Category Archives: Space Travel

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion km). The fastest-ever spacecraft, the now- in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 mph. It would take just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to reach Earths nearest neighbouring solar system.

If humanity ever wants to travel easily between stars, people will need to go faster than light. But so far, faster-than-light travel is possible only in science fiction.

In Issac Asimovs Foundation series, humanity can travel from planet to planet, star to star or across the universe using jump drives. As a kid, I read as many of those stories as I could get my hands on. I am now a theoretical physicist and study nanotechnology, but I am still fascinated by the ways humanity could one day travel in space.

Some characters like the astronauts in the movies Interstellar and Thor use wormholes to travel between solar systems in seconds. Another approach familiar to Star Trek fans is warp drive technology. Warp drives are theoretically possible if still far-fetched technology. Two recent papers made headlines in March when researchers claimed to have overcome one of the many challenges that stand between the theory of warp drives and reality.

But how do these theoretical warp drives really work? And will humans be making the jump to warp speed anytime soon?

Physicists current understanding of spacetime comes from Albert Einsteins theory of General Relativity. General Relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. General relativity also describes how mass and energy warp spacetime hefty objects like stars and black holes curve spacetime around them.

This curvature is what you feel as gravity and why many spacefaring heroes worry about getting stuck in or falling into a gravity well. Early science fiction writers John Campbell and Asimov saw this warping as a way to skirt the speed limit.

What if a starship could compress space in front of it while expanding spacetime behind it? Star Trek took this idea and named it the warp drive.

In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre, a Mexican theoretical physicist, showed that compressing spacetime in front of the spaceship while expanding it behind was mathematically possible within the laws of General Relativity. So, what does that mean?

Imagine the distance between two points is 10 meters. If you are standing at point A and can travel one meter per second, it would take 10 seconds to get to point B. However, let us say you could somehow compress the space between you and point B so that the interval is now just one meter. Then, moving through spacetime at your maximum speed of one meter per second, you would be able to reach point B in about one second.

In theory, this approach does not contradict the laws of relativity since you are not moving faster than light in the space around you. Alcubierre showed that the warp drive from Star Trek was, in fact, theoretically possible.

Proxima Centauri here we come, right? Unfortunately, Alcubierres method of compressing spacetime had one problem: it requires negative energy or negative mass.

Alcubierres warp drive would work by creating a bubble of flat spacetime around the spaceship and curving spacetime around that bubble to reduce distances. The warp drive would require either negative mass a theorised type of matter or a ring of negative energy density to work. Physicists have never observed negative mass, so that leaves negative energy as the only option.

To create negative energy, a warp drive would use a huge amount of mass to create an imbalance between particles and antiparticles. For example, if an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive, one of the particles would get trapped by the mass and this results in an imbalance. This imbalance results in negative energy density. Alcubierres warp drive would use this negative energy to create the spacetime bubble.

But for a warp drive to generate enough negative energy, you would need a lot of matter. Alcubierre estimated that a warp drive with a 100-meter bubble would require the mass of the entire visible universe.

In 1999, physicist Chris Van Den Broeck showed that expanding the volume inside the bubble but keeping the surface area constant would reduce the energy requirements significantly, to just about the mass of the sun. A significant improvement, but still far beyond all practical possibilities.

Two recent papers one by Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire and another by Erik Lentz provide solutions that seem to bring warp drives closer to reality.

Bobrick and Martire realised that by modifying spacetime within the bubble in a certain way, they could remove the need to use negative energy. This solution, though, does not produce a warp drive that can go faster than light.

Independently, Lentz also proposed a solution that does not require negative energy. He used a different geometric approach to solve the equations of General Relativity, and by doing so, he found that a warp drive would not need to use negative energy. Lentzs solution would allow the bubble to travel faster than the speed of light.

It is essential to point out that these exciting developments are mathematical models. As a physicist, I will not fully trust models until we have experimental proof. Yet, the science of warp drives is coming into view. As a science fiction fan, I welcome all this innovative thinking. In the words of Captain Picard, things are only impossible until they are not.

Mario Borunda is an Associate Professor of Physics, Oklahoma State University.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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Its theoretically possible to travel faster than light using the warp drives seen in Star Trek - Scroll.in

Mario Borunda is an associate professor of Physics at Oklahoma State University. This story originally featured in The Conversation.

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion km). The fastest ever spacecraft, the now- in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 mph. It would take just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to reach Earths nearest neighboring solar system.

If humanity ever wants to travel easily between stars, people will need to go faster than light. But so far, faster-than-light travel is possible only in science fiction.

In Issac Asimovs Foundation series, humanity can travel from planet to planet, star to star or across the universe using jump drives. As a kid, I read as many of those stories as I could get my hands on. I am now a theoretical physicist and study nanotechnology, but I am still fascinated by the ways humanity could one day travel in space.

Some characterslike the astronauts in the movies Interstellar and Thoruse wormholes to travel between solar systems in seconds. Another approachfamiliar to Star Trek fansis warp drive technology. Warp drives are theoretically possible if still far-fetched technology. Two recent papers made headlines in March when researchers claimed to have overcome one of the many challenges that stand between the theory of warp drives and reality.

But how do these theoretical warp drives really work? And will humans be making the jump to warp speed anytime soon?

