Category Archives: Space Travel

Uncle Snoop is returning with another project and he's kicking things off with a new single. We've been hearing quitea bit about Mount Westmore, the Rap supergroup made up of Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Too $hort, and E-40, and on Wednesday (October 20), they released their official debut single, "Big Subwoofer."'

The track arrived with aJesse Wellens and Sam Macaroni-directed visual and is bolstered with the official label announcement of Snoop's forthcoming album, Snoop Dogg Presents: THE ALGORITHM. It marks Snoop's first release on the label as an executive creative and strategic consultant. The Algorithm is set to feature artists from Def Jam past, present, and future. Its Snoops mission tochange the current algorithm of what we listen to today by putting feeling back into music with the release of his new project.

Theres so much talent on this record, said Snoop. So many styles of music, it breaks the algorithm. Right now, the algorithm is telling us you have to rap this way, you have to sound this way, but theyre not telling you how its supposed to feel. My algorithm is going to give you a feeling, not a sound.

Stream Mount Westmore's "Big Subwoofer" and let us know what you think.

Quotable Lyrics

Heard this youngin screaming like womanYelling that they comingN*gga we ain't runningIt's a new day, still got the AK if these b*tches take it back to 88Turn the music down 'fore we locking hornsKeep the party going it's a false alarm.

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Mount Westmore Arrives With Space Travel Visual To "Big Subwoofer" - HotNewHipHop

Elon Musk could become a trillionaire. Here's what that means.

Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire. Here's what that means.

Staff video, USA TODAY

Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire, according to a prediction made by investment firm Morgan Stanley.

However, it won't be from his highly successful electric vehicle company Tesla. Instead, it'll likely be from his fledgling space startup SpaceX,The Guardianreports, despite the fact that Tesla's net worth is about$850billion, almost 30 times SpaceX's$30 billion price tag.

Teslabecame the most valuable American carmaker in 2020, eclipsing veterans such as Ford and General Motors, while SpaceX is still privately traded.

The business mogul's personal wealth recently ballooned to $222 billion, building his lead as the richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

Elon Musk to move Tesla's headquarters from California to Texas

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the $1.1 billion facility will reside in Travis County, Texas.

Staff Video, USA TODAY

SpaceXwas founded in 2002 with lofty ambitions to send humans to Mars while bringing down the cost of space travel.

To get his spaceflight ambitions off the ground, Musk attempted to buy refurbished Russian ballistic missiles. That proved to be too expensive, and working with Russian officials was difficult.

The evolution of SpaceX:How Elon Musk took SpaceX from an idea to the cusp of making history

After my second or third trip back from Russia, I was like, Whoa, theres got to be a better way to solve this rocket problem, Musk said at the2018 South By Southwest conferencein Austin, Texas. So we embarked on that journey to create SpaceX."

At the same time, NASA was relying on theRussian Soyuz spacecraft and paying around $80 million for each seat, according toNASA Director Phil McAlister.

After SpaceX's Falcon 1 failed to reach orbit three times but succeeded on the fourth try, his upstart company was strapped for cash and turning the page to its final chapter.

At that point, NASA and SpaceX decided to enter a mutually beneficial partnership.

Two days before Christmas 2008, NASA announced SpaceX had been awarded a $1.6 billion contract to fly supplies to the International Space Station, a program now known as Commercial Resupply Services.

"We've been working with SpaceX and Boeing on their systems for about the last ten years, transferring some of our knowledge of 60 years of human spaceflight to those companies, and helping them with their development, both financially and technically," McAlister says.

The partnership has paid off for NASA. A seat thatoriginally cost $80 million on Soyuz spacecraft now costs about $58 million on SpaceX's rockets, says McAlister.

Most recently, SpaceX launched its first all-civilian crew into orbit. For three days, a physician's assistant, an engineer, a professor and a billionaire circled the Earth in a rocket called Inspiration4.

The future of civilian space travel:William Shatner went to space. Here's how much it would cost you.

Emre Kelly from Florida Today and Scott Gleeson from USA TODAY contributed. contributed.Michelle Shen is a Money & Tech Digital Reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her @michelle_shen10 on Twitter.

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Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire due to SpaceX - USA TODAY

James Camparo of the Aerospace Corporation thinks the drift of their clock is exceptionally low. These on-orbit frequency stability results are very encouraging for the technology, even though the clock did not operate in its optimal settings while in space, says Camparo, who holds a doctorate in chemical physics and was not involved in the study. He anticipates that during the next phase of the mission, the JPL team will achieve even lower frequency variations, further improving the clocks performance.

