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NASA
Oct 25, 2015 15:09:59 GMT -6
Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2015 15:09:59 GMT -6
One of the reasons (supposedly) that Edgar Mitchell was chosen is that he is ESP sensitive and it was thought that might be the best chance of some communication. I still see it this way: Astronauts have seen them..they know there have been crashed craft..they know they have been here and do watch. The government and all presidents more than likely know all of this. They could drag the proof they have out and show the world that alien life does exist and has been here..continues to be here. And yet..they don't have the inside track any more than we do. Disclosure..disclosure..disclosure. 'WE' already know they are here..what good is it..if other races are not ready to land and show intent? I couldn't be any more sure of anything...as I am that beings do come here..do abduct and run experiments on people. Does that make me unique or special? Unless one wants to come down here and say 'oh yeah...her..she was a frisky one.' What good does it do? And what good would it do to 'force' humanity to a truth many may not be ready to accept. 'Oh goody oh goody ....they admitted it.' Now what? Those astronauts aren't talking about long conversations over tea..or even close encounters. I think no one has the pat hand..or knows the agenda of the many races that could be visiting..or where they come from. I think there are people on this planet so paranoid..so afraid of everything..that such disclosure could force suicides or mass shootings. We have a LOT of unstable people. If you're here..you're here because you either believe or you sorta believe ..you've had an encounter, abduction or sighting..or have read enough to be accepting of the unusual..the unsolved..the metaphysical. You are unique. I think there may be very good reasons WHY...humanity is in the dark on this even with bold admissions like Edgar Mitchell's. We just are not ready on a whole. Some of us get a hint (or a kick in the pants) and we know. But I'm willing to bet..it's only those who could accept it. Would I be as scared if it happened again? I wouldn't be happy about it..but I'd never be that scared again. So if they show up..we'd be able to help and soothe others? Maybe. At least tell em to run like heck
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NASA
Oct 25, 2015 20:49:39 GMT -6
Post by lois on Oct 25, 2015 20:49:39 GMT -6
Thanks Auntym I took this article to my Facebook profile page. thank you.
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NASA
Oct 26, 2015 14:52:39 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Oct 26, 2015 14:52:39 GMT -6
Thanks Auntym I took this article to my Facebook profile page. thank you. glad you liked it lois... ... i aim to please...
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NASA
Dec 2, 2015 13:57:37 GMT -6
lois likes this
Post by auntym on Dec 2, 2015 13:57:37 GMT -6
www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/nasas-new-star-trek-tech-designed-detect-alien-life-n471296?cid=sm_twitter_feed_scienceNov 30 2015
NASA's New 'Star Trek' Tech Is Designed to Detect Alien Lifeby Kasandra Brabaw, Space.com / www.space.com/contact_author.php?a=UzJGellXNWtjbUVnUW5KaFltRjNLbXRoYzJGdVpISmhMbUp5WVdKaGR5bzBLbWR0WVdsc0xtTnZiUT09New NASA technology straight out of "Star Trek" could help scientists detect life on other worlds. The device, dubbed the "chemical laptop," is a miniature, portable laboratory that resembles the TV show's famous tricorder scanning device, and is designed to make data collection easier and faster than ever before. The laptop, currently in development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is a chemical analyzer made to detect both amino acids and fatty acids, often called "the building blocks of life," in samples from extraterrestrial terrain. Amino acids bind together to create proteins, which are vital to almost all processes that occur within a cell, and fatty acids are an important component of cell membranes, so researchers believe finding both could indicate that life is now or was once present. Though it's roughly the size of a regular laptop, the chemical laptop isn't like any computer on store shelves. It's much thicker, to make room for chemical analysis components inside. But perhaps the biggest difference is that this laptop doesn't shut down when it gets wet — it actually needs liquid to work. NASA's new "chemical laptop" perches on a test rover at the Jet Propulsion Lab's Mars Yard next to an ordinary laptop. NASA/JPL-Caltech This could be "an especially useful tool for icy-world targets such as [Saturn moon] Enceladus and [Jupiter moon] Europa," Jessica Creamer, a NASA postdoctoral fellow based at JPL, said in a statement. "All you would need to do is melt a little bit of the ice, and you could sample it and analyze it directly." The device uses technology similar to an espresso machine to analyze a sample. It picks up a liquid or ice sample, puts it in a tube with liquid water and heats it above 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, it mixes the sample with a fluorescent dye that attaches to amino and fatty acids. Researchers are looking to see how long the fatty acids' carbon chains are, which would indicate what kind of organisms are or were there. But they're also interested in the ratio of "left-handed" amino acids to "right-handed" amino acids. Living things on Earth are made up almost exclusively of left-handed amino acids, but scientists believe it's possible that life on other worlds could be made of right-handed amino acids. The key is that life would create more of whichever type of amino acid it was made of, leading to a higher prevalence of one than of the other. "If a test found a 50-50 mixture of left-handed and right-handed amino acids, we could conclude that the sample was probably not of biological origin," Creamer said in the statement. "But if we were to find an excess of either left- or right-[handed amino acids], that would be the golden ticket. That would be the best evidence so far that life exists on other planets." WATCH VIDEO: www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/nasas-new-star-trek-tech-designed-detect-alien-life-n471296?cid=sm_twitter_feed_science SEE ORIGINAL STORY HERE: www.space.com/31225-nasa-star-trek-tech-life-search.html
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NASA
Feb 10, 2016 13:10:58 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Feb 10, 2016 13:10:58 GMT -6
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE FOR NASAPosted by Don Clark February 9, 2016 NASA’s new #space tourism posters are spellbinding "Imagination is our window into the future. As you mark the passing of this year with these imaginative destinations, remember that you are the architects of the future. What we make and do will have a profound significance for generations to come. The impact of your efforts go beyond 2020, or even 2050. They will be felt for centuries to come. Be bold in your vision of what tomorrow can be, advance the edge of possibility, and let’s work together to make it come true.” – NASA JPL Director Charles Elachi When our buddy Joby Harris, a visual strategist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, asked us if we were interested in creating ‘travel posters’ for NASA last Fall, well … given our family history, you can only imagine how we responded. We are very honored and lucky to have worked on such an amazing project. These 3 commissioned pieces are part of JPL’s Visions Of The Future 2016 Calendar – an internal gift to JPL and NASA staff, as well as scientists, engineers, government and university staff. The artwork for each month will also be released as a free downloadable poster at the NASA JPL site soon. NASA JPL was kind enough to let us sell our own limited-edition signed posters and prints. Those are available here. Details on each poster below … MORE POSTERS & CONTINUE READING: blog.invisiblecreature.com/new-posters-for-nasa/
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NASA
Feb 23, 2016 13:52:42 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Feb 23, 2016 13:52:42 GMT -6
www.asteroidmission.org/WeTheExplorers/ Fraser Cain @fcain
NASA Wants To Send Your Art To Asteroid Bennu www.asteroidmission.org/WeTheExplorers/ We The ExplorersFebruary 10, 2016 -
Send Your Artwork on a Journey to the StarsWe are all explorers in our own way. Whether it’s an expedition to a distant asteroid, meticulous research revealing the inner workings of a tiny cell, or the creation of a moving song or poem, exploration is the essence of our human spirit. As we prepare for launch, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx team invites you to ponder the big questions with us: *What does it mean to be an explorer like OSIRIS-REx? *What might this mission teach us about ourselves and our universe? *How are we as a people stretched and deepened by explorations beyond our Earthly home? Then, share your reflections with us—and with the universe—in a creative work that will ride aboard the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its journey to the asteroid Bennu. Who:You. All ages and skill levels are welcome, but minors (under 18) must have permission of a parent or guardian to participate. What:Your submission may take the form of a sketch, photograph, graphic, poem, song, short video or other creative or artistic expression. Why:Submissions will fly aboard the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its journey to the asteroid Bennu this fall. (By submitting your work, you give us permission to download it and include it on the drive being sent to space.) When: The deadline for submissions is Sunday, March 20, 2016 at 11:59 pm PDT or when capacity of the drive that will carry submissions to space is reached, whichever occurs first. Your submission must be posted—and correctly tagged—before this deadline and must remain accessible on the platform until at least April 30, 2016.How:Share your contribution by tagging us on Twitter (@osirisrex) or Instagram (@osiris_REX) and including the hashtag #WeTheExplorers. Please ensure the settings on your account allow your submission to be viewed without a password. Videos may be submitted by direct upload to Twitter or Instagram or by including a link to your YouTube or Vimeo video in a correctly tagged tweet. Video submissions are limited to 2 minutes and 30 seconds in length. If your video is hosted on Vimeo, please ensure you check the box allowing it to be downloaded. Need inspiration?Learn more about the mission and its two stars: the spacecraft OSIRIS-REx and the asteroid Bennu. SUBMIT YOUR ARTWORK: www.asteroidmission.org/WeTheExplorers/
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NASA
Apr 18, 2016 12:19:51 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Apr 18, 2016 12:19:51 GMT -6
2016.spaceappschallenge.org/Global Community, Out-of-this-World Innovation For 48-72 hours across the world, problem solvers like you join us for NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge, one of the largest hackathons in the universe. Empowered by open data, you collaborate with strangers, colleagues, friends, and family to solve perplexing challenges in new and unexpected ways -- from designing an interactive space glove to natural language processing to clean water mapping. Join us on our open data mission, and show us how you innovate. Not Just For Coders Beginners, students, experts, engineers, makers, artists, storytellers -- Space Apps is for you! We welcome all passionate problem solvers to join our community of innovators. Citizens like you have already created thousands of open-source solutions together through code, data visualizations, hardware and design. How will you make your global impact? MORE INFO: 2016.spaceappschallenge.org/
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NASA
Sept 17, 2016 15:21:39 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Sept 17, 2016 15:21:39 GMT -6
www.universetoday.com/130785/get-geologist-flight-suit/# GET THAT GEOLOGIST A FLIGHT SUIT! Article Updated: 14 Sep , 2016 by Matt Williams / www.universetoday.com/author/mwill/Future missions to Mars and other locations in the Solar System may depend heavily on the skills of planetary geologists. Credit: NASA Ames Research CenterIn the coming decades, the world’s largest space agencies all have some rather big plans. Between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), or the China National Space Administration (CNSA), there are plans to return to the Moon, crewed missions to Mars, and crewed missions to Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). In all cases, geological studies are going to be a major aspect of the mission. For this reason, the ESA recently unveiled a new training program known as the Pangaea course, a study program which focuses on identifying planetary geological features. This program showcases just how important planetary geologists will be to future missions. Pangaea takes its name from the super-continent that that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras (300 to 175 million years ago). Due to convection in Earth’s mantle, this continent eventually broke up, giving rise to the seven continents that we are familiar with today. The super-continent Pangea during the Permian period (300 – 250 million years ago). Credit: NAU Geology/Ron BlakeyFrancesco Sauro – a field geologist, explorer and the designer of the course – explained the purpose of Pangaea in an ESA press release: “This Pangaea course – named after the ancient supercontinent – will help astronauts to find interesting rock samples as well as to assess the most likely places to find traces of life on other planets. We created a course that enables astronauts on future missions to other planetary bodies to spot the best areas for exploration and the most scientifically interesting rocks to take samples for further analysis by the scientists back on Earth.” This first part of the course will take place this week, where astronaut trainer Matthias Maurer and astronauts Luca Parmitano and Pedro Duque will be learning from a panel of planetary geology experts. These lessons will include how to recognize certain types of rock, how to draw landscapes, and the exploration of a canyon that has sedimentary features similar to the ones observed in the Murray Buttes region, which was recently imaged by the Curiosity rover. The geology panel will include such luminaries as Matteo Messironi (a geologist working on the Rosetta and ExoMars missions), Harald Hiesinger (an expert in lunar geology), Anna Maria Fioretti (a meteorite expert), and Nicolas Mangold (a Mars expert currently working with NASA’s Curiosity team). CONTINUE READING: www.universetoday.com/130785/get-geologist-flight-suit/#
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Post by auntym on Sept 22, 2016 13:50:05 GMT -6
www.space.com/34146-fake-colors-nasa-photos-stop-complaining.html?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=socialtwitterspc&cmpid=social_spc_514648#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvrit Stop Complaining about 'Fake' Colors in NASA ImagesBy Paul Sutter, Astrophysicist September 22, 2016 This gorgeous photo of the famous Crab Nebula combines an infrared view from ESA's Herschel Space Observatory with an optical image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/MESS Key Programme Supernova Remnant Team; NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University) Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at the COSI science center. Sutter is also host of Ask a Spaceman, RealSpace and COSI Science Now. We hear it all the time. Well, maybe you don't, but I get this thrown at me a lot. We see beautiful images released by NASA and other space agencies: ghostly nebulas giving tantalizing hints of their inner structures, leftover ruins of long-dead stellar systems, furious supernovae caught in the act of exploding and newborn stars peeking out from their dusty wombs. Instead of just sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the light show the universe is putting on, some people feel compelled to object: But those colors are fake! You wouldn't see that nebula with your eyes! Binoculars and telescopes wouldn't reveal that supernova structure! Nothing in the universe is that shade of purple! And so on. [Celestial Photos: Hubble Space Telescope's Latest Cosmic Views] A light bucketI think it's first important to describe what a telescope is doing, especially a telescope with a digital camera attached. The telescope itself is an arrangement of tubes, mirrors and/or lenses that enable the instrument to capture as much light as possible. Obviously, it pulls in much more light than the human eye does, or it wouldn't be very good at what it was built to do. So, naturally, telescopes will see really faint things — things you'd never see with your eyes unless you hitched a ride on a wandering rogue exoplanet and settled in for a million-year cruise. A telescope's second job is to shove all those astronomical photons into a tiny spot that can fit into your iris; otherwise, it would just dump the light on your whole face, which wouldn't be very interesting or useful. That act of focusing also magnifies images, making them appear much larger than in real life. So, already, a telescope is giving you an artificial view of the heavens. Your retinas have special sensors (aka, rods and cones) that can pick out different colors. But digital sensors — like the one you might use to take a selfie — aren't sensitive to colors at all. They can only measure the total amount of light slamming into them. So to correct for this, they use filters, and either employ multiple sets of sensors or combine multiple readings from the same sensor. Either way, the result is the same: an avalanche of data about the properties of the light that hit the device at the same moment you were taking your picture. Fancy software algorithms reconstruct all this data into an image that kinda, sorta approximates what your eyes would've seen without the digital gear. But as anyone who has had to fiddle with exposure and lighting settings knows, it's far from a one-to-one, human-computer match. Doing scienceIf you've ever played with filters before posting a selfie, you're doing it for a reason: You want the picture to look better. Scientists want pictures to look better, too — for the sake of science. Researchers take pictures of stuff in space to learn about how it works, and some higher contrast here or a little brightening over there can help us understand complex structures and relationships within and between them. So don't blame NASA for a little photo enhancement touching up; they're doing it for science. [NASA's 10 Greatest Science Missions ] The colors of the universeBut what about adding colors? If one had to do a census, perhaps the most common colors in the universe are red and blue. So if you're looking at a gorgeous Hubble Space Telescope image and see lots of those two colors, it's probably close to what your unaided eye would see. But a broad wash of green? A sprinkling of bright orange? Astrophysical mechanisms don't usually produce colors like, so what's the deal? The deal is, again, science. Researchers will often add artificial colors to pick out some element or feature that they're trying to study. Elements when they're heated will glow in very specific wavelengths of light. Sometimes that light is within human perception but will be washed out by other colors in the picture, and sometimes the light's wavelength is altogether beyond the visible. But in either case, we want to map out where that element is in a particular nebula or disk. So scientists will highlight that feature to get clues to the origins and structure of something complex. "Wow, that oxygen-rich cloud is practically wrapped around the disk! How scientifically fascinating!" You get the idea. CONTINUE READING: www.space.com/34146-fake-colors-nasa-photos-stop-complaining.html?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=socialtwitterspc&cmpid=social_spc_514648#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvrit
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Post by auntym on Dec 28, 2016 15:07:26 GMT -6
www.history.com/news/human-computers-women-at-nasa?cmpid=Social_TWITTER_HISTORY_20161228_758857596&linkId=32820680 Human Computers: The Women of NASADecember 13, 2016 By Brynn Holland / www.history.com/news/author/bholland The human computers pose for a group photo in 1953. (Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech) They were known as “human computers” long before desktop, laptops and multi-function calculators. Comprising an elite team of mathematicians, engineers and scientists, these women were tasked with turning numbers into meaningful data at what would later become NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Langley Research Center. Their calculations would chart the course of many ground-breaking missions, carrying U.S. astronauts to the moon and beyond. Barbara “Barby” Canright joined California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1939. As the first female “human computer,” her job was to calculate anything from how many rockets were needed to make a plane airborne to what kind of rocket propellants were needed to propel a spacecraft. These calculations were done by hand, with pencil and graph paper, often taking more than a week to complete and filling up six to eight notebooks with data and formulas. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her work, along with that of her mostly male teammates, took on a new meaning—the army needed to lift a 14,000-pound bomber into the air. She was responsible for determining the thrust-to-weight ratio and comparing the performance of engines under various conditions. Given the amount of work, more “computers”were hired, including three women Melba Nea, Virginia Prettyman and Macie Roberts. Macie Roberts was about 20 years older than the other computers working at JPL. Coming to engineering later in life, she was meticulous and driven, rising through the ranks and becoming a supervisor in 1942. When tasked with building out her team, she made the decision to hire only women, believing men would undermine the cohesion of the group and not take direction well from a woman. Roberts set a precedent for future female supervisors who made it their job to hire women, often taking a chance on young women right out of college. Helen Ling was one such supervisor who followed in Roberts’ footsteps. Ling actively hired women who didn’t have an engineering education, encouraging them to attend night school. At a time when maternity leave did not exist, pregnancy could be detrimental to a women’s career. It took supervisors like Ling to think outside the box. Way ahead of her time, she offered her employees her own version of unpaid maternity leave, rehiring them after they had left to give birth. Barbara Paulson began working at JPL in 1948, when calculating a rocket path took all day. On January 31, 1958, she played a role in the historic launch of the JPL-built Explorer 1, the first successfully launched satellite by the United States. She was tasked with plotting the data received from the satellite and a network tracking station. It was Paulson and her fellow human computers that hand-charted America’s entrance into the Space Race. Paulson left JPL to have her first daughter, and thanks to Ling’s unofficial unpaid maternity leave, returned in 1961. In the 1950s, NASA was starting to work with what we now know as computers—but most male engineers and scientists did not trust these machines, believing them to be unreliable in comparison to human calculations. Dismissing computer programming as “women’s work,” the men gave the new IBMs to the women of JPL providing them with a unique opportunity to work with, and learn to code, computers. It comes as no surprise then that the first computer programmers in the JPL lab were women. They became attached to a specific IBM 1620, nicknaming her CORA and providing her with her own office. Graduating in 1953 with a degree in chemical engineering from University of California, Los Angeles, Janez Lawson had the grades, degree and intelligence to get any job she wanted. The problem? Her race and gender. She responded to a JPL job ad for “Computers Wanted” that specified “no degree necessary,” which she recognized as code for “women can apply.” While it would not be an engineering position, it would put her in a lab. Macie Roberts and Helen Ling were already working at JPL, actively recruiting young women to compute data and Lawson fit the bill. Lawson was the first African American to work in a technical position in the JPL lab. Taking advantage of the IBM computers at their disposal, and her supervisor’s encouragement to continue her education, Lawson was one of two people sent to a special IBM training school to learn how to operate and program the computers. A remarkable group of African American women, working at what would become NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, were breaking down their own gender and racial barriers. Dorothy Vaughan joined the team in 1943,. Already having to ride in the colored section of a segregated bus, she was put to work in the “colored” computers section. In 1951, Vaughan became the first African-American manager at Langley and started, like her cohorts on the West coast, to hire women. That same year, Mary Jackson joined her team, working on the supersonic pressure tunnel project that tested data from wind tunnel and flight experiments. Katherine Johnson— who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 by President Barak Obama—joined the team at Langley in 1953. A physicist, space scientist and mathematician, Johnson provided the calculations for Alan Shepherd’s historic first flight into space, John Glenn’s ground-breaking orbit of the earth and the trajectory for Apollo 11’s moon landing. One of the earliest human computers still works at JPL. Now 80 and NASA’s longest-serving female employee, Sue Finley was originally hired in 1958 to work on trajectory computations for rocket launches, and is now a software tester and subsystem engineer. She is currently working on NASA’s mission to Jupiter. Her legacy, and that of the other early human computers, is literally written in the stars. It was the careful and precise hand-made calculations of these women that sent Voyager to explore the solar system, wrote the C and C++ programs that launched the first Mars rover and helped the U.S. put a man on the moon. Though rarely seen in the famous photos of NASA’s mission control, these early human computers contributed immeasurably to the success of the United States’ space program. SEE PHOTOS: www.history.com/news/human-computers-women-at-nasa?cmpid=Social_TWITTER_HISTORY_20161228_758857596&linkId=32820680 TRAILER FOR 'HIDDEN FIGURES'Hidden Figures | Teaser Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX Watch the new trailer for #HiddenFigures, based on the incredible untold true story. Starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer & Janelle Monáe. In theaters this January. HIDDEN FIGURES is the incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe)—brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big. In Theaters - January 6, 2017 'HIDDEN FIGURES' THE RIGHT STUFF VERSUS HUMAN STUFF: www.space.com/35145-hidden-figures-right-stuff-history.html?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=socialtwitterspc&cmpid=social_spc_514648
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NASA
Feb 3, 2017 15:40:16 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Feb 3, 2017 15:40:16 GMT -6
worldnewsdailyreport.com/wikileaks-documents-reveal-apollo-program-was-a-fraud-moon-landings-never-happened/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork
Julian Assange has a reputation for lying & printing bad info...i don't believe him... WikiLeaks Documents Reveal Apollo Program Was A Fraud, Moon Landings Never Happened New documents scheduled to be released this week by Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, could reveal damaging information about NASA’s Apollo program, believe experts. Julian Assange, who has lived at Ecuador’s London embassy since June 2012 in fear of being extradited to the United States to face espionage and conspiracy charges arising from the leaking of thousands of secret diplomatic and military documents by US Army private Chelsea Manning, has announced that he will release incriminating evidence that the government of the Unites States of America and NASA have hidden the truth about the Apollo program and the lunar landings for more than 40 years. « These documents reveal the true reason behind the Apollo program deception and how this all played out in the Cold War strategy of the government of the United States at the time » – Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder The documents are said to have been handed to the WikiLeaks founder by a “retired high ranking official of NASA that has worked within the government for over 45 years”, Assange told reporters. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is about to reveal documents that could prove the Apollo space program was an elaborate scheme to dupe the Russians into a space race that never occurred
Damaging information for NASAThe documents to be released this week could cause up a stir weeks after NASA has announced it is preparing for another moon landing mission in 2030. «These documents that have been entrusted to me come from a highly known and respected high ranking official of the U.S. government who desires to leave this as a testament to the world before he dies. His desire is to stay anonymous as to not embroil his family and friends into a major polemic that could possibly destroy their lives» he told reporters. Top officials of the Chinese space program last year accused the government of the United States of “faking” the moon landings after the Chinese lunar rover found no evidence of the Apollo program moon landings after investigating the same area where the Apollo 11 mission allegedly landed on 20 July 1969. worldnewsdailyreport.com/wikileaks-documents-reveal-apollo-program-was-a-fraud-moon-landings-never-happened/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork
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Post by auntym on Feb 9, 2017 13:59:44 GMT -6
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NASA
May 22, 2017 23:26:43 GMT -6
Post by auntym on May 22, 2017 23:26:43 GMT -6
Who's Out There ? 1975 NASA Orson Welles Documentary on Aliens
Published on Dec 20, 2016
This 1975 NASA documentary narrated by the great Orson Welles delves into the possibilities of extraterrestrial life as gleaned from the results of probes to the planets and interstellar discoveries and findings about the nature of life itself. The film discusses the conclusion drawn by a number of distinguished scientists that other intelligent civilizations do indeed exist in the universe.
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Post by auntym on May 29, 2017 12:00:46 GMT -6
www.space.com/37019-jfk-100th-birthday-nasa-space-legacy.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvrit NASA Honors John F. Kennedy's Space Legacy on His 100th BirthdayBy Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor May 29, 2017 He was the American president who aimed an entire country at the moon, and for that NASA will always remember. President John F. Kennedy, born 100 years ago today (May 29), wasn't the first U.S. president to oversee NASA, but it was he who in 1961 — amid a space race with the Soviet Union — set the country firmly on a path to the moon for the next giant leap for human spaceflight. To honor Kennedy's vision and space legacy, NASA is celebrating with a special JFK centennial website: www.nasa.gov/specials/jfk100/. The website features images of Kennedy's biggest moments with NASA and astronauts, as well as excerpts from "Ten Presidents and NASA" by space policy expert John Logsdon, which originally appeared in the "NASA 50th Anniversary Magazine." "This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of President John F. Kennedy," NASA officials wrote on the centennial page. "Though NASA was formed by Dwight Eisenhower, President Kennedy gave the infant agency its early focus with his famous challenge to land astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade." [Photos: JFK's NASA Legacy] www.space.com/11643-photos-jfk-kennedy-nasa-space-race.html The year 1961 was a transformative one for human spaceflight. On April 12 of that year, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space. (Alan Shepard, the first American in space, would launch just a few weeks later on May 5.) On May 25, 1961, Kennedy issued his moon challenge to a joint session of Congress, where he called for increased funding for space exploration and clearly set the moon as a human spaceflight goal by the end of the decade. "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth," Kennedy told Congress. "No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." WATCH VIDEOS & CONTINUE READING: www.space.com/37019-jfk-100th-birthday-nasa-space-legacy.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvritPublished on May 18, 2013 On Sept. 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would land men on the moon.
