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Category Archives: Moon Colonization

NASA’s MOXIE Experiment Triumphs in Generating Oxygen … – The Weather Channel

Posted: September 11, 2023 at 12:16 pm

Perseverance Rover

NASA's oxygen-generating experiment that accompanied the Perseverance rover has successfully completed its mission on Mars and may enable future astronauts landing on the Red Planet to produce oxygen for fuel and breathing, the agency has announced.

Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a microwave-oven-sized device called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment), has generated oxygen for the 16th and final time aboard the Perseverance rover.

"MOXIE's impressive performance demonstrates the feasibility of extracting oxygen from Mars' atmospherea potential resource for supplying breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts," said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy in a statement.

"Developing technologies that allow us to utilise resources on the Moon and Mars is critical for building a long-term lunar presence, creating a robust lunar economy, and supporting an initial human exploration campaign to Mars," added Melroy.

MOXIE served as the first-ever demonstration of technology that humans could use to survive on and leave the Red Planet.

It produces molecular oxygen through an electrochemical process that separates one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide drawn from Mars' thin atmosphere.

As these gases flow through the system, they are analyzed to verify the purity and quantity of the oxygen produced.

Since Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021, MOXIE has generated a total of 122 grams of oxygen, equivalent to what a small dog breathes in 10 hours.

At its most efficient, MOXIE was able to produce 12 grams of oxygen per hour, twice as much as NASA's original goals for the instrument, and at a purity level of 98 per cent or higher.

On its 16th run, which occurred on August 7, the instrument produced 9.8 grams of oxygen.

An oxygen-producing system could benefit future missions in various ways, with the most significant being as a source of rocket propellant, which would be required in substantial quantities to launch rockets carrying astronauts for their return trip home.

Rather than transporting large quantities of oxygen to Mars, future astronauts could rely on materials they find on the planet's surface to survive.

The next step would involve creating a full-scale system that includes an oxygen generator like MOXIE and a way to liquefy and store the produced oxygen.

The successful completion of MOXIE's mission marks a significant milestone in NASA's efforts to explore and eventually send humans to Mars. It opens up the possibility of producing essential resources on-site, reducing the need for Earth-based resupply missions, and advancing the prospect of human colonization of the Red Planet.

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The above article has been published from a wire source with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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ECOVIEWS: Thermal vents produce bizarre life forms | Features … – Charleston Post Courier

Posted: at 12:16 pm

India recently launched a rocket to the moon. Russia gave it a shot and wished they had not. Exploration rovers have crept across the surface of Mars, and Elon Musk is plotting how to get some of us there to join them. Scientists, as well as science fiction writers, tend to focus on the stars. Yet the oceans of our world offer equally interesting material. As a visiting scientist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, each day on the way to my office I passed a room with jars of what looked like 6-foot-long earthworms. They were actually from one of the strangest ecosystems known on Earth: a habitat more than a mile beneath the ocean's surface, a hydrothermal vent community.

A hydrothermal vent is an area where a major fissure on the seabed occurs between plates making up the Earth's crust. As the plates gradually separate, underlying volcanic activity reaches the ocean. As the molten volcanic rock encounters ultracold seawater, the physical and chemical reactions are impressive. Even more remarkable is that these vents are the habitat of deep-sea animals. Among the notable sea creatures are enormous, bright red tube worms. Some are as thick as a child's arm and twice as long. The tube worms stretch up from the ocean floor in clusters, waving like the tendrils of a huge organism from a science fiction movie.

On the Earths surface, natural habitats are being eliminated and many species face extinction under the assault of modern technology. Ironically, without that technology, the mysterious thermal vent communities would not have been revealed. They were discovered less than half a century ago during deep-sea exploration using submersibles that can withstand the tremendous pressure of tons of ocean water.

Natural communities on Earth ultimately receive their energy from the sun. Even animals that live in caves depend on organic materials from sunlit regions. The debris they rely on for food had its origin in green plants. But in hydrothermal vent habitats, the base of the food chain is formed by bacteria, which acquire their energy from chemical sources in the seepage area itself. In sharp distinction to virtually all other life we know about, these underworld communities function without dependency on sunlight. Although submersibles have extendible devices for picking up items, many of the vent animals are mobile, and some have never been captured. Countless species remain undescribed or yet-to-be-discovered in the worlds oceans.

Since a vent may remain active for a few decades at most, one puzzle for ecologists is how the species inhabiting the vent communities manage to persist. Where does a giant clam or tube worm that depends on nutrients in a small area of deep ocean go when the energy source disappears? Except for the fishes, most of the organisms move slowly, at best. Presumably each species has a reproductive strategy in which larvae disperse into the outer blackness beyond the vent. Most probably die in the ocean depths, but some eventually reach other vent habitats. Just as any given vent eventually ceases to exist, new ones are constantly being formed, setting the stage for colonization. The lifestyle is a precarious one, but it works, as evidenced by the similarity of species composition from deep-sea thermal vent communities around the world.