This kind of precision timing will be needed for future deep space missions. Currently, navigation in space actually requires all of the decisions to be made on Earth. Ground navigators bounce radio signals to a spacecraft and back, and ultraprecise clocks can time how long the round trip takes. This measurement is used to calculate information about position, speed, and direction, and a final signal is sent back to the space vessel with commands on how to adjust course.

But the time it takes to send messages back and forth is a real limitation. For objects near the moon, the two-way trip only takes a couple of seconds, Ely says. But as you travel further out, the time required quickly becomes inefficient: near Mars, the round trip time is about 40 minutes, and near Jupiter, this increases to about an hour and a half. By the time you travel all the way out to the current location of the Voyager, a satellite exploring interstellar space, he says, it can take days. Far out into the cosmos, it would be impractical and unsafe to rely on this method, especially if the craft was carrying people. (Currently, uncrewed missions, like the Perseverance rovers landing on Mars, rely on automated systems for navigation decisions that have to be made on short timescales.)

The solution, the JPL team says, is to equip the spacecraft with its own atomic clock and eliminate the need for ground-based calculations. The craft will always need to receive an initial signal from Earth, in order to measure its position and direction from a constant point of reference. But there would be no need to bounce a signal back, because the subsequent navigation calculations could be done in real time onboard.

Until now, this was impossible. Atomic clocks used to navigate from the ground are too bigthe size of refrigeratorsand current space clocks arent accurate enough to rely on. The JPL teams version is the first one thats both small enough to fit on a spacecraft and stable enough for one-way navigation to become a reality.

It may prove useful for ground travel too. On Earth, we use GPS, a network of satellites carrying atomic clocks that help us navigate on the surface. But according to Ely, these clocks arent nearly as stabletheir drift needs to be corrected at least twice a day to ensure a constant stream of accurate information for everyone on Earth. If you had a more stable clock that had less drift, you could decrease that kind of overhead, says Ely. In the future, he also imagines that a large population of humans or robots on the moon or Mars will need to have their own tracking infrastructure; a GPS-like constellation of satellites, equipped with tiny atomic clocks, could accomplish this.

Camparo agrees, and says the device could even be configured to use on ground stations on Mars or the moon. Its worth noting that when we consider space-system timekeeping, we often focus on the atomic clocks carried by the spacecraft, he says. However, for any constellation of satellites, there has to be a better clock at the satellite systems ground station, since this is how scientists monitor the accuracy of clocks in space.

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This Atomic Clock Will Transform Deep Space Exploration - WIRED

When Cassandra Klos wasgrowing up in rural New Hampshire, it was easy to see the stars. She traced the constellations with her finger and imagined how it would feel to travel among them. As a college art student, she launched a photo project about Betty and Barney Hill, a New Hampshire couple who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.

Then Klos went on her first mission to Mars.

To be clear, no earthling has actually set foot on the red planet. NASA is hoping to send a crew there in the 2030s, as is China, and the private company SpaceX is working to establish a permanent Martian presence with starships ferrying humans back and forth to Earth. We dont want to be one of those single-planet species, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in April, outlining the companys ambitions. We want to be a multi-planet species.

First, though, theres some figuring out to do. Designing the right spacecraft and living spaces is part of the challenge. There are also prosaic, but important, questions. How will people shower with a limited supply of water? What will it take to grow fresh greens to supplement the steady diet of dehydrated food? And with civilians from different backgrounds living together in close quarters, will Martian habitats end up resembling the set of Jean-Paul Sartres play No Exit, where hell is other people?

The two-week mission Klos joined in 2015 was designed to explore those kinds of questions. It took place at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, four hours south of Salt Lake City, but everyone spoke and acted as though they were actually on Mars. A group of six people lived in a two-story cylindrical building. The commander, a former member of the Army National Guard, kept the participants on a strict schedule of fixing electrical systems, taking inventory, tidying up the facilities and sampling the soil. Everyone was assigned a special role: Klos was to prepare reports to share with the public. The health safety officer kept tabs on the crews well-being, and the engineer monitored levels of carbon dioxide and solar power.

