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Category Archives: Space Travel

Guest View: Despite space flight, there is no Planet B – The Register-Guard

Posted: June 13, 2020 at 2:52 pm

About 30 years ago, controversy raged in the Pacific Northwest over forestry practices on public lands. A bumper sticker popular among loggers played on the name of a radical environmental group. Earth First! the bumper sticker read. Well log the other planets later.

Fast forward about a third of a century. Our forest controversies are no longer nationally prominent, even as climate change brings new threats. Partly this is because annual timber harvest from federal lands in Oregon fell more than 80% on average from the 1970s to the 2010s. Also, employment in Oregons forest products industry has roughly halved since the late 1980s, while the tech sector has mushroomed. The burgeoning community of tech firms from Amazon, Microsoft and others in Seattle to start-ups in Portland and numerous others around San Francisco are now sometimes described as parts of a tech innovation ecosystem.

A number of billionaires spawned by the ever-growing tech sector are captivated by space travel. One of the most successful is Jeff Bezos, who founded Blue Origin, a space technology and service firm in 2000. Another is Elon Musk, who founded rival SpaceX in California in 2002.

In an extraordinary win for SpaceX on May 30, it successfully launched a rocket carrying two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. This was the first time astronauts blasted off from U.S. soil since 2011. It was also the first-ever launch of NASA astronauts by a private company. And this achievement came on the heels of NASAs April 30 selection of SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop a vehicle to send astronauts to the moon by 2024. (Alabama-based Dynetics also was chosen.) Part of the purpose of the moon mission is to help clear the way for the first human to visit Mars in subsequent years.

But for Bezos, Musk and many of their fellow (would-be space) travelers, any such giant leaps are pedestrian compared to their astronomical aspirations. And while Bezos and Musk advocate different space goals, they have much in common. Bezos would use extraterrestrial mines to create giant artificial space structures where a trillion humans could live in the coming centuries with boundless material abundance. Musk is focused on permanently colonizing Mars, in part so that humans would have a refuge in case Earth becomes uninhabitable.

On the surface, either vision may seem environmentally benevolent. Any kind of space colony supported by extraterrestrial mining could relieve pressure on Earths resources. Yet space colonization ambitions are disturbing given the current trajectory of what Buckminster Fuller (and others) called Spaceship Earth.

In the Pacific Northwest, climate change is making millions of acres of forest increasingly vulnerable to pests, drought and catastrophic fires. Similar challenges exist worldwide. SpaceXs May 30 flight launched from Floridas Kennedy Space Center, which faces increasing risk of chronic flooding due to climate-change-induced sea level rise. In this light, it is as if todays space pioneers have adopted the old logging slogan but in a literal way the loggers never intended. Later is here, and its time to log the other planets.

What technology visionaries seem to miss is that the problem of the environment is not primarily a problem of technology. Of course technology can enable positive change. Musk has shown this with Tesla, his other main venture that is revolutionizing electric vehicles, batteries and solar energy systems. But at its core, the problem of the environment is a problem of ethics. It is about accepting that the most important choices of mortal humans inherently involve limits and trade-offs. Admittedly, there is something admirable and human about resisting such limits. But too much resistance risks hubris, which can quickly eclipse our respect for the value of living systems larger than ourselves.

Todays most ardent rocket boosters may be right that other planets have exploitable material resources. And Mars may even be made to support human life in artificial bubbles. But what good is that? One thing we can never innovate or disrupt our way out of is the imperative to respect and protect the finite planetary home whose munificent habitability we currently enjoy. As contemporary climate protesters put it, in a fitting-if-unwitting rejoinder to the old loggers bumper sticker, There is no Planet B.

Alex Roth is a senior financial analyst and attorney. He lives in Portland.

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Ask Ethan: How Does The Fabric Of Spacetime Expand Faster Than The Speed Of Light? – Forbes

Posted: at 2:52 pm

The fabric of expanding space means that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to... [+] recede from us. However, that doesn't mean that galaxies are actually moving through the Universe at speeds faster than light; the fabric of space itself is continuously changing in properties.

One of the fundamental rules we all learn in physics set forth by Einstein more than 100 years ago is that there's an ultimate speed limit that everything in the Universe must obey: the speed of light. That fundamental speed, 299,792,458 m/s, is the speed at which all massless particles must travel through the vacuum of space. If you have mass, you can only approach (but never reach) that speed; if you travel through a medium instead of a vacuum, you can only travel slower than that ultimate cosmic limit. But if that's true, then how come we can see objects in our Universe, which began with a Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago, that are up to 46 billion light-years away? That's at the heart of Robert Lipinski's question, which asks:

Why does the fabric of space-and-time expand faster than the speed of light?

It's one of the most difficult concepts in all of physics to understand, but we're up to the challenge. Let's find out.

One revolutionary aspect of relativistic motion, put forth by Einstein but previously built up by... [+] Lorentz, Fitzgerald, and others, that rapidly moving objects appeared to contract in space and dilate in time. The faster you move relative to someone at rest, the greater your lengths appear to be contracted, while the more time appears to dilate for the outside world. This picture, of relativistic mechanics, replaced the old Newtonian view of classical mechanics, but also carries tremendous implications for theories that aren't relativistically invariant, like Newtonian gravity.

When Einstein put forth the notion of Special Relativity in 1905, it was as straightforward as it was revolutionary. It began by considering a phenomenon we've all interacted with: a light wave. For many decades, Einstein and his contemporary had known that light is an electromagnetic wave: an energy-carrying wave with oscillating, in-phase electric and magnetic fields. And, in a vacuum, it always moved at the same speed: the speed of light.

This last part was the most troubling to scientists. If you were on a train moving at 100 miles-per-hour (161 km/hr) and you threw a baseball at 100 miles-per-hour (161 km/hr) in the forward direction, that ball would move at 200 miles-per-hour (322 km/hr) from the perspective of someone on solid ground. But light didn't work that way; it always moves at the same speed through the vacuum of empty space, from every perspective imaginable.

If the arm lengths are the same and the speed along both arms is the same, then anything traveling... [+] in both of the perpendicular directions will arrive at the same time. But if there's an effective headwind/tailwind in one direction over the other, or the arm lengths change relative to one another, there will be a lag in the arrival times.

