Daily Archives: June 27, 2021

Even in this age of free-flying conspiracy theories, this one's a doozy.

On Thursday (June 29), a guest on Alex Jones' radio show named Robert David Steele claimed that Mars is inhabited by people sent to the Red Planet against their will.

"We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride, so that once they get to Mars, they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony," Steele told Jones, the founder of the controversial InfoWars website. [25 Space Conspiracies That Just Won't Die]

It's unclear why this "ride" would last two decades; it takes just 6 to 9 months to reach Mars using current propulsion technology. Perhaps Steele believes that the kidnapped children return to Earth, as adults, 20 years after being spirited away?

Whatever the details may be, Jones seemed open to the possibility.

"Look, I know that 90 percent of the NASA missions are secret, and I've been told by high-level NASA engineers that you have no idea," Jones told Steele, who the show billed as a "CIA insider." "There is so much stuff going on."

Jones went on to add that "clearly, they dont want us looking into what is happening; every time probes go over, they turn them off."

The Daily Beast did some due diligence on Steele's assertion, contacting NASA for a comment.

"There are no humans on Mars. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there werent. There are," Guy Webster, a spokesman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who specializes in the agency's Mars-exploration activities, told The Daily Beast. "But there are no humans."

Alex Jones has supported and promulgated conspiracy theories in the past. He has claimed, for example, that the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 27 people, including 20 first-graders was a hoax.

Mars has proven to be fertile ground for conspiracy theorists over the years as well. There's the famous "face on Mars," of course. And more recently, UFO enthusiasts have claimed that NASA's Curiosity rover has captured images of a variety of Red Planet animals that resemble rats, lizards, squirrels and crabs.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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New Conspiracy Theory: Children Kidnapped for Mars Slave ...

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In a series of tweets on Thursday, Elon Musk revealed new details about his plan to build a city of 1 million people on Mars by 2050.

Musk said he hoped to build 1,000 Starships the towering and ostensibly fully reusable spaceship that SpaceX is developing in South Texas over 10 years. That's 100 Starships per year.

Eventually, Musk added, the goal is to launch an average of three Starships per day and make the trip to Mars available to anybody.

"Needs to be such that anyone can go if they want, with loans available for those who don't have money," Musk wrote.

Not enough to convince you to leave Earth behind?

"There will be a lot of jobs on Mars!" he added.

Starship, if realized as designed, would be the most powerful launch system ever created; each launch would pack enough thrust to send more than 100 tons (about seven fully loaded school buses' worth of mass) and 100 people into orbit at a time.

Musk didn't specify what exactly the rockets would need to carry to Mars, but a lot of food, water, building materials, tools, and advanced life-support systems are a given. Thus, he estimated he would need a whole fleet of Starships to build a permanent settlement.

"Megatons per year to orbit are needed for life to become multiplanetary," he tweeted on Thursday.

In total, 1,000 Starships could hypothetically transport about 100 megatons of stuff to Mars; that's the volume Musk has said he hopes to send to the red planet per year. With each ship ferrying about 100 passengers, that would make for a total migration of about 100,000 people.

Musk also suggested he planned to capitalize on the brief windows of time that the orbits of Earth and Mars align which come about every 25 months. That allows spacecraft to spring off of Earth's rotation and set themselves on a low-fuel journey toward Mars.

Musk said he would take advantage of that opportunity by "loading the Mars fleet into Earth orbit," then sending all 1,000 ships on a Mars-bound trajectory over that 30-day window every 26 months.

That seems to contradict an earlier tweet in which Musk said 1,000 Starships would fly to Mars each year, rather than every 26 months. Either way, SpaceX has a long way to go before reaching those goals.

Musk said a new Starship prototype may launch before the end of March.

"First flight is hopefully 2 to 3 months away," Musktweeted on December 27.

The development of the prototype hit delays after an accidental explosion during a fuel-tank-pressurization test on November 20, which blew the top off SpaceX's first 16-story Starship prototype.

The company could build as many as 20 different prototypesbefore engineers settle on a "1.0" design to fly cargo and people.

The full Starship launch system would also include a 22-story rocket booster called Super Heavy; combined, the whole thing would stand about 387 feet (118 meters) tall. During launch, a Starship spaceship would ride atop the booster, disconnect after the booster runs low on fuel, and rocket its way into orbit.

