Aquinas, Stephen Hawking and the mind of God – Catholic Herald Online

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I have spent 17 years as a part-time chaplain to a Catholic secondary school, but on the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, I celebrate a moving leaving Mass. The feast of the Doctor Communis, or universal teacher, seems a fitting day on which to finish. The Dominican order, of which Thomas was an early luminary, has as its simple motto Veritas.

Today the claim to know the truth, still more to teach some things as true, seems an affront to many, a monstrous piece of arrogance. How dare you claim a monopoly on the truth? it demands, usually when speaking about some moral judgement. And yet when the late Stephen Hawking wrote that quantum physics was close to unlocking the secrets of the universe and producing a Theory of Everything, allowing Man to know the mind of God, no one seem at all perturbed.

St Thomas is actually extremely cautious by comparison. His epistemology might best be summed up by paraphrasing the old Automobile Association marketing slogan: I dont know much about the reality of things, but I know Someone who does. In Thomass thought, for us to know the mind of God would not be the process of second-guessing with my intellect what God was like or what he was thinking. It would be my intellect participating in the knowledge God has of Himself and has chosen to share with me. I can know truth because it exists, rather than truth exists to the extent I know it. Indeed, St Thomas would go further and say that I am known by the Truth, loved by the Truth and this is why I can have confidence not in the limitless capacity of human reason to discover the truth, but the limitless depths of the truth which is discoverable when the intellect is opened to the divine light of wisdom.

This capacity for knowing truth in man is not a Promethean bid for freedom and autonomy. It is the very opposite. It is how God allows man a share in his own providence.

St Thomas says that the rational creature partakes of a share of providence. Far from being slave to the gods, God desires man to have a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it [the rational creature] has a natural inclination to its proper act and end, and can therefore not merely speculate about truth as an exercise in intellectual improvement, but live by the truth and so become human, and more, like gods, knowing good from evil.

This faculty of reason is, of course, elevated and perfected by grace. When we use such phrases, it is easy to caricature grace as some kind of intellectual bolt-on adding extra capacity to reason. But again we are speaking about Gods own life overflowing into us. Grace does not make me more intellectually acute in terms of the power to compute; it makes me more able to understand truth, because God, in whom all things live and move and have their being (Acts 17:28), is sharing his life with me. It allows me in some proportional way to see things as He sees them. It is a participation in the Truth.

St Thomas, of course, was foremost a commentator on Scripture. His philosophy was essential to him because it gave a reasonable grounding to faith, without which man would not be able to know God freely, and he would be familiar with the idea of participation in the Truth from the Gospel which used to conclude every Mass. The Logos, the meaning or truth of all things, pitched his tent among us. To all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God (John 1:12). If man cannot know truth then he cannot know love.

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Aquinas, Stephen Hawking and the mind of God - Catholic Herald Online

From quarks to quails can the different sciences be unified? – The Conversation UK

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The world around us is populated by a vast variety of things ranging from genes and animals to atoms, particles and fields. While these can all be described by the natural sciences, it seems some can only be understood in terms of biology while others can only be explored using chemistry or physics. And when it comes to human behaviour, disciplines like sociology or psychology are the most useful.

This richness has intrigued philosophers, leading them to think about how the sciences are connected (or disconnected), but also about how things in the world relate to one another. Our new project, called the Metaphysical Unity of Science and funded by the European Research Council, is trying to answer these questions.

In general, philosophy distinguishes between two main questions in this area. First, there is the epistemological question of how specific sciences or theories are connected to one another. For example, how is biology related to physics or psychology to biology? This focuses on the state of our knowledge about the world. It involves looking at the concepts, explanations and methodologies of the various sciences or theories, and examining how they are related.

But there is also a metaphysical question of how things in the world are related to each other. Are they over and above the stuff that is postulated by fundamental physics? That is, are molecules, chairs, genes and dolphins just complex aggregates of subatomic particles and their fundamental physical interactions? If so, is living matter in any way different from inanimate matter?

This is a very difficult question to answer, not least because of the existential weight it carries. If humans, among other things, are just sums of physical parts, then we might wonder how we can make meaningful sense of consciousness, emotions and free will.

We could broadly map the existing philosophical positions within two extremes. On the one side, there is the reductionist stance which in one form claims that everything is made of and determined by physical building blocks there are no chairs, dolphins, economic inflation or genes, only particles and fields. This implies that sciences like chemistry and biology are just helpful tools to understand and manipulate the world around us.

In principle, the correct physics would explain everything that happens and exists in the world. It could therefore be, or help build, the basis for a unified theory. On this view, even something as complex as consciousness, which science may not (yet) properly explain, is ultimately down to the physical behaviour of the particles that make up the neurons in the brain.

On the other side, there is the pluralist stance which argues that everything in the world has an autonomous existence that we cant eliminate. While there might be a sense in which chemical, biological or economic entities are governed by physical laws, these entities are not mere aggregations of physical stuff. Rather, they exist in some sense over and above the physical.

This implies that the special sciences are not just tools that serve specific goals, but are accurate and true descriptions that identify real features of the world. Many pluralists are therefore sceptical about whether consciousness can ever be explained by physics suspecting that it may in fact be more than the sum of its physical parts.

There is evidence to support both reductionism and pluralism, but there are also objections against both. While many philosophers currently work on addressing these objections, others focus on finding new ways to answer these questions.

This is where the unity of science comes in. The notion originates from the reductionist side, arguing the sciences are unified. But some forms of unity reject reductionism and the strict hierarchies it invokes between the sciences, but nevertheless adhere to the broad thesis that the sciences are somehow interconnected or dependent on each other.

Our team, consisting of philosophers with an expertise in different areas of philosophy and science, is trying to find new ways to think about the unity of science. We want to identify the appropriate criteria that would suffice to convincingly claim that some form of unity holds between the natural sciences. We are also looking at case studies in order to investigate neighbouring sciences and how they depend on each other.

The outcomes of our project could have important implications that go beyond academic curiosity, ultimately helping science to progress. If there was indeed a way to describe how life is related to elementary particles, that would change the game completely.

So far, the project has conducted a number of case studies at the boundaries between biology and chemistry, and chemistry and physics. We are now starting to apply the results from these cases to the metaphysical framework for the unity of science. For example, one of our studies showed that many biological properties of proteins can be explained in terms of their chemical micro structure, rather than their environment. This doesnt prove that reductionism is true, but it does lend support to the view.

Another study investigated similar issues from the perspective of chemistry and quantum mechanics. Both theories assume that an isolated molecule has structure and is stable, but the study argued that you cannot prove this is definitely the case we describe this as an idealisation. It showed that both chemistry and quantum mechanics rely on making such idealisations and argued that identifying them can improve our metaphysical understanding of molecules.

Ultimately, understanding the interconnections of the natural sciences is a valuable source for understanding not only the world around us, but also ourselves. We are hoping that our investigation of these links can illuminate in new ways how things in the world relate to each other.

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From quarks to quails can the different sciences be unified? - The Conversation UK

Galileo and Einstein Are Proven Right by Satellite-Based Experiments Confirming the Tower of Pisa Experiment – Science Times

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Physics as science has two famous individuals intrinsic, to what physics is. One of them is Galileo Galilei, dropping two cannonballs of different sizes to prove a theory. Generations later, Albert Einstein had a part in the theory of relativity (ToR), objects fall at the same speed.

To find out if both Galileo and Einstein were correct, the object was dropped from satellite height. It was concluded that both had correction assumptions, no mistake about it. The velocity of the objects was two-trillionths of a percent, not far apart.

Despite the accuracy of the two-famed physicists, and Einstein's ToR is accepted by the scientific community. But, more are looking it the nooks and crannies for something that is "not" settled about it. It seems the norm for most scientists to pick at accepted notions and models until there are no more questions.

The big reveal, why all the nitpicking and uncertainty is that something is missing in the big picture. Science can be analogous to swiss chess, with too many holes that represent the uncertainty of how the cosmos works. Humankind is not so easily satisfied until all answers are complete.

Peter Wolf of the French National Center for Scientific Research's Paris Observatory. Made relevant remarks that capture what it means by not knowing how everything works.

Between quantum mechanics and general relativity which is that well-studied but obscure concept. But it gets a tailspin when the physics and calculation of the two, and even general theories are there. It is on the shaky ground most of the time and attempts to correlate both are not panning out.