This was demonstrated to great precision in the 1880s by scientist Albert Michelson and his assistant, Edward Morley. In their experiment, they took a beam of coherent light (of the same wavelength) and passed it through a beam splitter: a device that splits the light into two perpendicular components. The light then travels down both paths of identical lengths until it strikes a mirror, reflects back, and gets recombined to create an interference pattern.

Now, here's the key point: if one path is shorter than the other, or if the light moves faster (or slower) in one direction than the other, the interference pattern will shift. This happens to enormous precision in the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors, where passing gravitational waves change the path length of the two different directions. But, even with the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun at ~30 km/s, the interference pattern seen in the Michelson-Morley experiment never changed.

The Michelson interferometer (top) showed a negligible shift in light patterns (bottom, solid) as... [+] compared with what was expected if Galilean relativity were true (bottom, dotted). The speed of light was the same no matter which direction the interferometer was oriented, including with, perpendicular to, or against the Earth's motion through space.

This taught us something incredibly important: the velocity of light is independent of any relative motion through space. No matter who you are, where you are, how quickly or in what direction you travel through the Universe, you will always observe all light waves traveling through space at that same universal speed limit: the speed of light in a vacuum. If you and the source move away from one another, the light's wavelength gets redshifted; if you mutually move towards one another, the wavelength gets blueshifted. But the speed of light itself never changes through the vacuum of space.

This idea was revolutionary when Einstein proposed it, with many professional physicists (wrongfully) resisting it for decades. The opposition made it no less true, however. But the big prize still remained: to incorporate gravitation into the equation.

Countless scientific tests of Einstein's general theory of relativity have been performed,... [+] subjecting the idea to some of the most stringent constraints ever obtained by humanity. The presence of matter and energy in space tells spacetime how to curve, and that curved spacetime tells matter and energy how to move.

Before Einstein, gravitation was a Newtonian phenomenon. According to Newton, space and time were absolute, rather than relative, entities. The gravitational force of attraction between any two masses had to propagate infinitely fast, rather than limited by the speed of light.

The bigger revolution that Einstein brought to physics was the overthrow of this picture of gravitation. Sure, you could use Newtonian gravity as a very good approximation for almost all conditions, but in situations where matter or energy passed close to a large mass, Newton wouldn't give you the correct answers.

Mercury's orbit precessed more than Newton predicted. Light passing close to the Sun during an eclipse bent by a greater amount than Newton could explain.

The results of the 1919 Eddington expedition showed, conclusively, that the General theory of... [+] Relativity described the bending of starlight around massive objects, overthrowing the Newtonian picture. This was the first observational confirmation of Einstein's General Relativity, and appears to align with the 'bent-fabric-of-space' visualization.

As the evidence clearly showed, Einstein's General Relativity where mass and energy curved space and that curved space determined the motion of mass and energy had superseded Newtonian gravity. This new conceptualization of gravitation and of the fabric of space-and-time itself brought another revelation along with it: the fact that the fabric of the Universe, if it was full of roughly equal amounts of matter and energy everywhere, could not be static and unchanging.

Instead, as observationsas early as the 1920s began to definitively show, there was a systematic relationship between an object's distance from us and the amount that its light was observed to redshift. Sure, galaxies move through space relative to one another, but only at speeds up to a few thousand km/s. Yet when we view the actual redshifts of distant galaxies, they correspond to recession speeds much, much greater than those values.

The distance/redshift relation, including the most distant objects of all, seen from their type Ia... [+] supernovae. The data strongly favors an accelerating Universe. Note how the y-axis includes speeds that exceed the speed of light, but this doesn't tell the full story about what's actually going on with the expanding Universe.

The reason we're seeing these cosmic redshifts scale with distance, as scientists quickly came to realize, is because the fabric of the Universe itself is expanding. Just like raisins in a leavening loaf of raisin bread dough, the every galaxy in the Universe all see the other galaxies moving away from them, with the more distant raisins (or galaxies) appearing to move away at faster rates.

But why is this?

It isn't because the raisins are moving relative to the dough that they're embedded in, nor is it because the individual galaxies are moving through the fabric of space. Rather, it's owing to the fact that the dough itself just like the fabric of space itself is expanding, and the raisins (or galaxies) are just along for the ride.

The 'raisin bread' model of the expanding Universe, where relative distances increase as the space... [+] (dough) expands. The farther away any two raisin are from one another, the greater the observed redshift will be by time the light is received. The redshift-distance relation predicted by the expanding Universe is borne out in observations, and has been consistent with what's been known all the way back since the 1920s.

Meanwhile, because these objects are galaxies, they're filled with light-emitting stars. They emit light continuously from the moment they first turn on, but we can only observe them from the moment that light first arrives at our eyes after journeying through the Universe.

Not the Newtonian Universe, mind you: the expanding, Einsteinian one.

This means that there are galaxies out there whose light is only just now arriving here on Earth for the first time, after journeying through the Universe for more than 13 billion years. The first stars and galaxies formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and we've discovered galaxies from as far back as when the Universe was just 3% of its present age. And yet, that light has been so severely redshifted by the expanding Universe that the light was ultraviolet when it was emitted, but is already far into the infrared by the time we can observe it.

This simplified animation shows how light redshifts and how distances between unbound objects change... [+] over time in the expanding Universe. Note that the objects start off closer than the amount of time it takes light to travel between them, the light redshifts due to the expansion of space, and the two galaxies wind up much farther apart than the light-travel path taken by the photon exchanged between them.

If we were to ask, from our perspective, what this means for the speed of this distant galaxy that we're only now observing, we'd conclude that this galaxy is receding from us well in excess of the speed of light. But in reality, not only is that galaxy not moving through the Universe at a relativistically impossible speed, but it's hardly moving at all! Instead of speeds exceeding 299,792 km/s (the speed of light in a vacuum), these galaxies are only moving through space at ~2% the speed of light or less.

But space itself is expanding, and that accounts for the overwhelming majority of the redshift we see. And space doesn't expand at a speed; it expands at a speed-per-unit-distance: a very different kind of rate. When you see numbers like 67 km/s/Mpc or 73 km/s/Mpc (the two most common values that cosmologists measure), these are speeds (km/s) per unit distance (Mpc, or about 3.3 million light-years).

The restriction that "nothing can move faster than light" only applies to the motion of objects through space. The rate at which space itself expands this speed-per-unit-distance has no physical bounds on its upper limit.

The size of our visible Universe (yellow), along with the amount we can reach (magenta). The limit... [+] of the visible Universe is 46.1 billion light-years, as that's the limit of how far away an object that emitted light that would just be reaching us today would be after expanding away from us for 13.8 billion years. However, beyond about 18 billion light-years, we can never access a galaxy even if we traveled towards it at the speed of light.

It might seem strange to consider all that this implies. Because we have dark energy, the expansion rate will never drop to zero; it will remain at a positive, finite value. It means that even though only 13.8 billion years have passed since the Big Bang, we can observe light from objects that are already 46.1 billion light-years away. And it means that beyond a fraction of that distance about 18 billion light-years no object launched today from Earthcould ever reach it.

But no object is actually moving through the Universe faster than the speed of light. The Universe is expanding, but the expansion doesn't have a speed; it has a speed-per-unit-distance, which is equivalent to a frequency, or an inverse time. One of the most surprising facts about the Universe is that if you do the conversions and take the inverse of the expansion rate, you can calculate the "time" that you get out.

The answer? Approximately 13.8 billion years: the age of the Universe. There isn't a fundamental reason for that fact; it's just a fascinating cosmic coincidence.

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Ask Ethan: How Does The Fabric Of Spacetime Expand Faster Than The Speed Of Light? - Forbes

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Poem of the week: Sermon (for the Burial of Cassini) by Ella Frears – Telegraph.co.uk

Posted: at 2:52 pm

Theres a bittersweet nostalgia to the idea of space travel. It still comes foil-wrapped in the imagery of the 1960s: remember the future, how shiny it used to be?

The recent SpaceX launch inspired worldwide headlines partly because manned missions have become a rarity. These days, if we want to see the universe, it makes more sense to send our eyes ahead of us.

To study Saturn, for instance, the Cassini probe travelled almost five billion miles, sending back nearly half a million images before reaching the end of its 20-year life in 2017. Life is, of course, the wrong word. But its tempting to imagine that something of our adventuring spirit did live in that little gatherer of science, indifferent photographer of the dark sublime, as Ella Frears calls it here.

A burial sermon for a bit of soulless tech could seem silly, just as a prayer in faith of the evidential might sound like a contradiction in terms. But in the hands of Frears whose first collection was this week shortlisted for a Forward Prize its strangely moving. Science and spirituality are often set at odds, but this poem captures the way the grandeur of space can inspire a feeling akin to religious awe.

The poems form (prose tightened into a thin rocket of a column), and its prayerlike voice are both daring choices, yet precisely engineered to fit its subject. I cant imagine a better send-off.

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Poem of the week: Sermon (for the Burial of Cassini) by Ella Frears - Telegraph.co.uk

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Impact of COVID-19 on Space Tourism Market to Garner Astounding CAGR of 16.6% by 2025 Including Top Key Players- Space Adventures, EADS Astrium,…

Posted: at 2:52 pm

According to this study, over the next five years the Space Tourism market will register a 16.6% CAGR in terms of revenue, the global market size will reach US$ 1180 million by 2025, from US$ 550 million in 2019.

Space tourism is defined as space travel for leisure, recreation, and business purposes. Space tourism is likely to be an emerging trend owing to the increased expenditure on travel and tourism globally. Adventure tourism involves a higher degree of risk and it is high in demand for the enthusiasts towards space tourism. Reduction in the cost of expenditure of space tourism is likely to gain traction for the space tourism market over the forecast period. Space tourism is an emerging concept wherein an optimal spaceflight is developed that will facilitate passengers to travel to outer space, Mars and the Moon.

Global Space Tourism Market Research Report gives complete knowledge, forecast and statistical analysis on past, gift and forecast Market situations. The dangers and growth possibilities related to global enterprise are highlighted in this have a look at. The Market study will force investment selections and strategic business plans for a successful and sustainable commercial enterprise.

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The major players in the Space Tourism market are-

Key factors of this Space Tourism Market document range from industry outlook along with critical Market success factors, enterprise dynamics or marketplace definition in terms of drivers and restraints, Market segmentation and fee chain evaluation, key possibilities or developments, utility and generation outlook, local or country level analysis to competitive landscape

This Space Tourism Market report is the detailed observe and analyses of the marketplace trends, market position and market strategies. This Market file has been installation by analyzing a gift and upcoming market scenario. This record is evolved with the high-quality and advanced gadgets of collecting the data, recording, evaluating and studying the market data. Space Tourism Market file gives data about the statistics related to any subject within the area of advertising and marketing for enterprise with the detailed examine of the market.It offers better mind and answers in phrases of product trends, advertising strategy, future products, new geographical markets, destiny events, sales strategies, patron moves or behaviors.

Space Tourism Market segment by Type, the product can be split into

Space TourismMarket segment by Application, split into

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The supply-demand aspect of Global Space Tourism Market is analyzed through the information accumulated from paid number one interviews and via secondary resources. The secondary research strategies contain the Space Tourism information gathered from enterprise reports, patron surveys, Government databases, economic and demographic data sources. Also, product resources like sales facts, custom group information and case research are analyzed.

In This Study, The Years Considered To Estimate The Size Of Space Tourism Market Are As Follows:

History Year: 2015-2018

Base Year: 2018

Estimated Year: 2019

Forecast Year 2019 to 2026

There Are 8 Sections In Space Tourism Market Report As Follows:

Section 1:Objectives, Definition, Scope, Global Market Overview, Market Size Estimation, Concentration Ratio and Growth Rate from 2019-2026

Section 2:Global Industry Segmentation by Type, Application and Research Region

Section 3:Top Regions of Global Space Tourism Market (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, South America) with the Production Value and Growth Rate

Section 4:The Changing Global Space Tourism Market Dynamics, Growth Drivers, Limitations, Industry Plans & Policies, and Growth Opportunities are Explained.

Section 5:Industry Chain Analysis, Manufacturing Base, Cost Structures, Production Process, Marketing Channels, and Downstream Buyers.

Section 6:The Top Space Tourism Players, Market Share, Competition, Market Size and Regional Presence is Specified.

Section 7:Forecast Market Trends, Consumption, Value, Production Forecast and Growth Estimates are Analyzed

Section 8:Lastly, Vital Conclusions, Research Techniques, and Data Sources are Listed.

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Impact of COVID-19 on Space Tourism Market to Garner Astounding CAGR of 16.6% by 2025 Including Top Key Players- Space Adventures, EADS Astrium,...

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Letters to the Editor: June 12, 2020 – West Hawaii Today

Posted: at 2:52 pm

If I was in charge

The first thing I would do is start a resident only lotto. Each time it hits a million dollars it would be split by 10 tickets, $100,000 per ohana to spend.

Then it starts again and again soaking the pockets of our people with much needed cash. Can you imagine how that could change everything overnight? We could give it a try for three to five years, and see how it goes.

No need to worry about tourism for a bit, the cash would flow around like a tide pool at high tide nursing us all.

We may have to do it privately, quickly donating A/C and iPads to each school. Then we rebuild them, followed by roads then the hospital and so on. Just a thought, have you got any ideas to help us survive?

David O. Baldwin

Keauhou

Patience is preferred to complaining

In reference to Ms. Melendezs letter on June 4 regarding the First Amendment and her Constitutional rights being violated. She specifically states that it is our unalienable right to peaceful assembly, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being violated. How so Ms. Melendez? Please explain. I see no one in this state or county stopping peaceful demonstrators from assembling and certainly although the coronavirus has gotten in the way of life, all in all,people are complying and not complaining as they know this will end in the near future. P

Personally, I am very happy and so is everyone I know. These rules have nothing to do with Constitutional rights, instead they are for the greater benefit of all citizens to protect us from this virus. Its a health decision and in my view has nothing to do with ones rights because it is also my right to stay healthy and protected from people who may be carrying the virus. Yes, its a hassle but Im wondering where she is getting her information regarding mask-wearing in general. This is precisely why Japan has lower rates of the disease and they have been known to wear masks a lot, especially when traveling, in case you have never noticed. This too shall pass. Also, running ones business has nothing to do with the First Amendment. She should read the First Amendment because basically and simply it states: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and right to petition. She is certainly exercising her freedom of speech press and and thats fine but it is also my right to try and stay healthy by complying with what our local government deems necessary to keep all citizens safe.

Exercising a little patience is preferred to complaining as this is just a temporary inconvenience to everyone.

Kathy Awai

Waikoloa

Inspirational socialism

Dave Crismans Sunday screed against the Democratic Party ends with a shout-out to entrepreneurial capitalism. He asks if anything good has ever come from socialism?

If he means to say that government never fosters the private sectors success, how about the airline industry? The Post Office literally couldnt get off the ground in 1911 when this government agency handed pilot Earl Ovington a mailbag to squeeze between his legs. After a brief demonstration flight, he pushed the mail out of the plane where the postmaster picked it up for local delivery. From this, government inspiration was born what became our civilian air transportation industry.

A Google search reveals seemingly endless consumer benefits of civilian government and military research and development. Without such inspirational socialism we wouldnt have the internet, GPS, microwave ovens, frozen juice concentrate, Silly Putty, synthetic rubber, Super Glue, Duct Tape, aerosol spray, the Jeep, dark glasses, feminine hygiene products, and yes, even undershirts!

Crisman is just wrong when he says that private enterprise, not the government, gave society jet travel, space travel (what about NASA?), and smart phones.

Niel Thomas

Waimea

Letters policy

Letters to the editor should be 300 words or less and will be edited for style and grammar. Longer viewpoint guest columns may not exceed 800 words. Submit online at http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/?p=118321, via email to letters@westhawaiitoday.com or address them to:

Editor | West Hawaii Today

PO Box 789

Kailua-Kona, HI 96745

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Have Scientists Found a Hybernation ‘Button’ for Humans? – The National Interest

Posted: at 2:52 pm

In what could be a boon for deep space travel and quicker recoveries from bodily injuries, scientists have discovered the trigger in brains of mammals that can induce hibernation.

According to two different studies published in the journal Nature, teams of researchers from the University of Tsukuba in Japan and Harvard Medical School have identified particular neuronsthe snooze buttonin the brains of rodents that can be artificially activated to drive the animals into a hibernation-like state.

Known as Q neurons, they can trigger long-lasting reductions in body temperature and metabolism, which is similar to hibernation.

This natural sleeping state was also induced in rats, animals that usually do not go into hibernation, according to the Japanese scientists.

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Since we humans possess a similar set of brain cells as the mice and rats involved in this particular study, it may be possible in the future to induce similar hibernation-like states.

The team said such advancements in utilizing suspended animation could improve recovery rates from surgeries and transplants and make years-long space travel safer.

In the U.S. study, scientists identified certain brain cells that are able to control torpor and revealed that stimulating these brain cells induces torpor in rodents like mice. On the other hand, blocking these brain cells prevents torpor, the authors noted.

Certain animals are known to hibernate because food supplies become scarce during the winter months. By going into a long deep sleep, these animals are able to skip this difficult period completely and wake up when food becomes more plentiful.

Such hibernating animals include bears (though not true hibernators), some mice and bats, chipmunks, woodchucks and certain species of ground squirrels. At least one bird is known to be a hibernatorthe poorwill, which lives in western North America.

Scientists believe that a compound in the blood known as HIT (Hibernation Induction Trigger) lets these animals know when it is time to prepare for hibernation. Shrinking food supplies, shorter days and colder temperatures all appear to influence HIT.

During hibernation, an animals body temperature plunges, and its respiration and heart rate decrease dramatically. The effect can be so extreme that, in some instances, the animal may appear dead.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters

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Is It Risky To Ride In A Convertible? Go To A Casino? Travel With Kids? : Goats and Soda – NPR

Posted: at 2:52 pm

The pandemic is prompting a lot of questions about everyday life. Malaka Gharib/ NPR hide caption

The pandemic is prompting a lot of questions about everyday life.

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. And we ask readers to send in their queries. Some of the questions we get are a little ... unusual. They may not be the most critical health questions. Yet they are definitely interesting. So this week, here is a sampling of both frequently and infrequently asked questions. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions."

I protested. Now what?

Over the last two weeks, many thousands of people across the United States and the world have taken to the streets to demonstrate solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and demand an end to police brutality. Last week's FAQ broke down some preventive measures to lower COVID-19 exposure while attending a protest. But some readers ask: How soon after protesting should you get tested to see if you might have been infected?

