Category Archives: Mars Colonization

HILLTOWNS Some Hilltown residents are now able to sign up for satellite internet service provided by the SpaceX program Starlink as part of a massive service expansion subsidized by the Federal Communications Commission, but steep sign-up costs and monthly subscription fees may prevent people from getting online, highlighting the importance of affordability.

Coverage is primarily available in Rensselaerville, while coverage in Knox, Westerlo, and Berne is projected to be available by the end of the year, according to the Starlink website.

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with the goal of reducing the cost of space transportation so that Mars can be colonized. In 2015, Musk announced the development of Starlink, a satellite constellation, to provide broadband internet service.

When The Enterprise first reported on the FCCs subsidization program in December, all that was known was that companies who secured contracts with the FCC had 10 years to expand their services to areas deemed underserved, or else they would lose the portion of the $20 billion they received and have to pay back whatever amount they used.

These first steps toward service expansion come as frustrations mount in the Hilltowns over the failure of higher levels of government to establish the necessary infrastructure. Internet connection has become more crucial as the COVID-19 pandemic forces some families to work, learn, and attend local government meetings from home.

At its Jan. 20 meeting, the Berne Town Board authorized Supervisor Sean Lyons to write a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo demanding that the state follow up on promises to enhance rural broadband access.

Lyons suggests in his letter that internet access will be important in combating stereotypes he says have been associated with the Hilltowns since at least his childhood, when his father worked under supervisors at General Electric who claimed employees from the remote Hilltowns were not suited for professional work and instead just laborers.

Every day our youth fall behind the rest of the connected world, Lyons writes in the letter. Will our youth be labeled for labor only without the proper tools and access to make them competitive? The [Berne-Knox-Westerlo] school district has been deploying buses with Wi-Fi hot spots to multiple locations in the Hilltowns to allow our children to connect with their classes and teachers.

The state began subsidizing internet service expansion in 2015, when it launched a three-phase Broadband for All program that would provide nearly $750 million in private and public funds dedicated to coverage.

Lyons told The Enterprise this week that his home on Bradt Hollow Road was meant to be covered in the third phase of the program, the awards for which were announced in 2018, but that hes yet to see any benefit nearly three years later, even though fiber-optic cables were installed last summer.

They call it a success, Lyons said in an email. I say not yet. I live in one of the most rural parts of Berne and Albany county and have had fiber optic broadband service hanging on the pole outside my house since early summer as part of this phase 3, and am still not even being offered connection plans?

In Westerlo, Planning Board Chairwoman Dotty Verch, who also heads the towns broadband committee, said at a town board meeting earlier this month that shed been in contact with state Senator Michelle Hincheys office and indicated that Hinchey would be getting involved in expansion efforts, though Westerlo Supervisor Bill Bichteman voiced some pessimism about the chance of any meaningful progress.

What Im concerned about, Bichteman said, is that were going to get the token response, and whatll end up happening is the next populated area will be a short segment and its never going to be enough to do the total amount we have to do. Anything is better than nothing, but it just seems they dont really want to attack it like a real problem.

Join my frustration, Bill, Verch replied.

Part of the problem in getting money for broadband coverage lies in the way the government measures access, according to Hudson Valley Wireless General Manager Jason Guzzo, who explained to The Enterprise last year that existing coverage is measured by census block. But because census blocks in rural areas are relatively large, whole swaths of a town can be considered covered even if only one household in that block has internet capabilities.

Identifying partially served census blocks is very difficult without local knowledge of the community, Guzzo said at the time. Some homes with long driveways may have cable passing by the mailbox and cant afford to extend service to the house.

In Rensselaerville, the towns broadband committee developed a survey with the help of Boston University to better locate coverage gaps, though the committee has decided to prioritize lobbying on already-available data, which indicates that more than half of the parcels in Rensselaerville are without access, committee Chairman Hans Soderquist told The Enterprise in January.

While SpaceX appears on track to address issues of coverage, affordability is still an obstacle in the Hilltowns, where the poverty rate hovers around 6 percent, according to census data.

According to pre-pandemic 2018 data from the State Education Department, 32 percent of BKW students are eligible for free lunches and 6 percent are eligible for reduced-price lunches, an indicator of poverty.

To use Starlinks satellite service, residents will have to front $500 for the necessary hardware, as well as shipping and tax, which bring the total sign-up cost to nearly $600. Service will cost $99 per month, which is nearly twice as expensive as the cheapest rate advertised by Hudson Valley Wireless.

On Jan. 12, Cuomo announced his intent to propose legislation that would require internet service providers to supply connection to low-income families for $15 per month. However, Cuomo failed to sign legislation state lawmakers passed that would study and map the current state of internet affordability in the state, claiming that the $3 million cost of the project wasnt covered in the 2021 budget although he added it would be part of budget discussions.

Internet affordability at least for those who teach or are in school is also a focus of FCC Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who is considering an expansion of the commissions E-Rate program.