In the mid-20th century the idea of communities of numerous, sometimes large, animals living around deep-sea hydrothermal vents sounded like a creature from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. In fact, in the 1970s the first reports of vent communities seemed too fantastic to be believed. Paradoxically, although these ecosystems appear to be among the most fragile and sensitive in the world, they would rank at the top of ones least likely to be destroyed by humans. Simply studying them is difficult enough. These bizarre habitats also make the important point that to explore the mysteries of the universe, we need not look only to outer space. Plenty of opportunities for discovery await us right here on our own planet.

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Elon Musk’s ‘most powerful rocket ever made’ is finally ready for launch – Technext

Posted: at 12:16 pm

SpaceX chief Elon Musk has finally announced that the Starship rocket is ready for launch. This is after a series of recent engine tests. However, before the highly anticipated launch can take place, SpaceX must obtain clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

According to a report, it is the most powerful rocket ever made. In April this year, the Super Heavy rocket had its maiden flight testing but encountered a technical issue during the test mission that led to a controlled explosion, prematurely ending the flight.

The immense force generated by the Super Heavys 33 Raptor engines caused the launchpad to disintegrate, resulting in debris being scattered beyond the launch site. However, it seems the technical issues have been resolved following Elon Musks announcement.

The report further explained that SpaceX engineers have developed and tested a water-cooled flame deflector to address the issues encountered during the initial flight, This innovative system, constructed from steel, is specifically designed to withstand the intense heat and force generated by the rocket as it leaves the launchpad.

By implementing this water-deluge system, the rocket company aims to mitigate the risks associated with future launches. However, clearance from the FAA is required before the second test flight can proceed. The FAA is currently conducting an assessment to evaluate the impact of the first flight on the surrounding area.

Meanwhile, environmental groups have expressed concerns, asserting that the FAA failed to adequately assess the environmental damage caused by SpaceXs rocket prior to the first flight.

Read Also: SpaceX ready to launch Starship, the strongest rocket ever built into space

Once fully tested and operational, the rocket company plans to utilize the Super Heavy for crewed missions to celestial bodies such as the moon, Mars, and potentially even destinations further into space.

In fact, it has already secured a contract with NASA to employ a modified version of the upper stage, known as the Starship spacecraft, for the Artemis III crewed landing on the moon. The targeted timeframe for this momentous lunar landing is set for 2025.

According to a statement, NASA said,

NASA has awarded a contract modification to SpaceX to further develop its Starship human landing system to meet agency requirements for long-term human exploration of the Moon under Artemis.

As a result, the success of the next test flight is crucial, as any further failures could jeopardize NASAs tight schedule for its first crewed lunar landing in the coming years.

SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. The companys primary goal is to revolutionize space technology and make space exploration more accessible and affordable.

According to Elon Musk, the vision is to enable the colonization of Mars and make humanity a multi-planetary species. Musks long-term goal is to establish a self-sustaining civilization on Mars to ensure the survival of humanity in the event of catastrophic events on Earth.

In 2012, the rocket company became the first privately funded company to deliver cargo to the ISS with its Dragon spacecraft. Three years later, in 2015, the rocket company successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket vertically, marking the first-ever landing of an orbital-class rocket.

In 2018, the Falcon Heavy, a heavy-lift launch vehicle, made its debut and successfully launched a Tesla Roadster into space on its maiden flight. In 2020, SpaceXs Crew Dragon became the first crewed spacecraft to launch from American soil since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, sending NASA astronauts to the ISS.

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What’s the Bare Minimum Number of People for a Mars Habitat? – Universe Today

Posted: at 12:16 pm

A recent preprint paper examines the minimum number of people required to maintain a feasible settlement on Mars while accounting for psychological and behavioral factors, specifically in emergency situations. This study was conducted by a team of data scientists from George Mason University and holds the potential to help researchers better understand the appropriate conditions for a successful long-term Mars settlement, specifically pertaining to how those settlers will get along during all situations. But why is it important to better understand the psychological factors pertaining for a potential future Mars colony?

We cannot think of any type of habitat or future human settlement without including human behavior, psychological or social, Dr. Anamaria Berea, who is an associate professor in the Computational & Data Sciences Department at George Mason University and a co-author on the study, tells Universe Today. We humans are not robots, and even the best trained astronauts have different personalities and modes of interaction with each other and with their extreme environment. But on the long run and for long duration missions, team behavior is a crucial factor for the success or failure of a mission.

For the study, the researchers used an Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) method to gauge interactions of future Mars colonists, known as agents in the study, and who exhibit a variety of personality types and skill levels that they will use for operating a Mars colony mining for minerals. The four personality types include Agreeables, Socials, Reactives, and Neurotics, where aggressiveness and competitiveness are ranked from lowest to highest, respectively. In addition, each agents skill level is associated with management or engineering that they will use to contribute to the colonys mining needs.

A psychologically diverse population is more desirable, Dr. Berea tells Universe Today. In our paper, the neurotics are actually needed for high-risk tasks; therefore, they are more likely to solve the problems in case of accidents, but also risk their lives. In the simulation, we start with equal percentages of psychological diversity, and then we see who survives in the system and who does not.