Dr. Joyce Sanchez, an infectious disease specialist who teaches at the Medical College of Wisconsin and directs its Travel Health Clinic, says symptoms develop on average of 3 to 7 days after exposure. So the first week after attending a demonstration is the peak time to monitor your health and look into obtaining a test through your primary care doctor or a local public health department or clinic.

There are, however, cases in which people take up to 14 days after exposure to the coronavirus to show symptoms, so both Dr. Sanchez and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend keeping watch for a full two weeks following a crowded gathering just to be safe.

"Many people do not even notice when they're coming down with symptoms," says Sanchez. "The ones that are generally red flags are fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath. But some people just feel a little fatigue," says Sanchez. "And when you're like me a mother of two and a full-time working mother fatigue is a natural part of my life. So if there's any hint of something that just feels a little bit off, it's certainly very reasonable to get tested."

Dr. Mark Kortepeter, professor of epidemiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, suggests waiting a few days after the protest to seek testing unless you're already showing symptoms. Even if you're infected, there's a chance you may not yet be shedding viral particles that a test could pick up.

In addition to getting tested, if you think you may have come in contact with someone showing symptoms of the coronavirus at a demonstration or otherwise try to isolate yourself from others for a week or so to minimize the risk of spreading infection to those around you.

Can my dog bring COVID-19 particles from the outside world into my home on its paws, say by walking on grass or a sidewalk where someone with the virus could have spit?

The experts we spoke to as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that the risk of transmission from a pet to a human is considered low. The coronavirus is still novel so there's a chance new information could develop in the future but for now, pets are not considered a major risk factor in the spread of infection.

Dr. Kortepeter adds that the risk of viral particles surviving on outdoor surfaces is low to begin with, and friction from the dog walking around would most likely get rid of any potential particles coming into the home.

"We don't know of any cases where there's been an animal playing a significant role in spreading the virus to humans. I think that is not going to be a major concern," says Dr. Sanchez. "But in general, it's going to be good to clean off paws just for the general cleanliness of the interior of the home." The same goes for human shoes.

Casinos are reopening how safe is it to go back?

For both Dr. Sanchez and Dr. Kortepeter, the main concern with casinos is that like churches or bowling alleys, they are enclosed indoor spaces where large groups congregate. That in itself presents a higher risk of exposure to respiratory droplets in the air, especially if the venue does not enforce the wearing of face coverings.

And in spaces like casinos, where many people touch the same inanimate objects and surfaces playing cards, chips, tables there may be potentially added risks that we don't completely understand yet, says Dr. Kortepeter.

Here are some general precautions to take, if you do decide to go to a casino:

"Even if the casino is practicing all of the disinfecting and mask wearing, there are variables that are going to be outside of your control," says Dr. Sanchez. "And again, you're sharing an enclosed space with many people who are outside of your general household circle and that is considered high risk."

What are the risks when traveling with young children on an airplane?

In past FAQs, we've discussed how to take precautionary measures when traveling by plane and how to weigh the risk factors of driving versus flying. But when it comes to traveling with young children, are there additional ways to prevent COVID-19 exposure?

If possible, try to make all children older than 2 years old wear a face covering for the duration of travel, both in the airport and on the plane. Children younger than 2 should not use face cloth coverings, according to CDC guidelines, because they may make breathing difficult.

Bring lots of sanitizer and wipes to clean off kids' hands and try to keep them from touching surfaces as much as possible, says Dr. Kortepeter.

Bring enough food and water for your kids so you have sanitized options in case they're hungry or thirsty, says Dr. Sanchez.

"I think my biggest piece of advice for parents, regardless if they fly or if they drive, is to try to model safe practices. Children, particularly small children, absorb by our example more than we know," says Dr. Sanchez. "So if you're wearing the mask, if you're disinfecting, if you're maintaining that distance and you're reinforcing that through what you say and what you do children pick up on that and try to mirror their parents."

Is it safe to drive in a convertible with the top down?

According to Harvard Medical School physician Abraar Karan, driving in an open convertible is probably one of the "less dangerous things you could do" in a pandemic when it comes to risk of infection. The velocity of the car and the open air would likely mitigate the direct exchange of COVID particles.

"If you're riding, one would think that most of the respiratory droplets coming out of your mouth are going to be flying behind you," he explains. "The risk of transmission there would probably be low, because you're both outdoors and having a lot of wind blowing [particles] back."

Still like any disease transmission scenario there are many factors at play: If you're at a stoplight having a face to face conversation with someone in a car next to you, you should probably wear a mask to protect the other driver and possibly give yourself some protection as well.

Seating arrangements matter, Karan noted. "Let's say someone's sitting behind you, and they're inhaling all the particles coming out of your mouth." That's why the safest bet for all car drivers and passengers is to still wear a mask.

Beyond in-car preventive measures, Karan said it's important to keep in mind that frequently touched car parts, like door handles, could hold viral particles, which could spread the disease. Use hand sanitizer after touching such objects, he advises.

One more car point: The risk of transmitting the virus in a closed car may be higher than in a convertible.

"In a convertible, the top's down, and you're theoretically almost outdoors at that point," Karan says. "We know transmission in enclosed space [like a non-convertible] is a big deal."

Is it safe to go back to bowling alleys?

If you want to play it safe, you probably won't be hitting the bowling alleys until the later phases of reopening. But even then, there are many concerns about transmission.

Even the most avid bowler recognizes that it's not essential to go bowling. As Harvard Medical School physician Abraar Karan put it: bowling is a "higher risk, but lower necessity, activity."

Why higher risk?

"We're talking about indoors," he says."We're talking about people sitting next to each other, around the area where the bowling balls come back, and probably in close proximity," he says.

While bowling alleys are typically spread out and large, Karan noted that there are more groups clustered around small areas. So it's probably not a great idea in the immediate future.

If you do decide to go bowling, it's essential to wear a mask, wash hands and sanitize yourself often.

I don't have a dishwasher. Should I wash my dishes with bleach? My husband says soap and water isn't enough!

Harvard Medical School physician Abraar Karan didn't have much to say on this one: "Just soap and water should be sufficient," he said, adding decisively: "No bleach."

I fell and broke a tooth and think it's infected. But I'm afraid to go to the dentist during a pandemic what should I do?

If you need essential tooth care, you should go to the dentist. And it will most likely be OK, said Harvard Medical School physician Abraar Karan.