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Post by auntym on Jun 1, 2017 12:19:51 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/inspiration-links-the-beatles-a-fossil-and-a-nasa-missionJune 1, 2017 Inspiration Links The Beatles, a Fossil and a NASA Mission LUCYFifty years ago today (June 1), The Beatles released their album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' which included the iconic song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds." The popular song was critically acclaimed for evoking a surreal dreamscape, along the lines of Lewis Carroll’s classic "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" fantasy. John Lennon said it was inspired by a drawing his son Julian — then age 3 — had made of a nursery school classmate named Lucy. "When we sat down to write the song at John’s house, Julian’s drawing of Lucy and the stars was what inspired us," said Paul McCartney. "At the top of the drawing Julian had written in childlike script, 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.'" Said Ringo Starr, "How great it would be for Lucy to go back in the sky with diamonds. Peace & Love, Ringo." Photo from the 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' album. Credits: ©Apple Corps Ltd. Fast forward to Nov. 24, 1974, when, during a fossil-hunting expedition in Hadar, Ethiopia, anthropologist Donald Johanson and a student decided to take an alternate route back to their Land Rover through a nearby gully. There, Johanson discovered a fossil forearm bone and quickly identified it as a species of hominin, a human ancestor originating after the evolutionary split from the ancestors of apes. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominin skeleton. Later that night, there was much celebration and excitement over the discovery of what looked like a fairly complete hominin skeleton. There was dancing and singing; The Beatles’ song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was playing. At some point during that night, expedition member Pamela Alderman named the skeleton "Lucy," and the name stuck. Jump ahead to 2013, when a proposed NASA mission to explore Jupiter's Trojan asteroids was in search of a name. While most NASA missions are acronyms, this particular mission took a different path. Planets were built from solid materials orbiting the sun that came together under their mutual gravitational attraction. Primitive, volatile-rich bodies like the Trojans — in swarms ahead of and behind Jupiter in its orbit around the sun — are fossils of these first planetary building blocks and hold valuable clues to how the planets formed. Earth's oceans and atmosphere may have been supplemented by impacts from primitive bodies similar to the Trojans, so these fossils may help reveal our most distant origins. That link to our beginnings inspired the mission's principal investigator, Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado, to name the spacecraft after the Lucy fossil. The connection to The Beatles' song was the icing on the cake. "These asteroids really are like diamonds in the sky in terms of their scientific value for understanding how the giant planets formed and the solar system evolved," said Levison. Logo for the Lucy mission This is the patch for the Lucy mission. The diamond shape references “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles The Lucy fossil, photographed in 2009. Credits: Jason Kuffer (via Creative Commons) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 "When I first learned of the Lucy mission, during a visit to Bhutan, I was thrilled and overwhelmed with pride," said anthropologist Johanson. "As a teenager, I was very involved in astronomy with a 10-inch Clark refractor telescope at my high school. It is deeply rewarding that more than 40 years after my discovery of Lucy, she continues to play an important role in scientific exploration." So this is how a hit song, inspired by a drawing from a rock star's young son, inspired the name of a fossil human ancestor, which inspired the name of a NASA mission to understand our origins. "We are conscious of all the ways the name we chose for this mission has different cultural meanings," said Keith Noll, project scientist for Lucy at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "If Lucy resonates with someone, brings them in and gets them asking questions, that's just great." Lucy will launch in October 2021 and fly by its targets between 2025 and 2033. In all, Lucy will study six Trojans and one Main Belt asteroid. For more information about NASA’s Lucy mission: www.nasa.gov/lucy www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/inspiration-links-the-beatles-a-fossil-and-a-nasa-mission
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NASA
Aug 6, 2017 12:01:57 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Aug 6, 2017 12:01:57 GMT -6
fortune.com/2017/08/04/nasa-planetary-protection-officer/?xid=newsletter-briefCatharine "Cassie" Conley, NASA's current Planetary Protection Officer. Photo by W. Hrybyk, NASA-GSFC Most Powerful Women
NASA’s ‘Planetary Protector’ on What Everyone Gets Wrong About Her JobMadeline Farber Aug 04, 2017 When NASA announced this week that the space agency was searching for a new "planetary protection officer," the internet went crazy over the six-figure position that sounded like something from out of this world. Headlines touted the role as a "job opening for someone to defend Earth from aliens" and memes followed closely behind. The widespread attention — and misunderstanding of what the job entailed — surprised Catharine "Cassie" Conley, NASA's current planetary protection officer, who has held the position since 2006. She's glad to see people talking about NASA's work, but wants to set the record straight: Her job is to protect both Earth and other planets from disease-causing microbes, not sentient beings. "We have no evidence that there has been an invasion of intelligent life," Conley told Fortune in an interview on Friday. She declined to say whether she is leaving her job or plans to apply to the new version NASA listed. She is the sixth planetary protection officer NASA has ever hired, and noted that the position has "never had this kind of visibility." Conley's primary responsibility is to ensure that anything NASA launches into space — like a planet-bound robot, for example — doesn't contaminate a foreign world with its microbes. That's in line with a commitment the U.S. made in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Conley also helps to prevent any alien microorganisms from reaching Earth. "It is extremely important that as we explore space that we do it in a careful way," she said. "If you want to find life on other planets, you have to be careful not to find Earth life by accident." As NASA continues to explore places with the potential for life — like Mars or Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter — Conley's job has become more significant. "The biggest challenge of my job are the people who don't see why this is important," she said. "Individuals who want to explore these places have different levels of risk that they accept. But when you're dealing with something that could impact the whole planet, you have to take everyone into consideration. It's very rewarding to ensure that the international guidelines are upheld." fortune.com/2017/08/04/nasa-planetary-protection-officer/?xid=newsletter-brief
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Post by auntym on Aug 27, 2017 0:31:12 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography HAPPY 99th BIRTHDAY KATHERINE JOHNSONHappy 99th birthday to retired mathematician Katherine Johnson! Her calculations were critical to early spaceflight: go.nasa.gov/2iwViMLKatherine Johnson BiographyPortrait of Katherine Johnson Credits: NASA Date of Birth: August 26, 1918 Hometown: White Sulphur Springs, WV Education: B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937 Hired by NACA: June 1953 Retired from NASA: 1986 Actress Playing Role in Hidden Figures: Taraji P. HensonBeing handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918, Katherine Johnson’s intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her ahead several grades in school. By thirteen, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At eighteen, she enrolled in the college itself, where she made quick work of the school’s math curriculum and found a mentor in math professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in Mathematics. Katherine graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia. When West Virginia decided to quietly integrate its graduate schools in 1939, West Virginia State’s president Dr. John W. Davis selected Katherine and two male students as the first black students to be offered spots at the state’s flagship school, West Virginia University. Katherine left her teaching job, and enrolled in the graduate math program. At the end of the first session, however, she decided to leave school to start a family with her husband. She returned to teaching when her three daughters got older, but it wasn’t until 1952 that a relative told her about open positions at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory, headed by fellow West Virginian Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine and her husband, James Goble, decided to move the family to Newport News to pursue the opportunity, and Katherine began work at Langley in the summer of 1953. Just two weeks into Katherine’s tenure in the office, Dorothy Vaughan assigned her to a project in the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division, and Katherine’s temporary position soon became permanent. She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight test, and worked on the investigation of a plane crash caused by wake turbulence. As she was wrapping up this work her husband died of cancer in December 1956. The 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik changed history—and Katherine Johnson’s life. In 1957, Katherine provided some of the math for the 1958 document Notes on Space Technology, a compendium of a series of 1958 lectures given by engineers in the Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD). Engineers from those groups formed the core of the Space Task Group, the NACA’s first official foray into space travel, and Katherine, who had worked with many of them since coming to Langley, “came along with the program” as the NACA became NASA later that year. She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. In 1960, she and engineer Ted Skopinski coauthored Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position, a report laying out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified. It was the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report. In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, DC, Cape Canaveral, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission, from blast off to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Katherine Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space. When asked to name her greatest contribution to space exploration, Katherine Johnson talks about the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. She also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Satellite, and authored or coauthored 26 research reports. She retired in 1986, after thirty-three years at Langley. “I loved going to work every single day,” she says. In 2015, at age 97, Katherine Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. Biography by Margot Lee Shetterly www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography
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NASA
Aug 27, 2017 0:53:19 GMT -6
Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2017 0:53:19 GMT -6
I envy people who truly understand math.