Physicists current understanding of spacetime comes from Albert Einsteins theory of General Relativity. General Relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. General relativity also describes how mass and energy warp spacetime hefty objects like stars and black holes curve spacetime around them. This curvature is what you feel as gravity and why many spacefaring heroes worry about getting stuck in or falling into a gravity well. Early science fiction writers John Campbell and Asimov saw this warping as a way to skirt the speed limit.

What if a starship could compress space in front of it while expanding spacetime behind it? Star Trek took this idea and named it the warp drive.

In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre, a Mexican theoretical physicist, showed that compressing spacetime in front of the spaceship while expanding it behind was mathematically possible within the laws of General Relativity. So, what does that mean? Imagine the distance between two points is 10 meters (33 feet). If you are standing at point A and can travel one meter per second, it would take 10 seconds to get to point B. However, lets say you could somehow compress the space between you and point B so that the interval is now just one meter. Then, moving through spacetime at your maximum speed of one meter per second, you would be able to reach point B in about one second. In theory, this approach does not contradict the laws of relativity since you are not moving faster than light in the space around you. Alcubierre showed that the warp drive from Star Trek was in fact theoretically possible.

Alcubierre estimated that a warp drive with a 100-meter bubble would require the mass of the entire visible universe.

Proxima Centauri here we come, right? Unfortunately, Alcubierres method of compressing spacetime had one problem: It requires negative energy or negative mass.

Alcubierres warp drive would work by creating a bubble of flat spacetime around the spaceship and curving spacetime around that bubble to reduce distances. The warp drive would require either negative massa theorized type of matteror a ring of negative energy density to work. Physicists have never observed negative mass, so that leaves negative energy as the only option.

To create negative energy, a warp drive would use a huge amount of mass to create an imbalance between particles and antiparticles. For example, if an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive, one of the particles would get trapped by the mass and this results in an imbalance. This imbalance results in negative energy density. Alcubierres warp drive would use this negative energy to create the spacetime bubble.

But for a warp drive to generate enough negative energy, you would need a lot of matter. Alcubierre estimated that a warp drive with a 100-meter bubble would require the mass of the entire visible universe.

In 1999, physicist Chris Van Den Broeck showed that expanding the volume inside the bubble but keeping the surface area constant would reduce the energy requirements significantly, to just about the mass of the sun. A significant improvement, but still far beyond all practical possibilities.

Two recent papersone by Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire and another by Erik Lentzprovide solutions that seem to bring warp drives closer to reality.

Bobrick and Martire realized that by modifying spacetime within the bubble in a certain way, they could remove the need to use negative energy. This solution, though, does not produce a warp drive that can go faster than light.

Independently, Lentz also proposed a solution that does not require negative energy. He used a different geometric approach to solve the equations of General Relativity, and by doing so, he found that a warp drive wouldnt need to use negative energy. Lentzs solution would allow the bubble to travel faster than the speed of light.

It is essential to point out that these exciting developments are mathematical models. As a physicist, I wont fully trust models until we have experimental proof. Yet, the science of warp drives is coming into view. As a science fiction fan, I welcome all this innovative thinking. In the words of Captain Picard, things are only impossible until they are not.

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The explanation behind warp speed Popular Science - Popular Science

Few moments are as iconic in mankinds collective memory as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrins landing on the moon. But what was a unique sight is likely to become a slightly more regular one in the future, with lunar space missions in the works to reach the moon once again.

But reaching the moon is fraught with numerous technical challenges, one of them being the fact that it takes huge amounts of oxygen to launch rockets and spaceships and to get them back to Earth.

Since oxygen isnt available in outer space like it is here on Earth, delivering all this oxygen to the moon is a tricky and expensive business. An ultimate solution would be to manufacture oxygen for space travel right on the moon itself and this is where Israeli startup Helios comes in.

Manning bases on the moon

As opposed to what happened 50-odd years ago, this time were going to travel there not only to put up a flag and come back, but to stay there and man bases on the moon in a way similar to the International Space Station, which has been continually manned for the past 20 years, explains Helios co-founder and CEO Jonathan Geifman.

Were working toward being able to set up by the end of the decade a usable system that will be able to supply oxygen and fuel this whole endeavor of establishing permanent infrastructure on the moon and later on also on Mars, he says.

A rendering of an induction furnace extracting oxygen from lunar soil. Photo by Haya Gold

Established in 2018, Helios is focused on scaling up an existing technology called molten regolith electrolysis that enables the separation of oxygen and metals found in lunar soil and making it work in a lunar environment.

The technology involves heating up the lunar soil which is comprised of between 40 and 50 percent of oxygen to a temperature of almost 3,000 F and then passing an electric current through it.

As a result, we on the one hand receive oxygen that bubbles out, and on the other a usable by-product in the form of metals such iron, silicon and aluminum that remain at the bottom, Geifman says.

The high temperatures and the challenging environment make this a complex technological challenge, he adds.Making it work on a lab level is not the issue. The challenge is to scale it up. We need to be able to produce hundreds of tons of oxygen.

Helios co-founder and CEO Jonathan Geifman. Photo by Haya Gold

Helios, which has received funding from the Israel Innovation Authority, the Israel Space Agency and the Energy Ministry, has already achieved its proof of concept, and is busy developing and optimizing the system.

Luckily, its an inspiring field, and you can recruit very good people our team really is amazing and super professional, Geifmannotes.

