Monthly Archives: February 2021

This afternoon, NASAs Perseverance rover will attempt to land on Mars, making it just the fifth vehicle on a planet about half the diameter of Earth. But compared with the eons of total emptiness until 1997, when NASA landed its first Mars rover, Sojourner, the neighborhood is getting pretty crowded. In fact, Perseverance is the third spacecraft to reach Mars just this month. On Feb. 9, the UAEs Hope Probe arrived in orbit around Mars, where Chinas Tianwen-1 joined it the very next day. In May or June, Tianwen will attempt to land its own rover on the Martian surface, making China the second country to achieve that feat.

The purpose of these missions is to study the composition of Marss soil and atmosphere. The one thing theyre certain not to find is what humanity long dreamed of finding on the red planet: an intelligent species with a civilization and technology comparable to our own. For almost a century, from the 1880s to the 1960s, Martians were humanitys favorite shorthand for extraterrestrial life. Science fiction as a literary genre grew up with Martians, starting with H.G. Wellss 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, about invaders from the red planet. So did the movies, which have used Mars as a showcase for special effects since Thomas Edisons 1910 film A Trip to Mars. Martians were so popular in the early 20th century that the word itself now has a nostalgic feel, conjuring the pasts dream of a future that never came to be.

That humanity would fixate on Martians rather than Venusians or Saturnites wasnt inevitable. Before the rise of modern astronomy, writers who imagined journeys to outer space generally picked the moon as a destinationnaturally enough, since its far more conspicuous than Mars to the naked eye. The earliest such tale is the 2nd-century Greek work A True Story, in which the narrators ship is caught in a whirlwind and carried through the air for seven days and nights until it lands on the moon.

The shift to Mars as the most popular setting for space fantasy began in 1877, when the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli published a map of the planet that included features he called canali or channels. Schiaparelli didnt believe these were artificial or carried water, but when canali was translated into English as canals, it was easy for readers to assume that they must be large-scale engineering projectswhich meant that there must be Martians capable of building them.

No one did more to popularize this idea than the American astronomer Percival Lowell, who claimed to have observed even more detailed canal networks. In his 1906 book Mars and Its Canals, he argued that they were built by the inhabitants of Mars to transport water from the polar ice caps. The fact that the canals spanned the whole globe proved that Martians werent divided into warring nations, like us, but knew how to cooperate for the common good: Whether increasing common sense or increasing necessity was the spur that drove the Martians to this eminently sagacious state we cannot say, but it is certain that reached it they have, Lowell wrote.

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Were Still Dreaming of Mars and Martians - The Wall Street Journal

Building his latest documentary around impossibly big questions, a cheeky 90s cyber aesthetic and the words of visionary author Philip K. Dick, director Rodney Ascher explores the labyrinthine terrain between science fiction and reality in A Glitch in the Matrix, tackling an age-old conundrum: Are we living in a simulation?

A genre filmmaker whose natural inquisitiveness lent itself to feature documentaries including 2012s Room 237, about Stanley Kubricks The Shining, and 2015s sleep paralysis exploration The Nightmare Ascher now explores another niche corner of humankinds search for meaning and truth. But as he dove deeper into Matrix, the film took an unexpected turn.

I didnt know that it was going towards horror; I thought it was going towards science fiction, said Ascher, whose film, conceived before the pandemic and completed remotely during it, premiered at this years virtual Sundance Film Festival.

Blending sci-fi cinema and video game iconography, the academic theories of experts such as Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom and firsthand musings from eyewitnesses who are transformed on screen into otherworldly CG avatars, Matrix explores wide-ranging implications of simulation theory with imaginative, pop culture-infused flair.

In its most chilling and controversial sequence, Matrix employs photogrammetry and eerie computer animation to re-create the 2003 night when teenager Joshua Cooke, obsessed with the 1999 film The Matrix, murdered his parents. The case spawned the Matrix defense, in which a defendant claims they believed they were in a simulation of the real world. Cooke is interviewed in the film from prison, where he is serving a 40-year sentence.

Beaming in via videochat, Ascher discussed the methods and origins of the film and considered the ways it has garnered unexpected relevancy since it first began. The film is now available on VOD and in virtual cinemas.

Were in a world where there are not just disagreements about opinions, but disagreements about facts, he said. And I like to think that this project can be a good entryway into talking about that stuff maybe as a piece of self-examination, wondering, if were all living in our own Platos Caves, how accurate are the shadows that we choose to spend the most time looking at?

