To find out that the outsourced company in charge couldn’t even be bothered to test the product. They just happily pocketed $72 million of taxpayer dollars and laughed all the way to the bank.
Just one day after NASA said it was eyeing a potential March 6 launch date for the Artemis II lunar mission, the space agency said Saturday that complications with the rocket could delay all launch attempts in March from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
(Btw, WordPress, the “quote” field used to have a separate area where you could put a link to the quote’s source. Where did that go? Nothing like helping the spread of unverified fake news…)
NASA’s plans for Mars sample return are effectively cancelled as part of a bill approved by the U.S. Congress, ending efforts to collect Perseverance rover samples that could contain evidence of alien life.
Adam’s Stepsons takes the core questions of Blade Runner and distills them into a tight, character-driven drama. It lacks the sweeping visuals of Villeneuve or the noir cityscape of Scott — but it delivers something arguably more intimate:
A quiet horror — and quiet triumph — in the collapse of identity, where the artificial doesn’t just mimic life…
It replaces it.
Over the weekend (my first with no student work to grade — finally! — since April), I decided to ask our “old” friend ChatGPT if it could analyze my sci-fi novella Adam’s Stepsons. Really, I was just curious what it would say.
It said…a LOT.
It correctly interpreted the title (something that many readers apparently didn’t get). It correctly identified the main themes as part of a “post-humanism” sub-genre of science fiction. And once I gave it three short excerpts (from the near the end of the story), it gave a frighteningly accurate thematic and symbolic analysis of the entire novella…just from three short excerpts of a total of about six pages.
I won’t copy all it gave me (you all can go try on your own and see what it says!). But let me share what the program thought were key themes:
The researchers argue that “if” trees could be planted on Mars…
OK, just stop right there. I’m pretty sure Mars will struggle to support even grass, let alone trees.
And the argument that, due to a lack of oxygen, flammable wooden structures in space would not be in danger strikes me as a bit ludicrous…surely there would be oxygen inside the wooden structures?
And, you know, I do think I’ve seen this before some where…nah…
The scientists hope to learn about the asteroid’s surface composition and how fast it rotates, he said. Those observations could help researchers figure out its origin, which in turn could shed light on other asteroids, including ones that could be dangerous to Earth.
This is of course not the first “mini-moon” to have been discovered. These are wandering asteroids that get trapped briefly by Earth’s gravity well before being flung back into space.
Read the article for more information about the “school-bus sized” 2024PT5!
Using the new method, one metric tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51 to 76 kilograms of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500-millileter bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said.
The soil was from the 2020 expedition, which was the first in 44 years to bring back soil from the Moon.
Considering all of NASA’s problems, it looks like China will have a moon base years before the US does…and probably in prime resource locations as well.
And don’t forget that the hydrogen in the soil can also be used for rocket fuel. It would be a lot easier to launch ships to Mars and beyond without having to deal with Earth’s gravity…
But China has also offered to share at least some of its new moon samples with American researchers, and NASA is allowing the U.S. scientists to submit proposals.
This is a welcome change of heart. International politics need not prevent international space exploration.
On the other hand…
China is not planning a mere short-term, flags-and-footprints presence on the Moon. Their ambition is more like Nasa’s Artemis than it is Apollo. China plans to launch two separate missions to the south pole of the Moon around 2026 and 2028 – including testing using lunar soil to 3D print bricks – as precursors to a lunar base.
Starliner, the Boeing spacecraft whose launch was delayed by a helium leak, has now developed four additional helium leaks after docking successfully with the ISS.
They had to delay the docking due to a little problem with thrusters…
Five of the 28 thrusters were not operating but, after troubleshooting, Boeing recovered four of Starliner’s malfunctioning jets and NASA allowed the spacecraft to dock.
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