Virgin Galactic’s use of the ‘Overview Effect’ to promote space tourism is a terrible irony

Ariane Moore, University of TasmaniaVirgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded in 2004 by Richard Branson, promotes its flights as offering: A Brand New Perspective: Deepen your connection to Earth and to humanity with the transformational experience known as the Overview Effect. First discussed in 1987 by space philosopher Frank White, the Overview Effect is a result of viewing Earth from space. Expressions of the effect range broadly. Astronauts might experience profound awe and wonder at the perception of Earth as a fragile living being. Some suffer crushing grief when considering the harm humans inflict on nature. While Virgin Galactic promotes access to the Overview Effect as a major drawcard, it is a terrible irony that space tourism is enormously damaging for the environment. On May 25, Virgin Galactic completed a final test flight before it starts taking paying customers. The Overview Effect The Overview Effect is not limited to astronauts from the West. Their Chinese and Russian counterparts have described the same profound connection to Earth when witnessing the planet from space. As Soviet Russian cosmonaut Yuri Artyushkin reported: The feeling of unity is not simply an observation. With it comes a strong sense of compassion and concern for the state...
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The US just returned to the Moon after more than 50 years. How big a deal is it, really?

Intuitive Machines, CC BY-NC-ND David Flannery, Queensland University of TechnologyIn the few short years since the COVID pandemic changed our world, China, Japan and India have all successfully landed on the Moon. Many more robotic missions have flown past the Moon, entered lunar orbit, or crashed into it in the past five years. This includes spacecraft developed by South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and an Israeli not-for-profit organisation. Late last week, the American company Intuitive Machines, in collaboration with NASA, celebrated “America’s return to the Moon” with a successful landing of its Odysseus spacecraft. Recent Chinese-built sample return missions are far more complex than this project. And didn’t NASA ferry a dozen humans to the Moon back when microwaves were cutting-edge technology? So what is different about this mission developed by a US company? Back to the Moon The recent Odysseus landing stands out for two reasons. For starters, this is the first time a US-built spacecraft has landed – not crashed – on the Moon for over 50 years. Secondly, and far more significantly, this is the first time a private company has pulled off a successful delivery of cargo to the Moon’s surface. NASA has lately focused on destinations beyond the Earth–Moon system, including Mars. But with its Commercial Lunar...
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Was going to space a good idea?

NASA Alice Gorman, Flinders UniversityIn 1963, six years after the first satellite was launched, editors from the Encyclopaedia Britannica posed a question to five eminent thinkers of the day: “Has man’s conquest of space increased or diminished his stature?” The respondents were philosopher Hannah Arendt, writer Aldous Huxley, theologian Paul Tillich, nuclear scientist Harrison Brown and historian Herbert J. Muller. Sixty years later, as the rush to space accelerates, what can we learn from these 20th-century luminaries writing at the dawn of the space age? The state of space 60 years on Much has happened since. Spacecraft have landed on planets, moons, comets and asteroids across the Solar System. The two Voyager deep space probes, launched in 1977, are in interstellar space. A handful of people are living in two Earth-orbiting space stations. Humans are getting ready to return to the Moon after more than 50 years, this time to establish a permanent base and mine the deep ice lakes at the south pole. Water ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar south pole. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Data from JAXA/SeleneThere were only 57 satellites in Earth orbit in 1963. Now there are around 10,000, with tens of thousands more planned. Satellite services are part of everyday life....
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European Space Agency's Euclid telescope launches from Florida, US

An artist's impression of Euclid. Image: ESA.Yesterday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope aboard, launched at 11:12 AM EDT (1512 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida, US. Euclid was to study dark matter, dark energy, and the expansion of the universe. Costing €1.4 billion, Euclid was to spend about a month traveling around 1,500,000 kilometers (932,057 mi) to the Lagrange point L2 between the Earth and the Sun, the area of the James Webb Space Telescope. There, it would observe about a third of the sky beyond the Milky Way for six years. NASA designed and built Euclid's Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with a tentative launch date of May 2027, was to provide more refined data scientists could use to correct Euclid's. IPAC senior research scientist Yun Wang stated Euclid and Roman would "add up to much more than the sum of their parts [...] Combining their observations will give astronomers a better sense of what's actually going on in the universe." Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Euclid was scheduled for launch from French Guiana on a Russian Soyuz rocket in March 2023. Source: https://en.wikinews.org, available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Lice...
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Russia launches rescue ship to space station after leaks

