Podcasts about nanoracks

RumSnak er, som vi plejer at sige, en podcast om de danske rumaktiviteter inden for både forskning, teknologi og forretning. Og især det sidste er ikke blevet mindre vigtigt de forgangne år. Der er flere og flere, der forsøger at bygge en business op med rummet som omdrejningspunkt. Nogle analyserer jordobservations-data, andre bygger testudstyr til Månemissioner, og atter andre bygger små satellitter til navigation og kommunikation. I denne episode skal vi tale med to forskellige gæster om især den kommercielle del af den danske rumbranche: Michael Lumholt har arbejdet i firmaet Ticra i små 30 år, og er i dag selvstændig rumkonsulent. Han er aktuelt med til at arrangere en inspirationstur for både rumvirksomheder, forskere og myndigheder til Silicon Valley. Jeffrey Manber er amerikaner og har en lang og mangefacetteret karriere i rumbranchen bag sig. Han har blandt andet være direktør i MirCorp, et firmaet som leasede den russiske rumstation Mir i 2 år, og han er varm fortaler for kommercielle aktører og entreprenører i new space. I nyhederne handler det blandt andet om en 90-årig astronaut og om solstorme. God fornøjelse

An interview with Khaki Rodway, Spaceplane Sales and Operations Director for Dawn Aerospace USA. Khaki has an extensive New Space business development and marketing experience working for launch companies like XCorp and Masten, to delivering payload to the International Space Station like Nanoracks, and  on orbit truster manufacturing like Bradford Space. Khaki is also the co-founder of NYC Space, An open community for the development of private companies commercializing space.  A graduate of Colombia University, she holds a Masters in Historic Preservation, and a Bachelors in Womens Studies, English Literature, and Journalism from Rutgers University.In this interview, Khaki tells her exciting story about working with  launch services companies developing pioneering work from the Mojave dessert to the prestine mountains of New Zealand.ResourcesDawn AerosopaceFor All MoonkindPayloads - daily insights on the most important news impacting the space economyHosted by: Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom, Co-Founder and CEO, SpaceBaseMusic: reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons (3.0)If you like our work, please consider donating to SpaceBase through the SpaceBase Open Collective. Or be a SpaceBase Patreon sponsor.  (E.g. $3 dollars a month or $36 NZD a year will go a long way in supporting the production of the podcast.)

Why are the world's space faring nations racing back to the moon? What is the value of establishing a new lunar economy? In this episode of On Orbit's Future Space Economy webcast series, host Jeffrey Hill speaks with Yale University's Emma Louden, Nanoracks' Mike Lewis, and former SpaceX leaders David Anderman and Sita Sonty about what's driving the new space race to the moon. The group explores the value of lunar materials and resources, research on the “dark side of the moon,” and the economic opportunities created by just getting there (as well as getting there first).  

Matsyanyaaya: Why Apple's teething troubles in India matter— Shailesh ChitnisLast year, between April and December, Apple exported more than $2.5bn worth of iPhones from India. Shipments during those eight months were nearly double the previous fiscal year's (April 2021 - March 2022) total. For India's “Make in India” ambitions, those numbers are promising.They are also tiny. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, in 2021, India produced 3 million iPhones. China produced 230 million units during the same period. The sizable difference between the two countries should give decoupling champions some pause. (Source: Financial Times)India, or any other country, cannot hope to dislodge the Chinese manufacturing Goliath anytime soon. Apple has a long history in China, going back to 2007. Unwinding its dependence will take time.The product is also highly complex to assemble. Indian contractors are learning this the hard way. Last month, the Financial Times reported that only half of all components produced at a Tata casing factory passed quality checks. The 50% yield compares poorly with Apple's goal of zero defects.Some of these teething troubles are to be expected. Private players such as Tata and Foxconn, Apple's assembly partner, have strong incentives to fix the problems. But it highlights the difficulty of building a complex manufacturing base in India.Building an iPhone requires an entire supply chain dedicated to moving components from one contractor to another quickly. In China, private contractors and the local government worked together to win Apple orders at all costs. India must show the same agility between the private and public sectors.Apple had redesigned the iPhone's screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation, and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.From: Duhigg, (Charles & Bradsher, Keith) “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work”. The New York Times. 21 Jan 2012Investing in skilled labour is another imperative. During Apple's early years in China, the company sent its product designers and engineers to the manufacturing units, sometimes for months at a time. It invested in building custom machinery for some of those contractors. Apple's level of involvement with China had a transformative effect on the country's manufacturing and technical capabilities. It spawned an entire network of companies that serviced Apple and its suppliers.The Indian government wants Apple to make a quarter of all its phones here by 2025. Getting there will require business and public services to scale up in ways they haven't before.Apple's investment in India is critical for both the company and the central government. The company has signalled its intention to wean off its China dependency by publicly embracing alternatives. For India, this is a test of its commitment to move “up the stack” in manufacturing. Failure here will have far-reaching consequences that go beyond a single device manufacturer.Antariksh Matters: What's the matter with commercial space stations?— Pranav R SatyanathLast week, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released two new documents which outline expectations for new commercial space stations. The documents outline NASA's operational and technical expectations from the new commercial space stations and add a new layer of nuance to NASA's plan for transitioning from operating on the International Space Station (ISS) and conducting all Low Earth Orbit (LEO) operations on commercial space stations.The ISS is the largest human-built structure in the Earth's orbit. It is also a really old structure, with the first module of the ISS being launched in 1998. The ISS is also a testament to international cooperation in space, as it brought together Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States to collaborate on a massive space project. The ISS has stood strong despite all the difficulties thrown at it — from geopolitical tensions to space debris. But it needs a replacement, perhaps before the end of this decade.To Bolding Go CommercialThe retirement of the ISS was initially slated for 2024, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to extend its life through 2030. To replace the ISS, however, NASA has taken a bold route and decided to place all its bets on commercial entities. Although the US made Artemis its primary space policy goal, it still maintains an interest in LEO. Under the Commercial LEO Development (CLD) programme, NASA aims to commercialise LEO activities by opening the ISS for commercial activities and transitioning to research commercially-owned space stations by 2030.Funding for new commercial space stations began in 2021 under the new CLD programme. NASA has funded three commercial entities to develop a private space station:• Blue Origin (with Sierra Space) for the Orbital Reef space station: $130 million.• Nanoracks (with Voyager Space Lockheed Martin) for the Starlab space station: $160 million.• Northrop Grumman for a free-flyer space station: $125.6 million.Further, NASA has also contracted Axiom Space for $140 million to develop and build a commercial module for the ISS over seven years.These new commercial stations will be far smaller than the ISS. They will, perhaps, also cater to customers beyond national space agencies and cater to space tourists and high-paying nations that do not have their own astronaut programmes.Getting Commercial Space Stations GoingSo what are the challenges of getting commercial space stations up into space? First, it's the funding. When the ISS first came into being, it had already cost a billion dollars in the 1980s to complete initial designs. Even today, the ISS consumes about a $ 3.1 billion dollars each year for operations and maintenance. Commercial space stations, meanwhile, will have to operate in a substantially together financial situation. A 2021 report by NASA's Inspector General warned that the CLD programme vastly underestimates the costs of developing commercial space stations and that NASA has set itself the ambitious goal of transitioning to private space stations by 2028. Second, if NASA goes through with the CLD programme without international partners, it risks losing the long-standing international collaboration that it has built with the Canadian Space Agency, and European Space Agency and has held since the 1970s. In February 2022, for example, the head of ESA's Washington office, Sylvie Espinasse, said that the idea of purchasing commercial services from American companies in the future would not be an entirely acceptable option for European partners.Finally, commercial space stations may not meet all of NASA's space research requirements. The newly released documents, for example, highlight that the agency wants to conduct anywhere between 130-250 experiments each year. It also estimates to transfer of about 5000 km of cargo to commercial stations each year. Of course, NASA will likely be given priority on board the new space stations when they enter service. However, the agency might not have the same level of control or flexibility when operating in a station built by companies that also want to profit from activities such as tourism.The commercial space station programme we know today may turn out very differently five years later. After all, commercial space is new territory for everyone, including NASA.Cyberpolitik: First steps to better regulate military AI— Atharwa SarnobatArtificial Intelligence, or AI, in recent days, has seen a resurgence of interest mainly due to the popularity of natural language AIs such as ChatGPT, which has captivated our imaginations with responses that simulate human conversations somewhat realistically. Similarly, governments around the world concerned with the use of AI in warfare convened for REAIM or the Summit on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain conference held at The Hague in the Netherlands. The joint conference was organised by the Netherlands and Korean governments and focused on the impact and regulation of AI in warfare.The conference was out together with three specific aspects in mind:* Countries wanted to understand how AI played a role in warfare.* Countries wanted to get a clear picture of AI's current and potential future impact in warfare.* Participants of the conference wanted to gain clarity on what the current legislative situation looked like and how that could be remedied by recommending newer legislation that could properly govern AI in warfare. The conference highlighted a few ideas and brought them to the forefront of the discourse around AI in warfare, such as the fact that autonomous weapons systems were great from a tactical perspective since they put fewer humans in the line of fire and they could potentially even take the jobs of peacekeepers in the future. It was also understood that while much of the world did not want “killer robots” on the battlefield, a complete ban could not be achieved since the genie could not be put back in the bottle, and these weapons systems were here to stay.The conference also recognised that the public discourse over the regulation of AI in warfare was severely lagging and that had to be remedied if effective laws governing its use were to be drafted and enacted by governments. It also noted that AI in warfare was a technological domain where nations were engaged in a technological arms race to maintain or achieve their superiority in the global context. A few areas of concern were identified regarding the regulation of AI in warfare. One central area of concern highlighted was the postulation that using AI in warfare would lower the threshold for using force in a conflict or armed engagement. Another was the idea that humans would be required to monitor AI weapons systems such as loitering munitions since these systems had not reached a stage where they could make those decisions by themselves. Some participants recommended potential solutions, which proposed minimum acceptable levels for human control. The conference also recognised that old treaties on warfare needed to be updated to regulate military AI. Nations must also eliminate a high threshold approach to regulating military AI since these systems have broad use cases. Therefore, counties made the case that context-specific regulation was the only way forward.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Show Sponsor:  www.LaShamanaFaby.com José was selected by NASA as a member of their 19th class of astronauts in 2004. After completing his training he was selected for a mission in 2007 and flew as the flight engineer in the 2009 14-day STS-128 mission aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station. In addition to his flight engineer duties José was also one of two principal robotic arm. Before being selected as an astronaut, José worked at NASA as the Branch Chief of the Materials and Processes Branch at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. There he oversaw the branch's activities in the areas of materials and processes, fracture control, nondestructive evaluation, failure analysis, and Nano materials research. His branch was also instrumental in participating in the investigation to help find the root cause of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident and reporting those results to the President's Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Prior to this, José spent more than 15 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) where he worked on the development of a space deployed X-Ray laser as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. He then went on to co-develop the first full-field digital mammography system for the earlier detection of breast cancer thus opening a new area of research called computer-aided diagnosis and was recognized by both the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for this important contribution. He was also the Deputy Program Manager of the Highly Enriched Uranium Implementation program where his team was in charge of implementing a signed bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Russian Federation for the U.S. purchase of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the form of low enriched uranium (LEU) derived from the dismantlement of Russian nuclear weapons. Finally José was invited to Department of Energy Headquarters in Washington DC to serve as the Laboratory's Program Manager in the Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation. Here he managed, integrated and allocated Department of Energy assets and expertise, including the national laboratories and contractors, in planning, directing, and implementing U.S. cooperation with the Russian Federation in the program of Nuclear Materials, Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC&A). Jose developed and implemented policies, strategies and plans to enhance U.S. national security and reduce threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. These goals were accomplished by rapidly improving the security of large quantities of attractive, weapons-usable nuclear material in Russia's nuclear weapons complex. After Jose's 2009 Space Mission José was assigned to work at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. where he served as a Legislative Analyst and helped in the development of space policy, NASA's annual budget package and served as liaison with key Congressional members. Additional duties included the development of an effective strategy that promoted the President's new vision on Space Exploration. José is a former candidate for U.S. Congress, the author of several books including his autobiography “Reaching for the Stars” and the children's version “The Boy Who Touched the Stars”. Today, José works as a consultant within the company he founded in 2012, Tierra Luna Engineering, LLC. Here, he works on his areas of interest that include aerospace consulting, renewable energy, and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) outreach. Projects he has worked on include serving as the technical liaison to Mexico's Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) where he helped develop the technical requirements to procure three communications satellites from Boeing. In this role he assisted in the procurement and acceptance testing process. He also ensured the launch and orbit placement of the three satellites with three different launch service providers. Current activities include serving as a visiting professor at the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP) in Puebla, Mexico where he is mentoring UPAEP faculty and students and through a Space Act Agreement with NASA and the Mexican Space Agency, will assist UPAEP in the design, testing and launch of the first functioning satellite designed and built by a university in Mexico. The scheduled launch date is October 2019 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as part of a NanoRacks payload. He has also been the recipient of numerous awards including NASA Service Awards (2002, 2003), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory “Outstanding Engineer Award” (2001), Upward Bound National TRIO Achiever Award (2001), U.S. Department of Energy “Outstanding Performance Commendation” (2000), Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) “Medalla de Oro” recipient for professional and community contributions (1999), Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award, “Outstanding Technical Contribution” (1995). Finally, José has been awarded 7 honorary doctorate degrees including his alma mater, University of the Pacific.

