spaceistheplace

I suspect almost *everyone* feels that way at some point, which is why we have the sects and clades and religions and politics and culture and arts that we do. (The great irony of global hegemony is that, like fractals, its unity dissolves the closer you look; there is no “normal”, no matter how the media would like us to think otherwise.) Looking at the world as it stands – riven by falsely perceived differences, a multitude of groups arguing over ephemera at cross purposes while the important existential-risk-grade issues go unaddressed – I think seeking global unity is far more worthwhile a goal in the long run than hiving off, taking your ball and going home. If you believe you have good things to offer to the world – and I believe transhumanism *does* have good things to offer to the world – then keep offering them. The only way we’ll fix this mudball enough for us to escape it is by all pulling together; to go separatist is to concede defeat on behalf of the entire species, and in doing so help to ensure your own demise.

And as the resource crunches and climate shifts hit, anyone wandering off whistling Dixie and saying “well, we washed our hands of you normals, anyway” simply isn’t going to be allowed to head for the hills by the angry mobs. Regardless of their true intent, separatist groups are subject to our deeply-embedded primate-vintage tribal Hatred Of The Other. To imagine otherwise – and to imagine that any one group will somehow pull off, pacifisticly and nobly, what every vaguely rebellious twenty-something has considered at least once in their lives, but which has never been achieved, namely a successful bloodless secession from the rest of the planet – is certainly not evil or wrong, but I struggle to call it anything other than (charmingly) naive.

Schismatic transhuman sects | Blog | Futurismic

Paul speaking even greater truth, commenting on his own blog post, concluding a conversation with the Leader of the Transhuman Separatists, Rachel Haywire.

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It was the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and the only one ever snapped by a human being. You can’t see the Earth as a globe unless you get at least twenty thousand miles away from it, and only 24 humans ever went that far into outer space. They were the three-man crews of the nine Apollo missions that traveled to the moon between 1968 and 1972, six of which landed there successfully (three men went twice). But only the last three saw a full Earth.

…

(The true camera image is upside-down by earthly standards, showing the South Pole at the top of the globe, because the camera was held by a weightless man who didn’t know down from up. Most reproductions invert it to align with our expectations.)

Most people who glanced out the window and saw something like that would be distracted no matter how busy they were. That’s what happened on Apollo 17 when the spacecraft was some 28,000 miles from Earth and crossing the path between it and the sun. All three men aboard had mission-critical tasks to perform at the time, tasks they had simulated hundreds of times on the ground. Tasks they could almost do automatically. And they weren’t immune to astonishment.

After the picture became famous all three remembered seeing that remarkable sight and each was pretty sure they had snapped the shot. NASA policy is to credit the entire crew for all mission photography, so there is no official position. Ron Evans died in 1990 without relinquishing his claim, and forty years later there is still a running argument between Cernan and Schmitt about who took the Blue Marble Shot. Those four decades have shown it to be the most significant thing they brought back from their expedition, far more meaningful than the moon rocks they gathered, so it matters to them. A lot.

From The Blue Marble Shot: Our First Complete Photograph of Earth – Al Reinert – Technology – The Atlantic

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The heliosphere, the bubble of energy provided by the sun which envelops all the planets in the solar system, was known to block cosmic rays coming in from the rest of the universe. It seems that it doesn’t do so alone. The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) orbited earth, in an attempt to map the edges of the solar system. The maps it brought back show that there is a specific energy barrier wrapped around the solar system. IBEX scientists have looked over maps made by the mission, and have managed to chart the shape of this huge ribbon of energy.

The IBEX used cameras that were sensitive to energetic neutral atoms, instead of photons, to focus on the boundary of the bubble of energy around our solar system. The heliosphere is puffed up, to a large degree, by the high-energy particles that shoot out of the sun. The ribbon appears to stretch down and wind around the heliosphere like stripes on a candy cane, and then move on.

(via Our solar system is wrapped in a mysterious energy ribbon)

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Modern rockets have some degree of automation, as well as onboard sensors that inform engineers on the ground about trajectory, malfunctions and so on. But the setup is rather like a “check engine” light in a car that alerts the driver to an unspecified problem and neither offers nor implements a solution.

In contrast, data from various sensors in the Epsilon launch vehicle will come together in an electronic “brain” that, like our own, can then issue commands to the rocket’s “body.”

“The AI will diagnose the condition of the rocket, but it is more than that,” Morita said. Should there be an issue, “the AI system will determine the cause of a malfunction,” and in some cases correct for it.

One example of this AI in action could be the regulation of the electrical current that controls the orientation of the thruster nozzle. Where the thruster is pointed determines the rocket’s direction, and a surge or other irregularity in the nozzle’s electrical current can send the rocket off course. Applying AI in this way is quite similar to its use in electrocardiograms that interpret the human heart’s electrical signals in order to evaluate organ function, Morita noted.

Epsilon’s AI also seems to draw on NASA’s Deep Space One probe, which launched in 1998 and was retired in 2001. That project stands as the most notable application of AI to rocketry, said Henry Kautz, president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Onboard computer programs allowed the probe to devise its own plans for achieving goals set by human operators. Deep Space One took stock of its condition and executed tasks instead of waiting for detailed planning via remote control from human operators.

The probe also demonstrated the first use of AI for spacecraft navigation, which could help rockets reach their orbital destination for deploying satellites or maybe even astronauts someday. Deep Space One’s autonomous navigation system directly adjusted engines based on optical observations of asteroids against a backdrop of stars to provide orientation.

All such systems could grant rockets greater flexibility in dealing with unexpected situations and reduce time and manpower needs.

Artificially Intelligent Rockets Could Slash Launch Costs

– if that’s how they wanna pitch it, fine by me

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itsfullofstars:

suppendapo:

rubodewig:

via 1.bp.blogspot.com

Colonize the moon.

Missing are the American workhorses – Atlas V and Delta IV

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Color image of a region in Holden Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Observations from two spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express, have revealed potential subsurface ice deposits in areas just south of the equator, including one near Holden Crater, with an estimated reservoir of perennial subsurface water ice of about 50 – 500 kg m -2 just two or three meters beneath the surface. This is the first evidence of ice at “tropical” latitudes on Mars as low as 25 degrees.


In 2009, MRO observations revealed water ice as low as 45 degrees North in a recent small impact crater, and permanent water ice at Mars’ poles is known to exist. But most robotic missions – and hopefully one day human missions – need to land closer to the equator to meet safety criteria and engineering constraints. As evidence, the four proposed landing sites for the MSL hover within 25 degrees of the equator.*

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The Indian Space Research Organization has discovered a massive
underground chamber near the moon’s equator, one that would be perfect
for housing a moon base. A moon base!

Discovered by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, this chamber is more than
one mile long and 393 feet wide. There would be lots of benefits of
building a moon base in there, mainly for protection from the nastiness
of the surface of the moon. It’d provide a nearly constant temperature
of -4 degrees Fahrenheit, unlike the surface, which fluctuates between
266 degrees and -292 degrees. And it would provide protection from
radiation, micro-meteor impacts and dust.

So, what’s the holdup? Let’s get building! I want to visit a hotel in a moon base sometime in the next 20 years, please!

Giant chamber on the moon discovered, perfect for a future base | DVICE (via eddieatthegov)
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