredible damage. Cosmic rays, which are high-energy particles emitted by everything from the sun to distant supernova, can mess with the delicate circuitry inside. The spacecraft will be bombarded by these cosmic rays non-stop as soon as the journey begins.

Is Breakthrough Starshot possible? In principle, yes. Like I said above, there's no law of physics that prevents any of this from becoming reality. But that doesn't make it easy or even probable or plausible or even feasible using our current levels of technology (or reasonable projections into the near future of our technology). Can we really make a spacecraft that small and light? Can we really make a laser that powerful? Can a mission like this actually survive the challenges of deep space?

The answer isn't yes or no. The real question is this: are we willing to spend enough money to find out if it's possible?

Learn more by listening to the episode "Is interstellar travel possible?" on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes (opens in new tab) and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to @infirmus, Amber D., neo, and Alex V. for the questions that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.

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Is Interstellar Travel Really Possible? | Space

Space travel | Dune Wiki | Fandom

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

"There is a fifth force which shaped religious belief, but its effect is so universal and profound that it deserves to stand alone...it deserves to be written thus: SPACE TRAVEL!"unknown[src]

Space travel played a major role in the evolution and expansion of humanity throughout the known universe. Two forms of space travel existed: faster than light space travel, and conventional space travel.

Supposed early draft for Jodorowskys Dune

For several thousand years, faster than light travel (FTL travel or space-folding) was conducted exclusively by the Spacing Guild, using Spacefolder vessels piloted by Guild navigators that folded space-time and moved almost immeasurable distances in the blink of the eye.

This form of travel, while extremely expensive, was also not safe as one in ten ships that used space folding engine disappeared, at least during the early years of the technology's use before the advent of Navigators. It was utilized for both commercial and military purposes. Space-folding made use of two key factors:

Eventually, at some point between the fall of the Atreides Empire and the discovery of the Dar-es-Balat hoard, Ixian navigation machines broke the guild monopoly on foldspace by providing a means of safely navigating foldspace without a navigator.[1][2]

The old FTL conventional space travel was used mainly for travel within the confines of a star system (not for interstellar travel). However, before the discovery of the new faster-than-light travel method, it was also used for long-distance space travel. The old method was described as "outracing photons". Even after space-folding became the primary means of interstellar travel, many Imperial warships still kept their old FTL drives as an alternative to the much faster but less reliable Holtzmann engines.

A calculation for velocities obtainable with old FTL conventional space travel can be made from the book "The Butlerian Jihad" by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Before the Battle of Earth, the unified Armada is stated to have gathered at Salusa Secundus. This planet is stated in this wikipedia to be located in theGamma Waiping system which is about 130.8 light-years form Earth, again according to this wikipedia. In the book"The Butlerian Jihad" Xavier Harkonnen states that the Armada takes over a month to reach Earth while traveling at its maximum sustainable speed. Using terrestrial time periods (days, weeks, months) for simplicity's sake, we get1,591.4c for a month,1,136.72c for six weeks, and795.7c for two months (c being equal to the speed of light).

The connection between faster than light travel and the Holtzman Effect is not explicitly mentioned by Frank Herbert. It is a connection made in the prequel novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

In the 'Legends of Dune' trilogy, the pair describe the time shortly before and during the discovery of space-folding. In these works the discovery of space-folding is attributed to Norma Cenva, who goes on to become the first prescient folded space navigator. Prior to this, although described in 'The Machine Crusade' as "outracing the old faster than light method", vessels still took weeks or months to cross between even the closest stars.

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Space travel | Dune Wiki | Fandom

Space Travel Calculator | Relativistic Rocket Equation

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Now that you know whether interstellar is travel possible and how fast can we travel in space, it's time for some formulas. In this section, you can find the "classical" and relativistic rocket equations that are included in the relativistic space travel calculator. There could be four combinations since we want to estimate how long it takes to arrive at the destination point at full speed as well as arrive at the destination point and stop. Every set contains distance, time passing on Earth and in the spaceship (only relativity approach), expected maximum velocity and corresponding kinetic energy (if you turn on the advanced mode), and the required fuel mass (see Intergalactic travel - fuel problem section for more information). The notation is:

Relativistic space travel calculator is dedicated to very long journeys, interstellar or even intergalactic, in which we can neglect the influence of the gravitational field, e.g., from Earth. We didn't include in the destination list our closest celestial bodies like Moon or Mars because it would be pointless. For them, we need different equations that also take into consideration gravitational force.