Both parts are being designed to be fully reusable. If that vision comes to pass, Musk estimates the cost of a single launch would be just $2 million that would be hundreds of times cheaper than the current cost of launching a similar number of people and amount of cargo into space on any planned or existing rocket (including SpaceX's own Falcon 9 system).

Musk said in September that he hoped to launch a Starship into orbit by mid-2020 and maybe even fly a person in it before the end of the year. Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said during a NASA teleconference that the company was "aiming to be able to drop Starship on the lunar surface in 2022" and fly the Japanese tech entrepreneur and billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon in 2023.

However, all of those statements came before the Starship prototype explosion. SpaceX will also have to clear several regulatoryandpractical hurdles including securing the safety of the residents of Boca Chica Village, which sits within 2 miles of SpaceX's Texas launchpad before it can launch any prototypes to orbit.

"Helping to pay for this is why I'm accumulating assets on Earth," Musk tweeted on Thursday.

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Elon Musk says he plans to send 1 million people to Mars ...

Editor's Note:In this weekly series, SPACE.com explores how technologydrives space exploration and discovery.

Ambitious exploration efforts have always aimed for self-sufficiency, but the need is especially acute when the new terrain being traversed is another planet. Extensive resupply from Earth would be prohibitively expensive, experts say, so exploiting Red Planet resources is crucial to making pioneering manned missions affordable in the short term and Mars settlement sustainable over the long haul.

"We want to move and explore in a very similar manner that we've done in the past, so that we can live off the land to make all these missions very cost-effective and more efficient," Prasun Desai, acting director of the Strategic Integration and Analysis Office in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said last Tuesday (Aug. 6). [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]

The goal is to enable the exploration of Mars "in a much more aggressive manner, so that we can really get a sense of, Are we alone in the universe?" added Desai, who was speaking at a celebration at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. marking the first year on the Red Planet for the agency's Curiosity rover.

Martian resources

The Red Planet may be cold and dry, but it harbors a wealth of resources that pioneering astronauts could extract and exploit, said Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society. This non-profit organization advocates manned Mars exploration and is hosting its 16th annual conference on the topic Aug. 15-18 in Boulder, Colo.

For example, astronauts could generate oxygen and rocket fuel (for potential trips home to Earth) by pulling feedstock out of the Red Planet's thin, carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere, Zubrin said. And they could get all the water they need from the dirt under their boots.

"We now know that Martian soil has water in it," Zubrin told SPACE.com. "Even at the equator, it's 5 percent water by weight; in the Arctic regions, it's 60 percent water by weight. And we've developed technology that can bake water out of that soil and make it available."

This water, along with Mars' plentiful carbon dioxide, would make it feasible to grow crops for food and other plants to make products such as clothing, at least in some regions, he added.

"Sunlight at the Martian equator is about equal to that of Norway," Zubrin said. "And there's also nitrogen and all the other elements needed to make fertilizers and so forth."

Iron oxide and silicon oxide are also common in Martian soil, so human pioneers would be able to make iron, steel and glass, he said. And the availability of water and carbon dioxide would allow them to make plastics as well. [Future Visions of Human Spaceflight]

"This civilization [here on Earth] was built on iron, steel and natural fibers until the 20th century," Zubrin said. "We can do all of that."

Complicated products such as computer chips would likely have to be imported from Earth for a long time to come, he added. But most such items would be lightweight, greatly reducing the mass and therefore cost of necessary resupply missions.

Powering a new society

Living on Mars will require a considerable amount of power, of course. While solar panels and radioisotope thermoelectric generators (which convert the heat of radioactive decay into electricity) have powered robotic NASA rovers on the Red Planet, new strategies will be required for manned missions, Desai said.

"We're going to need a lot more power for when humans are on the surface with a lot larger vehicles, to be able to operate those types of systems," he said.

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is researching a number of possibilities, including more efficient fuel cells and better batteries to improve energy storage, Desai added.

While such technologies could help support the first pioneering steps on the Red Planet, a long-lasting human society on the Red Planet may require a more potent power source. And Zubrin thinks it can be found underground.

Some Martian volcanoes last erupted just a few hundred million years ago, he said, and Mars-orbiting spacecraft have found evidence for a subsurface water table, which could only exist on the frigid planet in the presence of internally generated heat.

