India.Arie Talks SZA, Spirituality and ‘SongVersation: Medicine’: ‘Black Singer-Songwriters Haven’t Gotten a Fair Shake’ – The BoomBox

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India.Arie has been sharing her message of self-love and hope with people all around theworld since she dropped her debut albumAcoustic Soulin 2001,. With classic cuts like Video and Brown Skin, and albums like Voyage to India, two Testimony albums and 2013s Songversation, the singer-songwriter hascertainly madean impressive mark.

In June, the Denver, Colo. nativereleased her latest project, theEP SongVersation: Medicinea project she describes as meant to belistened to duringquiet time, likeinprayer, mediation or yoga. India performed the the first single I Am Light with Erykah Badu on the 2016 Soul Train awards, and she talked to The Boombox about theSongVersation EP and how her music fits with the cultural boom of black female creativity.

What inspired this latest project? SongVersation does have a creative process, and it has a spiritualprocess. Which for me, creativity and spirituality are one in the same,so SongVersation: Medicine is an album that I offered in the spirit of just administering to people who are caught up in the times.

The world is changing so fast, she continued.Were all looking for something meaningful. People who never thought about meaningful things before now are looking for things that are meaningful, because the world is so crazy I wanted to detail the process through which I create my music, and so I call that the Songversation PackageJournal that is a companion to this album, and I just debuted it on the Oprah Share the Adventure Cruise.

Can you talk about the I Am Light single and what you wanted toconveyin the song?

I think that song is able to speak to people where they are. For me, I think the bottom line is, which is one of my favorite quotes thats from C.S. Lewis, You do not have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body. To me thats what [I Am Light] is really all about. Reminding people that things are going to happen sometimes, but its not wrong its human. Were going to struggle, but its not wrong its human. Were going to have good times, but that doesnt mean its going to define you anymore than the bad times.

There seems to be a surge in high profile music and movie releases that speak to black women. Whats your take on that? Why the sudden shift?

I think black women are seeking to empower ourselves. When youre in a world that always doesnt love you, it starts to where you have to love you. And thats the best you can hope for, and then other people might love you too, but then you figure it out at some point like Were going to make our own movies. Like Ava DuVernay, thats why shes so important, right? Thats why Oprah making that commitment to tell black stories is so important. I think the pain of being a black woman in the world makes us want to empower [ourselves more], and I think the art comes out of that.

I also think that Michelle Obama has something to do with it. Just seeing her brought a certain empowerment Just seeing this woman [reminded us] Wait a minute, were dope.

Whatdo you think about SZAs recent success, and what does itmean for black female singer-songwriters going forward?

I dont think black singer-songwriters in the industry have ever gotten a fair shake, because the music industry says the same words like There can only be one of yall or two of yall at a time, and theres all these other people who have different offerings, but they dont see you as unique, they just see you as another one of those things.

Like Jazmine Sullivan. Forme shes one of the best singers in the world, technically speaking and she wrote those songs and those songs are great. But theyre going to make her compete for a slot with SZA, and it doesnt make sense. Theyre not the same thing. Just because theyre thick girls with pretty faces andwrite songs, theyre not the same thing There can be an Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes, and they let it happen, but there cant be two [black singer-songwriters who play guitar].

Can you tell us how you began teachingThe SongVersation Practice classes at Berklee College in Boston?

With The SongVersation Practice, it was a natural evolution of me finding who I am, and how I evolved and as a writer,I wanted to detail it and share it with other people. I was at Marthas Vineyard, I met the head of Berklee and he said Would you ever come to Berklee? Is there something you want to do? I think he asked me thinking Id have to think about it. I said I have something, and he loved the idea.

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India.Arie Talks SZA, Spirituality and 'SongVersation: Medicine': 'Black Singer-Songwriters Haven't Gotten a Fair Shake' - The BoomBox

692 ISRG participates in off-site spiritual enlightenment series – Hookelenews

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A personal tour guide takes members of the 692nd Intelligence Surveillance Recognizance Group through the Iolani Palace during a tour for the Spiritual Enlightenment Series event.

Tech. Sgt. Heather Redman

15th Wing Public Affairs

How many opportunities have you had to learn about various faith practices, as well as their historical and cultural impacts within your community?

This was a question that Chaplain (Capt.) Ryan Ayers, 692nd Intelligence Surveillance Recognizance Group (ISRG), had as he moved into a venture to provide Airmen with knowledge on the spiritual impacts on cultures throughout history.

Wanting to incorporate cultural impacts into his ministry, Ayers put together a plan to facilitate groups of Airman on educational off-sites.

The Spiritual Enlightenment Series not only helps our Airmen learn about various faith groups, they also help facilitate an understanding of how religion influences cultural and policy throughout the world, Ayers said.

During the event, Ayers serves as the subject matter expert on spiritual education while supplemented by a historical site advisor or tour guide. Providing multiple subject matter experts allows Airman to receive the maximum benefit from the sites.

America is one of the few countries that is not heavily governed by spiritual leaders or advisors, Ayers said.

Bishop Fukuhara speaks to the Airmen of the 692nd Intelligence Surveillance Recognizance Group about the Buddhist faith and his personal experiences and spiritual journey in Phoenix Hall of the Byodo-in Temple. Courtesy photos by Staff Sgt. Bradley Whitehouse

This provides our Airmen to understand why faith plays an important role in decision making around the world, and how we can use spirituality to understand some of the political decisions world leaders make.

The Spiritual Enlightenment Series has proven to be very popular, with people of all faiths utilizing this opportunity to learn and understand others and their cultural beliefs.

These trips are awesome, I learn so much about different faiths and it helps me do my job better, one participant said.

Utilizing his expertise in world religion, Ayers reaches out beyond the tenants of his own faith to offer these events from multiple perspectives.

In February 2017, 30 Airman had the opportunity to visit the Valley of the Temples, on Oahu and gain knowledge of Buddhism.

In May, 30 Airman visited the Iolani Palace and learned of Christianitys impact in Hawaii and around the world. This was followed by a full tour of the palace where Airman received an up-close and personal experience of the rise and fall of the Hawaiian monarchy from a palace guide.

The next chapter of the Spiritual Enlightenment Series is scheduled for September and will include a visit to Polynesian Temple Ruins on the North Shore of Oahu. Airmen will receive an in-depth look at the effects polytheism has on culture while receiving a tour of the temple ruins.

Events like this will continue to become the norm for the 692 ISRG as part of the Faith Works program the U.S. Air Force Chaplain Corps rolled out in 2017. Events like this and other Chaplain lead programs will be able to build upon the ISRG Airmans knowledge and social engagements for the future.

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692 ISRG participates in off-site spiritual enlightenment series - Hookelenews

Justin Bieber Is Reportedly Becoming ‘the Tom Cruise’ of His Church – Complex

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Justin Bieberis figuring out where to go from here.The global pop star canceled the remaining dates of his PurposeWorld Tour on Mondaydue to "unforeseen circumstances." There was immediate speculation about the reason behind the cancelation, including the possibility that he called it a day because of religious reasons. When asked by TMZif that were true, Bieber denied it, directing the site toward his earlier explanation: "I've been on tour for two years... Just resting and getting some relaxation."

While Bieber might not have canceled the tour because of a grand spiritual enlightenment, a newTMZreport indicates he isspending time working on his religious self. In particular, Bieber is being linked to Hillsong Church and its pastor, Carl Lentz. If Lentz's name sounds familiar, it's because he's also connected to Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving, who shook up the sports world last week by revealing he wants out of the Ohio squad ASAP. According toTMZ, Lentz hasn't directly told either Bieber or Irving what decisions they should make, but he has been acting in an advisory role for both men. Sources toldTMZthat Bieber's relationship with Lentz is "intense," but perhaps more interesting is a statement from one of said sources that claimed Bieber is"becoming the Tom Cruise of that church."

If you're unfamiliar, Cruise has long been the poster child of the highly controversial Church of Scientology. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session last year, actress Leah Remini, a former Scientologist, was asked if Cruise was "the Messiah," to which she replied,"To the 'Church,' yes. Parishioners believe that he is singlehandedly changing the planet because that is what the 'Church' is telling them." So, it's definitely an interesting status to attribute to Bieber.

According to its website, Hillsong Church is a contemporary pentecostal church and a member of the Australian Christian Churches. Their mission statement is "to reach and influence the world by building a large Christ-centered, Bible-based church, changing mindsets and empowering people to lead and impact in every sphere of life."

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Justin Bieber Is Reportedly Becoming 'the Tom Cruise' of His Church - Complex

When An Emaciated Buddha Got Juxtaposed With Many-Hued Mughals – Outlook India

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The Starving Buddha popped up in contrast to the oriental ascetics usual looks defined by placid looks. Within 24 hours, the same venue discussed an antithesis of sorts: miniature art, with all its colours and celebratory mood.

If the sages eyes are commonly seen in tranquil longish shape that reminds one of a lotus petal, a two-day cultural festival in Delhi this week sought to know more about how and why Siddhartha Gautama went on a long fast in his days of experimenting oneself ahead of achieving enlightenment. This spiritual exercise of turning oneself into a living skeleton eventually led the one-time prince to realise that bodhi (awakening) had more to do with elevation of the mind and not deprivation of the body.

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The July 25-26 Gunijan Sabha programmes by a Jaipur-based organisation had its focus on classical Indian music even as its just-concluded 25th edition in the national capital did take time off to take a relook at the countrys ancient and medieval visual arts. That was how the Ustad Imamuddin Khan Dagar Indian Music Art and Cultural Society held a session each on Indian sculptures and Mughal paintingson Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

The first talk on Figurative ArtA Narrative to Indian Sculptures profiled the evolution of sculpting in India since time immemorial to the more recent centuries of its imperial rule. The speaker, artist Gagan Vij, majorly essayed the variedly fascinating ways of portraying the Buddha three-dimensionally, thus showing the listeners certain lesser-known visuals of the philosophical leader who lived for 80 years from 563 BC.

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Thus came the image of the Starving Buddha, which is a stone sculpture of Bodhisattva fasting as part of his tough practices in a bid to explore more about oneself. Its a masterpiece, hued from schist in 2nd Century AD, and displayed at Pakistans Lahore museum, which acquired it in 1894 not long after the 39-centimetre-tall artwork was excavated from Sikri in the deserts of Balochistan of undivided India.

One major highlight of ancient Indian art is that it never resorted to copyingthere were no models or muses. That also ensured that the works bore different proportions of the body, which also helped evolve stylistic differences, pointed out Faridabad-based Vij, a self-taught sculptor whose 2016 metal sundial is displayed not far from the Yamuna in the city.

Noting that Indian sculptors traditionally relied more on philosophy than anatomy, he said the underlying principle was to attain moksha by gaining control over anger, greed and sexual desires. The 90-minute interactive lecture at India International Centre began with tracing Indian sculpting right from the Harappan-era Bearded Priest (the famed terracotta work of a man wearing a shawl, with his eyes half closed) to the more iconic Dancing Girla 10.5-cm-tall bronze statuette, also from the Mohenjo-Daro period (4,500 years old).

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Vij, whose works are at display also in Delhis Mirza Ghalib Museum and Lajpat Nagar Park, further trailed major artworks of the Vedic age (a millennium from 1500 BC, when iron gained access in sculptures as well) to the emergence of Buddhism and Jainism in two regions of the subcontinent to further introduce the various schools of art such as Mathura (1st to 3rd Century AD) and Amaravati around the same time (though slightly older) to Mauryan, Chalukya, Gupta and late medieval down to those patronised by southern dynasties such as Chera, Chola, Pandya and Kakatiya. Particularly impressive at the power-point presentation were two-picture albums of ancient temple sculptures and their modern-day adaptations as postures in classical Indian dances such as Kathak, Bharatanatyam and Odissi.

The next afternoon had a well-known Rajasthani painter in conversation about his art: Mughal miniatures. S. Shakir Ali from Jaipur spoke passionately about the bright colours used in classical Indian art, made all the more appealing with the exquisite tools its exponents employ over ages.

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His deep love for the Jaipur and Kangra schools of art notwithstanding, the 61-year-old Padma awardee said Mughal paintings have been his favourite all life. Change is essential for the progress of any art so long as its practitioners have imbibed the essential spirit of the form, he added, recalling to visits to countries such as Iran, Turkey and Algeria to interact with artists.

Ali took a purists line and reiterated that an artist has to stick to three principles for professional success: clean mind, positive attitude and good company.

The Gunijan Sabha, conceived by organiser Shabana Dagar, had its latest event also featuring music sessions (flautist Ajay Prasanna, rudra veena Bahauddin Dagar and Dhrupadia Santosh Kumar, besides talks by scholars Manjula Saxena and Suneera Kasliwal), dance (lecture by Kathak danseuse Prerna Shrimali) and literary interaction (on poetry in music, by poet-essayist-critic Ashok Vajpeyi).

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When An Emaciated Buddha Got Juxtaposed With Many-Hued Mughals - Outlook India

Soyuz rocket carries 3-man crew to space station – CBS News

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After a picture-perfect launch from Kazakhstan and a problem-free rendezvous, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at the International Space Station Friday, boosting the lab's crew back to six and, for the first time, giving NASA and the European Space Agency four astronauts devoted to research in the U.S. segment of the complex.

With commander Sergey Ryazanskiy monitoring an automated approach, flanked on his left by NASA flight engineer Randy Bresnik and on the right by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft docked at the Earth-facing Rassvet module at 5:54 p.m. ET.

The linkup came about six hours after the crew blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at 11:41:12 a.m., departing from the same pad that was used to launch Sputnik 60 years ago and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, in 1961.

Nearly two hours after docking, after verifying an airtight seal between the space station and the Soyuz, hatches were opened and Expedition 52 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, flight engineer Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson, NASA's most experienced astronaut, welcomed their new crewmates aboard with hugs and handshakes.

The station's expanded six-member crew. Front row, left to right: Paolo Nespoli, Soyuz MS-05 commander Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA flight engineer Randy Bresnik. Back row, left to right: Peggy Whitson, station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Jack Fischer.

NASA

The six-member crew then floated into the Russian Zvezda module for a traditional post-docking video call to family and friends back at the launch site. NASA's acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, congratulated the crew on a spectacular launch and then passed the phone to the crew's families.

"Hi, Wyatt. What'd you think of that rocket launch?" Bresnik asked his young son.

"It was bright and loud. And interesting."

"Well, maybe someday you'll get a chance to ride on one," Bresnik replied.

"That would be nice," Wyatt said. "I just want to tell you I love you, and we'll miss you."

After speaking with daughter Abigail, who managed a shy "hi, poppa," and his father, Albert, Bresnik thanked his wife Rebecca for "the amazing love and support you've given me the last two years to get to this point. I hope we can make you proud while I'm up here."

He then took a moment to thank the Russian engineers who assembled the Soyuz rocket and spacecraft, saying "that was the most amazing, smooth rocket ride I've ever had. I would really like to say thanks on behalf of the three of us to our Russian colleagues and our Russian partners who made such a beautiful vehicle."

Bresnik, an F/A-18 TOPGUN pilot with more than 6,000 hours flying time in high-performance aircraft, spent 10 days in space as a shuttle crew member during a 2009 space station assembly mission.

Ryazanskiy, with a doctorate in biomedicine, is the first scientist-cosmonaut to serve as a Soyuz commander. He spent 166 days aboard the station in 2013-14 and commanded one of three international crews during a 500-day simulated Mars mission in 2009. Nespoli, making his third spaceflight, has logged 174 days in orbit.

They now join Yurchikhin, Fischer and Whitson, who have had the station to themselves since June 2 when Soyuz MS-03 commander Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned to Earth. With the arrival of the Soyuz MS-05 crew, an additional USOS crew member will be available to carry out research.

The expanded Expedition 52 crew will include four astronauts assigned to the U.S. segment of the station -- Fischer, Whitson, Bresnik and Nespoli -- and two in the Russian segment -- Yurchikhin and Ryazanskiy.

The station crew normally is evenly split between the Russians and the U.S. segment, which includes astronauts representing NASA, ESA, Japan and Canada. But the Russian space agency Roscosmos recently decided to reduce its crew complement to save money and that opened up additional Soyuz seats for U.S. orbital segment (USOS) astronauts.

Climbing into daylight, the Soyuz booster shed four liquid-fueled strap-on boosters as it continued its climb to space.

NASA/Roscosmos

With the arrival of the Soyuz MS-05 crew, an additional USOS crew member will be available to carry out research.

"The big thing is we're going to have four USOS crew members, and with over 330 possible experiments, of which 85 are new to the space station, there's a ton of science for us to do," Bresnik said in a pre-launch news conference.

"And with that extra crew member, we're going to have a lot more opportunity to not only do the science, we're also going to have the opportunity to do repairs on the station," Bresnik said. "So we think the productivity of this huge laboratory ... will really go up quite a bit having a fourth crew member."

Ryazanskiy, who will join Yurchikhin for a spacewalk Aug. 17, said having only two Russian crew members aboard will require some Russian research to be carried out in their spare time, but he does not anticipate any problems.

"We will be really busy because there will only be two of us," he said. "I have a lot of science that is now going on the task list so some experiments will be done in my free time aboard the station. But overall, for life support and technical issues, two Russian crew members will be enough."

Yurchikhin, Fischer and Whitson are scheduled to return to Earth Sept. 3. They will be replaced Sept. 13 by Soyuz MS-06 commander Alexander Misurkin, NASA flight engineer Mark Vande Hei and astronaut Joe Acaba. It will be the second expedition with four USOS crew members.

Ryazanskiy, Bresnik and Nespoli will return to Earth on Dec. 14. Between now and then, the overlapping station crews will carry out multiple spacewalks, help with the departure of one Soyuz and the arrival of another and unload four cargo ships -- one Russian Progress, two SpaceX Dragons and one Orbital ATK Cygnus.

And throughout it all, the station crew will carry out a full slate of scientific research.

"I am excited about having a full complement of people up here who can really utilize this amazing laboratory," Fischer said in a recent interview with CBS News.

"This will be the first time where we have four USOS, we're have three Americans and an Italian, Paolo, working on the U.S. segment on science. Four people. That's crazy talk!" Fischer added. "I'm super excited about how much science we're going to be able to get done with all four people. So, overall, it's awesome, I cannot wait ... for the discoveries that we make together."

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Soyuz rocket carries 3-man crew to space station - CBS News

Watch Live as New Crew Blasts Off for Space Station – NBCNews.com

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Jul.28.2017 / 10:34 AM ET

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Launch day is here for three new crew members of the International Space Station, and you can watch the liftoff live right here at 11:41 a.m. EDT (the live coverage is scheduled to begin at 10:45 a.m. EDT).

Aboard the Soyuz rocket will be NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, along with Russias Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency, NASA said in a statement posted on its website.

The rocket will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the six-hour trip to the ISS, where the trio will be greeted by three crew members already aboard the ISS: NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fiischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.

The six crew members will spend more than four months aboard the ISS conducting experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science, and Earth science.

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Google Street View launches users to space station – Jakarta Post

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After taking usersto Peru's Machu Picchu and Game of Thronesfilming locations, Google Street View has recently introduced a new feature that allows its users to explore inside the International Space Station(ISS) and to see the Earth from on high.

Among the ISS locations on offer in the new featureare the CupolaObservational Module, from where users canlook at activity outside the station, the experimentalBigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), the unmanned SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule thattransports supplies to the ISS astronauts, and the US Lab Module that serves as the primary research laboratory.

Read also: Google lets you virtually explore 'Game of Thrones' filming locations

SpaceXs Dragon cargo craft is seen Feb. 23, 2017, during final approach to the International Space Station. (blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2017/02//File)

The ISS is a very interesting place with lots of high-tech equipment, Thomas Pesquet, theEuropean Space Agency (ESA)astronautwho was in charge of taking photos for the Google Street View, saidin a behind-the-scenesvideo.

[It's a very challenging task] since we dont have gravity in space, said Matthew Potter, who leads the technical photography operations for Google Street View, adding that they could not use a tripod in space, wherecamera stabilization tools were critical to their mission.

Floating 250 miles more than 400kilometers above the Earth, the ISS consists of 15 connected modules that facefour different directions in a cross-like formation. The space station serves as a scientific research hub to explore space, collect data from the atmosphere and Earth's surface,observe cyclones and other weather patterns, and conduct experiments, such as how a human body reacts tomicrogravity. (kes)

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Google Street View launches users to space station - Jakarta Post

Sony’s a7S II stuns with 4K footage from outside the International Space Station – TechCrunch

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Sonys lineup of full-frame mirrorless cameras is impressive, and have become a staple for videographers and photographers worldwide. But now, the a7S II has gone beyond just our world, capturing amazing 4K footage from outside the International Space Station.

The a7S II was mounted on the ISS on the KIBO Japanese Experiment Module created by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japans space agency, after the organization determined that it was durable and reliable enough to survive outer space conditions, including vacuum, radiation and extreme temperature swings of up to almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit depending on whether the camera is oriented towards the sun or not.

The surprising thing about the a7S IIs environmental resistance is that its basically unmodified JAXA says theres a radiator and a heater built in to its mounting hardware to help with the temperature variance, but that the cameras hardware itself is almost untouched.

JAXAs original plan was to use an a7S on the external mount, but they swapped in the a7S II in their plans in 2016 because of its ability to record 4K video internally. The high sensitivity full-frame sensor, which works great in low light situations, also makes possible excellent night shooting, whereas the system its replacing didnt work at all in nighttime conditions.

The camera will also be used to capture stills, which JAXA says will be better for applications like comparing changes in the color of oceans and forests over time because of its improved tone reproduction vs. video. But the video capture is super interesting for docking operations, or for recording mesmerizing clips like those above.

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Want to see the International Space Station over Lincolnshire? Here’s everything you need to know – LincolnshireLive

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Stargazers are in for a treat as the International Space Station is set to cross Lincolnshire's skies - and you don't need any equipment to see it.

The International Space Station (ISS) will be visible over Lincolnshire at various times between now and August 8 and 9.

And because of its enormous size you don't have to have a telescope to view it in the night sky as it'll be visible to the naked eye.

The ISS is more than 100m wide, over 70m long, and about 20m high. The orbital height (height above Earth) is just over 400km.

Get ready to see shooting stars! Delta Aquarid meteor shower will light up the skies this week

But you'll have to keep your eyes on the prize; the speed of orbit is so high 17,200mph that it will often only be visible for a few minutes at a time.

According to NASAs Spot The Station web site, the ISS looks like an airplane or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesnt have flashing lights or change direction. It will also be moving considerably faster than a typical airplane.

The station will be visible from all over Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire, including Lincoln, Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Boston, Sleaford and Grantham, within a minute of the following dates and times:

July 28: 12.18am, 10.49pm

July 29: 12.25am, 9.57pm, 11.33pm

July 30: 1.10am, 10.41pm

July 31: 12.17am, 9.49pm, 11.25pm

August 1: 10.33pm

August 2: 12.09am, 9.40pm, 11.17pm

August 3: 10.24pm

August 4: 12.02am, 9.32pm, 11.09pm

August 5: 10.17pm

August 6: 9.24pm, 11.02pm

August 7: 10.08pm

August 8: 9.16pm

The International Space Station will always start passing from a westerly direction so keep your eyes peeled for it gliding across the sky.

