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Category: space travel – Page 337

Elon Musk nears $1.1b payday

A full payout for Musk, who is also the majority owner and CEO of the SpaceX rocket maker, would surpass anything previously granted to US executives.

When Tesla unveiled Musk’s package in 2018, it said he could theoretically reap as much as $US55.8 billion if no new shares were issued. However, Tesla has since issued shares to compensate employees, and last year it sold $US2.7 billion in shares and convertible bonds.

The potential payout for Musk comes after Tesla said this month it would furlough all non-essential workers and implement salary cuts during a shutdown of its US production facilities because of the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic has slashed US demand for cars and forced several other automakers to also furlough US workers.

From Shuttle Sadness to Dragon Delight — USA prepares to regain domestic crew launch capability

The gap in US domestic crew launch capability is coming to an end as soon as next month, concluding a convoluted and painful path that ultimately began when Columbia was lost during STS-107. The last time American astronauts launched from US soil was in 2011 with Shuttle Atlantis during STS-135. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is set to launch with Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken onboard the Crew Dragon as early as May 27.

For decades, the US relied on the Space Shuttle as its crew launch vehicle. While the Shuttle era was filled with accomplishments, its cost and complexity curtailed its envisioned role in taking the US space program forward and was ultimately shackled by safety issues that resulted in the loss of two orbiters and their crews.

The findings from The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) ultimately set NASA on a path to transition to a new crew vehicle, to be designed and built while the Space Shuttle Program concluded a final swansong of missions focused on the assembly of the International Space Station (ISS).

Draft Moon Village Association Principles: creating best practices for sustainable lunar activities

On March 6, the Moon Village Association unveiled a set of 15 draft Moon Village Association (MVA) Principles intended to help facilitate the peaceful settlement of the Moon by establishing best practices for the long-term sustainability of lunar and cislunar activity. The MVA Principles are now published on the MVA website and are open for public comment. The announcement by the president of the MVA, Dr. Giuseppe Reibaldi, took place during a day-long symposium on Returning to the Moon: Legal Challenges as Humanity Begins to Settle the Solar System hosted by the Global Space Law Center at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (see “Hard law or soft law? The debate about the future of space law”, The Space Review, April 13, 2020).

As discussed further below, all stakeholders, including members of the general public, are invited to submit their comments on the principles through the MVA website. The purpose of this article is to answer some basic questions about the nature of the MVA Principles and to provide a concise summary of the principles to acquaint readers with their scope.

What is the Moon Village Association? The concept of the “Moon Village” is a vision of peaceful global cooperation in lunar exploration and utilization. The concept contemplates a collection of international efforts that involve both governmental and non-governmental (i.e. private) entities conducting activities in a spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance. Everyone is free to contribute to humanity’s future on the Moon in accordance with their individual capabilities. The Moon Village Association (www.moonvillageassociation.org) was incorporated in Vienna in 2017 with the goal of implementing the Moon Village concept by serving as a hub of communication for stakeholders in the new international push to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon. At the core of the MVA is an extensive network of professionals and institutions from more than 40 countries.

Astronomers Just Identified 19 More Asteroids They Think Are Interstellar

The Solar System has been here for a long time. So, when ’Oumuamua was spotted in 2017, it was almost a dead cert it wasn’t the only object from interstellar space to visit us over that 4.57 billion-year history. Then comet 2I/Borisov showed up last year. That basically clinched it.

But where are the rest of our interstellar visitors? We’ll probably find a few more flying in from the wilds in the coming years. And, according to new research, a whole bunch of interstellar asteroids have been hanging out right here in the Solar System for a very long time.

Based on how they move around the Sun, a team of researchers has identified 19 asteroids they think were captured from another star, way back when the Solar System was just a few million years old.

Neuralink: Elon Musk unveils brain microchip to let humans ‘merge with computers’

Elon Musk has unveiled plans to implant computer chips in people’s brains that the US billionaire says will treat brain diseases and enable superhuman intelligence.

Neuralink, a secretive company set up by Mr Musk two years ago, has said it plans to begin tests of its “brain-computer interface” technology on humans in the next year.

Mr Musk, 48, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, said the technology will help “solve brain disorders of all kinds” and allow humans to merge with artificial intelligence.

NASA, SpaceX set May 27 as target date for first crew launch

A decade in the making, NASA and SpaceX have set May 27 as the target launch date for the first crewed space mission to launch into orbit from U.S. soil since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, two veterans of the shuttle program, will ride SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That’s the same historic launch facility used by the last space shuttle flight.

Liftoff time on May 27 is expected to be around 4:32 p.m. EDT (2032 GMT), when the Earth’s rotation brings the launch pad under the orbital plane of the International Space Station.