Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 224

Yesterday's launch of the Antares rocket was supposed to be Orbital ATK's first launch in two years but it was postponed due to a ground support equipment (GSE) cable that did not perform as expected during the pre-launch checkout. The launch is now set for 7:40 PM ET on Monday.

Under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA, Orbital ATK will deliver approximately 28,700 kilograms of cargo to the Space Station. The private company is under a lot of pressure since this is their first launch in two years after their rocket failed catastrophically, and the vehicle and payload were destroyed causing $15 million in damage.

However, in those two years a lot of things have changed. The company, which was then called Orbital Sciences, merged with Alliant Techsystems to create a new company called Orbital ATK. Their spacecraft Cygnus got bigger and able to carry more payload.

The Hubble Space Telescope is being credited for yet another major discovery. Using the data from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have performed to this day the most accurate census of the number of galaxies in the universe. And they came to a remarkable conclusion.

According to the new information, there are at least ten times as many galaxies in the observable universe as previously thought.

The observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that can, in principle, be observed from Earth at the present time. The first real insight in the number of galaxies in the observable universe came in the 1990s when it has been estimated that there are 100 to 200 billion galaxies. New data shows the number is at least ten times higher.

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

According to new data, the Moon experiences a heavier bombardment by small meteoroids than models had previously predicted. By examining the surface of the Moon, scientists have identified about 30 percent more new craters than anticipated by previous cratering models. In addition to discovering new impact craters, the team observed over 47,000 small surface changes, which they call splotches.

They also concluded that 99 percent of the Moon's surface would be overturned by splotch formation after about 81,000 years, which is 100 times faster than previous models that considered overturn from micrometeorite impacts alone, and ignored the effects of secondary impacts.

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg set his goals for this year. One of them was to build an artificial intelligence assistant that can control his home and help with work, something like J.A.R.V.I.S. (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System), Tony Stark's assistant in Iron Man.

Not even two months ago, Zuckerberg commented he is making significant progress, and his AI assistant is already helping him around the house. He described how he could control the temperature, lights, and gate by his voice.

Now, Zuckerberg is ready to give his AI assistant a voice, and he is asking everyone to help out and suggest who's voice should he use. In the films, Jarvis is voiced by an actor Paul Bettany, which is one of the suggestions Zuckerberg got on his Facebook status where he asked for help.

Are we alone in the universe? Will we ever discover an intelligent species? These two questions plague many scientists focused on the search for extraterrestrial life forms.

Popular physicist Brian Cox, who has received many awards for his efforts to publicize science, believes he knows the answers to these questions. And they are somewhat depressing. Cox says we shouldn't count on finding intelligent life forms cause they are all - dead.

Cox suggests that our search will not be successful because every intelligent life form eventually destroys itself after it fully develops. In addition to intelligent aliens probably being dead, he thinks we would face the same fate.

The US President, Obama, outlined his vision of space exploration and revealed his grand plan - he wants to send people to Mars in the next 20 years and safely return them to Earth.

Obama said that to achieve this objective, there has to be sustained cooperation between the state and private innovators, cooperation that will begin in the following years. For all of this to become possible, the US government and NASA are working with commercial partners to build habitats in which astronauts will live.

One of the most mysterious American military aircraft has spent 500 days in the Earth's orbit on a mission about which we know almost nothing.

The US military launched the X-37B in May last year on its fourth mission. Although some details about the cargo are known, the mission of this spacecraft remains unknown. We don't know how long will it stay in space or where it will land.

Among many theories, some mention the X-37B could be a space bomber or a new type of probe that can destroy spy satellites.

In its 58 years of existence, NASA can boast with many achievements. They sent the first people to the Moon, rovers on Mars and many probes and spacecraft to explore the universe. Just this year, NASA found strong evidence of water plumes on Europa, Jupiter's moon, they sent OSIRIS-REx probe to study asteroid 101955 Bennu, we got a better perspective of Jupiter and Mars, they discovered K2-33b, a very young super-Neptune exoplanet, thanks to Kepler who also discovered 100 Earth-sized planets and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope had shattered the cosmic distance record by measuring the farthest galaxy ever seen in the universe. And this is just scratching the surface of NASA's this year's discoveries and accomplishments.