A Glitch in the Matrix filmmaker Rodney Ascher in Los Angeles. The film had its world premiere at the first virtual Sundance Film Festival, where audiences attended screenings through their screens due to the pandemic.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

You made this film before our new pandemic reality set in, but A Glitch in the Matrix uses language that were now all-too accustomed to in our daily lives: Subjects are interviewed over Skype, through screens, and are even presented in avatar form. How prescient does that choice feel now?

It looks like the conversation that were having right now, you and me, but we actually shot the interviews in 2019. Its a very strange coincidence that a movie that is built on these Skype calls, these webcam video calls, is getting released into a world in which were all interacting with each other through these images. In some ways having an avatar speaking to people in these interviews, people speaking in their real world environments, might seem a little bit like a satire of the first few COVID-19 projects that have hit. Or just the way that we live. A very strange coincidence, but not the only one.

Have you experienced instances of dj vu, glitches or synchronicities you cant explain?

Synchronicities, for sure. Even in the course of this film. The name that [Dick] came up with for the day that he had this big revelation in February and March of 1974, he called 2-3-7... 4. [Room 237, Aschers documentary about The Shining, is titled after a motif in the Kubrick film.] Philip K. Dick wrote extensively about Martian colonies, and [Glitch in the Matrix subject] Jesse [Orion] thinks we need to colonize Martian planets in order to get our message out to the creator. And, Elon Musk is working on a Mars colony. All three of them are thinking Mars is the place.

Are you endorsing Elon Musk as a voice of authority on the matter?

Im saying Elon Musk is a Philip K. Dick-esque character. As a globe-trotting outer space executive whos fascinated with the idea of simulation theory, the fact that he, Philip K. Dick and Jesse Orion were all speaking actively of Martian colonization, struck me as significant. His speech gave a lot of people permission, and Jesse talks about it explicitly: If somebody as rich, famous and powerful as [Musk] believes in it, maybe theres something to it.

Had you been thinking about simulation theory for a long time when you began developing Glitch in the Matrix?

One of the people I spoke to for The Nightmare believed in simulation theory. He was the first person who turned me onto the idea that it wasnt just an idea from science fiction movies it wasnt just The Matrix, eXistenZ, The 13th Floor, but that people were taking it seriously and that physicists were trying to see if they could look at the end of the universe and whether it broke down into a particular scale of pixel, and what that meant. That blew my mind. It was the beginning of a rabbit hole that I still havent been able to crawl out of.

A Glitch in the Matrix uses computer animation to visualize the musings and personal stories of its interview subjects.

(Magnolia Pictures)

After making this film do you, in fact, believe that we are in a simulation?

I have no idea. I think I understand Nick Bostroms three-part simulation hypothesis better than I did going in, although I dont necessarily understand whether all three branches are equally weighted. And I dont necessarily understand the bleeding edge of quantum physics and where science comes down on simulation theory, although I do know that people smarter than me, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk, think of it as plausible.

What I take away from it is more simulation theory as a creation story, as an article of faith: that countless traditions and cultures have stories that explain how we got here, where the universe comes from, and in many ways this could be just another one of them. I was surprised going into this and talking to people, how quickly it became a religious question not just, Is the creator some fifth-grader cramming for their exam over the weekend on another planet or in the future? but, If this is a simulation, what does that mean about our relationship to other people?

Because the first fork in the road is, are we playing Pac-Man where youre the only player and everybody else is a phantom ghost or is this Fortnite, where every character is tethered to a real human being? Where you come in on that fork, whether other people are real too, has extraordinary ramifications for how you live. I see it in the people who mistreat service workers because theyre an obstacle along the way of getting what they want. How that phrase NPC [non-player character] has terrifying connotations of thinking of people that way, and that rippling out, was one of the surprises of this project.

The Joshua Cooke sequence marks a turning point in the film, when hypotheticals collide with real world consequences and go to a very real, horrifying place. How did you measure how much of his story to include, and how to go about it?

In the early days I had a big whiteboard with every idea I could think of related to simulation theory. One of the early ones was the Matrix defense, the fact that people had used simulation theory as part of a criminal defense to explain an insanity defense that they werent liable for their actions because they didnt realize the real world implications; they thought they were living in a simulated reality. I wanted to get something about the Matrix defense into the film, and there was really only one person who used it. [Cookes lawyers at the time considered using the defense; he ultimately pleaded guilty.]