Newton's universe arrive at destination at full speed

It's the simplest case because here T equals t for any speed. To calculate distance covered, at constant acceleration during a certain time, you can use the following classical formula:

Since acceleration is constant, and we assume that the initial velocity equals zero, you can estimate the maximum velocity using this equation:

and the corresponding kinetic energy:

Newton's universe arrive at destination and stop

In this situation, we're accelerating to the half-way point, reaching maximum velocity and then decelerating to stop at the destination point. Distance covered during the same time is, as you may expect, smaller than before:

Acceleration remains positive until we're half-way there (then it is negative - deceleration), so the maximum velocity is:

and the kinetic energy equation is the same as the previous one.

Einstein's universe arrive at destination at full speed

The relativistic rocket equation has to consider the effects of light speed travel. These are not only speed limitations and time dilation, but also how every length becomes shorter for a moving observer, which is a phenomenon of special relativity called length contraction. If l is the proper length observed in rest frame and L is the length observed by a crew in a spaceship, then:

L = l / .

What does it mean? If a spaceship moves with the velocity of v = 0.995c, then = 10 and the length observed by a moving object is ten times smaller than the real length. For example, the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy equals about 2,520,000 light years with Earth as the frame of reference. For a spaceship moving with v = 0.995c, it will be "only" 252,200 light years away. That's a 90 percentage decrease or 164 percentage difference!

Now you probably understand why special relativity allows us for intergalactic travel. Below you can find the relativistic rocket equation for the case in which you want to arrive at the destination point at full speed (without stopping). You can find its derivation in the book by Messrs Misner, Thorne (Co-Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics) and Wheller titled Gravitation, section 6.2. Hyperbolic motion. More accessible formulas are in the mathematical physicist's, John Baez, article The Relativistic Rocket:

t = c/a * sh[a*T/c] = [(d/c) + 2*d/a],

T = c/a * sh[a*t/c] = c/a * ch[a*d/c + 1],

d = c/a * [ch(a*T/c) - 1] = c/a * [(1 + (a*t/c)) - 1],

v = c * th[a*T/c] = a*t / [1 + (a*t/c)],

EK = mc * ( - 1)

The symbols sh, ch and th are respectively sine, cosine, and tangent hyperbolic functions, which are analogs of the ordinary trigonometric functions. In turn, sh and ch are the inverse hyperbolic functions that can be expressed with natural logarithms and square roots, according to the article Inverse hyperbolic functions on Wikipedia.

Einstein's universe arrive at destination point and stop

Most websites with relativistic rocket equations consider only arriving at desired place at full speed. If you want to stop there, you should start decelerating at the halfway point. Here, you can find set of equation estimating interstellar space travel parameters in situation when you want to stop at destination point:

t = 2*c/a * sh[a*T/(2*c)] = [(d/c) + 4*d/a],

T = 2*c/a * sh[a*t/(2*c)] = 2*c/a * ch[a*d/(2*c) + 1],

d = 2*c/a * [ch(a*T/(2*c)) - 1] = 2*c/a * [(1 + (a*t/(2*c))) - 1],

v = c * th[a*T/(2*c)] = a*t / (2 * [1 + (a*t/(2*c))]),

EK = mc * ( - 1)

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Space Travel Calculator | Relativistic Rocket Equation

Astronaut study reveals effects of space travel on human bones – Reuters

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - A study of bone loss in 17 astronauts who flew aboard the International Space Station is providing a fuller understanding of the effects of space travel on the human body and steps that can mitigate it, crucial knowledge ahead of potential ambitious future missions.

The research amassed new data on bone loss in astronauts caused by the microgravity conditions of space and the degree to which bone mineral density can be regained on Earth. It involved 14 male and three female astronauts, average age 47, whose missions ranged from four to seven months in space, with an average of about 5-1/2 months.

A year after returning to Earth, the astronauts on average exhibited 2.1% reduced bone mineral density at the tibia - one of the bones of the lower leg - and 1.3% reduced bone strength. Nine did not recover bone mineral density after the space flight, experiencing permanent loss.