Ohio State University will soon be home to a ground-based copy of a space laboratory planned for a new commercial space station. The Ohio-based lab will be a replica of the George Washington Carver Science Park, a key science component of the “Starlab” next-generation space station. The replica laboratory, or “analog,” will allow researchers to test experiments on the ground while identical experiments are conducted aboard Starlab in Earth orbit. The Carver Science Park, established by space tech leaders Voyager Space and Nanoracks, will be a core element of Starlab, the companies' planned future commercial space station. The project is now underway with a facility at OSU's College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and this year, the partners will break ground on a stand-alone facility on the Ohio State Air Transportation & Aerospace Campus. This CMC forum takes an in-depth look at how this new facility landed in Ohio and what it promises for the state and for researchers. The panelists are: Dr. John M. Horack, The Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy, The Ohio State University Jeffrey Manber, President of International and Space Stations, Voyager Space Holdings; Founder, Nanoracks Dr. Scott Shearer, Professor and Chair, The Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, The Ohio State University The host is Dr. Frederic Bertley, President & CEO, COSI This forum was sponsored by Kroger and AECOM. It was supported by the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The forum livestream was supported by The Center for Human Kindness at The Columbus Foundation and The Columbus Dispatch. This forum was recorded before a live audience on February 15, 2023.

It's been more than 50 years since humans last set foot on the lunar surface. But the recent success of NASA's Artemis I mission has put the US back on track to return man to the Moon. As the Artemis program proceeds, space enthusiasts remain skeptical of NASA's timeline and its expensive Space Launch System rocket — especially as the reusable SpaceX Starship rocket comes online. To find out more about the future for NASA as well as private companies like SpaceX, I'm joined today by Eric Berger.Eric is the senior space editor at Ars Technica and author of 2021's excellent Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX.In This Episode* When will the US return to the Moon? (1:19)* How SpaceX's Starship will change the game (5:58)* Reusability and launch costs (12:04)* The future of America's space program (15:59)* Is the window for Mars colonization closing? (24:13)Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.When will the US return to the Moon?James Pethokoukis: I think you have one of the best journalism jobs in America. I hope you feel that way too.Eric Berger: I have a fantastic job. I love space, I live and breathe it every day, and I get to write about what I think is really happening out there. It's pretty nice.It's almost like someone who is covering the internet in the late ‘90s, when all of a sudden there's just so much happening. I remember you at year end recounting what happened in 2022, and it was a pretty long list of space achievements.I first got into space more than 15 years ago, and at the time it was really pretty dull — not to downgrade the space shuttle program, but it was kind of dull. They would do six or seven launches a year, go up, work on the International Space Station, come down. Everything pretty much worked like clockwork. There just wasn't a whole lot happening. It's really accelerated and accelerated since then. And you just have so much happening in the United States commercially, abroad. It is just a very vibrant field. And as you say, it feels like we're in the early days of this space flight revolution.When will the United States return to the Moon, and what is going to take us there?We returned to the Moon last year, right? We sent an uncrewed spacecraft, Orion, around the Moon. That really was the first step back to the Moon. And I think probably in about two years from now, we'll send the first crewed mission up there. This was going to be a mission where they fly out to the Moon, loop around, and come back. So it's not like they're going to go to the surface or anything like that. But that will be the first people going into deep space in more than 50 years. And then we're going to have a lunar landing later this decade. I don't really feel comfortable putting a date out there. I think it's probably 2027, 2028 maybe. And most likely, they're going to launch on the Space Launch System rocket built by NASA and its contractors, and go up on Orion, and land on the Moon in a SpaceX Starship.Is there a current official target date?It's 2025, but that's completely unrealistic.What hasn't happened to make a 2025 mission seem highly unlikely to you?The first thing is they have got to do the crewed flight, the Artemis II mission, around the Moon. And we're probably 22 to 24 months away from that happening. They're not going to turn around then and do Artemis III the same year. And then you've got two other really important pieces to put together. SpaceX has to fly its Starship, it has to do a bunch of orbital refueling tests, then it has to actually go and land on the Moon and take off and show that everything's ready ahead of that lunar landing. And the other big piece of this is there's a private company in Houston, Axiom Space, that is building the space suits for Artemis III. These are the suits that will allow the crew to get out on the surface of the Moon, walk around and explore. And this company has never built a space suit before, and they just got the contract last fall. It's going to take time for Artemis II to happen, and everything has to go right there. There's a bunch of planning that has to go on, and then you've got to have the Starship and the space suit pieces come together.Is there a chance that the rocket that ends up taking Americans to the surface will end up being a Starship rocket?There is a chance. But at this point, I would think it's a fairly low one. The fact is, the Space Launch System rocket, which took a decade and billions and billions and billions of dollars to develop, finally did fly in November of last year. And by all accounts, the flight was flawless. It's pretty impressive for the debut launch of this rocket for it to perform as well as it did. I think NASA has pretty high confidence now in that launch vehicle. And it will have more confidence in Orion after the second mission. I do think that, initially, that's how we're going to get to the Moon. I think eventually that will change. It would not surprise me to see astronauts launching on, say, a Crew Dragon and rendezvousing with Starship and going to the Moon that way. Because the fact of the matter is, if you can do that, you don't need to spend the $3 or $4 billion every mission to go to the Moon on an SLS rocket and an Orion. You can do it with SpaceX vehicles for probably one-quarter of the cost.How SpaceX's Starship will change the gameBased on that cost structure that you mentioned, why are we even doing this? Why are we even using a rocket that may never fly again after that Moon mission, Artemis III? It just seems like a lot of wasted money. Why don't we just wait for Starship to get out the kinks, launch, and go that way?That's a great question. The reality is that we built the SLS rocket because in 2010 there were two senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Bill Nelson of Florida, who were looking at the end of the space shuttle program and all the jobs in Florida and Texas that were bound up by that and said, “Well, we've got to have a replacement for this.” There were contractors who had been working on the space shuttle program, building the solid rocket boosters, the engines, and the structures and so forth saying, “Hey, we've got to preserve all these jobs.”If you look at the Space Launch System rocket, it uses the same engines as the space shuttle. It uses very similar solid rocket boosters on the sides. And the diameter of that core stage is the same diameter as the external tank of the space shuttle. All of those jobs were essentially rolled from the space shuttle into the Space Launch System rocket. Now, at the time that decision was made, SpaceX had not launched a single Falcon 9 rocket, so I don't think there was the confidence in the private sector then that there is today. The fact of the matter is SLS will continue flying for as long, I think, as Starship is not shown to be a viable vehicle. Once Starship starts flying like the Falcon 9 rocket — which by the way flew 61 times last year — once it starts flying like that, there will be no need for a rocket that costs five or 10 times as much, is not reusable, and can only fly once a year. There'll be no need for that. But 1) it's a political thing. Lots of political support for that program. And 2) as of today, there is no viable alternative, even though we all know one is coming down the line.What is the best estimate of the Starship launch agenda, launch tempo from here on out? Do we have a good idea of what that's going to look like?I'm happy to make predictions with the proviso that they're going to be almost certainly wrong.Duly noted.I do think we're getting closer to the first Starship orbital test flight. This is going to be a big moment. You're going to have a rocket with 33 very powerful Raptor engines taking off from south Texas. That's the first stage. And then the second stage is the Starship upper stage. It's going to go up and go briefly into orbit before it comes back down near Hawaii. That is going to prove that A) the rocket works. And I still think that's kind of a crapshoot because this is a rocket with 33 engines, it's never flown, we haven't seen these Raptor engines in space flight before. It's also very important to get data on bringing Starship back from orbit, if it does make it there. I think we'll see maybe two or three test flights this year. And then next year, maybe half a dozen test flights. And then perhaps in late 2024, 2025, we'll start to see some operational missions carrying Starlink. And also they'll start doing some fueling tests. One of the things that Starship has to do is … it's got enough fuel to get to orbit this massive vehicle — and it can carry like 100 tons to low-Earth orbit, and then it lands back on Earth — but to go anywhere, to go to the Moon, to go to Mars, or what have you, it needs to be refueled. And that's a technology we've never really demonstrated in space: the storage of these cryogenic propellants. Starship runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane. And we've never shown the ability to store these propellants in space, because you have concerns like boil off. These propellant depots, if they're sitting in the sun, the temperature is much higher than is able to keep them at liquid temperatures. And then you've got to show you can transfer them from one vehicle to another. SpaceX will be doing those tests almost from the beginning of their Starship test program.When I was a full-time journalist, I'm pretty sure that when I would use the word “game changer,” editors would hate that. They would strike that word out. But Starship seems like it would be, if all those “ifs” are solved, it would be kind of a game changer. It's a big rocket.If you think about it, everyone remembers the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo program, this massive launch vehicle. But all that came back to Earth was that tiny little capsule at the top. The first stage, second stage, third stage all fell into the ocean. The capsule came back, but then they were put in museums because they weren't reusable. The goal of Starship is for that whole stack to be reusable. So the first stage comes back, Starship comes back, and then you fly them again at some point. I think we're probably years and years away from those kinds of operations. But if and when SpaceX gets there, it does entirely change the paradigm of spaceflight that we've known since the late 1950s when Sputnik first went to orbit, which is now 65 years ago.It's always been a premium on size — you want small vehicles that can fit on top of rockets in the payload fairings—and mass, because it costs so much to get to low-Earth orbit. If Starship works, it completely or almost completely removes those constraints: You can launch often, and it's got this huge payload fairing that you could fit elephants inside them, you could fit just massive structures inside of this thing. All of a sudden, the problem of scarcity, of getting stuff to orbit, no longer exists. It becomes not about the one thing we can do in orbit, but all the things we can do because it costs so much less to get there. And you can bring much larger structures.Reusability and launch costsRight now when we look at SpaceX, we're looking at partial reusability. What you're talking about is the whole thing: everything you can use more than once.Yeah. Right now with the Falcon 9 rocket, which I would submit is really a modern-day miracle, you're reusing the first stage, which is about 60 percent of the mass of the rocket. You get all those nine engines back, and they're now reflying relining those first stages 15 times. I think they're going to continue to push the limits. They're also getting back the payload fairing, which is that protective structure on top that then falls away once the rocket gets to orbit and the satellite comes out and pops out like a jack-in-the-box. That payload fairing costs like $5 or $6 million. So it's not insubstantial that they're collecting those, refurbishing them, and flying again. What is not reusable right now is the upper stage. It has a single Merlin vacuum engine, and those probably cost $10 to $12 million to manufacture. So that's a significant piece that they have to build. Every time they launch, they have to build a second stage.An SLS launch versus a Starship launch where everything is reusable: Do we have a guess at the difference of each of those launches?The cost difference? The NASA Inspector General has put a cost on a single SLS launch with an Orion spacecraft on, and it said that's $4.1 billion. That is exclusive of development costs, which for those vehicles are now about $40 billion. So if you just say, “Okay, we're going to ignore the fact that we spent all this money,” it's still $4.1 billion to launch one of these a year. Starship, we don't know how much it's going to cost. But if it's made out of stainless steel, and you're getting all those Raptor engines back, and you're flying each vehicle like 10 times or 20 times, the incremental cost of launch is going to be on the order of $100 million or less. So that's a 40x cost difference. Again, once Starship becomes operational. It's probably at least five years away from that point. But that's the future we're headed into. And it is coming. [If] you look at what's happened with the Falcon 9, they will get there. Or get close.We talk a lot about the reusability of these rockets. Does