Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 426

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.

Elon Musk is getting closer to being the real life Tony Stark, with his private rocket launch service SpaceX requesting permission from the government to launch a "massive satellite network that would provide high-speed, global internet coverage", reports Reuters.

SpaceX would eventually launch 4425 satellites, with Musk predicting it would cost at least $10 billion, and that was nearly two years ago when he first announced the project in January 2015. The latest details on the project include technical detailed of the proposed network, but there isn't a mention of the costs involved.

The financial backers of SpaceX include Alphabet's Google Inc and Fidelity Investments, who have pumped over $1 billion into Elon Musk's space company. SpaceX will launch around 800 satellites at first, which will cover the United Spaces, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. SpaceX said in technical documents that it filed to the government: "The system is designed to provide a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, government and professional users worldwide".

Expedition 50 launched today on a two-day trip to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying Peggy Whitson of NASA, Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), is scheduled to dock with the Space Station's Rassvet module on Saturday, November 19th.

The crew will be welcomed by astronaut Shane Kimbrough and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko, who arrived at the Station a month ago.

The night of November 14th was reserved for a spectacular sight in our sky - the Supermoon. NASA published amazing images that show how beautiful the Supermoon was.

A Supermoon occurs when the Moon's orbit is closest (perigee) to Earth.

Moonrise over the Syr Darya river, Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Tonight, the night of November 14th we'll get to witness a spectacular sight in our sky - the Supermoon. The full Moon of November 14th is not only the closest full Moon of 2016 but also the closest full Moon to date in the 21st century. The full Moon won't come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034. The last time the full Moon was this close to Earth was in 1948.

NASA explained this phenomenon.

The Moon's orbit around Earth is slightly elliptical, so sometimes it is closer, and sometimes it's farther away. When the Moon is full as it makes its closest pass to Earth it is known as a Supermoon. At perigee - the point at which the Moon is closest to Earth - the Moon can be as much as 14 percent closer to Earth than at apogee when the Moon is farthest from our planet. The full Moon appears that much larger in diameter and because it is larger shines 30 percent more moonlight onto the Earth.

Elon Musk thinks they have finally solved the mystery of their September's Falcon 9 explosion. Speaking with CNBC, he stated that the explosion was caused by a "really surprising problem that's never been encountered before in the history of rocketry."

Just last week, Musk said that the cause of the explosion is one of the toughest puzzles the company has ever had to solve.

The explosion caused complications for NASA since SpaceX was supposed to transfer cargo to International Space Station. However, Orbital ATK stepped in and performed their first successful launch since October 2014 when the rocket failed, and the vehicle and payload were destroyed causing $15 million in damage.

The United States presidential election of 2016 is scheduled for Tuesday, November 8th, 2016. The astronauts aboard the International Space Station also have the ability to vote from space thanks to a bill passed by the Texas legislature in 1997.

For astronauts, the voting process starts a year before launch, when astronauts can select which elections (local/state/federal) that they want to participate in while in space. Then, six months before the election, astronauts are provided with a standard form: the "Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request - Federal Post Card Application."

Voting in space was first used the same year it was implemented, in 1997. NASA's astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote from space, casting a ballot in a 1997 local election. At the time, he was aboard the Russian Mir Space Station.

Fans of astronomy should prepare for November 14th when they'll have the opportunity to enjoy a rare Supermoon.

The full Moon of November 14th is not only the closest full Moon of 2016 but also the closest full Moon to date in the 21st century. The full Moon won't come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034. The last time the full Moon was this close to Earth was in 1948.

Since the moon's orbit is elliptical, one side (perigee) is about 30,000 miles closer to Earth than the other (apogee). The word syzygy, in addition to being useful in word games, is the scientific name for when the Earth, Sun, and Moon line up as the Moon orbits Earth. When perigee-syzygy of the Earth-moon-sun system occurs and the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, we get a perigee Moon or more commonly, a Supermoon!

The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited for 5,844 days since Expedition 1's crew of three arrived there on this day in 2000.

Expedition 1 consisted of an astronaut Bill Shepherd and two cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev. They arrived at the Space Station on November 2nd, 2000, 16 years ago. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the Station which continues to this day. The trio spent 136 days aboard the Station.

via GIPHY

Leonardo DiCaprio's National Geographic documentary Before The Flood premiered two days ago and in case you missed it, you can watch it for free on YouTube.

The entire documentary talks about the fossil fuel industry and the effect it has on our planet, explains the devastating consequences, and tries to find a solution for inevitable climate change, who's effects we are already witnessing.

Elon Musk appears in the documentary (he also appeared in Racing Extinction, which you should watch if you haven't already) and leads DiCaprio trough Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada.