Daily Archives: June 1, 2020

LOS ANGELES, CA, June 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE US Nuclear Corp. (OTC: UCLE) announces that NASA has just released Artemis Accords - Guidelines For Humans to Abide by in Space which also covers protection of the astronauts basic infrastructure, including their major assets: spaceships and the Moon and Mars base power plants. Ideally, these will all be fusion powered.

NASA and the new US Space Force need a clean, high-powered, compact, and safe energy source for spacecraft propulsion and to establish operations on the Moon and colonizing Mars. Since there is little spare oxygen on space ships, the Moon, and Mars, most conventional energy sources (such as fossil fuels) will not burn and are not useful. Nuclear fission is not safe, and solar cells do not generate adequate power.

That leaves fusion energy as the most desirable energy source because it is safe, it is the most powerful energy source known, and it is not subject to runaway meltdown like fission reactors.

US Nuclear has strong confidence in a new type of fusion energy being developed by our partners, Magneto Inertial Fusion Technologies, Inc. (MIFTI) and MIFTEC Laboratories, Inc. Last year, MIFTIs Z-Pinch system demonstrated its capabilities when it achieved a major milestone at the University of Nevada, Reno National 1 million ampere, Terawatt Facility. MIFTI broke all records and repeatedly generated over 10 billion neutrons from each pulse of their stage Z-Pinch fusion generator.

There is only one measure of success or failure in fusion: the production of neutrons. Not just extreme temperatures which many have previously accomplished, but actual neutrons that contain the exceptionally powerful energy that is produced in our sun and all the stars. MIFTI is poised to build compact fusion generators that could be a reality in under 5 years. Results were so compelling that MIFTI quickly moved forward with the detailed design plans for their new 10 million ampere machine, projected to deliver 1,000 trillion neutrons per pulse, which may be enough to power hypervelocity space ships, and to provide all the power that is needed to build colonies on the Moon and on Mars.

Safe Harbor Act

This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations, estimates and projections and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results.

Investors may find additional information regarding US Nuclear Corp. at the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov, or the companys website at http://www.usnuclearcorp.com.

CONTACT:US Nuclear Corp. (OTC: UCLE)Robert I. Goldstein, President, CEO, and ChairmanRachel Boulds, Chief Financial Officer(818) 883 7043Email: info@usnuclearcorp.com

More:
NASA and US Space Force Are Considering Fusion Energy to Power Our Moon and Mars Bases and Ships That Will Take US Into Space - GlobeNewswire

Editors note: Four NAU students were selected for the National Science Foundations Graduate Research Fellowship Program. NAU News will profile them over the coming weeks.

Meltwater springs in Antarctica may contain the best Earth-bound answers for life on Mars. As to what that answer iswell, Schuyler Borges is looking for it.

Borges, a doctoral student in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University, is leading a project comparing rock coating structures in Antarctica that look similar to structures in hot springs all over the world and are comparable to features on Mars. Researchers have argued that the Martian features may be evidence for life on the Red Planet since microorganisms facilitate the production of similar hot spring structures on Earth.

I think its pretty cool work because it shows we are still trying to understand the relationship between biology and geology on Earth and whether relationships between the two indicate anything about potential life on other planets, Borges said.

This project got a huge boost in April when Borges received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP), a program designed to support graduate students research in STEM disciplines. They are one of four NAU graduate students selected for the GRFP this year.

Borges came to NAU for graduate school after reaching out to professors Mark Salvatore and Christopher Edwards, both of whom are participating scientists on NASAs Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover. They didnt go to college with the plan of grad school, though; Borges spent a summer doing Martian research with several women in STEM fields who encouraged them to go to grad school, suggesting Salvatore and Edwards as initial contacts.

Two years later, here they are.

Schuyler is one of the hardest working students I know, said Salvatore, now Borges mentor.They are enthusiastic and always eager to take on new challenges.Im perhaps most impressed by Schuylers willingness to step out of their comfort zone and to work with experts in different fields.They are quick to recognize the applicability of their work to a wide range of other scientific topics and to collaborate with folks who they think might benefit from our work.

Borges is working on two major research projects. Their dissertation work focuses on using Antarctic life to understand how to identify life on cold, rocky planets, including Mars but also exoplanets with a similar geologic makeup. Last year, they went to Antarctica with Salvatore to study how communities of microbial organisms that live in glacier-fed streams can be detected from spaceno small feat, given the size of microbes.

