Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Hop-on jet service JSX spent years trying to find the right in-flight Wi-Fi before SpaceX's Starlink came along, its CEO Alex Wilcox said.

Elon Musk's SpaceX signed its first deal last week to offer its Starlink satellite internet for free onboard planes of JSX, a semi-private regional carrier which was founded six years ago.

Wilcox told Insider that Wi-Fi onboard its planes was the number one request from customers, especially when the company started to offer longer haul trips across the US.

JSX spoke to various internet providers before they realised Starlink was the perfect match. The jet service firm had been in talks with Starlink for around a year, Wilcox said.

"We've kissed a lot of frogs," said Wilcox, who is also a founding executive of JetBlue.

Other internet providers would have required JSX to stick huge antennas, which connect to satellites, onto its aircraft but these weren't compatible with the company's small, 30-seater jets, Wilcox said. JSX even tried to convince the providers to make a different antenna, but the market was too small, he added.

Whereas Starlink only required an antenna, which is 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters big and can be mounted on top of the plane, Wilcox said.

Wilcox described Starlink's technology as "compact" and "lightweight." The antenna doesn't add any fuel burn, nor does it have any drag to the plane, he said.

JSX also chose Starlink for its fast speed and low latency, given that the satellites are positioned in low-Earth orbit and are therefore closer to the aircraft and Earth, Wilcox said. Other internet providers' launch their satellites into geostationary orbit, which takes longer for the signal to travel.

"When you consider most of the other providers, the in-flight Wi-Fi is the hardest thing they do," he said. "When you consider SpaceX and the other things they're trying to achieve, this is the easiest thing they're trying to do."

Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, a company which builds rockets designed to fly to the moon and other planets, and one day help with the colonization of Mars.

Passengers selecting Starlink WiFi on their devices while cruising on JSX jets won't be faced with a log-in screen, terms and conditions to accept, or credit card details.

"You'll accept all of that stuff when you buy your ticket," Wilcox said, confirming that the Wi-Fi service will be free.

JSX is different from major airlines because it offers more of an exclusive journey. Customers pay more to fly with JSX but in return, they receive free cocktails, snacks, baggage check, and carry-ons. They can also turn up to the flight 20 minutes before departure, Wilcox said.

Starlink will "make our customers' lives easier," Wilcox added.

Within days of signing the deal, Starlink engineers were on JSX's site testing the service on planes, Wilcox said.

The aim is to have half of its fleet of 77 planes equipped with Starlink by December this year. The other half will be kitted out by the end of next year, Wilcox said. The deal between JSX and Starlink covers service on up to 100 planes.

As part of the tests, Starlink has to make sure the antenna doesn't interfere with the safety and operation of the plane and ensure it won't get damaged by ice or other weather conditions, Wilcox said.

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The CEO of an exclusive jet carrier says he 'kissed a lot of frogs' before landing a Wi-Fi deal with SpaceX - Business Insider India

The Drake equation is one of the most famous equations in astronomy. It has been endlessly debated since it was first posited in 1961 by Frank Drake, but so far has served as an effective baseline for discussion about how much life might be spread throughout the galaxy. However, all equations can be improved, and a team of astrobiologists and astronomers think they have found a way to do so.

The equation itself was centered around the search for radio signals. However, its formulation would imply that it is more likely to see what are now commonly called biosignatures rather than technological ones. For example, astronomers could find methane in a planets atmosphere, which is a clear sign of life, even if that planet hasnt developed any advanced intelligence yet.

That search for biosignatures wasnt possible when Drake originally wrote the equation but it is so now. As such, it might be time to modify some of the factors in the original equation to reflect scientists new search capabilities better. One way to do that is to split the equation into two separate ones, reflecting the search for biosignatures and technosignatures respectively.

Biosignatures, captured in the new framework by the term N(bio), would likely develop much more commonly than technosignatures, captured in the new framework as N(tech). Logically that would result from the fact that the number of planets that go on to develop a technologically advanced civilization is much less than the total number of planets that form life in the first place. After all, it took Earth around 4 billion years after its first spark of life to develop an intelligent civilization.

But that first blush doesnt account for a fundamental characteristic of technology while it might have to originate from a planet with a biosphere, it certainly doesnt have to stay there. This significantly impacts another factor in the Drake equation L or the length of time that a signal is detectable. Dr. Jason Wright of Penn State University, the first author of the new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and his co-authors point out that four factors point to technology being potentially longer-lived than biology.

First, as would be apparent to anyone who is a fan of science fiction, technology can long outlive the biology that created it. In fact, in some cases, the technology itself can destroy the biosphere that created it. But it would still be detectable, even at a distance, long after the lifeforms that had created it had died off. And it could do so on the order of millions or even billions of years, depending on the robustness of the technology.

If the lifeforms didnt die off in the early stages of their technological awakening, they probably would want to expand to other planets and would take their technology with them. Which leads to the second factor technospheres can potentially outnumber biospheres. For example, if lunar colonization moves steadily over the next few hundred years, the Moon would become a world with no biosphere but would very clearly have a technosphere around it.

Moving even further up the technology tree, technology itself could become self-replicating, such as a von Neumann probe or another self-replicating system. These would be able to leave any originating biosphere behind, but they could also potentially keep going long after whatever biology had initially created them had moved on.

That would hint at the fourth factor that technosignatures can even exist without a planet at all, in the form of spacecraft or satellites. In fact, this might even be the most common form of technosignature in the galaxy. As such, the limiting factors of the Drake equation, which are all directly tied to a planet, dont apply to technology.

One other factor affects how easy it would be to find biosignatures versus technosignatures how detectable they are. Dr. Wright and his colleagues mention that biosignature detection is challenging in fact, we currently cant even detect Earths biosignature at the distance of Alpha Centauri. Data from James Webb might eventually allow for that. But even so, radio astronomy projects such as the Square Kilometer Array are much more attuned to detecting what are clearly signs of technology.

