Daily Archives: February 2, 2021

Mass Effect Andromeda almost included a space exploration system that allowed you to manually drive the Tempest.

Mass Effect Andromeda featured a variety of new systems thatiteratedon preexisting ones from the series' original trilogy. For example, a lot of work was put into developing the Nomad, a land vehicle designed for traversing rough terrain on certain planets. Given the amount of flak directed at the first Mass Effect game's Mako, which handled like an anti-gravity go-kart with two missing wheels, the improvements to the Nomad were warmly welcomed by many players.

As it turns out, this wasn't the only transport enhancement that was on the cards during development of Andromeda. According to Dorian Kieken - who was a development director at BioWare during Mass Effect 2 and 3, before becoming franchise development director in the early days of Andromeda - there was also a playable prototype for completely revamped space travel.

I remember playing a pretty good prototype of space exploration back in 2015, Kieken says. You would basically pilot your ship from planet to planet."

I wasn't in the company anymore when that decision [to cut it] was made, but I'm not surprised," Kieken explains. "Not because it was not fun. It was. But it would have likely required a lot of effort to make work, and so, keeping it would have cost other parts of the game.

Related:How Mass Effect Inspired The Games Industry And Beyond

We tried to do too much with Andromeda, from large explorable planets with a ground vehicle to space exploration with tons of planets. Something had to eventually give.

It's fascinating to think about how this could have fared in Andromeda. I personally thought that planet design was one of the game's strongest elements, so having the opportunity to consciously flit between them at the helm of the Tempest instead of fast-travelling via the Galaxy Map could have been brilliant. Hopefully we see this prototype realized in a future Mass Effect game.

In related news, Kieken also told us about a Han Solo-inspired Mass Effect spin-off that was scrapped before Mass Effect 2. While he and several other devs at BioWare thought the idea was solid, there simply wasn't enough bandwidth to focus on it while also working on Mass Effect 2.

Next:Mass Effect 3 Could Have Had A Completely Different Ending

Super Mario Minifigures Are Not Out Of The Question For LEGO Designer

Cian Maher is the Lead Features Editor at TheGamer. He's also had work published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Verge, Vice, Wired, and more. You can find him on Twitter @cianmaher0.

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Mass Effect Andromeda Had A Playable Prototype For Space Exploration, But It Was Scrapped - TheGamer

A recently completed project saw Greenland stand in for the Moon. Another is using Iceland as a substitute for Mars.

If you want to get an idea of what Mars looks like, a good place to start, ironically, is Google Earth.

The service provides highly detailed, first-person views of parts of Devon Island, in Nunavut, a place that the U.S. space agency NASA, among others, has described as providing earth-bound scientists with the closest thing they can get to Mars without leaving home.

While no humans have been to Mars yet, there were 14 missions to the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) between 2001 and 2017, when the Mars Society, a non-profit that promotes space exploration, stopped running the facility.

A big benefit of using the Arctic as a stand-in for an extraterrestrial environment is that it adds a sense of realism and fidelity when preparing for space exploration: it is challenging to get to and far removed from human settlements, while specific locations, such as the area around FMARS, provide scientists with conditions similar to what would be experienced on Mars.

But, unlike other parts of the Earth that are more remote Antarctica, for example Arctic sites tend to be close enough to civilization to allow scientists to have a safe place to retreat to in the event of a medical emergency or some other mishap. The Devon Island site is a one-hour flight from the nearest settlement, Resolute. A site on Svalbard is also reassuringly close to Longyearbyen, the largest settlement in the archipelago.

Architects Karl-Johan Srensen (right) and Sebastian Aristotelis stand next to a folded Lunark habitat. (Saga Space Architects)

This was part of thinking behind the choice of Moriusaq, in northwestern Greenland, for the site of the Lunark project, which, in December, completed testing of a habitat that its creators, Saga Space Architects, hope could serve as a model the housing used by future lunar explorers.

Moriusaq is located close to Thule Air Base, a U.S. Air Force base that served as the staging point for the expedition. When looking for a location test the habitat, Saga Space Architects says it also considered sites near Station Nord, a Danish military facility in northeastern Greenland, which could also have served as a staging point.

Its important for the project to take place in an environment that looks and behaves like the Moons surface. Northern Greenland has some unique features that make it an ideal Lunar test-bed, the firm wrote of its search for a suitable location.

When shipped, the two-person pop-up structure is folded, origami-style, reducing its size by a factor of eight and allowing it to fit in a standard shipping container. Weighing 1,700 kilograms, the habitat is designed to stand up to temperatures of minus 45 degrees Celsius and winds of up to 90 km/h.

Some assembly is required, when erecting Lunark, but the habitat, according to Saga Space Architects, is designed to arrive completely equipped with furniture, food and other resources. Karl-Johan Srensen and Sebastian Aristotelis, two Danish architects, and the founders of Saga Space Architects, who lived in the habitat in Greenland, needed a day to expand the structure. It took them a month to set up camp, and they eventually spent 60 days living in Lunark, rather than the planned 90.

The shorter period was due to a delay deploying the habitat. The challenge of working in an Arctic environment was something Srensen and Aristotelis touched on in one of their brief updates, which were sent using a satellite phone to imitate the limited communication with Earth that future space travellers will experience.

Hab (the habitat, ed.) is almost finished! Why is it taking so long? We didnt manage to finish all the details in time for shipment. Fixing sh*t here is slow and hard, the two wrote in a post dated September 21.

When it comes to the second project, which is currently underway, the appeal of the location the lava fields of Icelands highlands has less to do with its remoteness than it does how, and when, it was formed.

The lava field, known as Holuhraun, is devoid of vegetation or topsoil, making it similar to what some Martian landscapes look like, according to Christopher Hamilton, a University of Arizona scientists who heads a protect studying whether drones can be used to provide eyes in the sky for Mars rovers.

When earth-bound sites such as Devon Island and Holuhraun are shaped by similar geologic processes as their extraterrestrial counterparts, they can be used as mock environments, or analogs, to prepare explorers to safely navigate the real thing.

In the case of Holuhraun, the will be the second time it stands in for a non-Earth environment. In the 1960s, NASA turned to the area as a lunar analog when looking to give Apollo astronauts a taste of what they might experience on the Moon.

This time around, the RoverAerial Vehicle Exploration Networks, or RAVEN, project, which recently received $3.1 million from NASA, is designed to give scientists and idea of how to explore terrain that was created by a volcanic eruption in 2019, and is similar to those observed on Mars.

As far as technology goes, RAVEN, takes its cue from existing drones, including Ingenuity, a helicopter-like drone that that is arrive on Mars together with NASAs Perseverance rover on February 18. In addition to giving scientists an idea of what it takes to fly in the thin Martian atmosphere, Ingenuitys job will be act as a scout that identifies sites that might be of interest for future missions. The results of the RAVEN project, on the other hand, will be help future Martian drones work in tandem with rovers on the ground, and that requires knowing what to look for ahead of time.

Volcanic terrains offer exciting targets for exploration because of their potential to generate habitable hydrothermal systems, which could support or preserve microbial life, Hamilton said. RAVEN would make such locations accessible for the first time.

Similarly, young lava of the likes found on Mars and at Holuhraun can be too rugged for rovers to traverse, which can limit their usefulness, or, worse, put them out of action. Having a drone accompanying them can help by scouting a path forward for them, or, if they are equipped with prospecting equipment, by carrying samples back to the rover.

Pascal Lee, the co-founder of the Mars Society, has suggested that Mars astronauts would get their first taste of life off Earth in the Arctic. The same, it would seem, is true for the machines as well.

This article originally appeared at Arctic Today and is republished with permission.

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How two space-exploration projects are using the Arctic to stand in for extraterrestrial environments - Nunatsiaq News

Shift4 Payments, the integrated payment processing and technology solutions company, will air a Super Bowl commercial promoting its partnership in the first all-civilian mission to space.

The companys founder and CEO, Jared Isaacman, will command the mission and will use the Super Bowl to introduce it and its purpose to the public, to support St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital.

The 30-second ad will air in the first quarter of the game and invite viewers to support and be part of the mission through St. Jude and Shift4Shop programs. The commercial and entire campaign was created by Known.

"This is a pivotal moment for human space exploration and for the important role Shift4s turnkey ecommerce solution, Shift4Shop, will play in the mission Isaacman said in a statement.We looked for a partner that could help bring this inspiring event to life in the most riveting way possible. Known has helped us tie together our strategy, media and creative efforts around the worlds first all-civilian mission to space and we are very proud to share it with the world.

Isaacman is donating the three mission seats alongside him to crew members who will be selected to represent the mission based on the pillars of leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity. The first seat will be filled by a St. Jude ambassador.

Another seat will go to the member of the public who can enter for a chance to join the flight to space by supporting the mission of St. Jude.

Isaacman has committed to give $100 million to St. Jude and is looking to raise upwardof $200 million from the mission.

A fourth seat will go to an entrepreneur who utilizes the new Shift4Shop e-commerce platform. Current and new Shift4Shop customers will have an opportunity to enter an online competition showcasing them and their business.