The ABM focused on how each personality type coped with both their increasing time on Mars and emergency situations, such as resupply shuttle accidents and habitat disasters, noting the colony would be largely self-sustaining with two-year resupply missions from Earth. The researchers noted their goal with this study was to address fundamental questions pertaining to the conditions necessary to maintain a feasible Mars colony, the personality type combinations that would perform the best in a Mars colony, and the required number of resources necessary to maintain the Mars colony given the two-year gap between resupply missions from Earth. Additionally, these came with the assumption of periodic accidents either with the resupply missions or within the colony itself.

Additional ABM parameters also included how the agents coped with the local mining economy and harsh Martian environment, specifically regarding the solar radiation bombarding the Martian surface; how the Martian economy could operate outside of the colony; and using energy sources in space, specifically the potential for solar power and nuclear fission. The researchers referenced the International Space Station and outposts in Antarctica as a baseline for their study.

Using the ABM, the researchers ran five simulations with each comprising 28 Earth years and population sizes ranging from 10 to 50 agents, with increases of 10 agents in each simulation. In the end, they determined that a minimum colony population of 22 agents was ideal to maintain a feasible Mars mining colony over the long-term. Additionally, the researchers found that the Agreeable personality type not only performed the best but was the only personality type to survive the full term for all ABM simulations. However, the researchers were quick to note future work is needed to better understand the assumptions described in this paper.

As noted, the simulated Mars colony for this study was largely self-sustaining, though not fully self-sustaining, as the colony relies on resupplies from Earth every two years to ensure both its short-term and long-term survival. While this study found a minimum colony population of 22 agents was ideal given the parameters, could there be a minimum population size needed for the colony to be fully self-sustaining, meaning no engagements with Earth or other off-Earth settlements (i.e., Earths Moon)?

I dont think something like this can exist, Dr. Berea tells Universe Today. We know historically that isolated cities or villages or even countries cannot thrive. In the extreme environments habitats designed on Earth from scratch, such as under the sea or in Antarctica, there are periodic replenishments of people or supplies. Nobody lives there isolated forever. Thats why in our model we assume that there are some interactions with Earth, even if sparse sometimes. The scenario where we send a number of people on Mars on a one-way trip and never hear from them or interact with them again, seems very implausible to me. If we successfully send people there once, I am pretty sure we will be able to send supply shuttles many times. Its also more cost-efficient.

A prime example of an alleged one-way trip to Mars was with the private Dutch company, Mars One, which proposed sending people to Mars for good in hopes of establishing a permanent human settlement on the Red Planet. This was met with both enthusiasm and harsh criticism, specifically pertaining to Mars One not being an aerospace company or building their own hardware. Though applications for eager Mars-bound travelers went through several rounds, Mars One eventually declared bankruptcy in 2019 having never launched a single mission.

This recent study builds on several previous studies that attempted to estimate the minimum number of people required to maintain a Mars colony, with a 2001 paper, a 2003 paper, and a 2020 paper each estimating a minimum of 500, 100, and 110 people, respectively. But if this most recent study proves accurately that a future Mars colony will only need a minimum of 22 people to maintain it, how soon after we start sending humans to Mars will a potential colony reach this minimum number of 22?

I believe the first time humans will set foot on Mars will not be for any kind of permanent settlement or colonization, but for exploration and for laying the ground for future missions, Dr. Berea tells Universe Today. We dont yet know when that will happen, it is still years in the future, and after that there will be more years before actually considering sending humans for permanent or semi-permanent settlements. So, I dont think this will happen in the near future yet.

When will we go to Mars and what will be the minimum population required to maintain a feasible colony there? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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India may be moving to change its name to ancient Sanskrit term … – FOX Bangor/ABC 7 News and Stories

Posted: at 12:16 pm

The Indian government is replacing the nation's usual name with an older Sanskrit term in official media, prompting questions about plans to make an official change.

In a dinner invitation sent to G20 summit attendees, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was referred to as "Prime Minister of Bharat" signaling an unprecedented eagerness to leave behind the term "India."

"India" and "Bharat" are considered interchangable terms within the country but both domestically and internationally, "India" is the much more widely used name for the nation.

INDIA'S LUNAR ROVER COMPLETES WALK ON MOON'S SURFACE IN LESS THAN 2 WEEKS AFTER HISTORIC LAUNCH

The use of "Bharat" on official, international invitations signals that Modi's Hindu nationalist movement is seeking to leave the term "India" behind an aesthetic decision many of his supporters see as important for de-colonization.

"Another blow to slavery mentality," Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on social media Tuesday. The regional official called the use of "Bharat" on the invitation a "proud moment for every countryman."

"Long live Mother Bharat!" he added.

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER MODI ADDRESSES BORDER CONCERNS WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT JINPING AT BRICS SUMMIT

Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor questioned the nationalists' intentions, urging India to retain both monikers.