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Post by auntym on Sept 23, 2017 12:54:14 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-langley-s-katherine-johnson-computational-research-facility-officially-opens WOW...what a great honor... Sept. 22, 2017 NASA Langley’s Katherine Johnson Computational Research Facility Officially OpensEric Gillard / NASA Langley Research Center The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in the Reid Conference Center. Honored guests include Johnson and members of her family, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, City of Hampton, Virginia, Mayor Donnie Tuck and author of “Hidden Figures” Margot Lee Shetterly. Credits: NASA/Gary BanzigerWhen she heard that NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, would name its newest building after her, Katherine Johnson responded the only way she could – with surprise. “You want my honest answer? I think they’re crazy,” the 99-year-old Johnson, of “Hidden Figures” fame, said with a laugh. The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility, or CRF, was dedicated Sept. 22 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by family and friends of Johnson and her fellow “human computers,” students from Black Girls Code and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, and special guests from across Virginia. “You have been a trailblazer,” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said during the ceremony. “When I think of Virginia and the history of what we’ve gone through … you’re at the top of that list.” Johnson held a fascination with numbers as a girl growing up in West Virginia. Eventually, she translated that love into using her math skills to help advance the nation’s space program in the 1960s. “I like the stars, and the stories we were telling, and it was a joy to contribute to the literature that was going to come out,” said Johnson, the central character in the book and movie “Hidden Figures.” “But little did I think it would go this far.” “We’re here to honor the legacy of one of the most admired and inspirational people ever associated with NASA,” said Langley Director David Bowles. “I can’t imagine a better tribute to Mrs. Johnson’s character and accomplishments than this building that will bear her name.” State of the artThe CRF is a state-of-the-art facility that will enable innovative research and development supporting NASA’s missions. It is the third building in Langley’s 20-year revitalization plan. “I always like something new,” Johnson said of the facility. “It gives credit to everybody who helped.” The $23-million, 37,000-square-foot (3,437 square-meter) structure is consolidating four Langley data centers. The building incorporates energy-saving features that are expected to be 33 percent more efficient than if those features had not been included. The significance of the facility is that it advances Langley’s capabilities in modeling and simulation, big data and analysis. Powerful computers like those in the CRF are capable of ever more complex analysis and simulation, in some cases replacing but also validating and complimenting the research done in NASA’s labs and wind tunnels. The CRF also houses an office area for researchers to do their work. “We know that these are the tools that will help shape the world of the future,” Bowles said. “We’ll do more calculations that ever, and we’ll do them faster, more efficiently and with greater reliability.” Johnson was a “human computer” at Langley who calculated trajectories for America’s first spaceflights. She worked at Langley from 1953 until retiring in 1986. Her contributions and those of other NASA African-American human computers are chronicled in “Hidden Figures,” based on author Margot Lee Shetterly’s book of the same name. After Johnson’s story began to emerge, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by then-President Barack Obama at the White House in 2015. CONTINUE READING: www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-langley-s-katherine-johnson-computational-research-facility-officially-opens
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NASA
Dec 10, 2017 18:21:41 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Dec 10, 2017 18:21:41 GMT -6
theconversation.com/secret-weapon-for-space-travelers-a-steady-diet-of-tv-82960 Secret weapon for space travelers: A steady diet of TV?by Jan Van den Bulck / theconversation.com/profiles/jan-van-den-bulck-402650Professor of Media Psychology, University of Michigan September 25, 2017 Deep-space journeys will have plenty of downtime. studiostoks/Shutterstock.com No one knows for sure what a long-range space journey will be like for the people on board. Nobody in the history of our species has ever had to deal with the “Earth-out-of-view” phenomenon, for instance. How will it feel to live in close quarters with a small group, with no escape hatch? How will space travelers deal with the prospect of not seeing family or friends for years, or even ever again? How will they occupy themselves for years with nothing much to do? Researchers do know some things from observing astronauts who’ve stayed in space stations revolving around Earth for long periods of time, people who spent a lot of time shut off from the outside world in isolated regions (such as on polar expeditions) and from experiments with simulated Mars missions. Because astronauts would have a lot of free time to fill, some researchers have casually suggested sending along a selection of books and films or even bespoke video games. As a social scientist who studies media use and its effects on behavior, I believe television could help. Recreating the media environment from before we had permanent, continuous access to anything we want to watch or listen to might be just the thing to help space travelers cope with a loss of a sense of space and time, with loneliness, privacy issues, boredom and more. Floating rudderless in space and timeIn space, the distinction between days of the week, day and night, or morning and noon will be mostly meaningless. Before DVDs and streaming, television helped us structure our time. For some, “lunch” was when a particular game show came on. “Evening” started with the news. “Thursday” was when the next episode of our favorite drama finally arrived. Seasonal programming split the year into chunks (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas). Annual events, such as the Super Bowl, helped us realize yet another year had passed. A media system that recreates structured access would help define time in space, something unlimited access to a random list of movies would not. Knowing that you were watching something that millions of others were watching at the same time created a particular group feeling – think tuning in to a royal wedding or a presidential funeral. It remains to be seen how today’s fracturing of the media landscape has changed that. Interestingly, one of the earliest occasions where millions around the world shared a bond in front of their or their neighbor’s TV was the first lunar landing. Out of reach, out of touchOne reason prisoners like to watch television is that it shows them how the world outside is evolving. If we don’t want long-range space travelers to return feeling like aliens, they will need to keep up-to-date with what’s happening back on Earth. Television news has an “agenda setting” effect: It tells viewers not only what is going on, but also what matters to people, and public opinion about current events. Entertainment media, from reality shows to game shows to drama, display how fashion, vocabulary and even accents are evolving. Tuning in to what’s going on back home is also a way to counteract the “Earth-out-of-view” phenomenon. The feeling of being on top of what’s happening on Earth may help keep the psychological connection to the home planet active and strong. Heritage maintenanceMembers of a crew are likely to have different cultural backgrounds. The distinctions are biggest if they come from far-flung countries or different language families. Immigrants, for instance, use the media to integrate more quickly into their new culture. But exposure to home media is also a way to keep a connection to (and derive support from) the culture of origin. Imagine a crew consisting mainly of people from the United States, but with one member from, say, Japan. It will be equally important to facilitate integration and bonding by making media content available that everyone can consume as a group as it is to make specific content available that (in this example) may cater to a person who grew up in Japan. Balancing solitude and communityAs individuals, astronauts will crave autonomy and privacy. Media can help create “alone time.” Being immersed in a book, a movie or music (using headphones) helps lock out the environment, as every teenager knows. At the same time, astronauts as a group will need to work on interconnection to be successful. Even though media are often blamed for dissolving social cohesion, they can also create and reinforce powerful feelings of community and group cohesion. Even in families where everyone has their own smartphone and a TV set, a lot of group viewing occurs because members enjoy being in each other’s company. Spectator sports, in particular, can create strong bonds. Of course, it makes sense that individuals’ interests differ among groups, cultures and genders, as well as with personal preferences. A supportive media access program will need careful pretesting long before the journey starts. Building on how we already use mediaMedia can do much more. People turn to media for mood management, either when they feel down or want to relax. The distraction caused by media is usually seen as negative for people trying to avoid overeating, but if food is bland and monotonous, that might be a good thing. There are dangers, too. Media can distract from necessary tasks, affect sleep or lead to addiction-like behaviors. News from Earth or exposure to social media could induce fear and anxiety for loved ones. There is, finally, a more mundane but perhaps also more fundamental reason to incorporate media into the daily lives of future Mars travelers. They will be drawn from a generation that grew up immersed in and surrounded by media access and content. Recreating a reasonable facsimile of that environment may go a long way toward making astronauts feel a little bit more at home out there. theconversation.com/secret-weapon-for-space-travelers-a-steady-diet-of-tv-82960
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NASA
Dec 11, 2017 18:01:59 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Dec 11, 2017 18:01:59 GMT -6
