Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 222

I'd like to say that I didn't see this coming, but I can't lie to you guys - AI is taking over the world, for better or worse. Now we have the world's largest hedge fund building software that will automate their day-to-day management of the firm, with the artificial intelligence in charge of "hiring, firing and other strategic decision-making", reports The Guardian.

Bridgewater Associates has assembled a team of software engineers after a request from billionaire founder Ray Dalio, who wants to see the company running towards the vision he created, even when he's not there. The Wall Street Journal reports: "The role of many remaining humans at the firm wouldn't be to make individual choices but to design the criteria by which the system makes decisions, intervening when something isn't working".

The company manages a mind boggling $160 billion worth of funds, with Bridgewater Associates forming a team of programmers that specialize in analytics and AI, something they have called the Systematized Intelligence Lab. This unit is led by the ex-boss of IBM's development of Watson - the supercomputer that beat humans at Jeopardy! in 2011, David Ferrucci.

NASA's CYGNSS spacecraft aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus rocket was successfully launched after multiple delays during the week.

The initial launch was postponed because a hydraulic pump aboard the Orbital ATK L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, which is required to release the latches holding the Pegasus in place, was not receiving power.

The launch wasn't typical because the Pegasus rocket was carried aloft by Orbital ATK's Stargazer L-1011 aircraft to approximately 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, where it was then released. After around five seconds of free fall, the rocket ignited its first stage rocket motor. The Pegasus delivered the eight CYGNSS satellites into orbit in a little over 10 minutes.

NASA has announced that it will be increasing the network speeds on the International Space Station soon, without a new router or satellite - with the upgrades being mainly terrestrial.

TechCrunch reports: "The ISS and dozens of satellites rely on the Space Network, a more or less unified architecture for sending large amounts of data from orbit to base stations around the world. Its maximum bandwidth is 300 Mbps, which is of course much faster than most ISPs provide, and more than enough for everyone on the ISS to stream videos at once".

28TB of high-definition, real-time space data is transmitted back to Earth everyday, as well as the astronauts' internet browsing, video calls - and if it were me, Overwatch gaming. All of the transmission goes through a dedicated network of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which then blast the signals to base stations, and then pass them through to their destinations here on our pale blue dot.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft made history back in 2012 when it became the first commercial spacecraft in history to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and safely return cargo to Earth, a feat previously achieved only by governments. Although Dragon currently carries cargo to space, it was designed to carry humans, and it should have a major role in getting to Mars.

The Dragon spacecraft has yet to welcome its first crew onboard, which was planned for December 2017. However, according to NASA's Commercial Crew Program Target Flight Dates list, the 14-day test flight has been rescheduled for May 2018.

This decision is most likely related to Falcon 9's explosion in September and the company's investigation of the incident. Elon Musk said that the cause of the accident was "a combination of liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites, and solid oxygen," but earlier this month they rescheduled the launch of satellites for Iridium Communications because they are "completing the final steps necessary to safely return to flight."

The planned launch of NASA's CYGNSS spacecraft aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus rocket has been postponed. According to the company, a hydraulic pump aboard the Orbital ATK L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, which is required to release the latches holding the Pegasus in place, was not receiving power.

The three-stage Pegasus XL will be used to deploy eight small satellites for NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission into a Low-Earth orbit. Pegasus is carried aloft by Orbital ATK's Stargazer L-1011 aircraft to approximately 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, where it will be released and free-fall for five seconds before igniting its first stage rocket motor. With its unique delta-shaped wing, Pegasus will deliver these satellites into orbit in a little over 10 minutes.

CYGNSS will be used to study hurricanes and to learn about their rapid intensification.

NASA opened an official channel on Giphy and uploaded 462 GIFs. They range from historical moments in space exploration, fascinating views of our planet from space, to newer ones from International Space Station and first images of other planets in our system.

via GIPHY

Former astronaut and US Senator John Glenn died today, December 8th, at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. He was 95.

Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space in 1962 when he flew with the Friendship 7 mission, a part of Project Mercury. His flight made him an instant hero. He received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978 and was inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990.