"While there is no constitutional objection to calling India Bharat, which is one of the countrys two official names, I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with 'India,' which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries," Tharoor wrote.

He added, "We should continue to use both words rather than relinquish our claim to a name redolent of history, a name that is recognised around the world."

The etymology of "India" is complicated and developed over thousands of years.

Ancient Greeks called the region "Indos" thought to be transliterated from the term "Hindi" and other cultures began linguistically identifying the area with the Indus River.

Article 1 of the Indian Constitution begins, "India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States."

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My Nuclear Family – The Good Men Project

Posted: at 12:16 pm

By Alicia Inez Guzmn

Editors Note:With little fanfare, the United States is moving to modernize its stockpile of nuclear weapons. A massive part of that project will happen at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Its a project that promises to bring at least $15 billion into New Mexico and presages enormous, inevitable changes for our state.

Its with this in mind that Searchlight New Mexico launches a new area of coverage devoted to nuclear issues. The following essay by Alicia Inez Guzmn, the reporter responsible for this coverage, sets out to describe her personal and family history with the Lab. Her essay also serves as an act of disclosure. None of us has the luxury of disinterest when it comes to nuclear proliferation but it can be argued that Alicia has a more personal connection than most journalists. Her capacity for fairness in covering this all-important story is without doubt.

My parents house sits at the foot of the Sangre de Cristos facing west toward the setting sun and the Jemez Mountains. I still remember nights looking out across the vast darkness at the twinkling lights of Los Alamos, the secret city, a place, as the late anti-nuclear activist and Ohkay Owingeh elder Herman Agoyo put it, with no public memory.

As the crow flies, Truchas is 30 miles from Los Alamos, separated by the great Tewa Basin and arid badlands checkerboarded by Hispano settlements and Indigenous Pueblos. For most of my young life, I took the Lab for granted. It was there in the background, omnipresent like a low-frequency hum.

Memorandum for the record

But it didnt alwaysjust exist.It was forced onto our homeland and into our consciousness, even if most origin stories about the Manhattan Project and the Labs continued presence in the region treat local people like extras in a movie.

For the several hundred workers required to man these plants, there must also be several thousand service and supporting personnel, a 1950 internal report read. Its writer was debating whether Los Alamos was the best place for the weapons Lab moving forward.

Scientists performed clandestine work here, yes, but that work required and continues to require the effort of so many others supporting personnel who can also be on the frontlines of exposure.

I am reminded, for instance, of an experiment that went horribly wrong just nine months after American forces decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs. A Canadian physicist, Louis Slotin, was trying to gather data on nuclear chain reactions when the screwdriver he was holding as a wedge between a beryllium tamper and a plutonium core accidentally slipped. For a brief second, the beryllium and plutonium reached fission, sending out a blast of blue light and radioactivity.

Slotins death in 1946 has been famously recorded in histories of the Lab. But there were several other people in the room that day, including several colleagues and a security guard whose fate has largely been eclipsed. All that was noted in records of the event was his fear. Apparently, it was said, the security guard ran out of the room and up a hill. And thats where his part in the story ends.

But he was there, a witness and one, I imagine, who was exposed to the same plutonium that within a matter of nine days killed Slotin. Ive long wondered:Who was he?What was his story?

When I think of that man, I think of my Grandpa Gilbert. Many auxiliary staff were local people who got their start on the hill as security guards for the Atomic Energy Commission. That was his story a career begun as a security guard in 1946 and ended some three decades later as a staff member of the Lab and the University of California, which managed it. The position was a distinction that not many Hispanos held at the time. My mom says he felt dignified by his work there the only means he had to raise five kids after World War II. But there was a trade-off, including discreet trips to the doctor where he was screened for cancer on a more-than-routine basis.

Many family members would follow in his footsteps my Uncle Jerry among them. Los Alamos was a place abounding in conspiracy theories and Uncle Jerry found himself at the center of one of them. He believed that racism had created a culture of retaliation, so toxic that it led to his being framed for intentionally dosing his supervisor with plutonium-239. After my uncles death two years ago, theSanta Fe New Mexican published a column narrating the sordid events his boss ultimately recanted the allegations and my uncle and others won a settlement but he was haunted by a lasting specter. The multiple cancers that consumed his body decades later were products of the Lab, in his opinion, like sleeper fires set within him.

I only recently came to know the fragments of my Uncle Pats story. During his three years at the Lab in the late 1970s, he was flown on two occasions to California with a locked box chained to his wrist. His destination was TRW, the predecessor of Northrop Grumman Space Technology, and his cargo, he told me, was top-secret technology that could detect nuclear weapons testing from outer space.

Theres a kind of mental acrobatics required to compartmentalize these different realities the opportunity and the harm, the secrets and the consent. I know this compartmentalization well, this desire to draw a line in the sand between the good and the bad. When I was 19, I spent a summer working as an undergraduate intern in the Labs explosives division, a building perched behind a maze of fences and guards. I didnt have a security clearance at the time, nor could I foresee getting one, so I spent most days marooned at my desk in the front office, filing papers and sending emails. I couldnt even take a bathroom break without a chaperone accompanying me.