"We know that astronauts lose bone on long-duration spaceflight. What's novel about this study is that we followed astronauts for one year after their space travel to understand if and how bone recovers," said University of Calgary professor Leigh Gabel, an exercise scientist who was the lead author of the research published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.

"Astronauts experienced significant bone loss during six-month spaceflights - loss that we would expect to see in older adults over two decades on Earth, and they only recovered about half of that loss after one year back on Earth," Gabel said.

The bone loss occurs because bones that typically would be weight-bearing on Earth do not carry weight in space. Space agencies are going to need to improve countermeasures - exercise regimes and nutrition - to help prevent bone loss, Gabel said.

"During spaceflight, fine bone structures thin, and eventually some of the bone rods disconnect from one another. Once the astronaut comes back to Earth, the remaining bone connections can thicken and strengthen, but the ones that disconnected in space can't be rebuilt, so the astronaut's overall bone structure permanently changes," Gabel said.

The study's astronauts flew on the space station in the past seven years. The study did not give their nationalities but they were from the U.S. space agency NASA, Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Space travel poses various challenges to the human body - key concerns for space agencies as they plan new explorations. For instance, NASA is aiming to send astronauts back to the moon, a mission now planned for 2025 at the earliest. That could be a prelude to future astronaut missions to Mars or a longer-term presence on the lunar surface.

"Microgravity affects a lot of body systems, muscle and bone being among them," Gabel said.

"The cardiovascular system also experiences many changes. Without gravity pulling blood towards our feet, astronauts experience a fluid shift that causes more blood to pool in the upper body. This can affect the cardiovascular system and vision.

"Radiation is also a large health concern for astronauts as the further they travel from Earth the greater exposure to the sun's radiation and increased cancer risk," Gabel said.

The study showed that longer space missions resulted both in more bone loss and a lower likelihood of recovering bone afterward. In-flight exercise - resistance training on the space station - proved important for preventing muscle and bone loss. Astronauts who performed more deadlifts compared to what they usually did on Earth were found to be more likely to recover bone after the mission.

"There is a lot we still do not know regarding how microgravity affects human health, particularly on space missions longer than six months, and on the long-term health consequences," Gabel said. "We really hope that bone loss eventually plateaus on longer missions, that people will stop losing bone, but we don't know."

Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Astronaut study reveals effects of space travel on human bones - Reuters

Intergalactic travel – Wikipedia

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Hypothetical travel between galaxies

Intergalactic travel is the hypothetical crewed or uncrewed travel between galaxies. Due to the enormous distances between the Milky Way and even its closest neighborstens of thousands to millions of light-yearsany such venture would be far more technologically demanding than even interstellar travel. Intergalactic distances are roughly a hundred-thousandfold (five orders of magnitude) greater than their interstellar counterparts.[a]

The technology required to travel between galaxies is far beyond humanity's present capabilities, and currently only the subject of speculation, hypothesis, and science fiction.

However, theoretically speaking, there is nothing to conclusively indicate that intergalactic travel is impossible. There are several hypothesized methods of carrying out such a journey, and to date several academics have studied intergalactic travel in a serious manner.[1][2][3]

Theorized in 1988,[4] and observed in 2005,[5] hypervelocity stars move faster than the escape velocity of the Milky Way, and are traveling out into intergalactic space.[6] There are several theories for their existence. One of the mechanisms would be that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way ejects stars from the galaxy at a rate of about one every hundred thousand years. Another theorized mechanism might be a supernova explosion in a binary system.[7] Intergalactic travel using these stars would involve entering into an orbit around them and waiting for them to reach another galaxy.[8][9]

Another proposal is to artificially propel a star in the direction of another galaxy.[10][11]

While it takes light approximately 2.54 million years to traverse the gulf of space between Earth and, for instance, the Andromeda Galaxy, it would take a much shorter amount of time from the point of view of a traveler at close to the speed of light due to the effects of time dilation; the time experienced by the traveler depending both on velocity (anything less than the speed of light) and distance traveled (length contraction). Intergalactic travel for humans is therefore possible, in theory, from the point of view of the traveler.[12] For example, a rocket that accelerated at standard acceleration due to gravity toward the Andromeda Galaxy and started to decelerate halfway through the trip would arrive in about 28 years, from the frame of reference of the observer.[13]