They used satellite imagery to differentiate between the communities and remotely detect them from orbit, which is uniquely possible in Antarctica. Other parts of the world have too much vegetation to make such research possible. This enables scientists to test the efficacy of tools and processes on Earth before applying them to other planets.

The environment in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica is similar to Mars as it is really dry, exposed to lots of UV radiation and is extremely cold, Borges said. The life that exists in Antarctica are some of the most extreme organisms on Earth. This makes them good candidates for potential life that could exist on other planets.

In addition to Borges work with Salvatore, they are collaborating with astrobiologist Tyler Robinson, an assistant professor in the department. His work focuses on finding life on exoplanets, which orbit stars outside of our solar system.

But, as interesting as that research is, its not all Borges is doing at NAU, nor is it what caught the NSFs attention. The research into rock coating structures, which they discovered in Antarctica with Salvatore, focuses on understanding the biogeochemical formation of these Antarctic structures and comparing them with those found at hot springs throughout the world.

This work has implications for the field of geobiology as well as astrobiology because if these Antarctic structures are forming the same way as those in hot springs, they will be the first of their kind to be identified in a cold, non-hydrothermal environment on Earth, they said. This would indicate that we dont entirely know everything about the environment, both biological and abiological, that favors the existence and preservation of these structures on Earth.

Its not just that. So far, these types of structures have been interpreted to be present within a Martian hot spring. If the Antarctic structures form the same as others in hot springs, a cold environmental analog for the features found on Mars would be discovered. This work could mean that, in addition to hot springs, cold environments could be habitable for life and potentially form these structures on Mars.

Or, Borges could find that the Antarctic features arent associated with life, in which case they argue the Antarctic structures are a false positive analog for life on Mars. As such, they would change the conversation about the potential for life on Earths nearest neighbor.

Their first semester at NAU, Borges enrolled in Robinsons Writing a Fellowship Proposal course. Its Robinsons fourth year teaching it, and three of his students have received the GRFP and two have received honorable mentions. Both the course material and the feedback they got from classmates helped Borges as they applied for the fellowship, which is a drawn-out, labor intensive process.

Despite that, Borges enjoyed the processsort of.

Youre devoting a ridiculous amount of time to these proposals that are so selective youre like, This is a waste of time because theres no way Im going to get this. But youre also spending a lot of time showing yourself how far youve come and what huge things youve already accomplished as youre developing and owning your dissertation, they said. The GRFP is challenging to write because you have to spend a significant portion of the proposal writing about yourself and how youve overcome obstacles that make you uniquely qualified to conduct the research youre proposing.

While many grant applications focus primarily on the research, only asking the researchers about their qualifications to do that research, the GRFP focuses on the researcher, asking for a three-page personal statement and only a two-page research statement. Writing the personal statement was empowering, even cathartic, Borges said. Theyd spent several months prior struggling through a number of challenges, and writing, editing and rewriting that personal statement was a regular reminder of how resilient they were and just how much they were accomplishing every day.

It also required them to briefly but fully explain their research, which is great practice for writing a prospectus, a necessary part of every doctorate. Being able to concisely explain their research is a critical skill, and Borges was grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Because of the skills gained just from applying, Borges recommended every grad student apply for a fellowship, even those who think getting it is a long shot. They offered some advice as well.

Start planning early. This allows applicants to become familiar with the proposal and good proposal writing, as well as plenty of time to revise, rewrite and seek help and feedback.

Attend mock review panels. Professors and graduate students from the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science volunteer as grant readers to simulate the fellowship review process for applicants, including inviting students to sit in on the mock review panels themselves. This experience helped Borges to see trends in proposals and identify strengths and weaknesses in their and others work.

Talk with professors about the proposal review process. Many professors have served on proposal review committees and can explain how the process works and what types of proposals get funded. Students also can ask for samples of successful proposals as a guide.

Seek out and incorporate as much feedback as possible. Committee members may respond differently to data presentation, proposal structure and explanations. Proposals where most of the committee agrees that the applicant successfully addresses important questions are more likely to get funded. Thus, asking for as much feedback from a diverse group, and incorporating that feedback, significantly helps.

Borges is fascinated with Mars, but they have another, concurrent plan for their future in science: making it a more open and encouraging field for diverse groups. After facing gender discrimination, they set a goal to continually discuss social inequities within STEM and work to overcome those for current and future scientists.

Scientists often think we dont need to be talking or focusing on social issues because thats unrelated to the subjects we teach or the work we do, and thats fundamentally untrue, they said. The science we teach is taught from a colonized lens, and we often neglect to mention any of the contributions people of color have made to our fields.

I want to be able to create safe STEM learning environments and be a face of change in academia by supporting the success of those with marginalized identities, Borges said. Also, as a queer person, I havent had very many people to look up to in science, as my gender identity is often excluded in women in [insert STEM field here] spaces. I want to be a voice and advocate for LGBTQ+ people in STEM and create systemic changes to enable those least privileged within our community to be able to become the doctors, health care providers and researchers we so desperately need for our community.

In addition to that advocacy, Borges would like to do a postdoc at NASA and eventually become a professor, but theyre open to different possibilities when that time comes. Right now, the focus is on research. The GRFP offers researchers a lot of flexibility in their work; while most grants have a specific timeline in which investigators have to get results, this one allows researchers who face major obstacleslike, say, a global pandemic that upsets travel, education and many of the factors that go into researchto adjust their projects and go in a new direction as needed. It also allows them to search for more answers beyond the initial research questions.

Borges isnt there yet, but its nice to have the option.

This flexibility is quite nice, as this is often not the case for others whose funding goes toward the project and not the scientist, they said. In other instances, your research path is more laid out for you, and you dont always get to be able to influence it as easily.

Learn more about Borges work at their blog.

Heidi Toth | NAU Communications(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu

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With prestigious NSF fellowship, NAU grad student tackling the question of life on Mars by way of Antarctica - NAU News

Iwas disappointed on Wednesday when the Falcon 9 rocket launch was postponed. This was to be the first time since the last space shuttle launch in 2011 that the U.S. would be sending astronauts to the international Space Station (ISS) in our own rocket.

I spent about an hour watching the NASA TV program on the launch that didnt make it.I can understand why, I was also watching the weather at Cape Canaveral and it was stormy.In my wonderful hindsight, I would have scrubbed it much earlier.

At least this was some news besides the COVID-19 virus news.

I was surprised that the astronauts were loaded and ready to fly before the rocket was fueled. From a safety standpoint, it seems reasonable.

If the fuel was already on board before they started to load and there was a fire, they would not stand a chance. When they are already on board and if there would be a fire, they have a rocket to carry them out of harms way with a parachute to lower them back to the ground.

Ill be watching again today when there is another opportunity to launch.

I thought there would be a window of time for the launch, but they claim that it has to be very precise to launch at the correct time to catch up with the ISS.

Another privately-funded space project was a failure this past week.

Virgin Orbit attempted to send a rocket into orbit after it was launched from a 747 airplane.

It seemed like a good idea to me, since it would already be traveling in excess of 400 mph and be above most of the atmosphere when it is deployed.

Orbit is a 70-foot-long rocket mounted on a pylon under the wing of the Boeing 747.

It was pointed up at about 27 degrees when it was released out over the Pacific Ocean.

Unfortunately, it suffered an anomaly, which means they dont know why at this point that it failed. Evidently Richard Branson has deep pockets, since they have six other Orbits on the assembly line.

The Perseverance Rover, which is scheduled to start to Mars on July 17, has arrived at Cape Canaveral aboard a Ukrainian cargo plane called Antonov An-124.

The An-124 is a big plane with 20 percent more cargo space than our C-5a.

The rover is a very sophisticated machine. It has a helicopter to look for sites to investigate. The rover will also collect rock samples and package them in cigar-sized cylinders to be returned to earth.

Perseverance is a rather big wheeled vehicle weighing in at 2,260 pounds. It has 23 cameras and two microphones. It will use a radioactive heat source made of 11 pounds of plutonium dioxide which will be used to generate electricity to power the instruments.

The helicopter will have solar cells for power.

One of the experiments planned will be to produce oxygen from the sparse amount of carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere. Of course, the oxygen would be needed if we try to colonize Mars. They hope to use a ground penetrating radar to look for subsurface water, also.

The scheduled date for arrival on Mars is Feb. 18, 2021.

Don Lee, a pilot flying out of Lawrence County Airport since 1970, has been in charge of equipment and grounds maintenance for several years. He can be reached at eelnod22@gmail.com

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Failure to launch, another rover set to explore the red planet - The Tribune - Ironton Tribune

Last Saturday, we watched with anticipation as Elon Musk achieved what he has been announcing for years.His company, SpaceX, has put two astronauts in orbit, which meansthe United States willlikely stop depending on Russia'sSoyuz for travel, above all, isa step closer to the colonization of Mars.By private companies that is. But has anyone thought about the ethical implications?

