The Red Planet

 

 

Mars,  “The Red Planet”,  the number fourth in sequence and second smallest planet in our solar system, I read somewhere about those astronomers who became mesmerized with the “Red Planet” mean “Mars” hundreds of years ago and still many are, when they first charted its movements in the sky. Now, the world is doing some practical to be live there, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) coming project on which they started working on its new spacecraft to get astronauts at Mars by 2030.

A year on Mars is almost double with our planet, lasting 687 days, that's how long it takes to orbit the sun because it sits farther away. There are also four seasons but they'll feel different, Red Planet is very cold and not only because of the distance from the sun but due to the atmosphere being hundred times thinner than earth's, so, it doesn't retain heat very long. 

Did you know that the average temperature is minus eighty degrees Fahrenheit and in in winter it reaches negative 195 Fahrenheit, while during summer as warm as 70 degree Fahrenheit but that summer day can plummet at night to negative 100 degree Fahrenheit.  One of the major reasons for the extreme temperature is that this planet Mars is covered with dust, causing the sand and rocks to lose their heat quickly. Powerful dust storms sometimes last weeks to months, even blanketing regions the size of the United States of America.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) system could track these intense storms and other weather patterns via a Martian Internet Service. Elon Musk’s, Starlink satellites orbiting earth could be the forerunner to a similar system circling the planet Mars. So the dust storms and the freezing temperatures are no doubt two major concerns. Our earth's atmosphere and magnetic shielding protect us from most of the radiation in the universe but outside our planet layer is an entire world teeming with dangerous particles and rays. 

Red planet’s thin atmosphere exposes it to much higher levels of radiation than on earth. Construction of buildings underground might be good but they could be built above land with a shielding cover made up of regolith (loose deposits like dust and broken rocks). You can walk around without a spacesuit indoors but outside is a different matter and without the oxygen, you wouldn't be able to breathe because carbon dioxide is in the air. Space agency NASA is experimenting with turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. Its Perseverance Rover is testing this out with an oxygen generator the size of a car battery. As much as the gas is a problem for us, it's good for plants - they need it in the same way we need oxygen. The cold situations at Mars mean plants would need to rise in an enclosed structure or indoors, although food supply is an important point but the key ingredient to make living on Mars possible is water.

If you think living on Mars will be easy, it’s your think, a number of things you have to learn to try to make your breath normal at the Red Planet. With numbers of natural surprises one is the largest volcano in the solar system, the youngest volcano on the planet Olympus Mons, that located in Mars' western hemisphere. 

Red planet has a number of and large volcanoes than those on Earth because this planet has a low gravitational pull that allows them to grow taller but less gravity means it will be harder to walk around. The sun will be smaller due to the distance and the sky will appear blue because the fine dust allows the blue light to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently. When night comes, look out for the two moons: Deimos and Phobos.  They are irregular in shape and unlike our moon.

There’s so much about the solar system’s fourth planet Mars, it’s unlike than earth but there's talk of re-engineering it to make the environment in atmospheres similar to earth. Currently, life at there will be far from the comforts of earth. Despite the uncountable challenges, living on the Red Planet would feel like something out of science fiction.

 

 

 

 

International Space Station & Space Travel

 

 

What if there were a six-bedroom, with two-bathroom house with a gym and a gorgeous view that cost $150 billion? You probably won't find that on earth but it does exist a little farther away. 

The International Space Station has more livable room than a six-bedroom house.  It also has a couple of washrooms, a workout area, and a 360-degree view. Humanity's only permanent outpost in space is the most expensive object ever built. US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has called it home for the last two decades but the managers are planning on moving out, marking a new era in space.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan approved the construction of freedom but because of budget constraints, it was never built and eventually, the vision morphed into the ISS (International Space Station) - the combined effort of five different agencies representing fifteen different nations. 

The first component of the international space station launched in late 1998, from Kazakhstan by a Proton rocket, the Russian built Zarya, just few days later, shuttle Endeavor carried the next component, Unity, the first American element built by American aerospace and jet maker company Boeing. When Zarya and Unity joined together, that was the beginning of an engineering marvel.  Dozens of launches over many years followed, building the station piece by piece by piece, fitting together tens of thousands of parts and finally the end result was a 109 meter long structure the length of an American football field.

Even though it often seems the International Space Station is gliding at a slow pace, it's actually moving at a speed of 17,500 mph, so fast that it can circle the planet every ninety minutes. More than two hundred people have visited the large spacecraft, living and working on what's really a giant floating laboratory, conducting research and science experiments that have led to many inventions. 

NASA's scratch resistant helmets created scratch resistant lenses. The rubber molding in those helmets is found in the soles of athletic shoes, the polymer fabric in spacesuits protects firefighters. Technology used to track astronauts' eyes is essential for laser eye surgery.  NASA helped develop the first computer mouse and the list goes on but the main reason the International Space Station exists is to help humans learn about living and working in space in order to send us even further. 

