Monthly Archives: September 2022

In the final months of his presidency, Donald Trump ordered nuclear energy to be tested on the moon by 2027, as well as the development of nuclear-powered spacecraft that would orbit the Earth, the moon and outer space.

He also ordered the development of micro nuclear reactors small enough that they could fit inside a typical shipping truck that zips cargo along the highway.

During this period, the media was busy reporting on the Jan. 6 riots, insurrection and false accusations of voter fraud and few paid attention.

However, these orders may offer clues about what was included in some of the 'Top Secret' folders squirreled away in Mar-a-Lago.

On Dec. 16, 2020,Trump signed the"Space Policy Directive-6," which set the goal of testing nuclear energy on the moon by 2027.

Then on Jan. 5, 2021, the day beforethe Jan. 6 insurrection Trump signed Executive Order 13972, which directed NASA, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to study the cost and technical feasibility of using nuclear-powered spacecraft and satellites.

Some of these spacecraft would orbit the Earth, but most of the nuclear-powered craft would be meant for deep space missions to Mars and further places that are light years away.

There are Trump supporters,including Tesla founder Elon Musk, who support the goal of using nuclear power to help humans set up mining operations on the moon and colonize Mars.

The Jan. 5 Executive Order also includes Trump's direction to NASA and the Department of Defense to design and build micro nuclear reactors that could be transported on trains, planes or the typical trailer truck.

The Biden Administration has embraced a similar ideaand is developing small reactors that could supply electricity for 1,000 to 10,000 soldiers in remote desert, jungle and mountain terrains. The microreactors could also be used to plug holes in America's grid in transformers that fail due to terrorist attacks, wildfires or other natural disasters.

The new effort is called "Project Pele," named after the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes.The DOD recently announcedthat it would review proposed designs for "Project Pele" and choose a winner before building and testing it in Idaho.

In folktales, Pele could destroy a city or a beach by hurling lava and ash. Micro-nuclear reactors pose potential dangers, too.It could be catastrophicif terrorists got ahold of them, for example.

Although saving the coal industry was a focal point for Trump's Department of Energy, whistleblowers were alarmed by his nuclear negotiations in 2018.

They claimedTrump secretly authorized the sale of nuclear technology, made by a company called IP3, to Saudi Arabia. The deal was intensely negotiated by Trump's fired and disgraced advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who had close ties to IP3.

The deal Flynn negotiated didn't require the Saudis to agree they wouldn't use the technology to make nuclear weapons.

These whistleblowers went to Congress and the reaction there was a rare bipartisan alarm.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)teamed up withSen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) of New Jersey to request the GAO investigate. The GAO noted that Congress and the State Department were left out of the loop in the negotiations. State diplomats would have been savvier about how Saudi Arabia's shifting, complicated and secret alliances might put America at risk.

Interestingly,conservative think tanksrecently issued reports detailing how entrenched anti-American Wahhabi extremists were inside the enormous Saudi royal family.

Investigatorsdiscovered that IP3simply wrote one executive order that Trump could sign so his aides could simply cut and paste it onto White House stationery.

Trump's Jan. 5, 2021 order and his December 16, 2020 order bothstress the importance of letting private industry,rather than the government, take a leadership role in achieving America's nuclear goals.

For years, NASA has debated nuclear-powered craft to carry explorers to Mars. Nuclear craft could achieve faster speeds, cutting down the time astronauts spent traveling through high levels of radiationthat would bombard them in outer space.

There are potential wealthy investors who see mining on the moon as a cosmic jackpot. PayPal founder Rod Martin, former special counsel to conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel, appeared on a 2021 Right Response Ministries podcast to explain how God is directing Martin's hedge fund to invest in colonizing the moon and Mars.

One incentive is what Martin described as the vast wealth of "Helium 3" a rare substance needed in nuclear energy production waiting to be harvested from the moon's surface.

In the podcast, Martin announced he had created a certification process for financial advisors, taught at evangelical Liberty University. He also expressed admiration for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's efforts at space exploration.

But Martin promised listeners that his aerospace ventures would be guided by "Christian principles of liberty, security, values."

He then urged listeners to tell their financial advisers to enroll in his certification courses and claimed his board of directors included retired Air Force and Space Force generals.