Just how clearly is another sticking point, though, for both biosignature and technosignature searchers. For both categories, it can be challenging to separate a valid signal from the noise, which can take many forms, such as muddied spectral analysis or heat signatures. Despite that, Dr. Wright and his team make a strong case that technosignatures at least have the potential to be much clearer than any biosignatures, which are likely unintentional side effects of the growth of life more generally.

What all this means is simple the search for extraterrestrial intelligence should continue, and it is probably more likely to find a sign of a technologically advanced civilization than it is to find a burgeoning non-technological one. Even if the civilization that created the signal is long gone, that would still hold true. That permanence can be viewed as either a somber side effect or the happy result of years of evolution and discovery. You can decide for yourself which way to look at it.

Learn More:Wright et al The Case for Technosignatures: Why They May Be Abundant, Long-lived, HighlyDetectable, and UnambiguousUT 60 Years Later, is it Time to Update the Drake Equation?UT Calculate the Number of Alien Civilizations in the Milky Way for Yourself.UT Could We Detect an Ancient Industrial Civilization in the Geological Record?

Lead image:Artists concept of a Dyson Sphere.Credit SentientDevelopments.com

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There Should be More Evidence of Alien Technology Than Alien Biology Across the Milky Way - Universe Today

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Japan, South Korea look to repair ties ahead of Biden visit - Leader-Telegram

Jasmin Moghbeli, 38, sat in a manila and pale blue quarantine room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, preparing to support the upcoming SpaceX Crew 4 launch planned for April 23. She was also most likely contemplating her own launch to the International Space Station, most likely late next year.

Its more excitement than nervousness, Moghbeli, a native of Germany who was born into an Iranian family that immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Baldwin when she was 8 months old, told the Herald last Friday. Its something Ive wanted to do for an extremely long time.

Alongside her will be Pilot Andreas Mogensen, two other mission specialists, yet to be announced, and a Crew 7 Dragan vehicle, all going into space to maintain the ISS and head back. Assisting back on Earth will be Mission Control, where Moghbeli has worked in the past.

Her experience there gives her a sense of tranquility in the face of uncertainty, knowing just how many people are looking out for our well-being out there and making sure, if a problem arises, that they help us solve it that gives me a lot of comfort, knowing the people working behind the scenes to get us safely up there and get us safely back.

Its kind of surreal to think about, Moghbeli a Baldwin High School and MIT graduate, added of making her lifelong dream a reality. Theres a part of you thats like, oh, thats never really going to happen, and to be so close to actually going into space, its kind of hard to even process.

Astronauts work is essential, she said. Anytime we explore and push the boundaries further, she said, we learn things we didnt know we were going to learn.

Focused on medical breakthroughs on Earth and the future colonization of Mars, her work now and in the coming years will give humankind the cornerstone for many firsts. A member of the Artemis Project, which will utilize the next generation of lunar landers, Moghbeli is slated to explore the moons untouched south polar region.

It is possible that she will be the first woman on the moon, there to set up a sustained presence by utilizing the hydrogen and oxygen in the water in the form of ice, which NASA scientists believe exists in that region to produce breathable air, fuel and more.

The development there will be a test before mankind attempts to settle on Mars. The importance of the moon operation, Moghbeli said, is to practice operationally how we do things on another planetary body when its only a couple days of transit, a few seconds of com delay Talking about Mars, its orders of magnitude further delays are minutes, at times more than that. Getting those practices down before that is really important.

Nonetheless, she said, We need to push out further and further into the solar system, I think that is a must thats really important to us as humanity.

Moghbeli explained the space agencys plans: Later this year well be sending [an] Artemis 1 rocket unmanned to test it around the moon, then a crude mission Artemis 2 around the moon with humans in it, and then the one after that will be putting humans on the surface of the moon again.

So far, the only experiments she knows she will be doing on the ISS are the ones on herself, as her body acclimates to space: the effects of weightlessness and radiation, as well as the psychological impact on her.

One of the remarkable things about the space station, Moghbeli said, is the diversity of the crews and the mutual cooperation. It seems to be one of the few areas where we can let go of our differences, set those aside, and say were doing this together for the betterment of humanity, she said.

She also cant wait to see Earth from a different perspective, What Im really looking forward to [about] being in space is looking back at Earth, because so many people say just seeing it, and seeing the vastness of space around it, you recognize how fragile it is and how special it is.

Leaving behind her husband and twin daughters in California, where she lives now, Moghbelis first space flight will feel different than her three deployments in the Marine Corps. Each week she and her family will be allowed a 20- to 30-minute video conference.

Moghbeli has become a role model in the lives of young women around the world, but especially in Baldwin, where she visits and speaks at the Lenox Elementary School when she can. It didnt quite sink in how powerful her story was until the Artemis program graduation ceremony, when a classmates daughter, who was 2 or 3 at the time, saw both women graduating and shouted, Mommies can be astronauts, too!

Ive traveled a lot, being in the Marine Corps, Moghbeli said. Ive lived in different parts of the U.S., and its made me appreciate Baldwin for so many reasons. Primary among them is the hamlets school system. Those teachers were so invested in us , she said. I felt I was set up so well for success I hope to come back there and visit again pretty soon.

She said she remembers when her Advanced Placement physics teacher, Barbara Reese, took time out of her day to help prepare Jasmin and a few other students who wanted even more after we took the honors physics class for the AP exam. Listing name after name, there were too many to count, there were so many people in the schools helped her along the way.

She added, Its really nice to see the support coming from Baldwin, my hometown Baldwin was the start of everything for me.

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'This is a new age' - liherald.com

In the latest installment in theMoon Knighttelevision series, things took an unexpected turn. During the exploration of the tomb of Alexander the Great, Marc Spector/Steven Grant, and Layla encountered Arthur Harrow once again. Without spoiling too much for now about their latest meeting, lets just say that things didnt go according toSpectors plans. The protagonist was more vulnerable than ever since he lost all his powers following Khonshus imprisonment by the other Egyptian gods. After some frantic action and a dreamy sequence took place,the episode ended with a surprising cliffhanger that introduced a new character in the story: a beautiful hippo goddess.