One of the most celebrated and confusing parts of the theory of relativity (ToR) is the existence of dark matter or energy. All efforts to find this exotic framework of the universe have no proof (we've seen black holes).

Dark matter is everywhere, and it cannot be seen, even invisible to our most complex tools to see gamma rays popping everywhere. Maybe an indicator of dark matter is gravitation, still a small effect on the matter though. What if two objects of different massed do fall at different velocities? Then it might be dark matter influencing it.

To settle the question, scientists placed two cylindrical objects that are titanium and platinum, locked inside a satellite with a controlled environment. The test was conducted and here are the particulars of the said experiment.

a. Both objects were different masses to mirror Galileo's experiment.

b. The satellite was free-falling without forces influencing it.

c. Both cylinders were in an electromagnetic field, then dropped in a period of 100 to 200 hours.

d. How the cylinders were kept in place in the magnetic field to measure its fall.

e. A conclusion that was reached is both had the same rate of falling.

f. It was repeated for two years and in the exact conditions as before each simulated drop.

Conclusion

These experiments confirmed the finding of Galileo and Einstein'sassertion based on the theory of relativity (ToR). Just of the experiments trying to dissect the nature of the universe, also scientist is attempting more related experiments to test the extremes of knowledge.

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Galileo and Einstein Are Proven Right by Satellite-Based Experiments Confirming the Tower of Pisa Experiment - Science Times

Found a scientific explanation for human stupidity – The Times Hub

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Scientists were able to find an explanation for the phenomenon of human stupidity. The experts of University of science and technology of China based on the rules of quantum physics.

Psychologists have long been concerned with the question why people tend to do stupid things even when aware of their consequences. The theory implies that man is a rational creature and capable of simple and competent elections. The findings of scientists suggest that the reason the uncertainty inherent in quantum physics. As a basis was considered the paradigm of solving the problems, which is known as learning with quantum backup. The meaning of this technique in the presence of rewards or punishments for the outcomes.

This implies that when making decisions people take into account the fact of uncertainty, although may not understand it directly. For example, this is when the individual does something at random if the outcome of an event at the quantum level of precision cannot be predicted, but the probability of the best finals there.

Natasha Kumar is a general assignment reporter at the Times Hub. She has covered sports, entertainment and many other beats in her journalism career, and has lived in Manhattan for more than 8 years. She studies in University of Calcutta. Natasha has appeared periodically on national television shows and has been published in (among others) Hindustan Times, Times of India

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Was Darwin wrong about ‘survival of the fittest’? Collaboration may be just as natural as competition – Genetic Literacy Project

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To put it simply, we have let Darwinism set the horizon of possibility for human behavior. Competition has become a supposed basic feature of all life, something immutable, universal, natural. Yet new research from across various fields of study is throwing the putative scientific basis of this consensus into doubt.

TheNational Institutes of Health recently foundthat over 10,000 microbial species occupy what they call the human ecosystem, outnumbering human cells 10 to 1 and doing diverse kinds of work at almost every level of the bodys processes.

EcologistSuzanne Simard, as one example, has spent the past 2 decades studying the symbiotic fungal networks that nurture and connect trees. Thin tendrils that tangle around plants roots, calledmycorrhizal fungi, provide increased water and nutrient absorption capabilities to plants and receive carbohydrates from photosynthesis in return.

[W]e must learn to recognize the impulse tonaturalizea given human behavior as a political maneuver. Competition is notnatural, or at least not more so than collaboration.

This insight could hardly come at a more opportune time. With our climate crisis mounting, we dearly need new ways to think about our relationships to the diverse entities that share our planet.

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Was Darwin wrong about 'survival of the fittest'? Collaboration may be just as natural as competition - Genetic Literacy Project

CDC Confirms Second Chinese Virus Case in the US – Futurism

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday that a second case of 2019-nCoV coronavirus currently sweeping through China has been confirmed inside the US.

The patient was making her way backto Chicago from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, in mid-January. She is now in stable condition and doing well, Scientific American reports.

Almost 900 cases of the virus have been identified so far, with at least 26 deaths as of today, according to CNBC.

Despite the major press coverage the outbreak is getting, the CDC says theres little cause for alarm.

While CDC considers this a serious public health threat, based on current information, the immediate health risk from 2019-nCoV to the general American public is considered low at this time, reads Fridays statement.

The World Health Organization also stopped short of declaring it a global health emergency on Thursday. More cases, though, are likely to continue to accumulate worldwide.

Nancy Messonnier, director ofthe CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Scientific American that this is a rapidly changing situation, both abroad and domestically and that so far 63 people are under investigation in the US.

US authorities are doing their best to gain control over the situation. On Wednesday, the CDC ordered individualized screenings for all direct flights from Wuhan at fiveUS airports.

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Robotic skins might enable the next generation of space exploration – Salon

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It tromps along without a care, until it bumps into an obstacle. Repeated shoves don't seem to budge this roadblock. Left with no alternative, it squeezes in its midsection. It raises part of its body above the obstacle like someone hiking up the hem of their dress to step over a puddle. Now it can move over the obstacle and continue on its merry way.

This is not an animal but a robot. It's capable of moving, changing its shape, and solving problems, all without the direct input of humans.

It's an unconventional robot to be sure.Unlike what most people may expect them to be heavy, rigid, unwieldy, this robot is thin and light, comprised of actuators on a flap of fabric about the size of the palm of your hand. Some variations have flexible electrical devices and sensors embedded onto the skins, allowing the robots to be preprogrammed to respond to theenvironment. Their inventors, led by Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio at Yale University, aptly call their brainchild "robotic skins."

These robotic skins are designed to envelope any soft material, ranging from the limbs of a stuffed animal to hollow frames, and imbue movement to their host. When the skins are oriented in different ways, the overall structure can create different motions: A foam cylinder wrapped with robotic skin can either push itself forward like a skier or wriggle like an inchworm. By removing and re-wrapping it around the same object, a user can re-purpose a single robotic skin to achieve a variety of motions for completing different tasks.

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"The robotic skin concept enables robot design on-the-fly," says Kramer-Bottiglio. "[We've] showed that our robotic skins applied to objects [can] create locomotion robots, grasping robots, and wearable robots."

This versatility is especially useful if the task or the working environment is not known beforehand. And nowhere is more unpredictable and unfamiliar than outer space. Space exploration, the initial motivation for designing these robot skins, presents a unique set of challenges: besides having to navigate a terrain that humans themselves may have never set foot on, space may contain hostile environments that conventional robots can't always be pre-programmed for.For example, they may need to move differentlyhop or roll or crawl depending on the terrain. Space robotsalso need to be lightweight to reduce the transport costs to lift them beyond the confines of Earth's gravity.

Thinking outside the chassis

With initial funding from NASA, Kramer-Bottiglio conceived her robotic skins for outer space. But theyare nothing like a clunky WALL-E; instead, they're inspired by the fluid motions and adaptability of animals; flexible yet resilient. Moreover, Kramer-Bottiglio has takenseveral stepsfurther away from the conventional rigid robot design by going 2D, towards the goal of slashing the mass and volume even more drastically

"[Robot skins] can be stored flat during transport and are very lightweight," says Kramer-Bottiglio. "[They] are novel because they [can turn] any soft object into a robot by controlling it from its surface, which had not been done before."

The first generation of robotic skins were capable of movement but not shapeshifting. Soon after, the lab revamped their skin robots to achieve the latter function when the skins are wrapped around mold-able materials. It's hard not to admit that this new morphing version has become even more animal-like. But, like its predecessors, this design hasn't been without a little help and inspiration from another unlikely source.

A helping hand

Dylan Shah, a graduate student in the Kramer-Bottiglio lab, observes a professional sculptor knead clay into various shapes. The sculptor works the clay into a four-legged structure approximately thirty times, with both her hands and then one hand. All the while, her adroit movements are filmed from above and the front.

Shah aims to design a new generation of robotics skins that can generate the same clay-sculpting motions of the sculptor. By wrapping the robotic skins around moldable materials, Shah and his colleagues have conceived ashape-shifting robot the skin is to press on the moldable material like a sculptor's hand would. The sculptor videos are helpful for Shah and colleagues to identify which hand motions are required to generate different shapes, such as thin long structures resembling legs.