"There is hot stuff underground," Zubrin said, noting that geothermal energy is the number four power source here on Earth, after combustion, nuclear and hydroelectric. "We should be able to locate places where we can drill down and access geothermal heat, which might also give us liquid water as well, which would be convenient."

Initial drilling to tap into this heat would be done using nuclear power, he added.

Becoming self-sufficient

A manned Mars outpost will likely be supported financially at first by governments, foundations or extremely wealthy individuals here on Earth, Zubrin said. But if it hopes to last over the long term, it must eventually come up with a way to support itself and pay for its imports.

Red Planet settlers may be able to send some gold and other precious metals back to a picked-over Earth, Zubrin said, but such heavy materials are extremely expensive to launch. He thinks it's more likely that a Mars colony's main export will be intellectual property.

The frontier environment on Mars will serve as an incubator of innovation, just as it did in the United States, Zubrin added.

"You have, typically, a severe labor shortage and an extremely challenging environment, and so you're forced to innovate," he said. "This is where you get this culture of invention in 18th and 19th, even into 20th century America."

"The Martian frontier is going to amplify this to a much greater degree," he added.

Areas ripe for potential Red Planet innovation include robotics and agriculture, Zubrin said. And if indigenouslife on Marsis ever discovered, its genome could be incredibly valuable, both scientifically and financially.

Going to Mars

Putting boots on Mars is the main goal of NASA's human spaceflight program, and the space agency isn't the only organization with Red Planet dreams.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One aims to land four people on the Red Planet in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent settlement there. Mars One estimates this initial mission will cost about $6 billion, and the organization plans to foot most of the bill by staging a global media event around it.

And billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the founder of private spaceflight firm SpaceX, said late last year that he wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people. Indeed, Musk has said he started SpaceX primarily to help humanity become a multiplanet species.

Zubrin is confident that somebody will eventually break through, and our species will establish an outpost on Mars.

"The idea is out there," he said. "Sooner or later, it's going to happen."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSPACE.com.

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Incredible Technology: How to Live on Mars | Space

2018 video game

Surviving Mars is a city building simulation video game initially developed by the Bulgarian studio Haemimont Games, and later by Abstraction Games, and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 15, 2018. The player serves as an overseer who must build a colony on Mars and ensure the survival of the colonists.

Surviving Mars is a city builder simulation game that takes place on Mars and is modeled after real Martian data.[1] The player chooses a sponsoring nation, each conferring slightly different benefits and a unique building and vehicle, and then lands on Mars with robotic drones and rovers. These rovers and drones prepare the colony for humans on the red planet by setting up power and water infrastructure, domes, resource depots, oxygen generators, and landing pads. The player's goal is to create a thriving colony on Mars with occasional rockets from Earth, which have limited cargo space, forcing the player to balance bringing resources from Earth and producing resources on the planet. For example, the first human colonists will bring limited food with them on their rocket, so farms are crucial to a thriving colony on Mars. The player can bring electronics, machine parts, food, concrete, metal, prefab buildings, rovers and drones from Earth, or research technologies to manufacture them on Mars.[2] Players must balance expanding the colony with managing oxygen, food, water, and replacement parts. The game also has storylines called mysteries, which add various events to the colony,[3] including plagues, war, rival corporations, AI revolt, alien contact, and others. Rare metals can be exported back to Earth for funds. Landing sites also have various natural disasters like dust storms, meteor storms, cold waves, and dust devils to increase difficulty.[4][5]

Haemimont Games, the developer of the Tropico series, initially led the game's development.[6] The team studied science and challenges real-life scientists consider when thinking about colonizing Mars, then turned them into gameplay elements. The game's aesthetics were inspired by The Jetsons and Futurama.[5] Describing the game as a "hardcore survival city-builder", publisher Paradox Interactive announced the game in May 2017.[7] The game was released for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 15, 2018 with mod support.[8]

About a year after release, in June 2019, Haemimont signed on with Frontier Developments for development of a new property for Frontier's publishing label.[9] In March 2021, Paradox revealed that development of Surviving Mars has moved from Haemimont Games to Abstraction Games.[10]