Trump's 2020 nuclear goals went uncriticized by most world leaders, although one unnamed Chinese official remarked to Xinhua News Agency that testing nuclear energy on the moon could violate a 1979 United Nations treaty that bans weaponizing the moon.

As for Russia,just days after the FBIsearch at Mar-a-Lago, the state-owned TV network Russia One aired and tweeted news anchor Eugeny Popov gloating that Russian officials already had the top secret nuclear documents that Trump had taken out of the White House. And he said that Russia's military and intel agents were busy reviewing them.

Watch below:

Continued here:
Trump pushed for nuclear testing on the moon during final months of presidency - Salon

Cult sketch group Whitest Kids U Know has had countless collaborations, most notably a five-season run of their eponymous IFC series. Their most recently announced project is an animated film named Mars, which was in development before the 2021 death of member Trevor Moore.

During the press cycle of his latest directorial effort, Barbarian, WKUK member Zach Cregger gave an update on the project.

We had written a movie called Mars and the plan was always for it to be an animated feature, Cregger said. Before Trevor died, we recorded all of his dialogue, and weve crowdfunded the budget for this movie. Its like $300,000, a little more. And were currently making it, I think were going to wrap it up in about a month or so and I think its great.

Without Trevor, theres no Whitest Kids, he continued. So this will be our final thing and Im really proud of it and Im really happy to put it out there.

Prior to his death, Moore teased the plot of the film in an interview.

Its about a couple of billionaires race to put a city on Mars, he said. Thats the kind of line that we like to hit, where its like, alright, were not talking about Elon Musk, were not talking about [Richard] Branson or [Jeff] Bezos or any of these guys, but were going to talk about this. Whats happening in society right now is like all these rich guys are about to start colonizing the moon because we think thats still going to be an issue 20 years from now. Its not going to age itself out quickly.

Read more:
Whitest Kids U Know Wrapping Production on Animated Movie Mars, Final WKUK Project After Trevor Moores Death - Variety

Strong pointsThe MOXIE instrument sent to Mars succeeded in producing oxygenThis machine produces oxygen at approximately 10.5 grams per hour NASA regards the feat of producing oxygen on Mars as a medal

Washington, On Mars, we will no longer need to transport oxygen from Earth. The American space agency NASA has managed to manufacture oxygen from the atmosphere of Mars itself. According to NASA, with the help of Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), scientists have started producing oxygen on Mars itself. With this oxygen, the availability of oxygen for astronauts on future Mars missions will come from the atmosphere of the house itself.

how to succeed In fact, winter is at its peak on Mars. According to NASA, due to the formation of relatively high atmospheric pressure on cold nights, the MOXIE sent to Mars managed to produce oxygen. MOXIE managed to produce more oxygen by producing more carbon dioxide than by producing at the highest air density due to cold. Currently, this machine produces oxygen at approximately 10.5 grams per hour.

Can humans survive with so much oxygen?According to scientists, a human needs oxygen at the rate of 21 grams per hour to survive. This means that twice as much oxygen as this machine produces is enough to keep a human being alive. NASA plans to produce oxygen on Mars as a tag.

still a long way To sustain a human crew of four to six astronauts from the surface of Mars and in orbit, NASA will need to produce 2 to 3 kilograms of oxygen per hour. Although the machine is currently working in the initial stage, but according to NASA, the advanced version of this machine can achieve this. To produce that much oxygen, 25 kW of power would be needed, and MOXIE only produces 100 watts of power, so NASA believes the advanced version can achieve this. Currently, only about 10% of the energy generated is used to generate oxygen. The remaining air is consumed to operate the collector compressor.

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Tags: nasa, UNITED STATES

FIRST POST: September 06, 2022, 2:25 PM IST

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NASA has created oxygen from the atmosphere of Mars, will the dream of colonizing now come true? - News84Media - News84Media.com

There are many space organizations in the world, but the top 7 are listed here. Read on to know about these top 7 space organizations of the world.

In ancient times, even the wisest of homo sapiens assumed that the Earth was flat. It was then that some curious people explored the real truth. Then, moons were only meant for night-gazing, and nobody could ever imagine stepping on them, but Neil Armstrong, proved everyone wrong. Today, humans are once again hoping to make the impossible possible.

