Monthly Archives: May 2021

While much of the world celebrated the beauty of nature for Earth Day on April 22, movie fans strapped in for a launch with Netflixs newest space exploration suspense film, Stowaway. Adventures into space have a long history in Hollywood, but this newest addition starring Anna Kendrick captures a unique side of space exploration with heartfelt moments, realistic themes and beautiful acting that is simply out of this world.

Director and writer Joe Penna is no stranger to survival stories. Fans will recognize his name from the rolling credits of the 2018 film Arctic, which told a story of a man who was stranded in the Arctic and forced to find a way to live. Stowaway unmistakably embraces Pennas signature portrayal of human survival against catastrophic odds.

The film makes no apologies for its quick introduction, opening with a launch sequence that makes it clear that Earth will not be the main setting in this storyline. Viewers learn that Zoe Levenson, played by Anna Kendrick, commander Marina Barnett, played by Toni Collette, and David Kim, played by Daniel Dae Kim, are on their way to Mars for a two-year mission funded by a company called Hyperion.

Zoe is a bright-eyed doctor whose compassion, light-hearted attitude and emotional depth make her a shining star throughout the film. David is a level-headed biologist and a realist, making him an interesting character in life-threatening situations, and Marina is a disappointing, two-dimensional character who often doesnt contribute to the meaningful atmosphere created by Kendrick and Kims characters.

True to its title, the ship has a stowaway Michael Adams, played by Shamier Anderson. Michael is found trapped in the ships interior, an introduction that leaves viewers with an endless list of questions. Its clear from his distress after waking up that Michael did not stowaway on purpose, and his concussion keeps viewers from getting a clear idea of what really happened.

The mystery begins, but every mystery needs suspense and this movie knows exactly how to build it. Michaels entrance damages one of the carbon dioxide scrubbers, leaving enough oxygen for two people. With four people on the ship, David sacrifices his research to create more oxygen with algae, but that only affords them one more supply of oxygen. There are four people on the ship, but someone has to die to keep everyone else alive a notion that Zoe cant accept.

The suspense of this knowledge is brilliantly laced throughout the cinematography of the film. In a situation that is burdened by the immobile weight of mortality, Penna emphasizes that words are meaningless in that situation and employs a more powerful tool silence.

The film embraces the silence of space as the characters go through their days, allowing the gravity of the circumstances to take center stage. In phone calls to Earth, viewers hear one-sided conversations from the perspectives of different people on the ship, effectively expressing the crews isolation and emotional exhaustion from feeling unheard by the people on Earth.

Embedded into the quiet of the film are also moments of dialogue that fill the space with palpable emotions and intense character connections. At times, the dialogue can feel overdone when every little detail is explained by the characters directly, but other moments exhibit a brilliant chemistry between the actors. Anderson and Kendrick share moments that are not only emotionally expressive, but they also perfectly develop the characters with a simple and elegant style of storytelling.

If classic Hollywood cinema has made one thing clear, its that every space blockbuster involves a dangerous trip into the abyss of a star-filled sky, and Stowaway is no exception to this golden rule of movie magic. The characters anxiety is skillfully captured in the musical themes and the suspense of life-threatening situations. Add breathtaking camera work to that suspense, and Penna beautifully depicts the rare duality of space a fine line between its brutal inhospitality and the allure of its grace.

As viewers fall into the storyline, its safe to say that all eyes will be glued to the screen for the entire movie. Whether it's the light-hearted moments of laughter or the gripping emotional dialogues, this script makes it impossible to not be intrigued by every scene. If viewers are looking for a deep dive into emotion, this is the right movie, and the anxiety will keep hearts racing until the last moment.

However, viewers should know that this film is satisfied with leaving questions unanswered a frustrating story technique that might have people yelling at the rolling credits. To be fair, the mystery of the ending falls completely in line with Pennas theme about the complexity of survival and the intersection between morality and mortality there is no easy answer and there will always be questions.