The Alcubierre drive is a hypothetical concept that is able to impulse a spacecraft to speeds faster than light (the spaceship itself would not move faster than light, but the space around it would). This could in theory allow practical intergalactic travel. There is no known way to create the space-distorting wave this concept needs to work, but the metrics of the equations comply with relativity and the limit of light speed.[14]

A wormhole is a hypothetical tunnel through space-time that would allow instantaneous intergalactic travel to the most distant galaxies even billions of light years away. Wormholes are allowed by general relativity.[15]

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Intergalactic travel - Wikipedia

X-38: The Space Plane That Could Have Broken All the Rules – 19FortyFive

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Had the NASA designed X-38 crew return vehicle (CRV), with its wingless lifting body, ever become operational, it would have become the first reusable human spacecraft produced since the Space Shuttle (which was first built in the 1970s). The X-38 was canceled however, a victim of NASA budget cuts and still, in the twenty years since, no reusable human spacecraft has been developed.

Developing reusable spacecraft would have helped keep the costs of space exploration down. The monetary costs of space exploration, perhaps the most daunting undertaking in human history, have always been high; developing new technologies and procedures to explore the cosmos is not cheap. At the peak of the Space Race, in the 1960s, the years preceding President John F. Kennedys promise to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, NASAs budget spiked. Before 1961, NASAs budget had never exceeded one percent of all federal spending. In 1966, however, NASAs budget hit 4.41 percent of federal spending still an all-time high.

The impetus for the spending spree, of course, was the threat of Soviet primacy; nothing inspires Congress to spend money as casually as war. Once the Soviets Space Race efforts tinkered out, once it became clear the Soviets could not land a man on the moon, Congress quickly constrained NASAs budget. By 1975 the year the Apollo program was canned NASA was again receiving less than one percent of all federal funding. In the nearly five decades since, NASAs budget has only briefly skimmed above one percent. During the twenty-first century, NASA has been gutted; today, without much threat of international competition for the cosmos, NASA receives less than one half of one percent of federal funding which is why a veritable, practical program like the X-38 was cut just before an orbital prototype was to fly.

The X-38 was designed to give astronauts a way to escape the International Space Station (ISS) in the event of an emergency. Space logistics are complicated. And space travel is dangerous. Emergencies happen. Astronauts die, I wrote. The X-38 was designed to mitigate the logistical challenges of space travel, and hopefully, avoid catastrophe.

Before the X-38 and since it was canceled ISS inhabitants have relied on time-intensive methods for getting back to Earth. In the past (when the X-38 was being developed), the Space Shuttle would ferry astronauts from the ISS back to Earth. Launching and operating a Space Shuttle, however, was one of the most complex and challenging technological feats humankind has ever accomplished, requiring lead time and logistical foresight. So, in the event that an ISS inhabitant becomes violently ill, or cracks their skull (probably hard to do in zero gs but you get the idea) or if the ISS itself becomes compromised and is no longer able to support human life everyone would have had to wait around for a Space Shuttle to be launched before being rescued. Not ideal. The X-38 was developed to bypass a logistics scheme that was so inherently life-threatening. No, the X-38 would be standing by, permanently, for use as an escape vehicle, in case of emergency.

Heres how the CRV worked.

The X-38 was designed to dock with the ISS, I wrote for 1945. Should the need arise, the ISS crew could enter the X-38 through a hatched docking system. Once the X-38 was initiated the CRV would autopilot the crew back to Earth using a deorbital propulsion system (DPS). The DPS, which would include eight thrusters, would adjust the X-38s attitude and retrofire until the X-38s speed was sufficiently reduced to allow for Earths gravitational pull to grasp the X-38, dragging the vehicle and the crew back down into Earths atmosphere.