And no, its not Gloria fromMadagascar, although the description fits.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe took some liberty from the comic book source and introduced a brand-new character in Spectors story. The talking hippo from Moon Knight episode 4 is Taweret, the Egyptian goddess ofchildbirth and fertility.Taweret made her first live-action appearance when Spector and Grant (now two different entities) attempted to escape from thePutnam Psychiatric Hospital. The giant hippo, voiced by Antonia Salib,just said a warm Hello to the terrified unusual team. The images faded to black before she could say anything else or explain why she was there.

Taweret is part of theEnnead, the ensemble ofAncient Egypt gods who have watched over humanity since the beginning of time. Much like their cosmical counterpart, the Eternals,theEnnead had decided to hide after humankind stopped believing in them. Their choice implied that they didnt interfere when Thanos wiped out half of the living creatures in the universe.

Inside Alexander the Greats tomb, Layla andHarrow talked about the womans dead father,Abdallah El-Faouly. He was a very famousarchaeologist who used to wear a red scarf.Abdallah really loved his job so much that he even gave his life for it. The circumstances ofAbdallahs death involved Spector, who witnessed the assassination of his wifes father at the hands of his business partner, Raul Bushman. The motivation behind Bushmans radical gesture is that he wanted all thetreasures to himself.The name of Laylas father vaguely resembles the one ofAbdul Faoul. Marvel fans already know that he is a sort of Egyptian Captain America who fought to liberate his country from British colonizationduring World War II.Faoul was better known asthe Scarlet Scarab and wore a red scarf.

During the conversation about the death of Laylas father, Spector revealed how he died the first time. Not only did Bushman kill Abdallah, but he also shot at his business partner at the time on that occasion. Thats also when Spector became the avatar of Khonshu, who found the mercenarys corpse. The Egyptian god hinted at what happened in the second episode when he recalled Spector about his duty. The fact that Spector is still alive is proof that some characters can bind even deaths boundaries in the MCU. Spectors power might come in handy to escape his apparent second death. Shortly after their talk, Harrow shot Spector in the heart, and the mercenary woke up in the Putnam Psychiatric Hospital.

What do you think aboutMoon KnightEpisode 4? Did you enjoy the series so far? Let us know in the comments.

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Moon Knight Explained: Who Is Taweret, the Hippo from Episode 4 - ComingSoon.net

Hwang: This is commonly referred to as the worst period for Korea-Japan relations since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1965. Observers are also saying that relations have worsened under the Moon administration.

Lee: I do not completely agree with such statements. In fact, relations between Korea and Japan have worsened structurally since 2012 (before the Moon administration took office). We can say the conflict has intensified and deepened because problems were not resolved. Beyond the governmental dimension, anti-Japanese or anti-Korean sentiments are reaching a climax in both countries. On top of that, communication between national leaders has been cut off, which has continued this situation under an absence of trust. I would add that the interruption in human resource and private exchanges due to COVID-19 are additional obstacles in improving Korea-Japan relations.

Hwang: How do you evaluate the Moon administrations handling of Korea-Japan relations?

Lee: I would largely divide it into two parts. The first half of the Moon administrations term (2017-2019) can be assessed as an omnidirectional conflict with Japan. This conflict arose from issues related to politics, history, security, and approaches toward North Korea. Most of all, wartime sexual slavery and forced labor issues were the largest factors of conflict. They triggered an economic hit from Japans export regulations, which excluded South Korea from its whitelist of countries with preferential trade status. This later escalated into Koreas No Japan movement boycotting Japanese products. In terms of security, there was also mutual distrust that resulted in disputes, such as the 2018 radar lock-on dispute or announcement on the temporary termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). When it came to policies toward North Korea, the Moon administration considered Japan as an obstacle in reaching peace on the Korean Peninsula. Japan regarded the Moon administration as anti-Japan and pro-North Korea as a result. In the latter half of Moons term, there were efforts to improve relations with Japan through a two-track approach following US President Bidens inauguration. However, not much came of this approach. There was no clear consensus on the sexual slavery issue, nor on compensation for forced labor. On the other hand, Japan was likely watching Korea like a teacher waiting for the homework to be done with his arms crossed, rather than positively responding to the Moon administrations efforts.

Nam: I guess it is hard to tell if we can blame worsened Korea-Japan relations on the Moon administration. I can see factors that limited the Moon administrations diplomacy with Japan. The Moon administration conceptualized national identity as based on constitutional principles, and valued judicial judgement based on the separation of legal, administrative, and judicial powers. It also valued an international norm which focuses on victims. Under the given reality and conditions, at times the Moon administration decided to take a very realistic approach toward Japan, which even disappointed and confused the Moon administrations supporters. Also, due to the politicization of history, the government paradoxically happened to take the burden of resolving historical issues. This eventually resulted in civil society organizations excessive politicization of certain historical issues meeting resistance. The Moon administrations diplomacy with Japan is within the realm of pragmatic diplomacy to a certain level. As such, if the new administration excludes these strategies it would actually narrow down the spectrum of pragmatic diplomacy. Moreover, if it chooses to accept Japans one-track approach, it will face considerable domestic opposition. Moving forward, if the politicization of history gets toned down, the new government must remember the possibility that it might have to deal with massive resistance from civil society organizations.

Hwang: I would like to hear your outlook on further changes in relations with Japan after Yoon Suk-yeols inauguration.

Jo: I personally think we should avoid overly positive expectations of Korea-Japan relations under the Yoon administration. Of course, the new administration seems to be concerned with Korea-Japan relations. Cooperation between the US, Korea and Japan has become more significant due to the war in Ukraine and heightened animosity against China and North Korea. The Kishida administrations leadership is maintaining stability with 50 to 60 percent support domestically. The Japanese public seems to have very low expectations regarding Korea-Japan relations. The Biden administration also is continuously stressing US-Korea-Japan relations. All these factors point to better relations between Korea and Japan. However, Koreas pro- or anti-Japanese framing and the majority opposition and minority ruling party structure in parliament has a high possibility of constraining the implementation of specific policies toward Japan. Conservatives in Japan with former Prime Minister Abe have created a historical war framing which is now acting as a constraining factor on Prime Minister Kishida and Foreign Minister Hayashi in regard to bilateral relations. Since the two countries still have domestic political obstacles, both Korea and Japan should utilize well the momentum of Koreas new government.

