Category Archives: Space Travel

Dr Shawna Pandya has been leading an interesting life for a while now, but its only recently the citizen scientist has been finding herself in the news. Reports indicate Dr Pandya might be next in line as the third woman of Indian-origin to make her way into space, but things arent exactly as clear as all that. Were going to break it down for you right now.

Dr Shawna Pandya is a 32-year-old general practitioner based in Alberta, Canada. Many reports indicate shes a neurosurgeon, but Dr Pandya herself has stated that, though she trained in neurosurgery for a short period, her medical licence is as a general practitioner. However, medicine isnt her only scientific love, given that she registered for two citizen scientist-astronaut programs (CSA) years ago.

Dr Pandya is part of both Project PoSSUM and the PHEnOM Project, both of which are research projects that dont actually involve going into space. PoSSUM is an acronym for Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere. It involves imaging noctilucent clouds from a high-altitude balloon over Antarctica, as well as later using manned reusable suborbital vehicles to study the fine structures of the clouds during a week-long deployment. And while PoSSUM evolved out of an earlier NASA-funded project to study climate change, its not officially a NASA venture, and instead works in partnership with the Canadian National Research Council.

PHEnOM, on the other hand, stands for Physiological, Health, and Environmental Observations in Microgravity. Its a project by the SeaSpace Exploration & Research Societys SeaSpace Research Institute and focuses on studying the effects of microgravity on humans, including research in biomedical science, pharmacology, and materials science. This project, similar to PoSSUM, is not tied to any space agency like NASA or the ESA, but is instead under the SeaSpace Societys ambit, in the US.

While participants in both these projects are highly qualified individuals in the fields of engineering, research, and medicine, and also receive astronaut training of a sort, the teams never leave Earths gravity entirely. Instead, research is carried out in Earth-bound labs, parabolic aircraft, and eventually commercial suborbital spaceflight vehicles.

Dr Shawna Pandya (L) and crew testing commercial spacesuits in microgravity at the National Research Council. (Ross Lockwood/Facebook)

As you can see once all the information is gathered, Dr Shawna Pandya is a qualified doctor, now a trained citizen scientist-astronaut, and a researcher in her own right. However, this is far from circulating reports that indicate shes joining the ranks of Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams. Dr Pandya herself has indicated that, despite being on the CSA team of the PHEnOM Project, theres still no guarantee of her being onboard the flights into upper altitudes, instead of one of her other crew members.

Yet, even if Dr Pandya may not have the chance to really break free from Earths gravity and experience the final frontier, shes still getting closer to it than most us could dream of, and her teams research will greatly benefit those that do have that chance. That in itself is definitely something worthy of pride, so lets not do her a disservice by muddling her contributions.

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Shawna Pandya clears the air on rumours of space travel - Daily News & Analysis

"Since I was a kid, I loved space, I loved the stars. So this kind of is a realisation of a life-long dream," says Shawna Pandya who is set to become the third Indian-origin woman to travel in space. The 32-year-old will undertake the expedition with eight others in 2018.

A neurologist by profession, Pandya works as a general physician at the Alberta University Hospital in Canada. On her expedition, she will be conducting experiments with bio-science and medical science, as well as studying the effects of microgravity on health and physiology. She will also study climate change as a part of the Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) project.

The Mumbai-born Canadian doctor is one of the two candidates selected from 32,000 people under the Citizen Science Astronaut programme. "All my junior high science projects or reports, they were all space related ... I think the idea of doing something that's so adventurous and really pushes the bounds of exploration, and the fact that you'd get to space really, really resonated with me," Pandya told CBS.

So, after she earned a B.Sc. in Neuroscience, she went on to do her post graduation in space sciences from the International Space University. She then pursued her MD in Medicine from the University of Alberta.

It isn't just her academic record that impressive. Pandya is an international taekwon-do champion and Hindustan Times reports that she trained with a Navy SEAL in Muay Thai. According to a report in the Indian Express, she is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and has even walked the runway as a model. Add to that her fluency in Russian, French and Spanish.

It seems that space exploration is not the only thing on this brilliant young woman's mind. She is also an integral part of the team preparing to undertake a 100-day underwater mission called Project Poseidon, at the Aquarius Space Research Facility in Florida.

Also on HuffPost India

'Indica: A Deep Natural History Of The Indian Subcontinent' Is More Compelling Than Sci-Fi

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Meet Shawn Pandya, The Third Indian-Origin Woman To Space-Travel - Huffington Post India

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HOUSTON A soccer ball that was inside the Space Shuttle Challenger when it exploded in 1986 is now in space.