In this handout photo taken from video released by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, the new, empty Soyuz MS-23 capsule blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Russia has launched a rescue ship for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut whose original ride sprang a dangerous leak at the International Space Station. (Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP)By MARCIA DUNN: Russia launched a rescue ship on Friday for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut whose original ride home sprang a dangerous leak while parked at the International Space Station.The new, empty Soyuz capsule should arrive at the orbiting lab on Sunday.The capsule leak in December was blamed on a micrometeorite that punctured an external radiator, draining it of coolant. The same thing appeared to happen again earlier this month, this time on a docked Russian cargo ship. Camera views showed a small hole in each spacecraft.The Russian Space Agency delayed the launch of the replacement Soyuz, looking for any manufacturing defects. No issues were found, and the agency proceeded with Friday's predawn launch from Kazakhstan of the capsule with bundles of supplies strapped into the three seats.Given the urgent need for this capsule, two top NASA officials traveled from the U.S. to observe the launch in person....
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Preliminary conclusions: damage to the spacecraft "Progress MS-21" caused by external influence

The State Commission continues to analyze emergency situations with the Soyuz MS-22 manned spacecraft and Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft that occurred on the International Space Station. The Soyuz MS-23 unmanned spacecraft will be launched to the station on February 24.Survey of the outer surface of the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraftAfter undocking from the ISS on February 18, a detailed photo and video survey of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft was carried out.According to preliminary data from the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia named after S.P. Korolev (part of the Roscosmos State Corporation), Progress MS-21, like Soyuz MS-22 before, was subjected to external influence. Such conclusions are made on the basis of photographs that show changes on the outer surface of the ship, including on the radiator of the instrument-aggregate compartment and solar panels. Holes were found on them that were not fixed either during the manufacture of Progress MS-21 at the plant, or during its preparation for launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, or during the flight and docking of the spacecraft with the ISS.In addition, in order to exclude the version of a manufacturing defect, RSC Energia analyzed the history of comments on the thermal control system of the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft over the past 15 years.“Remarks that could lead to such...
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Sun is white and not yellow, confirms former NASA astronaut!

Most people believe the Sun is yellow since it appears yellow from the ground, but after reading this tweet, we may have to rethink our views.This space truth was recently confirmed by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly in a widely shared tweet. The Sun's true colour is actually white, and the explanation the dwarf star typically seems yellow is due to an odd interaction between light physics that causes the sun to look yellow the majority of the time.Our atmosphere causes the sun to appear yellow. But once you are outside of the atmosphere of the Earth, the Sun appears to be all white. NASA claims that this is because of way our eyes see colour.Sunsets and sunrises seem red, yellow, or orange because the sun's light must traverse through all of Earth's atmosphere to reach the surface when it is lower in the sky than when it is directly overhead.According to NASA, shorter light wavelengths, like blue, are more likely to be scattered through the atmosphere as time goes on, whereas longer light wavelengths, like red, can go considerably farther.Since the amount of sunshine merely inundates the photoreceptor cells in our eyes, blending all the colours together, we are unable to distinguish a single colour from the sun. White is the result of combining all colours of light. As a result, the sun appears white in space and yellow on Earth. DailyBangladesh/RAH, Source:...
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Mars rover sees hints of past life in latest rock samples