After reentry, the DPS would have been jettisoned, no longer needed, as the X-38 would glide back to the Earths surface using a steerable parafoil (with a surface area equivalent to that of a Boeing 747s wings). Since the X-38 was a lifting body aircraft, it would typically need high speeds to land properly. The parafoil was developed to help slow the X-38 down and make landing a little bit safer. The landing, like the rest of the trip down from the ISS, was conducted on autopilot. Ideally, that is. If needed, the X-38 crew could override autopilot and assume manual control of the CRV. And for particularly dire circumstances, the X-38 was outfitted with seven high-altitude low opening (HALO) parachutes.

The entire escape process undocking from the ISS to reentry to glide landing was expected to take between two and three hours, I wrote.

The sad thing about the X-38s cancellation is that the program was well underway; two atmospheric prototypes had been built and tested. Thats right. On three different occasions, the X-38 prototypes were drop tested from the external hardpoint of a B-52 mothership. The X-38 performed as planned, gliding through Earths atmosphere at transonic speeds before landing at a manageable 60 miles per hour. The successful atmospheric tests prompted NASA to build an orbital prototype. The prototype was 90 percent complete when budget cuts were announced, and the X-38 program was scrapped.

Harrison Kass is the Senior Defense Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, he joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison has degrees from Lake Forest College, the University of Oregon, and New York University. He lives in Oregon and listens to Dokken. Follow him on Twitter @harrison_kass.

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X-38: The Space Plane That Could Have Broken All the Rules - 19FortyFive

Millions in grant money head to UCF for space research – Orlando Sentinel

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

An army of Knights are among the researchers charging their way into final frontier with innovative projects shaping the future of space travel.

Perhaps its unsurprising due to the University of Central Floridas history tied to the American space program. As need for more aerospace engineers rose, the space university opened its doors to education in 1968 the same year the Apollo 8 mission took humans into the moons orbit.

Since then, students and professors have taken full advantage of being only 35 miles from Kennedy Space Center collaborating with NASA, developing new technologies and techniques straight out of science fiction. In the last 18 months, UCF has had 71 space-related research projects approved and awarded with grants exceeding $10 million, according to UCF spokeswoman Zenaida Kotala.

Some of the research projects include:

3-D printed sensors for astronauts to monitor ships integrity

A device that would create a landing pad for a rocket as it lands

Developing cost-effective and logistically feasible way to mine lunar ice

The projects vary widely but nearly half of them, 31, are moon-research related.

Most recently, UCFs Kawai Kwok was one of eight UCF recipients to receive the NSF Career award for his research proposal of examining flexible yet strong material capable of performing as a satellite solar sail, and then being able to roll up from the satellites base as easily as measuring tape.

Its called snapping instability structures Kwok said and his idea all started with a stroll through his garden.

Kwok was admiring a ladybug as it flew by. The gentle insect landed on a flower, compacted its wings and nimbly navigated its surroundings. Other than achieving flight, insect wings will conform to the body as the organism sees fit. If it needs to soar, the wings expand. If it needs to crawl under a window, the wings will contract and allow the bug to take on a slimmer form.

University of Central Florida Assistant professor Kawai Kwok demonstrates a bendable propeller, at the Structures & Materials Design Laboratory, on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Kwoks work focuses on developing shape-changing structures. These kinds of structures can be used on space missions, for drone work and for solar sails and blades among other applications.(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

Thats exactly the kind of behavior we have been looking for many years in the engineering community. How do we have a structure that can drastically change the shapes? said Kwok, a 38-year-old assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

For the last six years, Kwok has been researching composite lightweight structures for aerospace applications.

His most recent idea of exploring snap instability is what earned him a $500,486 NSF CAREER grant, which will allow Kwok and some of his select students to explore different applications of carbon fiber composites or other lightweight material that might be able to mimic the behavior of insect wings.

Although, creating material that is both thin and a very strong isnt easy.

Currently, Kwok and his students are working on a .5-meter-long propeller made of a carbon fiber composite. So far, the light and bendable propeller can maintain integrity spinning at 3,000 RPM. Next Kwok wants to move up to a 1-meter-long propeller the results of which could benefit drone technology. The U.S. Navy has already expressed interest in Kwoks work.

I guess [the] dream would be [to] design propellers or wings that unfold from a drone. The Navy [would like] to be able to launch a swarm of drones in compact in small tubes, Kwok said.

