Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 220

SpaceX is currently using the Falcon 9 rocket for the company's launches, but the bigger Falcon Heavy should take over soon. Elon Musk first mentioned Falcon Heavy in a September 2005 news update. The rocket was scheduled to fly in 2014, then 2015, but there have been delays, and now, the company is aiming for the second half of this year.

SpaceX CEO explained last year that developing the Falcon Heavy proved to be much more difficult than they previously thought, but it seems that the company is on track. They conducted the first static fire test on the rocket's critical center core, and the test was successful.

This is a huge milestone in the development of the Falcon Heavy. The company has big plans for this rocket, which should play a major role in the crewed mission to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX plans to begin sending uncrewed spacecraft to Mars by 2020, meaning it is crucial that the Falcon Heavy starts flying soon if the company wants to stay on schedule.

A base on the Moon is many scientists' dream because it would set a new milestone in space exploration. According to observations from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft that might be much more complicated than previously thought.

According to NASA's last year's data, the Moon experiences a heavier bombardment by small meteoroids than models had previously predicted. This revelation implies that equipment placed on the Moon for long durations, such as a lunar base, will have to be sturdier.

Of course, building on the Moon wouldn't be easy, but the ESA produced their first 3D printed brick, which could help with the building material. Bricks have been 3D printed out of simulated moondust using concentrated sunlight - proving in principle that future lunar colonists could one day use the same approach to build settlements on the Moon.

The Air Force's X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission 4 has landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on May 7th, after 718 days in orbit.

The Air Force's statement says that the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, is an experimental test program to demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform for the U.S. Air Force. The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold; reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.

However, not much is know about the spacecraft. Among many theories floating around, some mention that the X-37B could be a space bomber or a new type of probe that can destroy spy satellites.

On Sunday, SpaceX successfully launched and landed yet another Falcon 9 rocket. The military spy satellite was successfully launched into the orbit, and SpaceX marked their tenth successful landing.

The company landed their first rocket in December 2015, and just last month, they successfully launched and landed an already used Falcon 9 rocket, which was the first time in history that an already used rocket has been launched again.

Elon Musk believes that reusable rockets are the key to space exploration. He recently said that the company's next goal is to land and re-launch the same rocket within 24 hours.

After it postponed Saturday's launch due to sensor issue, SpaceX has successfully launched and landed yet another Falcon 9 rocket.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying NROL-76, a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, was launched on Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Around nine minutes after the launch, the rocket safely returned to Earth.

The military spy satellite was successfully launched into the orbit, and SpaceX marked their tenth successful landing. The company landed their first rocket in December 2015, and just last month, they successfully launched and landed an already used Falcon 9 rocket, which was the first time in history that an already used rocket has been launched again.

Most tech companies are pumping engineers, man hours, and technology and man hours into Deep Learning and AI technology - but will it eventually result in tens of millions of job losses across the world? Yes, yes it will - according to Kai-Fu Lee, the founder of venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures. Lee is also a leading voice on technology in China.

Lee recently spoke with CNBC, where he said that AI is the "singular thing that will be larger than all of human tech revolutions added together, including electricity, [the] industrial revolution, internet, mobile internet - because AI is pervasive". Amazingly scary words, but also very exciting. Lee added that "It is the decision engine that will replace people". It was only recently that I reported that AI engineers had left the grip of Google, moving into the most secretive AI startup on the planet - probably Skynet, I guess.

Lee said that his firm has invested millions of dollars into AI companies that are capable of recognizing 3 million faces simultaneously, or pumping out loans in less than 8 seconds. He added: "These are things that are superhuman, and we think this will be in every industry, will probably replace 50 percent of human jobs, create a huge amount of wealth for mankind and wipe out poverty".

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has set yet another record. After becoming the first woman to command the Space Station in 2008, and the first woman to command the Station twice (on April 9th, 2017), she has now set the record for cumulative time spent in space by a US astronaut.