During the recovery of the Challenger, a few things survived. One of the items was a soccer ball carried by one of the astronauts and signed by the players form Clear Lake High School in Houston. After it was recovered, it was donated to the high school and has been on display.

Astronaut Shane Kimbrough, whose daughter now attends that same high school, asked if the school would like to send anything into orbit. The soccer ball received a second chance at space flight. Kimbrough launched to the space station in October and just last week posted a photo of the ball in space.

When the ball returns from space, it will go back to Clear Lake High School for a permanent display.

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Piece of tragic shuttle history gets a second chance at space travel - WQAD.com

BBC News

Newspaper review: Heartthrob and space travel in Wednesday's papers BBC News A Hollywood heart throb, icebergs and space travel, are just some of the stories featured in Wednesday's papers. "What I've said so far is only the tip of the iceberg" is the headline in the Belfast Telegraph. The paper has an exclusive interview with ...

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Newspaper review: Heartthrob and space travel in Wednesday's papers - BBC News

When astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth after nearly a year on the International Space Station, he was 2 inches taller than his twin brother, astronaut Mark Kelly. When Scott left for the mission, he and his earthbound brother were the same height.

What happened? Scientists at NASA are poring over the data compiled from the Twins Study, information that benchmarks Scott and Mark Kellys genomic and physical markers before and after Scotts yearlong mission on the space station.

So far weve learned that being in space for prolonged periods does have an effect on the chromosomes, bone structure and even the content of the culture in an astronauts gut. Scotts DNA and RNA underwent hundreds of mutations in space that gradually returned to normal once he was back on Earth.

Scott Kelly exhibited declining bone density, but a healing hormone kicked in during his exercise regimen on the space station. Still, his cognitive abilities and muscle dexterity showed signs of having slowed a bit once he returned to Earth.

That will be a factor to consider when astronauts land on Mars after six months traveling through space. Setting up their living environment on the planet will present both physical and mental challenges.

NASAs plans for manned missions to Mars in the 2030s are still in the early stages. The rival civilian space programs that have popped up are shooting for a Mars mission in the early-to-mid-2020s. Whoever gets to Mars first will be better prepared for the challenges of space travel thanks to the Twins Study.

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Another View: NASA's Twins Study offers vital sign for space travel - Press Herald

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REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. - Following the tornado that struck NASA's Michoud Assembling Facility (MAF), we're told all employees are safe. But the cleanup continues at Michoud.

Mike Kynard, Deputy Director of MAF, said none of the 5 employees who suffered minor injuries were from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center at Redstone Arsenal. But a few people from Marshall, who were at Michoud for work, did have problems because of storm damage to their rental cars.

Now, one of the main missions is to get those Marshall employees back home.

"We're working on a process to bring them back here," explained Kynard.

Marshall and Michoud have a very close relationship. MSFC actually manages MAF, and many people travel in between frequently.

"We're all like family," said Kynard. "When we go down there, it's not a separate place, it's a part of Marshall. We're looking out for our people down there."

Marshall is sending some supplies and even employees down to Michoud to assist in the storm's aftermath, including mobile radios from the IT department, a mobile command center they have to deploy when necessary, and some protective services employees.

"The main thing is the people were safe. That was the most important part," said Kynard. "That's the irreplaceable part."

Thankfully, the SLS and Orion hardware at Michoud for manufacture and assembly were not impacted much either.

"I'm pleased to say there's no damage to the hardware," said Kynard. "We did have some debris fall on top of one of the tanks, but it didn't really impact anything."

The realdamage could come in the form of lost time. The facility is shut down right now while crews continue to assess building damage, and it's unclear when it will be ready for employees to come back in and work. It's difficult for Kynard to tell this early on just how much the mission will be affected.

"I think our focus is going to be to bring the facility back up where folks can come in and safely operate," said Kynard. "We'll have to go and assess how much that has impacted the core stage manufacturing, because the core stage is on a critical path for SLS. There is going to be some amount of time we are going to slip, but you never know how you can recover from that. We have some mighty, creative people working on that."

Kynard said he's hopeful the facility's necessary closure won't impact the SLS final launch date, because there still may be some things they can schedule for efficiency to make up for the lost time.

According to a NASA release, Michoud remains closed to all but security and emergency operations crews. Temporary flight restrictions are in place over the area to ensure recovery and operations crews can complete their work without interference from other drones or low-flying aircraft.

The entire NASA family pulls together during good times and bad, and the teams at the Michoud Assembly Facility are working diligently to recover from the severe weather that swept through New Orleans Tuesday and damaged the facility, said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot. We are thankful for the safety of all the NASA employees and workers of onsite tenant organizations, and we are inspired by the resilience of Michoud as we continue to assess the facilitys status.