The E-Rate program currently makes telecommunications and information services more affordable for schools and libraries, according to the FCC website, but some lawmakers have called on the commission to include residential offerings in the program.

Last March, before Rosenworcel was acting chair, she indicated support for E-Rate expansion in a Verge op-ed.

With schools closing and learning migrating online, Rosenworcel wrote, this is the right moment to adjust FCC rules to expand how we think about internet access and the traditional classroom.

When asked last month whether he felt it was affordability or infrastructure that prevented Rensselaerville residents from securing access, Soderquist said that while coverage is a massive issue, affordability is absolutely a concern not solved merely by improving coverage.

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Hilltown internet coverage is expanding, but affordability is still a concern - The Altamont Enterprise

CHICAGO, Ill., Feb. 8, 2021 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) PLANETXXI, an exoplanet and mirror to Earth, has recently picked up chatter and cries for help to save planet Earth. Their voices were heard in CyberCity, PLANETXXIs satellite communications center saying that planet Earth is in trouble. Sandra Snowden, Founder of PLANETXXI LLC and newly launched online entertainment broadcasting website, PLANETXXITV.com, says she and her company are ready to help save planet earth.

PHOTO CAPTION: Celestina Xi at PLANETXXI CyberCity.

Through her cosmic character aka Celestina Xi, Ambassador from PLANETXXI, she is sending out an SOS to recruit a new generation of futurists and visionaries Cybernauts. Together, they will work to solve Earths environmental crisis and save the planet.

Concerned students are afraid that the future of the planet is grim and they are looking for ways to help. Becoming a PLANETXXI Cybernaut is one way to be a catalyst for change.

While NASA has astronauts travel the universe on space missions, PLANETXXI Cybernauts zoom at warp speed into cyberspace from CyberCity and connect with their counterparts in a Think Tank of Tomorrow where theyre challenged to create The First Eco City of the Future on PLANETXXI.

Using a blank canvas, students can Dare to Dream Big on their vision quest and design the kind of sustainable, and eco-friendly world they would like to live in and inherit. This eco-city will be their future. Through their illustrations, inventions, and innovation, PLANETXXI Cybernauts can change the paradigm and the course of history. They can also showcase their ideas and videos for all the world to see on PLANETXXI TVs YouTube Channel.

This is no time to stand on the sidelines and watch others take control of your future. Space greats already have plans to build cities on Mars and to create colonized habitats in space so people will have a safe place to live as Earth becomes more and more uninhabitable, Celestina says.

Celestina agrees that as the climate clock ticks, planet Earth may cease to exist by 2100 and believes that together, a sustainable future can be achieved on Earth and PLANETXXI.

Shes calling all futurists and visionaries, especially Generation Zers, to become part of the mission. In addition, teachers and classrooms are also invited to join PLANETXXI Cyber Schools of the Future in helping to create a new eco-friendly planet at: http://www.planetxxitv.com/.

Cybernauts will receive membership to Club PLANETXXI, along with a virtual passport giving them access to participate in all cyber events and virtual activities in CyberCity. Cyber Kids of the Future can also become a Cyber Pal to planet Earth and PLANETXXI. (PLANETXXI is COPPA compliant)

For more information:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PLANETxxi-104345174620968

VIDEO YouTube: https://youtu.be/X7ryR8X0xOM

GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/planetxxi-cyber-school-of-future

*PHOTO link for media: https://www.Send2Press.com/300dpi/21-0208s2p-celestinaxi-300dpi.jpg

*Caption: Celestina Xi at PLANETXXI CyberCity.

News Source: PLANETXXI LLC

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Cybernauts Called to PLANETXXI to Save Planet Earth - Send2Press Newswire

While covering the LoyolaMARS initiatives, Loyolan copy editor Brynn Shaffer sat down with some of the members of the team to talk about the club, their aspirations and the future of aerospace.

Troy Womack-Henderson, freshman computer science major

What inspired you to join LoyolaMARS? How did you first hear about it and how long have you been a part of it? How active are you in the team?

LMARS is actually one of the reasons that I decided to apply to, and attend, LMU. When I first heard about it, when I was applying around this time last year, I just saw that they were really involved in aerospace research, not just building rockets, but also just teaching about the aerospace industry and rocketry which was really cool When I was researching schools and I was considering LMU, since I knew it was in this aerospace hub of Southern California, I remember seeing an article I believe done by Seaver News, and it did a special back in 2018 on the current team. It had their website, and it basically just introduced me to what they were doing, their group and their society and everything. It all sounded really, really interesting and I hadnt seen other clubs similar to it at any other universities, so that definitely motivated my decision to apply to LMU.

Are you interested in space exploration at all, like being an astronaut yourself, or are you more interested in the behind the scenes/mechanical part of aerospace engineering?

I would definitely say a little bit of everything. I think that the aerospace industry, especially now with the industry in the U.S. trying to make space flight commercial and accessible to everyone, [is] a really exciting industry, and its something Ive always wanted to do since I was little. I really want to be an astronaut because I love space and I love rockets, and I think to do scientific research in space and help space exploration and humanity would be a really great thing for me to do for my career.