Sometimes a pass can last as long as five minutes, but it looks like a bright, fast-moving star so be careful not to mistake it for a passing aircraft.

It takes 90 minutes to orbit so you may be able to catch it passing more than once if you dont mind spending a couple of hours outside at night.

For more information about the ISS, visit https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/home.cfm .

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Want to see the International Space Station over Lincolnshire? Here's everything you need to know - LincolnshireLive

Webster’s NanoRacks expands its role in commercial space – Houston Chronicle

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Photo: Steve Gonzales, Staff

NanoRacks project manager Brock Howe uses a full-scale model to demonstrate how a commercial airlock system will work.

NanoRacks project manager Brock Howe uses a full-scale model to demonstrate how a commercial airlock system will work.

Brock Howe uses a model with an action figure to demonstrate how NanoRacks' commercial airlock system will work on the International Space Station.

Brock Howe uses a model with an action figure to demonstrate how NanoRacks' commercial airlock system will work on the International Space Station.

Webster's NanoRacks expands its role in commercial space

An airlock destined for the International Space Station sat near the bottom of a 40-foot pool as astronauts hoisted bulky suits around its curvatures. NASA was testing the station's first complex fixture - an element that could one day be attached to a commercial space station - that is privately owned.

"If we're going to see an economy develop in low-Earth orbit the commercial sector has got to be able to provide and operate things like this," said Mike Read, manager of the International Space Station's commercial space utilization office.

That's the goal of Webster-based NanoRacks, which has evolved from getting experiments on the space station to developing an airlock that will help deploy satellites. Ultimately, NanoRacks hopes its roughly $12 million airlock will be detached from the government-owned space station and reattached to one that is commercially owned and operated.

"The goal of this is to continue to build the marketplace so there's more commercial users of ISS," said Brock Howe, NanoRacks' project manager for the airlock. "And then, at the point when the government is ready to retire the big space station, there are a lot of people using it that can then justify the price of having a commercial space station."

Read said the test in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in late June was standard for any new element being attached to the space station. NASA astronauts were testing handrail placements to ensure they could maneuver around the airlock during spacewalks.

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

This is just one of many tests the airlock will undergo before May 2019 when it's scheduled to hitch a ride to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Dragon.

"It's a big step for us to turn over operation of something as critical as an airlock," Read said.

NanoRacks and NASA signed a Space Act Agreement in May 2016 to begin development of the airlock. Nine months later, NanoRacks selected Boeing to develop the critical seal that connects the airlock to the space station. This device, called a Passive Common Berthing Mechanism, is essential for pressurizing the unit.

The airlock is about 8 feet in diameter and will be five times larger than the space station's existing airlock. The existing airlock, in the Japanese Experiment Module, has a door for loading satellites and another door for ejecting them into space. NanoRacks' airlock will have only one hatch.

Astronauts will go inside the NanoRacks airlock while it's pressurized and arrange satellites. Once they leave, air is sucked out and the space station's robotic arm disconnects the airlock from the space station. The airlock is positioned away from the station, and then satellites are deployed.

This design will allow NanoRacks to deploy larger satellites or several smaller satellites simultaneously. NASA will operate the robotic arm, and NanoRacks will deploy the satellites from its office in Webster.

'Precious resources'

"One of the big savings that NASA likes a lot is it will reduce crew time," Howe said. "Crew time is one of the most precious resources they have on station."

Payloads can also be attached to the airlock's exterior to hold experiments or cameras taking pictures of Earth.

Howe expects that the airlock will be used four to six times a year, though that could change depending on demand.

"It's really going to be governed by the commercial marketplace," Howe said. "So if people want to use it, and scientists and experimenters want to use it, I think we will be able to use it more often. Because that's what ISS is trying to do. They're trying to embrace users of the space station."

Marco Caceres, director of space studies for Teal Group, said the company found "novel ways to make money in space, to make use of an incredible asset." Some people believe the space station hasn't been used to its fullest potential, and companies like NanoRacks could help change that.

Yet most commercial space efforts aren't focused on the space station, he said. Companies are more focused on launch vehicles and satellites because those are more obvious money makers. The space station could have an advantage if it provides a cheaper avenue for deploying satellites, Caceres said.

Cheaper from space

NanoRacks has found it is cheaper from the space station because it costs less to ride on a rocket taking other cargo to the space station than on a rocket being launched solely for the satellites, Howe said.

NanoRacks must have 90 percent of the airlock's design completed by late October. It has already begun fabricating some parts, but that will pick up after October. NanoRacks is considering two vendors along the East Coast, and then those pieces will be shipped to Webster for assembly in NanoRacks' clean room.

"For NanoRacks to land that deal and to be able to accomplish what they've accomplished to date speaks volumes for this area and speak volumes for the commercial space industry," said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.

Looking ahead, NanoRacks is part of a team studying if rocket upper stages could be converted into space habitats. An upper stage is part of the rocket engine that is discarded in space after all of the fuel has been used.

Using these rocket components could be a more affordable way to create a commercial space station compared with building modules on the ground and launching them into orbit.

Ultimately, Howe said, NanoRacks wants to be involved if a commercial space station comes to fruition.

"Building a commercial space station will not be easy," he said. "There's lots of challenges ahead of the team to get that done. And we will see if the space industry can rise to the occasion and make it happen."

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Webster's NanoRacks expands its role in commercial space - Houston Chronicle

Soyuz rockets into space with three bound for station – Spaceflight Now

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STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday, boosting a three-man crew into orbit for a six-hour flight to the International Space Station.

The workhorse Soyuz rocket thundered to life at 11:41 a.m. EDT (GMT-4; 9:41 p.m. local time) and streaked away from the same pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome that was used to launch Sputnik 60 years ago and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, in 1961.

Trailing a brilliant plume of exhaust visible for miles around in the clear early evening sky, the Soyuz booster climbed away directly into the plane of the space stations orbit, kicking off a six-hour rendezvous.

Live video from inside the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft showed commander Sergey Ryazanskiy, flanked on his left by NASA flight engineer Randy Bresnik and on the right by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, calmly monitoring cockpit displays as the spacecraft accelerated toward space.

Ryazanskiy, with a doctorate in biomedicine, is the first scientist-cosmonaut to serve as a Soyuz commander. He spent 166 days aboard the station in 2013-14 and commanded one of three international crews during a 500-day simulated Mars mission in 2009.

Bresnik, an F/A-18 pilot with more than 6,000 hours flying time in high-performance aircraft, spent 10 days in space as a shuttle crew member during a 2009 space station assembly mission. Nespoli, making his third spaceflight, has logged 174 days in orbit.

If all goes well, Ryazanskiy and Bresnik will oversee an automated four-orbit rendezvous with the space station, moving in for docking at the Earth-facing Rassvet module around 6 p.m.

After verifying a tight, airtight seal, hatches will be opened and the Soyuz crew will be welcomed aboard by Expedition 52 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, flight engineer Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson, NASAs most experienced astronaut.

Yurchikhin, Fischer and Whitson have had the station to themselves since June 2 when Soyuz MS-03 commander Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned to Earth.

The expanded Expedition 52 crew will include four astronauts assigned to the U.S. segment of the station Fischer, Whitson, Bresnik and Nespoli and two in the Russian segment Yurchikhin and Ryazanskiy.

The station crew normally is evenly split between the Russians and the U.S. segment, which includes astronauts representing NASA, ESA, Japan and Canada. But the Russian space agency Roscosmos recently decided to reduce its crew complement to save money and that opened up additional Soyuz seats for USOS U.S. orbital segment astronauts.

With the arrival of the Soyuz MS-05 crew, an additional USOS crew member will be available to carry out research.

The big thing is were going to have four USOS crew members, and with over 330 possible experiments, of which 85 are new to the space station, theres a ton of science for us to do, Bresnik said in a pre-launch news conference.

And with that extra crew member, were going to have a lot more opportunity to not only do the science, were also going to have the opportunity to do repairs on the station. So we think the productivity of this huge laboratory will really go up quite a bit having a fourth crew member.

Ryazanskiy, who will join Yurchikhin for a spacewalk Aug. 17, said having only two Russian crew members aboard will require some Russian research to be carried out in their spare time, but he does not anticipate any problems.

We will be really busy because there will only be two of us, he said. I have a lot of science that is now going on the task list so some experiments will be done in my free time aboard the station. But overall, for life support and technical issues, two Russian crew members will be enough.

Yurchikhin, Fischer and Whitson are scheduled to return to Earth Sept. 3. They will be replaced 10 days later by Soyuz MS-06 commander Alexander Misurkin, NASA flight engineer Mark Vande Hei and astronaut Joe Acaba. It will be the second expedition with four USOS crew members.

Ryazanskiy, Bresnik and Nespoli will return to Earth Dec. 14. Between now and then, the overlapping station crews will carry out multiple spacewalks, help with the departure of one Soyuz, the arrival of another and unload four cargo ships, one Russian Progress, two SpaceX Dragons and one Orbital ATK Cygnus.

And throughout it all, the station crew will carry out a full slate of scientific research.

I am excited about having a full complement of people up here who can really utilize this amazing laboratory, Fischer said in a recent interview with CBS News.

This will be the first time where we have four USOS, were have three Americans and an Italian, Paolo, working on the U.S. segment on science. Four people. Thats crazy talk! Im super excited about how much science were going to be able to get done with all four people. So, overall, its awesome, I cannot wait for the discoveries that we make together.

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Soyuz rockets into space with three bound for station - Spaceflight Now

Musk aims for November debut of Falcon Heavy – Spaceflight Now

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Artists concept of SpaceXs Falcon Heavy rocket in flight. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX aims to launch the first Falcon Heavy rocket in November, company chief Elon Musk said Thursday, the latest in a series of schedule targets for the heavy-lift launchers delayed debut.

Musk shared the updated schedule on social media late Thursday, a week after hetempered expectations for the Falcon Heavys maiden flight in remarks at an industry conference in Washington.

A post on social media earlier this month from a passerby touring NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida apparently showed all three of the Falcon Heavys first stage boosters inside SpaceXs hangar near launch pad 39A, where the rocket will blast off on its inaugural flight.

The images are a sign of visible progress on the Falcon Heavy.

Attach mechanisms visible on the Falcon Heavys central core will connect two side-mounted boosters, each based on SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket first stage.

The three rockets bolted together will generate 5.1 million pounds of thrust with 27 Merlin 1D main engines, making the Falcon Heavy the most powerful present-day launcher in the world once it flies.

The Falcon Heavy will weigh more than 3.1 million pounds (1.4 million kilograms) fully loaded with kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants and stand more than 229 feet (70 meters) tall.

The nice thing is when you fully optimize it, its about two-and-a-half times the payload capability of a Falcon 9, Musk said. Its well over 100,000 pounds to LEO (low Earth orbit) of payload capability, 50 tons. It can even get up a little higher than that if optimized.

If the demo mission gets off the ground successfully by the end of this year, two more Falcon Heavy flights are on the books in the first half of 2018, both from Florida. While the inaugural launch will not carry a customer payload, the Falcon Heavy missions next year will deploy satellites for commercial companies and the U.S. military.

Musk first announced plans for the Falcon Heavy in April 2011, when he suggested the huge rocket could make its first flight by the end of 2013. Those plans were delayed multiple times, and SpaceX officials said the company temporarily sidelined the Falcon Heavy project in the wake of a Falcon 9 launch failure in 2015.

The Falcon Heavy will be able to loft the worlds heaviest commercial communications satellites, the U.S. military largest national security spacecraft, and send the companys Dragon crew capsule on flights around the moon, according to Musk.