That is when it becomes crucial to know about the top 7 space organizations of the world that are extensively contributing to our understanding of the world beyond the blue planet. Read on

Annual Budget: $20.7 Billion (2018)

Formed By: The USA

Founded In: 1957

At the top of the list stands the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and for all the right reasons. NASA is a United States government agency responsible for science and technology in relation to air and space. The agency took birth in 1957, with the arrival of the Soviet Satellite Sputnik.

While the whole world knows about some of the most spectacular contributions by NASA, not many are aware of its actual roles and achievements. NASA is an umbrella for astronauts who conduct scientific research in orbit, a satellite that aids scientists in gaining more knowledge about our planet, and space probes that study and examine the solar system and the space beyond it. NASA is also looking forward to a novel program that aims to send humans to explore Mars and the moon. In addition, the agency doesnt keep all the information to itself. It disseminates the earnings so that the information can be put to making human life better all across the globe. For instance, firms that design and create spinoff products make use of discoveries by NASA for their projects.

Additionally, NASA also plays a powerful role in the education sector. It aids students aspiring to be future scientists, engineers, and astronauts with extensive knowledge and factual information. People at NASA are adventurers and enthusiasts; they are driven by their curiosity to know more about the unknown.

Annual Budget: $11 Billion (2017)

Formed By:China

Founded In: 1993

The China National Space Administration is the Peoples Republic of Chinas government agency responsible for civil space administration as well as international space cooperation. It also organizes and leads cooperation in the aerospace field and foreign exchanges.

The organization was founded to manage national space activities. It comprises four departments: General Planning; Science, Technology, and Quality Control; System Engineering; and Foreign Affairs. Additionally, the China National Space Administration operates three launch facilities, namely Taiyuan, in Shanxi, Jiuquan, in Gansu province, and Xichang, in Sichuan province.

Evolved in secret, China's space program is formed under the joint control of the Commission on Science, Technology, and Industry for the National Defense and the Chinese military. However, in 1964, this space program came under the umbrella of the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building, which became the Ministry of Aerospace Industry in 1983. The Ministry of Aerospace Industry got split into the Chinese Aerospace Corporation, and the CNSA.

The country has designed its own family of Chang Zheng boosters. These Chang Zheng (Long March) boosters are domestically used. They play the role of competitors in the international commercial space launch market. Applications like communications satellites and Earth-observation satellites for military and civilian use have been a part of its space development.

The country also initiated its very own human spaceflight program in the year 1992.

Annual Budget: $7 Billion (2018)

Formed By: Europe

Founded in: 1975

The European Space Agency (ESA) is defined as Europes gateway to space. It holds the mission to shape Europes space capability development and make sure that the investments in space continue, so as to deliver advantages to Europes citizens and the world.

The organization comprises 18 Member States. Coordination of intellectual and financial resources of these Member states makes it possible for the organization to undertake activities and programs way beyond the scope of any single European nation.

The core job of the organization involves drawing up the European space program and carrying it through. ESAs programs are constructed to figure out more about our planet, its real-time space environment, the solar system, and the universe.

Its job is to also develop satellite-based technologies and services. Moreover, the European Space Agency (ESA) also promotes European countries. However, it would be wrong to say that the organization works in alienation. On the contrary, the organization works closely with many other space organizations outside Europe.

Annual Budget: $3.27 Billion (2015)

Founded In: 2015

Popularly known as the ROSCOSMOS, the organization is a State Corporation established to oversee a comprehensive reform of the Russian space industry. It ensures the right implementation of the government of Russias space program and its legal regulation.

The Russian Federal Space Agency operates a myriad of scientific programs. The programs revolve around communication, Earth science, and scientific research.

Annual Budget: US$2 Billion (2018)

Formed By: Elon Musk

Founded In: 2002

One of Elon Musks most determined projects, SpaceX designs, constructs, and launches advanced spacecraft and rockets. The American aerospace company situated in Hawthorne, California holds the goal to make visiting space affordable so humans can easily colonize Mars.

The organization is a private spaceflight company. It sends people, like some NASA crews, and satellites to the International Space Station.

The well-framed Mission statement for SpaceX by Elon Musk says it all, You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great and thats what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. Its about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I cant think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.

Annual Budget: $1.5 Billion (2018)

Formed By: India

Founded In: 1969

The Indian Space Research Organization is the pioneer space exploration agency of India. ISRO is famous all around the globe because it successfully showcases its cost-effective and unique technologies every now and then. This smart approach makes the organization of the elite ones in the world.