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has detected its highest concentrations yet of organic molecules, in a potential signal of ancient microbes that scientists are eager to confirm when the rock samples are eventually brought to Earth.While organic matter has been found on the Red Planet before, the new discovery is seen as especially promising because it came from an area where sediment and salts were deposited into a lake -- conditions where life could have arisen."It is very fair to say that these are going to be, these already are, the most valuable rock samples that have ever been collected," David Shuster, a Perseverance return sample scientist, told reporters during a briefing.Organic molecules -- compounds made primarily of carbon that usually include hydrogen and oxygen, but also at times other elements -- are not always created by biological processes.Further analysis and conclusions will have to wait for the Mars Sample Return mission -- a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to bring back the rocks that is set for 2033.Nicknamed Percy, the rover landed on Mars' Jezero Crater in February 2021, tasked with caching samples that may contain signs of ancient life, as well as characterizing the planet's geology and past climate.The delta it is exploring formed 3.5 billion years ago. The rover is currently...
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DRDO Celebrates 63rd Foundation Day; Chairman Reddy Calls To Focus On Cyber Security, Space, AI

New Delhi: The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) observed the 63rd Foundation Day of its establishment on Friday, 1st January 2021. G. Satheesh Reddy, Secretary DDR&D & Chairman DRDO met Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and presented him with a model of the Akash Missile System, which was recently cleared for export. On the occasion, the Chairman of DRDO along with DGs and Directors of DRDO HQ paid floral tributes to former President APJ Abdul Kalam at DRDO Bhawan, according to a press statement from the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry stated that DRDO was established in 1958 with just 10 laboratories to enhance the research work in the Defence sector and was tasked with designing and developing cutting-edge defence technologies for the Indian Armed Forces. The Defence Ministry stated that today, the DRDO is working in multiple cutting-edge military technology areas, which include aeronautics, armaments, combat vehicles, electronics, instrumentation, engineering systems, missiles, materials, naval systems, advanced computing, simulation, cyber, life sciences, and other technologies for defence. Addressing the DRDO fraternity, the DRDO Chairman Reddy extended warm wishes to DRDO employees and their families. He stated that an eventful year has passed and a new one is about to begin, and asked scientists...
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Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins dies at 90

American astronaut Michael Collins, who flew the Apollo 11 command module while his crewmates became the first people to land on the Moon in 1969, died on Wednesday after battling cancer, his family said.“Mike always faced the challenges of life with grace and humility, and faced this, his final challenge, in the same way,” Collins’ family tweeted on his official Twitter account.Often described as the "forgotten" third astronaut on the historic mission, Collins remained alone for more than 21 hours until his two colleagues returned in the lunar module. He lost contact with mission control in Houston each time the spacecraft circled the dark side of the moon."Not since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins," the mission log said, referring to the biblical figure.Collins wrote an account of his experiences in his 1974 autobiography, "Carrying the Fire," but largely shunned publicity."I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have," Collins said in comments released by NASA in 2009. Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.c...
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SpaceX Crew Dragon “Resilience” docks with ISS

A SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying four astronauts docked with the International Space Station Monday, the first of what NASA hopes will be many routine missions ending US reliance on Russian rockets.“Dragon SpaceX, soft capture confirmed,” said an announcer as the capsule completed its 27.5 hour journey at 11:01 pm (0401 GMT Tuesday), with the second part of the procedure, “hard capture,” occurring a few minutes later.The spacecraft, named “Resilience,” docked autonomously with the space station some 260 miles (400 kilometers) above the Midwestern US state of Ohio.The crew is comprised of three Americans — Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker — and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi.Earlier, mission commander Hopkins gave pilot Glover his “gold pin,” a NASA tradition when an astronaut first crosses the 100-kilometer Karman line marking the official boundary of space.Glover is the first Black astronaut to make an extended stay at the ISS, while Noguchi is the first non-American to fly to orbit on a private spaceship.The crew joins two Russians and one American aboard the station, and will stay for six months.Along the way, there was a problem with the cabin temperature control system, but it was quickly solved.SpaceX briefly transmitted live images from inside the capsule showing the astronauts in their seats, something neither the...
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A Blazar in the Early Universe: Details Revealed in Galaxy's Jet 12.8 Billion Light-Years from Earth