[Producers] Rebecca Evans and Colin Frederick found Joshua, and Joshuas at a place in his life where hes just written a self-published book on Amazon and hes trying to reach kids to try to help prevent them from repeating his mistakes, trying to learn from what he went through and be a better person, work on himself and reach out to kids who are in a similar space. So he was anxious to retell the story. I spoke to him a few times on the phone from an administrators office, but ultimately the recording thats used in the film came from a pay phone in the common area, so you sometimes hear other people in the room a little fight breaks out, you can hear some shouting echoing off the metal walls from time to time.

A scene from A Glitch in the Matrix.

(Magnolia Pictures)

How careful did you decide you should be with that depiction?

Some people have taken exception to that storys inclusion in the film. I get it. Its a pretty troubling sequence in a lot of ways. As I was working on the film, it seemed more and more important to go from abstract speculation to nuts-and-bolts reality, and to especially drill down into some of the real-world consequences of this kind of thinking and the dangers of it. I still find it perfectly fun sometimes to bat simulation theory around and think about some of its implications, but there can be a real danger in disassociating and becoming alienated from reality, and not necessarily believing in the world around you or the people around you... you look around where we are today; people building up false ideas about reality has dangerous consequences all around us, in a thousand different ways.

When it came time to talk about the murder itself and what that was going to look like, I didnt want there to be animated cartoon characters in it in a way that would make it silly. That would be wildly inappropriate even by my standards, which might be looser than other peoples.

The idea of it was not looking at the night through his eyes as he moves through the house as he describes it but more of him 15 years later remembering it and that its a memory thats starting to fray around the edges. Hes narrating it in a very specific, blow-by-blow kind of way, and I think back to The Shining. What frightened me as a kid when I snuck into a screening when I was 13 was the Steadicam that even though this was a bad place, the camera dragged you into it and it almost felt like the floor was so well polished that even if you planted your feet, you would be dragged forward against your will.

The momentum of [animation director] Lorenzo [Fonda]s ghostly camera moving through the rooms, even if you want to put on the brakes, has that kind of eerie, terrifying feeling. And it is a terrifying story. The terror is about making a horrible mistake. Its not about danger happening to you, its about you doing something that you cant undo.

You mention the dangers of people living in false realities today. How have you seen the films themes ripple out into real world events, even after finishing the film?

Clearly the last couple years have shown us the dangers of people creating worlds that, however much theyre at odds with reality, theyre certainly at odds with other peoples realities. Were in a world where there are not just disagreements about opinions, but disagreements about facts. And I like to think that this project can be a good entryway into talking about that stuff maybe as a piece of self-examination, wondering, if were all living in our own Platos Caves, how accurate are the shadows that we choose to spend the most time looking at? Assuming theyre telling us the truth about the world around us. How carefully are we vetting where theyre coming from, or whether they were created in good faith, by journalists working their asses off communicating to us what they find out there, or cynically by folks who are trying to manipulate us to other ends?

There are specific political controversies that that talks about today. But Im perfectly happy for them not to be directly in the film, so that as time goes on you can substitute the next three or four horrifying things that are waiting for us.

An interesting thing about these projects is youre working on them a year, two years, three years before they come out, said Ascher, and you dont know what the worlds going to look like, or how relevant things are going to be.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

When you set out to find interview subjects for this film, you put out a call online. What kind of responses did you get?

There were maybe 75 or 100 people who wrote us, and I probably talked to 15 or 20 of them at a similar length to the ones who appeared in the film. Its been noted that all four of them are white men, and thats certainly something I noticed in the course of making it. That was also who dominated the replies. I think its fair to ask: Is there something about simulation theory that appeals more to white men?

Its certainly a conversation thats worth continuing to have. Again, its a pretty small sample group so Im not sure if its statistically significant or just the way that it broke in our experience. If the tech world is dominated by white guys, maybe theres something reassuring to them that the creator of the world is more like them. During the [Sundance] Q&A, Paul [Gude] suggested that as a white guy because hes coming from a place of privilege maybe he feels more comfortable sharing this idiosyncratic part of himself than other folks might feel. There might be something to that.

Your film is framed by a Philip K. Dick lecture from 1977 in which he speaks to an audience about his belief in simulation theory. Why was that an important piece of the puzzle for you?