www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/nasa-to-hold-major-announcement-after-artificial-intelligence-makes-major-planet-hunting-breakthrough/ar-BBGzTgT?li=AA59G3 Nasa to hold major announcement after artificial intelligence makes major planet-hunting breakthrough by Andrew Griffin / 12-11-2017 © Provided by Independent Print Limited Nasa is holding a major press conference after its planet-hunting telescope made a major breakthrough. The Kepler space telescope is operated by Nasa to discover other earths, some of which could support life. And it is has found its latest discovery, one significant enough to bring with it a huge press conference. Very little further information was given about the announcement, which will take place on Thursday. But it will almost certainly relate to exoplanets – Earth-sized worlds that orbit around their own stars, and are our best hope of finding alien life. The space agency said that the discovery was made with the help of Google artificial intelligence, which is being used to analyse the data sent down by the telescope. By using machine learning provided by the tech giant, Nasa hopes that it can pick through the possible planets more quickly and hopefully find life-supporting planets sooner. Nasa said that four engineers and scientists would take part in the session. They include Paul Hertz, who leads Nasa's astrophysics division, a senior Google software engineer, and two scientists. The Kepler telescope was launched in 2009, when scientists didn't know how many exoplanets there were. It has shown they are surprisingly common, indicating that each star might have its own planet. It completed its main mission in 2012, but has continued to do more work. In 2014, it began a major mission called K2, which looks for more exoplanets as well as studying other cosmic phenomena. The sheer amount of data coming from the telescope means that scientists have trouble picking through it to find the planets that might be interesting. The introduction of the use of artificial intelligence is intended to help with that, by allowing computers to do some of the work. The Kepler mission has already led to major breakthroughs, finding that the universe is full of planets that could theoretically support life. Many of those breakthroughs are announced in major press conferences like the one that has just been announced. Advertisement In February, for instance, it said that it was holding a major press announcement similar to the one this week. At that event, it said that it had found the "holy grail" – an entire solar system that could support life. www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/nasa-to-hold-major-announcement-after-artificial-intelligence-makes-major-planet-hunting-breakthrough/ar-BBGzTgT?li=AA59G3
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NASA
Dec 11, 2017 18:22:05 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Dec 11, 2017 18:22:05 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/press-release/new-space-policy-directive-calls-for-human-expansion-across-solar-system i sure hope he checked with the aliens first... Dec. 11, 2017 New Space Policy Directive Calls for Human Expansion Across Solar System President Donald Trump is sending astronauts back to the Moon.The president Monday signed at the White House Space Policy Directive 1, a change in national space policy that provides for a U.S.-led, integrated program with private sector partners for a human return to the Moon, followed by missions to Mars and beyond. The policy calls for the NASA administrator to “lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.” The effort will more effectively organize government, private industry, and international efforts toward returning humans on the Moon, and will lay the foundation that will eventually enable human exploration of Mars. “The directive I am signing today will refocus America’s space program on human exploration and discovery,” said President Trump. “It marks a first step in returning American astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972, for long-term exploration and use. This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprints -- we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, and perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond.” The policy grew from a unanimous recommendation by the new National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, after its first meeting Oct. 5. In addition to the direction to plan for human return to the Moon, the policy also ends NASA’s existing effort to send humans to an asteroid. The president revived the National Space Council in July to advise and help implement his space policy with exploration as a national priority. "Under President Trump’s leadership, America will lead in space once again on all fronts,” said Vice President Pence. “As the President has said, space is the ‘next great American frontier’ – and it is our duty – and our destiny – to settle that frontier with American leadership, courage, and values. The signing of this new directive is yet another promise kept by President Trump.” Among other dignitaries on hand for the signing, were NASA astronauts Sen. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, Buzz Aldrin, Peggy Whitson and Christina Koch. Schmitt landed on the moon 45 years to the minute that the policy directive was signed as part of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission, and is the most recent living person to have set foot on our lunar neighbor. Aldrin was the second person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Whitson spoke to the president from space in April aboard the International Space Station and while flying back home after breaking the record for most time in space by a U.S. astronaut in September. Koch is a member of NASA’s astronaut class of 2013. Work toward the new directive will be reflected in NASA’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget request next year. “NASA looks forward to supporting the president’s directive strategically aligning our work to return humans to the Moon, travel to Mars and opening the deeper solar system beyond,” said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “This work represents a national effort on many fronts, with America leading the way. We will engage the best and brightest across government and private industry and our partners across the world to reach new milestones in human achievement. Our workforce is committed to this effort, and even now we are developing a flexible deep space infrastructure to support a steady cadence of increasingly complex missions that strengthens American leadership in the boundless frontier of space. The next generation will dream even bigger and reach higher as we launch challenging new missions, and make new discoveries and technological breakthroughs on this dynamic path.” A piece of Moon rock was brought to the White House as a reminder of the exploration history and American successes at the Moon on which the new policy will build. Lunar Sample 70215 was retrieved from the Moon’s surface and returned by Schmitt’s Apollo 17 crew. Apollo 17 was the last Apollo mission to land astronauts on the Moon and returned with the greatest amount of rock and soil samples for investigation. The sample is a basaltic lava rock similar to lava found in Hawaii. It crystallized 3.84 billion years ago when lava flowed from the Camelot Crater. Sliced off a parent rock that originally weighed 8,110 grams, the sample weighs 14 grams, and is very fine grained, dense and tough. During the six Apollo surface excursions from 1969 to 1972, astronauts collected 2,196 rock and soil samples weighting 842 pounds. Scientific studies help us learn about the geologic history of the Moon, as well as Earth. They help us understand the mineral and chemical resources available to support future lunar exploration. For information about NASA’s missions, programs and activities, visit: www.nasa.govwww.nasa.gov/press-release/new-space-policy-directive-calls-for-human-expansion-across-solar-system
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NASA
Dec 12, 2017 14:39:21 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Dec 12, 2017 14:39:21 GMT -6
spacenews.com/trump-formally-establishes-lunar-landing-goal-but-without-details/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvrit Trump formally establishes lunar landing goal, but without detailsby Jeff Foust / spacenews.com/author/jeff-foust/December 11, 2017 President Trump signs Space Policy Directive 1, instructing NASA to return humans to the moon, during a White House ceremony Dec. 11. Credit: NASA/Aubrey GemignaniNEW ORLEANS — President Donald Trump signed an order Dec. 11 formally directing NASA to send humans back to the moon, but provided no information on schedules or budgets for such an initiative. In a brief White House ceremony, Trump signed what the administration is calling Space Policy Directive 1, which enacts a recommendation made at the National Space Council meeting in October to make a return to the moon a step towards eventual human missions to Mars. “The directive I’m signing today will refocus America’s space program on human exploration and discovery,” Trump said at the event, attended by several members of Congress, other government and industry officials, and current and former astronauts. “It marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-term exploration and use.” “This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars,” Trump added. Vice President Mike Pence, who also spoke at the ceremony, hailed the policy as an early success for the National Space Council, which unanimously approved that recommendation at its first meeting Oct. 5. “Today’s action by President Trump makes that recommendation official national policy,” he said. “As everyone here knows, establishing a renewed American presence on the moon is vital to achieve our strategic objectives and the objectives outlined by our National Space Council.” Neither Trump nor Pence, however, offered additional details beyond that policy statement. That included no information on a timeline for a human return to the moon, or estimated costs or other budget information for the initiative. NASA, in a statement issued after the ceremony, said that the policy directs the agency to “lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.” Work on the initiative, it stated, would be reflected in the agency’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal, to be released in February. “NASA looks forward to supporting the president’s directive strategically aligning our work to return humans to the moon, travel to Mars and opening the deeper solar system beyond,” NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in the statement. Other government and industry officials expressed general support for the new policy despite — or perhaps because of — the lack of details about how it will be carried out. “After 45 years, it is time to return humans to the region of the Moon even as we look toward Mars,” said Mary Lynne Dittmar, president and chief executive of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, an industry group. Dittmar was among the guests at the White House ceremony. Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and another attendee of the event, said he supported both the overall policy as well as the administration’s willingness to consider commercial roles for the effort. “They would like our input” on how to achieve that policy, Stallmer said in an interview after the event. “The White House and the National Space Council want to work with industry on this.” Individual companies also weighed in. “We support the president and vice president’s vision and commitment to return America to the moon,” Lockheed Martin said in a statement. “A lunar mission with today’s technology would further our understanding of the moon’s history and resources. And it will build a strong foundation that will not only accelerate the U.S. to Mars and beyond, it will foster a thriving new space economy that will create jobs and drive innovation here on Earth.” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, noted that the statement aligned with provisions of a NASA authorization bill enacted in March setting Mars as a long-term goal for human exploration. “I applaud the president for his engagement on sending a manned mission to the moon and, as underscored in the bipartisan reauthorization of NASA signed into law earlier this year, eventually to Mars,” he said. Among those in attendance at the event was Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the Apollo 17 astronaut who landed on the moon exactly 45 years ago on the last human lunar landing to date. “Today, we pledge that he will not be the last,” Trump said in his remarks, adding that humans will be landing elsewhere as well. “What do you think, Jack? We’ll find some other places out there? There are a couple of other places, right?” Trump asked. “Yes, we should,” Schmitt responded. “Learn from the moon.” spacenews.com/trump-formally-establishes-lunar-landing-goal-but-without-details/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2016twitterdlvrit
