Financial Times (October 18, 2023) – The rush back to the Moon has begun. The US and China are planning permanently crewed bases on the lunar surface. Billions of dollars in contracts are up for grabs as companies are launching ambitious new support projects, from growing food in space to a new lunar internet.
The FT’s Peggy Hollinger asks if the next great leap forward in space is a lunar economy?
Wall Street Journal (October 13, 2023) – NASA launched a spacecraft on Friday to study the Psyche asteroid, which is believed to be made out of metal.
Video timeline: 0:00 NASA’s mission 0:46 The psyche asteroid 1:45 Why metal matters 3:04 What we can learn from the mission
The rocky inner planets of our solar system are thought to have mostly metallic cores. WSJ breaks down why this mission matters and what it could tell us about Earth’s origins.
Sotheby’s (July 20, 2023) – The Voyager Golden Record is a unique audio-visual time capsule developed by NASA and affixed to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts.
Designed to communicate to possible space-faring civilizations something of the diversity of life and culture on our world, the Golden Record consisted of greetings in 59 human languages and those of the humpback whales, 115 images of life here, the sounds of Earth, and 27 pieces from the world’s musical traditions. It has been called the beginning of the concept of “world music.”
It was Voyager 1 that looked homeward from high above Neptune to take, at Carl Sagan’s behest, the iconic Pale Blue Dot photograph. Upon flawlessly completing the first phase of their mission, the NASA Voyagers 1 and 2 made for the open sea of interstellar space, teaching us the actual shape of our solar system as it moves through the galaxy. The Golden Record is an unparalleled document in the history of space exploration and our civilization.
World Economic Forum (June 10, 2023) – This week’s top stories of the week include:
0:15Finland’s electricity fell below €0 – It happened twice during one week in May caused by a glut of hydroelectric capacity as a result of heavier-than-usual spring meltwater. This meant the supply of electricity exceeded demand and this, in turn, led to a negative price for electricity.
1:30NYC gives new mothers $1000 – The no-strings cash payments last for 18 months. Then for the following 18 months, low-income mothers receive $500 a month, covering the first 3 years of their baby’s life. The scheme – known as the Bridge Project – aims to fight child poverty in New York as well as reducing inequality and stress for new parents.
3:19NASA will send your name to space – It’s asking people to sign a poem written by Ada Limón, the US Poet Laureate. Limón’s poem will be engraved on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. While signatories’ names will be etched on microchips mounted on the craft.
5:11Implants help this paralysed man walk – It creates a ‘digital bridge’ between his brain and his spinal cord, Bypassing sections that were damaged in an accident. The implant lets him stand, walk and even climb stairs.
_____________________________________________
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
World Economic Forum (March 25, 2023) – This week’s top stories of the week include:
0:15 NASA launches space based pollution monitor – It’s called TEMPO, which stands for Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution. Built by Ball Aerospace, TEMPO will measure levels of major air pollutants every hour from a geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above the equator. It will monitor a huge region of North America from Canada’s oil sands in northern Alberta to below Mexico City at a resolution of up to 4 square miles. Air pollution poses a major threat to human and planetary health as 99% of the global population breathes air that exceeds WHO health guidelines. Air pollution carries a total economic cost of more than $8 trillion. Therefore, monitoring it is critical to understanding its impacts. Though TEMPO is due to launch in April 2023, watch to learn more about how it will monitor air pollution from space.
1:58 8 best countries for working women – The Economist ranked 29 OECD nations according to the role and influence of women in the workplace. Iceland scores well on numerous factors. From low childcare costs to education attainment for women to female representation at senior levels. At the current rate, it will take 132 years to close the global gender gap How does your country support women at work?
3:23 What is the polycrisis? – Today we are once again beset by seemingly unconnected crises. Such as the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis and the aftermath of COVID-19. “So economics, politics, geopolitics and then the natural environment blowing back at us – and those 4 things, they don’t reduce to a single common denominator. They don’t reduce to a single factor. And that’s why I think the polycrisis term has a real utility descriptively as much as anything else, because it’s kind of hand-waving, of course, it’s kind of arm waving. It’s going, look, there’s a lot of stuff happening here all at once. And that precisely is what we’re trying to wrap our minds around.”
6:54 Are Chatbots going to take our jobs? – “I get this question asked 10 times a week, which is that, look, is conversational AI going to take away jobs? And my consistent answer is no. And the best analogy I will give to you is banks and ATMs. So prior to the technology of ATMs, the most common reason why people would walk into a bank would be to take out money. So imagine there’s no ATMs and 90% of the reason why somebody goes inside the bank is to say, I need to take out some cash, I need to take out some money. As a result, you know, you and I don’t even remember these days, but banks used to be crowded. There used to be long lines and so on. Here comes the ATM, which automates really what should be a very simple task.”
_____________________________________________
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
NASA Goddard (December 2022) – NASA is developing the Earth System Observatory, the core of which is five satellite missions providing critical data on climate change, severe weather and other natural hazards, wildfires, and global food production.
These observations will address the most pressing questions about our changing planet. Taken together as a single Observatory, NASA will have a holistic, 3D view of Earth to better understand how our planet’s complex systems work together and improve our capability to predict how our climate may change.
NASA’s Open Source Science strategy is the key to bringing the data from these missions together into a single observatory to help understand the earth as a system and accelerate our ability to use this understanding. These observations will better inform decision-makers on how our planet is changing, with greater precision on previously unimaginable scales – from entire continents down to individual trees, from atmosphere to bedrock.
It turns out reindeers’ amazing night vision is thanks to a strange ‘mirror’ in their eyes called the tapetum lucidum that is extra sensitive to UV light
The USS Monitor, an iconic piece of military history, sank 160 years ago. Now a marine sanctuary, the wreck has become an unlikely testbed for ocean conservation
NASA Goddard – This video celebrates the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17 by talking with Lunar Module Pilot Jack Schmitt about the significance of that mission and how it laid the groundwork for future human exploration of the Moon.
Jack also discusses how the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009, has helped reinterpret Apollo-era data and given us new information about the lunar terrain that will help pave the way for the upcoming Artemis missions.
Apollo 17 was the sixth and final Apollo mission to land on the Moon. Following a 2-hour 40-minute delay, it launched at 11:33 p.m. CST on December 6, 1972, the only night launch of the Apollo program. Prior missions had explored the Moon’s early volcanic history and the role of large impact basins such as Imbrium. Accordingly, Apollo 17 was planned to collect ancient highlands crustal material far from the Imbrium basin and to search for possible young lunar volcanic activity, which would help to constrain our knowledge of the Moon’s thermal evolution.
Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Produced and Edited by: David Ladd (AIMM)
Data Visualizations by: Ernie Wright (USRA)
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious