Monthly Archives: May 2020

Scott Kelly is a retired NASA astronaut who has been to space four times, including a 340-day trip on the International Space Station. He is the author of the book "Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery"

Kelly spoke with Business Insider about his experience in space and shares lessons he learned that also apply to the isolation many are struggling with during the coronavirus pandemic. He also shares his thoughts on the future of space travel. Following is a transcript of the video.

Sara Silverstein: Before we get your tips, as a lot of us are dealing with being cooped up in our own homes after many, many weeks, I don't want to try to compare the two. So let's give a little bit of perspective and how much space did you have while you were living in space, and what limitations did you have as far as diet and water?

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly enjoys his first drink from the new ISSpresso machine aboard the International Space Station on May 3, 2016. NASA/Reuters Scott Kelly: Well, space-wise I actually had more space on the space station than I do in my apartment here in Houston. It's a big place. Now, having said that, it's filled with a lot of stuff, but you have more usable room when you can float above your head, use the space towards the ceiling. But there are a lot of similarities between this situation, being isolated, kind of being cut off a little bit from society, as what I experienced on the International Space Station. And one of them is the fact that we are all part of the same mission now. One thing that makes getting through your time in space easier is recognizing that you're there for a reason, an important reason, a purpose. And that's the same case in this situation. We are following the guidance, the guidelines as best. At least we should be doing that, because that's our job and it's our responsibility not only to ourselves, but to our family, but also to every other citizen of this planet.

Silverstein: And so talk us through some of the tricks you learned to pass the time while you were stuck in the space station.

Kelly: Yeah. So I flew a six month flight, nearly six months, before I flew for a year. And when I did that, as I was getting towards the end, I was feeling a little bit of anxiety, like the walls were closing and I was ready for it to be done. And then when I got home, I had the opportunity to fly in space again, but this time for twice as long. Initially it didn't appeal to me, but I thought about it some more. I wanted to find space again. I wanted it to be different and I wanted it to be more challenging. And I came to the conclusion that this was the flight for me. But I went into it with a lot of thought and consideration for how I could get to the end with as much energy and enthusiasm as I had in the beginning.

So I came up with a plan. And part of my plan was maintaining a very, very rigid, rigid schedule. Easy to do when you're working for NASA and they build your schedule, but taking that very seriously as a schedule that has a variety of activities on it during the week, from work to taking care of your environment, making sure it's clean. We have to do that now. In this situation, I kind of treat the front door of my house kind of like an airlock right now where the bad stuff stays outside, good stuff comes inside. Those two will not cross. So having this schedule that has time for rest, time for work, consistent sleep times, exercise. In this case, in this situation at least we can go outside and get some light and some fresh air, which is important. Couldn't do that in space. But the schedule was important. Having a weekend that's different from the weekends was critical because it gave something for me to look forward to at the end of the week.

I tried not to count the days I was there. I definitely didn't count down. And I think it's important we do that in this situation because this situation is ... Some people think this is over, this is not over. We will be living in this new reality in some form or the other for quite some time. So I look at this like this is my life. This is what I have to do because it's my job, which is following the guidance and the direction that we get. It will be over someday. Not sure when it is, but I am not going to count the days. I could not tell you how many weeks I've been doing this. I can't even tell you what month I started this, I don't think, because it's not the way I look at it, it's not the way I want to look at it.

Silverstein: And how do you differentiate the weekends from the weekdays in space?

Kelly: Well, in space, one of the days you devote to cleaning the place in space, virus and bacteria grow easily. You put your hands on a lot of things, your immune system is suppressed very much like this situation. When you're in isolation, anxiety, fatigue suppresses your immune system. Same thing in space. So on the weekends we clean all house and then we leave Sunday for just rest. So yeah, our weekend days are structured much differently. Now, I understand, I get it. Everyone's not in the same situation. I have advice and some people this advice is not important to because they're worried about when they're going to be able to get some money to feed their kids. I get it. So these are just the things that worked for me. And maybe some people could take some of this advice and have it help them through the situation. But I absolutely recognize that everyone's situation is different.

Silverstein: Absolutely. And you've mentioned before journaling was something that you did regularly while you were in space. Did that help you get through the time?

Kelly: Well, I did that mostly because I felt like I might want to write a book after it and I wanted the experience and the thoughts and ideas to be fresh. So I decided to write them in my free time on the space station. But I also found that it was kind of a cathartic thing. When you're dealing with a challenging situation, especially if you have no one to talk to about it, it's important, I think to admit that it's hard and you write that down. By writing it down, I think you're admitting to yourself that this is challenging because this is, this is a very challenging situation. And I'm sure a lot of people are scared, whether it's getting the virus or how am I going to pay my bills, what's going on with my job? If you have a job, will I lose my job? I mean, this is scary stuff. Understandable. Flying in space was scary. There were scary things about it.

What I've learned flying in space four times is the fear sometimes allows you to focus, but if you dwell on it, it will prevent you from making the right decision and doing the right thing. So I always to kind of tamp down the fear, I would focus on the things that I could control, which was the spacecraft, my job, what I was doing, ignoring the stuff I had no control over. Like is the thing going to Is the rocket going to blow up for no reason that I had any ability to prevent it from happening? So same situation here. I mean, there's stuff we can control and stuff we can't, knowing what that is.