Despite its flaws, Stowaway positively contributes to an extensive era of space exploration films. The chemistry of the cast combined with the beautiful cinematography makes for a contemplative storyline that properly explores the danger of space, the power of human connection and the importance of doing the right thing. Theres something alluring about launching into space, and there is no doubt that movie fans should join the crew for this heartfelt adventure.

View original post here:

Review: 'Stowaway' redefines space exploration with emotional depth - The Daily Titan

Ingenuity: NASAs first aircraft on Mars

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make history's first attempt at powered flight on another planet. (Source: NASA)

WASHINGTON - Vice President Kamala Harris announced Saturday that she will accept her role to lead the National Space Council and further the countys mission in space exploration.

"As I've said before: In America, when we shoot for the moon, we plant our flag on it," she tweeted. "I am honored to lead our National Space Council."

"The Vice President is the perfect person to lead the federal government's space policy, which is increasingly complex, with many nations in space," NASA administrator and former Sen. Bill Nelson said in a statement.

RELATED: Astronaut Michael Collins, part of Apollo 11 crew, dies at 90

"Vice President Lyndon Johnson was the first chair of the National Space Council when America initially ventured beyond Earth. Now, Vice President Harris will coordinate our nations efforts to ensure America continues to lead in space. It is an exciting time for our space program," Nelson continued.

The NASA JPL team cheers as they receive video data from the rover of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flight.

According to FOX News, The National Space Council was created in 1989 during the George H.W. Bush administration. It was scrapped in 1993 soon after Bill Clinton took office and brought back in Donald Trumps first year as president. Former Vice President Mike Pence was put in charge of the committee.

President Joe Biden announced he would keep the council intact last month.

The National Space Council is part of the Executive Office of the President that oversees and develops policies reflecting the countrys interests in the space industry.

RELATED: Rockville High School grad worked on Mars helicopter flight

One of the councils latest goals is completing NASAs Artemis program. It includes sending U.S. astronauts back to the moon, including the countrys first woman, by March 2024 as well as building a permanent base on the moons south pole.

Its unclear when the council will hold its first meeting.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.

Read the original:

It is an exciting time for our space program: Harris to lead National Space Council - FOX 13 Tampa Bay

For most people, getting to the stars is nothing more than a dream. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito achieved that lifelong goalbut he wasnt a typical astronaut. Tito, a wealthy businessman, paid $20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be the first tourist to visit the International Space Station. Only seven people have followed suit in the 20 years since, but that number is poised to double in the next 12 months alone.

NASA has long been hesitant to play host to space tourists, so Russialooking for sources of money post-Cold War in the 1990s and 2000shas been the only option available for those looking for this kind of extreme adventure. However, it seems the rise of private space companies is going to make it easier for regular people to experience space.

From my perspective as a space policy analyst, I see the beginning of an era in which more people can experience space. With companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin hoping to build a future for humanity in space, space tourism is a way to demonstrate both the safety and reliability of space travel to the general public.

Flights to space like Dennis Titos are expensive for a reason. A rocket must burn a lot of costly fuel to travel high and fast enough to enter Earths orbit.

Another cheaper possibility is a suborbital launch, with the rocket going high enough to reach the edge of space and coming right back down. While passengers on a suborbital trip experience weightlessness and incredible views, these launches are more accessible.

The difficulty and expense of either option has meant that, traditionally, only nation-states have been able to explore space. This began to change in the 1990s as a series of entrepreneurs entered the space arena. Three companies led by billionaire CEOs have emerged as the major players: Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX. Though none have taken paying, private customers to space, all anticipate doing so in the very near future.

British billionaire Richard Branson has built his brand on not just business but also his love of adventure. In pursuing space tourism, Branson has brought both of those to bear. He established Virgin Galactic after buying SpaceShipOnea company that won the Ansari X-Prize by building the first reusable spaceship. Since then, Virgin Galactic has sought to design, build, and fly a larger SpaceShipTwo that can carry up to six passengers in a suborbital flight.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respective leaders of SpaceX and Blue Origin, began their own ventures in the early 2000s.The going has been harder than anticipated. While Branson predicted opening the business to tourists in 2009, Virgin Galactic has encountered some significant hurdlesincluding the death of a pilot in a crash in 2014. After the crash, engineers found significant problems with the design of the vehicle, which required modifications.