Lee: When we look into President-elect Yoons overall pledges and remarks made during his campaign, he mainly emphasizes setting a future oriented and cooperative relationship with Japan not one buried under historical issues. He has consistently called for negotiating a comprehensive deal that covers all the current major issues of conflict between Korea and Japan. This includes compensation for forced labor, export regulations, interruption of GSOMIA, and so on. He also mentioned his intent to upgrade the JapanSouth Korea Joint Declaration of 1998 between Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Moving forward, the Yoon administrations diplomatic strategies are generally in pursuit of a comprehensive US-Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance; strengthened US-Korea-Japan security cooperation; gradual participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad); and cooperation on the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. In this sense, I see a high possibility for Korea-Japan relations to naturally turn into a cooperative one.

Hwang: Despite all these optimistic prospects, I guess we can still see restrictive factors from home and abroad.

Lee: Yes. First of all, we can think of Korea-Japan relations within the context of Northeast Asian geopolitics, where strategic competition between the US and China is intensifying. Transitions are taking place with the flow and balance of power. Additionally, as Korea-Japan relations have gone from vertical to horizontal, there is disharmony and maladjustment. Under structural limitations, this new dynamic cannot be easily and naturally overcome even with a new government in Korea. Furthermore, domestically Koreas opposition party holds the majority of seats in parliament. In addition, civil rights and historical victims organizations continue to take a resolute stance against Japan. Thus, if the new administration takes a passive stance to Japan regarding historical issues, these organizations will denounce the new administrations policies as a humiliation. This will give rise to anti-Japan public sentiment, and the new administration will have to undertake the task of persuading the public otherwise.

Hwang: What would be a specific roadmap for improving and normalizing Korea-Japan relations?

Lee: We need to reopen communication between leaders on both sides through a summit. So far, Korea and Japan have maintained abnormal relations for 11 years without a single summit. Since a meeting is crucial in recovering Korea-Japan relations, we must consider the possibilities of holding a summit close to the time of Yoons inauguration. I see either Prime Minister Kishidas visit to Yoons inauguration ceremony or President-elect Yoons participation in the Quad summit scheduled in Tokyo at the end of May as likely to happen. The period after Koreas local elections in June or Japans House of Councilors elections in July is also a feasible time. This shuttle diplomacy based on leaders restoration of trust and communication is critical. In case a summit of the two leaders is unavailable for some reason, they could start thinking of holding a trilateral summit. The summit can be one of either US- Korea-Japan, or Korea-China-Japan.

Jo: The Yoon administrations policies toward Japan seem to deal with issues in a comprehensive way. However, negotiations and talks between Korea and Japan can reach a more effective outcome by using multiple gradual approaches, not a package deal. In particular, Korea and Japan must recognize that they must cover both areas of diplomacy and domestic politics at the same time. Accordingly, this approach would take some time. I also agree with the significance of Japan taking cautious moves regarding Korea-Japan relations until the House of councilors election, though the inauguration of Koreas new government will be a worthy opportunity. From the Kishida administrations view, President Bidens visit to Japan will be a necessary opportunity for the election. In this context, I would like to recommend that Japan seek a similar method in improving its relations with Korea. Lastly, I am a bit worried about Japanese politicians who are insisting on very firm hardline policies toward historical and territorial issues.

Nam: The new government is planning on a Joint Declaration 2.0 through an inclusive approach. However, the declaration back then was achieved through sharing a common goal, which was to build an East Asian community. Both Korea and Japan came to a consensus on planning a vision for peace, as well as solving and moving on from historical problems. That is why former President Kim Dae-jung assessed Japan as having contributed to the development of international society as a peaceful country after World War II when mentioning Japans postwar constitution. If the new administration strives to upgrade the Joint Declaration, how it does so will be its critical challenge. If these problems are not seriously dealt with, a final and irreversible crisis may once again strike Korea-Japan relations.

Hwang: It seems that the forced labor issue, the biggest area of conflict between Korea and Japan, must be resolved.

Jo: When it comes to the resolution of the forced labor issue, subrogation in a broad sense stands on extending the Declaration of Waiver of Compensation against Colony, also called the YS Formula. When we interpret subrogation within a wide spectrum, it is to require an apology and show of regret from Japan. Also, it is to have the Korean government provide material compensation to victims and the bereaved. Then it has a certain point of intersection with the YS Formula. If the Yoon administration can come up with a measure combining these two alternatives and present them to the people, I think it will be a more persuasive approach.

Lee: I think it is necessary to resolve the issue after the measures to withhold cashing through consultation with victims groups are taken. The scope of the conscription issue is quite wide, and I personally believe the cases won in the Supreme Court should be given priority for resolution. This means 50 billion to 300 billion won ($40 million-$242 million) should be paid to approximately 34 to 200 people. The ways to solve this conscription problem are through fundraising and subrogation through legislation. Also, they can be resolved through the International Court of Justice, the Arbitration Commission and the YS Formula. Considering the current situation, subrogation through legislation and the YS Formula might be possible.

Hwang: How about the sexual slavery issue?

Lee: I actually do not think it is the biggest issue at hand in terms of Korea-Japan relations. The essence of resolving the sexual slavery issue is restoring the dignity and honor of the victims through an apology from the Japanese government. To that end, we must solve it with a sexual slavery agreement fully involving both parties. Currently, the Research Institute on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery under the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family provides unpaid compensation to survivors and bereaved families. This compensation comes from a fund which includes 5.4 billion won from the Japanese government and 10.4 billion won from the Korean governments gender equality funds. This fund also allows the implementation of symbolic projects for historical research, memorials, and future education about the issue. An example would be building and maintaining a historical museum for the victims.