"We learned two things," says Shah. "First of all, the temperature of the clay is very important. [Sculptors] actually heat up the clay in order to make it more workable. Secondly, we noticed that the sculptor was doing a combination of pushing like squeezing and shear smearing her fingers across the surface. The smearing is much more useful for making leg-like structures."

Shah has yet to perfectly reproduce the smearing motion in skin-wrapped clay. However, he has devised several complementary motions to achieve the same effect. He and his colleagues are planning to rely on extrusion:the robotic skin can squeeze its host material into long thin appendages, just like pushing toothpaste out of a tube. It's easy to take for granted the complicated motions human hands can make compared to a robot. These complex hand motions come naturally to even a child shaping Play-Doh for the first time. So why do the researchers insist on learning from a professional sculptor?

"We wanted to see what the most skilled humans did, so that we could learn how the most skilled robots might operate," says Shah.

Not always the inside that counts

The robotic skins are like nothing the robotics community has seen, yet their characteristics are still far from those of a living animal. Instead of a free-roaming creature you may be picturing in your mind, the robotic skins and their hosts more closely resemble animals on leash, given that the skins are still tethered by actuator cables. Most of the robotic skins rely on changing the air pressures in pistons or air bladders to bend, so they have to be connected to a compressed air source. Shah's version of morphing skins also uses threads attached to spools which cinch like a belt for actuation. Currently there are no straightforward solutions to replacing the cables.

While still nowhere near practical deployment, Kramer-Bottiglio'srobotic skins have beenwell-receivedfor their conceptual novelty, expanding the design space for robotics. Her robotic skins challenge the common perception of what it means to be "robotic".

After all, what maketh a robot may only need to be skin deep.

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NASA honors astronauts lost in 3 space tragedies with Day of Remembrance – Space.com

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NASA will pause today (Jan. 30) to reflect on the lives lost in the pursuit of space exploration during the agency's annual "Day of Remembrance," a time when the agency recalls three of its darkest moments.

The last week of January is always a somber time for NASA. In the space of six days, the agency recalls three fatal space tragedies: the Apollo 1 fire of Jan. 27, 1967, the Challenger shuttle disaster of Jan. 28, 1986 and the Columbia shuttle accident of Feb. 1, 2003.

"NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, along with other senior agency officials, will lead an observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia beginning at 1 p.m. EST," NASA officials said in a statement. "A wreath-laying ceremony will take place at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, followed by observances for the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews."

Related: NASA's fallen astronauts: A photo memorial

The Apollo 1 fire killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White II during a test on the launchpad.The astronauts were performing a dress rehearsal for the first launch of the Apollo program aimed at sending astronauts to the moon.

Seven astronauts died in the Challenger shuttle disaster when the orbiter broke apart after an explosion. The crew included commander Francis "Dick" Scobee, pilot Mike Smith, mission specialists Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ron McNair, and payload specialists Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was set to be the first teacher in space.

The Columbia orbiter broke apart during reentry due to wing damage sustained two weeks earlier during launch. Killed in that tragedy were commander Rick Husband, commander, pilot William McCool, payload commander Michael Anderson, mission specialists David Brown, Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon, a payload specialist from the Israeli Space Agency.

Today, NASA will honor the sacrifice of those astronauts and pay tribute to all NASA astronauts and employees who lost their lives in the line of duty.

Here is a list of Day of Remembrance ceremonies across the country from NASA's official announcement.

"NASA's Kennedy Space Center, in partnership with The Astronauts Memorial Foundation and Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, will host Day of Remembrance observance activities, including a wreath-laying ceremony at 10 a.m. at the Astronauts Memorial Foundation Space Mirror Memorial in the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Thad Altman, president and chief executive officer of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation, and Kelvin Manning, Kennedy associate director, technical, will speak at the ceremony. This ceremony is open to the public."

"NASA's Johnson Space Center will hold a commemoration for employees at the Astronaut Memorial Grove to honor Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews."

"NASA's Stennis Space Center will host a Day of Remembrance ceremony memorializing crew members of the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia missions, as well as members of the Stennis Space Center family lost in the past year. It will feature the laying of a ceremonial wreath in memory of those who have sacrificed in support of the nations space program.

"NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will observe Day of Remembrance with a candle-lighting ceremony for employees at 9 a.m. CST. Marshall Associate Director Steve Miley and former astronaut Jan Davis will offer remarks."

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

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Can we get to space without damaging the earth through huge carbon emissions? – Los Angeles Times

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When a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket blasts off on a plume of white smoke, hot gases shoot out of its 27 engines, creating a thrust equal to 18 Boeing 747 aircraft.

Upon reaching orbit, the worlds heaviest operational rocket will have burnt about 400 metric tons of kerosene and emitted more carbon-dioxide in a few minutes than an average car would in more than two centuries. That kind of shock to the atmosphere is stoking concerns about the effect that launching into orbit has on Earth, and its about to get worse.

Fueled by surging data transmissions and the race for commercial space flights between Elon Musks Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin and Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., the number of launches including giants such as the Falcon Heavy and new mini-rockets is expected to increase tenfold to roughly 1,000 annually in the coming years.

Although there are no regulations on rocket emissions, new space pioneers are taking it upon themselves to develop launchers to make leaving the atmosphere less damaging to the planet. Its less space cowboy and more space boy scout.

Climate change is real, and we dont want to make it worse, said Chris Larmour, chief executive of British rocket maker Orbex. The start-up, founded in 2015 and which has a contract to U.S. launch integrator TriSept Corp., uses bio-propane that it says can cut CO2 emissions by 90% compared with traditional launch fuel.

Virgin Galactics space plane in a 2018 test flight.

(Matt Hartman / AP)

Besides greenhouse-gas pollution, kerosene-fueled rockets transport large amounts of black carbon, also known as soot, into the upper layers of the atmosphere. There, it remains for a long time, creating an umbrella that may add to global warming. The fuel is widely used because its easier to handle than fuels such as hydrogen.

So far the only criteria for everyone to build rockets was performance and cost, Jean-Marc Astorg, director for launch vehicles at French space agency CNES. Environment was not a priority at all. Thats changing.

The urgency to clean up rocket emissions is intensifying. Last year, the space industry launched 443 satellites, more than three times as many as a decade earlier, according to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Planned missions to Moon and Mars will increase the strain on the environment.

SpaceX alone is planning to launch 12,000 satellites in the next seven years for its Starlink internet constellation. The company is developing the methane-powered Raptor engine, burning the greenhouse gas with a view to refueling on Mars. Blue Origins strategy is potentially more environmentally friendly, with plans for liquid hydrogen to propel its reusable rockets.

Virgin Galactic says its plans represent a new age of clean and sustainable access to space. The company relies on lightweight spaceships that can fly hundreds of times to mitigate its environmental effect and says its rockets burn for only 60 seconds. The carbon footprint for passengers will be in line with a transatlantic business-class seat, it says.

ArianeGroup is going a step further. Europes biggest launch company is working on a rocket that aims to be carbon-neutral by running on methane produced from biomass. Dubbed Ariane Next, the heavy-launcher project targets lift off in 2030.

The rest of the world is lagging Europe so far on the environment performance of their future engines and launchers, Astorg said.

Jeff Bezos speaks in front of a model of Blue Origins Blue Moon lunar lander in May 2019.

(Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)

Smaller challengers such as Orbex are moving quickly. The company, which is funded by a mix of venture capital and public funds, plans to have its Prime rocket take its maiden flight at the end of 2021. In addition to cutting CO2, the rocket will completely avoid black carbon, which is a much bigger climate problem, Larmour said.

Reducing soot and CO2 by 25% to 40% is more realistic, said Daniel Metzler, CEO of the German rocket start-up ISAR Aerospace, founded in 2018. His rocket also scheduled to lift off in late 2021 will decrease soot pollution by using a liquid fuel based on a light hydrocarbon, Metzler said, declining to provide specifics.

Such aggressive reductions in soot pose design and production challenges because the fuel residue has the positive side effect of protecting the inner surface of the combustion chamber against heat, the 27-year-old engineer said. ISAR addresses the problem by guiding the in-flowing fuel through a system of channels to cool the engine. Like Orbex, the company relies on 3-D printers to create the complex structures.

