Daily Archives: May 9, 2022

If astronauts are going to take on space crusades that'll potentially last beyond their lifetimes, they'll probably need to take the Hollywood sci-fi movie route to be capable of artificially inducing hibernation to survive the trip.

This would meandrastically reducing the bodys metabolic activities and needs to make sure the astronauts will make it to the other side. And that'sa concept we are familiar with -- astronauts eerily asleep in a frosty tube-shaped pod as their spaceship glides through time and space. However, is this sci-fi trope really possible in real life?

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society by a group of researchers from Chile has now revealed a mathematical hurdle to turning the potential of human hibernation into reality. And if their research holds true, that might mean it's forever beyond our reach,metabolically speaking.

Hibernation is a method through which animals store energy in order to withstand harsh weather conditions or a shortage of food. It is characterized by physiological changes such as a decrease in body temperature and a slowing of metabolism.Hibernation is not just a long period of sleep, as many animals periodically do wake up during this process.

When smaller animals like ground squirrels and bats hibernate, body temperature drops and metabolism slows down, as well as heart rate and respiration dropping. In extreme situations, this method can minimize energy expenditure by up to 98 percent.

The recent study investigated how much energy different mammals save during hibernation and the possibility of human hibernation, and reached two conclusions about how hibernating animals save energy.

The researchers uncovered a bare minimum of metabolism that permits cells to survive in freezing, low-oxygen environments, and saw that most larger bears, for example, are not saving energy during hibernation, but losing it. This is because, during hibernation, the energy consumption per gram remains constant regardless of body size, causing a hibernating bat to have the same metabolism as a 20,000-fold larger hibernating bear.

This would imply that artificially induced hibernation in humans for long-term space travel saves no more energy than regular sleep.

Applying the same principles to a hibernating adult human would mean that you'd need 6.3 grams of fat each day to hibernate in space. Over the course of a year, this would amount to about two kilos of weight.

While these figures may make sense for shorter travels, the average adult wandering through interstellar space to a neighboring star would need to gain a few hundred kilos of fat or wake up every day to refuel their engines with high-fat meals.

"Humans are simply too large, so the benefits of hibernation are little as in bears if we think just on energy savings,"Roberto Nespolo, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Universidad Austral de Chile, told Newsweek.

And the elephant in the room, of course, is how to get humans to hibernate in the first place. While a team of researchers from the University of Tsukuba was able to identify neurons in the brains of rodents that can be artificially stimulated to induce a state similar to hibernation, humans cannot hibernate, and potential research on hibernation in humans is fraught with ethical quandaries. And based on the results of this study, going through all the danger and effort of cooling our bodies, lowering our heart rate and breathing, and artificially slowing our metabolism may not provide the desired benefits.

The rest is here:

Could we sleep all the way to Mars? Future astronauts might be too big - Interesting Engineering

By Maureen O'Hare, CNN

(CNN) -- In this week's travel news roundup, we look at space hotels through the ages, Sicily's new "Little America" and a new glass-bottomed bridge in Vietnam that might just be the world's longest.

CNN Travel often covers beautiful and touching moments between passengers on life's journey. But every so often, CNN becomes a character in the story, too.

That happened this week when an article published last weekend helped two former refugees find the kind stranger who gave them $100 on a plane more than 20 years ago. Here's how it happened.

In another story back in 2021, we helped solve the mystery of some 60-year-old photos that had been uncovered in an Amsterdam flea market.

The finder of the photos, Jennifer Skupin of Germany, was featured in our story. Susanna Stevens-Johnson -- a 71-year-old Yup'ik woman who is part of Alaska's indigenous community -- was then amazed to see long-lost childhood images online of her old classmates, neighbors and friends in a village that had since been abandoned. Watch our video and read the full story here.

Concepts for space hotels have been floating around since the very dawn of space exploration. Back in 1967, before Neil Armstrong even set foot on the moon, the Hilton hotel chain was planning a lunar hotel with rooms underneath the moon's surface.

In 2011, Russian firm Orbital Technologies announced its plans for a hotel floating 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) above Earth. There was no bar or even showers, but you could clean up with wet wipes.

California-based Orion Span had hopes in 2018 to launch $10 million trips to its luxury Aurora Space Station this year, but the company shut down operations before that happened.