Hwang: What other efforts can be made for better Korea-Japan relations?

Nam: The tenuous disputes today between Korea and Japan trace their roots to the system in 1965. In fact, the principle of compensation was transformed into a form of economic cooperation under the Park Chung-hee regime, which resulted in Korea losing its right to make further compensation claims. Within this context, the Yoon administration is trying to normalize Korea-Japan relations. Following the Moon administrations oppositional approach, the system back in 1965 lingers as a reminder of conflicts between Korea and Japan. Moreover, as Korea has recently shifted to a middle power mentality, progressive cooperation and development in Korea-Japan relations may meet some difficulties. In this respect, I think that the Japanese government should consider these issues cautiously and make active efforts to solve these problems.

Lee: Korea needs to utilize a private-public mix. Those standing between Korea and Japan should be considered from the 1.5 track perspective. In particular, it is important to take into account the experiences of public-private joint commissions or studies on a new era for Korea-Japan relations. A Korea-Japan public-private institute can find an efficient resolution for further improvement of bilateral relations. Additionally, we may be able to develop the Joint Declaration 2.0 while preparing for the 60th anniversary of normalized diplomatic relations between Korea-Japan in 2025.

Hwang Jae-ho is a professor of the division of international studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He is also the director of the Institute for Global Strategy and Cooperation and a member of the Presidential Committee on Policy and Planning. This discussion was assisted by researchers Ko Sung-hwah and Shin Eui-chan. -- Ed.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)

Read the original here:
[Hwangs China and the World] Toward the Korea-Japan relations of vision and coexistence - The Korea Herald

Waistcoat, $2,595, blouse, $1,185, Simone Rocha.

Marco GIannavola

When have we ever believed that the world wasnt ending? asks a character in Emily St. John Mandels Sea of Tranquility. Theres always something. At a time when that fear is so acutely alive, the question is revelatory.

Depending on how you look at it, Emily St. John Mandel is either a remarkably prescient writer or simply a student of history who recognized that pandemics are an inevitable part of life. Her award-winning 2014 novel Station Eleven, set in a world in which 99 percent of humanity has perished, debuted as a television series just as America was nearing the end of a second full year coexisting with COVID. Mandels The Glass Hotel, which centers on a Ponzi scheme, had an unfortunate release date of March 24, 2020. Rather than traveling to promote it, she spent much of lockdown writing her latest novel, Sea of Tranquility (out April 5). The expansive book features a time-shifting plot that explores pandemics, moon colonization, time travel, and, perhaps most brilliantly, the idea that the basic rhythms of daily life carry us along even as our circumstances shift into unrecognizable forms. While Mandel focuses on many of the things that terrify us, she also illustrates how hope and humanity are flames that can never be fully extinguished. Recently, she sat down with Jia Tolentino, author of the acclaimed essay collection Trick Mirror, for a wide-ranging conversation on isolation, the future, and finding beauty in the mundane.Adrienne Gaffney

Jia Tolentino: Sea of Tranquility is the name of a waterless plain on the moons surface, which, in your novel, has been colonized in a remarkably humane way. The moon colonies have rivers, scheduled rainfalls. There are defects, accidents, but there is no sense that there is a sort of Bezos-masterminded inequality-magnifier extractive plunder operation.

Emily St. John Mandel: Its not perfect, as you say. But its a little bit utopian. The state of being on the moon itself is a somewhat utopian vision, the kind of antiStation Eleven. Civilization didnt collapse into nothingnesswe made it to the moon.

JT: And in this book, even further.

EM: I wrote Sea of Tranquility during lockdown in 2020, whichyou know what it was like. The constant sirens, that sense of death all around. For me, it was the feeling of being stuck in my apartment, wondering if I would see my family again, after years in which I traveled constantly without a second thought, barely noticing when I was on a plane. I found myself just imagining this beautiful place that was really, really far from my apartment. That was a way to leave the neighborhoodto imagine myself on the moon. And youre right, I hadnt thought of it in terms of the corporate-dystopian nightmare it probably would be in real life. Colony Two by Amazon. Who else has the money to do that? But I needed to think through, How good could it be? I was thinking in terms of creating a beautiful space and trying to imagine a peaceful [place] that is as far away as humanly possible. There are a lot of dystopic science fiction stories where theres some insanely oppressive government doing X terrible thing. It was just nice to imagine a space that was fairly Earth-like in the sense of being not particularly heaven or particularly hell. Its a place, its got problems; its mostly fine most of the time, but not always.

JT: Its a little funny that were talking about it as utopianyou dont go into great detail in the book, but its assumed that cataclysmic climate events on Earth have spurred this moon colonization. Huge portions of the world are uninhabitable.

EM: Yes, in my hypothetical year 2203, its not that all is lostits that there are lots of new countries, and parts of the world cant be lived in anymore. And What am I doing for dinner? and I really miss my familythese human things that I think would remain.

Marco GIannavola

JT: Its especially visible in the HBO Max adaptation of Station Eleven, the way youve rendered stately and humane some of the exact scenarios that keep us up at 4 a.m. when we roll over and look at a new climate report on our phones. You foreground a standpoint that is optimistic in that it is concerned with the beauty of mundane human existence. Are you writing yourself toward that standpoint to reinforce it, or is it native to the way you see the world?

EM: Its fairly native to the way I see the world. Partly because, when I first started out as a writer, I was very conscious that character development was a weak spot for me, so I developed an obsessive interest in the way people respond and the things they notice. And its hard to say something like this without sounding really pretentious, but I do find myself caught up in and in love with the details of the world. It probably comes through clearest in that one chapter in Station Eleven that I probably have memorized, which is just a list of things [that no longer exist]No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. In writing about the moon colony, I was still just thinking about what people value, and the larger question of what comprises a life. Its these details, and you put them together, and thats your day, your month, your year, your lifetime.