Nothing of that work rings more clearly than a memory of two scientists stumbling out into the hallway, covered in blood. An experiment had gone awry nothing radiation related but it was so shrouded in mystery that parsing what actually happened is like trying to put a puzzle together thats missing half the pieces. I watched in horror from the doorframe.

After that, I transferred to the Bradbury Science Museum, also in Los Alamos, where I walked by replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man daily to get to my desk. I spent that summer, among other things, writing exhibition text about the Manhattan Projects early architects J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman. I wrote not the history ofmi gente, but of those agents of immense creation and destruction, those whod exacted whatMyrriah Gmezin her book, Nuclear Nuevo Mxico, calls nuclear colonization. The irony.

Now, as I write about the role of nuclear weapons across New Mexico, the nation and the globe, Toni Morrisons words come to mind: The subject of the dream is the dreamer. Her ideas about literature were deeply influenced by psychoanalysis. Indeed, to her mind, the act of dreaming was not unlike the act of writing. Or, to put it another way, the subject of the writing is the writer. Here, that is me.

My family and communitys own tangled history with the Lab sits in my subconscious like an inchoate thought. Only when I hold it up to scrutiny does that thought form into the imperative, allowing me to fully fathom what the Manhattan Project birthed in our backyard. Perhaps this is what Gmez refers to as an innate knowing, our local sixth sense.

The locals know their local land and water supplies are contaminated from the nuclear material that was either buried in nearby canyons or on riverbanks, Gmez writes in her book. They know their presence on the Pajarito Plateau is being erased from national memory. They know they were placed in dangerous jobs because of their identities. They know the plutonium exploded into the atmosphere during the Trinity Test is making them sick. They know nuclear waste, if buried in their backyard, poses severe threats.

Iknowall of this when I drive along Highway 84/285, an artery that connects Pojoaque Pueblo to Espaola and the Pueblos of Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh, below a billboard sprawled against sienna-hued bluffs. A woman with a complexion like my own holds radiation detection equipment and smiles down at me.

Radiation Control Technicians are vital to operations at LANL, the billboard proclaims. Start your career as an RCT at Northern NM College now.

My worldview will always shape my writing on a topic that hits so close to home, but the focus of this series The Atomic Hereafter is to highlight all the communities most impacted by 80 years of nuclear presence, from the most recent attempts to modernize the nations nuclear arsenal to the long, drawn-out ways radiation can transmit from mother to child. Nuclear issues in this state are generational. I will take them one story at a time.

This article was previosly published on Searchlight New Mexico. Searchlight New Mexico is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that seeks to empower New Mexicans to demand honest and effective public policy.

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The MCU Multiverse Is Continuing A Great Marvel Trend – Screen Rant

Posted: April 30, 2023 at 11:41 pm

Through TV shows like What If...? specifically, the MCU multiverse is continuing a fantastic, much-needed Marvel trend that properly began in Phase 4 of the sprawling universe. That trend corresponds to the representation of minority groups in superhero cinema, which Phase 4 provided in abundance. With new characters such as Shang-Chi, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and Namor, to name but a few, Marvel Studios continued providing representation for broader ethnic groups in the MCU.

While all of these characters were introduced in the core MCU universe - Earth-616 - TV shows like What If...? will take minority representation to the next level. This has been proven by the early announcements from season 2 of the upcoming anthology season, which demonstrates one of the best traits about the multiverse should Marvel Studios continue to utilize it in this way. With the multiverse now wide open, countless more underrepresented communities could be given a spotlight in the world of superheroes and the MCU.

Related: What If...? Season 2: Stories, Variants & Everything We Know

Announced on March 9th, 2023, Marvel released details on a central character of one of What If...? season 2's episodes. The core premise of the episode will ask the question of what would have happened if the Tesseract fell to Earth and landed in the sovereign Haudenosaunee Confederacy before the colonization of America. This will lead to the introduction of Kahhori, a young Mohawk woman who goes on a quest to discover her power after the Tesseract converts a lake into a gateway to the stars in a story that brings the Infinity Stones back to Marvel's Phase 5.

Related: The MCU Still Cannot Escape The Infinity Stones, Even In Phase 5

According to Marvel.com, the episode was made in close collaboration with members of the Mohawk community. Historian Doug George aided Marvel Studios in creating the episode alongside other people closely linked to the Mohawk Nation. According to George: "The episode is exceptional in another sense--it is done with the complete cooperation of the Mohawk people from dialogue to adornment." This proves that Marvel's Phase 5 is continuing from where Phase 4 left off by introducing an as-of-yet underrepresented community to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The introduction of Kahhori to the MCU proves that the multiverse is a perfect vehicle for allowing more underrepresented communities to have heroes in the MCU. The anthology nature of What If...? gives Marvel Studios ample opportunities to create original characters that have ethnic minority backgrounds. Most of the established heroes in the MCU from Phases 1-3 were Caucasian, with the latter half of the Infinity Saga and Phase 4 going to introduce more Marvel Comics characters that were from other communities.