SpaceX also just make them cheaper than competitors? Is that the only factor in the decline in launch costs?Yes, they also have … Musk is pretty cutthroat on costs.I hear.The whole Twitter experiment, right? He runs a tight ship. One of the very important things that SpaceX did, and a lot of the new space companies that have come afterward have tried to emulate, is they very much did vertical integration. And that just means that prior to 2000, the way you built your rocket in this country was, okay, you're United Launch Alliance: You buy your engines from Aerojet, you buy your structures from someone, you buy your software from someone, you buy your payload fairing from RUAG, you buy your upper-stage engine from Aerojet. And then you sort of integrate that all together into your factory after paying a premium for all these different products. And you launch the rocket. You're the operator.SpaceX came along and said, “No, no, we're going to build the engines. We're going to build as much of each of these rockets as we can in-house. And when we need to outsource some components, we will.” And a lot of these other companies that have come since, like Rocket Lab, have tried to do the same. Relativity Space is trying to additively manufacture, so 3D print, its entire rocket inside its factory. And so they've really changed the game. And that vertical integration has allowed them to control costs and move more quickly.The future of America's space programAfter we land on the Moon via an SLS rocket and a SpaceX lander, is the American space program at that point government doing more science-y things and the private sector doing private sector things, whether it's, you know you know, orbiting space platforms. What does the Americas program comprehensively look like after that landing?We don't really know. We're talking about something that's probably about four or five years in the future, and it's very difficult to say where we're headed.I'm very glad, by the way, that you say four or five years in the future, not four or five decades. I like the fact that we keep talking years, single digits.After the success of Artemis I, we are definitively on the way back to the Moon. This is a great time in US space policy. It's healthier than I've ever seen it, I think, in my lifetime or certainly since I've been covering this. The NASA and United States space program has problems, has difficulties, has challenges, but we are on a healthy trajectory, I think. So we can all feel good about that. It's just going to take a little longer than I think any of us would like. But the way NASA has been going, and I don't see this trend changing, is it wants to be a customer and not the customer. It is looking to buy services from companies rather than top-down build processes. The SLS rocket was procured through a cost-plus program where NASA designed the rocket, its engineers were side by side with the contractors at Boeing and elsewhere. And it costs a lot. It takes a long time. And NASA oversees every step of the process, and it's the only customer. No one else wants to fly in the SLS rocket. The military doesn't. Private customers don't because it costs way too much. NASA's science program doesn't want to use it. NASA would rather be a customer. SpaceX launched 60 Falcon 9 rockets last year. NASA bought like six or seven of them, and the rest of them were other customers and SpaceX's Starlink missions. It's buying services, like this spacesuit contract it's giving to Axiom and to another company: It's basically leasing spacesuits. And the lander, it's like buying the landing service on the Moon. It's going to private space stations next decade, and it's buying time on those space stations. It's not going to own those space stations. NASA wants to procure services. NASA would like to see an ecosystem where it is one customer for activity on the Moon alongside maybe the European Space Agency or private companies or Hilton Hotels, I don't know. They sort of want to be one customer in that area. I think the question in my mind is, will there be more entities that want to get involved in human space flight or exploration of the Moon? Or will this be a NASA-led program for a long time, simply because it's so expensive and there's not that much there for people to do beyond collecting rocks and doing science experiments for NASA? And that's the question I don't think we've answered. It may be NASA for a long time, unless you do really get vehicles like Starship or Blue Origin's New Glenn that come along and really do bring down the costs of transportation to and from the Moon.How far behind is Blue Origin?Very far behind. They were founded before SpaceX was, and they still haven't put anyone in orbit. They just move slowly. That's kind of Jeff Bezos' philosophy in space fight. He wants to go very methodically. I don't think their CEO, a guy named Bob Smith, has been particularly dynamic in terms of getting them moving forward quickly. But if they ever do get their act together, they have a large and talented team of engineers. They could really kick some butt in this field. But they're way behind SpaceX in terms of building rockets. The New Glenn rocket probably doesn't launch for at least two years. That's a massive vehicle, but then they're going to have to go through some growing pains. And it's going to take a while. I don't think New Glenn will ever be able to catch up to Starship.I'm interested in there being a permanent Moon base. Would that be operated by NASA? Would that be operated by somebody else?That's a great question. I think NASA would love for Lockheed, or I don't know who, to say, “We are going to build a lunar surface station.” And NASA says, “Great, we want to buy 50 percent of the capacity. And we'll give you $2 billion a year for that service.” The question is whether any private company is going to step up and do something as audacious as that. That's one of the real ways in which SpaceX has changed the game: They have sort of stepped forward with these audacious visions. And then NASA has kind of come in and bought. When SpaceX created Starship, NASA wasn't interested. NASA wasn't a customer. And now, look, they're giving them $3 billion to land on the Moon twice. I think if you had a big enough vision to do that, then you could get NASA to come on board. The problem is, if you're a publicly traded company — it's really hard for a company other than SpaceX or Blue Origin, which have these well-endowed founders — it's really hard to convince your board of directors to go along with something like that.How many space stations will there be in orbit by the end of this decade?It's just all fluid. So the International Space Station comes down in 2030. That's down. China's Space Station is still flying, I think, Tiangong. And Russia is talking about a space station, but I don't think there's any way they have a replacement up by then. So then the question becomes, there are four different companies trying to build commercial space stations for NASA. And again, NASA has given them some money for development, but they're not paying for the stations. They ultimately want to be customers on them. And of those four, one is Blue Origin led by them, one is Nanoracks and Lockheed Martin, another is Axiom Space, and then a fourth is Northrop Grumman. I would put the over-under at one-and-a-half of those. And I think NASA is very happy if one was demonstrative functionable by 2030.The skeptics will say, “Okay, so what are we going to do in those space stations? Some science?” How satisfying is the answer, “We don't know what we're going to do; we have to get there and figure it out — who knew what the internet was going to look like in 1990 versus what it looks like today”?I think you've got to build it and see if people will come. NASA is going to continue to do scientific research, human research, astronauts living in space for long durations. But then you've got to see how much interest there is in sports or filming movies or holidays or from other countries like UAE who want to have their own astronauts up there doing research or from private astronauts. For about two years now, we've had the capability to put astronauts in a low-Earth orbit on private space missions. SpaceX has that capability. There's been some interest, but there hasn't been an overwhelming amount of interest. And so the jury is very much out on commercial potential. And I think the only real way to answer that question is when someone figures out how to make money by having people living and working and doing things in space, then that market explodes. And until that happens, it's very tenuous.Is the window for Mars colonization closing?I am very excited about the notion of going to Mars and humans permanently living on Mars. Is that a 2030s thing? A 2040s, a 2070s thing?The way I would look at it is, that kind of thing is never happening without the private sector, because there is no reason at all, no good reason, for NASA to send people to Mars. The amount of science that can be done by rovers at one-100th the cost without having to worry about safety issues. The rovers can do a lot of science. They can't do it all. There are some things humans can do better and faster, but it's just not worth it to send people there. Maybe if it's like a US-China-Russia-Japan pan-worldwide mission to promote peace and go to Mars. I could see something like that. But there's just no good reason for NASA to send humans to Mars.They will talk about it. They will say, “We're going to the Moon and Mars.” But NASA's not going to Mars before 2050, and probably not by then. So then the question becomes, is SpaceX sincere about going to Mars? Yes. Do they have the wherewithal to work together with NASA to send human missions to Mars? Not right now. But if Starlink, this internet from space, is a successful business — and there are some signs that it will be, and some signs that, no, they have a long way to go — but if that is a success, then the plan is for SpaceX to use that money to help finance Starship and take steps to building some kind of settlement on Mars. And I think if SpaceX can build a credible transportation system to Mars, then NASA comes along for those first couple of missions because there are lots of reasons for them to want to go. And there are lots of reasons for SpaceX to want NASA to go. Most notably, probably, just it clears the regulatory hurdles away for them. If it's going to happen before 2050, it would be a public-private partnership with SpaceX leading the way in terms of the vision.It's sort of amazing how much of this seems to depend on the interest and will of one person: Elon Musk.It's true. If you look at the space industry today, SpaceX dominates it. They launched more rockets than all the other companies in the United States by like a factor of three, two or three. They equaled China in terms of launch output. They're one of three entities in the world that has the capability to put humans into orbit. They operate more satellites than any company or country in the world. They're building the world's largest and most powerful rocket. They are kind of at the forefront of all these areas. And they're the ones pushing and pushing. If you take SpaceX out of the equation, then NASA's Moon program looks an awful lot like Apollo, which was not sustainable. A lot of it does hinge on the success of SpaceX and their ability to push and pull this commercial space flight initiative forward. And hopefully, by lowering the cost of access to space, you can find ways to make money in space, which in turn fuels more commercial space flight activity.Have you watched the TV show For All Mankind?I have, yes.Do you enjoy that television program?Yeah. It's an interesting take on the future that's really well done.I think Elon Musk may have said that at that SpaceX event where they showed that fantastic video, which I've used about 30 times in my newsletter, where he said the window is open but it might not be open forever, to do what we're doing. Do you think he's wrong? Do you think it is permanently open because of the advances, because of declining costs, because of the geopolitical competition from China and from other nations? Is the space window open, and it's going to just stay open?I don't know if it's going to stay open. He's concerned that it won't stay open. And one of the reasons that he would've cited a couple years ago is this era of cheap money ending. And that era of cheap money has ended. This is going to have a profound impact on a lot of the commercial space companies that have started up over the last five to 10 years. A lot of those are not going to survive the next few years. Congress is talking about holding budgets flat, and that probably may impair space flight activity as well. That's one area of, is this funding opportunity window going to be open long enough for it to happen? And he's also worried about existential threats to humanity. Whether any of those really come up in the next five to 10 years or 50 years, I don't know. But we're a little closer to nuclear war than we were 12 months ago.If there's an accident, another Challenger or another Columbia, do you think we're into this enough and there's been enough progress that we'll push forward? Or will we retreat?It's a great question. I think about that a lot because if, God forbid, something happens with the Crew Dragon spacecraft or the Falcon 9 rocket with people on board and NASAs astronauts die, that really would bring out the critics of SpaceX who have been awfully quiet in the last few years. Think about it, the only way we're getting to space right now with people is on the Falcon 9 rocket. And imagine if we'd had these last 10 months or 11 months of tensions with Russian and still had to rely on them to get our people into space. A lot of the critics of SpaceX have kind of shut up because it's clear that they have done such a service for this country.But if they have some major accent, then all those questions come again. He is reckless. Elon self-sabotages himself a lot in that regard. The way he acts on Twitter sometimes is pretty unserious. And officials at the DOD and NASA see that. That would embolden critics to say, “Hey, wait a minute. Why are we giving SpaceX all this money if they're not acting responsibly?” And especially if the accident was caused by some negligent act on SpaceX, trying to move too fast or save money or something like that. I don't think an accident like that will happen. NASA and SpaceX work very diligently to ensure it doesn't happen. But I do think that would be a setback, whether it would be an absolute killer, I don't think so, because I suspect NASA would stand by SpaceX regardless. They're very good about that when their contractors have an accident. NASA sort of stands by them and goes through the accident investigation and so forth. But if you put people's lives at risk, then that may change. It's a great question, and I hope we don't have to find an answer to it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

In this Space Café Radio - SpaceWatch.Global's Marketing Intern Jim Murphy spoke with Jeffrey Manber, the President of International and Space Stations at  Voyager Space. Voyager Space is dedicated to develop the world's first private free-flying space stations and continue to build the commercial infrastructure of space in orbit and beyond.In this episode, Jeffrey tell about Voyager Space as a company. He also gives us any advice that he may have for someone looking to start a company in the space industry, thanks to his extensive experience in the industry, specifically his time as the Founder and CEO of Nanoracks. Tune in to hear more!Space Café Radio brings you talks, interviews, and reports from the team of SpaceWatchers while out on the road. Each episode has a specific topic, unique content, and a personal touch. Enjoy the show and let us know your thoughts at radio@spacewatch.global!Please visit us at SpaceWatch.Global, subscribe to our newsletters. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter!

Voyager Space and its subsidiary Nanoracks are aiming to launch Starlab, a commercial space station in 2028. They just announced an agreement with The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio to build the terrestrial home for the science and technology the space station produces. Why Ohio? The state's got a growing ecosystem of small businesses that are at the cutting-edge space manufacturing on and possibly off-world. Laura Winter speaks with Jeff Manber, Voyager's President of International and Space Stations at Space and Nanoracks Chairman of the Board; John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy at The Ohio State University, and a professor in the College of Engineering's Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs; and Mark Norfolk, President and CEO of Fabrisonic, an innovative manufacturing technology company that uses sound waves in its 3D metal printing process.

C'est une info qui n'a pas fait grand bruit et qui pour autant est très intéressante. La NASA a choisi trois entreprises pour préparer l'après ISS, donc une fois que la station spatiale internationale sera officiellement désertée. Objectif pour ces entreprises : déployer leur propre station spatiale privée d'ici la fin de la décennie.C'est un contrat à plus de 415 millions de dollars qui a été signé entre la NASA, Nanoracks, Blue Origin et Northrop Grumman, avec pour objectif de créer de nouvelles stations spatiales privées, et donc à des fins touristiques. En effet, la Station Spatiale Internationale est en orbite depuis 1998 et devrait prendre sa retraite d'ici 2030. L'équipement n'est plus une priorité pour la NASA qui se concentre désormais sur les vols habités vers la Lune et Mars. Ceci dit, elle souhaite tout de même garder un endroit où mener des expériences scientifiques et où envoyer des astronautes, mais pas par ses propres moyens, d'où l'idée de faire appel à des compagnies privées. Dans un communiqué, la NASA indique que trois d'entre elles ont été choisies avec l'objectif, je cite de « permettre une économie commerciale robuste, dirigée par les Américains, en orbite terrestre basse » fin de citation.Blue Origin tout d'abord. Après avoir raté un juteux contrat face à SpaceX pour l'alunisseur du programme Artemis, Jeff Bezos, le patron d'Amazon a obtenu le droit de créer sa propre station spatiale baptisée Orbital Reef, et qui sera financée par la NASA à hauteur de 130 millions d'euros. Il s'agira, je cite « d'un parc d'affaires à usage mixte » où astronautes et chercheurs côtoieront touristes et hommes d'affaires. Blue Origin promet que l'architecture de sa station sera, je cite à nouveau « centrée sur l'Homme avec des services et des équipements de classe mondiale qui seront inspirants, pratiques et sûrs » fin de citation. Boeing, Sierra Space et Redwire Space participeront au projet qui devrait être lancée en 2027. Nanoracks de son côté a remporté le plus grand contrat individuel du programme évalué à 160 millions de dollars, pour aider à la création de sa station Starlab qui devrait également être mise en orbite en 2027. Elle est pensée pour accueillir quatre astronautes avec un volume similaire à celui de l'ISS. Enfin, le géant du secteur Northrop Grumman a obtenu un contrat de 125,6 millions de dollars pour une station modulable où l'ajout de nouveaux éléments sera possible. Objectifs : science, expérimentation industrielle et tourisme.La conception des stations aura lieu jusqu'en 2025, avec début de mise en orbite en 2027. Ainsi, le futur de l'orbite basse de la Terre se dessine avec plusieurs stations spatiales privées où des visiteurs issus de divers secteurs pourront séjourner en louant les modules pour des prix qui n'ont pas encore été communiqués. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

In Episode 47, Ben chats to space industry legend and Chief Revenue Officer at Voyager Space - Clay Mowry. Clay has previously held leadership positions at Blue Origin and Arianespace. In this episode, they discuss the significance of Artemis, the privatisation of the space industry, how he got offered a job at Blue Origin and what he hopes to achieve as incoming President at the International Astronautical Federation. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsor: Spaced Ventures: https://www.spacedventures.com/ to invest shares of actual space startups! (Note from Ben - due to having record in a different location for this episode, Bens sound quality was not great at times - back to normal next episode (sorry)!) OUTLINE: Here's approximate timestamps for the episode. 00:18 Sponsor on board: Spaced Ventures 01:28 Introducing Clay Mowry 02:20 Artemis 04:04 Launch significance of Artemis 1 05:20 Risk of launch 07:17 Why is Clay a good leader? 11:00 Experience at Arian-Space & early privatisation of space 15:23 How Clay got approached by Blue Origin 18:15 Blue Origin's Mission 22:05 New role as Chief Revenue Officer at Voyager 26:00 Nanoracks 27:40 Starlab 31:00 Science park business model 31:55 incoming President Elect IAF  37:08 Wrap up and socials Follow Clay Mowry: Website: https://voyagerspace.com/ & https://www.iafastro.org/biographie/clayton-mowry.html Twitter: https://twitter.com/voyagersh & https://twitter.com/ClayMowry Stay connected with us! Use #Astroben across various social media platforms to engage with us! Website: www.astroben.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astrobenpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gambleonit LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-astro-ben-podcast/ Please subscribe and rate - Ad Astra!