Marina Aziz, sophomore, electrical engineering with an emphasis in computer engineering major

Can you name a role model of yours? Maybe you have one within the aerospace industry?

Within people I know, definitely Dr. [Claire] Leon. I could talk about her for literally days. I love her. I admire her so much, shes such an incredible person. And the fact that she did the things she did before women in STEM was really even a thing. She worked for Boeing for 35 years, and then the AirForce for five and now shes a professor at LMU, so can you imagine like 45 years ago, she was working at Boeing, she stayed at Boeing for 35 years, was a manager, big-baller, shes just really cool.

With COVID-19 and the transition to Zoom, what has that looked like for you and the team? Has it been an easy or hard transition? Maybe discouraging?

The e-board people, like the president Matt, they havent made it very public if theyre struggling or not, but I think they have definitely had a good transition in terms of shifting from more hands-on projects to more like focusing on our careers. Which I think is really cool, I think they definitely made the most out of the situation that we were put in. The whole point of the club is to build rockets. So, you would expect that when we go online, were not going to be doing anything, right? But, if anything, I think that I feel more involved in the club now than I did before just because you always have like a speaker to look forward to or like a CAD workshop. Theres just always something to do now, and its like right at your fingertips. They definitely made the most out of it.

Sabrina Colet-Ruiz, senior mechanical engineering major

Are you interested in space exploration at all, like being an astronaut yourself, or are you more interested in the behind the scenes/mechanical part of aerospace engineering?

Definitely more like behind the scenes, for sure. I like space applications for satellites and for studying the Earth, but Im actually not really keen on Elon Musk, like colonization of Mars and stuff, I think its kind of a little ridiculous. I just think theres a lot of money going into it, and I think its so weird that people would rather move to Mars and colonize Mars, than just take care of what we have here. So I totally like the idea of satellites and rocketry and stuff to study Earth and to help improve the Earth, but I just think its a little weird that you would want to start another world on another planet.

What is your favorite thing about LoyolaMARS? Could be anything.

Right now I really like our speakers that come in to talk to us. So like speakers or more opportunities to talk to professionals in a smaller context than if you went to a big presentation at LMU, which they do sometimes, like the Seaver spotlights.

Clare Galvin, junior mechanical engineering major, computer science minor

What inspired you to join LoyolaMARS? How did you first hear about it and how long have you been a part of it? How active are you in the team?

I joined LMARS freshman year because I heard it would be a good idea to join a project as an engineering major and be working on it. And I chose LMARS because they came to speak to all the freshmen and caught my eye. First semester, freshman year, all of the project leaders came to talk to us and I was the most interested in rocket club. Since then, Ive been on the team, so three years and now I am the treasurer, so Im trying to be a little more of a leader in the club. Were now participating in this dollar per foot challenge.

Can you name a role model of yours? Maybe you have one within the aerospace industry?

One of our professors actually is our club advisor, Dr. Leon, Dr. Claire Leon. And we share a first name so thats fun. She is really cool. She was, I think, a VP, or at least a manager, at Boeing and then went to lead a division at the AirForce as a civilian. And she helped me get my connections that led to my internship last summer, so shes just been a really helpful mentor and shes just really cool.

How do you think being a part of LoyolaMARS is benefiting you individually? Maybe in either personal or professional aspects of life, or maybe just to fulfill a hobby of yours?

Its definitely helpful professionally. Its hard to know what to talk about in a job interview, but a project is the best thing to talk about for an engineering student, especially one that can apply so directly to a lot of the companies that are around us since we are in such an aerospace-heavy part of the world. Its been super helpful for interviews for me.

Jesus Arzapalo, sophomore philosophy major

Can you name a role model of yours? Maybe you have one within the aerospace industry?

Theres this astronaut who used to be a navy seal and also a doctor, his name is Johnny King. Its pretty crazy to be a navy seal and then go to med school and then become an astronaut, a really difficult career.

Professor Leon told me about the weekly speaker series. What are your thoughts on them? Are they inspiring? Who has been one of your favorite speakers thus far?

Yeah, they are inspiring. Its great to hear from people in the industry in engineering; just right now I came from one, her name was Candace Givens, she works at Northrop Grumman. She was describing her career as she started as a systems engineer and then she went to LMU to get a masters and now shes been working there for a while. Its really interesting to hear how people find different career paths. So that is inspiring.

Jose Garcia, senior mechanical engineering major

What are your duties and responsibilities as VP of LoyolaMARS?

I do a lot of outreach. I work with the president to figure out what speakers we should have. I also teach a class through the club, so I use it as a platform to help give back to the community, the LMU community as much as possible.

How does aerospace and medicine fit together, since it seems like a very unconventional path?