 By 2024, using Space Launch System (SLL), which will be the foundation for the agency's exploration beyond Earth's orbit, it's no coincidence Washington  initially proposed ending NASA's funding for the space station and the same year it wants to go to  the moon. Although funding can now be extended for a few more years but NASA spends between $3 to $4 billion to maintain and operate the ISS every year while its annual budget is about $19billion.

Though, the Trump administration has been increasing funding the last few years, providing nearly $23 billion in 2020. Obama administration tried to turn more of NASA's responsibilities over to the private sector. NASA gave billion of dollars contracts to Boeing and SpaceX , through its Commercial Crew Program (CCP) so they could  build their own spacecraft.

Elon Musk's company won the race against Boeing when it sent two astronauts to the ISS aboard Crew Dragon in May 2020. Boeing should have flown astronauts by now as well but an un-crewed test flight in December 2019 didn't go as expected when the Starliner spacecraft went into the wrong orbit, so a crewed mission will have to wait until 2021. Opening up the ISS to private companies is also changing the way it looks. NASA gave the Texas, startup World's First Commercial Space Station, Axiom a $140 million dollars contract to build a segment that can be attached to the space station in 2024 and used for commercial business activities. And when the ISS eventually retires, that component will detach and operate freely as a private space station.

Axiom is also teaming up with SpaceX to fly three people to the space station in 2021 and the price per seat is $55 million and one is already taken.  Hollywood is showing interest as well. Super star Tom Cruise could board Crew Dragon to film a movie at the ISS and Russia state corporation Roscosmos is set to get back into the space tourism industry with flights to the space station planned in the coming years. 

SpaceX plans to circle the moon on a trip financed by Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, who will also take a group of artists with them in 2023. They'll be traveling on Starship, a fully reusable system currently in development. Starship will eventually be modified so that it can land on the moon. Musk’s SpaceX is one of three companies selected by NASA to design a lunar landing system competing against Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and the relative newcomer Dynetics. This is the agency's first step toward creating a long-term presence on the moon with the aim of leading to an even greater goal “Mars”. NASA hopes to send humans to the red planet in the 2030s, as the agency keeps its eyes on the moon and off the ISS, its partners appear to be doing the same. The European Space Agency (ESA) is working ever more closely with China. In 2022, China aims to build its own space station and fly European astronauts. 

US Congress banned Beijing from the ISS due to security concerns and America's partner Japan is teaming up with India on a mission to the moon in order to counter the rise of China. While everyone's attention is turned elsewhere, the ISS is not getting any younger. Wear and tear on the 20 year old structure means the end of its life will be some time in the next decade. Going to the graveyard involves a controlled destructive reentry into Earth's atmosphere just like animation of the Russian space station Mir deorbiting in 2001. The ISS will burn up, break up, and vaporize into fragments, although some parts would survive and fall into a stretch of ocean in the South Pacific. The total weight of the debris is expected to be between 53,500 to 173,000 pounds or as many as 32 Model  X's. Even when the ISS is no longer with us, it will be remembered not only as the most expensive man-made object ever built, not only as a triumph of international cooperation but as a building block toward deeper missions in space.

 

Robot Valley

 

 

 

We are seeing nowadays an everyday more efficient and amazing technologies development and numerous robotic projects. Mountain View, California, USA, Aerospace Company, Matternet produces aircraft and intelligent software for automated air logistics for the next 10 to 15 years. Drones will capture completely the delivery market which will make delivery services more efficient faster and cheaper even today. The matter net is testing its solutions with ups and Swiss post delivery services.

American drone manufacturer launched a pilot project in Zurich to test an efficient system for delivery of goods on the basis of vans and drones. This is the first case when drone operations are performed beyond visual line of sight with the use of vans as landing platforms in large urban areas.

Another company Mountain View, California, based Drive.ai, was founded in 2015 by a group of masters and postgraduate students from the artificial intelligence labs of Stanford University the group worked on their own autonomous driving system, which could be integrated into any car. In August 2016, the company received funding in the amount of 12 million dollars and became the 13th company in California which was licensed for autonomous vehicle testing and as soon as June 2017, it was funded with an additional 50 million dollars, in June 2019 just a few days before it was closed the company was acquired by Apple.

Interested in creating a drone system for its Titan automobile project, the company has a fleet of MKZ Audi a4 and Nissan nv200 automobiles for testing the automobile that can move in a completely autonomous mode at night and in inclement weather through busy streets and road interchanges. The object recognition system of the automobile makes it possible to identify and lay safely the route around other vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles. The drive.ai automobiles have screens on the outside of them one on the third and one on the back and one on each side to communicate with pedestrians.