"Dentists are health-care workers," he said. "They'll be wearing personal protective equipment like N-95 masks [which] should block the majority of particles [traveling] from the dentist's face to yours. There could be some small particles that escape, but I would think that would be very unlikely."

Despite these precautions, there are some inherent risks involved, especially because tooth work is an oral procedure involving really close face-to-face contact. A dentist and the dental staff could fiddle with a mask, reducing its efectiveness, or wear it improperly. But the threat is "relatively low," Karan said. What's most important is that you get help if you need it.

"In a situation where somebody has a potential tooth infection developing, they need to get it done," Karan said, adding: "You should feel reassured that the dentist is going through some symptom checks before they come in."

Karan said he'd be "surpri(sed)" if we saw a lot of transmission from dentists properly wearing PPE and exhibiting no symptoms.

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Astronomer on why he is a ‘frustrated martian’, his love of the night sky and what the future holds for space travel – Times & Star

Posted: at 2:52 pm

Andrew Thomas talks to amateur astronomer Stuart Atkinson about his lifelong interest in the night sky and his heartfelt desire to see humans walking on Mars

Stuart Atkinson can remember the exact moment when his passionate interest in space and the night sky began.

When I was at junior school the Apollo missions were happening, he told me.

"In those days schools just had one television, which was kept in a big cupboard and was wheeled out for big events.

I was sitting on the floor and watching grainy black and white footage on TV of people bouncing around on the Moon and the pilot light whooshed and that started my interest in space.

Stuart, 55, grew up in Cockermouth and fondly remembers his supportive headmaster at his first school.

I would always be hiding in the library at break times, reading books about space, rather than being outside playing football, and he would never throw me out!

He described how he devoured science books and how his interest in space got serious in 1981 when the first Space Shuttle mission took off. He avidly followed subsequent missions and the building of the International Space Station.

He has always been interested in planets but his favourite is Mars.

I am known as a frustrated Martian and my Twitter handle is @mars_stu. When I was at Cockermouth Grammar School in around 1982 or 83 I found a National Geographic magazine from 1977 that had amazing photographs of Vikings mission to Mars. My obsession with Mars started there.

He recalls how reading Kim Stanley Robinsons epic novel Red Mars had a huge impact on him.

It is full of geology and science and it brought the Mars in my head to life, said Stuart.

He wrote to the author many times as a fan and received replies. Indeed, Stuart is referenced in the credits for the third book in the trilogy, Blue Mars.

Stuart bought a tiny container of Martian dust taken from meteorites.

I sent it to Kim Stanley Robinson and he ate it! Theres a poem in one of his follow-up books, The Martians, where he talks about taking a bit of dust and rolling it on his tongue that is the dust I sent him!

For many years he assiduously followed the progress of two American Rovers as they roamed about exploring the surface of Mars.

They put up raw images every few hours every day, said Stuart. I walked beside the rovers for years, seeing what they saw. It became a big part of my life.

He set up as astronomical society in Cockermouth and when he moved to Kendal 15 years ago, he became the secretary of the towns Eddington Astronomical Society, a position he held for about 12 years.

What does he see as the value of such societies? Astronomy can be a very lonely hobby. You tend to spend a lot of time standing on your own in the dark. Its good to be part of a group. You can swap information and share experiences.

Living in the wettest county in one of the wettest countries in Europe it is easy to miss things and you can be tempted to give up and take up another hobby. Being part of a group helps to keep you going.

He said anyone interested in learning more about astronomy should Google Eddington Astronomical Society.

Stuart is well known as a media expert on the night sky, for his Skywatch column in The Westmorland Gazette and through his outreach and education activities.

I give talks to Womens Institutes, Soroptimists, Lions, Round Tables, U3As and schools. My talks are aimed at beginners level.

"I talk about what you can see on the next clear night and about our place in the Solar System.

He has been the consultant for a number of space books and has written ten of his own, including his first, Journey Into Space, about 30 years ago, the forward for which was written by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov.

His latest book is A Cats Guide To The Night Sky, a reference book as told by a cat with lovely illustrations. It has been translated into 21 languages.

The idea for the book came when he was on a Kielder Star Camp with his girlfriend. The couple always take their cat and four years ago he was standing outside at night holding their cat, Peggy.

There was a clear night sky and Peggy was looking around at all the stars, said Stuart.

I had an idea, scribbled it down and a publisher liked it. The book teaches children about the night sky.

His astronomy highlights include seeing Halleys Comet in 1986, the twin-tailed Hale-Bopp comet in 1997 and the Northern Lights at Cockermouth in 2001. The whole sky was red with billowing curtains, said Stuart.

He believes we will one day set foot on Mars. If we decided to go today, we could probably get there in five years. It wont be NASA, though, as that relies on Government funding. It would be a private mission, maybe by Elon Musk.

When I watched Tomorrows World many years ago Maggie Philbin said we would see someone on Mars by the mid-1980s. We are way behind schedule.

I think we are looking at the first people on Mars by 2030 or 2031, if not sooner. I have always wanted to see people on Mars and I dont want to be too old to appreciate it when it happens!

For more information about Stuart Atkinson visit https://stuartatkinson.wordpress.com/

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From Breakfast at Tiffanys to To Kill A Mockingbird, the best and worst examples of diversity in film – Evening Standard

Posted: at 2:52 pm

Bringing our city to your living room

The Black Lives Matter movement has shone a light on systemic racism, taken a stand against police brutality, and called for justice following the death of George Floyd.

It has also changed narratives online and hopefully in real life forever, affecting the way many people consider the problematic aspects of popular culture.

Shows and films have been pulled from online platforms in acknowledgement of offensive traits and portrayals of BAME characters, including the likes of 1939 film Gone With the Wind, which was removed from HBO over its racist depictions of slavery and black people, and Little Britain, removed from Netflix, NOW TV, Britbox and BBC iPlayer over its use of blackface.

These releases havent only just started being offensive, of course the former long deplored for its racist narrative, and while Little Britain and its follow-up Come Fly With went out as peak time comedies with blackface characters, they still were criticised at the time for their offensive portrayal of black characters. Still, they were hits; now that seems inconceivable.

With popular culture being revisited and re-examined, and more efforts being made than ever to call out problematic traits, these are some of the worst examples of diversity in film, as well as some of the more positive and progressive movies that filmmakers and film lovers can learn from.