Credit: Spingola et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF.The supersharp radio "vision" of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) has revealed previously unseen details in a jet of material ejected at three-quarters the speed of light from the core of a galaxy some 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy, dubbed PSO J0309+27, is a blazar, with its jet pointed toward Earth, and is the brightest radio-emitting blazar yet seen at such a distance. It also is the second-brightest X-ray emitting blazar at such a distance. In this image, the brightest radio emission comes from the galaxy's core, at bottom right. The jet is propelled by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole at the core, and moves outward, toward the upper left. The jet seen here extends some 1,600 light-years, and shows structure within it.At this distance, PSO J0309+27 is seen as it was when the universe was less than a billion years old, or just over 7 percent of its current age.An international team of astronomers led by Cristiana Spingola of the University of Bologna in Italy, observed the galaxy in April and May of 2020. Their analysis of the object's properties provides support for some theoretical models for why blazars are rare in the early universe. The researchers reported their results in the journal Astronomy...
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Indian-American Raja Chari among 3 astronauts selected by NASA for SpaceX Crew-3 mission

DEC 16, 2020 WASHINGTON: Indian-American US Air Force Colonel Raja Chari has been selected as the Commander of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA and the European Space Agency. Chari, 43, will serve as the commander while NASA's Tom Marshburn will be pilot and ESA's Matthias Maurer will serve as a mission specialist for the SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the ISS, which is expected to launched next year. A fourth crew member will be added at a later date, following a review by NASA and its international partners, NASA said in a statement on Monday. "Excited and honored to be training with @astro_matthias and @AstroMarshburn in prep for a trip to the @Space_Station," Chari said in a tweet on Monday. "Proud to be working and training with Matthias Maurer and Thomas Henry Marshburn in preparation for a mission to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon," he posted on his Facebook page. This will be the first spaceflight for Chari, who became a NASA astronaut in 2017. He was born in Milwaukee, but considers Cedar Falls, Iowa, his hometown, NASA said. He is a colonel in the US Air Force and joins the mission with extensive experience as a test pilot. He has accumulated more than 2,500 hours of flight time in his career. Chari was selected earlier this month as a member of the Artemis...
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Indian-American among 18 astronauts selected for NASA's manned Moon mission

DEC 11, 2020 WASHINGTON: An Indian-American is among the 18 astronauts selected by NASA for its manned mission to the Moon and beyond. NASA on Wednesday named the 18 astronauts -- half of them women -- who will train for its Artemis moon-landing programme. Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari, 43, a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, MIT, and US Naval Test Pilot School, is the only Indian-American in the list. He was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. He reported for duty in August 2017 and having completed the initial astronaut candidate training is now eligible for a mission assignment. "My fellow Americans, I give you the heroes of the future who will carry us back to the Moon and beyond: the Artemis Generation," Vice President Mike Pence said at NASA''s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Wednesday. "It really is amazing to think that the next man and the first woman on the Moon are among the names that we just read...We started today reflecting on a great hero of the past. The Artemis Generation are the heroes of American space exploration in the future," Pence said after he introduced the members of the Artemis Team during the eighth National Space Council meeting. The astronauts on the Artemis Team come from a diverse range of backgrounds, expertise and experience. Most of the astronauts in the group are in...
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New Super Highway Network Duiscovered in the Solar System, Faster Travel Now Possible

Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive comets and asteroids near Jupiter to Neptune's distance in under a decade and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to send spacecraft to the far reaches of our planetary system relatively fast, and to monitor and understand near-Earth objects that might collide with our planet. In their paper, published in the Nov. 25 issue of Science Advances, the researchers observed the dynamical structure of these routes, forming a connected series of arches inside what’s known as space manifolds that extend from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond. This newly discovered "œcelestial autobahn," or œcelestial highway, acts over several decades, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands or millions of years that usually characterize Solar System dynamics.The most conspicuous arch structures are linked to Jupiter and the strong gravitational forces it exerts. The population of Jupiter-family comets (comets having orbital periods of 20 years) as well as small-size solar system bodies known as Centaurs, are controlled by such manifolds on unprecedented time scales. Some of these bodies will end up colliding with Jupiter or being ejected from the Solar System.The...
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Japan begins space capsule analysis hoping for asteroid sample