The Marvel multiverse then can allow characters to be introduced from other universes than Earth-616. This would not only make Earth-616 seem less overcrowded, but it would allow original creations like Kahhori to become MCU mainstays. The multiverse offers the opportunity to seamlessly weave characters into other universes, something that could massively benefit underrepresented groups if superheroes like Kahhori were introduced in What If...?. If this were the case, Marvel Studios would have a way to easily introduce more ethnic minority superheroes, something Phase 4 has proven the MCU sorely needs more of due to the amazing reception of Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel.

Source: Marvel.com

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How Starship Will Change Humanity Soon – by Tomas Pueyo – Uncharted Territories

Posted: at 11:41 pm

This is SpaceXs new rocket: Starship.

It launched last week.It did explode four minutes in:

But SpaceX will make it work. And when it does, what will matter is that its humongous.

It can carry so much payload to space that it will change the economics of space.

This will change civilization.

But we havent yet grasped how this will change civilization, both in space and on Earth. So lets grasp it.

In the last few years, the number of objects launched to space has skyrocketed.

In space, we mainly send things to Low-Earth Orbit, or LEO, the green area below:

We can send all these objects to LEO thanks to SpaceXs reusable rockets. Each one of them can launch payloads to space dozens of times.

With all these launches, its not just the number of objects we can send to space that is soaring. Also the volume and mass. As a result, the cost to launch a kilogram of payload to LEO has dropped since the 1980s:

In the 1980s, it cost over $75k to carry one kilogram to space in a big rocket. Just carrying one astronauts body cost the astronomical sum of over $5M! SpaceXs Falcon Heavy has brought it down to $1,500/kg, or 50 times cheaper. This is the magic of SpaceXs bigger, reusable rockets.

Now SpaceXs Starship rocket will take the baton and go farther. It is designed to carry over 100 tons of payload to LEO, which is 50% more than the latest Falcon heavy. It will have thousands of launches every year. And Elon Musk believes that within 2-3 years, the cost per kg will drop from Falcon Heavys $1,500 to $100.

To put it into perspective:

People dont realize how big of a deal this is.

Look at the cost of different types of transportation on Earth:

Its no coincidence that the US and Northern Europe are two of the wealthiest regions in the world and also two of the regions with the most connected navigable inland waterways

Why does it matter? Because transportation costs over water are much cheaper than over land. And navigation through inland waterways is even better than sea transportation, because weather is much less of a problem, currents can be controlled, and rivers serve two banks instead of just one for coastal transportation.

You can see the value of rivers in a country like France, where the population density closely follows the river systems. Cheap transportation attracted people and wealth to the rivers, and especially to their confluences.

Why is that? Why did people gather around rivers?

Imagine you sell meat and can make a profit of $10 for each kilogram you sell. But it costs you $1 to transport each kg one kilometer. Each additional kilometer you add, your margin is reduced by $1. You can only transport your product 10 km away. In the example below, that means you can only trade with four cities:

If instead, your cost of transportation is half, what happens? It costs you $0.5 per km. Now youre increasing your margins with each of the cities that you used to trade with. But more importantly, now you can reach markets that are 20 km away.

But when you 2x the distance, you 4x the surface! In this case, you cant just trade with four cities anymore, you can trade with sixteen

This is what rivers do: by dropping the cost of transport, they connect huge numbers of cities, which can trade much more between them, become wealthier, their population can buy even more, and so on and so forth.

All in all, the value of the network to the right is at least an order of magnitude higher than that to the left! The cheaper the transport, the more trade at a lower cost, the more wealth generated, the more that wealth can be reinvested in better canals and bridges and roads, and the areas wealth grows even further.

Weve seen this through history. Rome was built around the Mediterraneans cheap transportation costs, and obsessed about reducing overland transportation costs with their famous roads. Their empire was limited by the reach of their communications.

Similarly, the Egyptians lived around the Nile, the early Vikings around the North Sea, early Japan around its Seto Inland Sea, China started its canals in the 5th Century BC

Transportation costs are so important they created empires.Now Starship is dropping transportation costs to new worlds. What will that allow?

Starship is like a conveyor belt to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). When you drop your transportation costs by 100x in a decade, a new universe of opportunities opens up so fast that human brains cant follow.

Space engineers have spent decades focusing on shaving milligrams of weight off their satellites. The weight was so important that it pervaded every decision: cost structure, volumes to be sent, material choices, power sources, thermal protection, software for guidance, navigation, or control Every aspect of the mission was obsessed about one thing: weight. Every NASA mission had to be a marvel of miniaturization to cram as much science as possible into every available micrometer. The obsession against mass was drilled into engineers brains, generation after generation.

Thats out the window.

All space missions, whether robotic or crewed, historical or planned, have been designed with constraints that are not relevant to Starship.