Its very common for astronauts to be doctors because they have different missions that are required, depending on what the budget is, to do specific research. So very often, youll find astronauts who have a medical degree or they have a PhD in something, but theyll bring along a whole team with different strengths, and with that, Ill just have more strengths allocated.

Is there anything you think the team is lacking/could be improved upon?

Members! I feel like there are a lot of tools and opportunities that I feel that we provide that I wish more people took advantage of.

This article is part of a three-part package series on LoyolaMARS, in which Loyolan copy editor Brynn Shaffer investigates the club in-depth. Read more coverage with a news story on everything you should know about the club,and anopinion pieceon why space exploration is fundamental to societal advancement.

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Meet the team behind the brains: LoyolaMARS students talk all things aerospace - Los Angeles Loyolan

Who:Elon Musk

Location: West Hollywood.

What he's wearing: A black tee celebrating the Apollo XIs 50th anniversary, black jeans, a leather jacket, and a black and white bandana.

Editors Notes: Don't be an idiot. It was only a couple of weeks ago that we saw a mask-less Musk getting up-close with Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle (shortly before the comedian contracted Covid). Yet even with all the money andscientificknowledge at his disposal, Musk hasn't learned to mask-up properly.

Over the last year, the bandana has emerged as theface-covering of choice for celebrities who haven't quite got the memo (Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis et al). Sure, guidance on masks from authorities has been confusing and sometimes contradictory, with health officials previously urging the public not to buy masks, due to a major shortage in crucial protective gear. But surely if you cancolonize Mars you can put on an N95 respirator especially if you're going to eat out in a pandemic.

According to theCenters for Disease Control, a bandana is useful, but only if youve used the material as a base to make your own tight-fitting mask. Tying one around your face is not going to do a huge amount to protect you or others, and communicates a boomer, "IDGF" attitude to those in your vicinity.

Thankfully,the mask gamehas come a long way in the last year which means you can protect yourself and others while looking good. PPE gear is now firmly woven into the fabric of everyday life and it's being produced by the likes of Marine Serre and Off-White.

Check out some of our favorite protective gearincluding face masks you can work out in.

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Someone Tell Elon Musk That Bandanas Aren't Face Masks - Highsnobiety

Cleveland Cavaliers big man Andre Drummond seems to support one of the latest trends in economics.

He retweeted a post by Elon Musk to show his support for Dogecoin.

Dogecoin is an emerging type of cryptocurrency started by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer.

Last month, its value jumped by 800 percent in just 24 hours, thanks in part to Musks encouragement and the short squeeze of video game retailer GameStop.

Musk is best known as the CEO of auto manufacturer Tesla, Inc. and the CEO of SpaceX, a company that is looking to colonize the planet of Mars.

Drummond has been a key part of the Cavs promising start. He has always been one of the NBAs most ferocious rebounders, and he hasnt let up in that department since joining the team.

However, he may soon be on the move. There are persistent rumors that the Cavs will either trade or buy out Drummond in the coming weeks.

The hot rumor is that if he is indeed bought out, he would join the Brooklyn Nets to bolster their thin frontcourt.

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Andre Drummond backs Elon Musk, campaigning Dogecoin to pump to the moon - Cavaliers Nation

Oh, you tapped out early, filmmaker Rodney Ascher joked with me after his newest documentary, A Glitch in the Matrix, had its virtual Sundance premiere.

Id explained to him that I was so disturbed by an early scene in which an eyewitnessa.k.a. a person who believes we live in a simulated realityvividly describes a dissociative episode that I had to close my laptop and take a Klonopin. (A few days later, I watched the film againthis time beneath a number of comforting afghans.) For a filmmaker devoted to making work about irrational fears, there could be no higher compliment.

In the film, eyewitness Paul Gude tells his story of descending into the Null while rendered (as all eyewitnesses are) as a computerized avatar. He looks sort of like a ThunderCat but with a trick up his sleeve. His terrifying tale comes amid a barrage of wacko talk that shreds the fabric of existence, and the way Ascher slowly lets the pretzel logic buildmoving beyond online denizens with handles like Brother Lo Mystwood to include thinkers like Plato, Ren Descartes, Philip K. Dick, Elon Musk, and Neil deGrasse Tysonhas a cumulative effect. After watching the film, I am not entirely ready to say that we live inside an enormous high-powered computer program. But we all live somewhere, and that place is still pretty weird.

Aschers films, like the books of Philip K. Dick, have a tremendous knack for seeding playful paranoia. His first feature, Room 237, used different interpretations of The Shining to investigate obsessive behavior. The Nightmare, which explored sleep paralysis, had an unforgettable midnight Sundance premiere in which an audience member (who later explained she suffered from the condition) caused a kerfuffle that spread through the crowd, much to the directors glee.

A Glitch in the Matrix, which debuts at virtual cinemas and VOD this Friday, is a serious film about an enormous topic, and includes testimony from the so-called Matrix murderer Joshua Cooke. But its also a movie about nutcases who think we live in a microchip and the planet is inhabited by NPCs (i.e. non-player characters, a term imported from video games). It takes a special kind of filmmaker to make this story work; Ascher is that filmmaker.