Surviving Mars has several DLCs, available either separately or as part of the digital season pass available in the game's "First Colony Edition". Space Race, the game's first expansion, was released on November 15, 2018, and introduces rival colonies competing to achieve milestones on Mars.[11] The second, Green Planet, was released on May 16, 2019, and introduces the concept of terraforming Mars into a planet that can sustain human life.[12] Several content packs were also released, including a building pack and the "Marsvision Song Contest" radio station (with the release of Space Race)[13] and "Project Laika", which introduced ranching on Mars as well as pets in the colony (with the release of Green Planet).[14]

A free update adding space tourism features will be added in March 2021.[15] A full paid DLC expansion is planned later in 2021.[15]

The city-builder game Cities: Skylines, also published by Paradox, received a free update themed around Surviving Mars.[16]

The game received generally favorable reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic,[17] scoring 80% on PC Gamer, and 78/100 on IGN.[1][2]

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Surviving Mars - Wikipedia

With less than a month to go before Jeff Bezos embarks on his "greatest adventure" with a trip to space, more than a few people here on Earth are making it known they'd prefer it if the wealthiest man on the planet takes a one-way trip and remains in orbit.

A petition on Change.org entitled "Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth" launched in early June, after Bezos announced his plans to fly on next month's first passenger spaceflight of his company Blue Origin, and the petition already has more than 122,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon. Bezos has said he's dreamed of going to space since he was 5 years old.

Ric Geiger, 31, an account manager for an automotive supplies wholesaler in Michigan, tells CNBC Make It he started the petition "as a joke" with an initial goal of reaching 150,000 signatures. Geiger says he launched the petition after he saw a similar joke "on a meme page on Facebook" that he thought was "hysterical," but when he looked online to see if there was an existing petition, he couldn't find one.

"For me, it started as a joke, because obviously there is no way we can keep Jeff Bezos from re-entering Earth," Geiger wrote in an email. (Indeed, the petition offers no proposals for how anyone could, realistically, prevent the Amazon billionaire from returning from his spaceflight, which is set to launch on July 20.)

However, Geiger also felt the initial humor of the petition and its title would ultimately allow him to "reach a broader platform" to spread a more serious message about the issue of wealth inequality.

Geiger sums up the message behind the joke petition in one of the comments he posted to the petition's landing page on Change.org. There, he writes: "Billionaires should not exist...on earth, or in space, but should they decide [to go to] the latter, they should stay there."

Bezos is the world's wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of roughly $199 billion, according to Bloomberg. His wealth even grew by more than $70 billion in 2020 despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.

The founder of Amazon and private space company Blue Origin has faced quite a bit of criticism over the fact that he's accumulated a massive amount of wealth while reportedly paying little or no taxes at times. Bezos has also been criticized in the past for donating a relatively small amount of his large fortune to charity, though he has more recently pledged to give more than $12 billion to philanthropic efforts, including climate issues.

Geiger felt his petition would likely strike a nerve, and a funny bone, among those who, like him, are critical of Bezos' massive accumulation of wealth. While he didn't expect so many people to add their names to the petition, he hopes the unexpected visibility will draw attention to what he says are the more serious aspects of his critiques of billionaires like Bezos and the broader issue of wealth inequality.

Citing a 2020 survey showing that 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck in the midst of the pandemic, and many average working class Americans facing "crippling student loan or medical debt," Geiger claims "it's a slap in the face to watch billionaires like Bezos, [SpaceX's Elon] Musk, and [Virgin Galactic's Richard] Branson play space race games with their hoards of wealth."

In Bezos' case, the billionaire has invested heavily in his private space company, Blue Origin, at one point selling roughly $1 billion worth of Amazon stock each year to fund the venture.

"So, yeah, I get upset when I see people spending frivolously. I'm talking building a rocket ship and flying to space level frivolity, I'm talking a yacht built custom for traveling outside your main yacht level frivolity, not avocado toast level here," Geiger wrote in his email, referring to Bezos' Blue Origin funding and the billionaire's reported plans to build a $500 million yacht, as well as the oft-repeated, and over-inflated, criticism of millennials spending too much money on avocado toast.

In the past, Bezos has defended his spending on Blue Origin as more than simply a vanity project. In 2019, he told CBS that developing space technologies is "important for this planet [and] important for the dynamism of future generations." (The billionaire has even envisioned a future where humans leave Earth to live in colonies of space pods.)