Matsyanyaaya: The New CHIPS Bill Raises More Questions than it Answers— Arjun GargeyasIn the last week, the US Senate decided to advance a bill to promote and support semiconductor chip manufacturing in the country. The bill, known as the CHIPS Act, is an extension to the previous year’s legislation passed by the Senate which approved a $250 billion bill to reinforce US chipmaking to compete with the growing clout of China. With the global chip shortage receding and the production getting back to pre-pandemic levels, the US government pushed the bill through with the intention of improving the manufacturing capabilities of the country in the semiconductor industry. With China running its foundries at full-scale even during the height of the pandemic, the state has managed to slowly increase its market share in the global semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. A recent Bloomberg report showcases how the last four quarters have been dominated by Chinese semiconductor firms and their operations. This has raised alarms among the Western states regarding the reduction in influence and market share in the semiconductor domain. But how much can the CHIPS act achieve the goals and objectives that the US government intends to? Will there be any unintended consequences and unfavourable effects that might arise from the act itself?Subsidies to increase manufacturing output? The CHIPS bill seeks to facilitate the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in the country through increased subsidies and financial incentives for the domestic players. Considering the multifaceted benefits of improved chip manufacturing capacity, the US government looks to provide subsidies worth $52 billion to domestic semiconductor companies through the CHIPS bill.One of the main reasons behind the advancement of the CHIPS bill is to reduce manufacturing dependencies on Asian semiconductor manufacturers and increase domestic manufacturing output. Another objective of the bill is to ensure self-sufficiency in the supply of semiconductor chips in case of another global chip shortage. But can subsidies translate into an increase in manufacturing? Historically, it's noticed that in technology sectors, pumping in money and favourable industrial policies cannot always translate into necessary outcomes. This is especially true for the semiconductor industry. A case in point is China itself. The Chinese government has provided a plethora of incentives, subsidies and even financed companies with the hope of improving their semiconductor manufacturing output. However, even its major firm, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company (SMIC) took over two decades to make a mark in the industry. Currently, it still lags behind industry giants such as Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Though the CHIPS bill has the potential to positively impact semiconductor manufacturing in the country, the government should not imagine that this would completely insulate the US from supply chain dependencies. This might cover the domestic demand to an extent but international dependency will still remain. TSMC itself is building a new fab in Arizona looking to branch out from Taiwan. Manufacturing equipment still remains an issue with the need to import certain equipment from abroad. Also, there is the caveat of the bill stating how semiconductor firms would not be allowed to have any Chinese investments in their company if they benefit from the subsidies provided by the bill. Restrictions over the import and export of semiconductor products to China is also included when availing the benefits of the new legislation. The CHIPS bill will help spur semiconductor manufacturing in the country and cater to its domestic demand to an extent. But, expecting the bill to help the US attain self-sufficiency in the supply chain remains a futile expectation. Fab vs Fabless Another aspect of this legislation is the division of benefits and subsidies. The current CHIPS bill benefits the firms that have the capability to design and manufacture their own semiconductor products. This includes Intel which has the fabrication potential. The bill provides subsidies to build fabrication facilities and provides investment tax credit to purchase tools for use inside their factories.However, the entire industry is not happy with this. Fabless firms such as NVIDIA, AMD and Qualcomm have expressed disappointment at the legislation. Fabless firms are those semiconductor companies that design their products but outsource their manufacturing to Asian counterparts. The new bill does not have any direct benefits for fabless firms as they do not build foundries or buy equipment. Such firms have argued this would help just Intel and is more of a rent-seeking opportunity for Intel to dominate the market. Unfair competition between the fab and fabless firms can result in the government choosing winners (in this case, Intel) is what the other companies are saying. These fabless firms actually support an earlier version of the FABS Act (introduced earlier in the House of Representatives) which provides tax credit on both manufacturing and chip design activities giving benefits to both the type of semiconductor firms. This version of the bill was also supported by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Though not officially opposing the bill, fabless semiconductor firms have questioned the impact of huge sums of money supporting their competitors.Finally, the fact that the US has the most number of semiconductor fabrication facilities in the world can also hamper the distribution of the subsidies. Will the financial incentives be proportional to the market share of the company or will it support smaller manufacturers also? These are questions that the bill might have to address before finally getting President Joe Biden’s final signature.Antariksh Matters: Space Dreams and Ground Realities— Aditya RamanathanThe Indian government may look to space tourism to sustain its human spaceflight programme. In a response to a Rajya Sabha question, the minister of state for science and technology said India was developing a homegrown capability to support space tourism. According to the minister, this capability would be developed via the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme.Singh’s comments come even as the government has acknowledged delays in the Gaganyaan programme, which was originally planned to be launched in 2022, to mark 75 years of India’s independence. That deadline has now been pushed to 2024. Besides the formidable technical challenges involved in any human spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan was also set back by the pandemic, which forced ISRO to scale back operations. Russia’s war with Ukraine will likely add to the difficulties, since Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, which trained an initial batch of four Indian Air Force cosmonauts, has been heavily sanctioned by Western states. “Abort Missions”Long before any space tourists (or for that matter, cosmonauts) take off on an Indian launch vehicle, there will come a series of tests. The first of these will be a so-called “abort mission,” slated for September and December of 2022. Having already tested the human-rated HS2000 rocket booster in May, ISRO will now conduct uncrewed tests of the survival systems. According to reporting in The Indian Express:‘For the abort missions, the space agency has developed test vehicles that can send the systems up to a certain height, simulate failure, and then check the escape system. Gaganyaan’s escape system was designed with five “quick-acting” solid fuel motors with a high burn rate propulsion system, and fins to maintain stability. The crew escape system will separate from the crew module by firing explosive nuts.’The next steps would be to integrate a crew module and an onboard “Onboard Launch Vehicle Health Management System” along with other elements. As ISRO chief S. Somanath recently concluded in an interview, the human-ready launch system “is yet to see the final shape”.Creating an LEO EconomyIndia’s ambitious next step for human spaceflight is to launch its own space station. Such a space station is to orbit at altitudes of 300-400 km above sea level and have more than one module. However, Singh’s statement about space tourism is a reminder than human spaceflight missions are expensive and that states - and private companies - need to find ways to recoup their costs. The Gaganyaan project alone has a price tag of INR9,000 crores (about $1.13 billion). Sending Indians into space on a regular basis will cost many times more. Other spacefaring nations, in particular, the United States and China, have recognised these realities and are seeking to create self-sustaining low Earth Orbit (LEO) economies. While the International Space Station (ISS) is slated to be deorbited in January 2031, the US is promoting the creation of an ecosystem of privately built and operated space stations to replace it. The US space agency NASA has already selected and commenced funding of three proposed space stations: those by Nanoracks, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman. While it is possible that some of these stations will fail to work or fail to make money, the very process of designing, building, and operating them will help develop both the technologies and the institutional experience required for a vibrant LEO economy. India remains far behind the world’s leading spacefarers in these efforts. To send Indians into space on a regular basis will ultimately require more than space tourism - it will require a thriving private space industry and international collaboration.Our Reading Menu[Article] Artificial Intelligence Regulation by Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Aziz Z. Huq.[Report] Fly Me to the Moon: Worldwide Cislunar and Lunar Missions by Kaitlyn Johnson.[Report] The moment for EVs: Strategies to transform American roads by Chetan Hebbale and Johannes Urpelainen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hightechir.substack.com

Elsbeth Magilton interviews Kiersten Haugen (Federal Aviation Administration) and Jessica Noble (NanoRacks LLC) about what's new in space law, including what space law encompasses and the latest rules for commercial companies operating in space. Coming later in July please enjoy some "reruns" and staff favorites from our first two seasons. We'll be back with new episodes in August!Kiersten Haugen is an Attorney at the Federal Aviation Administration, with the Commercial Space Law Branch. Before joining the FAA she was an Assistant District Counsel with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. She graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2016, and during her time here she interned with the General Counsels to the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Welcome Kiersten! Jessica Noble is general counsel for NanoRacks, an aerospace company focused on in-space platforms for commercial, research, and educational activities on the International Space Station and beyond, as well as providing support for satellite integration and deployment. Prior to NanoRakcs, Jessica was with LMI Advisors, advising communications companies on regulatory and policy frameworks. She started her legal career as a trial attorney at the New Mexico District Attorney's Office and is a graduate of the University of Florida and the Catholic University School of Law. 

Clay Mowry, Chief Revenue Officer of Voyager Space and Jeffrey Manber, President International and Space Station of Voyager Space and the Chairman of Nanoracks.

Getting a plant payload into space is rarely straightforward. In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener chats with Dr Carl Carruthers, who started out sending his own research projects into space and then became Chief Scientist at Nanoracks. There he worked on projects to send palm tree seeds to the International Space Station for the UAE, and to design a kit to turn school kids into space farmers.  Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy   

la NASA otorgó a tres compañías cientos de millones de dólares para desarrollar estaciones espaciales comerciales que espera que eventualmente reemplacen a la Estación Espacial Internacional, que se retirará a fines de la década. Blue Origin de Jeff Bezos, la compañía aeroespacial Nanoracks y el contratista de defensa Northrop Grumman ganaron contratos de $ 130 millones, $ 160 millones y $ 125,6 millones, respectivamente, para desarrollar sus puestos de avanzada orbitales. Una cuarta empresa, Axiom Space, recibió previamente un contrato de 140 millones de dólares

Un cable defectuoso retrasa dos días el lanzamiento del James Webb. La sonda Parker ha "tocado" el Sol. La NASA selecciona tres estaciones espaciales comerciales. Roscosmos elige a la primera cosmonauta que volará con SpaceX. ¿Último retraso en el lanzamiento del telescopio espacial James Webb? Esta vez un cable defectuoso con el que se transmiten datos para realizar una prueba de salud del telescopio antes del lanzamiento. En el momento en que estamos publicando este podcast, el lanzamiento está previsto para el 24 de diciembre a las 12:20 UTC (13:20 de la España peninsular). Está pronosticado lluvia en el puerto espacial de Kourou, en la Guayana Francesa. La sonda Parker ha tocado el Sol. En realidad, ocurrió el 28 de abril. Primera vez que un vehículo humano ingresa en la atmósfera solar, tres años después del lanzamiento de 2018. Ha volado a través de la atmósfera superior del Sol, la corona, tomando muestras de las partículas y campos magnéticos. Hasta ahora, los investigadores no estaban seguros de dónde se encontraba exactamente la superficie crítica de Alfvén, que marca el final de la atmósfera solar y el comienzo del viento solar. Hay imágenes: "Vemos evidencia de estar en la corona en datos de campo magnético, datos de viento solar y visualmente, en imágenes. De hecho, podemos ver la nave espacial volando a través de estructuras coronales que se pueden observar durante un eclipse solar total". Se aprecian estructuras coronales similares a las serpentinas. La NASA selecciona tres ganadoras del programa CLD (Commercial LEO Destinations). Con la expectativa de que la Estación Espacial Internacional, de 23 años, no va a durar más allá de la década de 2020, la NASA está recurriendo al sector privado en busca de ayuda. Objetivo: construir una estación espacial comercial en órbita baja independiente de la Estación Espacial Internacional que esté operativa en 2029 o 2030.Ganadoras: Blue Origin, $130 milliones. Nanoracks, $160 milliones. Northrop Grumman, $125,6 milliones. Reparto bastante uniforme, a diferencia de los contratos anteriores. El dinero de estos contratos se deberá gastar entre 2022 y 2025 durante la Fase 1 hasta alcanzar un nivel de diseño preliminar, estudiando riesgos, presupuestos, cronograma, etc. * En la Fase 2, a partir de 2025, se procederá a la construcción de las estaciones con asesoramiento de la NASA. Había once candidatas, incluida SpaceX (que perdió). En cambio, no participó Axiom, que fue seleccionada por la NASA como proveedora del primer módulo comercial para la Estación Espacial Internacional. Axiom planea operar a partir de ese primer módulo su propia estación espacial, la Axiom Station, cuando retiren la ISS. SpaceX realiza tres lanzamientos en tres días, con sus tres barcazas autónomas desplegadas al mismo tiempo por primera vez. El propulsor B1051 ha roto el récord de aterrizajes: 11. El objetivo del Falcon 9 Block 5 era un mínimo de 10 vuelos con una revisión mínima y de hasta 100 con una restauración completa. Por cierto, las cosas empiezan a moverse de nuevo en Starbase, al sureste de Texas. Roscosmos selecciona a la primera cosmonauta para volar con SpaceX. Anna Kikina volaría en otoño de 2022. Un astronauta volaría en la Soyuz casi al mismo tiempo, aunque el acuerdo no está cerrado. Este intercambio de asientos permite que haya siempre alguien de la otra agencia espacial en órbita si una nave falla. La NASA selecciona nuevos candidatos a astronautas. Diez elegidos de 12.000 solicitantes. La ESA continúa con su proceso de selección. Entre los candidatos escogidos se encuentran Jorge Pla-García, investigador y científico del Centro de Astrobiología que ha participado en misiones de la NASA y de la ESA. Y Laura Parro, geóloga planetaria y divulgadora científica del Instituto Universitario de Física Aplicada de la Universidad de Alicante. https://www.space.com/jwst-launch-delay-due-to-faulty-data-cable https://ciencia.nasa.gov/la-nasa-ingresa-la-atmosfera-solar-por-primera-vez-aportando-nuevos-descubrimientos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y2Asd5_ito https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-companies-to-develop-commercial-destinations-in-space https://danielmarin.naukas.com/2021/12/11/las-estaciones-espaciales-comerciales-del-programa-cld-de-la-nasa/ https://www.ondacero.es/programas/la-rosa-de-los-vientos/audios-podcast/entrevistas/laura-parro-jorgepla-garcia-candidatos-astronautas-llevan-limite_20211122619b6e7e9e04bd00018a2aa0.html https://twitter.com/JaSantaolalla/status/1468371382895624196 PARSEC es un podcast semanal sobre exploración espacial presentado por Javier Atapuerca y Matías S. Zavia. Haznos llegar tus preguntas por Twitter: @parsecpodcast@JaviAtapu@matiass Puedes escucharnos en todas las plataformas a través de parsecpodcast.com.