Before stepping outside in a spacesuit, Klos and the others had to get permission from mission control back on Earth (actually a coordinator stationed in a nearby town). That person would send information about the winds and weather, and determine how long each person could stay outside the base. Sometimes dust storms rolled in, cutting off the solar power supply just as they would on Mars. Klos was allowed to bathe only once a week, using a couple of buckets of water. She was enchanted.

This is not performance art, says Klos. These are real scientific endeavors. Sometimes people make the critique that were role-playing too much. But the goal is to really live the way people are going to live on Mars so scientists can figure out how to make it work when we get there.

There are about a dozen such habitats around the globe, hosting simulations that run anywhere from two weeks to a full year. One of these is run by NASAs Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. But other facilities are funded by private organizations. The Mars Society, established by Brooklyn-born aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, operates the habitat in Utah, where Klos returned for another mission in 2017, and another in the Canadian Arctic. Klos also took part in a mission at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. The facility is run by the International MoonBase Alliance, a group founded by the Dutch entrepreneur Henk Rogers.

HI-SEAS is located on Hawaiis big island at 8,200 feet above sea level, on top of the active volcano Mauna Loa. NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center is collaborating with the facility to gather information about volcanic caves and the microbes that live in those Mars-like conditions. HI-SEAS is also studying the limitations of doing that kind of work while wearing heavy spacesuits. Its hard enough for astronauts to hold a screwdriver in a gloved hand while repairing the International Space Station, but if people are going to be clambering on Martian rocks looking for microbes, theyll need the right gear.

The missions are open to people who have no background in science, engineering or astronaut training. After all, the goal is to send ordinary folks into space, so its worth finding out whether ordinary folks can coexist in Mars-like conditions here on Earth. Each two-story habitat at a simulation facility has usable floor space of only about 1,200 square feetthe size of two small apartments stacked on top of each otherwhich isnt much room for six people who cant just breeze out for a walk around the block.

To get a spot on a Mars or Moon simulation, you have to propose a project that the leaders believe is useful. One recent HI-SEAS participant focused on 3-D printing, looking at ways to create bricks out of volcanic rock. Another studied hydrogen fuel cells. Yet another tried out different methods for growing hydroponic lettuce. Many projects focus on psychological research, looking at how various foods, exercises and smells influence peoples moods while theyre crammed together in a pressurized capsule.

Preparations for Mars may prove to have benefits for life on Earth. Earlier research for space travel paved the way for medical advances such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The data were gathering now about surviving on solar power, conserving water and growing plants in arid conditions could be useful here at home as our climate changes.

The director of HI-SEAS, the 32-year-old astrobiologist Michaela Musilova, says she makes an effort to assemble diverse crews, using the internet to recruit teachers, journalists and artists like Klos. On a mission Musilova led in the fall of 2020, she ended up with crew members who supported opposing candidates in the November presidential election. That made for very interesting dynamics, she says. But Musilova says her teams are most innovative when their members come from different backgrounds. The range of perspectives is great for problem-solving, and the variety of personal stories can help combat boredom. And people who are eager to spend time on Mars, simulated or otherwise, tend to have certain things in common, including a willingness to live with strangers in close quarters and an enthusiasm for future space explorations.

We all have our quirks, Musilova says. Were all going to make mistakes and annoy other people. But when someone is having a bad day, we go out of our way to cheer them up. When someone is being a pain in the ass, were able to have some empathy. If living together on Mars can make us into better versions of ourselves, that might be the greatest breakthrough of all.

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Inside the Experiment to Create Mars on Earth - Smithsonian

Another 60% of Americans agree that space should be accessible to everyone.

Published: Oct. 14, 2021 at 7:00 AM EDT

NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --As space travel and space tourism continues to make headlines and more civilians vie for seats on the next launch, many Americans have strong feelings about going to space.

According to a ValuePenguin survey of over 2,000 consumers, almost half want to go to space and some would even go into debt to do so; however, others think space tourism may not be ethical.

Key findings:

View full report: https://www.valuepenguin.com/travel/americans-space-travel

About ValuePenguin.com:ValuePenguin.com, part of LendingTree (NASDAQ: TREE), is a personal finance website that conducts in-depth research and provides objective analysis to help guide consumers to the best financial decisions. ValuePenguin focuses on value, assessing whether the return of a particular decision is worth the cost or risk of that option, and how this stacks up with the other possible choices they may have. For more information, please visit http://www.valuepenguin.com, like our Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter @ValuePenguin.

Media Contact:Nadia GonzalezNadia@LendingTreeNews.com

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The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.