For the time being, the research is in its early stages and may not end up using carbon fiber, which is cooked up in a small lab at the UCF Engineering Building

Were not just looking at carbon fiber composites. Were trying to see if we can mix a larger variety of materials with different functions and properties, he said.

Ideally, Kwoks snap instability structures would take on similar characteristics to that of measuring tape, being able to expand greatly while also maintaining structural integrity for technologies such as solar sails for solar-powered space travel. Its an idea thats hasnt truly moved beyond that of science fiction. One of the reason solar sails are hard to create is because they need to be large enough to capture an area of about 20 to 40 meters, to capture photons from the sun, but also maintain an extremely light weight.

How to fold them into in a way that can can be structurally sound in space? Hopefully, well find that answer, Kwok said.

When it comes to the moon UCF shines with its lunar geological expert and planetary scientist Kerri Donaldson Hanna, who has her hands full with numerous moon-related research projects. First, theres project Lunar Trailblazer, which is a satellite capable of scanning and producing high-resolution maps of water on the moon. Donaldson Hanna and her team of students are creating spectral instruments for the NASA satellite.

UCF Assistant Professor Dr. Kerri Donaldson Hanna, shows parts of a spectrometer at her lab in the UCF Physical Sciences Building, on Monday, May 16, 2022. Hanna is a heading the lunar mapping project. "Trailblazer" is a satellite that will be launched in the next 2 to 3 years and will be used to identify water-ice, hydroxl and molecular water on the moon.(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

Water has been long suspected on the moon since the Lunar Prospector probe first detected a high level of hydrogen in the north and south poles in 1999. It is speculated that water-ice exists in the permanent shadows of lunar craters, but there are few actual detections of frozen water. Trailblazer seeks to change that by scanning as low as crater floors and as high as mountain peaks using powerful instruments capable of measuring all the way down to 3.6 microns and creating a large database of water sites for future colonization.

Donaldson Hannas work in Trailblazer has a foundation in two other critical projects she worked on that furthered scientific understanding of lunar geology: NASAs Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment and Moon Mineralogy Mapper. The latter flew aboard Indias Chandrayaan-1 and discovered water.

Furthering the goal of finding water, Donaldson Hanna is also working as co-investigator on the Lunar Compact InfraRed Imaging System project. She along with an undergraduate student, Adam Bedel, are selecting filters for a thermal camera onboard the XELENE lunar lander, designed by aerospace manufacturer Masten Space Systems. Their work will be used to help make thermal maps of the south polar region of the moon. The images provided by XELENE should give scientists a better understanding of which regions are cold enough to retain water.

Additionally, NASA announced earlier in June that Donaldson Hanna and another UCF planetary scientist, Adrienne Dove, will be exploring an unknown and mysterious region of the moon Gruithuisen Domes. The area is found on the western part of the moon and appears to be the result of a rare form of volcanic eruption. But thats left NASA scientists confused as such geological structures on Earth require oceans of liquid water and plate tectonics to form.

Enter Donaldson Hanna and Dove who will lead a $35 million mission that would land a spacecraft over the Gruithuisen Domes and provide answers.

Theres potentially a treasure trove of knowledge waiting to be discovered, which will not only help us inform future robotic and human exploration of the moon, but may also help us better understand the history of our own planet as well as other planets in the solar system, Donaldson Hanna told the Orlando Sentinel in June.

UCFs medical campus is the closest med school to Kennedy Space Center, putting it in a unique spot of scientific opportunity. As a result, UCF Health has arranged a partnership with Axiom Space supporting human research studies in future flights including the Axiom 2 mission slated for next year.

From left, Ax-1 pilot Larry Conner, commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, mission specialist Mark Pathy and mission specialist Eytan Stibbe don their spacesuits on March 17, 2022 ahead of their 10-day flight to the International Space Station. (SpaceX)

UCF professors partnered with Israeli researchers to study four private astronauts to better understand microgravitys effect on the human body, specifically studying changes to the astronauts eyes and brains.

Currently, researchers are analyzing data from the April launch that saw a SpaceX Crew Dragon contracted by Axiom Space fly up for a stay on board the International Space Station.