Vanity Fair: So you do the research, you have conversations, you replay them 100 times as you edit, you create the trippy visuals. At what point did A Glitch in the Matrix really start to fuck with your head?

Rodney Ascher: It would be a better story to say that it did. But even having conversations with Joshua Cooke about the murder of his parents, I would go home and play with my kid, then fall asleep in front of the TV. Its a day at the office. I like to think that my movies are crazier than I am in person.

What affected me was being in the mix roomwatching it big, hearing the sound design and music that Jonathan Snipes made. Hearing that existential dread at a loud volume does start to work through your lower intestines.

Your movies are always funny, but you seem to go to great lengths to never make fun of your subjects.

I dont have a Dogme 95type list of rules, but its a matter of watching, rewatching, and revising. There are jokes in there, but I hope were never mocking the people were talking to. There are plenty of things people say that I dont necessarily agree with.

Anyone doing a close read of your work would probably never think these are your points of view. There are inconsistencies throughout, anyway. Some of these characters accept that we live in a computer simulation, and are coping with that. Joshua, from prison, is denouncing it.

Both cant be true!

Most of the time you watch and think, Well, this guys nuts. Then someone floats an idea and its Oh, yes, well obviously. This happens time and again in your films. Its your special trick to make something bananas seem palatable. Is this something you do in life? Do you live to make strange arguments?

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Is Our Whole World Just a Simulation? Enter A Glitch in the Matrix - Vanity Fair

If youre on PlayStation, chances are youve had easy access to the developerSpiders best game yet, and by now, are probably nearing the end of your journey. You wont be able to continue playing after completion, but you will be able to return to a previous save file. So if you want more from the island, the best thing to do is complete the extremely interesting and rewarding companion side quests (especially if youd also like a pirate face tattoo). If youve been there and done that and still want more, here are other games like Greedfall to think about.

A sequel to the PS3s Mars: War Logs, which you dont need to have played in order to enjoy its successor, The Technomancer is incredibly similar due to its mechanics. As an electricity-wielding, melee-proficient soldier on Mars, youre able to utilize three different combat styles (one with a staff, one with a gun, and one with a shield). The combat has essentially the same PS3-era, arcade-like feel, and similar character appearance and animation style.

Speaking of appearance, you can edit Zachariahs hair and face to a modest degree, and you can outfit him with the gear you find along your journey by looting enemies and opening chests around the maps. Other RPG elements also endure; skill trees enable you to devote more focus towards improving specific combat styles and your technomancy powers overall, and another menu allows you to upgrade other, less combat-oriented Talents, such as Charisma, Science, and Lockpicking.

Just as the settings of Teer Fradee are divided by faction and aesthetic, so too are the cities of Mars. Ophir is cold and sort of cyberpunk in style, while Noctis is like a Martian bazaar. The games story is decent, and though the premise is not quite as original as Greedfalls, the elaboration upon the premise is. Simply put, its not like any interpretation of Martian colonization youve already seen a hundred times before.

Finally, the hallmark of a Spiders game is undoubtedly its satisfying companion system. Each of them has a different combat style and benefits to offer, and three (two women and one man) can be romanced. Now, dont get discouraged by the first options offered to you. Just trust me, there are much better folks waiting to help you, like Beg, the sun-scarred and seemingly dull mutant.

An ambitious RPG, Vampyrs story revolves around doctor/vampire Jonathan Reid. The emphasis on communication and diplomacy between characters is there, as is the skill tree progression system. The combat shares the same foundation asour previous Mars themed entry, plus a sort of toned-down version of Bloodborne. I draw this comparison mainly from the shared gun mechanics; melee definitely comes first, but an easy, close-range shot from a pistol will help damage and disorient enemies. However, your most useful tools wont be your weapons but your supernatural powers.

Enemies are scattered throughout the open world, but every kill seems to pose possible consequences and ramifications. Reid is no legate of any congregation, like De Sardet, but he certainly has to pick his words and actions just as carefully. 20th-century London is a close-knit place.

Ive only played the latest installment of the Dragon Age series. Though previous entries of these games might be more like Greedfall, I feel confident in recommending Dragon Age: Inquisition to almost anyone. The massive world is divided into sections to which you can fast travel; this allows for incredibly diverse locations. The combat is arcade-ish, but the true appeal for those reading this would be the stellar companion system.

Playing as a Qunari rogue, I romanced Dorian, my mage companion. I found my partner to be valuable in combat, and I complimented his and my skills with the long-range weaponry of Varric and the brute strength of Blackwall, whom I outfitted with the finest armor I could craft. Truly one of the best games Ive ever played.

With that, you now know of three games like Greedfall to pick up and enjoy.

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If You Loved Greedfall, Try These 3 Games Like It - KeenGamer News

Despite facing criticism from users and lawmakers as well as being hit with a class action lawsuit after it imposed trading restrictions on GameStop, AMC, and other stocks targeted by the r/WallStreetBets community, Robinhood has seen a flood of new capital and users.