Glenn is also the oldest person to fly in space so far, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs. He was 77 when he flew on Discovery mission in 1998. The purpose of his flight was to study the effects of spaceflight on the elderly. NASA doctors have followed Glenn's health since he first became an astronaut.

SpaceX grounded its rockets for more than three months after September's Falcon 9 explosion, but they were supposed to end this year with a new launch on December 16th.

However, that launch has now been canceled, and SpaceX is looking at a new launch date in early January. On a blog posted on their website, SpaceX stated that they are completing the final steps necessary to safely return to flight.

Elon Musk said last month that the cause of the accident was "a combination of liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites, and solid oxygen," so it's not clear what they are investigating and if there might have been another problem with the Falcon 9.

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.

Now, the Cassini spacecraft has sent its first views of Saturn's atmosphere since beginning the latest phase of its mission. The new images show scenes from high above Saturn's northern hemisphere.

"This is it, the beginning of the end of our historic exploration of Saturn. Let these images - and those to come - remind you that we've lived a bold and daring adventure around the solar system's most magnificent planet," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

The ESA concluded a two-day Council meeting at the ministerial level in Lucerne, Switzerland and ministers in charge of space matters from ESA's 22 member states plus Slovenia and Canada have allocated 10.3 billion euros (roughly around $11 billion) for space activities and programs based on the vision of a United Space in Europe in the era of Space 4.0.

The members also approved the commitment to extend European participation in the International Space Station program to 2024. Funding for the ESA's extension will amount to about 807 million euros ($861 million) on usage and 153 million euros ($163 million) for science projects involving the Space Station.

NASA's Administrator Charles Bolden expressed his excitement about the decision on NASA's official blog.

The European Space Agency (ESA) member nations have approved an additional $425 million dollars to complete the ExoMars mission, a two-part multi-year Martian astrobiology life searching project and joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). ESA asked for the additional funds after their Schiaparelli lander crashed onto the surface of Mars in October.

The member nations held a two-day meeting in Switzerland where it has been announced that they will provide extra funds.

The European-Russian ExoMars project have sent an orbiter and a test lander to Mars, which were supposed to lay groundwork for the next part of the mission scheduled in 2020 when they planned to send a rover to Mars.

"The Christmas tree is filled with flowers. I swear it's Christmas Eve", might not sound like a typical Christmas carol, it certainly won't make it to the top of the charts, but this is how an AI-generated song sounds.

The song, if we can call it that, was created with a program named "neural karaoke." Scientists uploaded a Christmasy image to the program and let it do its magic. The program then analyzed the photo and came up with words and a melody. The result is...unique.

The "neural karaoke" project from the University of Toronto is a demonstration of what artificial intelligence can do to make our lives more fun. It was created by student Hang Chu, who managed to teach the computer to create a simple melody in 100 hours.

After three and a half months, SpaceX could launch a new rocket this December. SpaceX grounded its rockets for more than three months after September's Falcon 9 explosion. The company struggled to determine the cause of the accident with Elon Musk stating that the explosion was caused by a "really surprising problem that's never been encountered before in the history of rocketry."

Musk later said that the cause of the accident was "a combination of liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites, and solid oxygen." He also expressed his hope that SpaceX will launch their next Falcon 9 rocket in December.

It seems that might happen on December 16th when SpaceX should launch satellites for Iridium Communications, a company that provides communications services through a constellation of more than 60 satellites.

The second day of the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) was dedicated to one of the most interesting technology topics and breakthroughs in recent years - artificial intelligence. The main speaker was IBM's Peter Hedges, one of the main experts in charge of the development of the famous Watson and head of IBM's cognitive computing in Europe.

Hedges started his keynote by saying that they started the Watson project ten years ago because they wanted to develop a system that can understand natural language. Just five years later, Watson has beaten the best players in Jeopardy.

"That was just the beginning. We later went on to teach Watson about medicine, finance, law...not so it could replace doctors or lawyers, but because it could be a great help to them", said Hedges, who has worked at IBM for over thirty years and still talks with the same enthusiasm like it's his first day at work.

I can only imagine those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are reading news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of MDMA (ecstasy) in large-scale trials.

