How one aerospace company is preparing for the advent of tourism in outer space.
Category: space – Page 581
Facebook Exiting The Facial Recognition Game
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook is pulling the plug on its facial recognition program. The company is planning to delete more than one billion people’s individual facial recognition templates, and will no longer automatically recognize people’s faces in photos or videos as a result of this change, according to its own post. The use of facial recognition technology has a disparate impact on people of color, disenfranchising a group who already face inequality, and Facebook seems to be acknowledging this inherent harm. The Breakdown You Need to Know.
CultureBanx reported that Meta seems to always be embroiled in corporate drama and with intense scrutiny. When you add that to the growing concern from users and regulators that facial recognition space remains complicated, an exit makes sense. More than 600 million daily active users on Facebook had opted into the use of the face recognition technology.
Research shows commercial artificial intelligence systems tend to have higher error rates for women and black people. Some facial recognition systems would only confuse light-skin men 0.8% of the time and would have an error rate of 34.7% for dark-skin women. Just imagine surveillance being used with these flawed algorithms. A 2018 IDC report noted it expects worldwide spending on cognitive and AI systems to reach $77.6 billion in 2022.
ESA’s riskiest flyby
The chance that ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft will encounter space debris during its upcoming Earth flyby is very, very low. However, the risk is not zero and is greater than any other flyby ESA has performed. That there is this risk at all highlights the mess we’ve made of space—and why we need to take action to clean up after ourselves.
On 27 November, after a year and eight months flying through the inner Solar System, Solar Orbiter will swing by home to ‘drop off’ some extra energy. This will line the spacecraft up for its next six flybys of Venus. These final gravity assists will hone and tilt Solar Orbiter’s orbit, enabling the heat-protected probe to capture the first-ever direct images of our star’s poles, and much more.
NASA visitor complex to open immersive ‘Gateway’ to deep space in 2022
Before NASA deploys its Artemis Gateway in orbit around the moon, the agency will launch a different, but related “Gateway” at its Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. “Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex” is slated to open in March 2022.
Blue Marble Night
Help us turn December BLUE… register here for the space party:
www.f4f.space/bluemarblenight.
F4F is launching Blue Marble Night as a new spacer holiday, commemorating the Blue Marble photo taken by Apollo 17 on 7 December, 1972.
LAST CALL FOR VIDEOS!
Want to help?
We are setting up a celebration of the limitless inspiration of space. One that recognizes the fragility of our world while simultaneously infusing a sense of hope and awe. We will have the Overview Effect and our future in space as the main focuses. : Here is what you can do:
1. Recruit celebrities and regular people to record 30–60 second testimonials about the Overview Effect or their connection to space.
Biomanufacturing: Coming Soon to a Galaxy Near You?
B-SURE program aims to develop fundamental understanding of microbial capabilities for bioproduction in space.
DARPA announced yesterday it is taking an initial step to explore and de-risk manufacturing capabilities in space with its Biomanufacturing: Survival, Utility, and Reliability beyond Earth (B-SURE) program. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-11-22
DARPA announced yesterday it is taking an initial step to explore and de-risk manufacturing capabilities in space with its Biomanufacturing: Survival, Utility, and Reliability beyond Earth (B-SURE) program. https://t.co/Z7wVXs9MN6 pic.twitter.com/fZJj1EQUQQ
— DARPA (@DARPA) November 23, 2021
Astronauts Took A Fly-around of the International Space Station. Here are Their Stunning Pictures
When astronauts left the International Space Station in early November to return home on the Crew Dragon Endeavour, they took the opportunity to do a fly-around of the ISS and take photos. NASA just released the new images, and they are a stunning look at both the orbiting outpost and our home planet.
The person behind the camera was ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet. He began taking photos after Crew Dragon undocked from the Harmony module. Also on board were NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, and JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide. They had spent six months aboard the ISS.
“Bittersweet feeling about leaving the ISS,” Pesquet tweeted. “When you think about it, it’s really a magical place, almost impossible to reach and which gives you superpowers like flying, or going around the world in 1h30 … It still looks a bit like a daydream.”