Japan begins space capsule analysis hoping for asteroid sampleScientists in Japan on Tuesday began analysing a capsule sent back to Earth by a probe, hoping to find asteroid material that could offer clues on how the universe was formed.Officials from Japan’s space agency said they were jubilant about the successful return of the capsule, which landed in Australia on Sunday after separating from the Hayabusa-2 probe.“I’m genuinely appreciative of the fact that the capsule came back, after a 5.24 billion-kilometre round-trip,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda told reporters.Scientists hope it will yield up to 0.1 grams of material collected from the asteroid Ryugu some 300 million kilometres from Earth — though they won’t know for sure until they look inside.“I’m really looking forward to seeing (the samples) with my own eyes,” Tsuda said.But that isn’t expected to happen before at least next week, with a series of steps required first to ensure the material is not contaminated.For now, the capsule is “in a secure location” at a space centre in Sagamihara, south of Tokyo, agency director general Hitoshi Kuninaka said.“Now we move to the matter-analysis phase,” he said. The samples — collected last year — are hoped to include both surface dust and pristine material stirred up when Hayabusa-2 fired an “impactor” into Ryugu.Scientists hope...
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Baffling radio signal coming from inside Milky Way Galaxy

Astronomers detect mysterious bursts of radio signals from distant galaxy; Photo: cbsnewsA mysterious intense blast of radio energy has been detected inside our own galaxy, astronomers have said in a new study published in the journal Nature.The Independent reported that the detected signals are Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) that last only a small fraction of a second, however, it can possess more than the sun itself. Despite the intensity of FRBs, their causal origin remains largely unknown.In the new study, however, astronomers observed a fast radio burst in our own Milky Way Galaxy for the first time – which is closer than any FRBs that was previously detected and might help astronomers understand their origin.Scientists have long struggled to uncover the origin of these intense blasts because they are so short, unpredictable and originate far away. But the consensus is they are formed within some of the most extreme conditions possible in our universe — with potential explanations ranging from dying stars to alien technology. The bursts of radio energy appear to have come from a magnetar, or a star with a very powerful magnetic field, the scientists who discovered the new FRBs said. “This great mystery as to what would produce these great outbursts of energy, which until now we’ve seen coming from halfway across the universe,”...
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Three-man US-Russian crew returns to Earth from ISS

An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts touched down on the Kazakhstan steppe on Thursday, completing a 196-day mission that began with the first launch under lockdown conditions.NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner landed around 150 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan at 0254 GMT, footage broadcast by the Russian space agency Roscosmos showed.A NASA commentator citing communications from crews on the ground at the landing site said that the Soyuz descent module had landed in a vertical position and that the crew were working on getting the trio out of the craft.The three-man crew had blasted off minus the unusual fanfare in April with around half the world's population living under national lockdowns imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.The mission coincided with the arrival at the space station in May of the first astronauts to blast off from US soil for almost a decade.The mission carried out by tycoon Elon Musk's SpaceX company as part of NASA's commercial Commercial Crew Program has helped fuel talk of a new "space race" between a number of countries.Prior to returning from his third mission in space, former US Navy SEAL Cassidy, 50, tweeted a picture of blood samples that astronauts have to submit at various points in their mission,...
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SpaceX Crew Dragon “Resilience” docks with ISS

A SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying four astronauts docked with the International Space Station Monday, the first of what NASA hopes will be many routine missions ending US reliance on Russian rockets.“Dragon SpaceX, soft capture confirmed,” said an announcer as the capsule completed its 27.5 hour journey at 11:01 pm (0401 GMT Tuesday), with the second part of the procedure, “hard capture,” occurring a few minutes later.The spacecraft, named “Resilience,” docked autonomously with the space station some 260 miles (400 kilometers) above the Midwestern US state of Ohio.The crew is comprised of three Americans — Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker — and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi.Earlier, mission commander Hopkins gave pilot Glover his “gold pin,” a NASA tradition when an astronaut first crosses the 100-kilometer Karman line marking the official boundary of space.Glover is the first Black astronaut to make an extended stay at the ISS, while Noguchi is the first non-American to fly to orbit on a private spaceship.The crew joins two Russians and one American aboard the station, and will stay for six months.Along the way, there was a problem with the cabin temperature control system, but it was quickly solved.SpaceX briefly transmitted live images from inside the capsule showing the astronauts in their seats, something neither the...
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