SpaceX also planned to launch Red Dragon capsules on one-way flights to land on Mars aboard Falcon Heavy rockets, but the Red Dragon program, at least in its current incarnation, is in doubt after a design change on the next-generation Dragon spacecraft to eliminate the ships propulsive landing capability.

The Falcon Heavy rockets development delays forced some customers to switch their satellites to SpaceX competitors. Two satellites owned by ViaSat and Inmarsat were originally slated to launch on Falcon Heavy rockets, but those telecom operators opted to swap their SpaceX rides for launches on European Ariane 5 rockets operated by Arianespace.

SpaceX aims to recover the Falcon Heavys two side boosters, which flew on Falcon 9 rocket flights last year and were modified with added nose cones, at a landing site at Cape Canaveral after the maiden launch. The company manufactured the center core new, giving it a strengthened structure, attach points, and other upgrades that make it different than a basic Falcon 9 booster.

Musk last week said the Falcon Heavy turned out to be more difficult than originally expected.

Theres a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy, a real good chance that that vehicle does not make it to orbit, Musk said, referring to the inaugural test launch. I want to make sure to set expectations accordingly. I hope it makes it far enough beyond the pad so that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest.

Read our earlier story for more on Musks comments last week.

Repairs to SpaceXs launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral in the aftermath of a rocket explosion there last year will help determine when the Falcon Heavy will take off for the first time. SpaceX plans to shift its Florida launch operations to pad 40 once it is available, allowing construction to resume at pad 39A to ready it for the Falcon Heavy.

In the meantime, all of SpaceXs Falcon 9 launches are departing from pad 39A, giving ground teams little time to modify the facility for the bigger booster.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Musk aims for November debut of Falcon Heavy - Spaceflight Now

As dusk sets on NASA’s Cassini mission, Saturn still providing surprises – SpaceFlight Insider

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Ocean McIntyre

July 28th, 2017

This false-color view from NASAs Cassini spacecraft gazes toward the rings beyond Saturns sunlit horizon, where a thin haze can be seen along the limb. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

After twenty years in space and thirteen years directly observing Saturn and its system of hypnotic rings and moons, the Cassini spacecraft is continuing to tease out tantalizing data from the mysterious ringed beauty about every six days.

Currently in its sixteenth of twenty-two Grand Finale orbits that will culminate in the spacecrafts plunge into Saturns atmosphere on September 15, 2017, Cassini keeps sending back consistently stunning images as well as jaw dropping data.

Cassini is performing beautifully in the final leg of its long journey, said Earl Maize, Cassini Project Scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. Its observations continue to surprise and delight as we squeeze out every last bit of science that we can get.

The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) was given priority to observe Titan for two periods, each lasting several hours, to view the atmosphere as well as the surface, and in hopes of observing formation and changes to clouds on Titan. In addition to the ISS, the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) and the Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) were active in this pursuit.

As Cassini approached and swooped past Saturn, the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed both the northern and southern auroral zones, with the southern zone in darkness and the northern in sunlight, and a stunning image mosaic of this pass was made.

When Cassini began its Grand Finale orbits back in April 2017, one of the hopes of scientists studying the rings was to be able to closely observe the ring particles and measure their mass to get a better handle on their age and composition.

On 29 June, during the third of four of Cassinis close approaches to the innermost D-ring, Cassinis scientists and engineers decided to take a chance and turn the spacecraft so that the cosmic dust analyzer (CDA) instrument could directly sample the nanometer size particles. This strategic alignment allowed the spacecraft to be able to take a sample of some of the super fine particles as it passed just 3,040 miles (4,890 kilometers) from the inner edge of the D-ring while using the CDA.

Ring science researchers are excited to receive CDA results in coordination with some of the best high-resolution images ever received of the rings, including the C-ring with its bright bands and streaky textured appearance referred to as plateaus.

The central feature in this image, called Plateau P1, is found approximately 47,300 miles (76,200 kilometers) from Saturns center. It is situated amid some undulating structure that characterizes this region of the C ring. None of this structure is well understood. This image, especially the enhanced version (right), reveals three different textures with different kinds of structure. Images & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

Unlike geologic plateaus, Saturns ring plateaus arent necessarily higher in elevation, but rather they are an area of higher particle density which appears as brightness. When these regions are compared to the surrounding ring region, the non-plateau areas seem to lack any apparent structure whereas the plateaus are approximately five times denser.

The data we are seeing from Cassinis Grand Finale are every bit as exciting as we hoped, although we are still deep in the process of working out what they are telling us about Saturn and its rings, said Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker at JPL.

The new level of detail in the images combined with the results from the CDA data should shed some light on the questions of why and how they were created, and what the makes them different from other regions of the rings.

The central feature in this image, called Plateau P5, is found approximately 52,700 miles (84,800 kilometers) from Saturns center. It is situated amid some undulating structure that characterizes this region of the C ring. None of this structure is well understood. This image, especially the enhanced version (right), reveals that the plateau itself is shot through with elongated streaks. Images & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

It wasnt only the rings that received Cassinis attention. The ion and neutral mass spectrometer (INMS) was also able to take samples of the planets exosphere the atmospheres outermost layer just 1,750 miles (2,810 kilometers) above Saturns cloud tops. Cassinis imaging cameras were able to get some of the highest resolution images ever taken of Saturns clouds. These images include two new image mosaics and a movie sequence.

As interesting as all of that is, some of the most intriguing results have come from the gravitational and magnetic field data. When Saturn was first visited by the Voyager probes in 1980 and 1981, they noted that Saturns magnetic tilt was very well aligned with its axial tilt, which made calculating the exact length of a Saturnian sidereal day impossible. Its sidereal day is currently estimated at 10 hours, 47 minutes.

The Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit since 2004. Since that time, it has revolutionized our understanding of the ringed planet. Image Credit: James Vaughan / SpaceFlight Insider

When Cassini arrived 13 years ago, it found much the same thing, but the spacecraft had come prepared with far more sensitive equipment. Not only does Cassini have a more sensitive magnetometer (MAG), it has two the vector/scalar helium magnetometer located at the far end of the 36-foot (11-meter) boom, and the fluxgate magnetometer positioned half-way out along the boom.

Both instruments can measure strength and direction of magnetic fields, but they also have individual abilities as well. The vector/scalar helium magnetometer can also detect the strength of fields alone, whereas the fluxgate magnetometer can detect a range of strength three times greater than the vector/scalar magnetometer.

Why is this important? Because measuring and mapping the magnetic fields on a planet should give you an understanding of how those magnetic fields are generated. However, this is where things get a bit weird on Saturn.

Until now, we believed that electromagnetic fields in planets, called dynamos, were created and sustained by liquid metals surrounding and moving around a solid metal core deep inside of a planet. The greater the planets mass and more movement within the liquid core, the larger and stronger the magnetic field. Our understanding of how the liquid metal core spins is based on the difference in the axial rotation or the tilt of the planet as it spins or rotates in space.

The Earth has a 23.5-degree axial tilt, and Jupiter has an axial tilt of just 3.13 degrees. Saturn, on the other hand, has an axial tilt of less than 0.06 degrees, and that is only an estimate because its the lowest measurement the equipment is capable measuring down to.

The comparison of the gravitational field data and magnetic field data has come back with more than a small number of discrepancies from the expected models. These discrepancies suggest that there is something quite strange going on deep inside of the planet and that Saturns deep atmosphere could be masking how and where the internal magnetic field is being generated.

Everything that we believe thus far suggests that a planet with virtually no axial tilt, such as Saturn, would be incapable of sustaining a dynamo, let alone such a powerful dynamo as it possesses. Is there a link to the magnetic field generation somewhere in the deep narrow atmospheric lanes and zones? Is it generated by an as yet unidentified substance? Are Saturns thread-like convective cells contributing to it?

It will be interesting to see what researchers and scientists are able to piece together based on the data from these next (and last) seven passes. Once Cassini is lost after it plunges into Saturn on September 15, 2017, any additional data to answer these questions could take decades to obtain as there are no new missions currently being planned that extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency. NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASAs Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed, and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

The sounds and colorful spectrogram in this still image and video represent data collected by the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument on NASAs Cassini spacecraft, as it crossed through Saturns D ring on May 28, 2017. Image/Audio & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Iowa

Tagged: Cassini Grand Finale Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Saturn The Range

A native of the Greater Los Angeles area, Ocean McIntyre's writing is focused primarily on science (STEM and STEAM) education and public outreach. McIntyre is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador as well as holding memberships with The Planetary Society, Los Angeles Astronomical Society, and is a founding member of SafePlaceForSpace.org. McIntyre is currently studying astrophysics and planetary science with additional interests in astrobiology, cosmology and directed energy propulsion technology. With SpaceFlight Insider seeking to expand the amount of science articles it produces, McIntyre was a welcomed addition to our growing team.

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As dusk sets on NASA's Cassini mission, Saturn still providing surprises - SpaceFlight Insider

Go For Launch: Mercury Is A Historically Accurate VR Space Flight Simulator – UploadVR

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As a guy that writes a lot about VR on the internet Ive seen and played my fair share of space flight games. From piloting massive ships as I explore the stars in Elite: Dangerous and engaging in epic multiplayer dogfights in EVE: Valkyrie, all the way down to some casual fun on the Gear VR with Anshar Wars 2 or even flying an X-Wing for the first time in the Star Wars Battlefront VR Mission, there is a ton of stuff to do in space if you have a VR headset. But what most of these things lack is a believable sense of realism.

I can hang out with friends aboard an Enterprise-caliber Starship in Star Trek: Bridge Crew, but thats entirely fiction. On the other end of the spectrum games like Go For Launch: Mercury are focused on 100% authentic, historically accurate, simulation.

Created by one amateur programmer named Joe Chisholm, Go For Launch: Mercury aims to be one of the most realistic space flight simulators ever made. Working with data from the NASA history office, the simulation accurately recreates Americas first manned space program down to the finest detail, writes Chisholm in an email to UploadVR. Every last nut, bolt, switch and lever functioning exactly as it did in the original Mercury Spacecraft.

The cockpits are fully interactive with HTC Vive and Oculus Touch motion controllers and you can even explore the cockpits themselves. Chisholm has been working on Go For Launch: Mercury for over two years now and is gearing up to launch the full experience later this year in September.

In the meantime, you can download and play a free demo on Steam, Oculus Home, or Viveport right now to get a taste of what hes building. What do you think of his simulation? Let us know down in the comments below!

Tagged with: flight sim, space flight

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Go For Launch: Mercury Is A Historically Accurate VR Space Flight Simulator - UploadVR

Peter Thiel – Wikipedia

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Peter Andreas Thiel (; born October 11, 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, and author. He was ranked No. 4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, and No. 246 on the Forbes 400 in 2016, with a net worth of $2.7 billion.[1][2][3]

Thiel was born in Frankfurt, and holds German citizenship. He moved with his family to the United States as an infant, and spent a portion of his upbringing in Africa before returning to the U.S.. He studied philosophy at Stanford University, graduating with a B.A. in 1989. He then went on to the Stanford Law School, and received his J.D. in 1992. After graduation, he worked as a judicial clerk for Judge James Larry Edmondson, a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell, a speechwriter for former-U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett and as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse prior to founding Thiel Capital in 1996. He then co-founded PayPal in 1999, and served as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

After the sale of PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund. He launched Palantir Technologies, an analytical software company, in 2004 and continues to serve as its chairman as of 2017. His Founders Fund, a venture capital firm, was launched in 2005 along with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Earlier, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004. He sold the majority of his shares in Facebook for over $1 billion in 2012, but remains on the board of directors. He also co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010 and operates as its chairman, co-founded Mithril Capital, of which he is investment committee chair, in 2012, and has served as a partner at Y Combinator since 2015.[4][5][6]

Thiel is involved with a variety of philanthropic and political pursuits. Through the Thiel Foundation, he governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship, and supports life extension, seasteading and other speculative research. A founder of The Stanford Review, he is a conservative libertarian who is critical of excessive government spending, high debt levels, and foreign wars. He has donated to numerous political figures, and provided financial support to Hulk Hogan in Bollea v. Gawker.