The popular fee-free investment app, which bills itself as "democratizing" investing while selling its users' trading data to hedge funds, was a nexus of the amateur trading activity that buoyed dark horse stocks and walloped short-sellers like Melvin Capital. After it restricted trading on popular stocks to sell-only as prices fell last Thursday, though, Robinhood became something of a villain as users felt it had turned heel and lawmakers demanded hearings.

Now, just like the massive investment funds that had the value of their ownership stakes in GameStop inflated astronomically thanks to all this activity by amateur investors, it's starting to seem like Robinhood will make it out OK after all.

For one, Robinhood is seemingly still very popular. According to The New York Times, Thursdaythe day of Robinhood's strictest trading restrictionswas also its best ever: it saw over 177,000 downloads (twice the previous week's daily rate) and had 2.7 million daily users.

Robinhood also announced on Monday that it raised another $2.4 billion in a new funding round led by Ribbit Capital and including existing investors such as ICONIQ Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and NEA. Bloomberg reported that the investment would convert into equity at a $30 billion valuation or a 30 percent discount on its initial public offering (IPO), and then would be followed by another $1 billion infusion converting to equity at either a $33 billion or a 30 percent IPO discount. Robinhood has been planning to go public in May since late last year, either through an initial public listing, a direct listing, or a merger with a SPAC.

Robinhood was also given a platform from which it could explain itself to a reasonably friendly audience. In a conversation with SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the social media app Clubhouse on January 31, Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev said that the National Securities Cleaning Corporation asked for $3 billion in collateral to back up trades of increasingly volatile stocks on its platform.

This ask was "an order of magnitude" larger than usual, Tenev said, adding that "Robinhood up until that point has raised around $2 billion in total venture capital." This is what led to Robinhood restricting trades and tapping credit lines at six banks as well as seeking emergency cash infusions.

Musk was there to speak directly to his biggest fans about crowd-favorite topics like Mars colonization and artificial intelligence. It was undoubtedly a friendly audience for Musk full of acolytes, and he threw seemingly "tough" questions at Tenev only for them to be calmly explained. Clubhouse, where the conversation took place, is a hangout for Silicon Valley and Valley-adjacent types primarily backed by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, which was an investor in Robinhood's latest funding round.

Still, Robinhood isn't in for smooth sailing, exactly. The company now faces increased regulatory scrutiny and saw a class-action lawsuit shortly after it began restricting trades. This recent spectacle will likely refocus attention on accusations from Massachusetts securities regulators in late December that the company takes advantage of inexperienced customers. In a 50 page response released late Friday, Robinhood insisted that it has actually gone out of its way to democratize finance and dismissed claims that it gamifies investing, lets customers engage in risky trades, and that any of its techniques could be considered illegal.

The truth is that Robinhood has momentum, a hooked user base, and a business model that seems empowering for users but rather exploits them. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Robinhood's senior director of product management Madhu Muthukumar said that the app's gambling-adjacent interface is intentional and designed to make it feel like something thats familiar to populations that historically have not been served. And for all the rhetoric around "democratizing" finance, Robinhood sells all its users' trades to huge firms such as Citadel Securities which sees them before they are even executed on the market. Indeed, the SEC fined Robinhood $65 million recently for losing investors tens of millions of dollars due to its business dealings with market makers.

Robinhood is reminiscent of another company here: Facebook. The tech giant skates through every controversy no matter how outrageous and becomes more powerful while directly exploiting its users' privacy and at the same time claiming to "give people the power to build community."

As Jacob Silverman writes in The New Republic, the troubles it's facing now are unlikely to halt Robinhood's advance. In a time of rampant poverty, precarity, and also absurd wealth, we are heading towards becoming a nation of gamblers hoping to strike it rich. That Robinhoods siren call is more popular than ever should be read as a omenthe app is simply bringing more people to a casino when they have less to gamble with. And in a casino, the house always wins.

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Robinhood Screwed Its Users But Is More Popular Than Ever - VICE

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on February 1 revealed an ambitious plan to get humans on Mars by 2026, which is seven years before US space agency NASA aims to land astronauts on the Red planet. While speaking on the audio-only social media app Clubhouse, Musk said that his goal was to establish a self-sustaining Martian civilisation. For the first time, he mentioned a time-line and said that he will get humans on the Red Planet in five and a half years.

Musks deadline seems little ambitious as there is a long way to go. SpaceX is still working to finalise the prototypes, with a second high-altitude test flight due soon. Even NASA aims to get first humans on the Red Planet in 2033. It is also worth mentioning that it currently takes at least six months to get to Mars, however, Musk believes that could be down to as little as a month, with flights operating every two years.