I think also one thing NASA was good at was always thinking about what is the next worst possible failure? And I think people need to be considering that. What actions do I take if one of my family members get sick, who do I call? What do I do? If I lose my job if I can't pay my rent, where can I get relief? I mean, even if you don't need it, you need to be thinking about, well what if I do need it next week or the week after, so you're prepared.

Silverstein: And you were there for the entire time with your Russian counterpart, Mikhail, and it sounds like you two have a pretty good friendship. Did you ever have disagreements while you were out there together, and how did you deal with that?

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko spent 340 days at the International Space Station together. NASA Kelly: Yeah, so over the course of the year I was there, Mikhail and I were there for the whole time, and we had 13 other people come and go. I have never had an argument with Mikhail ever about anything.

He is just like one of the nicest guys in the world. I can't see him getting into an argument with anybody. I have had disagreements with people in space and a lot of times those disagreements can be avoided if you bring up issues early. I think in this situation, we're living in maybe close quarters and just spending a long time in the same place with people that you generally don't spend that much time in a single place with. There can be opportunities for conflict, and one thing they teach us at NASA and that I've always practiced myself as much as I could is if there are things that are bothering you with your crew members or if something that I'm doing is bothering other people, you'll need to recognize it's better to talk about it early rather than it to develop into a bigger issue.

My wife was telling me, I guess the other day she kind of got a little bit frustrated with what I do with the dishes and I think I do the dishes. I certainly put them in the sink, I put them in the dishwasher sometimes, I take them out sometimes. But what I wasn't doing was following the approved system, which was her system, which is actually a really good system. The only thing is she never told me what the system was. So I did it a different way and it turns out it bothered her. But at least eventually she explained to me what it was. And I was like, "If I would've known that 10 years ago, it wouldn't have bothered you for the last 10 years because I would've just did it how you did it." Because it makes sense to me. It's just, it was never explained to me.

So I think it's important that people share their thoughts and feelings, understand we're all different. We all have different skills in this kind of situation. Help each other out. I always found that on the space station, the facility you're living in is a shared space. So you're all kind of responsible for keeping it clean and so I always felt like if I just did a tiny bit more than was expected of me, and if everyone always just did a little bit more of what's expected from them, that made everything run very smoothly. You don't want someone doing all the cleaning and the other person sitting on the couch, that's not good for anybody. Even the person sitting on a couch because it's not going to last. It'll create conflict. So I think always trying to contribute just a little bit more than you think you should is a good approach.

Silverstein: Well, I think that's very relatable to a lot of us right now. And I have to say, I'm listening to your book right now, "Endurance." And one of the things that struck me about it was that you were not a very good student early in your life and you became an astronaut. And right now it seems like a time that school is being rethought. Is there a way to make school more either rewarding or appealing to people like you that will one day turn out to be overachievers but are not recognized by the traditional school system?

Kelly: Yeah. So for me it was impossible to pay attention. I always had the best intentions to do well. The start of the school year, I'm like, "Okay, this is the year I'm going to get straight As." And three days into it, already three days behind on homework, wasn't able to pay attention in class, game over. Try again next year. And I was always smart enough that I could get by Cs without doing anything, without even paying attention in class. Or maybe it was just easier then. I think if I was in school today, I probably would have flunked out, but it seems harder now. But what I found was for me it was impossible to pay attention until I found something that I wanted to do so badly that I had to force myself to become a good student.

That was inspiration I had, I found in Tom Wolfe's book, "The Right Stuff." Inspired me to be a fighter pilot, a test pilot, and even an astronaut. And I guess my point is all kids are different. They all need inspiration and they learn in different ways. So I think it's kind of ... There's some good that can come out of this and, and one good thing maybe recognizing that education is going to look different and it could look different in a way that makes it better. And I don't know what that is. If it's going to school a few days for the social interaction, and then doing it at home online. Maybe that's good for some kids, maybe not for others, but trying to have it evolve, and cater to all different types of learners, because kids learn in different ways.

Silverstein: And what do you think about the commercialization of space travel? Do you think that it's a positive, it will get us further faster? And do you still think that astronauts should be overseen or regulated by the government?

Kelly: No, I think it was a positive thing. I think it's great when you have companies that are investing their own money in something that I feel is very important and, and strongly about. Yeah, I think it's a great thing. We need to do it with the appropriate amount of attention to detail and safety. There will be significant risk in the beginning, but as we get more experienced with it, it will become safer. Kind of like commercial aviation was in the early days of aviation. It was expensive and it was risky and that's what what space flight is going to be. But yeah, I'm all behind any commercial space flight. I think it's great. Flying in space is one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life and I wish everyone had the opportunity to do it. I'm not selfish. Let everyone go to space.

Silverstein: I would love to go to space. When do you think we'll get to Mars? Can you give me an estimate?