Now another California company is reaching for the stars. Orbital Assembly has just revealed new information and concepts for its space hotel designs, first touted in 2019. Its futuristic vision is for a rotating wheel orbiting Earth -- but will our planet's high rollers ever get a spin?

Australia's Qantas airline has revealed new plans for the world's longest nonstop flights -- an 18-hour schlep that it hopes to launch between Sydney and London by the end of 2025.

And in the UK, a date has been set for the launch of London's new "Super Tube." (And if you're a fan of trains, check out this beautiful rail experience fresh out of Taiwan).

New Zealand has reopened to tourists for the first time in two years, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downgraded Mexico's travel risk level for Covid-19.

The situation has been very different under the zero-Covid policy in China, however, where Beijing banned all restaurant dining and shut down Universal Studios as its five-day Labor Day holiday got under way.

The Italian town of Sambuca in Sicily pioneered a trend when, in 2019, it began selling homes for just over a dollar.

The catch was that the new owners would be responsible for revitalizing the local community by refurbishing the crumbling buildings within three years.

Now, the town is home to a fresh wave of largely North American buyers who took on the challenge. Here's how they're getting on.

Vietnam's newest attraction for adventurous visitors is Bach Long bridge, a glass-bottomed walkway suspended between two mountains in Son La province. It's 632 meters (2,073 feet) long and nearly 152 meters (500 feet) above the ground. It's yet to be verified by Guinness World Records, but its owners claim it's the world's longest glass-bottomed bridge.

Brazil has a brand-new statue of Jesus.

And it's nearly 5 meters taller than Rio's Christ the Redeemer.

We looked at the world's most expensive passports.

Two of the priciest are neighboring countries in the Middle East.

The surprising origins of the classic American hamburger.

It began with raw mutton warmed in a horse rider's saddle.

Which do you want to see more of on your vacation: Your loved ones or your phone screen? If it's the former, you might want to invest in some travel games. Our partners at CNN Underscored, a product reviews and recommendations guide owned by CNN, have put together this roundup of the best on the market for kids and adults.

The-CNN-Wire & 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

Read the rest here:

Travel news: Glass bridges, space hotels and a beautiful reunion after 23 years - WDJT

Since the dawn of the space age in the last century, humans have sent animals into the nether regions to find out if living creatures could survive, to test for various benefits and risks for us humans. It is the way One Health uniquely integrates animals and environmental concerns, in a multidisciplinary context.

We need to recognize that these animals are our explorers, our pathfinders, and heroes even if it isnt by their choice.

To be sure, the use of animals to test human survival in space has caused controversy: Even though animals have been successfully used to pave the way for space exploration, without in most cases loss of life or hurting the animal, many feel this is the wrong approach, that other methods should be used the argument is that animals have no choice in the matter and therefore should not be used for testing.

There are, however, testing procedures using animals that are not harmful to the animal and yet result in insightful findings that make for important scientific progress that ultimately benefits not only humans but also animals. Indeed, now new experiments are carried out here on Earth at least those carried out in the West. While there is much talk of NASA and Elon Musks Space X collaboration to go on Mars, nobody is suggesting that dogs go to Mars with the astronauts as their pets.

Significantly, NASA is launching this year a simulation of space living here on Earth and the four selected astronauts for the experiment will live in close quarters for a whole year a 158-square-meter station in the Texan desert without any pet animal to keep them company.

Here, we shall look at how research into animal survival under extreme conditions, first in space and more recently on Earth, is helping us not only to reach the stars but also to improve life for humans, here and now.

Animals in spaceoriginally served us to test the survivability ofspaceflight, well beforehuman spaceflightswere attempted.

The first animals in space were insects. In 1947 fruit flies were put on a U.S. V-2 rocket to test the effects of radiation at high altitudes on a living creature. Reaching an altitude of 109 kilometers, the capsule carrying the flies was ejected, parachuted back to Earth, and it showed they were able to remain intact and alive.

Thereafter, a wide variety of animals were launched into space, includingmonkeys and apes,dogs,cats, tortoises, mice, rats, rabbits, fish, frogs, spiders, and other insects. Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was the first animal to orbit the earth in the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 in 1957:

As shown in the above video, a sampling includes two tortoises and a variety of insects that were the first inhabitants from Earth to circle the Moon in 1968. In 1972 five mice, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey accompanied the US Apollo crew in orbiting the Moon for a record 75 times.