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Nearly 50% of Americans Want to Space Travel But Only 19% Would Shell Out $100,000 To Do So According to a ValuePenguin.com Survey - WKYT

A Russian actor and a film director have returned to Earth after spending 12 days on the International Space Station shooting scenes for the first movie in orbit.

Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko landed as scheduled on Kazakhstans steppe early on Sunday, according to footage broadcast live by the Russian space agency.

They were ferried back to terra firma by cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who had been on the space station for the past six months.

The descent vehicle of the crewed spacecraft Soyuz MS-18 is standing upright and is secure. The crew are feeling good! Russian space agency Roscosmos tweeted.

The film-makers had blasted off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier this month, travelling to the ISS with veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov to film scenes for The Challenge.

If the project stays on track, the Russian crew will beat a Hollywood project announced last year by Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise together with Nasa and Elon Musks SpaceX.

The movies plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, centres around a surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.

Shkaplerov, 49, along with the two Russian cosmonauts who were already aboard the ISS, are said to have cameo roles in the film.

The mission was not without small hitches.

As the film crew docked at the ISS earlier this month, Shkaplerov had to switch to manual control.

And when Russian flight controllers on Friday conducted a test on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft the ships thruster fired unexpectedly and destabilised the ISS for 30 minutes, a Nasa spokesperson told the Russian news agency TASS.

Their landing, which was documented by a film crew, will also feature in the movie, Konstantin Ernst, the head of the Kremlin-friendly Channel One TV network and a co-producer of The Challenge, told AFP.

The mission will add to a long list of firsts for Russias space industry.

The Soviets launched the first satellite Sputnik, and sent into orbit the first animal, a dog named Laika, the first man, Yuri Gagarin, and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova.

But compared with the Soviet era, modern Russia has struggled to innovate and its space industry is fighting to secure state funding with the Kremlin prioritising military spending.

Its space agency is still reliant on Soviet-designed technology and has faced a number of setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches.

Russia is also falling behind in the global space race, facing tough competition from the US and China, with Beijing showing growing ambitions in the industry.

Russias Roscosmos was also dealt a blow after SpaceX last year successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS, ending Moscows monopoly for journeys to the orbital station.

In a bid to spruce up its image and diversify its revenue, Russias space programme revealed this year that it will be reviving its tourism plan to ferry fee-paying adventurers to the ISS.

After a decade-long pause, Russia will send two Japanese tourists including billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the ISS in December, capping a year that has been a milestone for amateur space travel.

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Russian film crew return to Earth after shooting the first movie in space - The Guardian

Across a memorable BNP Paribas fortnight, several WTA Tour players opened up on sundry issues from space travel to wedding planning. Here are some of their best bits:

Azarenka stays grounded

Star Trek actor William Shatner's real-life space voyage was a hot topic of conversation last week. It didn't impress eventual runner-up Victoria Azarenka much, though.

The Belarusian clarified that it was "pretty cool from an engineering standpoint." But she pointed out that humanity should have more pressing concerns.

"Me personally, I kind of like Planet Earth," she said. "I hope we as society will take better care of it before moving to another planet. That's kind of where I stand."

Badosa bounces back from coaching change

Paula Badosa's run to the championship had some extra significance for the Spaniard.

She had raced up the rankings in the first half of 2021, a surge for which she was quick to credit coach Javier Marti. Then they abruptly split following the Tokyo Olympic Games - "a change that came from one day to another," as Badosa put it. Early-round losses to Rebecca Marino and Varvara Gracheva followed in August.

"It was tough, because I had to play the U.S. swing alone," the 23-year-old said.

For that reason, this tournament - in which she defeated Coco Gauff and Barbora Krejcikova en route to the title - was "the one I'm most proud of," she told the press.

"It means a lot for me. Of course, a change, always it's scary. Maybe even though that things are going well, when you change, sometimes you lose a little bit of confidence. When I was coming here, I remember I was a little bit afraid of what could happen. But I'm happy I went through all that. Mentally I'm strong again."

Badosa is now working with her childhood coach, Jorge Garcia.

"He was my coach before when I was 15 years old," she said. "He knows me a lot. We have a good relationship and that's important. He's helping me and I'm happy with my decision."

Swiatek x Murray

A meeting between Iga Swiatek and Andy Murray has been on the cards for a while now. During Roland Garros, the former ATP World No.1 praised the defending champion's game, and she quickly responded with a request for some grass-court practice ahead of Wimbledon.