Former NASA astronauts Mark Kelly (left) and Scott Kelly (right) speak during the 2017 Breakthrough Prize at NASA Ames Research Center on December 4, 2016 in Mountain View, California. Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images Kelly: I've never been able to give that estimate. We can go to Mars. I'll quote my brother, give him a bone here, but he always He's got a good quote and he says, "Going to Mars is not rocket science. It's political science."

We have the technology to do that. We have to learn some other things a little bit. How to take care and protect the crew from radiation as an example, but it's more of an issue of investment and a desire, investment, money available. Before this pandemic and the resulting economic impacts we've had, I'd probably, if you would have pushed me on it, I probably could have given you a number that is probably not the same number I would give to you today.

But I still think it's important. I think we will one day get there. I hope I see it in my lifetime. I think it's going to be a great adventure for not only the people that are involved, but for the people that are watching on their couch. And I hope there's some kid out there today, probably not watching this show, but probably alive and wondering what they're going to do in their life, having no idea that it's going to be walking on Mars someday, and that's going to be a great moment.

Silverstein: And one of our viewers wants to know, do you think it's a good idea to have a space station on the moon?

Kelly: Yeah. The moon is an incredible place. It seems like it was built there just for us to experiment on. And I would love to see a lunar base, but again, I think it's a priority that would ... A financial investment that would be in competition with going to Mars. So we have to just make some tough choices. And if building a base on the moon would take away from being able to go to Mars someday, maybe it's not worth it. I don't know. It's a hard decision and I think a lot of people have to put a lot ... A lot of people that are smarter than me have to look into this and decide what the best thing to do is.

Silverstein: And I saw that Tom Cruise is planning to shoot a movie in the International Space Station. What do you think about that?

Kelly: I think Tom Cruise is a great actor. I've probably watched most of, if not all of his movies, and I'd watch that movie.

Silverstein: And before I let you go, I need to know, just based on the way that you write about your life and this quest for risk, what is the next adventure for your life?

Kelly: Hey, though about Tom cruise though, right? So I think what he really needs to realize is this is not a movie. I'm sure he realizes that. And it is really, I mean the highway to the danger zone because launching on a rocket is pretty risky. They sometimes blow up and kill people. So as long as everyone understands that, that that might happen, then I think it'll be great. It'll be interesting to see how he films a movie without his normal crew of probably 100.

Silverstein: Absolutely.

Kelly: But what was your last question?

Silverstein: And what is the next adventure for you?

Kelly: Right now I'm just navigating my way through this new reality. My primary job was as a motivational public speaker, so I would travel around the country and the world talking in person to large groups of people in small rooms. And that is going to happen again, I'm just not sure when. So I've been doing a lot of stuff like this. One thing we're really excited about is we're building a house and we're moving to Colorado. So building a house is normally ... I'm not building it with a hammer, I've got a contractor. And that's normally a tough job, but it's even tougher now because of this pandemic. So we're spending a lot of time doing that. And then once this whole situation is past us, and I think hopefully we can look back on it and it's going to be not a whole lot of good that's going to come out of it, but maybe we can look back on it and we learned some things and we're better for those things that we've learned. I'll find some other exciting things to do with my life.

See more here:

Astronaut on how to survive isolation, and the future of space travel - Business Insider - Business Insider

Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) stock has been out of this world.

Source: Tun Pichitanon / Shutterstock.com

In fact, since bottoming out at $6.90 late last year, SPCE stock blasted to a high of $42.49 just months later all on the idea that a global space industry could quickly become a multi-trillion dollar industry.

However, after flying too high, too fast, SPCE stock plummeted after posting a loss of $73 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Analysts, including Credit Suisse analyst Robert Spingarn, said the firm could no longer recommend the stock after such a hefty run higher. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas noted Even Spaceships Must Return to Earth after downgrading the stock to a hold rating.

Virgin Galactic fell even more on news Sir Richard Branson plans to sell $500 million worth of SPCE stock. However, the sale is nothing to be too alarmed about. Branson is reportedly selling to help prop up his airline and leisure assets, which have been crushed by the novel coronavirus.

Even with all of the negativity, I still believe Virgin Galactic could revisit early 2020 highs. All thanks to sky-high space travel demand, and a recent deal with the folks over at NASA.

Granted, earnings are nothing to write home about just yet.

The company posted a loss of $60 million, or 30 cents a share in the first quarter, as compared to a loss of $42.5 million, or 30 cents, year-over-year. Revenue fell to $238,000 from $1.8 million, as well. Meanwhile, analysts were only looking for a loss of 15 cents on sales of $700,000.

While Virgin Galactic isnt pulling in great numbers just yet, dont write it off. With its One Small Step space travel initiative, its already received 400 deposits payments from individuals in 44 countries, which represents more than $100 million of potential future revenue.

Analysts are also bullish. Morgan Stanleys Adam Jonas, despite his calls for a modest correction, is maintaining an overweight rating and $24 price target.

Despite the modest adjustments to our space tourism [discounted cash-flow model], the company maintains a healthy cash position (~$500 million) and its expected ~$16 million per month cash burn position it well to navigate any near-term headwinds, he noted in late March.

Virgin Galactic and NASA just signed a Space Act Agreement to develop high-speed technologies.