NASA is investing in Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman as they develop competing designs for a next-generation space station.

NASA is investing in Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman as they develop competing designs for a next-generation space station.

In the second episode of season 5 of the Space Economy podcast my returning is Jeffrey Manber, President International and Space Stations at Voyager Space and Chairman of Nanoracks. It's been a year since Jeff was last on the show and what a year it's been for him and the company. Voyager Space, an up and coming player in the space industry, acquired a majority stake in XO Markets and its largest subsidiary Nanoracks earlier this year. And just last week a team lead by Nanoracks was selected in the first phase of NASA's Commercial Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Development program for commercial space station concepts. Two other proposals were selected including Northrop Grumman and the Orbital Reef team led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. They are joined by Axiom Space which received a grant earlier in 2020. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Marshall Smith, Senior Vice President of Space Systems of Nanoracks, joins me to talk about Starlab, their commercial space station which recently won a contract award from NASA as part of their Commercial LEO Destinations program.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 40 executive producers—Brandon, Simon, Lauren, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, David, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, The Astrogators at SEE, Chris, Aegis Trade Law, Fred, Hemant, Dawn Aerospace, and seven anonymous—and 706 other supporters.TopicsNanoracks - Your Portal to SpaceNanoracks Appoints Marshall Smith as Senior Vice President of Space SystemsStarlab - The first ever free-flying commercial space station - NanoracksNanoracks Space Outpost ProgramT+200: Orbital Reef, Starlab, and the ISS Conundrum - Main Engine Cut OffNanoracks and Lockheed Martin partner on commercial space station project - SpaceNewsNASA awards funding to three commercial space station concepts - SpaceNewsThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to anthony@mainenginecutoff.comFollow @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max JustusArtwork photo by NASA

The Biden administration is tightening travel rules to and within the U.S., requiring all in-bound international passengers to test for Covid within 24 hours of departure starting on Monday and extending its mask requirement on planes and public transportation through March 18. Spanish power company Iberdrola and Sweden's H2 Green Steel are to partner and develop a major facility that will produce green hydrogen, in yet another example of how companies are taking an interest in the much talked about sector. In an announcement on Thursday, the firms said the 2.3 billion euro ($2.6 billion) project would see them set up a green hydrogen facility with an electrolysis capacity of 1 gigawatt. Financing will come from a mixture of equity, green project financing and public funding. Chinese electric car start-up Hycan hasn't delivered many vehicles yet, but it claims it's on the verge of a large fundraise as investors pour more money into a hot sector. NASA awarded a trio of companies with contracts to develop private space stations, as the agency prepares for the retirement of the International Space Station. Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, and Nanoracks were awarded a combined $415.6 million under NASA's Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) project, the agency announced on Thursday. Nanoracks won the largest individual award with an $160 million, while Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman received $130 million and $125.6 million, respectively. Rocket Lab on Thursday revealed more about the larger, more powerful Neutron rocket it is developing. Neutron is designed to be 131 feet tall and 23 feet in diameter, and it's targeting a maximum payload capacity of 15,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. For reusable launches, Neutron will be able to carry up to 8,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. These are the first details given about the new rocket since the company announced it announced plans for it earlier in the year.

Commercial space station mania! Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire announced Orbital Reef, while Nanoracks and Lockheed Martin announced Starlab, all in the run up to the expected awards as part of NASA's Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Destinations program.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 40 executive producers—Brandon, Simon, Lauren, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, David, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, The Astrogators at SEE, Chris, Aegis Trade Law, Fred, Hemant, Dawn Aerospace, and seven anonymous—and 702 other supporters.TopicsNanoracks and Lockheed Martin partner on commercial space station project - SpaceNewsBlue Origin and Sierra Space announce plans for commercial space station - SpaceNewsOrbital ReefAnnouncing Orbital Reef - Your Address in Orbit - YouTubeBlue Origin and Sierra Space Leading Team to Build “Orbital Reef” Business Park in Space – SpacePolicyOnline.comT+195: Blue Origin's Project Jarvis, Suborbital Flights, and Nauka Fallout (with Eric Berger) - Main Engine Cut OffSenate Committee Told U.S. Space Leadership Requires Continued Presence in Low Earth Orbit – SpacePolicyOnline.comIndustry Input Sought on Commercial Destinations in LEO | NASAThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to anthony@mainenginecutoff.comFollow @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max JustusArtwork photo by SpaceX

Spaceflight news— Starliner investigation continuation continues (spacenews.com) (arstechnica.com)Short & Sweet— Lucy solar array issue (spacenews.com) (blogs.nasa.gov) (space.com)— Space Adventures ends plans for Crew Dragon tourist flight (spacenews.com)— Nanoracks announces plans for commercial space station (cnet.com) (nanoracks.com)— Rocket Lab prepares for first recovery involving a helicopter (businesswire.com)Questions, comments, corrections— Lucy launch vehicle changes (twitter.com/sawdey)Interview -- Will Henry (Writer/Producer) and Dylan Taylor (Executive Producer) of The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O'Neill— Space Studies Institute (ssi.org)— highfrontiermerch.com— thehighfrontiermovie.com— willhenryfilm.com— dylantaylor.orgThis week in SF history— First launch of the Saturn 1 (en.wikipedia.org) (youtube.com) (astronautix.com) (youtube.com) (youtube.com)— Next week (11/2-11/8) in 2011: Tune into the show for an audio clue

The era of private space stations is officially here as Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin announce plans to launch a commercial station in 2027, but it's just the next logical step for developing the new space economy, the companies say.

The era of private space stations is officially here as Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin announce plans to launch a commercial station in 2027, but it's just the next logical step for developing the new space economy, the companies say.

In Today's Episode: In-Space Missions Limited launch a game-changing ride-sharing option; Lockheed Martin and Nanoracks join Voyager Space in Joint Venture for seminal commercial space station; Satellite Vu close an Over-subscribed Series A Funding Round; and The Space Industry prepares to meet in Dubai at IAC2021. Today's JoboftheWeek comes from Surrey Satellite Technologies. Find us on Patreon.com/GiantLeap for unique membership perks such as access to our discord server and early roundup releases! If you'd like to feature your job as Job of the week, or you simply need to either visit our awesome space merch store; or find out more about other formats, head over to Giant-Leap.Space! #JoboftheWeek Link: https://sstlrecruitment.ciphr-irecruit.com/templates/CIPHR/jobdetail_2222.aspx

Brock Howe, the Program Manager for Nanoracks’ Bishop Airlock, joins me to talk about the final build out and launch of Bishop, its installation on ISS, some details of its operations, and its plans for the future on ISS and beyond.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 40 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, David, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, The Astrogators at SEE, Chris, Aegis Trade Law, and seven anonymous—and 592 other supporters.TopicsNanoracks - Your Portal to SpaceBishop Airlock - First Commercal Space Station AirlockNanoracks (@Nanoracks) / TwitterBrock Howe (@B_Rock_Howe) / TwitterBishop Airlock Takes Flight, Headed to ISS on SpaceX-21 LaunchNanoracks on Twitter: “#BishopAirlock: Now mated to @Space_Station”The ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to anthony@mainenginecutoff.comFollow @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max JustusArtwork photo by NASA

Please participate in our listener survey to help us focus the direction of the show:  https://airtable.com/shrCB33GWIUCIxVRU  While we here in the U.S. have an agricultural system built upon exports, while our guest today lives in Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates which currently imports 80% of their food. What we view here as needed viable technology to create a more sustainable agriculture is likely to be different there.  We have on the show His Excellency Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi. Dr. Tariq is the Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO). He leads the organisation’s efforts to grow and diversify Abu Dhabi’s economy through private sector investment. He also oversees strategic initiatives that support the emirate’s economic growth and reputation on the world stage. One of those initiatives was to entice leading agtech companies from around the world to establish new R&D and production facilities in the emirate. In 2020, ADIO announced partnerships with AeroFarms, Madar Farms, RNZ and Responsive Drip Irrigation to bring innovation to the area to turn sand into farmland, solve complex global agriculture challenges and expand the profile of local food producers. ADIO is investing $100 million in those four companies to build facilities in Abu Dhabi, each tasked with solving regional and global challenges. They are also partnering with three AgTech companies, US-based Nanoracks, India’s FreshToHome and Pure Harvest to develop ‘land, sea & space’ AgTech projects in Abu Dhabi, offering $41.3m in incentives to the innovative companies to develop next generation agriculture solutions to support food production in arid and desert climates. In this episode, we talk about these initiatives from a high level, and how Dr. Tariq is looking at bringing ag innovation into the region to create a more food secure environment. His Excellency holds a PhD in Economics from the Imperial College London, and graduate degrees from Columbia University and London Business School.   Join the FOA Community! Be sure to join the new Future of Agriculture Membership for even more valuable information on the future of the ag industry. I’m sending out my email newsletter on a more regular basis, focusing on what I call the front lines of agtech: where product meets producer. You can sign up for that at www.FutureOfAg.com. There’s an email icon in the center of the page, just click on that and it will take you to a signup form. Do you have suggestions for topics to be explored? Tweet them to me @timhammerich or email them to tim@aggrad.com.  Find us online! Future of Agriculture Website AgGrad Website

Nanoracks CEO Jeff Manber predicts that by the end of the year, private space companies will have more discretionary money to spend than the U.S. federal government. Listen in as he provides an update on his company’s acquisition by Voyager space and more.

Da grande voglio fare l'astronauta! Questo è forse uno dei lavori più ambiti dei bambini della mia generazione e forse anche della tua! Veronica La Regina, Director in NanoRacks, ci racconta le sue esperienze in Giappone e in giro per il mondo, le differenze culturali tra i vari popoli e soprattutto l'importanza di lavorare in team. Persone come Bezos, Musk, utilizzano lo spazio come una vetrina per il futuro. Bisogna seguire le proprie idee "tanto fuori dal nostro mondo c'è spazio per tutti". Segui Dilettanti Digitali per scoprire i prossimi ospiti Telegram: https://bit.ly/2WmD1TF Newsletter: https://bit.ly/330v4ro Podcast: http://dilettantidigitali.it IG: http://instagram.com/nonsapreiproprio Dilettanti Digitali edizione "Rosa Digitale" Ogni settimana avremo come ospite di Andrea Cesaro e Angela Peduto, un'imprenditrice, una scienziata, una donna per raccontarci del suo lavoro, di una sua passione o di un suo progetto nel campo della tecnologia e dell'informatica. L'obiettivo del podcast è quello di incuriosire le ascoltatrici e gli ascoltatori con esperienze e aneddoti riguardo allo studio ed al lavoro in settori che, ancora troppo spesso, vengono considerati maschili e promuovere nuove tecnologie. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andreacesaro/message

This versatile new airlock supports multiple experiments or deploying satellites simultaneously, making space for a lot more station science.