"We humans have to go to space if we are going to continue to have a thriving civilization," Bezos said at the time. "We have become big as a population, as a species, and this planet is relatively small. We see it in things like climate change and pollution and heavy industry. We are in the process of destroying this planet. And we have sent robotic probes to every planet in the solar system this is the good one. So, we have to preserve this planet."

Meanwhile, Branson has also said he believes that space exploration is ultimately meant to benefit life back on Earth, while Musk believes that building human colonies on other planets, like Mars, is key to prolonging human civilization.

Geiger's petition isn't the only one out there taking aim at Bezos, as another recent Change.org petition made headlines after more than 14,000 people signed on to try to get the billionaire to buy Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"...and eat it.

Regardless, Geiger never actually believed his joking attempt at a petition would eventually approach its goal of 150,000 signatures.

"I didn't expect that it would get this big. My genuine intention was to use humor to commiserate and help mitigate some of the existential dread among my peers," he said, adding: "Even as a full-time salaried employee, with nothing [saved for] retirement, the future I see for myself and most of my generation is bleak."

When asked if he thinks Bezos himself will get word of his petition, and the fact that more than 120,000 people would like him to remain only the wealthiest person in space for the foreseeable future, Geiger says that idea is also worthy of a laugh.

"Honestly, I just think it's really funny to think that I might in some way show up as a blip on the radar of the richest man in the world simply because of this stunt," he said.

Neither Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic or SpaceX immediately returned CNBC Make It's request for comment.

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Jeff Bezos: I spend my billions on space because we're destroying Earth

Jeff Bezos said he wanted to build 'space hotels and colonies' in his 1982 high school graduation speech

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A petition to make Jeff Bezos stay in space has more than 120,000 signatures heres how it got started - CNBC

Just like a Tesla, Saturday Night Live is off recharging its own batteries tonight, so enjoy an SNL repeat hosted by Elon Musk!

The cast and crew of Saturday Night Live are enjoying some down time along with working on summer projects while deciding who will be back in the fall and who wont. According to Page Six, SNL contracts for Season 47 will not be decided until later in the summer. But theres no reason why we cant speculate in the meantime.

Of course, the only person talking about any cast changes at Saturday Night Live is cast member Pete Davidson and hes not giving up much. In a recent interview with Gold Derby, Pete said, I dont know what the plan is. Everythings kind of up in the air right now just depending on scheduling. So the only thing we can gather from that is that Pete has more than one thing on his schedule including the release of this summers comic book movie, The Suicide Squad.

Meanwhile back at tonights repeat, if you think this SNL encore has a musky smell to it, youd be right. Its hosted by Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX creator and CEO, Elon Musk. The show was surrounded by pretend controversy with online gossipers acting like the SNL cast was going to revolt and walk out on the show because of Elon Musks controversial statements and tweets in the past. None of that happened. This episode of Saturday Night Live had no complications or problems. It originally aired on Saturday, May 8, 2021, Mothers Day Eve.

Tonights SNL replay opens with a Saturday Night Live long-standing tradition. Just about every year, on the Saturday before Mothers Day, SNL ditches its regular routine of an opening sketch and hands over the SNL Cold Open to the casts mothers. Each cast member who still has a mom in his or her life introduces that important woman to the world on stage at Studio 8-H to begin the show. Maybe thats why no one had drama over Elon Musk. No one was going to walk off and keep their mom from getting to appear on television.

This year, the tradition continued with the 2021 cast. But there was something special planned. Tonights musical guest, Miley Cyrus kicked off this evenings cold open singing a beautiful rendition of her godmother Dolly Partons song Light of a Clear Blue Morning.

SNL fans look forward to the Mothers Day show every season. Because its great to see which moms share the same comic timing as their son or daughter in the SNL cast, like cast member Kate McKinnons mom who does an impression of former cast member Molly Shannons Superstar character Mary-Catherine Gallagher and Kenan Thompsons mom who taught him how to do reaction shots.

We also love how some of the moms look just like their famous offspring. Heidi Gardner and Aidy Bryants moms are totally twinzies for their daughters. All the mothers look fantastic tonight, but its always fun seeing the moms who look so young, they could be mistaken for the cast members sister instead of their mother. Hi Beck Bennetts Mom. The moms make this tradition so much fun that it makes you wish SNL wasnt on summer hiatus during Fathers Day.