A five-minute version of it that I found on YouTube made me want to include it as a speech thats a milestone in the mainstreaming of simulation theory, and it made me want to find out what else he said. Watching the entire thing, which was 40 or 50 minutes long, was kind of a revelation. I had to watch it two or three times to get my head around it because some of it is pretty complicated, and a little gnarled.

The thing I love about the speech and [why I] included it in the film is that movies based on Philip K. Dick stories even though The Matrix is not one, in many ways it shows his influence helped people understand the idea of simulation theory. Probably Total Recall, more than many of the others. Its been said that the two ideas that he focused on in book to book to book were, What is real? and What is human? Which is also the question of [non-player characters], artificial intelligence and how far away are we from a robot or a computer program that deserves human rights?

And what if... we are those robots?

Exactly. So he was a great figure to consider, as well as the fact that in many ways the audience doesnt seem especially captivated by his speech. They were probably expecting him to talk about his books. But if those ideas sounded kind of crazy in 1977, he was suffering the anxieties of a rising authoritative police state and of loss of privacy and of information out of control, and the idea that we may be in a false world. He seems to have been suffering from neuroses and fears that are so much more common today like he was patient zero of the 21st century existential crisis.

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'Glitch in the Matrix' director on simulation theory - Los Angeles Times

A robotic exploration mission sent by NASA will attempt to land on the Martian surface later today (tune in to watch starting at 2:15 US eastern time), catching up to two probes sent by China and the United Arab Emirates that arrived last week.

The US has been here before, and its rover is equipped, for the first time, with a small helicopter that will attempt to explore Mars in flight. Chinas first trip to Mars will also attempt the difficult task of landing sometime in May or June. The UAEs mission will orbit the planet, carefully mapping it with remote sensors.

The arrival of all three probes at the Red planet was driven by its relative proximity to earth last year when the missions launched, but also presents a symbolic lineup: The reigning space power and its main competitor, along with a third nation outlining a new model of national space investment.

Its really important that NASA and the US continue to lead in space exploration, continue to do these civilization-first type missions, says Steve Jurczyk, a veteran NASA executive currently serving as the agencys interim head until president Joe Biden nominates a permanent replacement.

But what does leading in space mean in a world where space technology is increasingly easy to access? The old model of the Apollo program, which signaled technological superiority to the rest of the world, is now outmoded.

The US has been slow to catch on, to be frank, because it misunderstands some of the fundamentals of the new race, says Peter Garretson, a retired US Air Force officer who is now a senior fellow focused on space strategy at the conservative-leaning American Foreign Policy Council. For newly arrived space powers, repeating old tricks and doing new first-of-a-kind tricks still commands attention. But what really matters is who is establishing a long-term industrial and logistical base from which they can command long-term economic power.

Garretson and Namrata Goswami, an independent space policy analyst, have written a book called Scramble for the Skiesthat outlines their expectation that space power will be built around exploiting the economic potential beyond earth. In particular, they fear China will outstrip other powers because of its long-term focus on development.

Today, the context of space is much more about the economic returns, Goswami told Quartz in an email. A service like GPS or BeiDou offers the possibility of billions of dollars in return on investments. Countries like China are investing in space technologies like 3D printing, advanced robotics, and AI given their rationale of trillions of dollars of resources waiting on the Moon and asteroids to be harvested. The idea is not just showcasing space technology for its own sake, but towards a long-term strategic purpose.

US goals in space are not even one-thousandth as ambitious as what the Chinese have articulated, Garretson says, citing Beijings detailed plans to outstrip the US as a space power by 2045with a new space station, a moon colony, and the development of technology to capture solar power in orbit.

In comparison, American experience with space success during the Apollo program has led to a culture that favors symbolic moonshot projects over long-term, cumulative investment. But under recent presidents the growing role of public-private partnerships and policy directives prioritizing the economic development of space has bent policy toward this vision.

The Artemis program, launched under Trump to return US astronauts to the moon, provides a case study. The initial goal of laying the groundwork for sustainable long-term presence there fits with this new vision of space power, but the push to strip away the more complex parts of the program in order to meet an arbitrary 2024 deadline made less sense. Garretson says that delaying the 2024 date to build more useful lunar infrastructure makes sense. Any part of the architecture that is expendable and is not able to be used by the private sector for their own purposes is a missed opportunity, he adds.