It didn't happen then, but after her debut win at Indian Wells, Swiatek named the Briton as her dream practice partner. This time, Murray responded in the affirmative. So how did it go down?

"I was talking a little bit more with his coach, because he was late for his practice," Swiatek said. "Basically I talked with his coach about how Andy does it, [when] he's constantly talking to himself between points and it's working out well and he's like pumping him[self] up. Because usually when I talk to myself, I go on court and I'm angry, you know. I really would love to learn how he does that."

The Pole still got what she came for - even though it was difficult.

"And I was talking with Andy about my grass-court skills. So that was a hard topic."

Fernandez turns entertainer

During Leylah Fernandez's run to the US Open final last month, the Canadian teenager's exhortations to the crowd to show their excitement after standout points became a signature of her matches. This continued in the California desert, particularly in her 2-hour, 41-minute comeback over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round.

In New York, Fernandez cast herself as a born entertainer, saying big crowds were something she had envisioned from an early age.

"I've imagined myself playing on every tournament, every Grand Slam, at the biggest stage," she told press then. "When I was younger, since I used Justine Henin as a great example, I would imagine myself playing against her. I would also imagine myself playing against Serena and Venus, and the past few years playing against Osaka in a big tournament."

It's a bit more complicated than that, though.

"I am a person who is an introvert, likes puzzles," Fernandez said in Indian Wells. "I like figuring things out - Sudoku, Rubik's cubes, problems."

It turns out that despite her childhood dreams, Fernandez's realisation that she could feed off the crowd was a revelation even to her.

"When I was younger I always imagined myself playing in a big crowd, but I never knew how I would react knowing how I am off the court, how I was growing up," she said. "The way that I reacted in New York, the way that I was reacting here in Indian Wells - using their energy, having fun on the court, let's say interacting with the crowd, too, with my tennis. It has definitely surprised me as a person; has definitely helped me and my tennis game to go for it, to just trust my game."

Sasnovich a keen student of Azarenka

All-Belarusian encounters are rare on the WTA Tour, especially at the biggest tournaments. When Victoria Azarenka clashed with Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the fourth round, it was only the sixth time she had played a countrywoman at WTA 1000 level or above.

Naturally, 27-year-old Sasnovich had grown up watching her illustrious compatriot. But she's continued to study Azarenka for reasons beyond national pride. Sasnovich considers the two-time major champion a useful tactical example to follow.

"She has a nice plan with each player she plays," Sasnovich said after upsetting Simona Halep in the third round. "For example, if I need to do plan - like I play tomorrow against Cirstea, I'm going to watch how Azarenka played against her. Because, in my opinion, she has the best plan [for] how she needs to play against [other] players."

Azarenka accepted the compliment graciously.

"That's really nice of her to say," she said. "I'm honoured to hear that. Especially when somebody from my country is kind of looking up to me, it's really awesome, makes me feel good."

While she acknowledged that identifying the right tactics was "something that I'm able to do real well," Azarenka said that her problem had been deviating from them anyway.

"I create those difficulties for myself where I'm not being rational and I'm trying to be stubborn, kind of prove to myself that I can do it even though maybe it's not the right way. I have been many times making my life more difficult than I should do. ... I think it does in a way come natural to me. But one thing is analysing that, and the second thing is actually doing it. Those two things, when they come together, that's a skill."

In Azarenka's opinion, the two players who have best demonstrated that skill against her have been Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams.

Pegula and Halep take laissez-faire approach to wedding planning

It's wedding season on the WTA Tour. Simona Halep arrived in Indian Wells as a newlywed. She married Toni Iuruc less than a month before in her hometown of Constanta. Meanwhile, quarterfinalist Jessica Pegula was using the tournament as a warmup to her own wedding with Taylor Gahagen on Nov. 22.

One thing they both had in common: a hands-off approach to planning any of it.

"I haven't been that much of a Bridezilla," said Pegula, whose wedding had originally been planned for 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic. "I picked a couple things. There's a couple things I wanted. Other than that, it's kind of been all my mom. My mom, honestly, loves to plan anything, events, parties. Literally she'll be there. I don't know where she finds the time, but she'll be there till 3 a.m. gluing stuff, printing things out. She literally does things by hand."

Meanwhile, Halep also let others look after the details.

