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Category: space travel – Page 145

The Sun has been intense the past week, and now solar flares are coming toward Earth

There have been 24 coronal mass ejections in the past week alone.

As NASA’s Orion spacecraft prepares to fly by the Moon, sky gazers can expect another little treat in the skies as a minor geomagnetic storm is expected to hit the Earth, EarthSky.

Over the past week, our Sun has seen some intense activity. Usually, when activity on the Sun increases, the chances of a geomagnetic storm on Earth also increase. Geomagnetic storms carry risks to infrastructure and communications on the planet. However, in the past week, our planet has been a bit lucky it wasn’t in the line of fire.

Artemis: NASA expects humans to live on Moon this decade

The Artemis mission is preparing astronauts for this lofty goal.

Humans are on course to be living and even working on the moon by 2030, a NASA official told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg program.

Howard Hu, the head of the U.S. agency’s Orion lunar spacecraft programme, said astronauts could stay on the celestial object for extended periods of time by the end of this decade.

Russia, U.S. to hold first talks under nuclear treaty since Ukraine war —State Dept

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) — The United States and Russia are expected to meet soon and discuss resuming inspections under the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty that have been paused since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a daily press briefing, Price said the bilateral consultative commission (BCC), the mechanism for implementation of the last remaining arms control agreement between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, will meet “in the near future.”

Russia in August suspended cooperation with inspections under the treaty, blaming travel restrictions imposed by Washington and its allies over Moscow’s February invasion of Ukraine, but said it was still committed to complying with the provisions of the treaty.

Humans to live on the moon

The Artemis mission is preparing astronauts for this lofty goal.

Humans are on course to be living and even working on the moon by 2030, a NASA official told BBC’s Sunday.

Howard Hu, the head of the U.S. agency’s Orion lunar spacecraft programme, said astronauts could stay on the celestial object for extended periods of time by the end of this decade.

Watch a SpaceX rocket blow up during abort test

One thing I learned today is that one of the many SpaceX explosions didn’t have to happen. It turns out that NASA gave SpaceX the option of doing the in-flight abort test via simulation or in reality. The problem with doing it in reality is that SpaceX would likely lose an expensive rocket.

Boeing decided to do their in-flight abort test via simulation for their Starliner capsule. Luckily, SpaceX doesn’t trust simulations and did it for real. I say luckily, because we are overdue to lose more humans in space. So far this century, Virgin Galactic has had 1 death and 1 serious injury, NASA has had 7 deaths, and Soyuz has injured 2 people bad enough to require hospitalization.

SpaceX’s Dragon Crew Capsule safely blasted away from its carrier Falcon rocket in an test of its abort systems on Jan 19, 2020. The rocket exploded during descent as expected: https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-launch-abort-test-success.html.

Credit: SpaceX

Sci-fi or reality? Scientists may know how to pinpoint wormholes in space

Are we soon going to be traveling enormous distances via wormholes?

A team of scientists from the University of Sofia in Bulgaria believes they have discovered a new method for detecting wormholes — though they still only exist in theory.

Wormholes are theorized shortcuts through space and time. Sci-fi depictions traditionally show a spacecraft traveling through a wormhole, or creating one, to traverse immense distances to far-off regions of the universe in a short amount of time.

The issue is that black holes and wormholes look very similar, and we have barely developed the technology required to directly observe the former. Now, a team of scientists believes its mathematical model can help to tell the two apart, a report from New Scientist reveals.

Artemis 1’s Orion capsule fires engine for 1st time on way to the moon

NASA’s moon-bound Orion space capsule fired its main engine for the first time about eight hours after the launch of the Artemis 1 mission to adjust its trajectory and check out the system.

The capsule was lofted to space by the giant Space Launch System rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Wednesday morning (Nov. 16). The rocket’s second stage put the capsule on a trajectory toward the moon about two hours after liftoff. However, to perfect the path and to make sure that Orion’s own maneuvering system works as designed, the capsule performed a planned engine burn shortly before 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) on Wednesday.