As the US warily eyes China (and Russia) as rivals in space, it will also find itself working more with partners, both traditional and newly arrived.

In some cases, the UAE has an advantagethey havent got a history, they dont have these processes and procedure, Jurczyk says, comparing the young space program with its private-sector start-ups. In some ways they can be more innovative and lean forward in exploiting cube sats and small spacecraft. Were supporting them with lessons learned engineering very complex systems and help them with enabling their innovation.

For NASAs rover Perseverance, a key part of its mission will be setting aside samples of Martian geology to return to earth. The return mission, launching in 2026, relies on a rover built by the European Space Agency to snatch the samples.

For the countries with new programs, space power isnt just about achieving scientific milestones. It is about economic development, as in India, which began its space program just weeks after the Apollo 11 landing to enable weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and other development goals, Namrata says. And the message of exploration isnt just for other countries but also for a domestic audience, allowing unelected governments in Abu Dhabi or Beijing to gain prestige in front of their people.

But small, wealthy countries like the UAE and Luxembourg, itself a satellite pioneer, see a chance to win more than just prestige. Garretson argues that these countries are well positioned to be mediators and craft a new global consensus on space activity, enabling access to other technologies and attracting financial activity, as well as bigger role in global affairs.

Any nation that seeks to carry the banner of leadership in the world symbolically must also carry it in space, he says.

A version of this story originally appeared in Quartzs Space Business newsletter.

Original post:

The geopolitics of NASA's Perseverance mission to Mars - Quartz

The United Arab Emirates first interplanetary mission has passed a major milestone, successfully placing a spacecraft in orbit around Mars and beaming back its first ever picture of the Red Planet. The Hope probes arrival marks an important step forward in the countrys efforts to explore space, which include sending a rover to the Moon and pursuing a vision of one day building a human colony on Mars.

The Hope probe was launched in July of 2020 and arrived at the Red Planet following a journey of almost 500 million km (310 million miles). This makes the UAE just the fifth nation to reach Mars, and after slipping into its orbit last Tuesday, the spacecraft fired up its multi-wavelength camera to grab some photographic evidence.

The 12-megapixel image was taken around 25,000 km (15,500 miles) above the surface of the planet, and represents the first instalment of more than 1 TB of data that the Hope probe will relay back to Earth. Along with the camera, the spacecraft is equipped with an infrared spectrometer and ultraviolet spectrometer, which it will use to study weather and the Martian atmosphere and eventually build the first complete picture of the different layers within it.

As part of this science phase of the mission, the probe will also gather the first ever planet-wide, 24x7 picture of Mars daily weather and atmospheric dynamics across the course of a full Martian year, or 687 Earth days. This is expected to take until April 2023, though the probe could potentially be used to gather data for another two years after that.

Also forming part of the UAEs ambitious space exploration program is the Rashid Lunar Rover mission, which aims to make the country just the fourth nation to land on the Moon. Slated for launch in 2024, the mission is intended to probe the makeup of the lunar soil and thermal properties of the surface.

Both missions will inform the UAEs Mars 2117 strategy, which involves a simulated Mars mission here on Earth and the overarching aim of establishing human colonies in Mars by 2117.

Source: Emirates News Agency

Excerpt from:

UAE's Hope probe beams back its first picture of Mars - New Atlas

Elon Musk, re-crowned as the worlds richest person on Thursday, has grand plans for his roughly $US200 ($254) billion net worth.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX plans to dedicate as much money as he can to colonizing Mars, and hes selling most of his material possessions in the process, the billionaire said in a December interview with Mathias Dpfner, the CEO of Insiders parent company, Axel Springer.

In fact, Ill have basically almost no possessions with a monetary value, apart from the stock in the companies, Musk told him. If things are intense at work, I like just sleeping in the factory or the office. And I obviously need a place if my kids are there. So, Ill just rent a place or something.

Musk announced last May that he planned to sell almost all of his belongings and that he will own no house. Since then the entrepreneur has sold off several homes in his real-estate portfolio, which was once worth upward of $US100 ($127) million.

In 2020, Musk sold several high-dollar pieces of property, including three neighboring homes in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles and an estate formerly belonging to the actor Gene Wilder.

Musk might well be parting ways with his California real estate as part of his move to Texas, which has no state income tax. But the billionaire also told Dpfner he was accumulating wealth not for material possessions but to eventually fund a colony on Mars.