Brock Howe, Bishop Airlock program manager at Nanoracks, details the history, design, and capabilities of the permanent commercial module that is now attached to the International Space Station. HWHAP Episode 179.

Brock Howe, Bishop Airlock program manager at Nanoracks, details the history, design, and capabilities of the permanent commercial module that is now attached to the International Space Station. HWHAP Episode 179.

Brock Howe, Bishop Airlock program manager at Nanoracks, details the history, design, and capabilities of the permanent commercial module that is now attached to the International Space Station. HWHAP Episode 179.

Brock Howe, Bishop Airlock program manager at Nanoracks, details the history, design, and capabilities of the permanent commercial module that is now attached to the International Space Station. HWHAP Episode 179.

Meagan Crawford, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SpaceFund and host of the Mission Eve podcast, joins the show to talk about the financing side of space. We talk about recent rounds of fundraising, acquisitions, holding companies, and she helps me sort through my thoughts on the whole Special Purpose Acquisition Company trend.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 36 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, David, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, and seven anonymous—and 466 other supporters.TopicsMeagan Crawford (@MeaganMCrawford) / TwitterSpaceFund Venture Capital - Funding the Future | SpaceFund‎Mission Eve on Apple PodcastsMission Eve | Podcast on SpotifySpaceX raises $1.9 billion in equity - SpaceNewsRelativity Space raises $500 million - SpaceNewsOneWeb raises $400 million - SpaceNewsRemote sensing satellite firm completes huge funding round as Chinese space sector activity accelerates - SpaceNewsChina’s Landspace raises $175 million for Zhuque-2 launch vehicles - SpaceNewsChina's First Commercial Rocket Company Raises USD181 Mln to Develop Kuaizhou Series of Carrier RocketsLockheed Martin to Acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne, Strengthening Position as Leading Provider of Technologies to Deter Threats and Help Secure the United States and its Allies - Dec 20, 2020Space holding company Voyager to acquire Nanoracks, which added an airlock to the space station | Voyager Space HoldingsRedwire acquires Made In Space - SpaceNewsRichard Branson’s Virgin Turns to SPAC to Raise Cash - WSJMomentus to go public with Stable Road Acquisition Corp. - SpaceNewsThe ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to anthony@mainenginecutoff.comFollow @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max Justus

The doorways on the International Space Station have worked just fine for the past 20 years. But as more researchers expand the scope and size of their projects, a larger doorway could open up space.

On this weeks episode of the Space Economy podcast my guest is Jeffrey Manber, co-founder and CEO of Nanoracks, a leading supplier of commercial space services. In this podcast Jeffrey and I will discuss the company's latest initiative, the StarLab Space Farming Center, why Jeffrey thinks it's important for food security, and the implications to the agricultural sector.

In our November Episode of the NewSpaceVision Podcast we invite Jeffrey Manber, CEO of Nanoracks, to talk about his role in the commercialization of Mir Station and his fascinating time of working with the Russians in the 90s for Energia and later for MirCorp. Nanoracks was founded 2009 and is headquartered in Houston, TX. In its efforts to democratize space access, Nanoracks is the first New Space company to market and own in-space hardware on the ISS for satellite deployment. We talk about Nanoracks unique business model, Jeff's near-term in-space-manufacturing ideas and the next commercial cash cow in space. We will also hear about Nanoracks first upcoming demonstration mission in 2021 and valuable advice for New Space entrepreneurs. The decade of in-space infrastructure has arrived! S h o w N o t e s Guest: Jeffrey Manber Hosts: Daniel Seidel, Sven Przywarra Speaker Intro/Outro: Karoline Stegemann Production: Nina Stary Organization: Nina Stary Subscribe to the NewSpaceVision Newsletter: https://newspacevision.com/#about Email your thoughts, comments and questions to nina@newspace.vision. Follow Nanoracks: Website (www.nanoracks.com) Linkedin Nanoracks(www.linkedin.com/company/nanoracks-llc) Twitter Nanoracks(@Nanoracks) Twitter Jeffrey Manber (@jeffmanber) Read about Nanoracks Outpost Program (www.nanoracks.com/outpost) Follow NewSpaceVision: Website (www.newspacevision.com) Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/company/newspacevision) Twitter (@NewSpaceVision) Instagram (@NewSpaceVision)

Jeff Manber is the Chief Executive Officer of NanoRacks. NanoRacks was the first company to develop and operate commercial space in the US National Lab aboard the ISS. They have assisted with the transport and deployment of over 1,000 space payloads to date, and their new Bishop Airlock is scheduled to launch to the ISS in December 2020. Prior to NanoRacks, Jeff contributed to a variety of space firsts such as leading MirCorp when they sent the first human to space without government funding. Timestamps: MirCorp: 5:30 NanoRacks: 17:30 Student Advice: 42:00

I denne episode af Rumsnak skal vi se nærmere på røntgenstråling og ikke mindst hvordan man opfanger den. Vi tager på besøg på DTU Space, hvor vi skal tale med seniorforsker Desiree Della Monica Ferreira, der præcis arbejder med røntgenstråling og de spejle, som skal bruges til at opfange og analysere strålingen fra universet. Kigger vi på universet, så kommer der lys i alle bølgelængder derude fra, og forskellige bølgelængder af lys kan fortælle os helt unikke ting om de objekter som lyset er udsendt fra! I 1962 opsendte man fra amerikansk side en røngtendetektor, og opdagede en meget stærk røntgenkilde, som fik navnet Scorpius X-1 fordi kilden lå i stjernebilledet Skorpionen. Siden da har man opdaget mange flere røntgenkilder, og dem har man undersøgt nærmere og fundet helt nye typer af objekter i universet, som vi ikke ville have opdaget, hvis vi ikke kunne se på universet i røntgenstråling. Men røntgenteleskoper er svære at konstruere, og kræver blandt andet nogle helt særlige spejle og detektorer. Dem er man eksperter i at udvikle og bygge på DTU Space, og derfor er RumSnak altså taget på besøg i bygning 328 - og skal også se lidt nærmere på to af de laboratorier, der bliver brugt til arbejdet. I de korte rumnyheder skal vi tale om SpaceX-missioner og omstrejfende planeter. God tur! LINKS NYHEDER SpaceX Crew1-missionen (https://www.spacex.com/launches/) Omstrejfende planeter i Mælkevejen (https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Mars-sized_rogue_planet_found_drifting_through_the_Milky_Way_999.html) BONUS Fireball-dokumentar om meteoritter (https://www.wired.com/story/fireball-herzog-meteorite-documentary/) Wired-artikel om Nanoracks, der vil genbruge gamle raketter i rummet (https://www.wired.com/story/the-plan-to-turn-scrapped-rockets-into-space-stations/) Rumarkitekterne som er på mission i et Månehabitat i Grønland skriver om deres oplevelser (https://lunark.space/messages/) RØNTGENSPEJLE PÅ DTU Desiree Della Monica Ferreira på DTU Space (https://www.dtu.dk/service/telefonbog/person?id=66820&tab=2&qt=dtupublicationquery) Om DTU Space-forskningen i røntgen-detektorer og -spejle (https://www.space.dtu.dk/Forskning/Teknologi/Roentgendetektorer) Postdoc Sonny Massahi er med til at udvikle de nye røntgen-spejle (https://www.dtu.dk/Service/Telefonbog/Person?id=76609&cpid=190669&tab=2)

In this week’s episode Stuart Martin, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, Satellite Applications Catapult; David Hansell, Global Aviation Policy Lead, Facebook; Maher Ezzeddine, Chief Executive Officer of Ideanco and Chairman, Harvard Business School of Aerospace Alumni Association; Dr. Tod A. Laursen, President at Khalifa University of Science and Technology; Sanjeev Ghadia, Chief Executive Officer, Astral Aviation and Richard Pournelle, Senior Vice President of Business Development, NanoRacks discuss how an innovation culture can be created and nurtured. Join the conversation when the Global Aerospace Summit, hosted by the Mubadala Investment Company and EDGE, returns to Abu Dhabi on 17 – 19 March 2020. For more information, please visit www.aerospacesummit.com#AerospaceSummit2020 #Aerospace #Defence #Defense #Aviation #Space

Jeffrey discusses with Beth: How Jeffrey became a entrepreneurial pioneer, becoming one of the first (commercial) space contractors (working on the Russian space program on MIR and Soyuz, and later with the international Space Station). About starting the first commercial space company, NanoRacks and what’s on the horizon for the company’s (international) future… About bringing whiskey to space! And so much more, including Jeffrey’s perspective on: About space exploration’s public and private partnership About loving space exploration at a young age and why space is alive now more than ever! How space is not the first or final frontier About Jeffrey Manber: Jeffrey has served as the CEO of NanoRacks since 2009, growing the company into the first commercial space station company with customers. Before NanoRacks, Jeffrey was the only American to officially work for the Russian space program, he served as Managing Director of Energia USA, carried over the first commercial contract between NASA and the Soviet Union, and served as CEO of MirCorp, which leased the Russian space station. While at MirCorp, he oversaw the first ever, and still only, commercially funded manned mission, of over 70 days, to the Mir space station. Jeffrey later represented Russian space organizations when the initial International Space Station contracts were negotiated. He also co-developed the first fund dedicated to commercial space on Wall Street (Shearson Lehman) and has served as an adviser to numerous companies and governments. The author of three books, his second (Selling Peace) chronicles his time working with the Russian space program. In 2012, Jeffrey was awarded the NASA Exceptional Public Achievement Medal, and in 2017, Space Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer of New Space Award. In 2018, Jeffrey spoke before the National Space Council and Vice President Mike Pence on commercial trade with China on space services.   Read and learn more about Jeffrey’s work at: http://jeffreymanber.com/ Watch numerous media clips about Jeffrey and his perspectives at: http://jeffreymanber.com/media/ Read about NanoRacks here: http://nanoracks.com/ From Wikiwand.com: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Jeffrey_Manber   Jeffrey Manber is regarded as one of the pioneering commercial space entrepreneurs.[1] As CEO of NanoRacks, from 2009, Manber has steered the growth of the first company to own and market its own hardware and services on board the International Space Station.[2] Manber has been involved in several of the key breakthrough commercial space projects, principally those revolving around the commercialization of space assets as well as the integration of the Russian space industry into major space programs, including that of the International Space Station. Manber is believed to be the only American to be an official part of the Russian space corporation, RSC Energia, during their privatization period of the 1990s.[3]

Hi, I’m Marc Boucher and this is the SpaceQ podcast. Today is the second part of our two part series focusing on the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit with a focus on the International Space Station and other potential commercial habitats. My guest as in the first episode last week is Adrian Mangiuca, the Commerce Director at NanoRacks. NanoRacks describes themselves as both the largest commercial user and private investor on the International Space Station with customers from over 30 nations. Recently NanoRacks released a NASA commissioned study titled An In-Orbit Commercial Space Station Habitat Development Enabling Cost-Effective and Sustainable U.S. Presence in Low-Earth Orbit. NanoRacks partnered with 14 other organizations to create the 170 page report. In my conversation with Adrian we go over some of the key findings of the report and delve into what the real world LEO space station habitat marketplace is. As we start the second episode Adrian just answered the question of how the marketplace will react to other foreign entities, be it commercial or state, enter the LEO marketplace. Now he answer the question of why the ISS should be the “final government owned and operated space station in Low Earth Orbit” as stated in the report. Listen in.