To date, seven national space programs have flown animals into space including the Soviet Union (Russian Federation), United States, France, Argentina, China, Japan, and Iran.

The range of studies that rely on animals to garner critical information for human-planned space travel and in understanding our environment is simply breathtaking; and it hasnt been limited to experiments in space but moved to a wide range of studies here on Earth, thus broadening the scope of the research.

Research has also been boosted by successful international collaboration, notably on the International Space Station (ISS).

For example, the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space Project (ICARUS) tracks migratory bird patterns from ISS in order to provide information on natural disasters and infectious diseases.

This is far from a purely academic exercise: The course of the growing outbreak of Avian Flu may benefit from these efforts, an example of how the view from space can assist in addressing earthly problems.

As to understanding the impact on humans of future space travel to Mars or living for extended periods on the moon, the field is exploding with research and experiments. Here are a few notable examples.

While it is virtually impossible on Earth to approximate the partial gravity of Mars, researchers have developed a partial-gravity model totest rodentsin a Moon and Mars simulation.

An experimental facility has been designed to re-create the partial gravity environment using rats as human analogs. These animals, partially suspended with a harness system, were thus placed in a condition inducing muscle disuse atrophy and bone mineral density reductions similar to space travel, with the objective to learn about the effects of microgravity on people in space.

This experiment exposed mice to different levels that astronauts would encounter on long-duration terrestrial spaceflight missions; they were subjected to specific antibody treatments to prevent or contain the damaging effects.

The results demonstrated that this therapy could be of benefit in preventing astronaut bone loss during terrestrial solar system exploration.

The analysis of the brains of mice flown in space for 13 days found significant changes related to neuron structure and metabolic function that could, in time, lead to injury and neurodegeneration.

This suggests that spaceflight affects the brain negatively at a cellular level and that countermeasures to protect brain function may be needed.

The fruit fly has been used extensively to study biological processes, including genetics and physiology. One such important area of study is fruit fly immunity.

Fruit flies have an innate immune system similar to that of humans, which acts as the first responder to defend an organism from initial infection by a foreign pathogen.

NASA-funded studies of immune cells have shown that spaceflight alters immune function.

Wasps lay their eggs into the fly larvae which induce a fly larval immune response against the wasp larvae and eggs, similar to a response to bacterial infection.

Continuing research is looking into how the space environment affects the fruit flys anti-parasitic immune response to the wasp pathogen where the fruit fly lays its eggs It will determine if the parasitic virulence of the space-cultured wasps is different from the ground control wasps.

The results will provide insight into how long-duration spaceflight impacts a key immune response mechanism and pathogen infection. This may lead to a greater understanding of how the spaceflight environment alters human innate immunity.

There are space research projects looking into which non-human species can survive and which do poorly.

For example, space-bound spiders learned to spin their webs without the benefit of gravity, while crickets failed to develop the organs that usually assist with their sense of balance. With no up or down, Mummichog minnows initially pitched forward and swam in tight circle.

Among the most fascinating animals adapted to extreme environments are tardigrades. They are microscopic, multicellular animals that can live for decades without food or water and survive temperature extremes from near absolute zero to well above the boiling point of water.

Tardigrades have been known to survive a number of extreme stresses, including desiccation, freezing, and boiling temperatures, intense ionizing radiation, and extremes in pressureincluding the vacuum of outer space.

A new study will examine the cellular adaptions to the extremes of space. This new experiment will seek to identify genes that respond to and are required for tardigrades to survive different stress conditions, examine both immediate and long-term, multigenerational changes onboard the International Space Station.

One day these experiments may lead to the development of ways to provide food for space travelers. The expectation is that more drought- and temperature-resistant crops and new methods for stabilizing sensitive pharmaceuticals and other biological materials will be found.

At the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, a researcher, Cyrille Przbylas current project is the Lunar Hatch Programme.This groundbreaking project involves determining if fish eggs would hatch after enduring simulated effects of a rocket launch and space flight. If they were to do so, the theory is fish eggs could then be brought to a future Moon base, hatched in an aquaculture system, and become a vital source of protein for deep space residents and other extraterrestrial dwellers.

Przybyla is convinced that the future of human spaceflight will feature plants, animals, and other organisms. He points to the 1972 filmSilent Running, in which giant spaceships with greenhouse-like domes preserve a collection of plant and animal species in a future era when Earths forests have almost gone extinct.