Peter Andreas Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany on October 11, 1967 to Susanne and Klaus Friedrich Thiel.[7][8][9] The family migrated to the United States when Peter was aged one and lived in Cleveland, where Klaus worked as a chemical engineer. Klaus then worked for various mining companies, which caused an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel.[10][11] Thiel's mother naturalized as a U.S. citizen but his father did not.[9]

Before settling in Foster City, California in 1977, the Thiels had lived in South Africa and South-West Africa, and Peter had been forced to change elementary schools seven times. One of Peter's elementary schools, a strict establishment in Swakopmund, required students to wear uniforms and utilized corporal punishment, such as striking students' hands with a ruler for mistakes. This experience instilled a distaste for uniformity and regimentation later reflected in Thiel's support for individualism and libertarianism as an adult.[12][13]

In his youth, Thiel played Dungeons & Dragons, was an avid reader of science fiction, with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein among his favorite authors, and a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's works, stating as an adult that he had read The Lord of the Rings over ten times during his childhood.[14] He has since founded 6 firms (Palantir Technologies, Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, Lembas LLC, Rivendell LLC and Arda Capital) whose names originate from Tolkien.[15]

In school, Thiel excelled in mathematics, and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending middle school in San Mateo.[16] At the San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand, admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan, and was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.[16][17]

After graduating from San Mateo High School, Thiel went on to study philosophy at Stanford University. During Thiel's time at Stanford, debates on identity politics and political correctness were ongoing at the university and a "Western Culture" program, which was criticized by The Rainbow Agenda because of a perceived over-representation of the achievements made by European men, was replaced with a "Culture, Ideas and Values" course, which instead pushed diversity and multiculturalism. This replacement provoked controversy on the campus, and led to Thiel founding The Stanford Review, a paper for conservative and libertarian viewpoints, in 1987, through the funding of Irving Kristol.[18]

Thiel served as The Stanford Review's first editor-in-chief and remained in that post until he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1989, at which point his friend David O. Sacks became the new editor-in-chief.[19] Thiel then continued on to the Stanford Law School and acquired his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1992.[20]

While at Stanford, Thiel encountered Ren Girard, whose mimetic theory influenced him.[21] Mimetic theory posits that human behavior is based upon mimesis, and that imitation can engender pointless conflict. Girard notes the productive potential of competition: "It is because of this unprecedented capacity to promote competition within limits that always remain socially, if not individually, acceptable that we have all the amazing achievements of the modern world," but states that competition stifles progress once it becomes an end in itself: "rivals are more apt to forget about whatever objects are the cause of the rivalry and instead become more fascinated with one another."[22] Thiel applied this theory to his personal life and business ventures, stating: "The big problem with competition is that it focuses us on the people around us, and while we get better at the things we're competing on, we lose sight of anything that's important, or transcendent, or truly meaningful in our world."[23][24]

After graduating from the Stanford Law School, Thiel had interviews with Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.[25] After not being hired, he instead took up a post as a judicial clerk for Judge James Larry Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, but soon moved to New York to work as a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell. After seven months and three days, he left the law firm citing a lack of transcendental value in his work.[26] He then took a job as a derivatives trader in currency options at Credit Suisse, working there from 1993 on while also operating as a speechwriter for former-United States Secretary of Education William Bennett, before again feeling as though his work lacked meaningful value and returning to California in 1996.[27]

Upon returning to the Bay Area, Thiel noticed that the development of the internet and personal computer had already altered the economic landscape and the dot-com boom was well underway. With financial support from friends and family, he was able to raise $1 million toward the establishment of Thiel Capital Management and embark on his venture capital career. Early on, he experienced a setback after investing $100,000 in his friend Luke Nosek's unsuccessful web-based calendar project. However, his luck changed when Max Levchin, a friend of Nosek's, introduced him to his cryptography-related company idea, which later became their first venture called Confinity in 1998.

With Confinity, Thiel realized they could develop a software to solve a gap in making online payments. Although the use of credit cards and expanding automated teller machine networks provided consumers with more available payment options, not all merchants could gain the necessary hardware to accept credit cards. Thus, consumers were often left with little choice and instead had to pay with exact cash or personal checks. Thiel wanted to create a type of digital wallet in the hopes of ensuring more consumer convenience and security by encrypting data on digital devices, and in 1999 Confinity launched PayPal.

PayPal promised to open up new possibilities for handling money, and according to Eric M. Jackson's account in his book The PayPal Wars, Thiel viewed PayPal's mission as liberating people throughout the world from the erosion of the value of their currencies due to inflation. Jackson recalls an inspirational speech by Thiel in 1999:

We're definitely onto something big. The need PayPal answers is monumental. Everyone in the world needs money to get paid, to trade, to live. Paper money is an ancient technology and an inconvenient means of payment. You can run out of it. It wears out. It can get lost or stolen. In the twenty-first century, people need a form of money that's more convenient and secure, something that can be accessed from anywhere with a PDA or an Internet connection. Of course, what we're calling 'convenient' for American users will be revolutionary for the developing world. Many of these countries' governments play fast and loose with their currencies. They use inflation and sometimes wholesale currency devaluations, like we saw in Russia and several Southeast Asian countries last year [referring to the 1998 Russian and 1997 Asian financial crisis], to take wealth away from their citizens. Most of the ordinary people there never have an opportunity to open an offshore account or to get their hands on more than a few bills of a stable currency like U.S. dollars. Eventually PayPal will be able to change this. In the future, when we make our service available outside the U.S. and as Internet penetration continues to expand to all economic tiers of people, PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before. It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or Pounds or Yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure.[28]

When PayPal launched at a successful press conference in 1999, representatives from Nokia and Deutsche Bank sent $3 million in venture funding to Thiel using PayPal on their PalmPilots. PayPal then continued to grow through mergers with Elon Musks financial services company, X.com, and with Pixo, a company specializing in mobile commerce, in 2000. These mergers allowed PayPal to expand into the wireless phone market, and transformed it into a safer and more user-friendly tool by enabling users to transfer money via a free online registration and email rather than by exchanging bank account information. By 2001, PayPal served over 6.5 million customers and had expanded its services to private consumers and businesses in twenty-six countries.

PayPal went public on February 15, 2002 and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in October of that year.[29] Thiel's 3.7% stake was worth $55 million at the time of the acquisition.[30]

Following PayPal's sale to eBay in 2002, Thiel devoted $10 million of his proceeds to establish Clarium Capital Management, a global macro hedge fund focusing on directional and liquid instruments in currencies, interest rates, commodities, and equities. Thiel stated that "the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clariumthe ide fixewas the peak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives."

In 2003, Clarium Capital reflected a return of 65.6% as Thiel successfully bet that the United States dollar would weaken. In 2004, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector, and specified General Electric and Walmart as vulnerable. In 2005, Clarium saw a 57.1% return as Thiel predicted that the dollar would rally. This success saw Clarium honored as global macro hedge fund of the year by MARHedge and Absolute Return + Alpha.

However, Clarium's faltered in 2006 with a 7.8% loss. During this time, the firm sought to profit in the long-term from its petrodollar analysis, which foresaw the impending decline in oil supplies and the unsustainable bubble growing in the U.S. housing market. Clarium's assets under management indeed, after achieving a 40.3% return in 2007, grew to over $7 billion by 2008, but plummeted as financial markets collapsed near the start of 2009. By 2011, after missing out on the economic rebound, many key investors pulled out, causing Clarium's assets to be valued at $350 million, over half of which was Thiel's own money.[31]

In May 2003, Thiel incorporated Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company named after the Tolkien artifact, and continues to serves as its chairman as of 2016. Thiel stated that the idea for the company was based on the realization that "the approaches that PayPal had used to fight fraud could be extended into other contexts, like fighting terrorism." He also stated that, after the September 11 attacks, the debate in the United States was "will we have more security with less privacy, or less security with more privacy?" and saw Palantir as being able to provide data mining services to government intelligence agencies which were maximally unintrusive and traceable.[32][33]

At first, Palantir's only backers was the Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, but the company steadily grew and in 2015 was valued at $20 billion, with Thiel being the company's largest shareholder.[34][35]

In August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in Facebook for a 10.2% stake in the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first outside investment in Facebook, and put the valuation of the company at $4.9 million.[36][37] As a board member, Thiel was not actively involved in Facebook's day-to-day running. However, he did provide help with timing the various rounds of funding and Zuckerberg credited Thiel with helping him time Facebook's 2007 Series D to close before the 2008 financial crisis.[38]

In his book The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick outlines how Thiel came to make this investment: Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who at the time had assumed the title of "President" of Facebook, was seeking investors for Facebook. Parker approached Reid Hoffman, the CEO of work-based social network LinkedIn. Hoffman liked Facebook but declined to be the lead investor because of the potential for conflict of interest with his duties as LinkedIn CEO. Thus, Hoffman directed Parker to Thiel, whom he knew from their PayPal days. Thiel met Parker and Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard student who had founded Facebook. Thiel and Zuckerberg got along well and Thiel agreed to lead Facebook's seed round with $500,000 for 10.2% of the company. The investment was originally in the form of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of 2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to equity anyway.[39] Thiel said of his investment:

I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vision. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment.[39]

In September 2010, Thiel, while expressing skepticism about the potential for growth in the consumer Internet sector, argued that relative to other Internet companies, Facebook (which then had a secondary market valuation of $30 billion) was comparatively undervalued.[40]

Facebook's initial public offering was in May 2012, with a market cap of nearly $100 billion ($38 a share), at which time Thiel sold 16.8 million shares for $638 million.[41] In August 2012, immediately upon the conclusion of the early investor lock out period, Thiel sold almost all of his remaining stake for between $19.27 and $20.69 per share, or $395.8 million, for a total of more than $1 billion.[42] He still retained 5 million shares (worth approximately $600 million as of December 2016) and a seat on the board of directors.[43]

In 2005, Thiel created Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund. Other partners in the fund include Sean Parker, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek.

In addition to Facebook, Thiel has made early-stage investments in numerous startups (personally or through his venture capital fund), including Booktrack, Slide, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp Inc., Powerset, Practice Fusion, MetaMed, Vator, Palantir Technologies, IronPort, Votizen, Asana, Big Think, Caplinked, Quora, Nanotronics Imaging, Rypple, TransferWise, and Stripe. Slide, LinkedIn, Geni.com, and Yammer were founded by Thiel's former colleagues at PayPal: Slide by Max Levchin, Linkedin by Reid Hoffman, Yelp by Jeremy Stoppelman, and Geni.com and Yammer by David O. Sacks. Fortune magazine reports that PayPal alumni have founded or invested in dozens of startups with an aggregate value of around $30 billion. In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia", as noted in the Fortune magazine article.[44]

Through Valar Ventures, an internationally focused venture firm he cofounded with Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald,[45] Thiel was also an early investor in Xero, a software firm headquartered in New Zealand.[46]

In June 2012, Peter Thiel launched Mithril Capital Management, named after the fictitious metal in The Lord of the Rings, with Jim O'Neill and Ajay Royan. Unlike Clarium Capital, Mithril Capital, a fund with $402 million at the time of launch, targets companies that are beyond the startup stage and ready to scale up.[47][48]

In March 2015, it was announced that Thiel joined Y Combinator as one of 10 part-time partners.[49]

Thiel carries out most of his philanthropic activities through a nonprofit foundation created by him called the Thiel Foundation.[50]

Thiel devotes much of his philanthropic efforts to potential breakthrough technologies. In November 2010, Thiel organized a Breakthrough Philanthropy conference that showcased eight nonprofits that he believed were working on radical new ideas in technology, government, and human affairs.[51] A similar conference was organized in December 2011 with the name "Fast Forward".[52]

Thiel believes in the importance and desirability of a technological singularity.[53] In February 2006, Thiel provided $100,000 of matching funds to back the Singularity Challenge donation drive of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (then known as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence). Additionally, he joined the Institute's advisory board and participated in the May 2006 Singularity Summit at Stanford as well as at the 2011 Summit held in New York City.