The sweet Mothers Day segment comes to a close with the entire cast (and their mothers) shouting Live from New York, its Saturday Night!. And with this season having the largest cast in SNL history, thats a pretty big group.

For his inaugural Saturday Night Live monologue, host Elon Musk takes to the stage to loud applause. Something hes probably used to having happen at Tesla, Inc. During the monologue, we get a lot of information about the world class inventor and entrepreneur and its probably the first and last time that we hear an SNL host use the phrase running human in emulation mode.

Besides sharing his vision for the future with the audience, tonight, Elon Musk also announces hes the first person with Aspergers to host SNL. This led to a debate after the show by people who pointed out that original SNL cast member Dan Aykroyd from the Not Ready For Prime Time Players was the first person with Aspergers Syndrome to host the variety series.

Either way, Elon Musk received praise and appreciation from the Autistic community not only for his performance, but for the recognition he was able to provide Autism by announcing that he is on the spectrum to a national audience. This evenings host has plenty to say about his own life during the monologue and we even get the secret origin behind the very unconventional name of Elon Musks son, X A-Xii.

Plus, we get to meet Elon Musks mother as well which is only fair since we just got to meet the casts moms a few minutes earlier. Maye Musk talks with Elon about how he invented his own video game when he was kid. Although, shes not as forthcoming when discussing what happened to the money he was paid for his game. Side Bar: After meeting Elon Musks very striking mother in tonights SNL repeat, youll understand how shes still working as a fashion model today.

As we get into the meat of the show, the first sketch is called GenZ Hospital. You might want to look up some Generation Z slang terms and phrases before watching this sketch about a hospital where everything is said in GenZ speak. Think of this SNL sketch as The Californians, if they were even harder to understand, Bruh.

Featured player Chloe Fineman gets what is soon to be a recurring character in this episode of Saturday Night Live. Chloe stars as Ooli, Icelands #1 social media influencer in The Ooli Show. This sketch is an Icelandic talk show sketch hosted by Ooli. For long time SNL fans, this sketch will bring back memories of Sprockets with then-cast member Mike Myers. But only if you took Sprockets and combined it with a Hello Kitty store and then dropped it in a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal. As a bonus, you get cast member Kate McKinnon as recent Academy Award winner Frances McDormand and cast member Melissa Villaseor as Icelands own Bjrk.

Elon Musk covers a lot of territory in this evenings live sketches. Tonights host finds himself playing a classic video game villain on trial for murder, and then later in the show, our host is in a Wild West sketch where hes an eccentric genius cowboy. This saloon sketch, which wraps up the night, shows us that its a pretty good thing that Elon wasnt born a century earlier.

Our host takes on some accents and wears a lot of wigs and fake facial hair in this evenings Saturday Night Live repeat, but to make it easier on a person who is not a performer by trade, tonights episode has three SNL Shorts which we assume is in order to limit the amount of time Elon Musk spent on-stage on live television. And it also provided more time for costume changes.

The first SNL Short in tonights Saturday Night Live rerun can be explained by simply looking at the title of it. Its called Every Conversation With People You Havent Seen Since Quarantine Started. Yep, its pretty self-explanatory and its the nightmare, post-pandemic world we all feared would be waiting for us after Covid.

And if you thought GenZ Hospital was hard to decipher, wait till you get to the second SNL Short of the night which is a trailer for a new crime drama called Murdur Durdur: An Extremely Pennsylvania Crime Show. According to SNL, this crime show got rave reviews from the Del-Co Daily Times.

As the IBang predicted, we get a Mars colony sketch in tonights repeat starring the man who claims he will take us to the Red Planet, host Elon Musk. In the last SNL Short of the night called The Astronauts, Musk plays himself in the near future at SpaceX HQ dealing with a crisis at his Martian colony. It requires someone willing to go on a suicide mission. Luckily, theres Chad. Uh-kay. Also, watch for a cameo in this SNL Short by tonights musical guest Miley Cyrus.

This evenings SNL rerun may have loaded up on SNL Shorts, but the host didnt get any time to rest during Weekend Update because Elon Musk goes live as a character during SNLs news segment. He plays Lloyd Ostertag, SNL Financial Expert. Lloyd, who christened himself as the Doge Father, is appearing on Weekend Update to explain cryptocurrency to everyone and why it was booming. Well, booming when this show first aired. And if youre not sure what Dogecoin actually is, youll have to keep asking.