Missions into space

Helios, he adds, is not directly cooperating with either NASA or SpaceX that are leading the world of space travel, but it is planning to send two missions into space within the next few years as part of its work. Unfortunately, I cant expand on that, he says.

And yet, when Helios launches its product into space, it will bring expanded space exploration a step or two closer.

For me, personally, its a field that has always fascinated me and I knew that I wanted to pursue it, Geifman says. The idea really was to think what part of the puzzle we could work on to complete the value chain and enable the establishment of permanent bases on the moon and Mars.

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Meet the startup reaching for the moon to make oxygen - ISRAEL21c

Space and humans are not a perfect mix. Scientists are constantly discovering new kinds of health risks associated with space, related to how factors like microgravity and cosmic radiationaffect our bones and organs.

But prolonged exposure to the environment of space isn't just a concern for our bodies. What about our minds?

The psychological effects of extreme isolation and confinement during long-term space travel and missions to other planets still represent a big unknown.

If we're ever going to successfully travel through space and even colonize other worlds, we need to understand much more about what happens to people stuck in unforgiving places for long periods, while very, very far from home.

As it happens, there is a scientific name for these hostile habitats:isolated, confined, extreme (ICE) environments. There is even a field of research in which scientists probe the psychological impacts of living in conditions analogous to long jaunts in space.

Of all the places on Earth to run ICE experiments, one in particular stands out.

"The Antarctic is regarded as an ideal analog for space because its extreme environment is characterized by numerous stressors that mirror those present during long-duration space exploration," a team of researchers led by psychologist Candice Alfano from the University of Houston wrote in a new study.

"In addition to small crews and limited communication during Antarctic winter months, the environment offers little sensory stimulation and extended periods of darkness and harsh weather conditions restrict outdoor activity. Evacuation is difficult if not impossible," the study authors added.

Alfano and her team leveraged the natural hardship of Antarctica's difficult conditions, monitoring the psychological health and development of personnel living and working at two remote Antarctic research stations during the nine-month study period.

The psychologists devised a monthly self-reporting tool called the Mental Health Checklist, designed to measure personnel's emotional states and mental health, including positive adaptation (feelings of control and inspiration), poor self-regulation (feelings of restlessness, inattentiveness, and tiredness), and anxious apprehension (feelings of worry and obsessing over things).

The study also monitored and rated Antarctic personnel's physical symptoms of illness, and Alfano's team collected saliva samples to assess the personnel's cortisol levels a biomarker of stress.

Ultimately, the study results showed that the participants' positive adaptations decreased over the course of their Antarctic mission, while poor self-regulation emotions increased.

"We observed significant changes in psychological functioning, but patterns of change for specific aspects of mental health differed,"Alfano said in a press release.

"The most marked alterations were observed for positive emotions such that we saw continuous declines from the start to the end of the mission, without evidence of a 'bounce-back effect' as participants were preparing to return home," she added.

According to the researchers, much previous research in this area has focused on negative emotional states triggered by the conditions of isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

But it's possible we've been missing out on another simultaneous problem. Diminishing positive feelings over long stays in difficult places appeared to be an almost universal response to the ICE conditions, whereas changes in negative emotion levels were more varied between individuals.

"Positive emotions such as satisfaction, enthusiasm, and awe are essential features for thriving in high-pressure settings,"Alfano said. "Interventions and countermeasures aimed at enhancing positive emotions may, therefore, be critical in reducing psychological risk in extreme settings."

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Experts Study People Working in Antarctica As a Proxy for Astronauts - Business Insider

ANU cosmologist and astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker said the successful experiment on Mars converting carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen is a big step in the right direction for space exploration.It really has been one of the key instruments on Perseverance, weve heard a lot about Ingenuity and this drone but Perseverance has really got on with this job, he told Sky News.Dr Tucker said the majority of Mars atmosphere is carbon dioxide which can support plant life but not human life and it is not possible to bring required amounts through space travel.We obviously need oxygen to breathe and you dont want to bring all of the oxygen you need to support humans to Mars with us, its too complicated and too expensive.If you can convert it into oxygen that is amazing and so they are able to produce five grams of oxygen which doesnt sound like a lot but its enough for about a human to breathe for 15 minutes.Dr Tucker said the oxygen conversion would also help in rocket fuel and energy creation and was not just limited to sustaining human life. The fact that it did work and they were able to do it relatively quickly and successfully is going to pave the way for it to do it more and longer.

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Successful carbon dioxide into oxygen conversion 'is the key' to space travel - Sky News Australia

Australian aerospace firm Hypersonix Launch Systems is joining the space race and its using hydrogen to power its entry.

Helping to fuel its dreams, the Queensland-based company today (21st April) unveiled a new partnership with BOC, a subsidiary of Linde, for the supply of green hydrogen fuel.

The hydrogen fuel will be used for the re-usable SPARTAN scramjet engines, which can take small satellite payloads to lower earth orbit (LEO).

Just last year, Hypersonix secured a Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources Accelerating Commercialisation Grant, for the design and build of a re-usable satellite launch vehicle scramjet engine.

Read more:Hydrogen-fuelled rocket engine completes final acceptance test

Our deep-tech solution will ensure that our precious oceans do not become dumping grounds for single use rockets and boosters, and that our SPARTAN scramjet engines do not add further CO2 or methane emissions to the atmosphere, said Michael Smart Head of Research and Development at Hypersonix.