In May 2007, Thiel provided half of the $400,000 matching funds for the annual Singularity Challenge donation drive.

In December 2015 it was announced that Thiel is one of the financial backers of OpenAI, a non-profit company aimed at the safe development of artificial general intelligence.[54]

When asked What is the biggest achievement that you havent achieved yet? by the moderator of a discussion panel at the Venture Alpha West 2014 conference, Thiel replied, Certainly, the area that Im very passionate about is trying to do something to really get some progress on the anti-aging and longevity front, describing it as a massively under-studied, under-invested phenomena [sic].[55]

In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to foster anti-aging research through the Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation.[56] He gave the following reasons for his pledge: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. Im backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones."

The Thiel Foundation supports the research of the SENS Research Foundation, headed by Dr. de Grey, that is working to achieve the reversal of biological aging. The Thiel Foundation also supports the work of anti-aging researcher Cynthia Kenyon.

Thiel said that he registered to be cryonically preserved, meaning that he would be subject to low-temperature preservation in case of his legal death in hopes that he might be successfully revived by future medical technology.[14]

On April 15, 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the new Seasteading Institute, directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems".[57] This was followed in February 2010 by a subsequent grant of $250,000, and an additional $100,000 in matching funds.[58]

In a talk at the Seasteading Institute conference in November 2009, Thiel explained why he believed that seasteading was necessary for the future of humanity.[59]

In 2011, Thiel was reported as having given a total of $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute.[60] According to the Daily Mail, he was inspired to do so by Ayn Rand's philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged.[61]

On September 29, 2010, Thiel created the Thiel Fellowship, which annually awards $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 20 in order to spur them to drop out of college and create their own ventures.[62][63] According to Thiel, for many young people, college is the path to take when they have no idea what to do with their lives:

I feel I was personally very guilty of this; you dont know what to do with your life, so you get a college degree; you dont know what youre going to do with your college degree, so you get a graduate degree. In my case it was law school, which is the classic thing one does when one has no idea what else to do. I dont have any big regrets, but if I had to do it over I would try to think more about the future than I did at the time ... You cannot get out of student debt even if you personally go bankrupt, it's a form of almost like indentured servitude, it's attached to your physical person for the rest of your life.[14]

In October 2011, the Thiel Foundation announced the creation of Breakout Labs, a grant-making program intended to fund early-stage scientific research that may be too radical for traditional scientific funding bodies but also too long-term and speculative for venture investors.[64] In April 2012, Breakout Labs announced its first set of grantees.[65]

The Thiel Foundation is also a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal,[66] and the Human Rights Foundation, which organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum.[67]

In 2011, Thiel made a NZ$1 million donation to an appeal fund for the casualties of the Christchurch earthquake.[68]

In May 2016, Thiel confirmed in an interview with The New York Times that he had paid $10 million in legal expenses to finance several lawsuits brought by others, including a lawsuit by Terry Bollea ("Hulk Hogan") against Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and infringement of personality rights after Gawker made public sections of a sex tape involving Bollea.[69] The jury awarded Bollea $140 million, and Gawker announced it was permanently shutting its doors due to the lawsuit in August 2016.[70] Thiel referred to his financial support of Bollea's case as one of the "greater philanthropic things that I've done."[71]

Thiel said he was motivated to sue Gawker after they published a 2007 article publicly outing him, which concluded with the statement "Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay. More power to him." Thiel and the author of the article agreed that he was already openly gay, but Thiel stated that Gawker articles about others, including his friends, had "ruined people's lives for no reason," and said, "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence."[71]

In response to criticism that his funding of lawsuits against Gawker would restrict the freedom of the press, Thiel cited his donations to the Committee to Protect Journalists and stated, "I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations. I think much more highly of journalists than that. It's precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker."[71]

On August 15, 2016, Thiel published an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he argued that his defense of online privacy went beyond Gawker.[72] He highlighted his support for the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, and asserted that athletes and business executives have the right to stay in the closet as long as they want to.[72]

A devoted libertarian,[73] Thiel expounded his views on the future of both the libertarian movement and politics in the United States in general in an article published by Cato Unbound on April 13, 2009, stating:

I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself "libertarian."

But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible ... The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.[74]

On September 22, 2010, Thiel said at a 2010 fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights:

Gay marriage cant be a partisan issue because as long as there are partisan issues or cultural issues in this country, youll have trench warfare like on the western front in World War I. Youll have lots of carnage and no progress.[75]

In 2011, he wrote an editorial in National Review on the slowdown of technological progress and the state of modern Western civilization:

Most of our political leaders are not engineers or scientists and do not listen to engineers or scientists. Today a letter from Einstein would get lost in the White House mail room, and the Manhattan Project would not even get started; it certainly could never be completed in three years. I am not aware of a single political leader in the U.S., either Democrat or Republican, who would cut health-care spending in order to free up money for biotechnology research or, more generally, who would make serious cuts to the welfare state in order to free up serious money for major engineering projects...

Men reached the moon in July 1969, and Woodstock began three weeks later. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this was when the hippies took over the country, and when the true cultural war over Progress was lost. Today's aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse.[76]

In a 2014 episode of "Conversations with Bill Kristol," Thiel spoke at length on what he sees to be a crisis in American higher education:

The university system in 2014, it's like the Catholic Church circa 1514. ... You have this priestly class of professors that doesn't do very much work; people are buying indulgences in the form of amassing enormous debt for the sort of the secular salvation that a diploma represents. And what I think is also similar to the 16th century is that the Reformation will come largely from the outside.[77]

Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, a private, annual gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders and business executives.[78]

Thiel, who himself is gay,[79][80] has supported gay rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.[81] He invited conservative columnist Ann Coulter, who is a friend of his, to Homocon 2010 as a guest speaker.[82][83][84] Coulter later dedicated her 2011 book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, to Thiel.[85] Thiel is also mentioned in the acknowledgments of Coulter's Adios, America!: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.[86] In 2012, Thiel donated $10,000 to Minnesotans United for All Families, in order to fight Minnesota Amendment 1.[87]

In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund college student James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video a satirical look at the Wall Street bailout.[88] O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos but, through a spokesperson, Thiel denied involvement in the ACORN sting.[88]

In July 2012, Thiel made a $1 million donation to the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative 501(c)4, becoming the group's largest contributor.[89]

A member of the Libertarian Party until 2016,[90][91] Thiel contributes to Libertarian and Republican candidates and causes.[92]

In December 2007, Thiel endorsed Ron Paul for President.[93] After Paul failed to secure the Republican nomination, Thiel contributed to the John McCain campaign.[94]

In 2010, Thiel supported Meg Whitman in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.[95]

In 2012, Thiel, along with Luke Nosek and Scott Banister, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC. Collectively Thiel et al. gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Ron Paul for president in 2012. As of January 31, 2012, Endorse Liberty reported spending about $3.3 million promoting Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, buying ads from Google, Facebook and StumbleUpon, and building a presence on the Web.[96] At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Thiel held a private meeting with Rand Paul and Ron Paul's presidential delegates to discuss "the future of the Liberty Movement."[97] After Ron Paul again failed to secure the Republican nomination for president, Thiel contributed to the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan presidential ticket of 2012.[94]

Thiel initially supported Carly Fiorina campaign during the 2016 GOP presidential primary elections.[98] After Fiorina dropped out, Thiel supported Donald Trump and became one of the pledged California delegates for Trump's nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He was also a headline speaker during the convention, during which he announced that he was "proud to be gay".[99][100] On October 15, 2016, Thiel announced a $1.25 million donation in support of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.[101] Thiel stated to The New York Times: "I didnt give him any money for a long time because I didnt think it mattered, and then the campaign asked me to."[102] After Trump's victory, Thiel was named to the executive committee of the President-elect's transition team.[103]

Other politicians Thiel has contributed donations to include:[94]

A German citizen by birth and an American citizen by naturalization, Thiel became a New Zealand citizen in 2011 and owns a 193 hectare (477 acre) estate near Lake Wanaka.[104] In January 2017, questions were raised in the New Zealand media about the decision to grant him New Zealand citizenship.[105] Thiel was given a special fast track to citizenship by the then government minister, under a clause in the relevant legislation, despite having visited the country on only four occasions prior to his application.[106] When he applied, he stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand.[107]

Thiel is a self-described Christian and a promoter of Ren Girard's Christian anthropology.[108] He grew up in an evangelical household but, as of 2011, describes his religious beliefs as "somewhat heterodox," and stated: "I believe Christianity is true but I don't sort of feel a compelling need to convince other people of that."[31]

During his time at Stanford University, Thiel attended a lecture given by Ren Girard. Girard, a Catholic, explained the role of sacrifice and the scapegoat mechanism in resolving social conflict, which appealed to Thiel as it offered a basis for his Christian faith without the fundamentalism of his parents.[109]

A former chess prodigy,[112][113] Thiel began playing chess at the age of 6, and in 1979 was ranked the seventh strongest U.S. chess player in the under-13 category.[16] According to ChessBase, he also was "one of the highest ranked under-21 players in the country" at one period of time.[114] He reached a peak USCF rating of 2342 in 1992, and holds the title of Life Master.[111] His FIDE rating is 2199 as of 2017, though he no longer participates in tournaments.[110]

On November 30, 2016, Thiel made the ceremonial first move in the tie-break game of the World Chess Championship 2016 between Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen.[113][115]

Thiel is an occasional commentator on CNBC, having appeared on both Closing Bell with Kelly Evans, and Squawk Box with Becky Quick.[116] He has been interviewed twice by Charlie Rose on PBS.[117] He has also contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Forbes, and Policy Review, a journal formerly published by the Hoover Institution, on whose board he sits.