It is certain animal research in space will benefit both our knowledge of how humans will need to cope as well as what can be learned about our environment on Earth from such animal research efforts.

From May 27-29, 2022, the next gathering of the International Space Development Conference will take place. Attendees include space leaders, astronauts, scientists, and others interested. You can be sure that the animal/human/ecosystem nexus will be on the agenda given its vision:

People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

In short, one thing is certain: The dramatic betterment of humanity cannot be achieved without help from animal research proving once again, that the One Health approach is essential.

Perhaps one of the most groundbreaking results of this space research effort will come from observations here on Earth of those rare organisms living under the most extreme space-like conditions. One can expect that they will allow scientists to come closer to answering what is perhaps the most basic question of all: What is life and what defines the limits between life and non-life?

This definition is absolutely necessary because, without knowing precisely what we are looking for when we search for life on other planets, we wont know life when we see it.

Editors Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com In the Featured Photo: Spider weaving a web in space Source: NASA article April 23, 2014

More here:

Animals In Space: We Owe Them Now And In Future - Impakter

Humanity could reach the Red Planet and the Moon sooner than we think.

SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Gwynne Shotwell said a crewed mission to Mars could happen before the end of the 2020s.

I think it will be in this decade, yes. People on the Moon, sooner, Shotwell told CNBC recently.

"I think we need to get a large delivery to the surface of Mars, and then people will start thinking harder about it," she added. "And then, I think within five or six years, people will see that that will be a real place to go".

Elon Musks company has set itself the ambitious task to make space travel more accessible for humanity.

SpaceX is developing a reusable rocket called Starship that aims to take people to the Moon, Mars and elsewhere. The Japanese billionaire Yasaku Maezawa, for instance, has booked the rocket for a round-the-Moon trip in 2023.

While SpaceX has yet to bring humans to the Moon, the company has had successful trips to the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA has also picked Starship for its Artemis programme, which aims to put astronauts near the Moons south pole in 2025.

But another of Artemiss missions is to go from the Moon to Mars in about 2040, which is about 10 years later than Shotwells prediction.

It means that SpaceX could beat NASA to the punch but as Musks company provides a lot of tech equipment to NASA, they may end up working together.

The most recent mission between NASA and SpaceX occurred last Friday after the third long-duration astronaut team launched by SpaceX to the ISS safely returned to Earth to end months of orbital research ranging from space-grown chillies to robots.

SpaceX is also working towards Starships first-ever orbital test flight, launching from its Texas base.

However, it is currently awaiting an environmental assessment from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Continue reading here:

Elon Musks SpaceX COO says manned missions will reach Mars by 2030. NASA says otherwise - Euronews

What previously seemed like science fiction and the prediction of futurologists is now becoming much more of a reality - you do not have to be a professional astronaut to be able to fly into space.

Billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic (SPCE), successfully flew to the edge of space on in 2021. His flight took about an hour, included several minutes of weightlessness, and reached an altitude of 90km. In the same year, Jeff Bezos, successfully flew into space in the New Shepard spacecraft built by his company Blue Origin. Billionaire private space travel enthusiasts also include SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Last year, his Falcon 9 rocket began transporting astronauts to the ISS in the Dragon spacecraft. Musk himself has not yet flown into space but has booked a ticket on Virgin Galactic flights.

So with space tourism now being seen as a reality, what space related companies should invest keep an eye out for?

The top companies to invest in

1. Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic went public in October 2019 and was the first space company to do so. The flotation took place via the SPAC merger. At the time of publication, its shares are trading on the NYSE at almost $7.5 (6) each.

Virgin Galactic is a three-stage growth company. In the first phase, it will gain revenue from ticket sales for private flights, and from microgravity research, space infrastructure and services. In the second phase, Virgin Galactic plans to offer long-haul (hypersonic and supersonic) flights and tap into a staggering $900 billion (713bn) aviation market. In the long term, the company wants to enable customers to buy real estate in space and use space resources and energy.

2. Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000. He financed the company by selling $1 billion (79m) in Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares a year. Since 2015, Blue Origin has flown 15 test flights. Apart from an emergency landing on the booster on the first launch, all flights have been successful.

If Blue Origin continues to conduct more successful tester flights then an IPO launch could very well happen in the near future.

3. SpaceX

Elon Musk's company is actively developing two space projects: Starlink and Starship. If all goes well financially, Starlink will go public.