The company collects the data on the roads and it uses to create high-definition three dimensional maps to support self-driving technology, we should never forget about way mode which was formerly Google’s unit and is now an independent company owned by Alphabet holding.

The Terra Bella also known as sky imaging was founded by 4 Google employees in 2009 in Mountain View, California, USA, while combining the power of web technologies and high resolution images from a group of satellites, the skybox imaging provided the data and HD video of Earthmen, their first Sky sat 1 satellite was placed into orbit in 2013 and in total, 15 such satellites were launched and they are still flying at the distance of 500 kilometers from the earth.  

In February, 2017, a San Francisco based, Planet Labs Company, launched 88 satellites on the board of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket, this launched is the largest collection of satellites ever on a single rocket and after two months of the launched of the rocket that amazed the world, the Planet Labs bought the Terra Bella and its satellites.

The Beam Company was founded in Palo Alto California, USA, the Beam is a robotic remote present system which can teleport you to a remote location while allowing you to remove and interact with people. The robot is easy to operate and has a large display to make the communication of users with one another. The beam pro model can run up to eight hours on a single charge, after which it goes on its own to the dock station, it’s a 17 inch screen one HD camera with 3x zoom and navigation, camera, one speaker and seven microphones. The precise navigation allows you to go around and find the right person in the building; the robot is controlled by means of a phone or application with a height of 134 centimeters with a weight of about 30 kilograms, max speed 2 km/h and priced from two to fifteen thousand dollars depending on the model.

Double Robotics is another California based which also manufactures telepresence robots; the company was created with the support of the prestigious accelerator of Y Combinator in 2012. The robot with a height of a 150 centimeters and a weight of about 7 kilograms can operate on a battery for about 8 hours, and a smart ride on stand for an iPad. The price of this robot is three thousand dollars.

The medtech has not bypassed California either the restoration robots is a manufacturer of medical equipment which develops and markets. Test system is the first physician-assisted system to import hair follicles into bald areas of the scalp. The company has unique experience in the field of machine vision, image management, visual maintenance and robotics as well. As the development of intuitive interfaces to manage these technologies the robot works on the basis of the Kouga manipulator, the artists company developed the monarch system it is an innovative design for the diagnosis and performance of bronchoscope procedures. Lung cancer is a major cause of the cancer mortality throughout the world because it is often diagnosed in late stages only the design of the robotic endoscope provides the larger coverage vision and monitoring. It can be moved using a console with an intuitive interface the platform can operate on the universal robotics.

 

SpaceX - Moon & Mars

 

 

Elon Musk’s once said that sooner or later life will have to go beyond our blue-green earth ball or we will go extinct” and for this, in 2001, he introduced, a concept named the Mars Oasis, a project of Mars, an experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars. Musk concept attracts public interest in space exploration and also attracts the attention of NASA. To start his project Musk wanted the Russian rockets, twice coming to Russia to buy them, but the price of the rocket did not satisfy the entrepreneur. Next year in 2002, SpaceX introduced, in which the Musk invested his own.

Musk immediately calculated that to create a reliable and cheap rocket all components for it must be produced by him. In fact, the implementation of such a project without the participation of the state, the main customer of services in the space sphere, was impossible. The 2003 was the year when Musk talked about the rocket Falcon 1.

The first launch of the company's first Falcon 1 rocket lasted only one minute, the next and the next attempts were also unsuccessful. In September 2008, the fourth launch went according to plan and the Falcon 1 successfully entered orbit, becoming the first private liquid-propellant rocket to reach Earth's orbit. Musk’s SpaceX is developing the next level of rocket named Falcon 9, which includes 9 Merlin engines and this will make a difference that if 1 of the rocket's engines fails, it can still finish its mission. This makes SpaceX rockets not only cheap, but also unique. The company produces 85% most of the all components for both rockets, and in the future for the spacecraft Dragon, while sometimes inventing equipment for their manufacture.

In 2010, SpaceX made history again as the first private company to return its spacecraft from orbit, the unmanned Dragon landed in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred miles off the coast of Mexico. Two years later, SpaceX became the first private company to dock with the International Space Station. After that mission, Musk’s company sent its craft to the International Space Station several times to resupply the station. In 2015, this company made history with the first unmanned vertical landing of the first stage of a Falcon 9 orbital rocket. Developing technology to land and reuse launch vehicles and spacecraft was one of the main reasons Elon Musk founded this SpaceX, because only such technology could make more accessible the flights to Mars.

SapceX has flown more than 80 Falcon 9 missions in the last nine years. It’s the May 2018, when the company launched its first Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket, a "definitive version" designed to be reused up to 100 times with periodic repairs. In 2018, company launches Falcon Heavy, a modular rocket consisting of three Falcon 9s, for the first time with 27 engines.