The crew members will be trained by SpaceX.

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Super Bowl LV will see commercial for the first civilian space mission - AdAge.com

By Robert Ross

Im sure all of you have heard of ARK Invest founder, CEO, and CIO Catherine Wood.

She is a crowd favorite at Mauldin Economics annual Strategic Investment Conference. (Mark your calendar for May 514, 2021, and stay tuned to your email for details about this years virtual event.)

Catherine is also one of the worlds greatest investors. Her flagship fund, theARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), was the best-performing actively managed ETF in the world last year.

Two things make this fund unique

First, you wont find many actively run ETFs like this in the market, especially one with a triple-digit gain like the 148% ARKK returned in 2020.

Second, youre not going to find the same kind of staid, safe stocks that anchor traditional investorsand a lot of fund managersportfolios.

Catherine focuses her research on companies that are disruptive. This includes companies that are making a name for themselves with electric vehicles, digital payments, and genetic sequencing.

With such strong performance, its no surprise her assets under management grew tenfold to become the largest active ETF in the worldjust six years after she launched it.

ARKK is already up 18% in 2021. And withtechnology set to be 2021s top-performing sector, theres likely a lot more upside in store.

But if you want real moonshot potential, well, theres about to be an ETF for that, too.

This month, ARK Invest filed paperwork for a new space exploration fund.

TheARK Space Exploration ETF (Pending: ARKX)will hold companies at the forefront of one of the fastest-growing industries on the planet.

A lot has changed in the half-century since Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon.

The government is still in the game, but the private sector is breaking into the space race in a big way.

A massive $415 billion was spent on the space industry just in 2019. Thats up 79% since 2009:

Some 80% of this spending came from private industry. That is, the companies that build everything from satellite systems to deep-space rocket technology to specialty suits designed for astronauts in flight.

This growth has been explosive, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Morgan Stanley expects the global space industry to generate over $1 trillion in revenues by 2040.

Thats up from $350 billion today.

A large chunk of this growth will come from US military spending.

Military spending is expected to reach $738 billion next year. Thats 20% of theentirefederal budget.

Not even the current coronavirus recession should cause the US government to scale back on defense spending. It has actuallygrownduring the last six recessions:

And while broader defense spending looks to be rising steadily

The Trump administration was one of the most pro-space administrations in modern history.

It established a new, uniformed branch of the military known as Space Force. And it earmarked $23 billion for space-related projects in the current budget.

That was up 63% from the previous year:

And because 100% of this money will be spent on US companies, owning space-related stocks and ETFs is the ultimate way to buy American.

One segment of the space market that benefits heavily from US government spending is the satellite industry.

According to the Satellite Industry Association, satellite manufacturing is a $20 billion marketplace on its own. Its dominated by large aerospace conglomerates likeBoeing (BA):

Boeing is an obvious beneficiary. Yet it only generates a small part of its sales from space technology.

There are better ways to profit from the new space race

In addition to satellite manufacturers, you also have companies that operate and service these satellites once theyve gone into space.

One such company isIridium Communications (IRDM).

Iridium is responsible for 66 satellites used for worldwide voice and data communication. It provides critical services for pagers, satellite phones, and air traffic control systems.

These are mission-critical systems that need real-time access 24/7. The US government is a reliable client; so are other governments, businesses, and individuals around the globe.

IRDM doesnt pay a dividend. But there are plenty of companies in this stock universe that do

Most pure-play space stocks are small, fast-growing companies. That means they just dont have extra cash left over each quarter to reward their investors.

However, Ive found a duo of dividend payers that benefit directly from space technology

The first is the worlds largest telecom company,AT&T (T).

AT&T is ingrained in the space industry. It is even working with NASA to improve the Deep Space Network, which supports communications during interplanetary space missions.

When it comes to dividend payers, its hard to top AT&T. The company is a Dividend Aristocrat, meaning it has increased its dividend for more than 25 years in a row. In AT&Ts case, it has raised its payout for 35 years in a row.

Then theresGarmin (GRMN), which you might remember for its bulky GPS consoles.

That was lightyears ago. Since then, the company has picked up significant exposure to the space industry. Last year, 20% of its sales were from aerospace.

And with a 2.7% dividend yield, the company is a solid dividend option for income investors.

But its not my top option. MyYield Sharksubscribers know theres one aerospace and defense company that rises above the rest. With a dividend yield thats twice that of the 10-year Treasury bill, its a great option for any income investors portfolio.Click here to unlock this stocktoday.