Rocket Factory Augsburg, a unit of German satellite maker OHB, took environmental issues into account from the start in developing its mini-launcher, an emerging trend in the aerospace industry. The rocket developed for transporting small satellites and scheduled to perform its maiden flight next year is using a new environmentally friendly propellant.

All of the ingredients are available in a do-it-yourself-store, and the design has the potential to avoid hydrazine, a highly toxic liquid used to fuel upper stages and satellites, Chief Engineer Stefan Brieschenk said.

The RFA launcher is designed to avoid CO2 and soot as much as possible because its the right thing to do, the 34-year-old said. We are all young people, and we want to make a change now.

Joern Spurmann, RFA program manager, sums up the new approach to the space race, saying: Were following the boy-scout rule that says: leave the campground cleaner than you found it.

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Bridenstine concerned about aspects of House NASA authorization bill – SpaceNews

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WASHINGTON NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine expressed reservations Jan. 27 about a NASA authorization bill introduced in the House last week that he fears could constrain the agencys approach to human space exploration.

Bridenstines concerns about the NASA authorization act, introduced Jan. 24 by the bipartisan leadership of the House Science Committee and its space subcommittee, extend to some in industry who fear being shut out by the Houses approach for returning humans to the moon and on to Mars.

I am concerned that the bill imposes some significant constraints on our approach to lunar exploration, Bridenstine said in a statement posted on the NASA website, referring specifically to language in the bill that would make NASA change its approach to developing a human lunar lander.

In particular, we are concerned that the bills approach to developing a human lander system as fully government-owned and directed would be ineffective, he wrote. The approach established by the bill would inhibit our ability to develop a flexible architecture that takes advantage of the full array of national capabilities government and private sector to accomplish national goals.

NASAs current approach to the Human Landing System (HLS) program is to use public-private partnerships, initially with several companies to study lander concepts, then to fund development of one or two landers that would be owned by the companies building them, with NASA purchasing services. The House bill instead called for a government-owned lander, and specified that it be an integrated design launched on a Space Launch System rocket.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), an industry group whose members include some of the companies bidding on the HLS program, also criticized the language in the bill. As written, the NASA Authorization bill would not create a sustainable space exploration architecture and would instead set NASA up for failure by eliminating commercial participation and competition in key programs, the organization said in a Jan. 26 statement.

In a Jan. 27 letter to the bills four co-sponsors, Eric Stallmer, president of the CSF, offered even stronger criticism, saying it explicitly and unfairly excludes the participation of the American commercial spaceflight industry, irrationally barring fair competition from NASAs deep space exploration initiatives. Stallmer called on the committee to withdraw the bill and engage in a fully transparent process with all stakeholders.

Bridenstine didnt make a similar request in his statement, instead offering an opportunity to work with the Committee on a bill that would accommodate a broader partnership approach. He said that experts in the agency were reviewing the bill to identify any other, more technical issues with the bill.

The bill overall sought to redirect NASAs Artemis program, which plans to return humans to the moon by 2024, into a broader humans-to-Mars program that would postpone that lunar return to 2028. In addition, the bill calls for a human orbital Mars mission in 2033, and directs NASA to focus its work on technologies for lunar missions to those needed for later Mars missions.

Bridenstine stated that NASA backed an approach that supports and enables human missions to Mars, but warned that was a very challenging goal. If we are going to accomplish this goal, we will need the flexibility to rapidly develop technical expertise using the Moon and to fully engage commercial and international partners, he wrote.

While the CSF came out strongly against the bill, other organizations were more circumspect, and even supportive, of the legislation. The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, whose members include many companies involved in NASAs overall exploration programs, said it wasnt surprised to see the bill emphasize Mars as a long-term goal for the human spaceflight program given versions of that goal have been in past authorization bills.

The organization, though, didnt address the controversy about specific provisions in the bill, like lunar lander development. However the path to executing this goal including meaningful activity at the moon remains a topic of significant discussion, and this bill is helping to spark a robust exchange about the best way to achieve that bipartisan vision, Mary Lynne Dittmar, president and chief executive of the organization, said in a Jan. 27 statement.

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) spoke out in favor of the bill almost immediately after the House released it. NASA is a critically important organization that is leading us into the future. It not only conducts cutting-edge research, but also drives our economy and inspires the next generation of American workers, said Eric Fanning, president and chief executive of the AIA, in a statement. But none of this is possible without the passage of an authorization bill.

Mike French, who is the vice president of space systems at AIA, also backed the bill. The space policy community should be smiling. We now have bipartisan, bicameral support across Congress and the executive branch to return to the moon this decade and go on to Mars, he said in a Jan. 25 email.

The House Science Committees space subcommittee plans to mark up the bill Jan. 29. Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), chair of the subcommittee and lead sponsor of the bill, is scheduled to speak the next day at the 23rd Annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference here, an event hosted in part by the CSF.

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Bridenstine concerned about aspects of House NASA authorization bill - SpaceNews

‘Journey to the Savage Planet’ is a funnier take on space exploration – Engadget

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The planet is crawling with carefree Pufferbirds.

You can head back out and retrieve your loot, which sometimes includes the option to "shamefully" bury your mangled corpse. Alternatively, you can boot up the Javelin's computer -- which has a primitive desktop interface, frequent screen flicker and a loading bar that glitches backward before moving forward again -- to read some emails before tackling another mission. These include a note from the Monocorp First Galactic Bank of Commerce, which is somehow "delighted" to share that your balance is now -$492,237.

"While this level of debt may seem substantial, with your recent promotion to Intergalactic Explorer -- combined with its accompanying two-percent bump in annual salary -- we can now project that you will likely be free and clear of debt in as little as 47 years," the message reads. "This projection represents a significant step down from your previous projection of 51 years and puts you well above average in terms of debt elimination among the general population."

Thankfully, the game offers more than comedic charm. The planet is split into beautiful biomes that surround a mysterious tower at different elevations. To satisfy your employer, you need to explore each region and find the teleportation hubs that connect to the Javelin and, eventually, higher and more dangerous biomes. A simple compass at the top of the screen indicates the direction and distance to your current objective. While that's invaluable, it's on you to chart a path through the planet and figure out the exact destination.

The correct route often requires a surprising amount of platforming. As the game progresses, you'll slowly unlock gear that lets you double jump, grapple and grind around the environment. You'll also discover a shuriken-shaped seed that you can throw on select plants to create a custom grapple point. The highest biomes require a delicate ballet of jumps and grapples -- both with predefined grapple points and those created with seeds -- to traverse. While it never reaches Mirror's Edge or Dying Light-levels of parkour complexity, it's fun and immensely satisfying to move around without touching the ground.

You have a mission -- to explore the planet and investigate its seemingly manmade tower -- but there's no ticking time bomb or save-the-world apocalypse to deal with. That means you can ignore the main quest line at any time and poke around the world without E.K.O or anyone else questioning your actions and telling you to hurry up. It's a similar vibe to No Man's Sky and other space exploration games that prioritize puttering about over Halo-style action.

Relaxing detours are not only encouraged but required if you want to complete the game's numerous side quests, which include finding rare alien alloys, fuel sources for your ship and edible orange goos that raise your maximum HP. They're also necessary if you want to complete your role as a cartographer. Pressing up on the D-pad (or tab, if you're playing with a mouse and keyboard) will bring up an X-ray-style overlay that highlights missing items in your encyclopedic Kindex. You can fill in the blanks by moving your on-screen reticule, holding down R1 (or the Z key, if you're on PC) and waiting for a small meter to fill.

Relaxing detours are not only encouraged but required if you want to complete the game's numerous side quests.

Completing this task will often reveal humorous descriptions about the planet. The section on the health-restoring vitality plant, for instance, reads: "They're drugs. What, you thought eating a big orange berry is gonna cure your gout? They're not miracle fruits, they're hallucinogens." The cartography process sounds simple, but some creatures will run away, teleport or burrow underground like a mole. Locking on for long enough can be tricky, especially if your target has decided that your flesh and bones would make a tasty meal.

If you want to stay alive, you'll occasionally need to fight back. Slaps and kicks aside, your main weapon is a plasma pistol with unlimited ammunition. You can craft various upgrades, including a faster reload and supercharged shot, but you won't find a shotgun or any other firearm on the planet. Instead, you'll have to rely on exotic fruit -- bombegranates, blight bombs and shock fruits -- to increase your combat options. At first, these items will defuse as soon as you pick them up. With the right space suit upgrades, however, you can stow a handful of each fruit and throw them whenever you like.