In partnership with NASA, Virgin Galactic believes there are significant opportunities to apply higher speeds to drive technological development to allow industries to adapt to the changing economic and ecological environment. The collaboration will aim to inform the development of national strategies using economic and technical foundations with a focus on sustainability.

Plus, as InvestorPlace analyst Matt McCall notes, SPCEs status as a pure play alone will drive some optimism. And theres a real business here. Virgin Galactic is charging $250,000 a flight. But there are, well, millions of millionaires who will pay that sum for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And as the company grows and improves, those costs will come down.

Granted, Virgin Galactic is a speculative bet at the moment. But Im willing to bet that if it can help transform air travel at hypersonic speeds, create more deals with NASA and get off the ground to meet sizable space travel demand, itll be well worth the investment.

In my opinion, the safest move is to take a small speculative bet on SPCE stock. Buy it. Forget about it, and check back on it next year.

Ian Cooper, an InvestorPlace.com contributor, has been analyzing stocks and options for web-based advisories since 1999. As of this writing, Ian Cooper did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

See the article here:

Virgin Galactic Is a Solid Long-Term Bet on Space Travel Demand - InvestorPlace

The exhibition of work by the four finalists, originally set to open last weekend, has been officially rescheduled forSeptember

Credit: Griselda Rosas, Melissa Walter, Kaori Fukuyama, Alanna Airitam

Above: Clockwise from top left: work by Griselda Rosas, Melissa Walter, Kaori Fukuyama and Alanna Airitam, this year's finalists for the San Diego Art Prize.

The 2019 San Diego Art Prize has been in the works for so long, it seems strange to keep including the "2019." Now, the show of works by the 2019 finalists scheduled to open last weekend has been officially postponed until the fall. Opening September 3 at Bread & Salt, the show will run through October 24 and announce the eventual winner.

Organized by San Diego Visual Arts Network, the finalists were announced in October 2019. Earlier that year, they had also announced an overhaul from their previous model, used since the prize's inception 14 years ago. The project paired two emerging artists with two established artists, who would then produce new work together throughout the year to prepare for an exhibition. For the 2018 prize, Anne Mudge chose emerging artist Erin Dace Behling, and Bob Matheny selected emerging artist Max Daily.

In 2019, when Chi Essary took over as curator, the move was made to eliminate the pairings with established artists, have each of the four artists involved be emerging artists four finalists and each of them win some cash. The four for this general "year" (a year that will always somehow smudge our history books with its pre-, during- and post-pandemic signposts) all happen to be women: Alanna Airitam, Kaori Fukuyama, Griselda Rosas and Melissa Walter. And you can meet them all here.

San Diego photographer Alanna Airitam draws on the old Dutch masters their skillful use of light, the regal poses that seem to not just exude art but define it. In some ways making a broad statement for representation and in other ways reclaiming what counts as art, her portraiture and still life photography pull from centuries of work.

Airitam's work is as rich with symbols and objects as it is with light and characters. Airitam opened an exhibition at the Athenaeum Art Center the weekend the coronavirus shutdowns began. Read about her recent work here and the way she spins newness fresh, unexpected, speculative and surreal elements into her photography.

San Diego visual artist Kaori Fukuyama's work is the kind of art that reminds you that light exists. Ranging from oil on canvas to ink and paper, fishing wire-like monofilament suspended from the walls to light refracting through plexiglass, what unifies her vast collection of work is its exploration of the interplay between light, shadow and color.

Read about Fukuyama's recent solo exhibition, her high-profile mural in North Park and how her work is often a response to the last piece or series of works she's created.

Griselda Rosas is, it seems, suddenly everywhere. And so is her work. The cross-border artist's broad repertoire from large hanging sculptures suspended from ropes to mixed media pieces she embroiders at her kitchen table after her son goes to sleep is specifically inspired and informed by place. The origins of the materials she uses and where they've traveled to seem as important to her as the shapes they take in her works.

Read about Rosas' big year now partly interrupted and the way each of her works represents a series of migrations.

San Diego visual artist (and longtime illustrator for NASA) Melissa Walters work is subtle, often inviting a viewer to lean in close. Some are compact, crisp, white sheets of paper cut and layered, and sometimes, the only shape or form is found in the relief or the shadows. Other times, she forms massive installations, showcasing her unmistakable inclination towards white paper, shadows and shapes but serving up splashes of color, film, metal and other materials here and there.

Her new works mark a shift for her: not just studying science, but considering our role in it. "Rather than think specifically on celestial objects or scientific theory, I really started thinking of the morality of space travel," Walter said. Read more about the origins and transformations of her process and the work she's doing during the pandemic.

KPBS' daily news podcast covering local politics, education, health, environment, the border and more. New episodes are ready weekday mornings so you can listen on your morning commute.

Julia Dixon Evans Arts Calendar Editor and Producer

I write the weekly KPBS Arts newsletter and edit and produce the KPBS Arts calendar. I am interested in getting San Diegans engaged with the diversity of art and culture made by the creative people who live here.

To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.