Musk, fearing that a catastrophe of some sort could leave Earth uninhabitable, was frustrated at the lack of progress in making humanity a multiplanetary species. He founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of first developing reusable launch technology to decrease the cost of getting to space. Since then, SpaceX has found success with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. SpaceXs ultimate goal is human settlement of Marssending paying customers to space is an intermediate step. Musk says he hopes to show that space travel can be done easily and that tourism might provide a revenue stream to support development of the larger, Mars-focused Starship system.

Bezos, inspired by the vision of physicist Gerard ONeill, wants to expand humanity and industry not to Mars, but to space itself. Blue Origin, established in 2004, has proceeded slowly and quietly in also developing reusable rockets. Its New Shepard rocket, first successfully flown in 2015, will eventually offer tourists a suborbital trip to the edge of space, similar to Virgin Galactics. For Bezos, these launches represent an effort at making space travel routine, reliable, and accessible to people as a first step to enabling further space exploration.

Now, SpaceX is the only option for someone looking to go into space and orbit the Earth. It currently has two tourist launches planned. The first is scheduled for as early as September 2021, funded by billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman. The other trip, planned for 2022, is being organized by Axiom Space. These trips will be costly, at $55 million for the flight and a stay on the International Space Station. The high cost has led some to warn that space tourismand private access to space more broadlymight reinforce inequality between rich and poor.

Blue Origins and Virgin Galactics suborbital trips are far more reasonable in cost, with both priced between $200,000 and $250,000. Blue Origin appears to be the nearest to allowing paying customers on board, saying after a recent launch that crewed missions would be happening soon. Virgin Galactic continues to test SpaceShipTwo, but no specific timetable has been announced for tourist flights.

Though these prices are high, it is worth considering that Dennis Titos $20 million ticket in 2001 could pay for 100 flights on Blue Origin soon. The experience of viewing the Earth from space, though, may prove to be priceless for a whole new generation of space explorers.

Wendy Whitman Cobb is a professor of strategy and security studies at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Follow this link:

Space tourism20 years in the makingis ready for launch - Fast Company

Richard Branson was running almost 15 years late. But as we rode into the Mojave desert on the morning of 12 December 2018, he was feeling upbeat and untroubled by the past. He wore jeans, a leather jacket and the easy smile of someone used to being behind schedule.

Branson hadnt exactly squandered the past 15 years. Hed become a grandfather, moved to a private island in the Caribbean and expanded Virgins business empire into banking, hotels, gyms, wedding dresses and more. But he was staking his legacy on Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company he formed in 2004. The idea was to build a rocketship with seats for eight two pilots, six passengers that would be carried aloft by a mothership, released about 45,000ft in the air and then zoom just beyond the lower limit of space, float around for a few minutes, before returning to Earth. He was charging $200,000 a seat.

It did not initially seem like such a crazy idea. That year, a boutique aviation firm in Mojave, California, two hours north of Los Angeles, had built a prototype mothership and rocketship that a pair of test pilots flew to space three times, becoming the first privately built space craft. Branson hired the firm to design, build and test him a bigger version of the craft.

But the undertaking was proving far more difficult than Branson anticipated. An accidental explosion in 2007 killed three engineers. A mid-air accident in 2014 destroyed the ship and killed a test pilot, forcing Virgin Galactic to more or less start over.

I approached the company shortly after the accident to ask if I could embed with them and write a story about their space programme for the New Yorker. I worked on the story for four years. After it came out, in August 2018, I spent another two years reporting and writing a book about the test pilots who fly Bransons spaceship.