ISROs predecessor organization was called the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR). The Indian Space Research Organization was established by Vikram Sarabhai.

The organization designs, constructs and delivers application-specific satellite products and tools to India. Some of these products include communications, broadcast, disaster management tools, weather forecasts, Geographic Information Systems, navigation, and more.

Annual Budget: $2.03 Billion (2013)

Formed By: Japan

Founded In: 2003

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is a space organization that came into being via a merger of three institutions, viz, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), and the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL).

It is a core performance agency to support the government of Japan in the overall aerospace development and utilization.

On its 10th anniversary, the organization framed a corporate slogan, Explore to Realize.

JAXA is involved in research, technology development, and the launch of satellites into orbit. The organization is also responsible for a myriad of advanced missions like asteroid exploration, and possible human exploration of the planets only natural satellite, the M

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Here Are The Top 7 Space Organizations Of The World! - Jagran Josh

When Frank Drake began his astronomy career in the late 1950s, this was an incredibly exciting time for the field. Humanity was beginning to unlock the secrets of the Universe using ever more powerful radio frequency and optical telescopes, including the tantalizing prospect of space-based telescopes. Amidst the ramping up Space Race between the US and USSR, there was an ever-growing excitement about humankinds future among the stars.

As concrete plans for landings and colonies on the Moon, Venus and Mars were proposed and put into action, it also brought to the forefront many existing and new questions about humanitys place in the Universe. During Frank Drakes 92 years on planet Earth until his passing on September 2nd of this year he was one of the driving forces behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), along with other legends like Carl Sagan.

Although to the average person the acronym SETI is most likely to bring to mind popcorn movies about little grey or green men, Drakes Project Ozma, as well as the SETI Institution and the ongoing Breakthrough Listen project are just some of the attempts made by Drake and his colleagues over the decades to answer that one question that may affect the very course of humankinds future: are we alone in the Universe?

In a Universe that contains billions upon billions of stars and planets, what is the chance that life will form on any of these planets? Of this life, what percentage will possess a level of intelligence that enables complex societies in which scientific inquiry and technological development can be sustained? Out of these societies, how many will acquire the means to reach out beyond the limits of their planet?

Although the speculation about extraterrestrial life has been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, it hasnt been until the development of more advanced means of observation that humanity has gained the ability to put these speculations to the test. As commonplace as we consider lifeforms whether intelligent or not to exist within the Earths biosphere, we know at this point in time that of all planets and moons in our Solar System, only the Earth is capable of supporting life, never mind an advanced society.

In the 1930s, rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky mentioned his doubts about alien intelligent life in an unpublished work, with physicist Enrico Fermi becoming associated in the 1950s with a formal definition of these doubts, commonly referred to as Fermis Paradox. Essentially this paradox entails the conflict between the likelihood of a significant number of alien civilizations, and the clear absence of these civilizations.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence thus seeks to resolve this paradox. Are we wrong about the likelihood of intelligent life forming, or are there other factors that we may be missing? In 1961 Drake would formalize these factors in what is called the Drake Equation, which is:

N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L

Here N is the number of civilizations within our galaxy with whom communication may be possible.

Unsurprisingly, the values one can assign these factors will range wildly, makingN to be of questionable use, but it is a useful aid in showing the many underlying questions to be answered before the larger question of whether Earth life in general and human civilization in particular is a cosmic fluke, somewhat rare or actually commonplace.

In Carl Sagans Cosmos PBS television series as well as the book with the same title these same questions are also asked and considered from many angles. In science fiction works such as Star Trek, Babylon 5, etc. the uncomfortable questions are avoided as these feature a Galaxy brimming with thousands upon thousands of civilizations. Based on the available scientific evidence one might ask the question of whether we are perhaps afraid of being all alone in the Galaxy.

What if we do travel out there in faster-than-light spaceships, but find a Galaxy utterly devoid of life and habitable planets?

Would we recognize another civilization if we came across it? This is one of the questions posed in Carl Sagans Cosmos,as he describes a hypothetical scenario in which a probe like the Voyager 1 & 2 approaches Earth, and its operators try to determine whether Earth has an active biosphere, and maybe a civilization. Based on the atmospheric levels of organic molecules like methane and photosynthesis indications the former seems likely, while the Earths surface shows signs of structures, but would they be signs of an intelligence?