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UCFs Dr. Ali Rizvi and Dr. Joyce Paulson are analyzing the microgravity environments effect on the blood-brain barrier, or the coated protection around a brain that filters out harmful toxins. Scientists have looked at ways around this barrier since it acts as an obstacle to delivering certain medications that need to reach the central nervous system. The end goal is to to treat degenerative diseases like Alzheimers or dementia. Previous research has shown the blood barrier can be changed in a microgravity or zero-gravity environments creating larger pores in the barrier and possibly allowing medication to reach the nervous system.

UCF Health professors are collaborating with Israeli researchers to better understand the human body in a microgravity environment by studying the four space participants.

Additionally, another group of UCF scientists is examining the astronauts eyes and how microgravity may affect the fluid within an ocular structure in a phenomenon known as spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome or SANS. Previous studies have focused on SANS but UCFs research has a new tool at its disposal.

UCF professor Dr. Mehul Patel along with researchers at Israels Rabin Medical Center are using a new imaging device that will shed light on the structure of the eyes, blood flow and how spaceflight might change them.

After the 17-day trip in space, the astronauts were evaluated within 48 hours of their return. Currently, scientists are reviewing the data for any possible changes.

This is one of the exciting parts of doing the study, Patel said. Were going to be able to see microscopic changes, perhaps, for the first time ever, in someone that has left Earth.

Jpedersen@orlandosentinel.com

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Millions in grant money head to UCF for space research - Orlando Sentinel

Inside horrifying world of 15,000mph space debris that can blow holes in ISS and even TRAP us on Ear… – The US Sun

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

JUST above Earth's surface is a disc of space debris hurtling through space at speeds high enough to do more than rattle the International Space Station.

Earth's orbit is becoming so cluttered with man-made and natural objects it could restrict space travel in the future.

Nasaand the United StatesSpace Forcehave a network of sensors scanning the sky and keeping tabs on all27,000 pieces of space larger than 10 centimeters.

Objects in Earth's orbit travel at about 15,000 miles per hour - fast enough that if a small piece collided with a satellite or space ship it could do serious damage.

A Blue Origin engineer posted an image of an aluminum block that was nearly pulverized when a piece of space debris weighing less than an ounce collided with its broadside while in orbit.

CNET reported that the International Space Station (ISS) has to engage in about one evasive maneuver per year to avoid collisions with space junk.

Scientists have considered the threat that space trash poses to life on Earth and to our dreams of traveling in space.

TheKessler Syndromeis a theory that Earth's orbit will become so crowded that debris will just keep colliding, creating a field of space trash thick enough that we're forced to ground space travel.

Elon Musk, one of space travel's loudest proponents, has added more than 2,500 Starlink satellites to the disc of space debris gathering around Earth.

SpaceX plans to add up to 42,000 satellites to lower Earth orbit, much to the disappointment of astronomers.

China has tested a military satellite whose purpose is to clean up space junk - Space.com reported that because of the military nature of the mission, many details were kept under wraps.

But eagle-eyed stargazers found that the Shijan-21 satellite ferried another satellite to a safe distance of 3,000 kilometers away from Earth in a space junk "graveyard".

Many of the space travel and space operations planned for the 21st century are in the hands of private companies instead of public agencies.

In the future, private companies may need to be held accountable for space litter, which is currently unregulated.

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Inside horrifying world of 15,000mph space debris that can blow holes in ISS and even TRAP us on Ear... - The US Sun

Explained: Is growing space tourism posing a risk to the climate? – The Indian Express

Posted on July 8, 2022 by Danzig

Rocket launches amid a growing space tourism race among commercial players like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin can negatively impact the climate and the ozone layer, a new study has found.

In an article published in the journal, Earths Future on June 9, researchers from University College London (UCL), the University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that the soot emissions from rocket launches are far more effective at warming the atmosphere compared to other sources.

The researchers state that routine launches by the rapidly growing space tourism industry may undermine progress made by the Montreal Protocol in reversing ozone depletion.

They argue that there is an urgent need for environmental regulation to reduce the climatic damage from this fast growing industry.

Space tourism industry

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union and United States were engaged in an intense competition to attain complete domination of spaceflight technologies. Today, it is private companies that are taking part in their very own commercial space race, initiated with Jeff Bezos and Richard Bransons journeys to space in July 2021.