Hydrogen is our fuel of choice because of its proven versatility and performance compared to fossil fuels. Its environmental credentials are hard to beat, with the only emission being water vapour, added David Waterhouse.

Focusing on the new BOC partnership, David Waterhouse, CEO and Co-Founder of Hypersonix, said, Were very pleased to have found a strong clean hydrogen partner in BOC.

We both share a desire to bring the principles of the green space to the small satellite launch market, and this is something that sets us apart. We are determined to go to space, but in a way that is sustainable for our planet by design.

Chris Dolman, Business Development Manager for Clean Hydrogen at BOC, added, Both the automotive and the aviation sectors are well along the path to making the use of hydrogen fuel as a clean fuel option for day-to- day use.

BOC is set to produce green hydrogen for both local and in export use.

Hydrogen refuelling on the moon

In August last year (2020), Connecticut-based clean energy products company Skyre and cryogenic technology specialist Eta Space confirmed their continued development on the Moons first hydrogen fuelling plant.

To find out more about the ambitious mission, how the new plant will work, what the new innovation will refuel and when refuelling on the Moon will become a reality, H2 View sat down with Dr. Trent Molter, CEO and Founder of Skyre to find out more.

Shutterstock

Of course its a big deal to have the first hydrogen fuelling station the Moon but more importantly, its paving the way for the infrastructure needed here on Earth, Molter told H2 View.

After this hydrogen station is built and launched, we anticipate that there will be refuelling bases and other infrastructure provided to the Moon as we prepare ourselves for extended space missions.

The fact is, manned space travel has been using hydrogen for a very long time since the Gemini era in the early 60s. The lunar refuelling station is just a new advancement and application of one of the worlds most ubiquitous and useful elements.

Catch the full exclusive here.

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Hypersonix joins the space race with hydrogen fuel - H2 View

Yesterday at 9pm Australian Eastern standard time, the Ingenuity helicopter which landed on Mars with the Perseverance rover in February took off from the Martian surface. More importantly, it hovered for about 30 seconds, three metres above the surface and came right back down again.

It may not sound like a huge feat, but it is. Ingenuitys flight is the first powered flight of an aircraft on another planet. It marks a milestone in the story of human space exploration.

While the Apollo 11 spacecraft famously touched down on the Moon, upon re-launch it simply had to exit the Moons gravity and return to Earth. To sustain flight within the environment of a world with no atmosphere, however, is a different story.

The now historic Ingenuity helicopter took six years to make. We can understand why, once we understand the complexities of what was required.

There are several technological challenges to conducting a helicopter flight on another world. First, and most significantly, helicopters need an atmosphere to fly.

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The blades, or rotors of a helicopter must spin fast enough to generate a force called lift. But lift can only be generated in the presence of some kind of atmosphere. While Mars does have an atmosphere, its much, much thinner than Earths about 100 times thinner, in fact.

Flying Ingenuity in Marss atmosphere is therefore the equivalent of flying a helicopter on Earth at a height of 100,000 feet. For reference, commercial aircraft fly between 30,000-40,000 feet above the Earths surface and the highest weve ever been in a helicopter on Earth is 42,000 feet.

Testing the craft on Earth required a pressurised room, from which a lot of air would have been extracted to emulate Marss atmosphere.

Then theres the Martian gravity to consider, which is about one-third the strength of gravity on Earth. This actually gives us a slight advantage. If Mars had the same atmosphere as Earth, its lesser gravity means wed be able to lift Ingenuity with less power than would be required here.

But while Marss gravity works to our advantage, this is offset by the lack of atmosphere.

Ingenuitys success marks the first time such a flight has even been attempted outside of Earth. And the reason for this may simply be that, as laid out above, this task is very, very difficult.

There are two main ways Ingenuity was able to overcome the hurdles presented in Marss atmosphere. Firstly, to generate lift, the two rotors (made from carbon fibre) had to spin much faster than any helicopters on Earth.

On Earth, most helicopters and drones have rotors that spin at about 400-500 revolutions per minute. The Ingenuitys rotor spun at about 2,400 revolutions per minute.

It also has a distinct aircraft-to-wingspan ratio. While Ingenuitys body is about the size of a tissue box, its blades are 1.2m from tip to tip.

Even transmitting the signal for the flight to begin required an array of advanced technology. Whilst it only requires minutes for radio signals to travel between Earth and Mars, there was still a delay of hours for those signals to reach the helicopter.

This makes sense when you consider the journey those signals have to take from a computer on Earth, to a satellite dish, to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to the Perseverance rover and then, finally, to the helicopter.

Ingenuity is what we call a technology demonstrator. Simply, its only purpose is to prove it can complete a series of simple missions. Over the next few weeks, the helicopter will undertake three or four more flights, the most adventurous of which will involve taking off and travelling about 300m away from Perseverance.

Data retrieved from the flights will be analysed and used as crucial input for future designs of more sophisticated aircraft. Once this technology is applied, its potential will be vast.

Drones and helicopters operating on Mars could act as scouts, checking the land ahead of a rover to confirm whether its safe to travel there. Such aircraft could even assist in the search for water and life on the Martian surface.