See more here:

Meet The Women Of The San Diego Art Prize - KPBS

San Diego Art Prize finalist finds inspiration in her work for NASA and wont let the pandemics uncertainty stopher

Credit: Michael Andrew

Above: "Gravitational Lensing" by Melissa Walter, created during her artist residency at Bread & Salt in 2017.

Being inspired by the night sky is the stuff of poets or science fiction stories. But San Diego visual artist Melissa Walter isn't just waxing poetic about supernovas and neutron stars. As a long-time science illustrator for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, she knows her stuff.

When Walter first started working for NASA, it was just a job. She didnt have a science background, but stuck with it for fifteen years. I had this really long career working with Chandra, doing their visuals, promotional materials, educational materials, said Walter. She finally decided to shift gears and focus on her own art practice. I honestly was like, okay, I am not gonna deal with supernova and black holes ever again.

Suffice it to say, she spoke too soon.

It wasnt until several years later that she began resuming the connections between her prior work and her art. She remembers working on one piece and realizing it resembled a neutron star, another a supernova. It prompted her to read up on neutron stars again" to get her facts in order, but she still didnt see it as the seed of a new style of art. This was just a one-time thing, she had convinced herself.

But it was the connections to those objects that she had been working with for so many years at NASA that drove her to continue. She kept finding them in her art, and realized that space and its science was a fountain of inspiration.

Walters work is subtle, often inviting a viewer to lean in close. Some are compact, crisp, white sheets of paper cut and layered, and sometimes, the only shape or form is found in the relief or the shadows. Other times, she forms massive installations, showcasing her unmistakable inclination towards white paper, shadows and shapes but serving up splashes of color, film, metal and other materials here and there.

And then theres the science. Each piece, regardless of its galactic origins, brims with a sense of heuristic curiosity and calculation that seems at times at odds with its organic beauty but then again, that brings us back to the poets and their stars again.

Last summer, Walter showed what she described as her most ambitious work yet in Barrio Logans ICE Gallery. "Of All Things" was a large-scale installation work, involving hundreds of small tetrahedrons, cut, folded, glued, shaded and individually affixed directly to the museums walls by Walter and the occasional volunteer shed posted a request for folding buddies on social media early on, vaguely; the unveiling of the finished piece had a long-awaited secrecy that could've toed the line to hype, but instead just seemed to give the San Diego arts community a chance to cheer on one of the scene's biggest cheerleaders, fold-by-fold.

Shes recently shown her work across the globe, including a show in Copenhagen and even her first piece of performance art in a virtual exhibition with Pluto Projects where some works still remain for sale via auction.

Walter has worked from home since 2002 her day job and her art studio so the pandemic hasn't affected her work much. "Being home all the time is not a new thing for me. Im still able to be productive and get stuff done," she said. But one impact is that Walter is one of four official finalists for this year's San Diego Art Prize, and the program was set to launch a special group show of brand new work from each of the four finalists all women at the Athenaeum this month.

Walter had already finished the work she intended to show for the Art Prize. Her new works mark a shift for her: not just studying science, but considering our role in it. "Rather than think specifically on celestial objects or scientific theory, I really started thinking of the morality of space travel."

The shift came from a place of process, too, and represents something much more visceral than any other works she's done in the past. "I think even before we were all sort of locked in, I wasn't feeling comforted anymore by getting my ruler out and trying to be precise and clean and perfect with my work." She's also ruled out the type of gruelling, time-intensive installation work from "Of All Things," for the time being, unless they're commissions.

For the San Diego Art Prize, curator Chi Essary said this week that the exhibition will be rescheduled until the fall, set to open September 3 at Bread & Salt. This year's prize will veer away from the project's historical format, where they paired two emerging artist finalists with established artists for a collaborative residency. This year, all four finalists are emerging artists and each receives a cash prize and group exhibition, culminating in more for the eventual winner.

RELATED: Meet The Women Of The San Diego Art Prize

Whether Walter's already finished, space morality pieces will be what end up in that show remains to be seen. "I'm curious to know myself!" she said.

The uncertainty of COVID-19's impact on the industry also isn't new for Walter. "Being an artist, your life is up in the air all the time, you know? You never really know where the opportunities are gonna come from or if they're gonna work out," she said.

Maybe it's Walter's science side talking, but that uncertainty breeds a pragmatic approach to creating art anyway. "It's part of being creative; we're problem solvers," she said. "We hit a wall and we climb it, or go through it, or build a house out of it. That's what we do."

KPBS' daily news podcast covering local politics, education, health, environment, the border and more. New episodes are ready weekday mornings so you can listen on your morning commute.

Julia Dixon Evans Arts Calendar Editor and Producer

I write the weekly KPBS Arts newsletter and edit and produce the KPBS Arts calendar. I am interested in getting San Diegans engaged with the diversity of art and culture made by the creative people who live here.

To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.

See the original post:

Visual Artist Melissa Walter Makes Sense Of The Stars - KPBS

Even though things got as messy as can be expected, the biggest surprise of all was the strange and fascinating ways that Nickelodeon's famous green goo reacted in the absence of gravity.

The results of the experiment could have implications for handling liquids in space, including processing carbon dioxide and wastewater, watering plants grown on the space station and even life support systems on future deep space missions.