In The Social Network, Thiel was portrayed by Wallace Langham.[118] He described the film as "wrong on many levels".[119]

Thiel was the inspiration for the Peter Gregory character on HBO's Silicon Valley.[120] Thiel said of Gregory, "I liked him. ... I think eccentric is always better than evil".[121]

Jonas Lscher stated in an interview with Basellandschaftliche Zeitung that he based the character Tobias Erkner in his novel Kraft ("Force") on Thiel.[122]

Thiel received a co-producer credit for Thank You for Smoking, a 2005 feature film based on Christopher Buckley's 1994 novel of the same name.[123]

In 2006, Thiel won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship.[124]

In 2007, he was honored as a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 most distinguished leaders age 40 and under.[125]

On November 7, 2009, Thiel was awarded an honorary degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquin.[126]

In 2012, Students For Liberty, an organization dedicated to spreading libertarian ideals on college campuses, awarded Thiel its "Alumnus of the Year" award.[127]

In February 2013, Thiel received a TechCrunch Crunchie Award for Venture Capitalist of the Year.[128]

In 1995, the Independent Institute published The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which Thiel co-authored along with David O. Sacks, and with a foreword by the late Emory University historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.[129] The book is critical of political correctness and multiculturalism in higher education and the consequent dilution of academic rigor. Thiel and Sacks' writings drew criticism from then-Stanford Provost (and later President George W. Bush's National Security Advisor) Condoleezza Rice, with Rice joining then-Stanford President Gerhard Casper in describing Thiel and Sacks' view of Stanford as "a cartoon, not a description of our freshman curriculum"[130] and their commentary as "demagoguery, pure and simple."[131]

In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements he made in the book: 1) "The purpose of the rape crisis movement seems as much about vilifying men as about raising 'awareness'" and 2) "But since a multicultural rape charge may indicate nothing more than belated regret, a woman might 'realize' that she had been 'raped' the next day or even many days later." He stated: "More than two decades ago, I co-wrote a book with several insensitive, crudely argued statements. As Ive said before, I wish Id never written those things. Im sorry for it. Rape in all forms is a crime. I regret writing passages that have been taken to suggest otherwise."[132]

In Spring 2012, Thiel taught CS 183: Startup at Stanford University.[133] Notes for the course, taken by student Blake Masters, led to a book titled Zero to One by Thiel and Masters, which was released in September 2014.[134][135][136]

Derek Thompson, writing for The Atlantic, stated Zero to One "might be the best business book I've read". He described it as a "self-help book for entrepreneurs, bursting with bromides" but also as a "lucid and profound articulation of capitalism and success in the 21st century economy."[137]

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Floating City Project Wants To Make A "Deregulated" Hub Of Scientific Research – IFLScience

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In the hopes of rising above the laws and regulations of terrestrial nations, a group has bold plans to build a floating city in Tahiti, French Polynesia. It might sound a bit like the start of a sci-fi dystopia (in fact, this is the basic premise behind the video game Bioshock), but the brains behind the project say their techno-libertarian community could become a paradise for technological entrepreneurship and scientific innovation.

The Seasteading Institute was set up in 2008 by software engineer, poker player, and political economic theorist Patri Friedman, withfunding from billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel. Both ardent libertarians, their wide-eyed mission is to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems."

Seasteading will create unique opportunities for aquaculture, vertical farming, and scientific and engineering research into ecology, wave energy, medicine, nanotechnology, computer science, marine structures, biofuels, etc, their website reads.

Their vision consists of multiple reinforced concrete platforms, approximately 50-by-50 meters (164-by-164 feet) in size each, out at sea. The platforms will be able to sustain three-story buildings, along with parks, offices, and apartments for people to live in. For starters, it will be home to at least 250 residents. Ideally, the whole settlement will also be powered by renewable energy too.

The settlement will still need to follow international laws, but the institute hope to have minimal governmental regulations, meaning scientific research and entrepreneurship arenot hindered byred tape.

Accelerating innovation is rapidly transforming the world: The Seasteading Institute will help bring more of that innovation to the public sector, where its vitally needed, Thiel boldly said in astatement.

Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world."

The Seasteading Institute has already set up an agreement (PDF) with the French Polynesian government. By the end of this year, they have to provide the government with studies on the environment and economic considerations of the city, from which the government will reply with the appropriate legislative framework. Eventually, they will act as a host nation to the city.

Even those working on the project say this is technically possible, although currently expensive and dauntingly difficult. Like many of these ambitious futuristic plans that come with dozens of impressiveartist's impressions, the whole thing could easily just remain a pipe dream.

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There’s A New Magazine Dedicated Entirely To Redheads, And You Definitely Need To Check It Out – Maxim

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Maxim
There's A New Magazine Dedicated Entirely To Redheads, And You Definitely Need To Check It Out
Maxim
Named after the gene that causes red hair, MC1R is a biannually published magazine dedicated entirely to gingers, created by lighting design student, Tristan Rodgers, who hopes the magazine will help better represent gingers in the fashion industry.

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There's A New Magazine Dedicated Entirely To Redheads, And You Definitely Need To Check It Out - Maxim

Jack Phillips Heads to the Red Carpet in Nashville! – KSST (press release) (registration) (blog)

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Not many 12-year-olds get the thrill of being nominated for a national music award, but Hopkins Countys Jack Phillips is among nine young finalists in the Josie Awards country category. As a finalist, he was recently interviewed live by phone by founder Josie Pasantino. Within the last few years, the Josie Awards has begun to fill a niche by recognizing the top independent artists in all music genres. The awards show is a glittering gala event bringing the best to one stage in Nashville, Tennessee. For 2017, the event will take place at Nissan Stadium on Sunday September 17 and will be televised on the Josie Network. In addition to Traditional and Modern Country categories, Pop/Contemporary, R&B/Soul, Folk/Bluegrass, Gospel/Country Gospel, Southern Rock, Jazz/Blues, Outlaw Country, Tribute Category, Songs of America and Multi-Genre Music categories will be represented. The red carpet will be rolled out for the top artists in each category.

In a KSST Good Morning Show interview, we found out that Jack and his parents Mark and Allison Phillips of Sulphur Bluff are unsure of how the Josie Award nomination came about. They believe the nominator might have been a bandleader or instructor that Jack has worked with since January 2017. Jack received the news while out on the road, and he has spent much of the summer on the road playing numerous dances and attending music camps. In fact, the family has logged over 12,000 Texas and Oklahoma miles on his dads new pickup since February 2017. And riding in the back seat, while practicing his guitar, fiddles and mandolin, Jack has been dreaming of walking down that red carpet! While in Nashville, he also plans to visit the Grand Ole Opry and tour the Opry museum.

Jack began playing the fiddle at about age 6, first taking formal lessons from a teacher in Winnsboro. Today he receives weekly training from Western Swing instrumentalist Hank Singer of Corsicana and he attends week-long music camps hosted by Western Swing and country bandleaders. Earlier this year, his first CD Jack Phillips was released. For gigs, his two favorite fiddles are carried in a double case. One was made in 1917 and Jack loves its rich tone. While traveling in the truck, Jack practices with a small size guitar that fits the tight space, often playing along to songs on Willies Roadhouse for 3-4 hours at a time. His dream is to play on the Grand Ole Opry stage someday. With the help of his parents, hes kept up a heavy summer travel schedule. Over the next 10 days he will appear on Industrys Four County Opry near Houston, will play for a dance at the Longhorn Saloon in the Ft. Worth Stockyards and will appear on the Bluebonnet Youth Revue at Schroeder Hall in Goliad, the oldest dance hall in Texas. On August 5, he is invited to be part of the band celebrating the 90th birthday of Leon Rausch, famed vocalist for Bob Wills. And Jack will soon head back to class at Sulphur Bluff ISD where he has been an Honor Roll student.

As a supplement to the points system in the Josie Awards, the Fan Choice nominations are still open through July 31. Comments about Jack and his music may be posted. Go to josiemusicawards.com, go to the Fans Choice Nomination tab at the top of the page, and post your comment. Also, find out more about Jack, order his CD and view his bookings at jackphillipsmusic.com

Author: Enola Gay

Has enjoyed working for KSST since 1989. Hosts the Good Morning Show with Enola Gay on weekday mornings from 6-9am, so 'start your day with Enola Gay'! Guest interviews during the Morning Show can also be seen in playback on Cable Channel 18 TV. Along with local country music fan Benny Potter, co-produces 1230 West, a Country and Western Swing radio show which airs weekly on Saturdays from 7-8am and repeats on Thursdays from 7-8pm. Also writes "At the Corral Gate", a column appearing weekly in The Millennium Shopper and in the Lifestyles section of ksstradio.com.

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Jack Phillips Heads to the Red Carpet in Nashville! - KSST (press release) (registration) (blog)

China Ramping Up Quest to Become a Space Science Superpower – Scientific American

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Time seems to move faster at the National Space Science Center on the outskirts of Beijing. Researchers are rushing around this brand-new compound of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in anticipation of the launch of the nation's first X-ray telescope. At mission control, a gigantic screen plays a looping video showcasing the country's major space milestones. Engineers focus intently on their computer screens while a state television crew orbits the room with cameras, collecting footage for a documentary about China's meteoric rise as a space power. The walls are festooned with motivational slogans. Diligent and meticulous, says one. No single failure in 10,000 trials, encourages another.

For director-general Wu Ji, this 19.4-hectare, 914-million-yuan (US$135-million) campus represents the coming of age of China's space-science efforts. In the past few decades, Wu says, China has built the capacity to place satellites and astronauts in orbit and send spacecraft to the Moon, but it has not done much significant research from its increasingly lofty vantage point. Now, that is changing. As far as space science is concerned, he says, we are the new kid on the block.

China is rushing to establish itself as a leader in the field. In 2013, a 1.2-tonne spacecraft called Chang'e-3 landed on the Moon, delivering a rover that used ground-penetrating radar to measure the lunar subsurface with unprecedented resolution. China's latest space lab, which launched in September 2016, carries more than a dozen scientific payloads. And four additional missions dedicated to astrophysics and other fields have been sent into orbit in the past two years, including a spacecraft that is conducting pioneering experiments in quantum communication.

These efforts, the work of the CAS and other agencies, have made an impact well beyond the country's borders. The space-science programme in China is extremely dynamic and innovative, says Johann-Dietrich Wrner, director-general of the European Space Agency (ESA) in Paris. It's at the forefront of scientific discovery. Eagerly anticipated missions in the coming decade include attempts to bring back lunar samples, a joint CASESA project to study space weather and ground-breaking missions to probe dark matter and black holes.

But despite the momentum, many researchers in China worry about the nation's future in space science. On July 2, a Long March-5 rocket failed during the launch of a communications satellite, raising concerns about an upcoming Moon mission that will use a similar vehicle. And broader issues cloud the horizon. The international and domestic challenges are formidable, says Li Chunlai, deputy director at the CAS's National Astronomical Observatories in Beijing and a senior science adviser on the country's lunar program. China is often sidelined in international collaboration, and in recent years it has had to compete with the United States for partners because of a US law that prohibits NASA from working with China. Within China, the government has not conducted strategic planning for space science or provided long-term financial support. The question is not how well China has been doing, says Li. But how long this will last.

China's entry into the space age started with a song. In 1970, the country's first satellite transmitted the patriotic tune 'The East is Red' from low Earth orbit. But it was only after the cultural revolution ended in 1976 that the nation made serious progress towards establishing a strong presence in space. The first major milestone came in 1999 with the launch of Shenzhou-1, an uncrewed test capsule that marked the start of the human space-flight programme. Since then, the country has notched up a series of successes, including sending Chinese astronauts into orbit and launching two space labs.

China's space programme has made tremendous advances in a short period of time, says Michael Moloney, who directs boards covering aerospace and space science at the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington DC. And science has progressively become a bigger part of missions run by both the China National Space Administration (CNSA), which governs lunar and planetary exploration, and the China Manned Space Agency. The country's newest space lab, Tiangong-2, for example, hosts a number of scientific payloads, including an advanced atomic clock and a $3.4-million detector called POLAR for the study of -ray bursts blasts of high-energy radiation from collapsing stars and other sources.

The country's first lunar forays orbiters launched in 2007 and 2010 were more engineering demonstrations than scientific missions, but that changed with the first lander, Chang'e-3. The mission made China the third nation to accomplish a soft landing on the Moon. More importantly, Chang'e-3 touched down in an area that had never been studied up close. Radar measurements and geochemical analyses unveiled a complex history of volcanic eruptions that could have happened as recently as 2 billion years ago1. It has really helped to bridge the gap in our understanding of the Moon's past and deep structure, says study leader Xiao Long, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan.

The results have captured the attention of planetary scientists in other countries. There is an urgent need to determine the precise age and composition of the Moon's youngest volcanism, says James Head, a specialist in planetary exploration at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. This might soon be possible. As early as December, the Chang'e-5 spacecraft will launch on a mission to return samples from near Mons Rmker, a region known to host volcanic rocks much younger than those obtained from the Apollo landing sites. It would be a fantastic addition to lunar science, Head says.