And in 2035, its expected the first humans will land on Mars. Theres a good chance these crews will be trained in operating aircraft locally and in real-time, surveying the land for obstacles and dangerous terrain that could harm humans, or damage suits, aircraft or rovers.

As a touching tribute to the first powered flight on Earth, scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory added a historic artefact to the Mars helicopter. Attached to a cable underneath one of its solar panels is a small piece of the wing from the Wright brothers 1903 Wright flyer.

This item of flight history is the second piece of an Earth aircraft to go into space; a similar piece of the wing was taken to the Moon during the Apollo missions.

Missions are already in work to push the barriers of powered flight on other worlds. In particular, the Dragonfly helicopter is planned to fly above the surface of Titan, one of Saturns moons, with arrival scheduled for 2034.

Maybe it too will take a piece of Earths history along for the ride as we continue our exploration of other planetary bodies, one world at a time.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The RAAF will be faster, smarter and have longer reach in its next 100 years

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So a helicopter flew on Mars for the first time. A space physicist explains why that's such a big deal - The Mandarin

International Space Station

Space Hero will be the world's first global competition to send a civilian into space on a $55M, 10-day trip to the International Space Station. The competition for this once-in-a-lifetime journey will begin at the end of 2021. The call will be open to candidates over 18 with fluency in English, and its first flight is targeted for 2023. Space Hero is planning fifteen seasons over the next thirty years, eventually flying beyond the ISS to the Moon and Mars.

Yesterday, Deborah Sass and Thomas Reemer, the co-CEOs of Space Hero, signed a feasibility agreement with NASA, marking the 60thanniversary of the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin. For two compassionate entrepreneurs, sending someone like you or me barreling through the atmosphere is their dream that is quickly becoming a reality. And Stephen Colbert featured the project on a segment he calls Space News last week.

I recently had the chance to meet this very dynamic duo to learn about their backgrounds and how this towering concept took a foothold in their lives. Their 17-year friendship began after having multiple run-ins at entrepreneurship conferences around the globe. Sass, who rose from humble beginnings in London, worked her way into the media and digital music industry serving clients such as Amazon, iTunes, Shazam, and Spotify.

Deborah Sass, Co-CEO

Reemer, a scrappy entrepreneur in his own right, grew up in East Berlin and eventually opened one of the first hip-hop nightclubs there. He managed a pop band that won four No. 1 hits in Germany and attended Sir Paul McCartney's prestigious music school, The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.He worked with other artists, including Prince was a co-founder and CEO at the first e-commerce platform for musicians, Artists First.

Thomas Reemer, Co-CEO Space Hero

Space Hero's story begins with Reemer, who was hawking a music show in Russia in 2008. One night, a powerful Czar took him out to dinner and pitched him on the lofty concept of a show that sends one winning civilian to space. After raising funds and building out the idea, the show was shelved as seats to the ISS were unavailable for private missions. A few years later, with the emergence of SpaceX and Boeing programs, seats became available once more, and Reemer revived the show.

When he initially pitched the idea to Sass, she enthusiastically accepted before asking, "I've just got one question, Thomas, what's the ISS?" Sass soon learned not only what the ISS was but found herself jetting around the world to convene with the heads of the global space industry.

We discussed the four monstrous tasks that need to happen for this show to come to fruition during our conversation. The first task was securing a deal with NASA. The second task, securing a ticket with a launch provider. The third, finding the right production company. The fourth task is securing a distribution deal. Sass and Reemer are currently deep in negotiation with several name-brand media giants.

What I was most inspired by, perhaps more than even the allure of space travel itself, was the sentiment that drives Sass and Reemer to make this project a success. "When you were 6, everybody wanted to be an astronaut. By the time you were sixteen, you were so far removed from it. And what we want to do in a very simple way is make space cool and sexy and pop culture again. Let's make space mainstream!" Sass declared. Here is Stephen Colbert poking some good-humored nerd fun at their concept:

All kidding aside, Sass and Reemer are driven by a beautifully untainted incentive; they want to sensationalize careers in STEM and inspire people from all backgrounds and nationalities to be technicians, astronauts and scientists again.

For audiences tuning in, the excitement and thrill of a space expedition have been freshly repackaged. Instead of watching a cohort of astronauts, a notoriously untouchable handful of elite trained specialists, viewers will witness an ordinary citizen of Earth embarking on the space voyage.

There are no formal credentials to apply to be on the show. Sass and Reemer are only critiquing applicants through the lens of how they define who a hero is. To them, a hero is simply a person who helps someone without expecting anything in return.

Applications to enter the contest are not officially open yet, but there was a program to become a Space Hero Insider, an ambassador for the program. They have received thousands of inquiries worldwide, ranging from school teachers in Nigeria to fishermen and fisherwomen in Japan. Of the pool, 450 insiders were chosen to represent fifty eight countries. , who Sass and Reemer each spoke with personally for five minutes.

"Space is a mirror that we take a look in and understand what kind of challenges we also face here on Earth," says Reemer. "Space Hero will bring together arguably the biggest crowd that has ever voted." To learn more, visit SpaceHero.org, where you can follow the project as it progresses and fill out a form and become a Space Hero Insider.

Continued here:

Space Travel Reality Show Partnered With NASA, Featured On Colbert - Forbes

Artists concept of a Starship on the moon. Credit: SpaceX

NASA has selected SpaceX to build a spacecraft to land the first astronauts on the Moon since 1972, choosing Elon Musks space company over competing proposals from Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin and the aerospace firm Dynetics, officials announced Friday.