JT: You mentioned in another interview that you had wanted to write about technology with Station Eleven, and you ended up doing that through writing about its absence. Was there any equivalent subjectsomething you wrote about through absencewith Sea of Tranquility?

EM: In Station Eleven I found myself thinking about how incredibly small your world would become in the absence of the internet or other telecommunication systems. Your whole field of knowledge would be about a hundred square miles around you. You would belong to a very specific place. That would be lost in a world like that of Sea of Tranquility, where you could live anywhere, including the Andromeda galaxy. Especially if you carry that forward to time travel. Can life be meaningful without constraints?

JT: There is in fact something beautiful about being bounded, trapped with your family. In imagining its opposite, you have the beauty of confinement come through.

EM: During the early months of the pandemic in particular, I was so aware of trying to create a little, magical, self-contained world inside my apartment for my daughter, whos almost six. I think thats a project most parents were engaged in. That was very real.

Can life be meaningful without constraints?

JT: This novel includes something like autofictiona narrative that exists in the section about [the character] Olive Llewellyn, an author who wrote a best-selling pandemic novel called Marienbad. Olive is on an endless book tour, with all its attendant depersonalizations, the self-aggrandizement that comes from speaking onstage, and also the minor degradations. In one scene, a business traveler traps Olive in a monologue about his career, then asks her what she does for a living, and when she says she writes books, he reflexively asks: For children?

EM: That was a guy in the airport in Amsterdam.

JT: I felt sure that that was a guy somewhere. It must have been tonally difficult to write about all that.

EM: Absolutely. I wasnt sure what it was at firstmaybe a personal essay I would never publish, maybe fiction. Ive just had the sense for some time that Ive been leading a very strange life, even as I have incredible gratitude for it. Still, there are regularly these little sexist moments. What happens to me at almost every onstage event is that an interviewer will ask me what message people should take away from Station Eleven. Ill explain that I did not write it with a message in mind, and theyll say, Are you sure?

And Im like, Yes, I am actually sure. I am the expert on this particular book.

Marco GIannavola

JT: Theres one sentence in particular: In Shanghai, Olive spent a combined total of three hours talking about herself and her book, which meant talking about the end of the world while trying not to imagine the world ending with her daughter in it. I was thinkingyou wrote Station Eleven before youd had a baby, but went on a book tour after?

EM: I found out I was pregnant at the Auckland Writers Festival, told my husband over FaceTime, and kept touring until I was seven months pregnant. And to be honestand Im not proud of thisI dont think I could have written Station Eleven after having a child, because of exactly that: Imagining the end of the world means imagining the death of everyone you love.

JT: Theres this attraction in your work to transitory spaces, like airport terminals and hotel lobbies. You seem to have an interest in the kind of human presence that is revealed in these places where people are passing through. I share this attraction in terms of watching and noticing. What is it about these spaces?

EM: Theres something in that that fascinates me just in terms of the possibility of interacting with people. Maybe having a nice moment, or just seeing them, or maybe its even less than that, and then never crossing paths again. Its not like your neighborhood coffee shop, where youre going to run into people. You walk by the guy from Des Moines and thats it, the only interaction.

JT: Theres something about the way these spaces are positioned within the narratives of your last three novels, in particular, that also just suggests an essential fact of transience about our lives. Its another way of suggesting a level of scale that renders us individually and not unpleasantly insignificant. Its like were in many senses just passing through. We pass through an airport terminal as lightly as we, from at least a planetary scale, pass through the world.

EM: One of my favorite Tom Waits songs has the lyric The world is not my home, Im just a passin thru. Theres something of that in the experience of all these characters. I dont know if that just comes from me thinking about fictional characters that pass through the length of a book, or if it is just a broader interest in mortality and what it means to only be on this planet for, like, a flash of light and were gone and the world moves on without us. That sounds so morbid and depressive, which Im not, but it is what I think about.

JT: I dont think its morbid at all. I think its like the writer John McPhees metaphor that you could take the entire existence of the Earth and itd be the length of someones arm, and you could snip off the fingernail and you would cut off the entirety of human existence. I find that really freeing.

EM: Absolutely. This whole thing is so small.

JT: In this novel, a sense of mystical chance and unity is rooted in the possibility that were straight-up living in a simulation.

EM: Its possible that the experience of writing a novel has seeped into the contents of the novel. Theres something about the way novels have a sense of limitless possibility for me when I start writing themI feel its starting to creep into the structure, where there are these shadow novels under the novel. The only way to really make time travel work for me, and maybe this is a cognitive limitation on my part, was to imagine that were in a simulation. I dont know whether to keep thinking about these endless possibilities of narrative, and to keep expressing them in the weirdness thats crept into my work nowthe element about the nature of reality and the possibility of multiple universes and the shadow lives we didnt liveor to just pull it together and go back to something more straightforward.

JT: Straightforward? Oh, I vote for the weirdness.

This article appears in the April 2022 issue of ELLE.

Excerpt from:
Emily St. John Mandel and Jia Tolentino Look at the Future - ELLE

Nearly every aspect of Moon Knight's character fluctuates often and dramatically, so it's no surprise that the style and scale of his adventures fluctuate too. At his core, Moon Knight is a street-level hero, prowling the streets of New York City by night, battling crooks with martial arts and simple melee weapons. Even in the majority of his team-ups, Moon Knight remains grounded in smaller stakes (pun intended, given all the vampires he fights), mainly allying with fellow street-level heroes like Spider-Man, Punisher, Luke Cage, and the Black Cat.

But Moon Knight has another side. When he's more directly in Khonshu's control, or fighting alongside one of the Avengers teams, he enters a far different world many of them, in fact. He was one of the heroes to take part in the intergalactic events of 1992's "Infinity War" and 2018's "Infinity Wars." He has time-traveled on multiple occasions, like his trip to the ancient homeland of Conan the Barbarian in 2019's "Serpent War." During "Age of Khonshu," he even gained the powers of the Iron Fist, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, Thor, and the Phoenix Force, all in an effort to fight Marvel's literal Devil, Mephisto. The shift in setting and tone between Moon Knight stories can be intense, but can also lead to some top-tier moments.