Approximately 40 to 50 percent of the buildings at Michoud have some kind of damage; about five buildings have some form of severe damage.

We're told the team has prioritized completing the damage assessment at the sites main manufacturing building for the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft flight hardware so power can be restored in phases and temporary protection put in place to shield hardware from any further inclement weather.

34.648973 -86.668975

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NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center employees safe, returning following Michoud tornado - whnt.com

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Its called quantum entanglement, its extremely fascinating and counter to what we believe to bethe known scientific laws of the universe, so much so that Einstein himself could not wrap his head around it. Although its calledquantum entanglement, thoughEinstein referred to it as spooky action at a distance.

Recent research has taken quantum entanglement out of the theoretical realm of physics, and placed into the one of verified phenomena.An experiment devised by the Griffith Universitys Centre for Quantum Dynamics, led by Professor Howard Wiseman and his team of researchers at the university of Tokyo, recently published a paper in thejournalNature Communicationsconfirming what Einstein did not believe to be real: the non-local collapse of a particles wave function. (source)(source), and this is just one example of many.

They did this by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, and testing whether measurement of it in one laboratory would actually cause a change in the local quantum state in the other laboratory. In doing so, researchers were able to verify the entanglement of the split single photon.

Researchers have since replicated this experiment over and over again, with results of entanglement seen at kilometres of distance. Below is a great visual depiction of what quantum entanglement from the film, What The Bleep Do We Know.

Space is just the construct that gives the illusion that there areseparateobjects Dr. Quantum

Sure, there are a lot of philosophies regarding what all of this stuff actually means, but, as Dr. Elizabeth Rauscher puts it, its a pre-curser to realizing that everything is connected, and that everything in the universe is one. What happens in what we call reality, is effecting something else in that same reality, its all touching. (source)

Whats happening here is that, either we are witnessing the transfer of information at a speed far greater than the speed of light, or even better, something completely instantaneous.

If all points in space are connected, that means vast distances between places are simply an illusion. Furthermore, quantum entanglement challenges Einsteins theory of relativity, but theories are developed to be tweaked and changed. Unfortunately, our world is plagued with secrecy, and you can learn more about that in an article about the black budget linked at the bottom of this article.

Rich was the second director of Lockheed Skunkworks from 1975-1991. Hes been called the Father of Stealth, having overseen the development of the stealth fighter, the F-117Anighthawk.Before his death, Rich made several shocking open statements about the reality of UFOs and extraterrestrials.

We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects, and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity. Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do it. (1)

We now have technology to take ET home. No it wont take someones lifetime to do it. There is an error in the equations. We know what it is. We now have the capability to travel to the stars. (1)

There are two types of UFOs the ones we build and the ones they build. (1)

Where Quantum Entaglement Comes In

When Rich was asked how UFO propulsion worked, he said,Let me ask you. How does ESP work?The questioner responded with, All points in time and space are connected?Rich then said, Thats how it works!

Interesting to think about, isnt it? Perhaps the vast distances that exist between planets, solar systems and more isnt really as much of a barrier as we thought it was.

One of the sources is aerospace journalist, James Goodall, who wrote for publications such asJanes Defense Weekly, Aviation Week and Space Technology, and Interavia. He is an accomplished speaker specializing in the history, development, and operations of the worlds only Mach 3 capable, manned air breathing aircraft, the SR-71 family of aircraft. (1) (source)(source)(source)

He is also an author, as well as the Associate Curator at the Pacific Aviation Meseum, HI. He was also the restoration manager at the Museum of Flight in Paine Field, Everett, WA.

Goodall interviewed many from the classified black budget world (read more about that world here.) He claimed that some of his contacts told him thatwe have things out there that are literally out of this world, better than Star Trek or what you see in the movies. (1)

From his work alone, James Goodall knew Ben Rich well. In a video interview, Goodall stated that he spoke to Rich approximately 10 days before he died:

About ten days before he died, I was speaking to Ben on the telephone at the USC Medical Center in LA. And he said, Jim, we have things out in the desert that are fifty years beyond what you can comprehend. They have about forty five hundred people at the Lockheed Skunk works. What have they been doing for the last eighteen or twenty years? Theyre building something. (1)

Another source comes from John Andrews, who was a legendary Lockheed engineer. He had written to Rich, stating his own belief inUFOs, both manmade and extraterrestrial. Andrews has asked Rich if his own beliefs covered extraterrestrial as well as manmade UFOs. Richs reply was as follows:

Yes, Im a believer in both categories. I feel everything is possible. Many of our man-made UFOs are Un-Funded Opportunities. There are two types of UFOs, the ones we build, and the ones they build. (1)

In Richs reply, he underlined the U, F, and O in unfunded opportunities.