After the Falcon Heavy, Musk begins testing the Starhopper, a prototype of the Starship, which in the future will have to take people to Mars. The company also completed tests of the Crew Dragon passenger capsule and sent people to the International Space Station on May 30, 2020. Although the flight went smoothly, astronauts Bob Benken and Doug Hurley said that the Falcon 9 flight was a bit heavier than expected.

Crew Dragon became the first ever NASA certified commercial spacecraft and sent four people to the International Space Station on the Crew-1 mission, the spacecraft can dock with the station in automatic or manual mode. This spacecraft does not have the usual panels with many buttons and switches; it’s the first video game style touchscreen-controlled ship, while three monitors are insured by a few spare buttons underneath.

In this year on April 23, 2021 NASA certified Crew Dragon spacecraft again sent astronauts to the International Space Station. In the meantime, SpaceX's next flight, scheduled for September 15, 2021, should again go down in history as the first all-private and all-civilian mission, and called Inspiration 4. Then there will be the October 23 flight, with three astronauts and a fourth, as yet unnamed, crew member aboard the ship.

Okay coming back to the ambitious plans to conquer the planet Mars. In August 2020, the SpaceX tested a complete Starship prototype, named SN5. The test flight of the SN5 Starship prototype used a single Raptor engine, whereas the final version of the rocket will include about 41 engines. Anyways, Musk’s SpaceX plans include sending the Japanese billionaire on a Starship mission around the moon in 2023, landing humans on the moon in 2024 and landing humans on Mars in 2026.

Robo ... Robots

 

 

Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) has introduced a new approach to teaching robots motor skills which is to copy the movements of animals. The giant tech also demonstrated a system of automated training of robot movement skills in the real world with minimal human involvement.

Engineers from the University of California, San Diego, have developed a new method that allows you to create flexible robots without special equipment using 3d printing. The innovation lies in the way the soft and hard materials for the robot body are combined, the hard elements are printed directly on flexible and thin polycarbonate sheets. The robot turns out to be incredibly cheap but the ultimate goal of its creators is not even that at the creation of robots without human interference using patented technologies.

NASA continues to work on future space missions’ recently autonomous underwater robot bruit has successfully passed tests in the Antarctic. The floating all-terrain vehicle for research under the ice is designed to operate at extreme temperatures on his search for life on other planets. German Aerospace Center DLR unveiled test results of the space robot Simon - the flying robot the size of a football equipped with artificial intelligence was launched into the ISS on December 5th 2019 to date among other things its autonomous flight skills, voice navigation, control and task assignment have been tested. Simon is able to reach any place on the station set by a verbal command regardless of its position; Simon is equipped with more sensitive microphones and a more developed sense of orientation than its predecessor.

Researchers from the Seoul National University developed a ladybug inspired origami structure and a deployable hang glider based on this structure. The ladybird beetle robot is yet another attempt of engineers to create a machine with insect abilities Dr Guerrera, a Japanese expert in robotics is known for his work on programming, small robots proficient of doing complex human movements through self-learning. His most recent work as an engineer was primer v7, a humanoid robot that studies ballet. The autonomous system laboratory of the Zurich Institute of robotics introduced an autonomous fire search system for multi-story buildings, the mission team consists of a hexacopter and tri Cotter the approach, takes advantage of the mapping and accurate control capabilities of each of the vehicles respectively.

Robotics giant KUKA has presented its fully automated production of battery modules with a capacity of about 300,000 units per year at the German plant. The batteries are designed to not only for electric cars but also for other areas, today the company is one of the leaders on the German market to invest in large-scale highly automated module production lines. Scientists have decided to get rid of the problem of unpredictability and uncontrollability of artificial intelligence work with images, so they develop software that allows you to transform the shape of objects in images as well as to adjust the lighting and perspective with a few simple controls.

The source code of the algorithm and instructions for starting the program are available for all developers, researchers note that everyone can edit the necessary photos in just a few seconds and without special programs. Engineers from the dream lab have created a platform for interaction with dreams which is a glove with a built-in sensor that monitors muscle movements heart rate and skin, electrical activity when its user is borderline between the state of reality and sleep; at this moment dorm you broadcast a pre-recorded sound signal. The content of which is reflected in the plot of the dreams for example if a volunteer heard the word tiger he would see this animal in his dream the neuro pod 3d printing robot uses artificial neurons to alter the gait in response to external stimuli.

Scientists of Savelyanov Ersity Research, built 30 artificial neurons into the robots processor which receive electronic stimuli in the form of various signals, transmitted from adjacent wires of the computer. In response to these signals, the neurons instantly send a command to 18 servo motors that control the robot's legs as soon as the signals received the neural pod switches seamlessly between different types of gait.

One of the other studies going on, on the promising areas of robotics applications in business special attention was given to the use of robotics in manufacturing, mining, agriculture, logistics, cleaning. So we can expect anything from technology, i mean anything.