"My husband took care of the wedding, so I didn't move one finger for it," she said. "I just said that I want white flowers, so he knew what I like and he did everything. So thanks to him I didn't have to stress myself for the party. I just enjoyed it. Many people came, my family, my friends. After two days, I went to the gym - I was back very fast to do the training after the wedding."

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Best of Indian Wells in quotes: Azarenka on space travel, Halep and Pegula on weddings - WTA Tennis

Experts said adding space to the list of U.S. critical infrastructure sectors would send a strong message

WASHINGTON Satellites in space provide essential services in support of national security and the civilian economy. The U.S. government, however, does not technically consider space systems critical infrastructure, which is slowing down efforts to protect networks from cyber attacks, experts said Oct. 19.

Were still debating whether space is critical infrastructure, said Dawn Beyer, senior fellow at Lockheed Martin. Meanwhile, of all the domains, space is the furthest behind when it comes to cybersecurity.

The U.S. government spent years debating what the cyber domain should be called and who should be in charge while Russia was already using it against us in information warfare, Beyer on a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Aerospace Corp. and the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or ISAC, an industry group focused on the cybersecurity of space systems.

A similar scenario is happening with regard to the space domain, Beyer said. It seems we spend so much time trying to figure out things that should be so simple, while we should be spending more time trying to figure out how to defend that space, as the risk changes all the time.

The Department of Homeland Security identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors, including chemical industries, healthcare defense and financial services. According to DHS,these are sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety.

DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency works with federal agencies and the private sector to provide cybersecurity tools and incident response services if any of these critical sectors came under attack.

Samuel Visner, technical fellow at MITRE and a member of the ISAC board of directors, said space systems should be a designated critical infrastructure. That would include launch systems, manufacturing plants , on orbit satellites and ground-based communication systems.

The technologies and capabilities in the space sector are unique and not replicated in other sectors of the economy so they should be better protected, said Visner.

The propellant thats made for space is is unique. The engines built for space are unique, many of the systems and subsystems built for space launch and space mission systems are not necessarily covered elsewhere, he said.

There are emerging space activities that will continue to be added to the space economy, he said, such as space travel, space exploration, and eventually some manufacturing that will takeplace in space.

Charity Weeden, vice president of global space policy and government relations at Astroscale U.S., said adding space to the list of critical infrastructure sectors would send a strong message.

Labels are important to show its a priority, she said. If a federal agency such as the Commerce Department were assigned responsibility to coordinate space activities, having space designated as critical infrastructure would help to make sure that whoever takes over is properly resourced, Weeden said.

The issue has drawn congressional attention. In June, the chairs of the congressional aerospace caucus Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) introduced the Space Infrastructure Act which directs the Department of Homeland Security to designate space systems, services, and technology as a critical infrastructure sector.

Visner said a critical infrastructure declaration is overdue but that alone is not enough to ensure systems are protected. A lot of work will be needed to coordinate government and private sector cybersecurity efforts as all networks are interconnected, he said. That is another issue that needs to be to be sorted through.

This should be viewed as a national priority, he said. Our adversaries see space as critical to their national interest, they see space as critical to our national interest, and frankly I think they see it as a vulnerability to our national interest that they can exploit.

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Industry panel: US space systems need protection against cyber attacks - SpaceNews

Vice President Kamala Harris should have boldly rocketed into space with Captain Kirk.

That would have shut her critics up. It also would have helped turn her sagging image around.

And if a 90-year-old actor can make the flight, so could a 56-year-old vice president. Maybe even a 78-year-old president, although some critics might argue that he is already lost in space.

Upon landing in the West Texas desert, instead of the West Wing of the White House after her historic flight Wednesday aboard Jeff Bezos Blue Origin rocket Harris could have talked about space with real high school students.

After all, she would have been the first vice president let alone the first female vice president to have rocketed into space. Upon disembarking in her snazzy space suit, she could have said to the press, America is back, baby, and so am I.

And it would have been totally fitting because Harris, in addition to her other duties, like being President Bidens border czar, also heads Bidens National Space Council.

The Space Council is designed to help shape national space and security strategies. But while the Bezos space rocket lifted off in Texas, Harris was in Washington.

Such a flight with Harris aboard would have given Harris the opportunity to combine those two responsibilities.

Sitting in the space capsule along with Captain Kirk 90-year-old Star Trek actor William Shatner Harris on the way up would have gotten a panoramic view of the open Mexican border where hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are crossing.