Although the last two test flights organised by SpaceX have not been very successful, the company has seen them as steps forward and may launch the next Starship prototype in the coming weeks.

4. ETF ARKX

The ARK ETF Space Exploration & Innovation ETF opened on the 30th of March 2021. Companies have been added to the ETF that are not only directly related to the space exploration industry, but also those that will use technologies developed for space to improve life on Earth.

Analyst Predictions

Switzerland's largest financial holding company, UBS, estimates the current potential of the space tourism market at $4 billion (3.2bn). Northern Sky Research (NSR), in its "Space Tourism and Travel Markets" report, says that an estimated 57,000 passengers will fly into space by 2031. Revenues from these space tourists and orbital travel will account for most of the industry's total combined revenues of $20.3 billion (16.07bn).

UBS expects several major space tourism trips to be organised during the 2022. There are already plenty of people wishing to fly. Among the first to go into space will be 600 people who have already paid the full price for their tickets - $250,000 (197,958), including Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber. Virgin said it expects to increase the waiting list to 1,000 people by the time flights resume. With the flight plan in place and the VSS Unity (4 passengers once a month) and VSS Imagine (6 passengers twice a month) fully loaded, Virgin Galactic could carry 16 customers a month, or 192 people a year.

The profits of Bezos, Musk and Branson's companies will increase at a cosmic rate as the industry grows in popularity. Investors in the stock market can also make good money on this. The obvious advantage of the space industry is the early stage of its development, which can provide super-profits with a well-chosen securities strategy.

ENDS

About Freedom Finance Europe Ltd

Freedom Finance Europe Ltd is a modern, dynamic and reliable broker with professional customer support, with an experienced team with knowledge and expertise in the European and US stock markets. The company offers ongoing support, providing robust trading platforms and technologies for high-performance work on the markets.

The company offers ongoing support, providing robust trading platforms and technologies for high-performance work on the market. Via its traders or by using the Freedom24 mobile trading platform investors can obtain direct access to the American and European stock markets.

Freedom Finance Europe Ltd. is registered in Cyprus on 05.08.2013 under registration number HE324220 and is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under licence number CIF 275/15, granted on 20.05.2015.

Contacts:

Freedom Finance Ltd.

Avinash Nandra / Lydia van Wijk

Spreckley PR

Tel: +44 (0)20 7388 9988

freedomfinance@spreckley.co.uk

.

See the article here:

The space stocks expected to skyrocket - Marketscreener.com

A live David Bowie tribute performance is set to take place at the UKs largest planetarium later this month.

The planetarium, located at the National Space Centre in Leicester, will host the four special performances titled Bowie: Oddity to Mars from 20th-22nd May 2021. The concerts will celebrate the late Starmans music between 1969 and 1972, a period that saw Bowie shoot to global stardom under his alter ego Ziggy Stardust.

The music will be performed by a five-piece Bowie tribute band named David Live in the Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium. Meanwhile, the planetarium dome will give visitors a 360-degree screening of NASA footage depicting the journey of Apollo 17 and one of the centres own shows to accompany the music.

It is really fitting this hit show is our first big evening event, following the pandemic, said Malika Andress, head of marketing for the National Space Centre in a statement. David Live are phenomenal, bringing the music of David Bowie to life in our planetarium alongside stunning visuals created by our in-house team.

The shows are to be held in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Apollo 17 marked the last manned journey to the moon.

In 1969, Bowie rose to fame with his first hit single Space Oddity. The single was inspired by the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey and the 1960s zeitgeist surrounding space travel and astronomy.

Discussing the writing of the song in 1969, Bowie said: The publicity image of a spaceman at work is of an automaton rather than a human being and my Major Tom is nothing if not a human being. It came from a feeling of sadness about this aspect of the space thing, it has been dehumanised, so I wrote a song-farce about it to try and relate science and human emotion. I suppose its an antidote to space fever, really.

The song was released on July 11th, 1969, as the label had wanted to capitalise on the concurrent Apollo 11 Moon Mission, which launched five days later. The mission became the first successful manned flight to the moon and earned Bowie his first glimpse of fame in the USA.

Follow Far Out Magazine across our social channels, onFacebook,TwitterandInstagram.

Most popular

Continued here:

David Bowie tribute to be staged at National Space Centre - Far Out Magazine