Nickelodeon sent about two liters of slime to the space station last summer and Koch, Parmitano and Morgan experimented with it for two hours in the space station's galley, or kitchen.

Koch has childhood memories of watching people get slimed on reruns of "You Can't Do That on Television" on Nickelodeon, but she never imagined she would be testing out the dynamics of slime in space.

While Koch and her fellow astronauts had fun with the slime, they were also surprised by the scientific observations they made during the activities.

"It's not often for your job on the space station that you're given a couple of hours to play with slime, with the ground teams directing you to shoot your friend with slime from a syringe or fill a balloon with slime," Koch told CNN.

"My favorite thing about that experiment is that it highlighted the concept of curiosity leading to discovery. This is discovery-based science. It's why we seek knowledge."

Liquids in space

On Earth, liquids are governed by gravity. But in space and the absence of gravity, bubbles don't rise, droplets don't fall, and liquid doesn't flow the way we're used to observing them on our home turf.

Think about a simple factor of your morning routine, such as pouring a cup of coffee. In space, you can't pour coffee into a cup, and you can't drink coffee from a cup because the coffee wouldn't slide out of the cup and down your throat.

Weislogel has a long history of conducting fluid experiments on the space station. So when Nickelodeon said they wanted to send slime to space, they worked with Weislogel and Rihana Mungin, a Portland State University mechanical engineering graduate research assistant.

Slime is considered a non-Newtonian fluid, which means that its viscosity changes in reaction to different forces.

Viscosity is the thickness of a liquid, defined as the resistance to motion when force is applied. Water is a Newtonian fluid because it follows Newton's law of viscosity, meaning the thickness doesn't change if force is applied.

Compared to water, slime is 20,000 times more viscous, or thicker, because it's a polymer substance that's part solid, part liquid. When the force of gravity is no longer acting on water, surface tension (the force on the surface of a liquid that causes it to act elastically) takes over.

The slime experiment is an example of fluid dynamics, with eight different demonstrations to showcase the properties of slime in the absence of gravity. A set of hydrophobic paddles, or paddles with water-repellent coating, were also sent along with the slime.

"Interestingly, we define liquid on Earth as something that takes the shape of its container," Koch said. "Water just turns into a sphere in microgravity, so we've had to remake definitions of different kinds of matter in space. This experiment is a great demonstration of how microgravity can contribute to our understanding of things on Earth, especially the things we take for granted."

Getting slimy

Slime has never been to the space station, so the astronauts tested it in a variety of ways. And they had fun doing it.

They started by releasing a similar amount of slime and water into the gallery. Both formed floating blobs, which the astronauts then tried to spin. While the wobbly water blob spun continuously unless it was interrupted by the paddle, the slime actually stretched out into a solid-looking oblong shape and rotated. It sprang back to a sphere when the rotation was stopped.

They also used dental floss in an attempt to cut the slime, which didn't work, and pumped air into a slime blob to create a slime bubble.

Parmitano got slimed when Koch shot a jet of slime through a slime blob floating in front of him. Koch was also slimed when a jet of slime was shot at one of the paddles held at an angle and redirected toward her.

Koch expected to be slimed again when slime-filled balloons were popped. The balloons peeled back, but the slime maintained its shape as if it were still cocooned by the balloon. Perhaps the biggest surprise occurred when Parmitano put slime on the paddles. The slime appeared to stick to the paddle despite its water-repllent coating, and he created 3D waves in the slime by moving the paddle up and down.

Then, without being directed to, Parmitano brought two slime-coated paddles together. When he pulled them apart, a long "liquid bridge" of slime formed, then broke into five perfectly placed satellite droplets, Mungin said.

This is something Mungin once saw in Weislogel's class, but on a tiny scale within a thousandth of a second beneath a microscope.

"We were able to see that exact phenomenon with this large and bright liquid in free-floating space," Mungin said.

They hung a shower curtain in the galley to keep slime from getting all over the space station, but it still took them an hour to clean up after the experiments were over. Slime is designed to make a mess and cover everything, but luckily, they could capture the floating blobs.

Fun experiment, big insights

In the footage of the experiments, the researchers could study what they call the viscous limit, a benchmark for liquid analysis. The results of the experiments will be published in journals and used when studying liquids on Earth, as well as designing future experiments for the space station.

Slime acts as an analog for other liquids on the space station because if a droplet is small enough, it will act like slime, Weislogel said. And slime is safe, without posing a risk to the astronauts, so they could handle it in the open cabin, Mungin said.

Future experiments on the space station could involve tabletop experiments, rather than being contained in boxes. Understanding how liquids and droplets behave in the open cabin is key to safely carrying out those experiments.

"When gravity is small, our intuition stalls when it comes to liquids in space," Weislogel said. "Without bubbles rising and droplets falling, most of our fluid systems we design for life on Earth don't work."

And if systems dependent on liquids in space fail, it would be more difficult to fix them the farther out missions travel away from Earth. Experiments on the space station involving liquids are critical to pushing technology ahead.

"We have so much to learn in terms of intuition, to build intuition, because we're so used to making spherical tanks and round tubes," Weislogel said. "In space, that's not the way forward."