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'Journey to the Savage Planet' is a funnier take on space exploration - Engadget

European scientists are taking a mock moon mission in Hawaii right now – Space.com

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Mauna Loa, Hawaii A crew of researchers prepared to leave "Mars" this past Saturday (Jan. 18) as another crew arrived, ready to explore the "moon."

The members of the Sensoria I crew ended their two-week analog "Mars" mission Saturday in the HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog & Simulation) habitat, which is located on a remote slope of Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii. But before they left to return to "Earth," a new crew of researchers arrived, ready to begin a lunar analog mission.

This new, lunar crew is embarking on the third EuroMoonMars mission a series of missions running in collaboration with the European Space Agency, the International MoonBase Alliance and HI-SEAS, Michaela Musilova, the director of HI-SEAS, who is also serving as the commander of this mission, told Space.com.

Related: Life on Mars: Inside The HI-SEAS Isolation Habitat (Gallery)

The crew arrived through the habitat's airlock. The Sensoria I crew met them in the habitat with warm greetings and a "space lunch" of shelf-stable "astronaut food," including vegetarian chilli, rehydrated cheese, lentils and garnished with some greens that were grown inside the habitat. (It was pretty delicious!) But, the convergence of the two crews was more than an exciting, morale-building meeting. The overlap created an opportunity for the Sensoria crew to train the new crewmembers and help them figure out how to live off-Earth.

"The Sensoria crew will train the incoming crew, teach them everything that they learned during their time on Mars, but in the same station that this crew will be using for a lunar simulation," Musilova said.

The new crew got a crash course in how to cook and eat in the habitat's little kitchen, how to use the medical bay, use energy in the most efficient way and even how to use the hab's specialized bathroom. (Apparently, as the Sensoria crew told Space.com, going to the bathroom "on Mars" can be a little bit tricky.)

Like all HI-SEAS crews, to save resources like water and energy, the new crew of Analog astronauts will have to adhere to a series of strict guidelines and will be monitored by and communicate with HI-SEAS Mission Control, which is located on the Big Island of Hawaii away from the habitat. The crew will have to keep a close eye on energy consumption, especially because, since the hab is solar-powered, storms can drastically deplete available energy. The crewmembers will also have to limit their water use. Each person is allotted only 8 minutes per week (yes, per week) of shower time. However, the new ESA crewmembers brought a metal bucket with them in hopes of making the most of their bathing water.

In addition to Musilova, the crew is made up of five young researchers who are all embarking on their first analog missions.

Kyla Edison, a native Hawaiian from the island of Kauai who works as a geology and materials science technician at PISCES (Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems) Hawaii, will work to sample lava flows surrounding the habitat. Edison will characterize the minerals in these samples and, using a miniature, high-temperature kiln, create materials using the "lunar" resources local to the habitat site. This work will test if analog moon/Mars materials could be used to make usable construction materials on future missions.

"I'm looking at using them for launch pads, foundation work and solar radiation shielding," Edison told Space.com, referring to the construction materials she will be working to create.

Priyanka Das Rajkakati will serve as the crew executive officer and commander-in-training for this mission. An aerospace engineer and artist, Das Rajkakati is currently pursuing a doctorate in GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) technology. During this mission, she will conduct robotics experiments, study navigation and mapping techniques, train under Musilova and hopefully one day assume the role of commander. She will also be working on visual art projects, testing a brainwave-measuring device and studying crew psychology.

Related: One-Year Mock Mars Crew 'Returns to Earth': HI-SEAS Photos

Marc Heemskerk, the lead scientist for the mission, is an earth scientist from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who specializes in in-situ resource utilization. On Earth, Marc Heemskerk studies lava tubes, and on this mission, he will continue studying how humans may one day live and settle on the moon.

Marc's brother, Robert Heemskerk, will also be on this mission. With a mechanical engineering background, Robert Heemskerk will work with four different rovers at the habitat site throughout this mission. He will not only test the individual rovers but also will thoroughly explore how the rovers might work together and assist one another, testing the capacity for robot-to-robot cooperation off-Earth.

Last, Lucas Brasileiro, an aerospace engineer and doctoral student at the Universit de Technologie in Troyes, France, joins the crew. On this mission, Brasileiro will work to test a steel drill bit for drilling operations on difficult surfaces, exploring how such a bit might work in off-Earth circumstances.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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European scientists are taking a mock moon mission in Hawaii right now - Space.com

Biolab, built on Maui, headed to the space station | News, Sports, Jobs – Maui News

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The Mobile SpaceLab, created by SCORPIO-V Division of HNu Photonics based in Kahului, will conduct experiments on the International Space Station in February. HNu Photonics photos

A multimillion dollar mobile space lab designed and largely fabricated in Kahului will take orbit next month and be used to conduct biological experiments on the International Space Station.

SCORPIO-V, the biological sciences division of HNu Photonics, based in Kahului, has designed a tissue and cell culturing facility, which can perform biology experiments in space without crew monitoring for as long as a month, according to a news release Tuesday.

We get to live in paradise and do state-of-the art research, said Devin Ridgley, chief biologist for the SCORPIO-V division, while commenting on cutting-edge technology originating right here on the Valley Isle.

You cant ask for much more than that, the Kahului resident said of what he described as a Maui created and manufactured large microwave-sized mobile space lab that took about two and a half years to perfect.

The Mobile SpaceLab will be taken to the International Space Station on Feb. 9 aboard a Cygnus spacecraft atop an Antares rocket scheduled to launch from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The commercial resupply mission for NASA is being conducted by Northrop Grumman.

DEVIN RIDGLEY Chief biologist

Dan OConnell, the founder and owner of HNu, said in an email Wednesday afternoon that the labs goal is to develop and manufacture future medical cures in space where there is no gravity to distort DNA and protein molecules.

Ridgley said the initial experiments conducted in space will involve human neurons or brain cells. The study will look at how space environment accelerates age-related declines in neurons.

In the long term, perhaps drugs and other therapies can assist with the slowing of the neuron declines, but the first step in the research will occur next month in space, Ridgley said.

SCORPIO-V Principal Investigator Caitlin OConnell said that as space exploration grows, it has become imperative to better understand what life in space does to the human body in order to mitigate potential health risks.

The neuron studies performed on the space station could lend additional insights into our understanding of Earth-bound age-related cognition and decline, she said.

Members of SCORPIO-V, a division of HNu Photonics, who worked on the Moblie SpaceLab include (from left) Devin Ridgley, chief biologist; Sylvia Loh, bioengineer, and John Meyer, electronics engineer.

The space research is programmed to run on its own, but Ridgley said that a team will monitor the space lab around the clock remotely from Maui for the first four to five days.

About 50 people have worked on the 65-pound mobile lab that is primarily made out of aluminum. Ridgley said the lab had to be sturdy but not too heavy since it is being launched into space.

With Maui far away from large scientific manufacturing facilities, Ridgley said his team acquired raw materials and manufactured parts on site. Machinists cut and shaped the materials with specs from engineers.

We do it all, top to bottom here, he said.

The project was made possible by a 2019 grant from NASAs Space Biology Program to HNu. The company also has a Space Act agreement with NASA.

An earlier grant from NASA allowed HNu to see if the mobile lab could withstand a rocket launch. That occurred aboard a Blue Origin rocket last year, successfully, Ridgley said.

Dan OConnell, who was traveling in New York on Wednesday, said Maui has provided a business and social ecosystem that supports innovative thinking and technology creation from the ground up.

We are transcending the state of the art in outer space with a home base on Maui supporting jobs for local graduates in biology, physics, electronics, mechanics, computers, software, optics, fabrication, etc. he said.

Leslie Wilkins, Maui Economic Development Board president and CEO, touted HNus work as a Maui company. HNu and MEDB have partnered on a number of initiatives, including an electric vehicle project.

MEDB applauds HNu for aiding a better understanding of the impacts of life in space on the human body, Wilkins said. Over the last two decades the number of long-duration spaceflights has increased. Studies have shown the importance of additional research on the astronauts cognitive and behavioral activities due to microgravity.