Read more:
Ways Marvel Lied To You About Moon Knight - Looper

click to enlarge

c/o Negasi

An African mask owned by Tampa poet Negasi.

This collaborative event, sponsored by the University of South Floridas African-African American Burial Grounds Project, Kitchen Table Literary Arts, Sulphur Springs Heritage Museum and The Battleground youth program, was held during Black History Month in the Sulphur Springs neighborhood as an effort to help remember the injustice of erasure as we move forward.

Memory is tricky at times. I frequently forget who I am, who I truly am at the core. I forget that at my core, I am indestructible, boundless, worthy of deep respect. Often, I also forget that this same core exists in other people, even if on the surface they dont seem to possess it.

Like tree roots that are entwined and connected through the same source beneath the soil, we are connected through a network that we cant always see directly but experience evidence of its existence. And on the surface level, we can see the ways in which we grow, what we have endured, what we may offer to others.

The collective and specific experiences of a culture and peoples are expressions of this universal principle. It is not by diminishing or eradicating specificity where we find the dignity of all lifeit is by delving into it. Some have the misconception that acknowledging the realities of race and gender causes more division. It is quite the opposite. Because to deny the specific lived experiences of people, especially those experiences that shine a light on oppression and the mechanisms that support it, is to deny their humanity, their dignity.

We often forget as a collective. We forget the patterns that continue to repeat over time, proven over and over again. Just as the universal principle that binds us all can express tremendous value and good, there is also an inherent and incessant flip side to this, manifested as ignorance. This is why the act of remembering is so vital.

As we stood together at the event, including everyone who was seated, young and old, Black and white, academic and blue-collar, I called attention to how this moment encompasses past, present and future. And how we are acting against the cycles of oppression by writing our own stories and making sure we are heard. I thought about the insidious nature of gentrification and how under the guise of bettering a community, it actually operates to bulldoze a culture and the people who have created that culture, similar to colonization.

A couple of the boys who Ive supported ever since I started working in Sulphur Springs are moving out of the neighborhood. Their family was forced out due to drastically rising rent prices.

As I dropped them off at their Sulphur Spring home after they attended the We Will Not Be Erased event, I asked them how they feel about having to move. They said terrible. They grew up there, they grew up in that house. I told them that to me, they are Sulphur Springs. It wont be the same without them. They will take with them their brilliance, their creativity, their keen perception, their generous hearts, their sense of humor.

The Hispanic-looking man who had approached as I set-up for the We Will Not be Erased event told me that he had recently bought some property in the area. Not a home, property. Not a community member, but an owner. It was clear from the antagonistic response he paid to me when I told him about the event that he had accidentally stumbled upon, that he wasnt entering the neighborhood with an understanding of and respect for the people who already lived there. My answer to him? Black.

Of course, Black people are not the only ones who have been erased, whether through building upon their bodies or stealing their culture. We know that our Indigenous brothers and sisters have experienced incalculable loss at the hands of invaders as well as all the injustices experienced by other cultures that have been colonized by white people, whether British, French, Dutch or Spanish.

If we are to change the patterns of oppression that have continued, we will have to maintain constant vigilance and call out whenever we see the same pattern starting to emerge. Real estate developers and buyers who have no regard for the culture or the people of a neighborhood, especially when the culture and people are those who have historically become colonized and oppressed, better think otherwise. Stay your asses out.

I dont carry guns, but I do educate youth. And in a greater sense, I think thats the most powerful weapon. For this installment of Poets Notebook, I would like to amplify the voice of my very first poetry student from The Battleground, a bright young man who lives in Sulphur Springs who goes by Negasi.

In a world of lies, I sift for the truth.

So l dig myself out the dirt then go to the river and float down to where the Metal towers parlay and pursuit. Poisoning the hands that feed them.

Building luxury decked out in blood and bones. A civilization erased, but the bones and spirit never leaves its place... the blood erodes the infrastructure.

If the dead cannot rest neither can the living. The end is to come but so what. Find your heart space be in where you choose to end up by your judgment.

Civilizations Rise and Fall but the ones who survive are the ones who listen to the hearts. The unseen voices of your connection to the bones of course.

We are Not doing this for no reason. As long as youre going towards your true goals you change the world and you change the most important thingyourself.

Allow the bones to work its ways. Then prepare to work towards the true future you seek as one tree falls a seed is left in its place. We are in a time now where the bones won't be forced down as foundation anymore.

The bones at night has the blue screaming red as white fades away. Bones of every unheard voice quakes the times ticks closer the bones grow stronger and a new tree is grown in place.

Read more from the original source:
In a world of lies, Sulphur Springs poet Negasi sifts for the truth - Creative Loafing Tampa

NASA has begun the arduous task of opening one of the last samples in existence from the Apollo 17 mission, collected nearly 50 years ago by astronauts. For half a century, the agency kept some tubes vacuum-sealed so that they could be studied years later using the latest technological breakthroughs with many new and exciting discoveries expected. Now, that time has come.

A desolate landscape, where dust and hue move in an alien-like fashion our only natural satellite, the Moon, has fascinated humankind for eons. Scarred by tranquil seas of hardened lava and impact craters, some of which were formed over 3.8 billion years ago in the solar systems early history, the moon is still as fascinating as ever.

Without an atmosphere to cause erosion and alter its landscape, the lunar surface remains frozen in time, leaving a record of a newly-formed universe accessible. When astronauts first dated the lunar surface and, coated with a thick layer of moon dust known as regolith, the results were mind-shattering. The lunar samples were radioactively dated, showing ages varying from 3.3 to 4.4 billion years old much older than most of the rocks on our planet, which have been continuously hidden or degraded by our atmosphere, tectonic activity, and weather. In fact, the rocks on the moon are so old that they offer a glimpse into the birth of the satellite, our very own planet, and even the solar system.

