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Category: sustainability – Page 372

NASA Is Conducting An Environmental Assessment Of New SpaceX Proposal To Build A Starship Launch Site At Launch Complex-49 In Florida

On December 15, NASA announced that SpaceX submitted a new proposal to build a Starship launch site at Launch Complex-49 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Previously, SpaceX officials mentioned plans to build a Starship launch tower at historic Launch Complex-39A, the launch site from where NASA Apollo astronauts lifted off atop Saturn V on a voyage to the Moon half a century ago. NASA and SpaceX are working to return humans to the lunar surface by 2025. SpaceX is developing a lunar-optimized Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to land astronauts on the moon as part of the Artemis program that aims to build a sustainable presence on our closest celestial neighbor.

The unbuilt Launch Complex-49 is an 175-acre land located north of Launch Pad-39B and Pad-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center premises. The agency released a map of the region, pictured below, that outlines the locations of each launch site. “LC-49 has been a part of Kennedy’s master plan for several years,” said Tom Engler, Kennedy’s director of Center Planning and Development. “The Notice of Availability was updated in 2014.”

“Every new construction project, whether government or commercial, goes through a comprehensive environmental review process,” said Don Dankert, technical lead for the Kennedy Environmental Planning Office. “This ensures that we are able to identify potential environmental impacts and define any associated mitigations prior to project implementation.”

“The Google Earth of Biology” — Visually Stunning Tree of All Known Life Unveiled Online

OneZoom is a one-stop site for exploring all life on Earth, its evolutionary history, and how much of it is threatened with extinction.

The OneZoom explorer – available at onezoom.org – maps the connections between 2.2 million living species, the closest thing yet to a single view of all species known to science. The interactive tree of life allows users to zoom in to any species and explore its relationships with others, in a seamless visualisation on a single web page. The explorer also includes images of over 85,000 species, plus, where known, their vulnerability to extinction.

OneZoom was developed by Imperial College London biodiversity researcher Dr. James Rosindell and University of Oxford evolutionary biologist Dr. Yan Wong. In a paper published today in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Drs Wong and Rosindell present the result of over ten years of work, gradually creating what they regard as “the Google Earth of biology.”

Elon Musk says he’ll pay more taxes than ‘any American in history’

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, is defending himself once again against public criticism. It is time for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to answer to questions regarding his income tax bill.

“If you opened your eyes for two seconds, you would know that I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year.” Musk tweeted earlier this week.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a reaction to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s criticism of him as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for not paying his taxes.

Elon Musk says ‘I’ll be surprised if we’re not landing on Mars within five years’

Elon Musk has announced a new timeframe for his massive Mars project, and it is a lot closer than you would believe.

In an article published Monday, Musk said, ‘I’ll be surprised if we’re not landing on Mars within five years.

Musk, the 50-year-old SpaceX founder and CEO who was selected Time’s Person of the Year, has grandiose ambitions for Mars: a self-sustaining metropolis with solar-powered hydroponic fields where people may live indefinitely, 34 million miles from Earth.

Swiss smart yacht points solar-hydrogen power toward “limitless” range

Combining two forms of sustainable energy into one range-extending propulsion system, Swiss Sustainable Yachts’ clean, quiet catamaran promises to jumpstart a future in which the word “range” becomes obsolete. The 64-footer harnesses solar energy to create its own hydrogen, powering a fuel cell-electric drive to potentially limitless autonomy, so long as the sun is shining and the captain isn’t pushing past cruising speed. The Aquon One might prove the ultimate luxury smart yacht of the sustainable generation.

The Aquon One has a 134-hp fuel cell-powered electric engine in each hull. Swiss Sustainable Yachts (SSY) explains that it opts for hydrogen power because of its light weight as compared to batteries or fossil fuels, long-lasting storage capability and lack of harmful emissions. Also critical to the Aquon One design is hydrogen’s ability to be created sustainably, in this case using a solar-powered electrolyzer that splits hydrogen from desalinated seawater. The 689 square feet (64 sq m) of solar panels covering the Aquon One’s hard-top generate all the electricity needed to develop the hydrogen, which is then stored away in carbon tanks.

The Aquon One does include a small battery bank for short-term energy needs, both for propulsion and onboard electrical usage. The hydrogen, on the other hand, is compressed and designated for longer-term use. SSY claims the hydrogen tanks hold more than 100 times the energy of a full-size modern battery system, offering more range and capability than it would get by expanding the size of its battery.

Habitability in the Solar System

Moderator: Michael Wall.
Panelists: Kennda Lynch, Abigail Fraeman, Morgan Cable.

Part of the Earth at the Crossroads conference held on Nov. 18, 2021.

Tantalizing new discoveries suggest that we are probably not alone in the universe. And yet, as Enrico Fermi first put in 1950: where is everybody? Are habitable worlds rare, unlikely, and therefore cosmically precious? Or is life easily overwhelmed by changing planetary conditions? Do technological societies in particular face an inevitable “Great Filter” that causes their extinction? These questions link the search for extraterrestrial life to the urgent environmental challenges facing our own civilization, from deadly pandemics to human-caused climate change. On November 18th, Georgetown University and the SETI Institute will unite scholars, journalists, artists and activists in conversations that explore what the search for alien life may reveal about the future of life on Earth. These conversations will be open to Georgetown students and will be broadcast to the public. They will culminate in a roundtable debate intended to draft a proclamation on the state of Earth’s environment and its future potential in a cosmic context.

If you like science, support the SETI Institute! We’re a non-profit research institution whose focus is understanding the nature and origins of life in the universe. Donate here: https://seti.org/donate.

Learn more about the SETI Institute and stay up-to-date on awesome science:

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Graphene: The Wonder Material of the Future

There is a new wonder material in town, and its name is graphene. Since it was first successfully isolated in 2004, graphene, with its honeycomb-like 2D structure and its wide gamut of interesting properties, has been keenly studied by material scientists.

This naturally transparent 1 millimeter thick lattice of carbon atoms has multiple applications and could even one day potentially solve the world’s water crisis.

The faith in the material is so strong that, according to numbers projected by Fortune Business Insights, its market value will be $2.8 billion in 2027.

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