Weislogel envisioned pump-less systems where liquid moves based on the shape and size of containers, like fuel depots that can orbit the moon and transfer propellant to a spacecraft without a pump. Watering plants on the space station also requires crew intervention, but Weislogel would love to see a system that can grow plants autonomously.

The space station is unique in that it doesn't focus on one kind of science, but what it can offer is something that other labs can't withholding gravity as a variable, Koch said. And the space environment provides a wide spectrum of discovery, she said.

Experiments on the space station have another power: inspiration, especially for kids.

"It's such a unique experience," Mungin said. "It was pure joy sending slime to space and then getting to come back to it by doing experiments with kids who had the same excitement level as mine. The ultimate science can have such an impact on kids looking to go into STEM."

Especially during this unique time as the pandemic keeps students at home and out of their traditional classrooms, Koch hopes that the slime experiments cause kids to look around their homes and environment and ask new questions and "bring their curiosity" to each thing they encounter.

Koch's curiosity, dreams and hard work led her to become an electrical engineer and an astronaut.

"There's trepidation to dream too big," Koch said. "Even if you're thinking about something that seems too lofty, it isn't out of reach."

Excerpt from:

Astronauts experimented with Nickelodeon's slime in space - CNN

May 11 (UPI) -- British billionaire Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group conglomerate, will sell as many as 25 million of his shares in the Virgin Galactic space tourism venture, his company said Monday.

The Virgin Group said it's notified U.S. regulators of the plan, which has been influenced by sagging demand in the leisure, retail and travel industries.

Branson's shares are worth about $500 million and will be sold via Virgin subsidiary Vieco 10 Limited.

Virgin said it "intends to use any proceeds to support its portfolio of global leisure, holiday and travel businesses that have been affected by the unprecedented impact of COVID-19."

Virgin Galactic, unlike Virgin Group's airlines business, has performed well during the health crisis. Its value has nearly double since its October initial public offering from $2.3 billion to $4.3 billion.

Virgin Galactic has been developing space tourism ventures that intended to send passengers in jet-launched spacecraft at a cost of $250,000. Virgin has said it's in the final test stages and has already received more than 600 cash deposits. Branson has said he will go on the first trip, which was scheduled sometime this year.

Virgin Airlines asked the British government in March for up to $616 million in relief aid.

The rest is here:

Virgin Group to sell shares of space venture to aid travel business - UPI News

May 13 (UPI) -- Many sci-fi writers predicted the distant futures of 2001, 2015 or 2019, but 2020 feels like a world those authors never could have imagined, with people stuck in their homes to avoid a pandemic.

The TV drama derived from possible futures, space travel, far-fetched technology or other sci-fi concepts could be a good escape from the mundane realities of the world. Here are some of the sci-fi series available on streaming platforms that have run at least three seasons.

The Expanse - Prime

Three seasons would have been it for The Expanse on Syfy, but Amazon picked up a fourth season and now streams all four. When humans expanded beyond Earth in the future, that only created more drama between people who populated different planets, ships and even the asteroid belt. Amazon is making a fifth season.

The Outer Limits - Hulu and Prime

The original '60s series only lasted two seasons, but the '90s version lasted seven. Both incarnations are on Hulu and Prime. Each Outer Limits was a standalone story with a new cast, and often a twist ending a la The Twilight Zone. Sci-fi subjects could include aliens, science experiments, time travel, the future or other forward-thinking concepts.

12 Monkeys - Hulu

Based on the hit movie, Syfy elaborated the story over four seasons. James Cole (Aaron Stanford) comes from an apocalyptic future to try to find an antidote for the virus that ravaged the world. Dr. Cassandra Railly (Amanda Schull) grows to believe them, and they try to work with the erratic Jennifer Goines (Emily Hampshire as a gender-swapped version of Brad Pitt's Jeffrey Goines).

The 100 - Netflix and The CW

In this series, the Earth becomes uninhabitable and a few survivors live on a space station. After a generation of kids grew up in space, their parents sent 100 down to Earth to see if it was possible to restart society. Drama ensued with the 100 kids and tribes who had lived on Earth all along, and with the parents when they returned. The seventh and final season is coming to The CW on May 20.

Black Mirror - Netflix

This British anthology series from Charlie Brooker has an even darker take than The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone. Subjects range from a society in which people live in ad supported cubes, a digital afterlife and a spaceship crew. "Bandersnatch" only could exist on streaming with its interactive options that allow the viewer to choose the outcome. There are five seasons, with no more than six episodes, so it's a shorter total run.

The X-Files - Hulu

For seven seasons, FBI agents Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) investigated possible alien sightings. Scully spent two more years investigating with Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick). After two movies, Scully and Mulder returned for two more short seasons of a revival. All 11 seasons are on Hulu.

Westworld - HBO

Remember that old movie in which Yul Brynner was a cowboy robot who malfunctioned and shot the guests? Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy created a very serious version for HBO. The Old West theme park "hosts" (Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, James Marsden) discovered secrets kept by their creators (Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Hopkins). Guests (Ed Harris, Jimmi Simpson) grew obsessive about the park too. It's still unfolding over three seasons.