At the moment of breaking the record, Whitson spent 534 days, 2 hours, and 49 minutes in space. And with the recent extension of her stay at the International Space Station, she will accumulate even more time. When she returns to Earth, she'll have spent more than 650 days in space, and decades supporting spaceflight from the ground.

Until now, the record-holder, when talking about the US astronauts, was Jeff Williams with 534 days, 2 hours and 48 minutes of cumulative time in space.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has sent yet another stunning image from space.

The photo was taken when Cassini was 870 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) away from Earth, and it shows our planet between the rings of Saturn.

Although far and too small to be visible in the image, the part of Earth facing Cassini at the time was the southern Atlantic Ocean. Even Earth's Moon is visible in a zoomed-in version of the image.

Google had some of its best engineers on its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) project, but some of them have departed the search giant for one of the most secretive AI projects in the world.

The engineers left Google, teaming with one of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists, Chamath Palihapitiya. The company that Palihapitiya lured the engineers to is called Groq Inc., at least for now - but there's little known about Groq. There are a few SEC filings from October and December, with the company raising $10.3 million. In its SEC documents, Groq named three principals: Jonathan Ross, who helped invent the TPU, Douglas Wightman, an entrepreneur and former engineer at the Google X "moonshot factory" and Palihapitiya, the founder of investment firm Social Capital. The listed address is Social Capital's headquarters, reports CNBC.

Palihapitiya said in an email: "We're really excited about Groq. It's too early to talk specifics, but we think what they're building could become a fundamental building block for the next generation of computing". The fundamental building block for the next generation of computing? Alright, now I'm excited.

Languages... who needs them? These are the thoughts that go through Tony Stark's Elon Musk's mind, so the Tesla and Space X founder and his think tank have devised a device that would plant a neural plant inside of your head.

Musk's grand plan would make AI assistants of today look like they were made in the stone age, for one big reason: languages. These brain implants would push through "uncompressed" communication between people, so that you could upload your thoughts instantaneously between your brains - without language barriers. It sounds fantastic, doesn't it?

During a recent interview, Musk said: "If I were to communicate a concept to you, you would essentially engage in consensual telepathy. There are a bunch of concepts in your head that then your brain has to try to compress into this incredibly low data rate called speech or typing. If you have two brain interfaces, you could actually do an uncompressed direct conceptual communication with another person".

After a little over a week with just four crew members on board the Space Station, the Expedition 51 is now complete. After a six-hour flight, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos arrived at the International Space Station.

The two launched aboard the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Before docking to the Station, they orbited Earth 4 times.

The arrival of Fischer and Yurchikhin increased the Station's crew complement to five. The two join Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency).

After more than 12 years studying Saturn, its rings, and moons, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has entered the final year of its epic voyage. The conclusion of the historic scientific odyssey is planned for September 2017. Cassini already sent some impressive images of Saturn's atmosphere and shown us detailed images of Saturn's rings.

However, Cassini's most important discovery reveals much more. NASA has announced that a form of chemical energy that life can feed on appears to exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The paper from researchers with the Cassini mission, published in the journal Science, indicates hydrogen gas, which could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life, is pouring into the subsurface ocean of Enceladus from hydrothermal activity on the seafloor.

The presence of ample hydrogen means that microbes if they exist there, could use it to obtain energy by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide dissolved in the water.

Expedition 50 crew members safely returned to Earth on Monday after 173 days in space.

The Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft, carrying Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA, and Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has landed in Kazakhstan at approximately 7:20 AM. The three touched down southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

"It was a textbook touchdown," said NASA's spokesperson Rob Navias. "The Soyuz was pulled by its main parachute onto its side, but the crew was quickly extracted and are in good shape."

SpaceX made history by successfully launching and landing already used Falcon 9 rocket. This is the first time in history that an already used rocket has been launched again.