Starship obliterates the mass constraint and every last vestige of cultural baggage it has gouged into the minds of spacecraft designers. A dollar spent on mass optimization no longer buys a dollar saved on launch cost. It buys nothing. It is time to raise the scope of our ambition and think much bigger.Casey Handmer, Starship is still not understood

In this light, it makes much more sense to have sent a Tesla Roadster to space.

It wasnt simply an outrageous public relations move. It was a message to the rest of the industry: See how much you cared about every microgram? That time is gone. My rockets are so big that I can afford to send a Tesla and I barely notice. Anybody in the industry paying attention should have realized what was going on.

Most didnt. For example, Artemis is an international program to send astronauts to the Moon, with the long-term goal of establishing a lunar base. But Artemis is designed with the old mindset, using the expendable Space Launch System rockets. If instead it used Starship, it could send 100x as much cargo and build a base for 1,000 astronauts in a year or two, instead of sending two or three dinky 10 ton crew habitats over the next decade. So why dont we do that? Because Artemis is still trapped in a pre-Starship paradigm where each kilogram costs a million dollars and we must aggressively descope our ambition.

With a 100x decrease in cost and a 100x increase in transportation volume, space agencies can send 100x more payload to space for the same budget. How can the space economy saturate this new supply?

For example, prior to Starship, heavy machinery to build a Moon base could only come from NASA. After Starship, Caterpillar or Deere can qualify their existing products for space with very minimal changes. We could send crews to build a base in space with John Deere equipment in a few years, instead of waiting for decades while NASA engineers catch up with reality.

History is littered with the wreckage of former industrial titans that underestimated the impact of new technology and overestimated their ability to adapt: Blockbuster, Motorola, Kodak, Nokia, RIM, Xerox, Yahoo, IBM, Atari, Sears, Hitachi, Polaroid, Toshiba, HP, Palm, Sony, PanAm, Sega, Netscape, Compaq, GMCasey Handmer, Starship is still not understood

Everyone saw it coming, but senior management failed to recognize that adaptation would require stepping beyond the accepted bounds of their traditional business practice. If they dont do it, others will for them.

This is what Starlink is.

SpaceX created all this cheap cargo space and realized its ramifications before anybody else. They wondered: How can we use all this cheap cargo that nobody knows what to do with?

They looked at the most obvious business model to take advantage of it: satellite communications. They went for it. SpaceX created the satellite constellation Starlink, which provides fast, reliable Internet service all over the world. In many cases, the economics of beaming information down are superior to laying down cable on Earth. Its already making money.

Starlink is just one example of what you can do with all this new, cheap cargo space. There are many more. The more time passes without companies realizing the opportunity, the more businesses SpaceX will gobble up.

What are some of these opportunities?

Today, we use satellite imaging, but the images you get from space are pretty stale, or not very detailed. We can get so much better. For example, theres a thing called synthetic aperture radar, capable of capturing amazing pictures like this:

Have you ever used Google Maps and wondered: Id love to see this, but in much more detail? Or what if I could see the Earth in real time? Or what if we could see an infrared image of the Earth in real time?

We could launch hundreds of satellites with such mind-blowing visual precision of the Earth that we would dramatically improve the accuracy of our meteorological models;Our agriculture;Where crime is happening;Where poachers are operating in the savannah;Whats happening with climate change;Who is moving military personnel where Wouldnt that be useful?

What if we all had access to real-time visualization of everything happening on Earth? How does that change businesses? How does that change society?

Please share your ideas on the types of businesses that this makes possible in the comments. Im especially interested in the ramifications of real-time, detailed imagery of the world.

Leave a comment

Conversely, I dont think deep space is as viable. Tourism, deep-space mining, or Mars colonization are not businesses. This limits their potential a lot. I will cover this in the premium article this week

This article was inspired by and heavily quotes Casey Handmers blog, especially his post Starship is still not understood. I will be writing more about space in the coming weeks, and Caseys blog has been a huge influence. I will also talk about Caseys new venture in the future. Also thank you Chan Komagan for your ideas while writing this article, and Shoni as always for your edits!

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How Starship Will Change Humanity Soon - by Tomas Pueyo - Uncharted Territories

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China is taking 3D printers to the moon – TechRadar

Posted: April 27, 2023 at 2:49 pm

In an effort to realize lunar habitation, China is reportedly working on plans for 3D printers to make use of the existing materials on the moon.

During the pandemics first year, the Peoples Republic received its first lunar soil sample as part of the Change 5 mission, leaving scientists and astronomers to study the potential of lunar colonization.

By the end of this decade, China hopes to have completed its Change 6, 7, and 8 missions, collecting a second sample, targeting the moons south pole, and looking for reusable resources, respectively.

Change 8 specifically is designed to explore resources that the country would be able to use for building purposes with its chosen method: 3D printing.

Studying the mineral composition and availability of other resources will give scientists an indication of what may be possible remotely, from Earth, giving the country a chance to draw up plans ahead of broader lunar travel.

Furthermore, China looks to be contemplating technologies whereby humans are not required - such as 3D printing - which would allow liveable structures to be assembled ahead of peoples arrival.