Based on Truman Capotes 1958 novel of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffanys has long been hailed as one of Hollywoods finest movies with the picture winning an Oscar for its score, and screenwriter George Axelrod bagging an accolade at the 1962 Writers Guild of America Awards. But beyond its glamorous costumes and sterling performances from both Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, the film also includes a shockingly distasteful depiction of a Japanese man.

Played by white actor and comedian Mickey Rooney, the character of Mr Yunioshi is drenched in racial stereotypes and is problematic to say the least. Rooney not only wore yellowface and false buck teeth for the role, but he depicted Holly Golightlys irate neighbour as clumsy and often stupid, as more of a punchline than a noteworthy character in the story which, no doubt, is tied up with anti-Japanese sentiments post-World War II.

The film itself was a total stinker and an unnecessary reboot of the hugely influential 1995 Japanese anime film, but it was the central issue of casting that overshadowed this 2017 action film and made it one of the most controversial movies of recent years, with Scarlett Johansson as protagonist Motoko Kusanagi. The initial announcement was met with outrage, with prominent Asian stars in the industry like Agents of SHIELD Ming-Na Wen hitting out at the decision. Nothing against Scarlett Johansson. In fact, I'm a big fan. But everything against this Whitewashing of Asian role, she wrote.

It was made worse when reports emerged that suggested filmmakers had attempted to correct the issue by using CGI to shift ethnicity and make actors appear more Asian, which meant they were accused of "digital yellowface". Its perhaps the most overt case of its kind, with film fans also critical of the casting of Emma Stone as a half-Chinese, half-Hawaiian woman in Aloha.

While F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu is not consciously anti-Semitic, there are many references and symbols used in the film especially the representation of Nosferatu's character as a Jew that, according to Patrick Hogan of the University of Connecticut, show a sacrificial structure that ultimately fit Nazi ideas quite well.

Although it should be noted that the film was created in Germany during the Weimar Republic, it was a time of great socio-economic turmoil and hyperinflation prompted widespread unemployment. Anti-Jewish sentiments were already brewing before Hitlers Nazi Party took power, and there are clear racial stereotypes to be found in Marnaus film from the vampires hooked nose to his rat-like teeth. A letter sent by Nosferatu in the film also appears to contain Hebrew characters, not to mention the fact that the vampire motif itself is parasitic and Stokers original tale is all about playing into contemporary fears of The Other.

Mike Myers comedy played on lazy stereotypes, with the actor as a Hindu guru called Pitka and jokes that centre around the misinterpretation of religious terms (namely swapping 'Namaste' for 'Mariska Hargitay' an actress known for her work on Law & Order.) The actor avoided the use of brownface, but his accent, prosthetic nose and fake beard sparked complaints of racism. Paramount were unsure about the release of the film following complaints from Hindu groups in North America, who called for cinemas to pull the film. Kanayalal Raina, executive director of the Canada Hindu Heritage Centre in Mississauga, told the Times of India at the time: "It should not be released in Canada without editing. After being released, it was widely slated by critics.

Celebrating the role black women scientists played in sending people to space for the first time, Hidden Figures proved a much-needed re-addressing of history. Taking place in 1961 Virginia inside the NASA research centre, the film shines a light on the key work of genius mathematicians Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), as well as NASA engineer Mary Jackson (Janelle Mone). All three were vital to US success in the Space Race, and before then, for all the space movies that went before it, their story hadnt been told.

The movie film presents a strong, critical view on the discriminatory segregation laws of the time and the ingrained white supremacy of the age. Crucially, the film highlights how the stories of these black women were written out of the narrative of space travel in the decades that followed, too.

The New Yorkers Richard Brody, like a number of high profile critics, praised the 2016 film as a subtle and powerful work that finally told these black womens incredible stories, providing a subtle and powerful work of counter-history, or, rather, of a finally and long-deferred accurate history.

Released just a year after Breakfast at Tiffany's but in stark contrast to it, the film adaptation of Harper Lees bestselling novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a perfect example of how issues of systemic racism and racial prejudices should be portrayed on-screen. Lee, coincidentally, was very good friends with Capote.

Beyond Gregory Pecks outstanding performance as lawyer Atticus Finch, the film highlights social injustices connected to race and racism, with a poignant message about how damaging and dangerous racial profiling is not just to those who are the victim of it, but to society as a whole. Featuring black actor Brock Peters as Tom Robinson, the film is about a wrongfully condemned man who, despite there being no evidence and Atticus water-tight case, gets sent to jail for a crime he did not commit. While there is no happy ending per se, there are lots of powerful statements made in the film which should be celebrated, and are still relevant today illustrating what a forward-thinking novel and movie Mockingbird is.

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What Space Travel Will Look Like in the Future – Earthly …

Posted: June 9, 2020 at 11:47 pm

Science fiction might inspire us to dream, but heres a rather more realistic vision of what space travel will look like in the future.

When Jules Verne wrote his novel From the Earth to the Moon over 150 years ago, he imagined future space travel very differently to how it came to be when man first set foot on the Moon a century later in 1969. Instead of the technically impossible space cannon described in the book, mankinds first mission to the Moon blasted off from Floridas Kennedy Space Center in an expendable, liquid-fuelled Saturn V rocket at nearly 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 kph). Fast-forward to the end of 2017, and were still relying on the same underlying technology to travel to the final frontier.

That all space launches are carried out by rockets is far from the only limitation of current spaceflight. A far cry from the realm of science fiction space operas, theres a lot that hasnt changed at all in the last 56 years of manned space travel. Far from being a glamorous affair, real-life space travel still sees astronauts contending with the serious health challenges of excessive solar radiation and weightlessness. Even the relatively cutting-edge International Space Station can hardly be described as a comfortable place to live with its pokey quarters and general lack of comforts.

So, what will space travel look like in another century from now, or even another ten years for that matter? While were still a long way off from the lofty dreams of science fiction, lets explore how we might overcome some of the major challenges of human spaceflight in the future.

It might look like fun, but weightlessness takes a severe toll on the human body.

From muscle loss to reduced effectiveness of the immune system, weightlessness is highly detrimental to human health, particularly over long periods. The realities of zero gravity have also proven highly inconvenient to science fiction authors to the extent that everyone miraculously walks around abroad their starships and on the surfaces of alien planets as they would on Earth. Unfortunately, theres no known way to overcome the latter, which means future colonists on Mars, for example, will simply have to learn to get used to weighing only 38% of what they weigh on Earth.