The main story covered by anchormen Colin Jost and Michael Che on Weekend Update tonight is something close to the hosts heart, space travel. Jost reports on a space rocket that went spinning out of control and crashed into the ocean earlier that day. With that day being back on May 8th when the show originally aired. Colin Jost then reveals thats why Elon Musk is hosting the show. So hed have an alibi.

Michael Ches opening story is about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo and his space flight company, Blue Origin, auctioning off a seat on his passenger rocket, so wealthy people can go into space. Che wondered about why rich, white people would want to go into space so badly. Then, he warned any Martians watching SNL, when you see a bunch of foreign ships pull up on your land, take it from a Black dude, dont get on them! He adds, Unless you want to be a Martian with the last name Washington'.

On the rest of the Weekend Update broadcast, a sampling of the stories covered by Jost and Che include disgraced President Trumps new blog, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis hoping to disenfranchise voters by signing new restrictive voting laws, evangelicals not wanting the Covid vaccine, Vice-President Kamala Harris new wax figure, Broadway reopening, the weird photo of the Bidens and the Carters, South Carolina wanting to bring back firing squads, a Snow White controversy, L.A.s population dropping, and an allegedly shitty McDonalds lunch.

Cast member Ego Nwodim gets a turn to play a Weekend Update character at the news desk when she appears as Pauline, a Weary Mother in her Darkest Hour. She is discussing her trip to the recently reopened Disneyland theme park with her kids. Unfortunately, Splash Mountain broke down. and it has taken Pauline into, yes, her darkest hour.

The final guest of the night on Weekend Update is the star of the Disney+ adventure series The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda. Kyle Mooney is back once again as the creature known as Grogu and hes bringing some big time energy with him. Hes talking to Michael Che about May 4th, better known as Star Wars Day. Baby Yoda is also discussing his recent MMA training, his posse, and his new Happy Meal endorsement deal with McDonalds.

Feel free to check out the promos taped for tonights SNL repeat just below. Host Elon Musk is joined by musical guest Miley Cyrus and cast member Cecily Strong. Elon explains that hes a wild card while Miley points out that the rules dont apply to her, so anything can happen on tonights SNL. That is until killjoy cast member Cecily Strong reminds everyone that their mothers will be in-studio. The trio are also comparing their recent accomplishments with each other. Between rocket launches and getting the laundry done, this triad is really making things happen.

Tesla and SpaceXs very own Elon Musk is hosting tonights Saturday Night Live rerun with musical guest, everyones favorite wild child, Miley Cyrus. It happens this evening at 11:30pm et on NBC.

And SNL will be back with new, live shows this fall.

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Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: June 26, 2021 - The Interrobang

Facts over feelings

The High Profile article on Evelyn Rios Stafford mentioned the recently passed Arkansas law that began as House Bill 1570 but is now Act 626. Having read the bill, I'm grateful for the courage of lawmakers in making sure that those who need medical care concerning biological gender issues can receive it, yet affirming that in this area of human life, restraint is necessary.

This is because of the powerful trend in America today that says a person's feelings form the most important basis for reality. (Thus the person that feels like a woman yet resides in a man's body and vice versa justifies the desire to do whatever necessary to change the body to match perceived feelings, no matter the age. All fellow citizens should agree with those who desire this path of reconciliation of body to mind because their feelings are paramount.)

Feelings are important, but they are like shifting sand; consequently, feelings are inadequate for providing a solid foundation for laws governing the people of Arkansas. I'm glad that with Act 626, Arkansas legislators crafted a helpful law based on rational principles and facts rather than feelings.

MELISSA EUBANKS

Batesville

Litter along roadways

Having recently returned from a drive through Tennessee and South Carolina on highways and rural roads, my husband and I quickly noticed very little or no litter along the roadways. Also noted was the $2,500 fine for littering in Tennessee.

On our day trips throughout Arkansas, we are saddened and disgusted to see trash and litter often on both sides of too many of our roadways. C'mon, Arkansans, we can do better than this. Let's get and keep our Natural State natural and unlittered.

LUCY ALLEN

Benton

Vaccination bribery

The Grill Party, adhering to its strict policy of avoiding politics at all costs, nevertheless wishes to make known its opinion on the absurd bribery used by our current state administration to encourage--read that pay--people to get the covid vaccine.