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While speaking on Clubhouse, the SpaceX CEO went on to say that over time one can make Mars Earth-like by transforming the planet by warming it up. He said that the first colony will be a tiny, dangerous, frontier-like environment as they begin to establish propellant manufacturing, food production and power plants. He said that there are a number of technological advances that need to be made between now and 2026 before humans can travel to Mars on Starship.

Further, when asked if he would allow his children to go to the Red planet on a future rocket trip, Musk said, if were talking about the third or fourth set of landings on Mars Id be ok with that. He added that so far none of them are jumping to go to Mars.

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Meanwhile, the latest 'SN9' Starship prototype is due to undergo a high altitude test flight in the coming days - similar to the test in December that ended in an explosion. The scientists are going to check how this prototype performs. SpaceX is aiming to launch the SN9 at the speed of 15 km, which is much higher than the speed used by any rocketto date. The previousthree engine prototypes named Star hopper, SN5,SN6 attained a minimum altitude of 500 during the test flight. The test flights were conducted in the past year. Elon Musk wants to use his SpaceX mission to help humanity and also plans to create a "Colony of Humans" on Mars.

Back in November, the tech mogul had even said that he wants to make his own laws on the Red planet. Musk said that once SpaceX reachesMars,it will colonize the planet as there are no universal laws on the planet. All Martian settlement will be dealt with using "self-governing principles, Musk said in a document that lists Terms of Service of its Starlink internet project, declaring himself the governing entity in space. Further, the rocket company's satellite-based internet service, Starlink suggests that it will not recognize the land-based international law that governs Earth on the red planet.

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Elon Musk reveals ambitious plans to get humans to Mars seven years ahead of NASA - Republic World

Next month, three new spacecraft arrive at Mars. Two represent firsts for their countries of origin, while the third opens a new era of Mars exploration. The first is the UAEs Emirates Mars Mission, also known as Hope, which enters orbit on 9 February. Shortly after, Chinas Tianwen-1 settles into the red planets gravitational grip and in April will deploy a lander carrying a rover to the surface.

Both of these missions are groundbreaking for their countries. If they are successful, their makers will join the US, Russia, Europe and India in having successfully sent spacecraft to Mars. However, it is the third mission that is destined to capture the most headlines.

On 18 February, around 8pm GMT, Nasa will attempt to land the car-size rover Perseverance in Jezero crater. Its got a long list of science objectives to work through. We want to get a fuller understanding of how Mars formed as a planet, says Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial College London, who is part of the Perseverance science team.

On Earth, the constant shifting of the crust has mostly destroyed the very first surface rocks to form, but on Mars the oldest rocks are preserved, so there is an unbroken record stretching back more than four billion years. As well as telling us about the history of the planets formation, those primeval rocks could also contain clues as to whether life ever began on the red planet.

Yet what makes Perseverance unique is that it is also the first part of an ambitious 10-year plan between Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa) to bring Martian rocks to Earth in around 2031.

Scientists really want rocks from Mars back on Earth, says Gupta. Samples can be analysed much more thoroughly on Earth than using even the most sophisticated Mars rover. And because laboratory techniques improve constantly, they can continue to be inspected year after year for new discoveries.

The value of sample return was demonstrated in the 1970s when the analysis of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts changed our understanding of the solar systems history and formation.

To replicate this success for Mars, Perseverance is equipped with more than 30 canisters, into which interesting-looking rocks will be loaded and then cached on the surface. If all goes well, a European rover built at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage will arrive on Mars in 2028 to collect the canisters. It will load them into a Nasa spacecraft known as the Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will blast them to a rendezvous with the European supplied Earth Return Orbiter that will bring the samples to Earth.

Whereas the lunar samples of the 1970s were from a barren world, Mars could once have been a habitable planet. So key investigations will involve looking for evidence of past or possibly present life and that is a whole new ballgame.

If you discover signs of life on Mars, you want to know thats Martian life, right? You dont want to accidentally discover E coli bacteria that hung on to your spacecraft, says Casey Dreier, chief advocate and senior space policy adviser for the Planetary Society, a non-profit organisation for space advocacy based in Pasadena, California.

To keep the scientific results as pure as possible, spacecraft and equipment are cleaned with chemical solvents or by heating.

When building a mission to Mars, you have to apply these biological controls that go beyond what we typically use for satellites that we build for, say, Earth observation, says Gerhard Kminek, a planetary protection officer for Esa. Hes been working since 2004 to make sure such precautions become standard practice at Esa for anything going to Mars including the Rosalind Franklin rover that will launch in 2022 and which carries life-detection equipment.

From working on Rosalind Franklin, European aerospace companies Airbus and Thales Alenia Space now have biologically controlled cleanrooms in which to build almost completely sterile spacecraft. Were in a very good position, says Kminek, so much so that Nasa sent a delegation late last year to visit the facilities and learn from them.

Kminek is also spearheading studies into the kind of containment facility needed to hold Mars samples on Earth. Working with organisations such as Public Health England, the Porton Down laboratory and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Controls, Thales UK and the University of Leicester have already built a prototype double wall isolation chamber under an Esa contract.