Theres little chance of long-distance space travel, let alone fully-fledged colonization of outer space taking off if we cant find a way to generate a similar effect to Earths gravity. Fortunately, the scientific theory necessary to make artificial gravity is well-established, although current technical limitations make it very difficult to implement.

Centripetal force can, in many ways, mimic the effects of gravity through rotation, but the technical requirements make its application no easy feat. For a start, your space habitat would need to have an enormous rotating ring in which its living areas would be located. To simulate Earths gravity, a ring with a 3,220-foot (1,000 metres) radius would need to make a full rotation once every 62.8 seconds, which requires a speed of 100 miles per hour (360 kph). The centre of the spaceship, or the rotational axis, would always remain in zero-g. With this model, people in the ring would be able to move around much like they would on Earth, although the gravity felt at their heads would be lower than what theyd feel at their feet, thus leading to new problems such as disorientation, nausea and dizziness. These effects can be mitigated by having a larger ring, which would mean the gravity would be distributed over a larger area.

The technology exists, and the theory is sound. Today, the fact that rotating space habitats dont exist is largely down to a lack of necessity. Since short-term stays in space dont have any serious effects on human health and comfort is not a priority, todays space travellers simply have to do without the luxury of artificial gravity.

Currently, the worlds space agencies, as well as some privately-owned companies, are turning their sights to Mars. To that end, one of the major areas of study for the ISS crew is the effects of zero-gravity over long-term exposure. If its deemed likely that humans can handle the one- or two-year trip to Mars and back without suffering severe health repercussions due to zero gravity, then its unlikely well see artificial gravity become a thing in the foreseeable future.

Once we finally start setting our sights to the outer planets and to the permanent colonization of space, it will be a very different story. To that end, there will no doubt come a time when artificial gravity becomes the norm in long-distance space travel and colonization by way of vast rotating habitats. The question is more a matter of when than if but, if manned space travel to Mars is going to become a thing by the 2030s, then it seems reasonable to expect artificial gravity to overcome one of the greatest challenges of space travel in the decades that follow.

Future starships would have to rely on a far more efficient propulsion system than todays liquid-fuel rockets.

The realms of science fiction often disregard the laws of physics, dismissing them as inconvenient facts getting in the way of a good story. Unfortunately, its the very fact that nothing can travel faster than light that makes future space travel la Star Trek highly unlikely. Thats not to completely rule out the possibility of ever finding a way around the Universes speed limit; its just that concepts such as the Alcubierre warp drive step beyond the limits of accrued physics and are, therefore, not even known to be possible. With that in mind, lets look at how we might overcome the problem of unimaginably large distances in the foreseeable future.

While the Enterprise might be able to zip around the galaxy almost instantaneously, the reality of exploring solar systems of our own will be the product of monumental efforts spread across multip

le generations. Current theory suggests it may one day be feasible to build spaceships capable of travelling up to 12% the speed of light, in which case it would take around 34 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star beyond the solar system. This would be achieved using nuclear fusion propulsion, which is itself beyond our current technological capabilities.

NASA and DARPA are currently looking into the possibility of interstellar travel as part of their 100 Year Starship grant, an initiative that ultimately intends to make human interstellar travel possible within the next century. Far more likely than warp drives, however, the first manned interstellar spaceships will almost certainly be one-way trips owing to the distances and travel times involved. Trips beyond around ten light years, a relatively tiny distance in astronomical terms, would require generation ships, since it would take longer than a human lifetime to even reach the destination.

Assuming interstellar travel will take the form of slower-than-light travel, which is currently the only way we know to be possible, the challenges involved in such a trip would be truly immense. For a start, artificial gravity would be a must but, even more importantly, any interstellar spacecraft would have to be fully self-sustaining. In other words, it would need to be an entirely independent ecosystem capable of generating and supporting its own atmosphere, water and food crops. To that end, even with the challenge of distance met, there would still be a whole lot more to think about.

Another option, and one that any sci-fi aficionado will be familiar with, is suspended animation. Induced hibernation would help overcome many of the challenges of long-distance spaceflight, such as the consumption of resources and the fact that a lot of trips would take longer than a human lifetime. However, suspended animation might even become a thing long before we start aiming for the stars. In fact, even NASA is exploring the possibility of human stasis during the long trip to Mars. Perhaps, future space travel wont look like much at all, since well be fast asleep for the journey!

Future space habitats would be enormous, the result of monumental efforts to make the permanent habitation of space truly viable.

If living in space is ever to become anything more than a scientific curiosity, then it will become necessary to literally build a new world; a fully self-sustaining habitat that doesnt need any help or intervention from us here on Earth. In fact, it seems possible, perhaps even inevitable, that we will one day need to colonize space to save our species from our own destructive tendencies. This line of thinking does, of course, set a very dangerous precedence but, even if it does (hopefully) turn out that we can look after our own planet, the lust for exploration is an innate human trait.

With enough motivation, whether by necessity or inspiration upon finding definitive evidence of life among the stars, it will likely one day be technical feasible to build a self-sustaining space habitat. Initially, space habitats would import their resources from Earth but, when it comes to interstellar journeys, recycling would be necessary for maintaining a consistent water, air and food supply. However, even recycling has its limits, since a percentage of the original product will always be lost in the process. In other words, recycling is and can never be 100% efficient.

The limits of recycling would require any self-sustaining space habitat to be able to mine resources from things like asteroids, comets and even the surrounding space. Fortunately, the ingredients needed to sustain life, such as water and nitrogen, are widely available throughout the solar system and no doubt beyond, although space missions would still need to be able to stock up for those immensely long journeys spanning the practically empty stretches of interstellar space.

If indeed the more distant future, say a hundred plus years from now, self-sustaining space habitats become a thing, theyll no doubt be vast. Presenting a monolithic scientific and technological endeavour, these habitats will likely come in the form of toroidal or cylindrical colonies built to emulate Earths gravity and sustain complex ecosystems that can operate on their own for indefinite periods.

Future space colonies could house tens of thousands of people, complete with artificially generated gravity providing many of the comforts of home.

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We may still be a long way off from the dreams of science fiction, but I firmly believe there will come a day when space travel does finally become commonplace, and living in space with most of the comforts of home will become a viable option. As for setting our sights on alien solar systems, however well, thats anyones guess for the time being.

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