Of HNus 60 employees, more than 75 percent are local hires with many coming from local high schools, University of Hawaii Maui College and other UH system institutions, through internships and apprenticeships that lead to full-time positions, she added.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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Biolab, built on Maui, headed to the space station | News, Sports, Jobs - Maui News

The Outer Worlds is coming to the Nintendo Switch on March 6th – The Verge

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The Outer Worlds, the Obsidian-developed first-person RPG, is releasing on the Nintendo Switch on March 6th, the company announced today. The games Switch port was announced in July last year, before an investor call confirmed that it would arrive in early 2020. Now, however, we know the exact date it will arrive. Its debut on the Nintendo Switch follows versions released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in October last year.

Created by the writers of the original Fallout games, The Outer Worlds is the kind of open-ended RPG thats designed to let you approach its missions however you see fit. It ranks among some of the best games released last year, and its well worth a play if youve been holding out for a more portable version.

The Outer Worlds will cost $59.99, and will be available as a digital release or in a physical box with a download code. Oh, and try not to get it confused with Outer Wilds, the space-exploration indie game released last year for PC, PS4, and Xbox One thats set in a solar system that explodes roughly every 20 minutes.

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The Outer Worlds is coming to the Nintendo Switch on March 6th - The Verge

The Outer Worlds dystopian future is far off, but its not impossible – The Verge

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After landing on Terra 2 for the first time, I made my way to a small, private company-owned town called Edgewater for some business. As I approached the colony, mostly known for the Saltuna Cannery, I stopped to talk to a man in a hard hat who was hanging around outside. None of us own our gravesites, the man, named Silas, told me. We rent them from the company.

Edgewater is owned by Spacers Choice, meaning that almost everyone who lives there is at the whims of the mega-corporation. They face incredibly harsh working conditions, often fleeing to live somewhere else, without protection, on the planet. They also have to pay to rent a spot for their future grave in the cemetery. Some families had become delinquent, and Silas needed me to collect the money that was due, discreetly and by whatever means necessary.

Look, I dont want to talk about it, he said, asking me to strong-arm one person in particular. Just make sure he pays up.

That was one of my first encounters in The Outer Worlds, a first-person adventure game developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Its set in a universe where President William McKinley was never assassinated in 1901, meaning President Theodore Roosevelt would never break up monopolies, including John D. Rockefellers grip on the oil industry and J.P. Morgans control of railroads. Its a universe where mega-corporations took their capitalist ventures into outer space with little policing by the government on Earth. Fictional companies like Spacers Choice own the very planets on which people live and work.

We started thinking about the mining towns at the turn of the century, these companies owned everything, Outer Worlds game director and legendary game designer Leonard Boyarsky tells me over Skype. It was basically indentured servitude in everything but name. Its just snowballed from there.

As I played through Obsidians first-person planet hopper, I encountered factory bosses who asked me to bust up unions and scientists who sent their workers into perilous dangers over toothpaste. Each twist and turn of the main plot satirized how mega-corporations treat the workers they need to survive. Sadly, this stuff is a reality and it keeps forcing itself into our conscious, Boyarsky says. Fellow game director and game development legend Tim Cain adds that its going to be weird if our first Moon base or base on Mars is brought to you by Pepsi.

Some of the biggest companies jumping into the space industry, including major names like SpaceX and Blue Origin, are owned by billionaires like SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, two moguls whose fortunes were built in part by the terrible working conditions in Teslas factories and Amazons warehouses, respectively. Much of the tech industry runs on a mindset of workers being underpaid and overworked. Once we migrate into space, will we be much better off than the people of Edgewater?

The best science fiction is based on a reflection of our own society, says space industry analyst and SpaceNews senior writer Jeff Foust. I dont think when we get into space well become more enlightened beings and shed some of the flaws we have.

The Outer Worlds isnt the first piece of media with a bleak depiction of space colonization. The idea of space commercialization and the consequences that come with it are older than space exploration itself. Shows like Star Trek and The Expanse and movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ad Astra have imagined how current political tensions, economic inequality, and cultural divides might evolve once we have the ability to colonize space.

Boyarsky and Cain intended The Outer Worlds to be an alternate take on history where space travel was discovered at a time when mega-corporations could take advantage of it for their own gain. Space travel in our reality was fueled by the Cold War Space Race that started in the mid-1950s. It was completely government-run, but thats no longer the case.

Over the past 20 years, the real space industry has become more commercialized. Companies like Richard Branson-owned Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others have popped up with independent ventures. The government now, under Obama and Trump, does see the value of using the commercial sector, says astrobiologist, former NASA employee, and editor of NASA Watch Keith Cowing. They can do things cheaper than doing things in-house, which would take longer and be more expensive. Before this NASA did everything, and there wasnt an option outside that.

While technological advancements have made space exploration cheaper (some satellites are the size of a shoebox), its still an incredibly expensive endeavor, and most companies rely on government partnerships and funding. Space is still a priority to the current White House administration, but NASA is operating with a smaller percentage of the federal budget. NASA worked with 5 percent of the federal budget during the Apollo missions, which amounts to about $6 billion per year at its peak in the 1960s. NASAs budget today is $22 billion, which is less than half a percent of the federal budget.

NASA is still building a record number of spacecraft, but trends of privatization are growing as Trump wants to transition the International Space Station to the private sector and many companies are preparing their own private spacecraft for low Earth orbit in the next several years.

While the Halcyon Corporate Board, a group made up of 10 private companies that serve as the main antagonist in The Outer Worlds, is bad in its own right, much of the major union-busting and unethical behavior comes when these companies operate outside the reach of the government on Earth. If a company were to shed its home on the blue planet to operate solely in space, there would be no laws in place by which theyd need to abide.

The private sector is getting closer to being capable of launching habitable spacecraft into orbit and eventually running crewed missions to the Moon and Mars. Right now, there arent enough checks and balances to keep them in line. Private companies launching satellites need to apply for licenses from the Federal Communications Commission and sometimes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and they need to abide by regulations when launching rockets and other aircraft. But few laws cover the basics of what is enforceable in space.

Those types of laws govern activities here on Earth, but what were starting to see is attorneys, politicians, and think tanks [thinking about] what types of laws we need to govern activities in space, says space historian and editor of collectSPACE.com Robert Pearlman. There is no one who controls or owns the Moon, so the question is do we wait until there is a colony on the Moon and have them become the governing body?

If something were to happen on the Moon or inside the International Space Station, the laws of whichever country launched the rocket or the country that owns the module of the ISS the incident happened in, would probably apply. Until there are companies that move completely off planet, Earth legislation would extend to our colonies in space.

Modern labor laws, at least in the United States, arent incredibly strong today. No one is getting killed by a Raptidon while going to work in a warehouse, but negative public perception and anti-union sentiments make the simple act of trying to organize a workplace dangerous. Thats especially true for workers in the tech industry, several of which work with companies that do business in space who are seen as privileged employees who dont need to unionize. Google, one of the most notable titans in the tech industry, recently fired several employees for trying to organize and even hired a firm known for union-busting late last year.

Unionizing is antithetical to the goal of most executives, I dont see that changing in the future, says Kathryn Spiers, one of the fired Google employees. Throughout the early hours of The Outer Worlds, we see how the corporate facade of the Saltuna Cannery and Edgewater fade away as work slows. Spacers Choice employees are treated as second-class citizens, only as valuable as the work theyre able to do. Their lives are effectively owned by the company that owns the city. Some are workers in factories and ports, while others do more skilled work like private security. No matter what they end up doing, they are almost always viewed as replaceable by their employers.

Some of the biggest companies in tech, including Google, rely on the manpower of thousands of contractors who work on Google projects but arent officially employed by Google. The way Google uses its contractors is wrong, its as if they are a second class of citizens, Spiers says. I know many Googlers who viewed contractors as other Googlers and others who didnt think about Googles reasons for using contractors, which I believe is to make it harder for their workers to organize. While some groups of contractors have been able to unionize, others have been fired en masse when Google no longer needed their services. Its a strong example of how the tech industry doesnt value the workers who support it.

If companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin were to venture into space today with crewed missions, the final product wouldnt look anything like Edgewater or Stellar Bay. Musk and Bezos wouldnt be sending a very large workforce. Itll be some time before we have people working in mines and canneries on Mars. The cost, risk, and coordination it takes to send and support someone in space are astronomical. Only the most qualified and essential people are heading into the great unknown for the foreseeable future. Right now on the ISS, the most valuable commodity is an astronauts time, you only want them to work on the things they have to, Foust says. Thatll be true a far way into the future. People are going to be a scarce commodity in space, youre not going to use them for mundane labor.