A segment of space travel, space tourism allows lay people to travel to space for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The aim is to make space more accessible to those people who are not astronauts and want to travel to space for non-scientific reasons.

Less than a year after Bezos and Bransons escapades, The New York Times reports that global space tourism has been thriving, with various companies offering bookings for zero-pressure balloon trips for short flights, astronaut boot camps and simulated zero-gravity flights.

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According to the authors of the recent study published in Earths Future, The space industry is one of the worlds fastest growing sectors.

From $350 million in 2019, the industry is forecasted to grow to more than $1 trillion by 2040. With companies like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin launching commercial space flights, space tourism has become, at least theoretically, a possibility for enthusiasts. Tickets remain tremendously expensive however, with tickets for Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic beginning from a whopping $450,000.

What is the new study?

Researchers from University College London (UCL), the University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in their new study, claim that the burgeoning space tourism industry can have a far bigger cost on the environment.

They calculated their findings by compiling an inventory of the chemicals from all the 109 rocket launches and re-entries into the Earths atmosphere in 2019.

They also projected the growth of space tourism by corporations like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX. These were then incorporated into a 3D model to examine the possible impact on the climate and the protective stratospheric ozone layer.

The number of rocket flights today is rather small when compared to the sheer size of the aircraft industry.

While in 2020, there were only 114 orbital launches in the world, more than 100,000 flights travel each day, as reported by The Guardian.

What are the studys findings?

Unlike other sources of pollution, the study finds that environmental damage caused by rockets is far greater, as they emit gaseous and solid chemicals directly into the upper atmosphere.

The space tourisms current growth trends also indicate a potential for the depletion of the ozone layer above the Arctic. This is because the pollutants from rocket fuel and heating caused by spacecraft returning to Earth, along with the debris caused by the flights are especially harmful to the ozone layer, University College London (UCL) stated in a press release.

What is of great concern is the black carbon (BC) soot that is emitted by rockets directly into the atmosphere. These soot particles have a far larger impact on the climate than all other sources of soot combined, as BC particles are almost 500 times more efficient at retaining heat.

The low figure of rocket launches, compared to the large scale air pollutant emissions caused by the massive aircraft industry, is at times invoked to downplay the environmental damage caused by rockets. Dr Eloise Marais, the co-author of the study argues that this comparison is incorrect.

Soot particles from rocket launches have a much larger climate effect than aircraft and other Earth-bound sources, so there doesnt need to be as many rocket launches as international flights to have a similar impact. What we really need now is a discussion amongst experts on the best strategy for regulating this rapidly growing industry. she said in a press release.

The team of researchers showed that within only 3 years of additional space tourism launches, the rate of warming due to the released soot would more than double.

This is because of the use of kerosene by SpaceX launches and hybrid synthetic rubber fuels by Virgin Galactic.

Undermining Montreal Protocol

While the loss of ozone from current rocket launches is small, the researchers argue that in the likelihood of weekly or daily space tourism rocket launches, the recovery of the ozone layer caused by the Montreal Protocol could be undermined.

The only part of the atmosphere showing strong ozone recovery post-Montreal Protocol is the upper stratosphere, and that is exactly where the impact of rocket emissions will hit hardest. We werent expecting to see ozone changes of this magnitude, threatening the progress of ozone recovery, said the studys co-author Dr Robert Ryan in a press release.

The Montreal Protocol is a landmark international treaty that was adopted in Montreal in 1987, and was aimed at protecting the Earths ozone layer by regulating the production and consumption of nearly 100 chemicals called ozone-depleting substances (ODS).

The treaty phases down the consumption and production of various ODS in a stepwise manner.

As per the Montreal Protocol, developing and developed countries have but equal and differentiated responsibilities, however all countries have to follow binding, time-targeted and measurable commitments.

Considered to be one of the most successful environmental interventions on the global scale, it is the first treaty to achieve universal ratification by all countries in the world.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) states that without this treaty, ozone depletion would have increased by more than ten times by 2050, as compared to current levels.

The recovery of ozone layer caused by the Montreal Protocol has been estimated to save around 2 million people each year from skin cancer. Between 1990-2010, the treaty led to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by an approximate 135 gigatons of CO2.

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Explained: Is growing space tourism posing a risk to the climate? - The Indian Express

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