That surely would have given Harris more insight into a solution to the border crisis. Space gives a person perspective. Looking down on the continent from higher up, you cannot see any borders. That is because there are none. Ergo, problem solved.

No borders, no problems.

Nobody knows if Biden will seek a second term. Nobody knows if he will even be around.

And nobody knows if he would have sanctioned such a flight for Harris had anyone even told him about it. Joe, Im going, she would have said, and thats all there is to it. But she did not go.

However, if she had a space flight under her belt, Harris could possibly have been a formidable candidate for president in 2024, campaigning as the sole candidate who had been in space.

People give you space once youve been to space.

Everyone knows how important space will be when World War III comes around, and people will be looking for a candidate with space credentials.

Meanwhile, of course, other presidential candidates would have been begging Bezos and Elon Musk, Bezos space competitor, to get on their own commercial space flights so they would not be outdone on the campaign trail.

Then, during the presidential debates they could not only argue over who flew the highest, the longest and broke the most sound barriers, but who flew the cheapest.

Instead of all the glory of a successful rocket flight into space, Harris ended up getting mocked for talking to a bunch of rented kids about craters on the moon. Craters on the moon? How about the crater in the White House?

The event was her appearance, two days before the Blue Origin rocket launch, in a NASA video talking about space travel to hired teenage actors in observance of World Space Week.

In a cringeworthy performance, Harris talked to the teenagers, all of whom were paid actors, about her passion for science, exploring the unknown and how excited she was about the Space Council.

Youre going to literally see the craters on the moon with your own eyes, Im telling you. Its going to be unbelievable, Harris said.

Had Harris waited a day or so she could have had Shatner talk to the students. While he did not see craters on the moon, Shatner was moved by the profound experience of his space trip.

Shatner said, Im so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just hope I never recover from this. Its so much larger than me and life. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.

Everybody in the world needs to do this. It was so moving.

That was real life. Harris performance was an act. It was produced by a Canadian company appropriately called Sinking Ship Entertainment.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.

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Lucas: A trip to space may be just the thing for VP Kamala Harris - Boston Herald

October 13, 2021 6:30 AM

Posted: October 13, 2021 6:30 AM

Updated: October 13, 2021 5:50 PM

Mark Spowart/The Canadian Press via AP, File

FILE - In this Friday June 15, 2012 file photo, Motorists make their way to Ambassador Bridge connecting Canada to the United States in Windsor, Ontario.

WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. will reopen its land borders to nonessential travel next month, ending a 19-month freeze due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the country moves to require all international visitors to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Vehicle, rail and ferry travel between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to essential travel, such as trade, since the earliest days of the pandemic.

The new rules, announced Wednesday, will allow fully vaccinated foreign nationals to enter the U.S. regardless of the reason for travel starting in early November, when a similar easing of restrictions is set to kick in for air travel into the country. By mid-January, even essential travelers seeking to enter the U.S., like truck drivers, will need to be fully vaccinated.

***

Blue Origin via AP

This undated photo made available by Blue Origin in October 2021 shows, from left, Chris Boshuizen, William Shatner, Audrey Powers and Glen de Vries.

VAN HORN, Texas (AP) Actor William Shatner counted down Wednesday to his wildest role yet: riding a rocket into space, courtesy of Star Trek fan Jeff Bezos.

Best known for his role as Captain Kirk, the 90-year-old Shatner joined three other passengers for the planned launch from West Texas.

Bezos space travel company, Blue Origin, invited Shatner on the brief jaunt to the fringes of the final frontier, which will make him the oldest person in space.

***

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

Atlanta Braves' Freddie Freeman (5) celebrates his solo homerun during the eighth inning of Game 4 of a baseball National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021, in Atlanta.

ATLANTA (AP) Freddie Freeman and the Atlanta Braves will get another chance to finish the job they came agonizingly close to achieving a year ago.

It doesnt matter at all that they had fewer wins than any other playoff team.

Freeman hit an improbable, tiebreaking homer off Milwaukee closer Josh Hader with two outs in the eighth inning and the Braves advanced to the NL Championship Series for the second year in a row, finishing off the Brewers 5-4 on Tuesday night.

In the American League, the Houston Astros are going to the ALCS for the fifth straight year. Their October-tested stars led the way.

***

AP FILE

1960 Bill Mazeroski opens the bottom of the ninth with a home run off Ralph Terry of the New York Yankees to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 victory and the World Series championship.