Originally published by Mauldin Economics, 1/27/21

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These Space Stocks Are Going to the Moon - ETF Trends

Dr. Michaela Musilova is the director of Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) program, which conducts analog missions to the moon and Mars for scientific research at a habitat on the volcano Mauna Loa. Currently, she is in command of the two-week Valoria 1 mission and contributed this report to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Bang. Smash. Flap. Over and over again. Those were the noises that woke the whole crew up in the middle of last night. The storm that was howling outside our analog Martian habitat suddenly reached new levels. When the hurricane-like winds started hitting our small dome, everything that could flap and rattle started flapping and rattling. At 3 a.m., I found myself standing outside our six tiny bedroom doors, ready to evacuate the crew into our storm shelter.

The storm shelter is a container that's attached to the HI-SEAS habitat. We normally refer to it as the engineering bay, as that's where we perform most of our engineering work and maintenance. We also keep our analog spacesuits and get dressed there for our Marswalks. During an emergency, it can serve as a shelter for the crew, as it can withstand extreme storms. It also contains a stock of food and other materials necessary for extreme scenarios.

With the whole habitat shaking around me, I started assessing every part of the structure to make sure that everything was OK and that the crew was safe. This is not the first time that I had experienced such a storm while on mission. I knew that the habitat could handle it, but I wanted to be sure. Fortunately, there was no damage sustained anywhere in the habitat, so I went back to sleep. However, the loud noises continued throughout the night, and I anticipated that the whole crew would be sleep-deprived in the morning.

Related: New crew arrives in Hawaii for mock Mars mission Commander's report: sol 2

Even though we were all a bit grouchy this morning, we still made an optimistic, warm batch of oatmeal for breakfast. It was meant both to raise our spirits and serve as a dose of hope for better weather later in the day. With hindsight, I now smile at how nave we were. This massive dust storm outside was not planning to move anytime soon. Not only did the storm ruin our plans to go on the second lava cave Marswalk of this mission today, it also forced us to go into low-power mode.

The habitat runs primarily on solar power, which is stored in batteries inside the habitat. These batteries can't charge fully during bad weather, which means that the crew has to exist on Mars with the power that's left in the batteries until the weather clears. To save power, the crew normally unplugs all devices that aren't absolutely necessary for our survival, and we go into so-called low-power mode. We only keep our heating, CO2 vent and communication systems on in the most difficult situations. Even then, we usually lower our heat down to below 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius) if necessary.

A running joke with previous crews is that we want to have 70% of the full charge in our batteries by 7 p.m., or "70by7" as we analog astronauts say. If our charge is less than 70%, then we have to start going into low-power mode to survive the night. No one wants to wake up to no power, followed by emergency procedures to turn on a backup power supply until the sun will recharge the batteries again. The backup solution is a generator. In the worst-case scenario, we have to go on a Marswalk to turn it on. It is not good for the environment and it is risky to go on a Marswalk in bad weather, so we only resort to that measure if we have no choice.

Sadly, today we only peaked at 40% of maximum battery power, and then our batteries just kept discharging. By lunchtime, we knew that we would have to go into ultra-low-power mode. That essentially means eating only cold food and working in the dark and cold. We were very grateful that Engineering Officer Kevin Pratt baked a big batch of bread the previous day, so we could at least eat that with some cold oatmeal and rehydrated applesauce from breakfast. In the afternoon, the crew decided to compensate for the cold temperatures in the habitat by over-exercising. We definitely bumped up the temperature in the habitat by one whole degree through our workouts!

While we humans could make some sacrifices to survive in low-power mode, other lifeforms on our mission could not do that. I'm talking about the lettuce seedlings that we're attempting to grow in a LettuceGrow hydroponics system at the habitat. To conserve power, we had to turn off its mini greenhouse lighting and water pump systems. Instead, we moved the LettuceGrow "tree" to the window so the plants could get some light, and we had to water the plants manually to keep them alive.

Instead of "70by7", we got to 31% by 7 p.m. today. Clearly, we were not going to last the night with this little power. Kevin and I thus had to go on an emergency Marswalk to our backup generator to turn it on. Engineering Officer Michael Barton assisted us from inside the engineering bay to flip the switch between solar-based energy and the generator. The rest of the crew covered us in plastic bags to save the space suits from being damaged in the storm. They were not made for spacewalks in this kind of weather.

Our efforts were in vain, though. The generator had a malfunctioning battery, so we were not able to start it up. We thus had to message the mission support team on Earth to send us drones from a nearby Martian station for help (aka engineers from the HI-SEAS staff team). While we were waiting for help to come, we made enough soup to last us for two days with our remaining power in case we have a power blackout tomorrow.