Orphan Black - Prime and DirecTV

Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) discovers she's a clone, and keeps meeting new clones as the five seasons continue. Maslany plays every clone distinctly, and they interact thanks to seamless visual effects. It's the Maslany show, but supporting characters like her friend, Felix (Jordan Gavaris), and one clone's husband, Donnie (Kristian Bruun), are memorable, too.

The Twilight Zone - CBS All Access, Hulu, Netflix

Rod Serling created the classic anthology series in 1959 with memorable episodes like "Time Enough At Last," in which one man (Burgess Meredith) hopes to spend the apocalypse reading every book in the library. Or, there's "It's a Good Life," in which adults live in terror of a psychically powered child (Billy Mumy). Netflix has four seasons and Hulu has all five. CBS has all five plus Jordan Peele's modern day reboot.

Star Trek - CBS All Access, Netflix, Prime, Hulu

Gene Roddenberry created the crew of the Starship Enterprise in the 1966 original series, which spun off into many other Star Treks in the '80s, '90s and '00s, and continues with CBS All Access developing even more new series. Trekkers keep exploring new worlds and having new adventures. CBS boasts every Trek series including its exclusives, Discovery and Picard. You also can find the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise on Netflix, Prime and Hulu.

See the original post here:

What to binge next: 10 sci-fi shows to escape into the future - UPI.com

Spied through a normal telescope, the galaxy PKS 201455 is an unremarkable smudge of bright light. But look again in radio wavelengths, and you'll see that the galaxy is hiding a gargantuan, glowing treasure at its center and X marks the spot.

PKS 201455 is an X-shaped radio galaxy (XRG), an unusual type of galaxy that looks like an enormous X in the night sky when imaged in radio wavelengths. The long arms of the X each one about 100 times longer than the Milky Way are actually a blazing-fast soup of particles and magnetic fields, blasted out of the galaxy's central black hole and traveling for millions of light-years into space, far beyond the galaxy's edge.

Big jets of radio energy are common in galaxies with hungry black holes at their centers (even the Milky Way has two "bubbles" of radio energy around its gut). However, most of those jets come in orderly pairs that appear to form a straight line or a round bulge when seen from far away. According to William Cotton, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Virginia who studies XRGs, fewer than 10% of known cosmic radio sources take on a distinct X shape like this one.

Related: The biggest black hole findings of 2019

"You see four things poking out of this galaxy," Cotton, lead author of a new study on the galaxy, told Live Science, "and the question is, how did it get that way?"

Now, Cotton and his colleagues may have an answer. In a new study posted May 7 on the pre-print server arXiv and accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers with the NRAO and South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) used the massive MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa's Karoo desert to capture the most detailed image of an XRG ever. The image, shown above, reveals that the strange X bursting out of PKS 201455's center apparently isn't an X at all.

"It's actually a 'double boomerang' shape," Cotton said. "That means something in the galaxy is diverting the flow into these secondary wings."

According to Cotton and the new study, the galaxy's strange shape can be explained by a theory known as the "hydrodynamical backflow model." Here's what's happening, in a nutshell: First, the galaxy's central black hole gobbles up matter for millions of years, until it experiences a bout of cosmic indigestion. The black hole belches twin jets of matter into space, each traveling in opposite directions at incredible speed.

Eventually (tens of thousands of years later), those jets blast through the galaxy's gassy halo, traveling onward into intergalactic space. Pressure slowly builds up in the jets as they travel farther and farther out of the galaxy, ultimately forcing some material in each jet to flip around and flow back toward the center again. This phenomenon is known as "backflow."

Backflow is common in active galaxies, Cotton said, but usually all that returning material bulges up in the middle of the galaxy, rather than bouncing off to the side. In PKS 201455, the galaxy's hot halo of dust and gas is angled in such a way that the backflow is actually "deflected" back out of the galaxy, giving each jet a boomerang-like appearance.

To Cotton and his colleagues, this long cosmic history was evident simply by looking at the contours of the jet flow in the MeerKAT image "We looked at the image for about 10 seconds and just said, 'yeah, that's it,'" Cotton said. But as the team analyzed the brightness of the jets, further details emerged.

According to Cotton, this image shows not one, but three separate black hole burstss separated by tens of millions of years. The two white dots near the picture's center show the most recent event, with twin lobes of energy just beginning to expand out of the black hole and into the galaxy. Beyond these, the two long blue lobes are the decaying remnants of two jets that erupted from the black hole around 10 million years ago, Cotton said.

"And, if you look around the edges of the jets, there's what we call a 'cocoon' the faint remnant of an even earlier outburst," he added. "That's something on the order of 100 million years old."

The fact that all three generations of jets appear to follow the same boomerang pattern suggests that hydrodynamical backflow explains this XRG's shape, rather than some other phenomenon (such as the black hole changing direction between one jet outburst and the next).

The same model may not explain every X-shaped galaxy in the universe each one requires its own analysis, Cotton said. But, at least in the case of PKS 201455, thats one cosmic treasure map solved.

Originally published on Live Science.

Here is the original post:

The sky is full of weird X-shaped galaxies. Here's why. - Live Science