The new Phase 3 research will see 230 patients involved, funded by Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an organization that pushes for the medical use of marijuana, LSD, and MDMA. MAPS funded the Phase 2 studies of MDMA with 130 PTSD patients. One study showed that out of 19 patients, 56% said that their PTSD symptoms weren't as strong after taking ecstasy with just three doses of MDMA - by the end of the study, two-thirds of them no longer met the criteria required for having PTSD - impressive.

Andrew Parrott, a psychologist at Swansea University in Wales said: "It sends the message that this drug will help you solve your problems, when often it just creates problems. This is a messy drug we know can do damage". But it's not as cut and dry as that, with a C.J. Hardin - a veteran who did three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, said: "I just felt hopeless and in the dark. But the MDMA sessions showed me a light I could move toward. Now I'm out of the darkness and the world is all around me".

The ESA's Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) arrived in Mars' orbit on October 19th as a part of ExoMars mission. The European Space Agency has now published a video compiled of a series of images taken in November by the TGO.

The first image sequence shown was taken at a distance of 5300 km, followed by a sequence acquired during closest approach of 235 km altitude. The video shows the Hebes Chasma region and Arisa Chasmata, which is located on the flanks of a large volcano on Mars named Arsia Mons.

The ExoMars mission will help us get a closer and better look at Mars and its regions, which should be favorable in our plan to colonize Mars.

NVIDIA announced its Xavier processor not too long ago, but now the company has officially launched its AI supercomputer chip - the first of its kind, ever.

The new Xavier board is a single-chip computer with over 7 billion transistors, with NVIDIA securing bragging rights of Xavier being capable of pushing over 20 trillion operations per second, at just 20W. Better yet, Xavier can be put together with a total of 50 boards, capable of driving up to 1 quadrillion operations per second, using 1kW of power - not too damn bad at all, if I might say so myself.

NVIDIA CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang sees a fast-approaching golden age of computing, with advances and leaps coming so quickly that it will pass our expectations. AI and supercomputing codes can be merged, and will see the offloading of traditional coding to technologies like neural networks - where we can expect things to get very, very interesting.

Just a month after their costly module crashed onto the surface of Mars, the European Space Agency (ESA) asked member nations to provide an additional $425 million dollars to complete the ExoMars mission.

ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is a two-part multi-year Martian astrobiology life searching project and joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The first part of the mission was executed in October when the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) successfully entered orbit around Mars.

However, ESA lost contact with its Schiaparelli lander shortly before it was supposed to land on Mars and it has later been confirmed that the 577 kg heavy module crashed onto the surface.

You'd think that by spending $4.4 billion on something, it would work... right? The US Navy has built its new destroyer, the USS Zumwalt, with an expensive receipt to cry over - and only weeks after it was officially commissioned, it has been put out of action.

The US Navy said it was their most technologically advanced destroyer, with hidden weapons and sharp angles that make it hard to spot on radar. Engineering problems persisted, and when the USS Zumwalt attempted to join with the US Third Fleet in San Diego, it only made it as far as the Panama Canal, reports Engadget.

The ammo for the $4.4 billion ship is also expensive, sitting at $800K per round, and with a purported 30 Zumwalts in development, the US Navy would be spending some big bank on these ships. The total cost for developing just three Zumwalts is already past $22 billion.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hasn't been seen in over a month, and just like NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden - who knows what's really going on. We can't question anything anymore without being attacked by someone, so now that I've triggered half the world - TITANPOINTE.

Titanpointe is the name of the NSA's new Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight, reports The Intercept. Project X is what Titanpointe is known as, and is a 29-storey building in NYC that is "capable of withstanding an atomic blast". The building has no windows, three basement levels, and enough food and supplies to see 1500 people survive two weeks "in the event of a catastrophe".

But it's not like the US government, or whoever the hell funded this massive All Seeing Eye in the middle of New York City cares much about the survival of the people inside - the heavily fortified building is made this way to keep its powerful computers, cables, and switchboards safe. Titanpointe houses "one of the most important telecommunications hubs in the United States - the world's largest center for processing long-distance phone calls, operated by the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of AT&T". You know, the same AT&T that just acquired Warner Bros., CNN, and HBO for $80 billion.