The Falcon 9 in question was first used in April last year when it launched the Dragon towards the International Space Station. It was the second rocket that SpaceX successfully landed, and the first one that they landed on an ocean platform.

SpaceX has been landing rockets for little over two years now. Up until then, rockets were only disposable, destroyed after the launch. The company has now shown that the rockets can be re-used, which will lower the cost of space missions and space flights.

SpaceX just made history. Again. They have just successfully launched and landed an already used Falcon 9 rocket. This is the first time in history that an already used rocket has been launched again.

The Falcon 9 in question was first used in April last year when it launched the Dragon towards the International Space Station. It was the second rocket that SpaceX successfully landed, and the first one that they landed on an ocean platform.

SpaceX launched a communications satellite from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and successfully landed the Falcon 9 rocket onto the ocean platform. This is SpaceX's ninth successful landing and a huge milestone in space exploration.

SpaceX is all set to make history on Thursday, March 30th, when they plan to launch their first reusable rocket.

The Falcon 9 rocket, which they plan to launch on Thursday, was first used in April last year when it launched the Dragon towards the International Space Station. It was the second rocket that SpaceX successfully landed, and the first one that they landed on an ocean platform.

SpaceX test-fired the rocket this week, and they announced that the static fire test was successful.

Elon Musk is making some big moves towards getting your mind inside of a machine, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that Musk has launched a new company called Neuralink, which is pushing the boundaries on something Musk teases as "neural lace technology".

Back in February, Musk said that humans can communicate at around 10 bits per second when typing on smartphones, but computers can talk to each other at trillions of bits per second. In order for the human race to begin trying to keep up with advanced machines will be a high-speed link, something Musk calls neural laces, between computers and our brains. Oh, is that all, Elon?

WSJ's sources say that Musk has taken a key role in Neuralink, and might even be in a leadership position. Neuralink co-founder Max Hodak confirmed the company is in operation, and Musk is involved, but it's early days for Neuralink.

So, we're now at a point where scientists can scan our brain waves while we watch movie trailers - and are able to pretty accurately predict whether that movie will be a box office success... or whether it'll bomb.

Researchers from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management have been working on a method of scanning brain waves of moviegoers, scanning over 120 of them wearing EEG brain monitors while they watched movie trailers, scanning their brain wave patterns. The researchers used this data, to see how well the trailers were keeping the attention of the viewers, and how similar the viewers' brain waves were.

This provided them with something called "neural similarity", and was a great way of predicting whether the final movie would be a box office hit - as those with more neural similarity made more money at the box office, with better engagement. The team tested over a dozen movie trailers, with X-Men: Days of Future Past coming in at #1 on the brain scans, while Mr. Peabody and Sherman came in dead last. The researchers added that neural similarity ratings accurately predicted the box office performance of both of these movies, and that this technology is at least 20% more accurate at predicting box office success than "less scientific" survey options.

Stephen Hawking, a well-known English physicist, and cosmologist has announced that he has accepted Sir Richard Branson's invitation to fly to space on board Virgin Galactic's new spacecraft.

In an interview on Monday with the British program Good Morning Britain, Hawking said he's been waiting to visit space for a while.

"My ambition is to fly into space. I thought no one would take me, but Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic, and I said yes", said Hawking.

Skynet is coming, and it'll be here sooner than you think: 2029. That's at least according to Google's Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil - who said: "By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence".

This new claim is a big one, as the Singularity has been teased by the smartest people in the world - the point where computers become smarter than humans. Others have said that the Singularity would take place in 2045 or so, with British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking staking claims on the Singularity happening in 2045.

Softbank recently acquired ARM Holdings, with plans of bringing the Singularity to us within the next 30 years. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son explained in a press conference last October: "I think a big paradigm shift is coming. The biggest theme in my view is the Singularity. I think it is coming into reality in the next 30 years. For that vision, I am exercising that strategy. $100 billion is an interesting size of ammunition. In my view, that is the beginning. My passion is bigger than many people think".