I think it is important for humanity to become a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species. And its going to take a lot of resources to build a city on Mars, Musk said. I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars. That means just a lot of capital.

To Musk, parting ways with his material possessions also signals that hes committed to going to Mars.

Im also just trying to make clear that Im serious about this, he said. And its not about personal consumption. Because people will attack me and say, oh, hes got all these possessions. Hes got all these houses. OK, now I dont have them anymore.

As Musks net worth eclipsed that of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for the first time thanks to an early-morning Tesla stock rally on January 7, the CEO changed the pinned post on his Twitter profile to a 2018 tweet in which he promised to commit half of his wealth to building a city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens & we destroy ourselves.

The SpaceX founder has said he plans to send 1 million people to Mars by 2050 and build a fleet of 1,000 Starships to ferry them there. Musk aims to launch three of the 117.96m rockets SpaceX is developing for deep-space travel each day.

And lest you think a trip to Mars is too expensive for most people, Musk has said he intends for there to be loans available for those who dont have money and jobs on the red planet for colonists to pay off their debts. Some critics say Musks plans resemble an interplanetary form of indentured servitude.

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Elon Musk, once again the world's richest person, is selling all his possessions so people know he's serious about colonizing Mars - Business Insider...

Founded in 2009 by Jose Mariano Lopez-Urdiales, Spanish startup Zero 2 Infinity wants to launch passengers 40 kilometers into space using helium balloons.

Setting off from Andalucia in the south of Spain, the trip will take six hours.

The ascent will take three hours, while two hours will be spent floating in space, and a further hour will be spent on the descent.

Lopez-Urdiales was first struck by the idea while helping his astrophysicist father to float helium balloons to the threshold of space, he told Sifted.

The aim of the 40km flight is to allow passengers to experience the "overview effect," allowing them to experience the blackness of space, the roundness of the earth, and its blue color all without actually entering space itself, which is at around double the distance from Earth at 80 kilometers.

For the landing, the capsule containing the passengers detaches from the helium balloon and lands with a very large parachute, Lopez-Urdiales told El Economista.

He also highlighted that the space flight didn't produce any noise or CO2 emissions, nor did it bring with it any risk of explosion.

The company previously carried out a test in 2012 sending a humanoid robot up to an altitude of 32 kilometers.

At the time they said they wanted to eventually offer hours of flight time so people could experience longer periods in space.

They conducted a further test in 2017 launching a prototype consisting of a balloon and a rocket to a height of 40 kilometers, Phys.Org reported.

Zero 2 Infinity the only Spanish startup in the space tourism market. EOS-X Space, founded by Kemel Kharbachi, is exploring a very similar concept and plans to launch its first commercial flight in 2023.

Lopez-Urdiales accused Kharbachi of copying the company's concept after he worked with them on a funding deal that fell through. However, Kharbachi has denied the accusations.

Other space tourism concepts entail entering space itself at a high altitude. One landmark moment was when Space Adventures launched businessman Dennis Tito up to the International Space Station for eight days.

The Richard Branson-headed Virgin Galactic also aims to launch flights into space. In 2019, it became the first space tourism company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Elon Musk's SpaceX wants to go even further, getting humans to Mars by 2026 and eventually building colonies on the red planet.

Zero 2 Infinity's concept comes at a much lower price than the other options, at just over $130,000. However, Lopez-Urdiales says the transport still has to be tested out by professionals, who are scheduled to do so later this year.

The company also still needs to secure another $2.4 million in funding, despite having already raised around $7.2 million.

"We already have the capsules, the permits, the insurance, and the flight center," Lopez-Urdiales said. "It's now just a question of securing the remaining funding."

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A Spanish startup is offering trips to space in helium balloons as a cheaper alternative to SpaceX - Business Insider

Whats the attraction of Mars? I dont get it. Its an entire planets worth of desert. The total surface area of Mars is slightly less than the land area of earth, minus the water area, and its all cold desert.

Who needs this planet? You cant breathe the air. Itll be decades before anyone will ever be able to build a golf course there with real grass. Theyll have to settle for astroturf, shipped in at a cost of billions of dollars. Not only will there be no hope of raising dairy cows or goats in the foreseeable future, you can forget almonds and soy beans, too. Mushrooms will only grow between your toes.

