By Bill D’Zio March 25, 2020
SpaceX Crew Dragon on approach Credit NASAPart 2 of the Life in Space with COVID19 we will delve into Crew demo-2 where NASA and SpaceX are planning a launch within two months. There are a lot of pre-launch milestones and activities to cover to ensure a safe flight for the Astronauts. If anything goes wrong, there are lives at stake. Now NASA and SpaceX have to contend with another potential setback, COVID19 pandemic. (Click here for part I)
By Bill D’Zio March 24, 2020 (Originally posted on www.westeastspace.com)
WestEastSpace mapped out NASA locations on a map of COVID19 impacted areas of USA from www.usafacts.org as of March 23rd, 2020With the launch window for NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover opening in a little less than four months, there are nearly daily pre-launch milestones to complete the rover pre flight activities at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Tight schedules on complex missions usually do not mix well. Now NASA has to contend with another challenge. COVID19.
NASA Leadership Assessing Mission Impacts of Coronavirus
The world has come to a standstill and is in the grasps of the COVID-19. The world stock markets have come crashing down 30% as supply chains and companies attempt to deal with government response and public fear. Airlines and hotels have had to contend with decreased travel and lodging requirements. Logistics is impacted as factories in various countries deal with increased difficulty and requirements to obtain goods. Factories are closed leading to shortages for truckers, material movers, cargo agents, and other occupations directly involved in moving goods. Companies shift to working remotely in an attempt to comply with government guidance in attempts to minimize the impact of the virus. One Mars mission has already been sidelined because of COVID19. NASA also needs to contend with these challenges.
Posted in government, space, space travel
By Bill D’Zio
NASA has been dependent on Russia for transport to and from the ISS. Over time the cost of seats on the Soyuz crew vehicle have risen.
The Roscosmos’s Soyuz vehicle has been ferrying crew to the International Space Station since November 2000. Originally Soyuz was designed to carry cosmonauts to the Moon, however was repurposed to be the main transport vehicle for Russia over the years. The Soyuz spacecraft is capable of carrying three crewmembers at a time and is certified to remain docked with the ISS for a maximum of 200 days and is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an American oncologist and bioethicist who is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress as well as Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, said on MSNBC on Friday, March 20, that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told him it would probably take 8–10 weeks to get ventilator production started at his factories (he’s working on this at Tesla and SpaceX).
I reached out to Musk for clarification on that topic and he replied that, “We have 250k N95 masks. Aiming to start distributing those to hospitals tomorrow night. Should have over 1000 ventilators by next week.” With medical supplies such as these being one of the biggest bottlenecks and challenges at the moment in the COVID-19 response in the United States (as well as elsewhere) — something that is already having a very real effect on medical professionals and patient care — the support will surely be received with much gratitude. That said, while there has been much attention put on the expected future need for ventilators, very few places reportedly have a shortage of them right now. In much greater need at the moment are simpler supplies like N95 masks, which must be why Tesla/SpaceX is providing 250,000 of them.
Dr. Emanuel also said in the segment of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” he was on that we probably need 8–12 weeks (2–3 months) of social distancing in the US in order to deal with COVID-19 as a society. However, he also expects that the virus will come back and we’ll basically have a roller coaster of “social restrictions, easing up, social restrictions, easing up … to try to smooth out the demand on the health care system.”
O.o yayyyyyyyyyyyyy.
When it comes to space, there’s a problem with our human drive to go all the places and see all the things. A big problem. It’s, well, space. It’s way too big. Even travelling at the maximum speed the Universe allows, it would take us years to reach our nearest neighbouring star.
But another human drive is finding solutions to big problems. And that’s what NASA engineer David Burns has been doing in his spare time. He’s produced an engine concept that, he says, could theoretically accelerate to 99 percent of the speed of light — all without using propellant.
He’s posted it to the NASA Technical Reports Server under the heading “Helical Engine”, and, on paper, it works by exploiting the way mass can change at relativistic speeds — those close to the speed of light in a vacuum. It has not yet been reviewed by an expert.
Posted in physics, space travel
Essentially this can lead to euclidean geometry in programming essentially allowing near infinite decompression either in programming or in devices or even spaceships.
In physics and mathematics, in the area of vector calculus, Helmholtz’s theorem,[1][2] also known as the fundamental theorem of vector calculus,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] states that any sufficiently smooth, rapidly decaying vector field in three dimensions can be resolved into the sum of an irrotational (curl-free) vector field and a solenoidal (divergence-free) vector field; this is known as the Helmholtz decomposition or Helmholtz representation. It is named after Hermann von Helmholtz.[10]
As an irrotational vector field has a scalar potential and a solenoidal vector field has a vector potential, the Helmholtz decomposition states that a vector field (satisfying appropriate smoothness and decay conditions) can be decomposed as the sum of the form − ∇ ϕ + ∇ × A {\displaystyle -\nabla \phi +\nabla \times \mathbf {A} }, where ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } is a scalar field called “scalar potential”, and A is a vector field, called a vector potential.
This man lived inside a self-sustaining glass biosphere for 2 whole years to test drive what life would be like for humans on Mars via NowThis.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says humanity needs a “whole new architecture” to fly in space beyond low Earth orbit.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk explains why we need a ‘whole new architecture’ for space travel :
Despite the lack of official comment on the mission, China’s first expedition to Mars appears to be on track.
In a new video, aerospace company Blue Origin reveals its finished mission control center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where engineers will monitor upcoming launches of the company’s future New Glenn rocket. The rocket is expected to fly sometime in 2021.
, where ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } is a scalar field called “scalar potential”, and A is a vector field, called a vector potential.