The report comes from Communist Party-owned China Daily (via Reuters (opens in new tab)), which quotes China National Space Administration scientist Wu Weiren: If we wish to stay on the moon for a long time, we need to set up stations by using the moon's own materials.

The Change 8 mission is also reportedly preparing to launch a robot that will be able to build lunar soil bricks as the Republic continues to intensify its space program.

Recently, Russias Roskosmos has been struggling as the country battles sanctions imposed on it by nuemerous Western governments, while NASA has also drawn up plans for lunar exploration in the coming years.

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Mae Martins SAP showcases affirming, optimistic humor – The Wellesley News

Posted: at 2:49 pm

Ill admit that, aside from another student/actually a professional journalist Im mutuals with on Twitter saying Mae Martins SAP is funny, affirming, and poignant without once punching down, I had no idea what to expect from Martins newest Netflix special. Being greeted with a surreal campfire scene where Martin declines a marshmallow but accepts a rubber band, I was delighted by the premise of a snow globe indicating storytime. Martin immediately draws you in with endearing expressions and movement that plays up the theatrics while still coming across as entirely authentic. The humor of the campfire scene with a mysterious man (Phil Burgers) is a bright way to start the special, treating the viewer to Martins compelling and charming body and facial expressions even in a spot of awkwardness or when asking for Burgerss phone to chuck in the fire. Everything shows Martin as a bouncy, captivating person, to the point of them officially starting the special by stumbling out of a forest-themed backdrop.

Watching this feels like watching a friend get so excited they exhibit an almost childlike quality pure, yet touching. At one point, Martin makes a point of commenting on watching their friends stand-up and noting that their show was dynamic, which they wished to be. And theres humor in the bit when removed from context, but it is highlighted further by the fact that Martin is so expressive and physical in this special. I was first introduced to their work in Netflixs 2022 LGBTQ+ comedy special Stand Out, and even in that, theres this physicality that makes Martin so engaging. Their first bit of their special is actually also in Stand Out, but they lead into it seamlessly by discussing how their father is lost in the (moon) sauce, and they were so animated I continued to hang onto every word despite knowing the contents. Their excitement is tangible, coming through in hand gestures and bright movements, which underscores the beginnings focus on a tranquil parent. Framing their special in the context of their parents sets the viewer up for something a little reflective, yet lively.

Around the halfway point, Martin starts a bit about the embarrassment of being an adult but having a room, only to lead into the abstract. Transplanting this idea of rooms as external expressions of oneself, they describe minds as rooms furnished with identity, which they specifically think of as snow globes. And the delight in Burgerss face when Martin offers him a snow globe at the beginning of the special becomes more significant this snow globe indicative of storytime is deeper, now, than an object; it is a symbol of the basis of communication. While Martin acts out this idea of showing mental snow globes to have conversation, complete with voices, there is an underlying contemplativeness. This is the first bit where they pause for a significant beat or two, providing a moment to relax into the snowglobe that is experiencing this special.

That is a feeling carried throughout SAP commentary on some of the specials material being more of a (amusingly concerning) vignette than a joke with a punchline, many jokes explicitly set in childhood or being significantly younger and an entire set-up regarding nostalgia feature in their work. They tease their younger self but remain loving, acknowledging the validity of their anger (likening it to being a teen buying a terrible house from a shady realtor) while also saying that, perhaps, getting a tattoo that says oatmeal and being self-destructive might not be the best way to react to being given a house thats falling apart.

Toward the end, Martin gets more political, mentioning the 2016 election of Trump as proof that the world is tilted on its axis, and the efforts of Gen Z are going to fix the house theyve been given. They even touch on less contemporary issues, acknowledging the colonial nature of gender binaries, specifically calling out UK medias smugness regarding India decriminalizing homosexuality when Englands colonization of India was responsible for the initial criminalization, calling it the ultimate form of gaslighting.

Martin ends the actual stand-up with a Buddhist parable, which they start by asking the audience to stay with them, as its actually a positive story. Once its told, they are earnest, asking the audience to get it, to wait and see it through, because this parable, they reveal, is the origin of the specials name, SAP. The special as a whole ends where it began, with Burgerss character crying (due to their differences in humor), and me crying when Martin takes the snowglobe back, saying Its me, Im me and Burgers agreeing You are you. Credits role as Martin and Burgers get ready to bury some mail.

I didnt go into watching this with any expectations, but even if I did, I dont know whether I would have ever expected what I got. SAP is funny, reflective, poignant and just good. Martin keeps it light, even when talking about serious matters, in a way that avoids minimizing the damage theyre discussing. And yes, I cried a little at the end, but I dont think thats a mark of an unsuccessful special. It is hard to blindly watch comedians these days without fearing that someone will be punching down on my and other peoples existence, so it is refreshing to see a show void of it. The end is an affirmation of existence for Martin and people like them, which is moving. And, I dont know about you, but ending a comedy show with some laughter as well as some acceptance is a pretty good way to go.

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