For decades, NASA is changing the way we see the universe. Their findings contributed to a better understanding of our planet and everything that surrounds it.

It all began back in 1958, just 11 days after NASA has been officially established. On this day, October 11th, 1958, NASA had launched its first spacecraft - Pioneer 1.

We've learned a lof about Mars in the past decades thanks to probes and rovers that are studying the closest planet to Earth. If everything goes as planned, Mars could become our second home someday. Elon Musk has ambitious plans in colonizing Mars, and he isn't the only one who wants to send people to the Red Planet. Just last week Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of The Boeing Company, stated that he is convinced that the first humans to set foot on Mars will get there by a Boeing rocket.

Whoever sends the first people to Mars will set a huge milestone in the history of humankind. It will mark the first time a human being has set foot on another planet, and it could happen during our lifetime. Can you just imagine how exciting it must have been for people around the world sitting in front of TVs and watching the first Moon landing? We could experience the same, but this time the space exploration will get us much further.

If and when the first people reach Mars, it will also mark the first time a person walked on any other space body other than Earth since 1972 when Eugene Cernan was the last person to walk on the Moon.

During the last nearly 16 years, the International Space Station has been a home for many astronauts and cosmonauts. Currently, there are six people aboard the ISS and, like many before them, spend around nine and a half hours a day doing different research. If we exclude the time they spend sleeping, members of the crew have around four hours a day of free time during which they eat, but also entertain themselves.

To maximize the use of their free time, many find interesting ways of entertainment.

One of the most interesting things you can do aboard the Space Station is to "fly". In space there are no terms 'up' and 'down', there is no floor or ceiling.

The Kickstarter gadget iBand+ wants to help you lucid dream as well as sleep easier and better. A three-part solution, it requires a headband, pillow speakers, and an app, all of which combine to monitor your mind and body.

Once you hit REM sleep, audio-visual cues play which make you aware you're dreaming without waking you up, which should result in better sleep. Additionally, music plays during different stages of sleep to help you achieve more satisfying rest, each carefully chosen for the given stage.

Finally, the app offers "a glimpse into [your] physical and mental state that could disclose potential health and sleep problems."

NASA has set a date for their next International Space Station crew launch - October 19th. The initial launch was planned for September 23rd, but because of technical difficulties with the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft it was postponed.

A statement from Roscosmos, the governmental body responsible for the space science program of Russia and general aerospace research, explains the cause of the delay and determines that the spacecraft is now ready for the launch:

Elon Musk has a plan to colonize Mars, but he isn't the only one who wants to get to the Red Planet. Speaking at a conference in Chicago, Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of The Boeing Company, stated that he is convinced that the first humans to set foot on Mars will get there by a Boeing rocket.

The Boeing Company is involved in space exploration practically since the founding of NASA. They built the first stage of the Saturn V rocket, the three-stage liquid-fueled launch vehicle developed to support the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon, and was later used to launch Skylab, the first American space station. Boeing also participated with other projects in the space program, and was the first contractor for the International Space Station program.

NASA has awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX for transporting astronauts to the International Space Station, and seems like their rivalry will continue since Boeing, like SpaceX, is also working on the design and development of a new rocket that should bring the first people to Mars.

Google boss Sundar Pichai is on the stage right now talking about Google, its past and its future - teasing that the company is 'very excited' about moving towards an AI first world.

Where are we now? We're in a mobile-first world, but Google is wanting to change that up with artificial intelligence. Google has just unveiled the Google Assistant, which you can ask questions - it seems like a more powerful Google Now, and that's not a bad thing at all. Google Now is one of Google's best secret weapons.

On stage, Google Assistant was used with near instant replies and information - providing details on some plays at a local theater, taking in contextual information from the screen through an SMS message. The voice that Google Assistant uses is much more organic, feeling like an actual person replying versus a robotic human voice.

SpaceX CEO and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk is dreaming big as usual: his newly unveiled long-term plan is to colonize Mars, among other planets.