Materials science and engineering expert Ainissa Ramirez keeps asking herself questions. Questioning the impact of an invention, she says, should be part of a scientist's responsibility and does so in her latest book, TheAlchemy of us, where she connects the past and future of innovations and invites us to bridge the gap between us and those supposed "great geniuses" whose mistakesled to great advances.

"Many people don't feel connected to science at all, and that's what the book aims to do, to create a connection between science and society to look at the past and prepare for what happens in the future," saidAinissa.

But sometimes the ethics of these innovations were overshadowed or had fatal consequences on which Ramrez sheds light.

"There are stories like Polaroid, which created instant photography in the 1960s and 1970s and continues to delight photography fans today, but whose invention was used as a tool of oppression in South Africa," she explained, warning that in an age where people are more interested in myths than facts, it is necessary to "create new myths" from the past so that they feel they can "create, innovate and ask questions about AI or driverless cars" and what consequences could result, for example, from using analgorithm that marks a certain route for their passenger.

"Most great inventions have come through trial and error and when we look at the lives of the inventors we see that they were not so different from us," Ramirez added.

VERY useful accidents

Just to name a few, the story of Edison, who inspired the beginning of this book, and another inventor who was eclipsed by history: William Wallace.

"When we think of the light bulb and Edison and how he was inspired to create it, many are unaware of the existence of William Wallace. Edison visited Wallace in Connecticut because Wallace had created a very bright electric light - before there were only candles or the gas lamp - and when Edison saw the invention, he told Wallace "I think I can beat you." He went back to Menlo Park and created the light bulb. So William Wallace was also a catalyst for the invention," he says.

Other times these inventions have served to reconfigure society and create bonds, although the purposes were not so noble.

Can we trust businessmen like Musk, who climbed certain watchtowers of invincibility and even left the same group he founded to defend ethics in AI?

"Steel is one of the great inventions that has made our world what it is, and thanks to it, a railway was created-it was once made of wood and iron and soon had to be changed-and a circulation system that connected society. But the purpose was to encourage people to consume, especially at Christmas; the industrialists needed to sell the excess production that the Industrial Revolution had brought about," saidRamrez, highlighting the experience of one of the inventors of steel, Henry Bessemer, a British industrialist who in the midst of the war needed money to buy munitions, but only discovered steel when the war was over, so itbecame the material from which railway tracks were made.

"It was by accident. Again, what we see is a pinball kind of approach and that Bessemer didn't know anything about steel when he started investigating and that didn't stop him," she concluded.What social and political drift could there be in leaving the exploration of Mars in the hands of private companies?

Are we co-responsible for extracting resources from other planets or from the moon itself? Can we trust businessmen like Musk, who climbed certain watchtowers of invincibility and even left the same group he founded to defend ethics in AI?Science, technology and alleged advances are not alien to the public, and books like TheAlchemy of us urge us to exercise our right to ask the same questions as visionaries and scientists and exercise their duty to give us answers.

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Elon Musk is going to privatize space and we should be concerned - AL DIA News

[Updated 6/1/2020] SpaceX Valuation Post Crew Launch Still Relies Primarily On Starlink Global Internet Network

Last weekend, SpaceX successfully launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station using its reusable Falcon 9 rocket the first instance of a commercial manned launch. As the privately-held company makes significant progress with its launch program, we briefly revisit the key drivers of its valuation, which now reportedly stands at about $36 billion. [] See our dashboard analysis detailingSpaceXs Revenues and Valuation for the underlying numbers on launches, revenues per launch, and valuation multiples.

SpaceX is likely to launch about 15 commercial missions this year. Assuming an average revenue of $80 million per launch (Falcon 9 launches start at about $60 million & Falcon Heavy missions cost as much as $150 million) this amounts to about $1.2 billion in launch revenues for 2020. This implies that the companys latest reported valuation of about $36 billion values it about 30x projected revenues. This is steep, considering the limited potential of SpaceXs launch business. After all, the total commercial launch market is expected to stand at $7 billion by 2024 []. Investors are likely betting big on the space-based global internet network Starlink which we project could be valued at over $30 billion by 2025. See our detailed dashboard analysis Starlink Valuation: What Could SpaceXs Starlink Service Be Worth?

[5/30/2018] Whats Driving SpaceXs Sky High Valuation?

SpaceX stands out among the list of multi-billion dollar startups as one of the few companies that has grown by focusing on an industry that has existed for decades, rather than disrupting existing industries through the use of technology. While SpaceXs ultimate goal of colonizing Mars will take decades to reach, if at all, the company has definitely achieved a series of significant milestones since it was founded in 2002.