Such precautions are known as planetary protection, which is split into two components. Forward contamination is the introduction of Earth life on to other worlds; backwards contamination is concerned with the possibility, however remote, of extraterrestrial life brought back to Earth escaping into the biosphere.

It was initially discussed in the 1950s in the run-up to the launch of the first satellite, the Soviet Unions Sputnik 1, and the Committee on Space Research (Cospar) issued its first planetary protection guidelines in 1959. Back then, scientists thought the solar system was much more habitable. You read Arthur C Clarke novels written in the 50s that talk about native Martians and people dont see that as being an absurdity, says Thomas Cheney, lecturer in space governance at the Open University.

That all changed in 1971, when Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Mars. The pictures it sent back were sobering. There was no vegetation and no visible signs of life. Indeed, there was not even an indication of past life. People were surprised at just how dead Mars actually turned out to look, says Cheney.

Closer investigation in more recent decades, however, has swung opinions back again. It is now thought that Mars could have been habitable and that microbes may still be clinging on in areas of the planet where liquid water is present. Planetary protection concerns mean that spacecraft cannot go to these areas. So, life-detection experiments cannot investigate the areas most likely to support life and therefore most concentrate on looking for the evidence of past life on Mars.

Beyond these purely pragmatic scientific issues, however, a larger debate is brewing that brings in an ethical dimension. Its something that is, I think, even more important in a sense, says Dreier. Its applying the lessons of horrendous mistakes that humans have made in terms of exploration in the past.

Perhaps the most widely known of these mistakes is the European colonisation of Hawaii in the 18th century. Various diseases devastated the indigenous population because of the bacteria and viruses that were introduced. While there is no real chance of animal life on Mars, Dreier thinks the same consideration should be extended to bacteria. If theres life there, we dont want to inadvertently introduce a competing form of life that could undermine or destroy that, he says.

In truth, this concern has always underpinned the planetary protection guidelines, but its re-emergence as a discussion point is because Nasa and its partners are on the brink of returning humans to the moon. They also have ambitions for sending astronauts to Mars sometime in the 2030s and wherever humans go, contamination is sure to follow. We are for want of a better word leaky, even when enclosed in space suits. There is no such thing as a perfect seal, so viruses and bacteria will be constantly escaping into extraterrestrial environments.

The way we currently try to minimise the impact is to say that all areas with the potential for water are off limits, even to biologically decontaminated rovers such as Perseverance. Yet this will not work for human exploration, because water is going to be an essential resource for astronauts to drink and to make oxygen and rocket fuel with. Such in-situ resource utilisation is hard written into everyones plans for exploration.

On the face of it, planetary protection rules out a human exploration programme and all the scientific exploration that could bring. It would have scuppered the historic moon landings if anyone had thought about it too much. The Apollo missions would have been entirely impossible if someone had tried to enforce planetary protection, says Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society, which advocates for human missions to Mars.

Those early astronauts left several hundred pounds of metabolic waste on the moon. This includes 96 bags of poo, urine, vomit and food waste. Apart from making the most historic feat of human exploration sound more like the aftermath of a student party, the point is that those waste products will have contained more than 1,000 microbial species usually found in the human gut.

Zubrin, whose book The Case for Mars is celebrating its 25th year in print, thinks that planetary protection is overcautious. He points to the subset of naturally occurring meteorites on Earth that have been shown to come from Mars and that this must have been happening since the formation of the solar system 4.6bn years ago.

One Martian meteorite in particular, ALH84001, aroused great interest in 1996 when a group of scientists claimed to have found microscopic fossils of Martian bacteria inside. Although that conclusion is still hotly contested, part of the analysis showed that the meteorite had never been subjected to temperatures above 40C. If there had been microbes in it, they could have survived the trip, says Zubrin, and billions of tons of such material have transferred from Mars to Earth in the last four billion years.

In other words, if nature does not respect planetary protection protocols, why should we?

Nasa recently commissioned a report on planetary protection. Published in October 2019, the Planetary Protection Independent Review Board recommended that different areas of a celestial body should be classified in different ways. Previously, the Cospar planetary protection rules applied to a celestial body as a whole. Now, specific areas can be protected while leaving others to be explored.

Its a stopgap at best because the water-rich areas necessary for the establishment of permanent bases remain off limits. To make progress, Cheney would like to see planetary protection become part of a wider discussion about space as an environment, so that we can decide what our priorities are for space exploration.

Its not just a place where you can do anything you want. What you do has consequences, he says. He points to space debris as something that could be rolled into a wider discussion of protecting the environment of space.

And theres no time to lose. The Cospar planetary protection guidelines are not part of international law, so while its recommendations are written into the fabric of Nasa, Esa and other major space agencies, there is nothing to stop the burgeoning private space sector sending anything they want into space. And as the flotilla of missions arriving at Mars demonstrates, the red planet is no longer as remote as it once seemed.

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Is there life on Mars? Not if we destroy it with poor space hygiene - The Guardian