A derivative of SpaceXs next-generation Starship vehicle will carry the astronauts to the lunar surface and launch the crew members back off the Moon. Under NASAs plans, the astronauts will blast off from Earth on the agencys heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and fly an Orion capsule to the vicinity of the Moon, then transfer into the Starship for the final leg of the journey to the surface.

The human-rated lunar lander, which NASA calls the Human Landing System, is one of the final major elements of the agencys Artemis program to be developed. NASA selected three industrial teams last year to work on lunar lander concepts, culminating in the agencys selection of SpaceX to build the lander for the first Artemis Moon landing mission.

Today, Im very excited, and we are all very excited, to announce that we have awarded SpaceX to continue the development of our integrated Human Landing System, said Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASAs HLS program manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center. SpaceXs Starship is a fully reusable launch and landing system designed for travel to the Moon and other future destinations.

Its a single stage crewed landing system, Watson-Morgan said. It utilizes Earth orbit refueling of liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellants. The system leans on the companys flight heritage of Dragon and Falcon vehicles. Starship includes a spacious cabin and two airlocks with a great deal of space for our crew, as well as additional payload capability that will permit us to take experiments to the moon, and return samples back, and do all the important science that we want to do on this mission.

We are humbled to help NASA usher in a new era of human space exploration, SpaceX said in a statement.

NASA is seeking to land the first astronauts on the Moon since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972.

As the first human lunar lander in 50 years, this innovative Human Landing System will be a hallmark in human space exploration history, Watson-Morgan said. And were going to help write that history.

SpaceX beat out a bid from a team led by Blue Origin, who proposed a multi-element spacecraft consisting of stages made by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin itself. Draper assisted on the landers guidance and avionics systems.

NASA also worked with Dynetics, an aerospace and defense contractor based in Alabama, on a third human-rated lander concept.

In the end, NASA selected SpaceXs Starship for the job of landing the next astronauts on the Moon. The firm-fixed price contract has a total value of $2.89 billion, and covers development of a test flight that will land on the Moon without astronauts on-board, then a demonstration known as Option A in NASAs procurement language to carry a crew to the Moons south pole.

NASA originally planned to pick multiple companies to continue developing lunar landers, but budget restrictions forced the agency to rethink its strategy. Congress approved $850 million for the Human Landing System program in fiscal year 2021, about a quarter of what NASA requested.

That limited what NASA could do with the first HLS development contract, but officials said the agencys Option A contract with SpaceX fits within the expected budget. SpaceXs proposal had the lowest price of all three bids, but NASA and SpaceX still had to rework some of the contracts milestone payments to get the price within the agencys funding plan.

With the final agreement complete, NASA said SpaceX will self-fund and assume financial risk for over half of the Starship landing systems development and testing.

The Starship is significantly larger than the other human-rated lander concepts NASA evaluated, and can deliver heavier cargo to the Moon. SpaceXs lander will stand about seven-and-half times taller than the Apollo lunar module that carried astronauts to the lunar surface.

The scale of SpaceXs lander architecture presents numerous benefits to NASA, wrote Kathy Lueders, head of the space agencys human spaceflight division, in aa source selection statement posted on NASAs website.

Blue Origins proposal was the second-highest rated in NASAs procurement process, according to the source selection document.

Steve Jurczyk, NASAs acting administrator, said the agency considered the technical parameters, cost, and management of each of the three HLS bidders. While SpaceX won the contract to attempt the Artemis programs human landing on the Moon, NASA will soon start another competition open for all U.S. companies to bid on a contract for a series of follow-on lunar landings later in the 2020s.

The commercial mode, where the government and industry share costs, is similar to NASAs partnership with SpaceX that helped produce the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, which ferries astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Given the evaluation of the three proposals based on technical approach, cost, and management approach, and the budget we have available, we determined the best way forward for us was to select SpaceX for Option A, and then move forward and accelerate the landing services procurement, Jurczyk said.

We awarded the contract with SpaceX given the appropriations we have in FY21 and what we believe are realistic budgets in future years, Jurczyk said. So we believe this is doable within what we have and what we can expect in funding.

SpaceX is building and testing Starship prototypes in South Texas. The stainless steel rocket, wider than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet is designed for vertical takeoffs and landings, but uses a dramatic flip maneuver to switch from a horizontal belly flop position to an upright orientation just before touchdown.

Starship prototypes have launched on four high-altitude atmospheric test flights over the companys rapidly-growing development facility near Brownsville, Texas. All four of the rockets have exploded during landing or shortly after touchdown.

An upgraded Starship prototype is on SpaceXs launch pad in South Texas for another atmospheric test flight as soon as next week. The test flights are stepping stones toward an attempt to launch the Starship into low Earth orbit, which Musk says could happen later this year.

A giant booster SpaceX calls the Super Heavy will be required to hurl the massive Starship into orbit around Earth. The Super Heavy, which has not yet launched on a test flight, will be powered by 28 methane-fueled Raptor engines collectively generating more than 16 million pounds of thrust, more than twice the power of NASAs Apollo-era Saturn 5 rocket.

Like the Starship, the Super Heavy will return to Earth for a vertical landing, and is reusable.