Unionization isnt just a tool for mundane labor, though. In 1973, three members of NASAs final Skylab mission went on strike to protest the 16-hour workdays they had for more than two months straight. It eventually led to more free time for space travelers. They may not be doing the same tasks as the auto loader operators who are striking in Stellar Bay within The Outer Worlds, but the disparity in their work illustrates the idea that unionization is the only way astronauts and auto loaders will have a say in how their space missions operate.

Workers organizing, one of the biggest themes in The Outer Worlds, is one of the key ways to make sure our colonies dont end up like Edgewater. The current mindsets of major companies like Amazon, Tesla, and Google, alongside a general anti-union mentality in the United States, make organizing seem like an impossibility.

We could be centuries away from having colonies like Edgewater, though. (The scientific makeup of The Outer Worlds is different from our world, so space travel was discovered faster.) The men and women who do venture out on these first missions into deep space may be making a one-way trip and, according to Elon Musk, they will likely die. Its difficult to say, were talking about a scenario thats so far in the future even if the companies stick along their path, Pearlman says. The initial people who fly on these rockets are going to be people who pay to go or volunteers to go. Itll be more of the settler case like paying for passage by train or wagon to the West.

Thats not too different from the interstellar settlers in The Outer Worlds. Many of the inhabitants of Edgewater, Stellar Bay, or the Groundbreaker ship, on top of being under extreme stress due to the alien environment theyre in, are isolated from the homes they left. And much like the Gold Rush in the 1850s, the early days are even more dangerous and exploitative than later on when more people migrate.

A Moonbase, a colony on Mars, and settlements on other life-supporting planets are far away enough that no one is comfortable making an actual prediction. But games like The Outer Worlds help us explore and put things into perspective ahead of time. Star Treks prime directive, the guiding principle that no Starfleet member should interfere with the natural development of alien civilizations, has helped inspire some space conservation. These conversations about labor, space, and the future could help us avoid these problems once we get there.

While it is a game, if treated with an attempt to be realistic, they have tried to present a vision of our future that would fit with what we know today, Pearlman says. They help us explore these questions so we can be more ready when theyre needed.

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The Outer Worlds dystopian future is far off, but its not impossible - The Verge

Nasa to add hotel capsule to International Space Station as part of commercial plans – The Independent

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Nasa has selected a company to build a private hotel on board the International Space Station.

The new additions to the ISS will include acrew habitat that will serve as a home for future space tourists.

It will also have aresearch andmanufacturing facility and large-windowed Earth observatory, according to Axiom, the Texas-based company that is building the extension.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Axiom hopes the segment could one day serve as a self-contained space station that could replace the ISS when it is decommissioned.

It hopes to launch the new commercial hub in 2024, it said.

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas flom fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telelscope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas flom fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telelscope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Nasaannounced last year that it would allow space tourists onto the ISS, as part of a broader effort to encourage commercial companies to become involved in US space exploration. Those first visitors were expected to arrive later this year.

Adding new segments to the ISS could allow more people to travel to the station by increasing the volume, Axiom said, as well as leaving space for new kinds of research "such as isolation studies and Earth observation".

Over time, Axiom hopes that the work currently being done on the International Space Station is gradually transferred to its new private segment, allowing for it to continue without interruption when the ISSis retired.

At that point it will be able to detach and serve as a self-contained space station. At that point, Nasa will no longer have to pay for the cost of running the ISS or launching a replacement, Axiom suggested.

In 2018, Axiom commissioned designer Philippe Starck to create interiors for the habitation module of a possible space station. He described the result as a "comfortable and friendly egg".

(Axiom/Philippe Starck)

"Starcks vision was to create a nest, a comfortable and friendly egg, which would feature materials and colors stemmed from a fetal universe," a press release at the time said. "The walls are sprinkled with hundreds of nano-Leds with changing colors as a continuation to the view on the universe through the large windows.

"Just as all the shades of lights and colors of day and night, the egg will also live to the mood and biorhythm of its osmotic inhabitant."

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Nasa to add hotel capsule to International Space Station as part of commercial plans - The Independent

Turkish Airlines Exploration-Themed Super Bowl Ad Will Be the First From a Spanish Agency – Adweek

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Turkish Airlines has often taken pride in being the first brand from Turkey to advertise in the Super Bowl, but this years spot will also mark another international debut in the Big Game: its first Spanish ad agency.

David Madrid created the airlines 30-second spotits fourth consecutive Super Bowl ad appearance, which was preceded by a pre-game campaign in 2016in partnership with David Miami.

The Ogilvy-owned David network is no stranger to the Super Bowl. David Miami created three ads last year with support from its teams in South America. Since then, David hired Spanish creative Pancho Cassis as its global CCO and opened the Madrid office behind this years Turkish Airlines spot. (In addition to collaborating on the airline ad, David Miami is also following up its 2019 Budweiser ad with the brands 2020 Big Game spot).)

Its going to be the first Super Bowl ad made by a Spanish agency, and we are thrilled, because its much more than a film, Cassis said. The campaign is going to be launched globally and it will be complemented with different media such as TV, OOH, print, PR, digital and social media.

Heres a look at the teaser for the Turkish Airlines Super Bowl ad:

The ad appears to be part of a surprisingly robust theme at this years Big Game: space exploration. SodaStream, Walmart and Olay are all expected to have space-centric ads in the Super Bowl, and Turkish Airlines appears to be leaning into the history of manned space flight as well.

For all the latest Super Bowl advertising newswhos in, whos out, teasers, full ads and morecheck outAdweeks Super Bowl 2020 Ad Tracker. And join us on the evening of Feb. 2 for the best in-game coverage of the commercials anywhere.

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Turkish Airlines Exploration-Themed Super Bowl Ad Will Be the First From a Spanish Agency - Adweek

All Weather Friends: China and Pakistan Space Cooperation – The Diplomat

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The increasing competition for space-related power and prestige in Asia has echoes of the Cold War space race of the mid-20th century. In 1961, John F. Kennedy, a young, charismatic leader determined to land a man on the moon, had just taken the oath of office in the United States; the Soviet Union put the first man in space; and in Pakistan, world renowned physicist Abdul Salam was convincing President Ayub Khan to set up a national space agency, which was considered to be the first in the subcontinent.

In September of the same year, Salam started the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) in Karachi, eight years before India formalized its own space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). After that, four top scientists from Pakistan were sent to United States for training at NASA. Salams growing eminence in the scientific world won him accolades. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, which became a beacon to attract young talents to Pakistans space organization.

In 1962, Pakistan became the third Asian country to launch rockets. That year, SUPARCO launched its first rocket, Rehbar I, from the Karachi coast with help from NASA just before India launched its first rocket from Thumba launching station. Despite this headstart, today SUPARCO is a long way behind ISRO due to poor education funding and military leadership interfering in scientific goals.

SUPARCO soon moved its focus to the atomic bomb project, taking key resources and scientists away from space endeavors. But the most drastic fall in the Pakistani space program came between the 1980s and 1990s, when then-President Zia-ul-Haq cut off the funding to major projects such as the communication satellite program. After that, military generals were made leaders in the organization, replacing scientists, and the new focus was on countering India through conventional and nuclear acquisitions. That left little funds to take on some of Pakistans more ambitious space projects. By contrast, ISRO launched its first communication satellite in 1981, started technology sharing programs with many countries, and in 1988 unveiled a remote sensing satellite system, which is now the largest in the world. Pakistan, meanwhile, only launched its first satellite, Badr I, in 1990 with the assistance of the Chinese.

Later, the Chinese Ministry of Aerospace Industry and SUPARCO signed an agreement in 1991 on space cooperation, but for decades they had little to show for it. Space cooperation between China and Pakistan focused mainly on personnel training and infrastructure development for the next 20 years.

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In 2005 China started the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) with Bangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, and Turkey. The convention was signed in Beijing. The focus of the organization is to promote and strengthen the development of collaborative space programs among its member states by establishing the basis for cooperation in peaceful applications of space science and technology. APSCO is considered the second largest intergovernmental and multilateral space organization after the European Space Agency. Iran is expected to soon expand collaboration with APSCO and join two of its existing projects.