The Apollo missions to the Moon brought 2,196 rock samples back to Earth. NASA set aside two vacuum-sealed rock samples collected in 1972 by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in the Taurus-Littrow Valley within Mare Serenitatis the missions landing site, saving them for a better time.

Holding these samples and waiting on their analysis also coincides with NASAs Artemis program hoping to send astronauts to the Moon in 2025. So officials determined now would be an excellent time to examine a sample from the Apollo 17 mission to pick up any findings the original researchers may have missed all those years ago when humans were last on the Moon, using our better technology and what weve learned from previous analyses.

Dr. Lori Glaze, NASAs director of the Planetary Science Division, saidin a statementthat they predict science and technology would evolve and allow scientists to study the material in new ways to address new questions in the future. So what can we learn from the samples?

Only a minuscule layer of gases exists on the lunar surface with no air to breathe. Like tiny cannonballs flying across the lunar surface unimpeded, they never collide as there are only 100 molecules of gas per cubic centimeter. To compare, Earths atmosphere at sea level has about 100 billion billion gas molecules per cubic centimeter, according toSpace.com.

Several elements have already been detected on the lunar surface by various means. Detectors left by Apollo astronauts identified argon-40, helium-4, oxygen, methane, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. Additionally, earth-based spectrometers have established the presence of sodium and potassium on the surface. At the same time, the Lunar Prospector Orbiter found radioactive isotopes of radon and polonium, and as recently as 2012, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter detected helium.

Many of these gases are posited to come from the Moons interior, released by the bombardment of heavenly bodies smashing through its crust, releasing the hot lava below, flowing like lakes over its surface during the Moons infancy. More recently, studies have theorized that these extraterrestrial missiles caused ice deposition at the lunar poles and mixed with solar winds and moonquakes to leave behind non-native gases and compounds.

This is where the samples held at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston come in. Theyre dubbed the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program (ANGSA) 73001, and researchers have only just begun unsealing them, hoping to understand the lunar surface with up-to-date scientific instruments. Once there, they plan to mine the alien ice contained within its untouched mountains.

Understanding the geologic history and evolution of the Moon samples at the Apollo landing sites will help us prepare for the types of samples that may be encountered during Artemis, says Thomas Zurbuchen, NASAs Washington Science Mission Directorate associate administrator.

Artemis aims to bring back cold and sealed samples from near the lunar South Pole. This is an exciting learning opportunity to understand the tools needed for collecting and transporting these samples, for analyzing them, and for storing them on Earth for future generations of scientists, Zurbuchen added in the officialNASApress release.

Cernan and Schmitt collected the 73001 samples using a hollow drive tube, which they hammered into the lunar surface using a geology pick. The apparatus, a pair of connected, 14-inch (35-cm) tubes, were used to gather rocks and soils from a landslide which in itself is a mystery as there are no adverse weather conditions on the Moon or tectonic plates moving below the surface to cause one.

Hoping to solve this mystery with future knowledge, the bottom half of the drive tube was vacuum sealed on the Moon before bringing it back to Earth. NASA said only one other sample was collected under these conditions, making the collection process almost unique. The other tube (the top half of the drive tube) was plugged up to keep the contents intact and returned to Earth in a typical fashion where NASA teams analyzed it.

Now, attention is being focused on one of the two vacuum-sealed lower tubes, stored in a separate outer vacuum tube and kept in an atmosphere-controlled environment at Johnson for half a century. When it was collected, the lunar temperature below ground was freezing, meaning that volatiles (substances that evaporate at average temperatures, like water, ice, or carbon dioxide) might have been present. It goes without saying that the scientists are particularly interested in them as they will improve techniques to identify any volatiles missed in past research that the Artemis mission could then apply.

They already know that there wont be much gas available. Still, NASA believes modern mass spectrometry technology may be able to analyze what is there, allowing the identification of unknown molecules if theyre present with the gas apportioned to different expert spectra facilities.

In early February, the ANGSA team removed the outer protective tube establishing that no lunar gas was present: indicating that the sample held within the inner tube was stable and hadnt leaked. Then on February the 23rd, scientists began a weeks-long process to pierce the main tube, harvesting the gas inside, without damaging the samples.

Rock samples will then be carefully extracted and disseminated between different scientific teams for analysis in the spring.

NASAs Ryan Zeigler, Apollo sample curator, who is overseeing the project, says, Once they get Artemis samples back, it might be nice to do a direct comparison in real time between whatevers coming back from Artemis, and with one of these remaining unopened core, sealed cores.

Accordingly, the experiment currently being conducted helps the worlds space community better prepare for the return of the Artemis mission team with large amounts of lunar gases and rocks.

Another major challenge for space missions universally is moondust which stripped Apollo spacesuitsthreadbare. The dust is a significant problem as intense ultraviolet sunlight kicks electrons off particles in the lunar soil, giving those particles an electric charge that can keep them airborne for a long time. Ambient electric fields then lift the charged particles above the surface, forming a veil of dust kilometers high.

Its something we dont see anywhere on Earth, and its something that has direct relevance to space exploration because if you understand how the dust behaves and is charged, you can prepare for moon exploration, Dr. Denis Richard of NASA Ames,told Space.com. Imagine if the dust is charged really, really strongly, you can have some trouble with space equipment, it can wear off your equipment because its abrasive, he stresses.

When Apollo astronauts returned to Earth, still coated in it, they described moon dust as gritty, abrasive, and clingy, wreaking havoc on equipment and computers.

Therefore, much more will need to be learned about moon dust before humans return to the lunar surface; another reason for keeping 73001 in storage for so long is that it may contain something missed in the earlier, unsealed samples.

And once the worlds space agencies have deciphered the composition and mechanics of the jagged regolith, work can begin on next-generation spacesuits and equipment towards lunar colonization heralding space travel for the masses and interstellar exploration. As NASAs Ryan Zeigler says, A lot of people are getting excited. Theyre right to be.

See the article here:
NASA is opening up a sample taken from the Moon 50 years ago - ZME Science