Amid the tragedies and setbacks, Branson remained optimistic of the prospect of imminent success. In 2004: It is envisaged that Virgin Galactic will open for business by the beginning of 2005 and, subject to the necessary safety and regulatory approvals, begin operating flights from 2007. Then, in 2009: Im very confident that we should be able to meet 2011. Later, in 2017: We are hopefully about three months before we are in space, maybe six months before Im in space.

Meanwhile, other private space companies, such as Elon Musks SpaceX and Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin, were making progress. Branson confessed that had he known in 2004 what he knew now, I wouldnt have gone ahead with the project We simply couldnt afford it.

His record on delivering promises has made him a polarising figure. Branson has appeared on lists of both hucksters and heroes. One poll ranked him second among people whom British children should emulate; Jesus Christ came third. His biographer describes him as a card player with a weak hand who plays to strength, but also a self-made and self-deprecating man whose flamboyance endears him to aspiring tycoons, who snap up his books and flock to his lectures to glean the secrets of fortune-hunting.

But all of that was in the past; the turmoil and hardship would hopefully make the triumph all that much sweeter. For he and I knew as we headed into the desert that tomorrow could finally be the day that Virgin Galactic went to space.

Branson was all smiles as we arrived at our destination north of the airport in Mojave, an expansive, Asimovian facility where Bransons other space company, Virgin Orbit, tests rockets and where Branson was about to be given a special tour. He listened to the engineers canned deliveries, but did not ask about cryogenics or flow rates or other technical details.

That was not his gift. His gift was knowing what people like. Branson is a tastemaker, a marketing genius. He spruces up airplanes, trains, hotels and gyms, rebrands them as his own and moves on. He knows when to get in and get out: he earned a reported 200m when he sold his stake in Virgin Media, for instance, and another 230m when he sold his stake in Virgin Active. He does not typically make stuff. Yet here he was in the business of making spacecraft.

This brought particular challenges. For one, US law prohibits citizens from sharing technical details with foreigners, even if those foreigners own the company. When Branson asked a rocket question, an engineer responded with silence. Its because Im British, isnt it? Branson said, betraying a hint of frustration.

Later in the tour, we visited a test pad where engineers were bent over intricate foil-wrapped tubes, hoses and piping, preparing to conduct a ground test. Branson asked how many more ground tests they intended to conduct and when they could launch an aerial test. Every day they were testing meant another day they werent making money.

At least a couple, said the engineer.

Stop testing! said Branson, half-joking. You might find something wrong!

It all started for Branson with the Sex Pistols. In December 1976, the punk band went on a primetime talkshow where the guitarist called the host a dirty fucker on air, bringing the segment to an abrupt end. Venues cancelled the bands upcoming gigs. Their record label dropped them.

Branson was a 26-year-old music producer. He saw an opportunity and signed the band to his label. Five months later, when the Sex Pistols released God Save the Queen, a mockery of the royal Silver Jubilee, the BBC refused to play the single. Branson responded by chartering a boat and setting up a stage on deck. They sailed up the Thames, in front of parliament, while the band played God Save the Queen. Police boarded the boat and shut down the concert.

God Save the Queen jumped to No 2 in the charts. But the stunt was equally important for Branson; it established his rebel reputation, one he has nurtured ever since: I wont let silly rules stop me. He branched into other sectors. Before long, Virgin had its own line of soft drinks, trains, wedding dresses, limousines, wines, airlines, casinos, and condoms.

Virgins formula is Bransons adventuresome brand. He has promoted soda from the top of a tank in Times Square and dangled naked from a crane with only a mobile phone covering his privates to advertise that Virgin Mobile had nothing to hide on its bills. He has flown hot-air balloons across oceans and set speedboat records. Along the way, he has survived some close calls like when his boat capsized in a nasty storm, or when he was attempting to sail across the Atlantic, through the Bermuda Triangle, when the mainsail ripped and forced him to turn back. (He promised, We will build another boat and try again!)