In 2011, as part of Pakistans Space Program 2040, the Chinese-manufactured PAKSAT-1R, an upgraded version of PAKSAT-1, was launched in China. PAKSAT-1R was a milestone in China-Pakistan space ties. The satellite has a lifespan of 15 years, during which time it will provide communication services across South and Central Asia, Eastern Europe, East Africa, and East Asia.

The two countries also signed a 2012-2020 roadmap for space cooperation between SUPARCO and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) in 2012. During Prime Minister Imran Khans visit to Beijing in 2018, both countries agreed to move forward with that agreement. As part of their joint collaboration on space missions, Pakistan has expressed its willingness to send a Pakistani astronaut into space on a Chinese spacecraft. At the AirTech conference in December 2017, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman stated that Pakistan would send astronauts into space with Chinas help by 2020. China has also successfully launched two remote sensing satellites for its all-weather friend Pakistan. And in April 2019 China and Pakistan signed an agreement on space exploration, which marks a new phase in space science cooperation between the all-weather allies.

China has proposed building a Space Silk Road to virtually enhance its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including the linchpin China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, into a three-dimensional (space, land, and water) super-project. In the Space Silk Road, Chinas Beidou satellites would help with navigation from submarines to aircraft and will connect all the BRI countries. Pakistan also requested Chinas participation in the development of the Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite (PRSS). PRSS-1, launched in 2018, is considered yet another flagship project for China-Pakistan relations.

The bilateral association between the two countries in space has opened new vistas of socioeconomic and scientific cooperation, which gives a boost to their historically cordial bilateral relations in other fields. Pakistans space program is set to benefit greatly from Chinas advanced technology. According to a Pakistan-based development analyst, transfer of Chinas space technology will help Pakistan achieve progress in both the defense and economic spheres.

In the 21st century, space technology is essential for socioeconomic development, infrastructure upgrades, agricultural production, and urban planning. Providing developing countries with assistance in space programs has long been a part of Chinas geopolitical ambition in order to establish hegemony in the South Asia region. China doesnt benefit technologically from Pakistan, given the mismatch in their capabilities, but Beijing considers space cooperation as an opportunity to expand its soft power.

India shares borders with both China and Pakistan and has unresolved border disputes with both as well. All three nations have nuclear capabilities and a significant inventory of missiles. With its recent anti-satellite missile test, Mission Shakti, India became the fourth country in the world after the United States, Russia, and China to acquire the strategic capacity to shoot down enemy satellites, placing India in the exclusive club of space superpowers. In light of that, China has urged all countries to keep outer space for peace and cooperation.

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India has also been one of the major contributors to the Outer Space Treaty, which was put in place by theUnited Nationsin order to ensure states used space for peaceful purposes. Indias space program has been used for civilian purposes and emphasizes developing space systems that offer social, scientific, and economic benefits. With the privatization of the Indian space industry, India has witnessed the rise of startups like Team Indus, Bellatrix Aerospace, and Astrome Technologies, which are planning to bring out their own space-based products and services. The Space Activities bill 2017, which is still pending in the Indian parliament, was put forth to encourage both the public and private sectors to participate in the space program.

In 2019, India launched the 2,230-kg GSAT-9 South Asia Satellite in order to build goodwill in the region and to counter Chinese influence but archrival Pakistan backed out of what was supposed to be a pan-SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) project. When India first suggested the idea, Pakistan offered money and assistance but New Delhi said it would bear all the costs as a gift to the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan then refused to participate. According to a spokesperson from Pakistans Foreign Ministry, as India was not willing to develop the project on a collaborative basis, it was not possible for Pakistan to support it as a regional project under the umbrella of SAARC.

With the inclusion of India and Pakistan in both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and SAARC, these South Asian countries have a major positive role to play in space rather than countering each other. If India and Pakistan follow a path of confrontation on future space projects, it will only deepen the cooperation between Pakistan and China.

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Preethi Amaresh is an Indian author who is pursuing her Ph.D. in International Relations at the Geneva School of Diplomacy, Switzerland.

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All Weather Friends: China and Pakistan Space Cooperation - The Diplomat

SCORPIO-V’s Mobile SpaceLab to Study Human Biology on International Space Station (ISS) – Business Wire

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KAHULUI, Hawaii--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Mobile SpaceLab, a fully automated, microfluidic and imaging platform will perform biological experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). SCORPIO-V, the biological sciences division of HNu Photonics, designed the tissue and cell culturing facility, which can perform biology experiments in space without the need for crew operations for as long as a month. SCORPIO-Vs team of scientists will design and execute experiments to test the effects of microgravity on neurons and will control and monitor the experiments from Earth.

On Sunday, February 9, 2020, Northrop Grumman's 13th commercial resupply mission for NASA, a Cygnus spacecraft on an Antares rocket, is scheduled to launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and carry the Mobile SpaceLab to the ISS.

As the U.S. and other nations and organizations around the world expand space exploration, it has become imperative to better understand what life in space does to the human body in order to mitigate potential health risks, SCORPIO-V Principal Investigator Caitlin O'Connell, Ph.D. remarked. Furthermore, the neuron studies performed on the ISS with the Mobile SpaceLab hope to lend additional insights into our understanding of earth-bound age-related cognition and decline.

Dr. O'Connell and SCORPIO-V Chief Biologist Devin Ridgley, Ph.D. will discuss the Mobile SpaceLab and mission in a NASA media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday, January 29. Members of the media who wish to join the teleconference may request dial-in information. Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live online at: http://www.nasa.gov/live.

In 2019, HNu Photonics was the first instrument builder to successfully be awarded a grant from NASAs Space Biology Program to use the Mobile SpaceLab for its own biological experimentation during a roundtrip mission to the ISS. HNu Photonics was also previously awarded a grant from NASA to include its instrument on a Blue Origin launch and have a Space Act agreement with NASA.

About SCORPIO-V

SCORPIO-V is a division of space technology company HNu Photonics and based in Kahului, Hawaii.

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SCORPIO-V's Mobile SpaceLab to Study Human Biology on International Space Station (ISS) - Business Wire

Union Budget 2020: ‘Allocation to space exploration should be considered a seed fund’ – Business Insider India

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This will be the first budget where you have expansive projects like Gaganyaan with funding across different government departments. Experts also believe that the DoS will exceed funds from last year of 12,000 crores.

"The largest constituent in the space budget this year will be Gaganyaan," Chaitanya Giri, a fellow of space and ocean studies programme at Gateway House, told Business Insider.

More money for space projects in the budget means more money for public-private partnerships as well. "The more the budget, the greater the number of projects and the numerous opportunities for public-private collaboration open up," he explained.

The budget isnt just an allocation its a seed fund for private playersBenefits of projects in the space sector arent restricted only to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). They will also spill over to the private sector.

For instance, India is part of a 30-meter telescope project being built in Hawaii is using software from Persistent Systems in Pune. Godrej Aerospace and L&T are a part of commercially manufacturing PSLVs.

Its essentially a trickle-down effect. More money in the budget means more contracts and, ultimately, more research and development.

Its a win-win situation for both stakeholders. ISRO doesnt have the manpower and workforce to build everything on its own and the private sectors research needs a boost. Components required by ISRO have been provided by large companies, who over the years have built competencies to build them.

"I am sure the private sector is using such contracts to build their innovation and invention portfolios. That will help them and the nation in the long run," he said.

"In the coming years, as India forms specific parliamentary legislation for space activities, things will change completely for the private space industry. India is slowly beginning to view space as a major economic undertaking and for now, that is a really good sign," said Giri.

And the private sector also has a little bit of catching up to do. There is a lot of scope of new-age startups an companies in India. They need not supply competencies that ISRO and the existing ecosystem already provides. Instead, the more novel their product, the higher their chance of assimilation in the space ecosystem.

He recommends that the private sector needs to invest more heavily in R&D, preferably through CSR to scout for technology that can be applied to on a large scale. It is no longer enough for companies to get into agreements with foreign players and assemble their products here in India.

"This huff-and-puff is due to a weak public-private lung capacity on innovation," said

ISRO outlook 2020: Indian private sector eyes $30 billion space launch pie

ISRO's got a long way to go before it generates revenue from spin-off technologies

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Union Budget 2020: 'Allocation to space exploration should be considered a seed fund' - Business Insider India