A significant amount of attention with SETI has been directed towards radio frequency (RF) communication, as RF signals can travel significant distances through space, and are at least for human civilization a common communication method that also liberally gets broadcast into space. If Earth has been lit up like a proverbial RF beacon for about a hundred years, surely this would be the case for other inhabited planets too.

This assumption was one of the reasons why in 1977 a narrowband RF signal received by the Ohio State Universitys Big Ear radio telescope got a surge of attention, as it seemed to be the surest sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. This so-called Wow! signal came from the direction of the Sagittarius constellation and lasted beyond the 72 second observation window by Big Ear. Unfortunately no modulation was detected in the 1420 MHz signal, and so far the signal has not been repeated, making it likely that it was an astronomical phenomenon.

On the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, the National Geographic Channel sponsored a promotion for one of its shows by transmitting a digital stream encoding thousands of Twitter messages to the presumed origin of the 1977 signal via the Arecibo Observatorys radio telescope dish. To this day we have either received no response, missed the response, or our message ended up in someones spam folder.

What is perhaps one of the most humbling aspects of astronomy is the sheer, mind-boggling scale of the Cosmos. Not just in terms of space and distances, but also in terms of time. Much of the electromagnetic radiation that is now being captured by the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope was sent out by their sources millions to billions of years ago. Our own Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 87,000 light years in diameter, with an estimated 100 400 billion stars. The light from the furthest stars in the Milky Way relative to Earths position originate from a time when humanity was still living as hunter-gatherers on a wild Earth.

This notion is perhaps the most difficult one that Frank Drake and his colleagues had to contest with when it comes to SETI projects. It feels that all we can do is keep listening, even if the likelihood is vanishingly small that there is anything to receive. This did however not prevent the SETI@home project from attracting over a million users who dedicated part of their computer resources to running a distributed super computer that processed data from the Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes.

Even though the SETI@home project is currently dormant after no conclusive findings, the Berkeley SETI Research Center behind the project still has other ongoing projects, of which the most notable one is the Breakthrough Listen project. With $100 million in funding, the project began in 2016 and is expected to run for 10 years, providing the most comprehensive search to date using both radio and visible light telescopes.

The most vexing aspect of SETI projects is that although there are plenty of signals coming in that bear a closer look, who is to say what signal definitely comes from an advanced civilization, and which ones are from natural phenomena? The Cosmos is after all a rather noisy place in the electromagnetic spectrum, which significantly increases the burden of proof.

Over the past decades, humankind has sent out messages directed at potential alien civilizations. These have ranged from RF transmissions to physical items, such as the Pioneer plaque attached to the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that was designed by Drake and Sagan. A few years later the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft would be launched, each with a Voyager Golden Record attached to it.

At this point in time, Pioneer 10 and 11, as well as Voyager 1 and 2 have left the reach of Earths star system and are travelling through interstellar space. Even though only Voyager 1 and 2 are still actively gathering sensor data and communicating with Earth, the messages these spacecraft carry should last long enough for another civilization to find them and perhaps manage to decode them.

Barring faster-than-light travel or another means of transport which humanity has not yet conceived of, such an event would take place many thousands to millions of years into the future of Earth. Even the radio and television broadcasts we have sent out for decades now will take thousands of years to reach the more distant parts of the Milky Way, and possibly vice versa, making SETI one of the longest endurance games imaginable.

Regardless of what humankinds future will look like, Frank Drakes legacy along with that of Carl Sagan and other great minds of the recent past, should endure for many more decades and centuries to come. Perhaps the most impactful aspect of their teachings is that how they taught us to take the time now and then to find ourselves outside at night. To find a spot without any artificial light and to look up, so that we can take in the enormity and beauty of the Milky Way and the countless stars which we can perceive even with the naked eye.

By allowing us to see even just a bit more of this one small Galaxy and to allow our minds to wander on the question what and who we may find among all those stars, humanity is better prepared to deal with the challenges and possible discoveries than before, regardless of what the final Drake Equation ends up looking like. May you find peace among the stars, Mr. Drake.

Continue reading here:
Frank Drake's Legacy, Or: Are We All Alone In The Universe? - Hackaday