People will have to live underground to get away from cumulative radiation exposure at the surface. You go a couple 100 million miles through vacuum, and as soon as you get to your destination, you have to dig a trench, build a subterranean home in it and cover it and live in it almost all the time.

The streaming video will be terrible, and Amazon deliveries will take ages. The gravity is so weak people will need special exercise equipment to keep their muscles from wasting away. No more getting the exercise you need by walking to work and back.

And yet for all that, there are people eager to sign up to join in colonizing Mars as soon as Elon Musk is ready to fire them at it. In the meantime the exploration of the planet by robots is getting ridiculous. Just the last two weeks weve seen not one but two Mars orbiters arrive at Mars, days apart, one from the United Arab Emirates and the other from China. Then, this Thursday, a US robot explorer is expected to land on the surface of the planet.

The US robot is equipped with microphones so we will be able to hear what Martian wind sounds like. Because, were buying property there, and thats the kind of thing you want to know when youre buying property. Whats the noise like? Is it going to keep me up at night?

Conditions on Mars are so awful, it would be immoral to set up a penal colony there. A crime against humanity.

Comparing colonizing Mars to colonizing the Moon, the Moon has pretty much all the same drawbacks Mars has. Nothing but desert. You have to live underground. Nothing will grow there for ages. Extra exercise equipment necessary.

But you could get Netflix. The view from the earth-facing-side is way better than any view from Mars. And when you got tired of it, you could get back to earth a whole lot easier and in just a few days.

Speaking of escaping tiresome conditions, I just googled When will this Senate hearing be over? Navigator, plot me a course for out of here. Google didnt help much.

There could be witnesses! That could drag the whole process out for days.

Its a pity the final vote cant be anonymous. The Senate can agree to an initially secret ballot, but if just 20 senators demand the votes be read off publicly, they have to be. And you can count on those 20 senators coming forward.

As a result, the whole exercise is going to provide multiple chapters in an upcoming book to be titled Profiles in Cowardice: the Trump Acquittal. Subtitled: All the Presidents Cowards.

The bad news: The Senate will probably vote to acquit. The good news: The trial isnt just before the Senate. It is, more importantly, before the American people. The people have been watching. As one of Trumps own lawyers said, the trial is unnecessary because the people can decide whether to vote for Trump again. All the more reason for the trial. Let the people see what voting for Trump again entails.

It entails a repeat of the January 6 coup attempt. If he even runs again in 2024 and loses again, we could get another assault on the Capitol building and Congress. It might be better organized the next time.

During the 2024 campaign season, the Republicans could choose to remove all barriers to the renomination of Trump. They could choose to have no primaries and let him coast to nomination. But if they do and theres another fiasco like we had January 6th, it will be on their heads, and the Republican Party will become history.

Dr. Wes Browning is a one time math professor who has experienced homelessness several times. He supplied the art for the first cover of Real Change in November of 1994 and has been involved with the organization ever since. This is his weekly column,Adventures in Irony, a dry verbal romp of the absurd. He can be reached at drwes@realchangenews.org.

Read more in the Feb. 17-23, 2021 issue.

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Mars is an example of something that's useless. There are others - Real Change News

February 12, 2021

PEMBROKE Art and music have ways of transcending lifes challenges, even during a pandemic.

Following that belief in part led the Givens Performing Arts Center and International Artists Foundation to win a highly regarded award for their recent collaborative project.

Givens Performing Arts Center, on the campus of The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and International Artists Foundation in Lumberton are the recipients of a 2020 Gold NYX Award for its collaborative video presentation of music by Lumberton composer Mark Andersen. The NYX Video Awards is an international competition open to marketing, communications and videography professionals whose creative expertise and proficiency are both celebrated and recognized.

This is an exciting honor, said James Bass, GPAC executive director. Im so proud, not only of the award, but for the story that led us to this humbling recognition.

The project began when Bass, who is credited with producing the project, reached out to Mark Andersen about performing a concert for GPACs Front Row Arts Series, which presents virtual performances by local and regional artists.

In August 2020, Andersen recorded Rhapsody for Piano in three movements for the series. The music was written by Andersen during the COVID-19 pandemic and debuted on the GPAC stage.

The concert was special not only because it was the first time the music was performed on stage, but Andersen feared it may be his last performance.

Mark is truly a gift to our community. He is an absolutely amazing musician, and I wanted his music to be a part of this series, Bass said. I had no idea at the time that Mark was facing a very daunting health challenge.