Huddled together, sipping on soup, we reminisced about the first lava cave exploration Marswalk we conducted yesterday. It was our first all-female spacewalk. I continued to train Officers Hillary Coe, MaryLiz Bender and Karin Metzgar in geology and volcanology as we hiked to the Caradhras lava tube system. Lava tubes are lava tunnels and caves that form during volcanic eruptions. Hillary and MaryLiz buried a "Lava Library" time capsule in the lava tube. It is an indestructible Arch Mission Foundation disc containing thoughts from modern-day thinkers and our own crew. Written like a Voyager Golden Record for future beings to uncover, we hope this provides a window into what Earthlings were thinking about just before they leapt off the planet permanently for the first time.

Commander Musilova signing off, hoping we'll make it through the night without a power outage but ready to do what it takes to proceed with our mission on Mars.

Follow Michaela Musilova on Twitter @astro_Michaela. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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The Valoria 1 crew is fighting to survive the night Commander's Report: sol 8 - Space.com

Boeing, too, hopes to launch a second attempt on March 29 this year after addressing the software issues that prevented Starliner from reaching its destination the first time.

In 2021, the first Indian will be carried by our own rocket to space. The Chandrayaan-3 demonstrator mission will attempt a lunar landing again after the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-2 mission crashed in July 2019. The new mission is slated to launch in March this year and would consist of a lunar rover and a stationary lander approved by the Indian government.

K Sivan, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), revealed the estimated cost for Chandrayaan-3 to be Rs 6.15 billion (about $91.2 million), a much lower figure in comparison with Chandrayaan-2, which cost Rs 9.7 billion, as per news reports.

Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008, was one of the first major missions in the Indian space programme. Comprising an orbiter and a surface penetrator probe, it was one of the first missions to confirm evidence of lunar water. Chandrayaan-3 will touch down in the lunar south poles Aitken basin, a vital component for future sustainable lunar habitation.

The agency has also identified four astronauts for Gaganyaan, the countrys first human space flight set for launch in 2021. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma flew in a Russian module, but this time, the Indian astronauts will fly in an Indian module. Sharma, the first Indian to travel to space, was part of the Soviet Unions Soyuz T-11 expedition, launched in April 1984 as part of the Intercosmos programme.

Clearly, 2021 promises to be an exciting one for space missions, and not just because of Indias space plans. There are other major countries as well planning their space missions in the near future. Russia, for one, has reinvigorated its Luna programme to launch the moon mission in 2021 with nine instruments onboard, according to news and space discovery website Space.com. The country is setting the stage to put cosmonauts on the moon under its Russian lander Luna-25, the first Russian craft to reach the moons surface since it was part of the Soviet Union.

Chinas ambitious Tianwen-1 mission will be the first Mars mission with an orbiter, lander and rover to explore the red planet. Tianwen-1, which blasted into space in July 2020, is now more than 15 million km from earth en route the red planet.

South Korea and Japan are also building lunar landers. South Korea, with its first launch of a lunar orbiter slated for the second half of 2022, has been working on a lunar orbiter programme since 2016, Yonhap news agency reported. The spacecraft is expected to reach the moon by December 2022 and conduct a year-long mission that could even be extended, according to the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).

Japans first moon rover called Yaoki will take flight aboard the rookie mission for United Launch Alliances new Vulcan Centaur rocket in 2021. The US Artemis project, which includes the goal of sending the first woman and next man to the moon in 2024, is the most ambitious mission. Subsequent missions will explore more of the moon and test the technologies and procedures needed for human exploration of Mars. In this regard, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is seeking new partners to help the agency tell the story of human exploration of the moon with the Artemis programme in ways that engage, excite and inspire audiences.

Boeing, too, hopes to launch a second attempt on March 29 this year after addressing the software issues that prevented Starliner from reaching its destination the first time.

Washington-based company Blue Origin will send its first orbital rocket aloft in 2021. Named New Glenn after the NASA Mercury astronaut John Glenn, the rocket can send up to 14 tons to geostationary orbit and 50 tons to low earth orbit.

An ambitious new NASA mission called Lucy is expected to launch in November this year to study eight space rocks over nearly a decade. With boosts from earths gravity, it will complete a 12-year journey to eight different asteroidsa Main Belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids. The swarms of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets. The Trojans orbit the sun in two loose groups, with one group leading ahead of Jupiter in its path, the other trailing behind. The Jupiter trojans, commonly called Trojan asteroids or simply Trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiters orbit around the sun. These primitive bodies hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system, and perhaps even the origins of organic material on earth.

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A space odyssey: 2021 promises to be an exciting one for space exploration - The Financial Express