The Grill Party leadership voluntarily received vaccination, as it was encouraged and requested of us citizens to do such. Now, though, the state administration is giving away lottery tickets, hunting and fishing licenses and not sure what else. The Grill Party requests that these bribes--sorry, "inducements"--be retroactively provided to those of us who actually did what was requested by both state and national officials.

The Grill Party is pleased to announce a 100 percent vaccination rate for the Free Republic of South Arkansas, as we complied with the wishes of the administration. We understand people being opposed to the vaccine. Such is their choice. We simply request that those of us who voluntarily agreed to vaccination get what is now being offered to everyone. Yes, we want our "free stuff."

Personally, the Grill Party will accept ribs, steaks, pork chops, and other assorted grilling needs in lieu of lottery tickets. Live free and grill.

DAVID KELLEY

Louann

Keep the nation safe

The United States is committing suicide via immigrant influx. We are able to put a man on the moon, a robot on Mars and keep Area 51 off-limits. I find it hard to believe that we do not have someone smart enough to think of a way to keep our southern border safe. We have drones, electricity, sound waves, lasers, and most likely something even more advanced.

The president swore on a Holy Bible to keep us safe. Do your job, please!

B.E. SPURGEON

North Little Rock

On the unvaccinated

On the front page Wednesday of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was an article with the headline "Day's 485 cases largest increase in three months."

Paragraph 46 of this article on page 6A said "About 99% of the patients have been unvaccinated."

Why wasn't this your headline?

JOHN SLATER

Little Rock

No longer colonies

Nearly 245 years ago, 13 colonies declared their independence from the British. How do you plan to mark that day?

Tell us if you haven't had a letter printed in the past 30 days, and we'll do our best to get it in for the holiday.

Keep it under 300 words, and send it by noon Wednesday by email to voices@arkansasonline.com, or through our Voices form at arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform.

Go here to see the original:

OPINION | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Facts over feelings | Litter along roadways | Vaccination bribery - Arkansas Online

Immunology boffins in the US are hoping to learn the secret of how to keep humans well enough for long enough to live on the Moon or travel to Mars by sending some tiny squid into space.

While this may seem like a slightly counterintuitive plan, the reason the squid were chosen as test subjects is perfectly sensible and not because NASA is joining in with some informal "Be Mean To Sealife" week for US government bodies despite the US Air Force's recent efforts to kill snails with missiles and the US Navy's decision to set off big explosions in the Atlantic.

Rather, the sickness-studying whitecoats are trying to find out if watching how Hawaiian bobtail squid react to zero gravity will help them understand why it upsets the way humans react to germs.

"As astronauts spend more and more time in space, their immune systems become what's called dysregulated. It doesn't function as well," Dr Jamie Foster, Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science at the University of Florida, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. "Their immune systems don't recognize bacteria as easily. They sometimes get sick."

The nocturnal Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes), which grows to a full adult size of only three inches (7.6cm) long, has a symbiotic relationship with a species of bioluminescent bacteria called Vibrio fischeri.

The bacteria allow the squid to remain camouflaged through counter-illumination, or emitting light at the same intensity as its surroundings to prevent it standing out to predators.

The scientists running the experiment, dubbed UMAMI (Understanding of Microgravity on Animal-Microbe Interactions), want to see how the squid's relationship with its single species of symbiont changes in zero-g. This will let them learn more about what might be happening in the relationship between humans and their own multiple species of symbiotic microbes that causes the immune system to stop recognising bacteria as easily, potentially causing illness.

This research could have immense importance for future long-duration space missions, especially if humanity wants to eventually travel beyond its own backyard.

"There are aspects of the immune system that just don't work properly under long-duration spaceflights," Dr Foster said. "If humans want to spend time on the Moon or Mars, we have to solve health problems to get them there safely."

The 128 doughty squid are currently on the International Space Station, having been sent up there on 3 June via a SpaceX resupply mission. They will return to Earth in July.

If they suffer any sort of dysregulation in their relationship with their symbiotic bacterial companions, expect them to be returned to the scientists with a note reading: "Here's the sick squid I owe you."

Read the original post:

Intrepid squid mission may help in kraken riddle of why zero-g makes astronauts sick - The Register