The spaceflight-capable Starship will have six Raptor engines. All the high-altitude Starship test flights to date have had three Raptor engines.

The Starship will serve as an upper stage, a deep space transport, a propellant transfer tug, and a planetary lander.

Flying between lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon, Starship will carry crew and all of the supplies, equipment, and science payloads needed for extensive surface exploration, SpaceX said. Building off the safety and reliability of Dragon and Falcon, Starship will feature proven avionics, guidance and navigation systems, autonomous rendezvous, docking and precision landing capabilities, as well as thermal protection, and a spacious cabin with familiar displays and interfaces utilized on Dragon.

SpaceX said it is rapidly advancing development of the Starship, with five test vehicles currently in production.

Since January 2020, SpaceX has built 10 Starship prototypes, with production and fidelity accelerating on each build, the company said. SpaceX has manufactured and tested more than 60 of Starships Raptor engines, accumulating nearly 30,000 seconds of total test time over 567 engine starts, including on multiple Starship static fires and flight tests.

In the source selection statement, Lueders said the Starships capabilities, in many cases, far exceed NASAs requirements for the first Artemis landing mission. The multi-engine vehicle can recover from an engine failure, has plentiful propellant reserves, and can accommodate large and bulky payloads.

SpaceXs capability will support the delivery of a significant amount of additional hardware, including bulky and awkwardly- shaped equipment, for emplacement on the lunar surface, Lueders wrote. This has the potential to greatly improve scientific operations and EVA capabilities.

Lueders also lauded SpaceXs aggressive approach to ground and flight testing. This will allow SpaceX to isolate and address performance and operational issues early in its development cycle, she wrote.

But Lueders also noted the risk in SpaceXs approach.

SpaceXs mission depends upon an operations approach of unprecedented pace, scale, and synchronized movement of the vehicles in its architecture, she wrote. This includes a significant number of vehicle launches in rapid succession, the refurbishment and reuse of those vehicles, and numerous in-space cryogenic propellant transfer events.

I acknowledge the immense complexity and heightened risk associated with the very high number of events necessary to execute the front end of SpaceXs mission, and this complexity largely translates into increased risk of operational schedule delays, Lueders wrote. However, these concerns are tempered because they entail operational risks in Earth orbit that can be overcome more easily than in lunar orbit, where an unexpected event would create a much higher risk to loss of mission.

Under NASAs current planning, the Starship outfitted to land astronauts on the moon will blast off on top of SpaceXs Super Heavy booster. Once it is in orbit, a series of tankers will launch to fill the Starship with additional methane and liquid oxygen propellants, then it will fire off toward the Moon.

The Starship will maneuver into an elongated orbit around the Moon, where it can wait up to 100 days for the arrival of the astronauts on an Orion capsule after it launches on an SLS rocket from Florida. For the first Artemis landing mission, the Orion capsule will dock directly with the Starship to enable the crew to float into the lander for the trip down to the lunar surface.

After landing, the astronauts will ride an elevator from the pressurized cabin near the top of the 15-story Starship down to the ground. After performing several spacewalks, the crew will board the Starship to carry them back to the Orion spacecraft, which they will fly back to Earth.

SpaceX will have multiple launches, and part of their concept is to have refueling in low Earth orbit, Watson-Morgan said. Theyll perform that refueling and that will allow them to go back and forth. Once the Starship portion is fully checked out, then the SLS will launch the Orion to the appropriate rendezvous point.

The architecture means NASA wont require SpaceX to prove out the Starships ability to re-enter the Earths atmosphere and perform its dramatic landing maneuvers with people on-board. That job will be done with the Orion capsule with a more traditional parachute-assisted splashdown in the sea.

But SpaceX eventually wants to use the Starship system as an all-in-one transporter to ferry people throughout the solar system. Musks ambition is to make the Starship easily reusable, significantly slashing the cost of space transportation.

Each copy of NASAs Space Launch System rocket can only be used once. The first SLS test launch is scheduled for late this year or early 2022, and the all-up Artemis 1 demonstration mission will send an unpiloted Orion spacecraft to orbit the Moon, paving the way for the first SLS/Orion launch with astronauts in 2023.

Artemis schedule underreview

The Trump administration planned for the third Artemis mission in 2024 to be the programs first attempt to land astronauts on the moon.

Jurczyk said Friday that NASA and the Biden administration, which has endorsed the Artemis program, are conducting an internal comprehensive review of the lunar program to ensure that they can be implemented as quickly, efficiently, and effectively as possible.

NASAs contract with SpaceX provides for a lunar landing as soon as 2024. Thats whats in the plan right now that SpaceX proposed and were awarding a contract for, Jurczyk said.

These human rated system developments are very complex, and there is risk, but the NASA team will have the insight into the progress that SpaceX is making, if theyre hitting their milestones, if they have a shot at 2024, Jurczyk said. Well keep you updated as we move along with SpaceX.

Later in the 2020s, NASA aims to build a mini-space station called the Gateway in orbit around the Moon. Future lunar missions after the first Starship landing will come and go from the Gateway, which will act as a research lab, astronaut safe haven, and a refueling station in deep space.

We are working diligently with the partners to ensure we meet our national goals of landing the next American astronauts on the Moon as quickly and safely as possible, Jurczyk said. At least one of those astronauts will make history with this lander as the first woman on the Moon Additionally, the first person of color will also walk on the Moon as part of the Artemis program.