Over recent years, though, SpaceX has done well todominate the space launch services sector offering to launch commercial (and occasionally military) satellites at a much lower price than incumbents while largely remaining profitable. This has shaken up the industry status quo and forced incumbents likeArianespace and United Launch Alliance (ULA) to work on similar low-cost launch systems. As we capture inour interactive dashboard for SpaceX, space launch services have been the only source of revenue for the company and it looks poised to cross $2 billion this year if all goes well.

Notably, though, SpaceXs valuation has outpaced revenue growth over the years, and could top $32 billion next year according to our estimates. In this article, which is the first of our in-depth series on SpaceXs existing and potential growth drivers, we detail the reasons behind SpaceXs rocketing valuation.

SpaceXs Business Model Is Evolving, And Holds Immense Potential

SpaceX is a space technology company primarily focused on manufacturing and launching rockets and spaceships. Since it was founded in 2002, the company has built a series of rocket and spaceship systems from scratch, with the core driving principle being to reduce costs substantially by making various parts of the system reusable. The company has demonstrated success in reusing and relaunching many rocket components a first for any private or government operator and has made its long-term goal of building fully reusable rocket systems that can be used to reach other planets a very real possibility in the not too distant future.

While SpaceX has made significant advances in space technology, it currently makes money purely by launching satellites into low earth orbit and by transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station. Notably, the company charges customers much less per launch compared to other players. Although this has resulted in profit margins being small compared to incumbents, it allows SpaceX to line up more launches giving it more opportunity to refine and advance its expertise in reusing components. In other words, the space launch services keep cash flows positive as SpaceX focuses on the R&D aspects of its long-term goal of interplanetary travel.

Admittedly, it is difficult to develop a timeline for when (and if) SpaceX succeeds in its mission to put a human on Mars and also if it will be able to do so profitably. However, the fact that the companys valuation growth continues to outpace revenue growth can be explained by the fact thatit intends to add more revenue sources over the coming years. This includes billions in potential revenues annually from:

A Quick Look At What Currently Drives SpaceXs Valuation

As we detail inour interactive dashboard for SpaceX, revenues for the company currently depend on just two revenue drivers: the number of successful launches in a year, and the average revenue per launch.

Number of Successful Launches in a year:This is the total number of successful launches SpaceX carries out in a year. The numberof successful launches climbed from 6 in 2014 to 18 in 2017. Weexpect the number of successful launches to increase to 31 in 2018 and further to 45 in 2019.

Average Revenue per Launch:SpaceX has a fixed price for launching commercial satellites, and offers a sizable discount for customers opting to reuse rocket components. Also, the company had millions of dollars in one-time payments linked to its long-term contracts with some customers like NASA and Iridium, which boosted payments over the initial years. This would explain the reduction in average revenue per launch from an estimated $175 million in 2014 to around $72 million in 2017. We expect the figure to decline to $65 million in 2018 and further to $60 million in 2019, as more small-sized customers opt for the low-cost benefit offered by reused rocked systems.

As shown above, our forecast for SpaceXs launches and average revenue per launch in 2018 and 2019 results in revenue forecasts of $2 billion and $2.7 billion respectively.

To arrive at the revenue multiples used by early investors to value SpaceX over the years, we plotted our estimates for revenues with SpaceXs valuation.We interpolated the yearly valuation for the company from funding-round valuation figures of $12 billion in 2014 and $21 billion in 2017.

As shown above, this works out to an increase in the revenue multiple for the company from 11.4 to 16.2 an increase of more than 42% even though the companys revenues were largely stagnant over this period. As SpaceXs space launch service works on extremely low profit margins, and has limited scope for growth in the long run, we believe that the increase was primarily due to the potential value proposition from Starlink.However, given the sharp increase we forecast in SpaceXs launch revenues, we estimate a current revenue multiple of 13 for 2018, and 12 for 2019, as detailed in the chart above. This works out to acurrent valuation of $26 billion for the company potentially increasing to over $32 billion in 2019.

That said,we believe that our multiple of 12 for 2019 is conservative, given the immense growth potential for Starlink and point-to-point Earth travel in the long run. What remains to be seen is how soon and how profitably SpaceX is able to implement these ambitious initiatives.You can see how changes in any of these drivers can impact SpaceXs valuation bymaking your own changes on our dashboard.

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Revisiting SpaceX's $36-Billion Valuation After Its First Manned Mission - Trefis