The health challenge was renal cancer, diagnosed about a year ago.

It was stage 3 and I did not know how that would turn out, Andersen said. There was a very strong possibility that that might have been my last performance.

Because Anderson was previously diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, his condition was inoperable at the time.

They needed to get me in some better shape before they could do the operation, Andersen said. It was kind of a waiting game to see if I could get in good enough shape to have the operation before the cancer began to spread and it was too late.

After witnessing the positive feedback from and the large viewership of the concert, International Artists Executive Producer Lynn Andersen felt compelled to submit the project for the prestigious NYX award. On Dec. 18, Andersen learned that the submission was selected after an intense judging period featuring 1,616 entries from 33 countries.

We were extremely pleased to have worked with GPAC Producer James Bass, and his staff, during the production of this important concert of original music, Lynn Andersen said.

Having a nice stage and a professional staff to work with made the process that much easier, he said.

We were able to have a very nice venue that was easy to work in and people that are easy to work with, Lynn Andersen said. They were all prepared for us. We filmed and came home and started editing.

Although based in Lumberton, Mark Andersen is an internationally known composer and concert artist. His education includes East Carolina University, The American Conservatory of Music, and the Paris Conservatory of music, where he studied organ with Marcel Dupr and composition with Nadia Boulanger. He has performed internationally at many venues, including Royal Albert Hall, London; Carnegie Hall, New York; Lincoln Center, New York; and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

He has composed more than 200 pieces for organ, choir, symphony, and solo instruments in his career, including classical works and music for Broadway and opera stages.

Mark Andersen said he was grateful for the invitation to perform what he thought may be his final performance at GPAC.

I certainly would not have had the opportunity at that point to go back and perform at Carnegie Hall or any of the other major places, like the Kennedy Center or somewhere I had performed many times before in my life, but GPAC is here, Andersen said. Its my favorite performance space in Robeson County so I was very, very happy to have the opportunity to do it.

Shortly after Andersens concert debuted, he learned his prayers had been answered.

I relied on my faith, and the Lord was good to me and got me into good enough shape to where I got the kidney removed, Andersen said. It didnt spread and was contained in the kidney that was removed.

When Mark told me about his upcoming surgery and shared his fear that this might be his last performance and in the midst of a global pandemic in which live performances werent even an option I really knew what we were doing was something special, Bass said.

Andersens video, which has received more than 1,000 views, is a 30-minute performance of original music composed during the quarantine months of the pandemic, is titled Rhapsody for Piano.

Bass said that not only has it been shown on the GPAC webpage but through Carnegie Hall as well.

Im simply astounded by how popular it became in such a short time, Bass said.

We are proud of all the amazing individuals, agencies and companies who joined the NYX Awards this year, said Kenjo Ong, CEO of the International Awards Associate. This win by International Artists Foundation and Givens Performing Arts Center is not just a testament to their unbridled talent, but one that will inspire many for years to come.

The winning entries were judged impartially by a group of esteemed marketing, communications and videography professionals. The IAA selected a panel of international judges in the adjudication process and adhered to a strict code of excellence. The NYX Awards embraces diversity and ingenuity that comes from all corners of the world. The 2020 panel was comprised of judges from 16 countries.

Among the submissions, some familiar global brands were represented, including World Vision Canada, Heineken USA, PETA, Ferrari, BMW, Audi, Player One Trailers, Ubisoft, Morris Animal Foundation, TikTok Canada, Canon Singapore, Ericson Group Inc, FabFitFun, Adidas, Paradox Interactive, King Art Games, Miami Ad School, American Migraine Foundation, BBC Studioworks/Shoot You Ltd, Dell EMC, Unilever, CGTN, Lexus, Western Digital and AARP, to list a few.

A NYX Award has never just been about the title. Its an affirmation for the hard work these individuals have given for their work, Ong said. Their phenomenal ideas and concepts are two big reasons why the NYX Awards will continue to honor proficiency and expertise that transcends beyond normalcy.

Andersen learned recently that his scans were clear, and he still remains cancer free.

It turned out that the operation that they did in Duke was a complete success, so I will be playing again, Andersen said.

He plays frequently for Trinity Episcopal Church in Lumberton. Videos of the performances can be viewed on the churchs YouTube channel.

Rhapsody for Piano can be viewed at the Givens Performing Arts Centers website.

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