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In 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a radical technology that would allow faster than light travel: the warp drive, a hypothetical way to skirt around the universes ultimate speed limit by bending the fabric of reality.

It was an intriguing idea even NASA has been researching it at the Eagleworks laboratory but Alcubierres proposal contained problems that seemed insurmountable. Now, a recent paper by US-based physicists Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire has resolved many of those issues and generated a lot of buzz.

But while Bobrick and Martire have managed to substantially demystify warp technology, their work actually suggests that faster-than-light travel will remain out of reach for beings like us, at least for the time being.

There is, however, a silver lining: warp technology may have radical applications beyond space travel.

The story of warp drives starts with Einsteins crowning achievement: general relativity. The equations of general relativity capture the way in which spacetime the very fabric of reality bends in response to the presence of matter and energy which, in turn, explains how matter and energy move.

General relativity places two constraints on interstellar travel. First, nothing can be accelerated past the speed of light (around 300,000 km per second). Even traveling at this dizzying speed it would still take us four years to arrive at Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun.

Second, the clock on a spaceship traveling close to the speed of light would slow down relative to a clock on Earth (this is known as time dilation). Assuming a constant state of acceleration, this makes it possible to travel the stars. One can reach a distant star that is 150 light years away within ones lifetime. The catch, however, is that upon ones return more than 300 years will have passed on Earth.

This is where Alcubierre came in. He argued that the mathematics of general relativity allowed for warp bubbles regions where matter and energy were arranged in such a way as to bend spacetime in front of the bubble and expand it to the rear in a way that allowed a flat area inside the bubble to travel faster than light.

To get a sense of what flat means in this context, note that spacetime is sort of like a rubber mat. The mat curves in the presence of matter and energy (think of putting a bowling ball on the mat). Gravity is nothing more than the tendency objects have to roll into the dents created by things like stars and planets. A flat region is like a part of the mat with nothing on it.

Such a drive would also avoid the uncomfortable consequences of time dilation. One could potentially make a round trip into deep space and still be greeted by ones nearest and dearest at home.

How does Alcubierres device work? Here discussion often relies on analogies, because the mathematics is so complex.

Imagine a rug with a cup on it. Youre on the rug and you want to get to the cup. You could move across the rug, or tug the rug toward you. The warp drive is like tugging on spacetime to bring your destination closer.

But analogies have their limits: a warp drive doesnt really drag your destination toward you. It contracts spacetime to make your path shorter. Theres just less rug between you and the cup when you switch the drive on.

Alcubierres suggestion, while mathematically rigorous, is difficult to understand at an intuitive level. Bobrick and Martires work is set to change all that.

Bobrick and Martire show that any warp drive must be a shell of material in a constant state of motion, enclosing a flat region of spacetime. The energy of the shell modifies the properties of the spacetime region inside it.

This might not sound like much of a discovery, but until now it was unclear what warp drives might be, physically speaking. Their work tells us that a warp drive is, somewhat surprisingly, like a car. A car is also a shell of energy (in the form of matter) that encloses a flat region of spacetime. The difference is that getting inside a car does not make you age faster. That, however, is the kind of thing a warp drive might do.

Using their simple description, Bobrick and Martire demonstrate a method for using Einsteins general relativity equations to find spacetimes that allow for arrangements of matter and energy that would act as warp bubbles. This gives us a mathematical key for finding and classifying warp technologies.

Their work manages to address one of the core problems for warp drives. To make the equations balance, Alcubierres device runs on negative energy but we are yet to discover any viable sources of negative energy in the real world.

Worse, the negative energy requirements of Alcubierres device are immense. By some estimates, the entire energy in the known universe would be needed (though later work brings the number down a bit).

Bobrick and Martire show a warp drive could be made from positive energy (i.e. normal energy) or from a mixture of negative and positive energy. That said, the energy requirements would still be immense.

If Bobrick and Martire are right, then a warp drive is just like any other object in motion. It would be subject to the universal speed limit enforced by general relativity after all, and it would need some kind of conventional propulsion system to make it accelerate.

The news gets worse. Many kinds of warp drive can only modify the spacetime inside in a certain way: by slowing down the clock of the passenger in exactly the way that makes a trip into deep space a problem.

Bobrick and Martire do show that some warp drives could travel faster than light, but only if they are created already traveling at that speed which is no help for any ordinary human hoping for a bit of interstellar tourism.

Remember that a warp drive can modify the region of flat spacetime it encloses. It can, in particular, speed up or slow down a clock inside the drive.

Consider what it would mean to have such an object available. Want to put someone with a terminal illness on ice? Stick them in a warp drive and slow their clock down. From their perspective, a few years will pass, while a hundred years will pass on Earth time enough to find a cure.

Want to grow your crops overnight? Stick them in a warp drive and speed the clock up. A few days will pass for you, and a few weeks will pass for your seedlings.

There are even more exotic possibilities: by rotating the spacetime inside a drive one may be able to produce a battery capable of holding huge amounts of energy.

Faster-than-light travel remains a distant dream. But warp technology would be revolutionary in its own right.

Written by Sam Baron, Associate professor, Australian Catholic University.

Originally published on The Conversation.

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Intriguing Warp Drive Research Dashes Faster Than Light Travel Dreams But Reveals Stranger Possibilities - SciTechDaily