In this Oct. 13, 1960, file photo, fans rush onto the field toward Pittsburgh Pirates' Bill Mazeroski as he comes home on his Game 7-ending home run in the ninth inning to win the World Series against the New York Yankees in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Harry Harris, File)

AP FILE

1963 Mickey Wright wins her fourth LPGA championship in six years by beating Mary Lena Faulk, Mary Mills and Louise Suggs by two strokes.

Mickey Wright of Dallas swings her putter on the 18th green and sinks a 15-foot birdie putt at the Dallas Civitan Open golf tournament at Glen Lakes Country Club in Dallas, Texas, May 26, 1963. Wright won the tourney with a 72-hole score of 283. (AP Photo)

AP FILE

2011 American Jordyn Wieber wins another gold medal, beating Russias Viktoria Komova for the all-around title at the world gymnastics championships in Tokyo. Wieber, who led the Americans to the team title two days earlier, finishes with 59.382 points, just 0.033 ahead of the Russian.

USA's Jordyn Wieber performs on the balance beam on her way to winning the women's individual all-round final of the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Tokyo, Japan Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

AP FILE

2013 Kenyas Dennis Kimetto, six weeks removed from a bout of malaria, breaks the course mark in capturing the Chicago Marathon. Kimetto finishes in 2 hours, 3 minutes, 45 seconds, leading a 1-2-3 finish for Kenyan men. He beats the mark of 2:04:38 set by Ethiopias Tsegaye Kebede last year.

Dennis Kimetto of Kenya crosses the finish line to win the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)

AP FILE

2017 Gustav Nyquist scores twice and Detroit has four goals in the third period to beat Vegas 6-3, handing the NHLs newest franchise its first loss. Vegas is the first NHL expansion team to win its first three games.

Detroit Red Wings' Gustav Nyquist, right, celebrates with Anthony Mantha after Nyquist scored against the Vegas Golden Knights during the third period of an NHL hockey game Friday, Oct. 13, 2017, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

AP

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is 32.

Invision

Model Beverly Johnson is 69.

Invision

TV personality Billy Bush is 50.

AP

Actor Caleb McLaughlin (TV: Stranger Things) is 20.

AP

Classical singer Carlos Marin (Il Divo) is 53.

Invision

Producer-writer Chris Carter is 65.

AP

NBA coach Doc Rivers is 60.

AP

College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice is 59.

Invision

Rock singer Joey Belladonna is 61.

Invision

Actor Kate Walsh is 54.

Invision

Actor Kiele Sanchez is 45.

AP

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is 63.

AP

Singer/TV personality Marie Osmond is 62.

AP

Olympic silver medal figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is 52.

AP

Former NBA All-Star Paul Pierce is 44.

Invision

Singer-musician Paul Simon is 80.

AP

Actor and former NBA star Reggie Theus (THEE-us) is 64.

Invision

Musician Robert Lamm (Chicago) is 77.

Invision

Actor Sacha Baron Cohen is 50.

Invision

Singer-musician Sammy Hagar is 74.

AP

In 1792, the cornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House, was laid by President George Washington during a ceremony in the District of Columbia.

AP

In 1944, during World War II, American troops entered Aachen (AH-kehn), Germany.

AP

In 1974, longtime television host Ed Sullivan died in New York City at age 73.

AP

In 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

AP

In 2006, The United Nations General Assembly appointed South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon the next U.N. secretary-general.

AP

In 2006, banker Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh won the Nobel Peace Prize for using microcredit to lift people out of poverty.

AP

In 2010, rescuers in Chile using a missile-like escape capsule pulled 33 men one by one to fresh air and freedom 69 days after they were trapped in a collapsed mine a half-mile underground.

AP

Ten years ago: Bob Dylan was named winner of the Nobel prize in literature.

AP

Ten years ago: Raj Rajaratnam (rahj rah-juh-RUHT-nuhm), the hedge fund billionaire at the center of one of the biggest insider-trading cases in U.S. history, was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 11 years behind bars.

AP

Five years ago: Donald Trump heatedly rejected the growing list of sexual assault allegations against him as pure fiction, hammering his female accusers as horrible, horrible liars.

AP

Five years ago: Death claimed Thailands longtime monarch, King Bhumibol, at age 88.

Pool The New York Times

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US to reopen land borders for vaccinated; William Shatner's space flight; Braves, Astros advance - Crossroads Today