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NASA
Jan 4, 2018 16:50:34 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Jan 4, 2018 16:50:34 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-releases-logo-for-upcoming-60th-anniversaryJan. 3, 2018 NASA Releases Logo For Upcoming 60th AnniversaryNASA 60th anniversary logo (vertical format) Credits: NASA In 2018, NASA will mark the 60th anniversary of its establishment as a U.S. government agency. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed NASA’s founding legislation, the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act, on July 29, 1958. NASA considers its birthday to be Oct. 1, the day the agency opened for business. NASA has released an official logo for use in observing this milestone anniversary. Created by NASA graphic artist Matthew Skeins, the logo depicts how NASA is building on its historic past to soar toward a challenging and inspiring future. “NASA” and “60” are stacked, bold and tall, atop the continental United States, the curvature of Earth, and the light of an approaching dawn. This placement captures the spirit of a metaphor about knowledge and discovery, often attributed to 17th century physicist Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Similarly, NASA was built from the legacy and expertise of giants in government-sponsored research and development, including the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the Naval Research Laboratory, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The United States is shown at night beneath a sparkling web of yellow lights. This symbolizes NASA’s vibrancy and relevance, the inspiration derived from NASA’s work, and the solid foundation of the “best and brightest” among industry and academia upon the agency’s leadership in space is built. The light blue and white arc just below the alphanumeric elements recalls the sunrise, seen 16 times each day aboard an Earth-orbiting spacecraft, and symbolizes opportunity yet to come through exploration of the Moon, Mars and destinations far beyond. Two vectors, one blue and one red, circle the alphanumeric elements and point toward the dark outer edges of the logo as if zooming into the unknown. In doing so, they form a “6,” which is emblematic of the number of decades since NASA was established. The blue vector represents NASA’s roots in aeronautics research and the societal impact of our first views of Earth as a solitary “blue marble” in the vast blackness of space. The red vector represents NASA’s leadership of an innovative and sustainable exploration program that engages commercial and international partners; enables expansion of human presence to the Moon, Mars and throughout the solar system; and brings new knowledge and opportunities back to Earth. Depicted at the tip of this vector are the key elements of NASA’s deep space transportation system, the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew vehicle. A crescent moon, a ringed planet and a field of stars amid a nebula of light blue represent NASA’s scientific underpinnings, particularly the enduring quest for answers to age-old questions about the workings and evolution of our planet, our solar system and the universe. For more information about NASA’s 60th anniversary, visit: www.nasa.gov/60Last Updated: Jan. 3, 2018 Editor: bob Dunbar www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-releases-logo-for-upcoming-60th-anniversary
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NASA
Jan 5, 2018 7:54:09 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by jcurio on Jan 5, 2018 7:54:09 GMT -6
Because astronauts would have a lot of free time to fill, some researchers have casually suggested sending along a selection of books and films or even bespoke video games. As a social scientist who studies media use and its effects on behavior, I believe television could help. Recreating the media environment from before we had permanent, continuous access to anything we want to watch or listen to might be just the thing to help space travelers cope with a loss of a sense of space and time, with loneliness, privacy issues, boredom and more. Read more: theedgeofreality.proboards.com/thread/1532/nasa?page=9#ixzz53JmSky9j____________ Ok. I’m done. My life on Earth is just fine........ 😆
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NASA
Mar 10, 2018 14:26:40 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Mar 10, 2018 14:26:40 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/astronaut-returns-to-earth-with-different-dna/ Astronaut Returns to Earth With Different DNAby Sequoyah Kennedy / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/skennedy/March 10, 2018 Either space is weirder than we thought, or NASA ripped off The Fantastic Four. According to a study published by the space agency, space travel can permanently alter your DNA. Identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly were observed over the course of a year after Scott touched down on Earth after a yearlong stay on the International Space Station. The Twins Study is part of an ongoing NASA effort called the Human Research Project which studies the effects of space on the human body in preparation for eventual manned missions to Mars and other prolonged trips through the void. Identical twins have almost identical DNA, which makes them ideal candidates for studying the mental and physical health effects of space: any changes in the space-faring twin’s physical health would have to be caused by an outside force and not due to natural variation. Identical twins are rare, and astronauts even rarer; luckily NASA has plenty of the latter and two of the former. It was Scott Kelly himself who suggested NASA use him and his brother Mark as test subjects. What they found is quite strange. While many of the changes to Scott’s physiology returned to normal soon after returning to Earth, they found permanent changes as well. It seems that 7% of Scott Kelly’s DNA has been altered permanently. NASA has speculated on the existence of a “space gene,” which might be activated by conditions in space, causing changes in DNA. NASA says the changes to Scott’s DNA “related to his immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.” Whether these changes were seen as positive or negative were not said. We may have an answer if the retired astronaut suddenly begins a career as a vigilante superhero, or if it turns out he’s the mothman. Predictions for the Twins Study were also proven wrong. Telomeres are components of chromosomes that shorten with age, and NASA expected the radiation of space to accelerate that shortening. They found, however, that Scott’s telomeres actually lengthened during his stay on the ISS. They returned to normal within two hours of his return to Earth, however, squashing any hope there might have been for finding the space-fountain of youth. There were other findings, too. While on the ISS, Scott’s gut bacteria changed dramatically. It returned to normal once back on solid ground, and scientists do not know whether it was differences in the food he ate or environmental factors, such as gravity and radiation, which were responsible. NASA also studied Scott’s mental abilities. Being in space had no effect on his cognition, yet after returning to Earth his mental speed and accuracy began showing slight decreases. Perhaps this is due to returning from a year of peace and quiet in space to a life of medical tests and interviews on terra firma. While NASA may be furthering the goals of the human species and finding us a way off this rock, they apparently don’t have the best bedside manners. Scott says that he found out about the results of the study the same way as everyone else. “I did read in the newspaper the other day… that 7 percent of my DNA had changed permanently,” Kelly said. “And I’m reading that, I’m like, ‘Huh, well that’s weird.’” The full results of the study will be released later in 2018. mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/astronaut-returns-to-earth-with-different-dna/
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NASA
Mar 10, 2018 15:55:43 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Mar 10, 2018 15:55:43 GMT -6
www.space.com/39900-william-shatner-name-sun-parker-solar-probe.html William Shatner Wants You to Send Your Name to the Sun on NASA's Historic Solar ProbeBy Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer / March 6, 2018 You can send your name to the sun, via a microchip installed on NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission. Submissions will be accepted until April 27, 2018. Credit: NASALISTEN TO SHATNER'S AUDIO: www.space.com/39900-william-shatner-name-sun-parker-solar-probe.html Your name could soon zoom through the sun's superheated outer atmosphere, just like William Shatner's. The "Star Trek" actor has signed up to put his name on a microchip that will fly aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which will launch on a historic sun-studying mission this summer. And he wants you to book a seat as well. "The first-ever spacecraft to the sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, will launch this year on a course to orbit through the heat of our star's corona, where temperatures are greater than 1 million degrees," Shatner said in a new NASA video about this public-outreach effort. "The spacecraft will also carry my name to the sun, and your name, and the names of everyone who wants to join this voyage of extreme exploration." [NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission in Pictures] You can get your name on that chip for free by visiting the NASA "Hot Ticket" site through April 27. parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/Name-to-Sun/ The $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission is scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 31. If all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will perform 24 close flybys of the sun over the next seven years, at times getting within just 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface. That's seven times closer than any other probe has ever gotten to the sun, NASA officials said. The Parker Solar Probe is therefore outfitted with a 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 centimeters) carbon-composite shield, which will protect the spacecraft from radiation levels 475 times greater than those we experience here on Earth and temperatures that reach 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius). The spacecraft's onboard instruments should be able to operate at room temperature despite these extreme external conditions, NASA officials said. Those instruments will make a variety of measurements, helping to characterize the sun's structure, magnetic and electric fields and the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from our star. Mission scientists hope these observations help solve two longstanding solar mysteries: how the solar wind is accelerated, and why the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere, is so much hotter than the surface (which reaches a mere 10,000 degrees F, or 5,500 degrees C.) "Parker Solar Probe is, quite literally, the fastest, hottest — and, to me, coolest — mission under the sun," project scientist Nicola Fox, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, said in a statement. "This incredible spacecraft is going to reveal so much about our star and how it works that we've not been able to understand." And about that speed: During its closest approaches to the sun, the spacecraft will top out at about 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h). The current speed record is held by NASA's Juno probe, which was accelerated to about 165,000 mph (265,000 km/h) by Jupiter's powerful gravity upon its approach to the gas giant in the summer of 2016. The Parker Solar Probe was originally called Solar Probe Plus. In May 2017, NASA announced the name change, which honors pioneering astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who predicted the solar wind's existence in 1958. In addition to the microchip with all the names, the Parker Solar Probe will also carry a copy of Parker's 1958 paper, along with photos of the scientist, mission team members have said. Shatner's name really gets around the solar system. The actor also helped publicize a similar public-outreach effort for NASA's Mars InSight mission, which will launch toward the Red Planet this May. Shatner's name is among 2.4 million that will travel on a chip aboard InSight. www.space.com/39900-william-shatner-name-sun-parker-solar-probe.html PARKER SOLAR PROBE MISSION INFOGRAPHIC: www.space.com/37044-nasa-parker-solar-probe-mission-infographic.html