Thirdly, Jan Harzan, a senior executive with IBM, along with Tom Keller, an aerospace engineer who has worked as a computer systems analyst for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discusses a talk Ben gave some time ago. OnMarch 23rd, 1993 at a UCLA School of Engineering talk where he was presenting a general history of Sunk Works, he said this:

We now know how to travel to the stars. There is an error in the equations, and we have figured it out, and now know how to travel to the stars and it wont take a lifetime to do it. It is time to end all the secrecy on this, as it no longer poses a national security threat, and make the technology available for use in the private sector. There are many in the intelligence community who would like to see this stay in the black and not see the light of day. We now have the technology to take ET home. (1)

Here is a video of Jan telling the story:

Its quite remarkable how many verified statements we have regarding UFOs (unidentified flying objects) andextraterrestrials from people who have held the highest positions possible within the government, military, academia, politics and more. To be honest, its overwhelming, and when you put all of those statements together with all of the previously classified documentation that has been released over the past few years, it paints a startling picture. Anybody who has done even a fair amount of research, and adheres to the philosophy of condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance, would not be able to deny this, and I have yet to come across someone who has done the research that still subjectsthis topic to the conspiracy theory realm.

If youd like to learn more about UFOs, a great place to start is by checking out what happens when they are tracked on military radar.

To view a fraction of some verified quotes, and documents, and more, you can sift through the exopolitics section of our website and browse through our heavily sourced articles there.

Below is an example, and a video Ive used many times before, as it is an extremely powerful statement. I apologize if youve seen it before, but it really hits home. There really is an abundant amount of evidence.

Below is a great lecture given by researcher Richard Dolan. A great place to start. I apologize if youve seen this content before, but we always have new readers visiting our site, so its important to constantly put this information out there for those new eyes.

A century from now, it will be well known that: the vacuum of space which fills the universe is itself the real substratum of the universe; vacuum in a circulating state becomes matter; the electron is the fundamental particle of matter and is a vortex of vacuum with a vacuum-less void at the center and it is dynamically stable; the speed of light relative to vacuum is the maximum speed that nature has provided and is an inherent property of the vacuum; vacuum is a subtle fluid unknown in material media; vacuum is mass-less, continuous, non viscous, and incompressible and is responsible for all the properties of matter; and that vacuum has always existed and will exist forever.Then scientists, engineers and philosophers will bend their heads in shame knowing that modern science ignored the vacuum in our chase to discover reality for more than a century.

The quote above comes from Paramahamsa Tewari, Inventor of whats called the Reactionless AC Synchronous Generator (RLG).

What he says above has been the subject of discussion within the realms of physics and astronomy for decades. At the turn of the nineteenth century, physicists started to explore the relationship between energy and the structure of matter. In doing so, the belief that a physical, Newtonian material universe that was at the very heart of scientific knowing was dropped, and the realization that matter is nothing but an illusion replaced it. Scientists began to recognize that everything in the Universe is made out of energy.

Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature. This is also known as the Vacuum or The Zero-Point Field.

Whats even more fascinating is that the stuff within this space can be accessed and used. This was experimentally confirmed when The Casimir Effect illustrated zero point or vacuum state energy, which predicts that two metal plates close together attract each other due to an imbalance in the quantum fluctuations(source)(source). You can see a visual demonstration of this concepthere.Before Casimir, these pockets of nothing were thought to be voids.

Unfortunately, when contemplating the nature of our reality and what we perceive to be our physical world, the existence of the vacuum and and what lies within what we call space is very much over-looked. I find it amusing how were still searching for the God particle when a large amount of evidence points to the idea that most of what we refer to as reality is actually something we cant perceive with our physical senses!

No point is more central than this, that space is not empty, it is the seat of the most violent physics John Wheeler

Its quite confusing, which is why I am posting the video below of someone (out of many people) who spends their life researching and experimenting with these cool concepts.

Below is a video of Nassim Haramein giving a TEDx talk at USCD. Nassim currently leads teams of physicists, electrical engineers, mathematicians and other scientists to explore the frontier of unification principles and their implications. Harameins lifelong vision of applied unified physics to create positive change in the world today is reflected in the mission of The Resonance Project Foundation. He shares the developments of his research through scientific publications and educational offerings through the Resonance Academy.

Currently Nassim is focused on his most recent developments in quantum gravity and their applications to technology, new energy research, applied resonance, life sciences, permaculture, and consciousness studies. Nassim currently resides in Kauai compassionately raising his two young sons, and surfing the sunlit swells on the shores of the magnificent Hawaiian islands.

HERE is an example of some of his published research, with co authors, one of whom is Elizabeth A. Rauscher, an American physicist. She is a former researcher with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Stanford Research Institute, and NASA.

Space is actually not empty and its full of energyThe energy in space is not trivial theres a lot of it and we can actually calculate how much energy there is in that space and that reality might actually come out of it. Everything we see is actually emerging from that space.

Related CE Articles:

Distinguished Scientists Gather To Emphasize That Matter Is Not The Only Reality

Sources:

(1)Dolan, Richard. UFOs For the 21st Century Mind: New York: Richard Dolan Press, 2014(Historian, author, one of the worlds leading researchers on the topic of UFOs)

Related CE Article: Learn More About The Black Budget.

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Quantum Entanglement May Be Key To Long Distance Space Travel Ex Lockheed Exec Said It's Already Happening - Collective Evolution

The first results of the aptly-named Twins Study are in: Scott Kelly's year in space changed his DNA. It also made him taller! USA TODAY NETWORK

Astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly speak during the 2017 Breakthrough Prize at NASA Ames Research Center on December 4, 2016 in Mountain View, California.(Photo: Kelly Sullivan, Getty Images for Breakthrough Pr)

Space travel, it turns out, does more than make us weightless, it can even makethe endsof your chromosomes bigger.

The first results of a study delving into the impact space travel has on a person's body were released Monday. Appropriately named the Twins Study, the research looks deep into the effect galaxy travel had on astronaut Scott Kelly compared to his identical twin brother and former astronaut Mark.The brothers shared biological samples before during and after Scott's nearlyyear-long foray into space last year. The entire time, Mark was earth-bound.

Scott, when he returned to Earth, was a full two inches taller. But the preliminary results went far deeper. Here's what was found:

- Scott's telomeres on the ends of his chromosomesin his white blood cells lengthened while in space. Researchers said it could be attributed to increased exercise and his reduced calorie intake during flight. The telomeres shortened when he returned. Talomerestypically decrease in lengthas a person ages.

- The study found the level of chemical DNA modification slowed while in space but then returned to normal when returning to Earth.

- Scott's cognitive abilities in speed and accuracy slowed just slightly afterthe mission.

- Scott's bone formation slowed duringthe second half of his trip. Also, there was a spike in inflammation right after landing, which could be because of the stresses of re-entry.

- The study determined a stress hormone was "low normal" throughout the trip but increased over the course of the expedition. The study said the hormone, linked to bone and muscle health, was, "likely impacted by heavy exercise countermeasures during flight."

- Two dominant bacterial groups were more prevalent in Scott when he was in space versuswhen he was on Earth.

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First results on Scott Kelly after year in space reveal space travel changes DNA - USA TODAY

When astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth after nearly a year on the International Space Station, he was 2 inches taller than his twin brother, astronaut Mark Kelly. When Scott left for the mission, he and his earthbound brother were the same height.

What happened? Scientists at NASA are poring over the data compiled from the Twins Study, information that benchmarks Scott and Mark Kellys genomic and physical markers before and after Scotts yearlong mission on the space station.

So far weve learned that being in space for prolonged periods does have an effect on the chromosomes, bone structure and even the content of the culture in an astronauts gut. Scotts DNA and RNA underwent hundreds of mutations in space that gradually returned to normal once he was back on Earth.

Scott Kelly exhibited declining bone density, but a healing hormone kicked in during his exercise regimen on the space station. Still, his cognitive abilities and muscle dexterity showed signs of having slowed a bit once he returned to Earth.

That will be a factor to consider when astronauts land on Mars after six months traveling through space. Setting up their living environment on the planet will present both physical and mental challenges.

NASAs plans for manned missions to Mars in the 2030s are still in the early stages. The rival civilian space programs that have popped up are shooting for a Mars mission in the early-to-mid-2020s. Whoever gets to Mars first will be better prepared for the challenges of space travel thanks to the Twins Study.

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Celestial bodies: The Kelly twins offer a vital sign for space travel - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Forbes

Is This Buzz Aldrin-Inspired Locomotive The Future Of Space Travel? Forbes Last summer Charles Bombardier unveiled the Solar Expressan imagined vehicle that would ferry cargo and passengers from Earth to Mars in less than two days. The radical notion drew a great deal of buzzmost notably from Buzz Aldrin, who praised the ...

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Is This Buzz Aldrin-Inspired Locomotive The Future Of Space Travel? - Forbes