He is accustomed to handling setbacks with a smile. This has proven particularly useful at Virgin Galactic, where the company has not provided what it promised, but somehow continues to sell promise.

At the February 2016 rollout for SpaceShipTwo in Mojave, a reporter asked Branson about Virgin Galactics longer-term ambitions. Branson said that flying people to space was pretty cool, but, Once youve got people into space, why shouldnt we have point-to-point travel at tremendous speeds? And why shouldnt we go on creating an orbital vehicle? We will start to do that. I just had a meeting with a senator, talking about asteroids. And they asked, Can Virgin Galactic come up with ideas to try to remove giant asteroids coming toward the Earth? Well have a look at that. And, Could Virgin Galactic help sort out the debris in space? Well have a look at that, too. And once all thats sorted wed like to join the race for deep-space exploration.

Virgin Galactics president, Mike Moses, sat nearby, and, speaking after Branson, stressed how an experimental rocketship programme required evolutionary steps that were gradual, deliberate and realistic.

One of the things I hate is the world judging us based on what our marketing has said in terms of our readiness to fly and the depth of our knowledge, Moses once told me.

Branson knows that people snigger. It would be embarrassing if someone went back over the last 13 years and wrote down all my quotes about when I thought we would be in space, he told me.

But he is uniquely unfazed by embarrassment. He stutters when he speaks without notes. He shares unflattering details about his sex life, like his bizarre sexual allergy to his first wife. Whenever we made love a painful rash spread across me which would take about three weeks to heal, he once wrote. We went to a number of doctors, but we never resolved the problem. I even had a circumcision to try to stop the reaction.

Somehow it added to his charm. A couple years ago, I contacted him and asked if I could visit him in the British Virgin Islands to discuss the programme. He extended a personal invitation. I booked plane tickets, while his assistant arranged a speedboat transfer and asked if I had any dietary restrictions. So I can let our chefs know in advance, she said. But on the eve of my trip, Bransons advisers found out what was happening and revoked the invitation. Branson had apparently made plans without consulting his communications director.

At the time, I saw it as proof of Bransons swashbuckling insouciance: he could live that persona and let others protect him from himself. Perhaps I should have seen it as another empty promise.

The day after we drove into the desert, Branson stepped on to a stage beside the runway. Behind him, Virgin Galactics mothership, with SpaceShipTwo fixed to its belly, was preparing to takeoff. Branson welcomed the select crowd. Im not allowed to say it, but hopefully were going to space today! he said. Hopefully well have some magic in the next couple of hours. An hour later, Branson was squinting against the sun, tracking SpaceShipTwos contrails across the blue morning sky.

Space travel has been a longtime obsession of his. He once produced a documentary to commemorate the moon landing, featuring ambient soundscapes, a psychedelic montage of telescope images and clips of John F Kennedys moon shot speech. Later, when Branson appeared on the BBCs Going Live!, a viewer called in and asked if hed contemplated any extraterrestrial ventures. Id love to go into space, said Branson. If youre building a spacecraft, Id love to come with you.

Accounts from astronauts further fuelled Bransons fascination. Weightlessness sounded positively bananas to him having to Velcro everything down so that it didnt float away; being able to pitch a bread roll at your tablemate without worrying it would end up falling on to a dirty floor.

But what moved Branson most was how astronauts described the transformative power of it all, its almost baptismal nature. Once people have gone to space they come back with renewed enthusiasm to try and tackle what is happening on this planet, he told me. He regarded space travel as a humanistic, rather than an escapist, venture. And now, suddenly, it seemed possible that he could offer that experience to the masses.

He watched the flight from the foot of the stage while an engineer stood at the mic, relaying updates from mission control. They had to get above 264,000ft, or 50 miles, which the US government defines as the boundary of space.

The ship was climbing.

Two hundred thousand, said the engineer.

Two hundred and twenty thousand feet.

Two hundred and forty thousand feet.

Branson looked up. Tears welled in his eyes.

Two hundred and fifty thousand feet.

Two sixty.

Two hundred and The engineer paused, awaiting confirmation. He got it:

Two. Hundred. And. Sixty. Four. Thousand. Feet.

Up in the cockpit the pilot Mark Stucky said: Great motor burn, everybody! Were going to space, Richard!

The crowd whooped and cheered.

Branson covered his face with both hands, cratering with emotion. His son Sam stood next to him and put his hand on his fathers back. That was the definition of a picture telling a thousand words, a thousand sleepless nights, Sam told me. Later, Branson held an impromptu press conference. He burned easily in the sun so he found a sliver of shade behind a trailer and reporters crowded in.

Mike Moses hung near the back, but within earshot. Branson declared that SpaceShipTwo could be done with its flight-test programme in as little as three months.

As yet, they have only returned to space once and are still testing. A temporary stall? Or have the costs of this undertaking finally caught up with Branson?

I am no longer embedded with the company, but stay in touch with people there. I know that two years ago the vice-president of safety resigned because of safety concerns, and that a December 2020 flight was aborted in midair. (In a statement, a Virgin Galactic spokesperson said, We feel confident about our space operations, which are regulated by the FAA office of commercial spaceflight transportation. Flight test programmes are an iterative process with safety as the first priority and it is well known that we have overcome a variety of technical challenges over the past 15 years. Our safety culture is built around the principle that everyone in the company has the ability to call attention to an issue. They added: As we are still in the flight test phase of the programme, we continue to analyse, inspect and modify the vehicles as necessary, and we are on track to conduct our next spaceflight in May.) I also know, from public information, that while Virgin Galactics space programme may be struggling, its bottom line seems strong. In late 2019, Virgin Galactic became a publicly traded company: at one point the stock was trading at almost five times its initial price offering. However, in recent weeks, as Virgin Galactics competitors progress, the stock has begun to fall.

Last year, Branson sold $500m worth of shares. Last month, he sold another $150m worth of shares.

He has always seemed to have known when to get in and when to get out.

Test Gods: Tragedy and Triumph in the New Space Race by Nicholas Schmidle is published by Hutchinson on 6 May at 20. Order a copy for 17.40 at guardianbookshop.com

View post:

Will Virgin Galactic ever lift off? - The Guardian

NASA and its partners are planning a new space mission called Interstellar Probe'. This would reach interstellar space, the deep region beyond the suns influence, within 15 years. The timeline is much quicker than Voyager 1, an earlier spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977, which travelled the distance in 35 years. The proposed spacecraft would also take an image of our heliosphere, the bubble created by the sun that protects our solar system from interstellar radiation. The mission will represent humanity's first deliberate step into the sea of space between our Sun and other potentially habitable systems, as per the mission statement.

TraveLling far beyond the Sun's sphere of influence, an Interstellar Probe would be the boldest move in space exploration since humans landed on the moon, remarkedthe mission team which presented its proposal on Monday, April 26, at the annual general assembly of the European Geosciences Union. The team is led by Elena Provorinova, the missions heliophysics lead from the John Hopkins Applied Physics lab (APL), Maryland, United States. APL-led mission team involves some 500 people from around the world including scientists, engineers and enthusiasts.

The mission would help us understand how the Sun makes our solar system habitable and where it lies in our galaxy. Moreover, it would also get us data that will shed light on the origin and evolution of the planetary systems, and the formation of early galaxies and stars. The probe could launch in the early 2030s.

The need for this mission has fuelled the space exploration community for decades. On August 1, 2012, human exploration of space made history as Voyager 1 dived into interstellar space.Voyager 1, a part of NASAs Voyager program, has travelled around 38 billion kilometres which is about 150 times the distance of the sun from the Earth. The Voyager program was aimed to explore the outer limits of the Sun's sphere of influence other than exploring the solar system beyond the neighbour planets. NASA also hoped Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object, to go possibly beyond '' the suns influence.

Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here

Here is the original post:

Interstellar Probe Would be Humanitys Fastest and Farthest Step Into Space - News18