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NASA
Mar 11, 2018 10:52:53 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by jcurio on Mar 11, 2018 10:52:53 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/astronaut-returns-to-earth-with-different-dna/ Astronaut Returns to Earth With Different DNAby Sequoyah Kennedy / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/skennedy/March 10, 2018 Either space is weirder than we thought, or NASA ripped off The Fantastic Four. According to a study published by the space agency, space travel can permanently alter your DNA. Identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly were observed over the course of a year after Scott touched down on Earth after a yearlong stay on the International Space Station. The Twins Study is part of an ongoing NASA effort called the Human Research Project which studies the effects of space on the human body in preparation for eventual manned missions to Mars and other prolonged trips through the void. Identical twins have almost identical DNA, which makes them ideal candidates for studying the mental and physical health effects of space: any changes in the space-faring twin’s physical health would have to be caused by an outside force and not due to natural variation. Identical twins are rare, and astronauts even rarer; luckily NASA has plenty of the latter and two of the former. It was Scott Kelly himself who suggested NASA use him and his brother Mark as test subjects. What they found is quite strange. While many of the changes to Scott’s physiology returned to normal soon after returning to Earth, they found permanent changes as well. It seems that 7% of Scott Kelly’s DNA has been altered permanently. NASA has speculated on the existence of a “space gene,” which might be activated by conditions in space, causing changes in DNA. NASA says the changes to Scott’s DNA “related to his immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.” Whether these changes were seen as positive or negative were not said. We may have an answer if the retired astronaut suddenly begins a career as a vigilante superhero, or if it turns out he’s the mothman. Predictions for the Twins Study were also proven wrong. Telomeres are components of chromosomes that shorten with age, and NASA expected the radiation of space to accelerate that shortening. They found, however, that Scott’s telomeres actually lengthened during his stay on the ISS. They returned to normal within two hours of his return to Earth, however, squashing any hope there might have been for finding the space-fountain of youth. There were other findings, too. While on the ISS, Scott’s gut bacteria changed dramatically. It returned to normal once back on solid ground, and scientists do not know whether it was differences in the food he ate or environmental factors, such as gravity and radiation, which were responsible. NASA also studied Scott’s mental abilities. Being in space had no effect on his cognition, yet after returning to Earth his mental speed and accuracy began showing slight decreases. Perhaps this is due to returning from a year of peace and quiet in space to a life of medical tests and interviews on terra firma. While NASA may be furthering the goals of the human species and finding us a way off this rock, they apparently don’t have the best bedside manners. Scott says that he found out about the results of the study the same way as everyone else. “I did read in the newspaper the other day… that 7 percent of my DNA had changed permanently,” Kelly said. “And I’m reading that, I’m like, ‘Huh, well that’s weird.’” The full results of the study will be released later in 2018. mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/astronaut-returns-to-earth-with-different-dna/ ******** What they found is quite strange. While many of the changes to Scott’s physiology returned to normal soon after returning to Earth, they found permanent changes as well. It seems that 7% of Scott Kelly’s DNA has been altered permanently.
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NASA
Mar 11, 2018 11:43:37 GMT -6
Post by auntym on Mar 11, 2018 11:43:37 GMT -6
midnightinthedesert.com/nasa-astronaut-who-spent-a-year-in-space-now-has-different-dna-from-his-twin/ NASA astronaut who spent a year in space now has different DNA from his twinby Mike Wehner / bgr.com/author/mike-wehner/Posted on March 10, 2018 Space travel is dangerous for a lot of very obvious reasons — traveling off of Earth on a rocket has its risks, after all — but even when everything goes well it seems that a brief stay in space has the potential to alter a person’s very DNA. That’s the takeaway from a long-term NASA study that used astronaut Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark as guinea pigs to see how living in space can affect the most basic building blocks of life. Scott Kelly has spent over 500 days in space overall, but a huge chunk of that came with a single mission which had him stay aboard the International Space Station for 342 days. His brother Mark, who is a retired astronaut, is his identical twin and has the same DNA. This provided a never-before-possible opportunity for NASA to study how long-term space travel affects the human body and the genes that make us who we are. As it turns out, space really does change us, and upon Scott’s return to Earth it was discovered that his DNA has significantly changed. “Scott’s telomeres (endcaps of chromosomes that shorten as one ages) actually became significantly longer in space,” NASA explains. “While this finding was presented in 2017, the team verified this unexpected change with multiple assays and genomics testing. Additionally, a new finding is that the majority of those telomeres shortened within two days of Scott’s return to Earth.” Most of Scott’s genes did indeed return to normal after a brief time back here on Earth, but not all of them. According to researchers, around 7% of Scott Kelly’s genes have shown long-lasting changes when compared to his brother’s. Those changes have remained for the two years since he returned to solid ground, which surprised even him. “I did read in the newspaper the other day that 7 percent of my DNA had changed permanently,” Kelly said in a recent interview. “And I’m reading that, I’m like, ‘Huh, well that’s weird.’” The “Twins Study” was a preliminary step in the lead-up to an eventual long-haul manned mission to Mars. NASA has some vague plans in place for such a mission and is currently working on the technology to actually make that happen, but the human element cannot be overlooked. A Mars mission would last as long as three years, which would obviously be the longest stretch that any human has been away from Earth. Can the human body handle such a journey? We might not have to wait very long to find out, as some are expecting the first manned Mars trip to happen as soon as the 2030s. bgr.com/2018/03/08/twins-study-nasa-scott-mark-kelly-dna/
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NASA
Mar 20, 2018 13:21:02 GMT -6
jcurio likes this
Post by auntym on Mar 20, 2018 13:21:02 GMT -6
www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/calling-all-cloud-gazers-nasa-needs-your-helpMarch 13, 2018 Calling All Cloud Gazers: NASA Needs Your Help!During the GLOBE cloud observation challenge, citizen scientists of all ages can make up to 10 cloud observations per day using the GLOBE Observer app or one of the other data entry options (for trained GLOBE members). Credits: NASA/Jessica TaylorIt’s almost spring, the time of year when the looming change in seasons could lead to some pretty fascinating cloud activity in the sky. NASA and the GLOBE Program are asking for your help by taking part in a citizen science cloud observation challenge. From March 15 through April 15, citizen scientists of all ages can make up to 10 cloud observations per day using the GLOBE Observer app or one of the other data entry options (for trained GLOBE members). Challenge participants with the most observations will be congratulated by a NASA scientist in a video posted on the GLOBE Program’s website and on social media. A hand holds a smartphone displaying the new GLOBE Observer app “The GLOBE Program is offering this challenge to show people how important it is to NASA to have citizen scientist observations; observations from the ground up,” said Marilé Colón Robles, lead for the GLOBE Clouds team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “We’re going from winter to spring, so the types of storms will change, which will also change the types of clouds.” Researchers use, and value, this citizen science cloud data because it helps to validate data from Earth-observing instruments. Scientists at Langley work with a suite of six instruments known as the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). Even though CERES’ instruments use advanced technology, it is not always easy for researchers to positively identify all types of clouds in their images. For example, it can be difficult to differentiate thin, wispy cirrus clouds from snow since both are cold and bright; even more so when cirrus clouds are above a surface with patchy snow or snow cover. One solution to this problem is to look at satellite images from a particular area and compare them to data submitted by citizen scientists on the ground. “Looking at what an observer recorded as clouds and looking at their surface observations really helps us better understand the images that were matched from the satellite,” said Colón Robles. Citizen science observations are especially needed now because scientists are starting to verify data from a new CERES instrument. CERES FM6 launched to orbit Nov. 18, 2017 and began taking measurements Jan. 5. You don’t have to be a cloud-gazing pro to participate. For those who want to be part of the challenge but don’t have a lot of experience identifying clouds, Colón Robles offers the following advice: “Just go outside.” The more clouds you observe, she said, the more comfortable you’ll be collecting data. Read more about the challenge here: www.globe.gov/web/marile.colonrobles/home/blog/-/blogs/37565448?r_p_id=user_blog&curPage=1&curDelta=5
Find tips for making good cloud observations here: scool.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/lintips.htmlNASA sponsors the GLOBE Program. The GLOBE Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process. NASA GLOBE Observer is a free smartphone app that lets anybody make citizen science observations from the palm of their hand. Joe Atkinson NASA Langley Research Center www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/calling-all-cloud-gazers-nasa-needs-your-help
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