The rising fortunes of Chinese space science have come in part from efforts by the CAS, which worked through the 2000s to convince China's government to boost the scientific impact of its missions. The academy's efforts were eventually rewarded with a pot of money: the five-year Strategic Priority Program on Space Science kicked off in 2011 and provided $510 million for the development of four science satellites.

One of the missions that has yielded early results and garnered worldwide attention is the $100-million Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) mission. The spacecraft launched in August 2016 and has been testing a peculiar phenomenon called entanglement, in which the quantum states of particles are linked to each other even if the particles are far apart. Last month, the QUESS team reported that it had used the satellite to beam a pair of entangled photons to two ground stations spaced 1,200 kilometers apart2 far exceeding an earlier record of 144 kilometers (ref. 3).

The team is also using the satellite to test the possibility of establishing a quantum-communication channel between Graz, near Vienna, and Beijing. The aim is to transmit information securely by encrypting it with a key encoded in the states of photons. If successful, a global quantum-communication network will no longer be a science fiction, says Pan Jian-wei, a physicist at the CAS's University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and the mission's principal investigator.

Researchers are also expecting great things from the $300-million Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE). The detector, which launched in 2015, is the most cutting-edge equipment for picking up high-energy cosmic rays, says Martin Pohl, an astrophysicist at University of Geneva in Switzerland and a co-principal investigator of the mission.

DAMPE's data could help to determine whether a surprising pattern in the abundance of high-energy electrons and positrons detected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) aboard the International Space Station comes from dark matter or from astronomical sources such as pulsars, says Pohl, who also works on the AMS. Because DAMPE is more sensitive than the AMS to high-energy particles, Pohl says, it will make a significant contribution.

The dark-matter and quantum missions launched just before the CAS's space-science funding expired. Scientists, including Wu, had to battle for continued support. The Chinese government has lately prioritized applied research, and it took intense lobbying for the better part of 2016 before researchers convinced the government to allocate an additional $730 million to the CAS for space science over the next five years. It was not without a fight, Wu says. But we've managed to pull it off.

The new plan, which began this year, funds a number of missions slated for launch in the 2020s, including China's first solar exploration mission and a remote-sensing spacecraft to study Earth's water cycle.

The CNSA and the China Manned Space Agency have also been ramping up their space-science efforts. One source of excitement is a $440-million X-ray telescope led by the CNSA, called Enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP). Planned for launch by 2025, the mission is being financed in part by European partners and involves hundreds of scientists from 20 countries. It is designed to study matter under extreme conditions of density, gravity and magnetism that can be found only in space in the interior of neutron stars or around black holes, for instance.

The most innovative aspect of the satellite is its ability to simultaneously measure with high precision the timing, energy distribution and polarization of X-ray signals, which will provide insight into a range of X-ray sources, says co-principal investigator Marco Feroci, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Space Astrophysics and Planetology in Rome. eXTP will also carry a wide-field telescope to hunt for unusual, transient signals. Once it finds a potentially interesting source, all the other instruments will be zoomed in that direction, says Zhang Shuangnan, an astrophysicist at the CAS's Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing, who is leading the mission. It's the total weapon for X-ray astronomy.

Work is also progressing on projects led by the China Manned Space Agency. One is a dark-matter detector that has 15 times the sensitivity of DAMPE; it's set to be installed on China's permanent space station, which is slated for completion by 2022. There are also plans for a $730-million optical telescope to orbit near the space station. With a field of view 300 times that of the Hubble telescope, it will produce survey data that could be ideal for studying dark matter and dark energy as well as hunting for exoplanets, says Gu Yidong, a physicist at the CAS's Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization in Beijing and a senior science adviser to the China Manned Space Agency.

Such projects suggest that collaboration is strengthening between the CAS and China's other agencies involved with space. And a similar spirit is reflected abroad. China's space programme has become increasingly confident and outward looking, says Wrner. In the past, announcements were made only after a mission was successful; now, China routinely broadcasts launches as they happen. And Chinese scientists are increasingly reaching out to their international colleagues, building ties through small-scale partnerships.

Most major CAS-led missions have European partners, with collaborations initiated by researchers on both sides. But ESA hopes to establish high-level cooperation with the rising space power. In early 2015, ESA and the CAS issued a call for proposals for space-science missions. They selected a project called Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), to be led jointly and funded with $53 million from each group. The agencies work intimately together at every stage of the development, says Wu.

ESA and China collaborated more than a decade ago on a project called Double Star to study magnetic storms, but it was a China-led mission. Through SMILE, the agencies are testing a new, more intimate cooperation model. It's about building trust and bridges, so we could better understand each other, says Fabio Favata, head of strategy planning and coordination at ESA. Hopefully, this will open the way for larger-scale cooperation in the future.

A nation that is notably absent from China's current list of collaborators is the United States. In the past, China contributed key components to NASA missions. But NASA is now forbidden from such collaboration by a US law passed in 2011, and as a result China is excluded from participation in the International Space Station. On board is a product of earlier collaboration between the United States, China and a number of other countries the AMS.

Representatives from NASA and Chinese agencies still visit each other regularly. But with no official cooperation possible, there may be some inevitable replication of effort. In March, STROBE-X (Spectroscopic Time-Resolving Observatory for Broadband Energy X-rays) a project similar to China's eXTP mission was selected by NASA for further study. STROBE-X could launch by 2030, some five years after eXTP. Having two very similar missions at the same time is not ideal, says Colleen Wilson-Hodge, an astrophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and a member of the STROBE-X team. I wish there were a way we could all work together rather than competing with each other.

For China's space scientists, however, the main challenge is to convince their own government of the need for long-term investment. Zhang, the leader of several astrophysics missions including eXTP, refers to the situation as a constant state of zhaobu baoxi, which translates as not knowing where the next meal will come from. We'll be safe for another five years, he says. But nobody knows what will happen afterwards.

Feats of engineering and exploration still get priority over science. The Chinese space station, for instance, has a budget of $14.5 billion. But even though Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that the station will be China's national laboratory in space, there is no dedicated fund for the development of its scientific payloads. The station might support science as Tiangong-2 does, providing power and communications to various experiments. But there is also the danger, Zhang says, that it will be a house without furniture.

At China's sprawling National Space Science Center, the furniture is new, and the air still smells of fresh paint. Having secured the next bout of funding, Wu looks relaxed as he settles into a big leather armchair behind his desk. He acknowledges the institutional flaws but is optimistic about the future. So far, so good, he says, glancing at the satellite models that line his shelves. We can't expect things to change overnight.

This article is reproduced with permission and wasfirst publishedon July 27, 2017.

Continued here:

China Ramping Up Quest to Become a Space Science Superpower - Scientific American

How prepared are we for an asteroid impact? NASA is conducting a test to find out – SFGate

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This photo depicts the safe flyby of asteroid 2012 TC4 as it passes under Earth on Oct. 12, 2017. While scientists cannot yet predict exactly how close it will approach, they are certain it will come no closer than 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers) from Earth's surface.

This photo depicts the safe flyby of asteroid 2012 TC4 as it passes under Earth on Oct. 12, 2017. While scientists cannot yet predict exactly how close it will approach, they are certain it will come no closer

No photos of asteroid 2012 TC4 exist, but this image of Itokawa, another near-Earth asteroid, helps visualize its approximate size: next to Itokawa, which is a third of a mile long, TC4 would appear about the same size as the 'bunny tail' feature visible on the left.

No photos of asteroid 2012 TC4 exist, but this image of Itokawa, another near-Earth asteroid, helps visualize its approximate size: next to Itokawa, which is a third of a mile long, TC4 would appear about the

On Oct. 12, 2017, asteroid 2012 TC4 will safely fly past Earth. Even though scientists cannot yet predict exactly how close it will approach, they are certain it will come no closer to Earth than 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers).

On Oct. 12, 2017, asteroid 2012 TC4 will safely fly past Earth. Even though scientists cannot yet predict exactly how close it will approach, they are certain it will come no closer to Earth than 4,200 miles

GALLERY: NASA's costliest space missions

GALLERY: NASA's costliest space missions

Date:2012-`

Mission:Explore Mars.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$2.6 billion

Date:2012-`

Mission:Explore Mars.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$2.6 billion

Date: 1958-1963

Mission: Put an American into Earth's orbit before the Soviet Union.

Cost in 2017 dollars: $2.13 billion

Date: 1958-1963

Mission: Put an American into Earth's orbit before the Soviet Union.

Cost in 2017 dollars: $2.13 billion

Project Gemini

Date:1962-1967

Mission:Develop technology and practice manuevers that would be used to go to the Moon.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$9.4 billion

Project Gemini

Date:1962-1967

Mission:Develop technology and practice manuevers that would be used to go to the Moon.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$9.4 billion

Date:1961-1972

Mission: Land the first humans on the Moon.

Cost in 2017 dollars: $162.4billion

Date:1961-1972

Mission: Land the first humans on the Moon.

Cost in 2017 dollars: $162.4billion

Date:2011-2017

Mission:Explore Jupiter

Cost in 2017 dollars:$1.21 billion

Date:2011-2017

Mission:Explore Jupiter

Cost in 2017 dollars:$1.21 billion

Date:1998-

Mission: Establish a oribiting science laboratory

Cost in 2017 dollars:$148 billion

Date:1998-

Mission: Establish a oribiting science laboratory

Cost in 2017 dollars:$148 billion

Date:1981-2011

Mission:Carry cargo and astronauts into low Earth orbit

Cost in 2017 dollars:$232.7 billion

Date:1981-2011

Mission:Carry cargo and astronauts into low Earth orbit

Cost in 2017 dollars:$232.7 billion

Date:Set to launch in 2018

Mission:Replace the Hubble telescope

Cost in 2017 dollars:$8.8 billion

Date:Set to launch in 2018

Mission:Replace the Hubble telescope

Cost in 2017 dollars:$8.8 billion

Date:1997-2017

Mission:Explore Saturn and its moons.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$4.59 billion

Date:1997-2017

Mission:Explore Saturn and its moons.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$4.59 billion

Date:1977-

Mission:Explore outer planets and beyond.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$3.9 billion

Date:1977-

Mission:Explore outer planets and beyond.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$3.9 billion

Date:1975-1982

Mission:Explore Mars.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$4.5 billion

Date:1975-1982

Mission:Explore Mars.

Cost in 2017 dollars:$4.5 billion

How prepared are we for an asteroid impact? NASA is conducting a test to find out

In the event of an impending asteroid impact, just how prepared are the inhabitants of Earth? NASA hopes to find out in an upcoming exercise using an actual space rock.

The asteroid 2012 TC4 will pass close to Earth as it hurls through the great beyond. As this is astronomy, which deals in light years and universes, close means about 4,200 miles from the planet's surface, at best.

Dozens of observatories, universities and labs around the world will participate in the preparatory exercise on Oct. 12, which is intended to uncover the "strengths and limitations of our planetary defense capabilities," said Vishnu Reddy, a University of Arizona professor and coordinator of the upcoming campaign, in a press release.

NASA has rehearsed preparedness for an asteroid impact in the past, but using only hypothetical impactors. Reddy proposed to enhance the reality of the exercise by centering it around the approach of a real near-Earth asteroid (NEA).

The effort begins by pinning down the NEA's exact path (uncertainty in an asteroid's orbit increases as time passes). Then, various drills, such as deflection, evacuation and disaster relief, will be rehearsed by the coordinating agencies in the hopes of avoiding a future "Armageddon"-esque disaster.

ReadMichelle Robertsons latest storiesandsend her news tips atmrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

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How prepared are we for an asteroid impact? NASA is conducting a test to find out - SFGate