The first phase: launch an upgraded, unpiloted Dragon spacecraft toward Mars in 2018, with the aim of obtaining flight experience, while developing advanced boosters, spacecraft, and subsystems necessary for what Musk calls his "Interplanetary Transport System".

A later phase: building a 400 foot tall rocket to send large crew capsules into low-Earth orbit. The capsules are to be fueled for a trip to Mars by the same rocket, which will also carry unpiloted propellant tankers. One of the principles behind the mission structure is to make the trips much more affordable: $200,000 per ticket versus the previous standing $10 billion.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA, launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and to this day it stays a vital research tool for astronomy. Hubble is meritorious for some major discoveries and photographs that have shown us the beauties of the universe.

Today, NASA announced that Hubble has imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. It appears that the icy moon erupts with high altitude vapor plumes. Scientists estimate that the plumes rise about 200 kilometers before falling back onto Europa's surface.

The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa's ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.

The world's largest telescope had begun operating in China and it should help humanity search for alien life. The 500m Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is located in the Dawodang depression, a natural basin in Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, southwest China. It consists of a fixed 500m dish constructed in a natural depression in the landscape.

It is the world's largest single-dish radio telescope (Arecibo Observatory held that title for 53 years) and the second largest radio telescope (after the Russian RATAN-600, which has a sparsely filled aperture). The final cost of the FAST telescope was $180 million and it took five years to build it. Its primary goal is to search for alien life but it will also be developed as a tourist attraction. Currently there are 71 people working for the FAST project.

The facility was opened at a ceremony on Sunday but it will take up to three years to calibrate the instrument so it can become fully operational. FAST will help us 'listen' to the universe and it will be able to detect radio waves from space. Scientists hope the FAST will play a key role in the discovery of alien life.

It won't be long from now that China's first space station, Tiangong-1, will plunge from space and back into the Earth in the second half of 2017 - where keen-eyed viewers will be looking for that 'Made in China' sticker.

Senior officials have confirmed the news, with Tiangong-1's re-entry and uncertainty about falling debris worrying because China is providing a broad timeline for the events. Speculation has started that China has possibly lost communication to Tiangong-1, the result of a possibly damaged module, meaning it's no longer capable of controlling its descent.

Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astrophysicist, told The Guardian that parts of the debris could be as large as 100kg/220lbs, adding: "Not knowing when it's going to come down translates as not knowing where its going to come down". If a large piece were to fall into a house, building, or crowded place - it could cause a fair amount of damage, and even worse - people could be hurt, or killed.

If you're a truck or taxi driver, an Uber driver or work in customer service, your days of employment could be numbered - with robots taking out 6% of these jobs in the US by 2021 according to a new report from market research firm Forrester.

The intelligent agents will be powered by artificial intelligence technology, where they will be capable of understanding human behavior, and then making decisions, for you. We're already dabbling in it now with AI-based services like Google Now, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and more - which for the moment mostly simple, but they will get much more advanced in the coming decade.

Once this breakthrough happens, the world of AI assistants, self-driving cars and computer hardware that can think for you, the changes to the world will be enormous. The Guardian reports that it's "not so good if you're an employee working in a simple-to-automate field". This is reiterated by Forrester's report by Brian Hopkins, who said: "By 2021 a disruptive tidal wave will begin. Solutions powered by AI/cognitive technology will displace jobs, with the biggest impact felt in transportation, logistics, customer service and consumer services".

I really think the marketing behind Terminator: Genisys could've used this to better effect, but Kate Mara's upcoming movie, Morgan, has a new trailer released that was made by AI. Yes, you read that right - an artificial intelligence made the trailer you're about to watch.

Morgan is a story of a corporate risk management consultant who has to decide whether to end the 'life' of an AI being, with the studio apporoaching IBM to see if they could use Watson to make the scariest promotional video it could. IBM's team then allowed Watson to create a trailer to Morgan after watching the footage, using its computer-powered logic, algorithms and math to make the trailer.

The IBM research time had Watson analyze 100 classic horror movies, closely looking at each scene for consistencies and triggers that lead to the scarier parts of the movies. There was a visual analysis of what was happening on screen, and a separate audio analysis of what was being said, or the reaction sounds actors made.