Hi, I’m Marc Boucher and this is the first episode of season 3 of the SpaceQ podcast. We’ve got an exciting season planned where we’ll interview the people pushing the boundaries of the space economy, making discoveries in space science, observing the Earth to better understanding our planet and manage our resources, and so much more. Later this month we’re also be launching our new pop-up podcast Terranauts hosted by Iain Christie. Iain’s first interview will be with Stephane Germain, the CEO of GHGSat. If you haven’t listened to my interview with Iain about Terranauts it’s available in our feed. The SpaceQ and Terranauts podcasts are partially advertiser supported but that revenue isn’t enough for a viable business. That’s why it’s really important to us that you support us through Patreon. And starting this fall we’re going to provide subscriber only content available to our patrons on Patreon. To support SpaceQ please make your monthly pledge at https://patreon.com/spaceq. Ok, now on to today’s podcast. Today we’re focusing on the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit with a focus on the International Space Station and other potential commercial habitats. This is the first part of a two part series and my guest is Adrian Mangiuca, the Commerce Director at NanoRacks. NanoRacks describes themselves as both the largest commercial user and private investor on the International Space Station with customers from over 30 nations. Recently NanoRacks released a NASA commissioned study titled An In-Orbit Commercial Space Station Habitat Development Enabling Cost-Effective and Sustainable U.S. Presence in Low-Earth Orbit. NanoRacks partnered with 14 other organizations to create the 170 page report. In my conversation with Adrian we go over some of the key findings of the report and delve into what the real world LEO space station habitat marketplace is. Listen in.

In a conversation with SSPI’s Robert Bell, we hear from Manwei Chan, Project Manager and team leader for the MIT team in the 2018 SSPI-SEDS Competition: Designing the Robotic Space Tug. Manwei’s team took second place in the competition with their design of a pair of Full Service SpaceTugs with highly capable robotic arms, enabling them to dock with a wide variety of LEO satellites and service even satellites with no service-enabling features or technology on board. The SpaceTugs would be capable of refueling hydrazine, moving/removing, surveying, and limited repair. Each SpaceTug would have a different specialty based on its secondary propulsion system, with one SpaceTug servicing sun-synchronous orbits with its large hydrazine tank, while the second SpaceTug would be capable of performing higher delta-V maneuvers at a slower pace with its electric propulsion system. Manwei is a Matthew Isakowitz Fellow, Draper Fellow, NSF Fellow and PhD candidate at MIT, where he has worked on numerous aerospace projects. He developed a guidance algorithm allowing satellite servicers to approach and match angular rates with an uncontrolled tumbling client and advanced development programs and business development for NanoRacks with a focus on commercializing assets in LEO. Manwei is the President of MIT SEDS, a chapter that he rebooted. He also runs the MIT Space Seminar.

(repeat) "The moon or bust” is now officially bust. No private company was able to meet the Lunar X Prize challenge, and arrange for a launch by the 2018 deadline. The $30 million award goes unclaimed, but the race to the moon is still on. Find out who wants to go and why this is not your parents' – or grandparents' – space race. With or without a cash incentive, private companies are still eyeing our cratered companion, hoping to set hardware down on its dusty surface. Meanwhile, while the U.S. waffles about a return to the moon, India and China are sending a second round of robots skyward. And a proposed orbiting laboratory – the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway – may literally put scientists over, and around, the moon. The moon continues to entice sci-fi writers, and Andy Weir's new novel describes a vibrant lunar colony. Its premise of colonists launched from Kenya is not entirely fiction: the nation is one of many in Africa with space programs. Guests: Andy Weir – Author of “The Martian” and, most recently, “Artemis” Allen Herbert – Vice President of Business Development and Strategy for NanoRacks, LLC and author of an article about emerging space programs in Africa Greg Schmidt – Deputy director of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute at NASA Ames Research Center Jason Crusan – NASA Director of Advanced Exploration Systems for Human Space Flight Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(repeat) "The moon or bust” is now officially bust.  No private company was able to meet the Lunar X Prize challenge, and arrange for a launch by the 2018 deadline.  The $30 million award goes unclaimed, but the race to the moon is still on. Find out who wants to go and why this is not your parents’ – or grandparents’ – space race. With or without a cash incentive, private companies are still eyeing our cratered companion, hoping to set hardware down on its dusty surface.  Meanwhile, while the U.S. waffles about a return to the moon, India and China are sending a second round of robots skyward.  And a proposed orbiting laboratory – the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway – may literally put scientists over, and around, the moon. The moon continues to entice sci-fi writers, and Andy Weir’s new novel describes a vibrant lunar colony. Its premise of colonists launched from Kenya is not entirely fiction: the nation is one of many in Africa with space programs. Guests: Andy Weir – Author of “The Martian” and, most recently, “Artemis” Allen Herbert – Vice President of Business Development and Strategy for NanoRacks, LLC and author of an article about emerging space programs in Africa Greg Schmidt – Deputy director of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute at NASA Ames Research Center Jason Crusan – NASA Director of Advanced Exploration Systems for Human Space Flight

NanoRacks CTO Mike Lewis joins us to talk about all of the different things they are working on, including how they launch stuff from the International Space Station, they are building a docking collar and Lunar Gateway plans! Launch Minute: Long March 2C | Haiyang-1C Space News: USGS Gets Serious about Space Mining Chinese Launch Startups are growing fast Lunar Swirls Point to the Moon's Moody Past

NanoRacks CTO Mike Lewis joins us to talk about all of the different things they are working on, including how they launch stuff from the International Space Station, they are building a docking collar and Lunar Gateway plans! Launch Minute: Long March 2C | Haiyang-1C Space News: USGS Gets Serious about Space Mining Chinese Launch Startups are growing fast Lunar Swirls Point to the Moon's Moody Past

Mike Lewis, CTO of NanoRacks joins me to talk about what they’re working on today, as well as their big plans for the future, including their upcoming airlock and the Ixion project—their ongoing work to turn spent upper stages into useful spacecraft. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 23 executive producers—Kris, Mike, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, and five anonymous—and 108 other supporters on Patreon. NanoRacks | The Operating System of Space NanoRacks (@NanoRacks) | Twitter Mike Lewis | NanoRacks' Chief Technology Officer NanoRacks’ 4th External Cargo Ship Satellite Deployment Mission NanoRacks Successfully Deploys First Customer Microsatellite from ISS NanoRacks Airlock Passes Johnson Astronaut Training Exercise Contract for Commercial Habitat Concept Study Signed NanoRacks on Twitter: “We see the future commercialization of #LEO in re-using and re-purposing spent upper stages of launch vehicles. Here's a new look at #Ixion.” Email your thoughts and comments to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

I was in Houston last week and I visited NanoRacks for a bit. And Virgin Orbit piqued the interest of the Department of Defense, which has some interesting implications. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 22 executive producers—Kris, Mike, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Robert, Brian, and five anonymous—and 104 other supporters on Patreon. Virgin Orbit wins first Defense Department launch contract - SpaceNews.com STRATCOM chief Hyten: ‘I will not support buying big satellites that make juicy targets’ - SpaceNews.com Revival of Cape Canaveral’s LC-46 begins with Minotaur Pathfinder Assembly - Spaceflight101 Orbital ATK’s Next-Generation Composite Case Passes Structural Acceptance Test - Main Engine Cut Off Orbital ATK Successfully Tests First Motor Case for Next Generation Launch Vehicle | Orbital ATK News Room Orbital ATK on Twitter: “Our Next Generation Launch Vehicle achieves critical milestone with completion of structural acceptance test” Email your thoughts and comments to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the MECO Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

Today on SpaceQ my guest is Jeff Manber, CEO of NanoRacks. Jeff has a degree in neuroscience and started his career in media, so how did he become the successful space entrepreneur that he is today? That story and others are part of this candid interview. Some of the topics we discuss: - Jeff's background and ability to work internationally where others have problems - Russia's commercial space program in the 90's and today - Making the Mir Space Station commercial - Tourists in space, Lance Bass and Astro Mom - How they manage to take 580 payloads to the International Space Station and launch nearly 200 satellites - How the company was funded, future funding and advice for entrepreneurs - A future NanoRacks space station? - Working in Canada

By the 2020's, near the planned end of the life of the International Space Station, NASA's intention is to transition Low Earth Orbit from a domain that is primarily government-led to one that is primarily led by the private sector. The future is commercial and in this episode we welcome Jeff Manber to the show, who is CEO of NanoRacks, the world's leading supplier of commercial space station services. We'll be discussing commercial space stations and how they'll help actualize a future where millions of people live and work in space. 

I spend some time thinking through what the future of the ISS holds, and what may come after it. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 17 executive producers—Kris, Mike, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Guinevere, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, and four anonymous—and 65 other supporters on Patreon. The Space Review: Pondering the future of the International Space Station T+20: Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks on NanoRacks’ History, NextSTEP, and Wet Workshops - Main Engine Cut Off NanoRacks | The Operating System of Space NanoRacks To Catalyze Concepts for Deep Space Habitats Bigelow Aerospace Axiom Space The Space Show, 01/06/2017, Michael Suffredini, Amir Blachman, Axiom Space Email your thoughts and comments to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Play, Stitcher, or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

2017-06-19 Special EnglishThis is Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.President Xi Jinping says expanded economic cooperation among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will benefit the region. Speaking at the annual summit of the organization in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for deepening practical cooperation, as regional integration and economic globalization are the trends of the time, and it is important for them to bring benefits to all countries and peoples.To mobilize more resources and the driving force for practical cooperation under the organization framework, China supports the establishment of a mechanism for sub-national cooperation and has vigorously promoted small and medium-sized enterprises cooperation by its initiatives of economic think-tanks alliance and e-commerce alliance of the organization.Bilateral trade relations have grown closer between China and other member countries, as trade facilitation has improved, with China becoming the largest trading partner of Russia and Kyrgyzstan.Meanwhile, mutual investment has grown steadily, with China's non-financial direct investment in other members as of April 2017 amounting to 74 billion U.S. dollars and investment in the opposite direction totaling 1 billion U.S. dollars.Senior Chinese officials highlighted achievements in establishing economic and trade cooperation zones, noting that China has built a total of 21 such cooperation zones within other countries, helping to expand local employment and increase tax revenue.This is Special English.Europe has found itself at the frontline in the fight against terrorism. The sight of armed soldiers on the streets of European cities has become all too familiar.The spotlight has swung to Britain this time, but no-one in France, a country that has experienced several attacks in the past few years, is under the illusion that their country is completely safe.Squads of soldiers with automatic weapons at the ready are a regular sight on the streets of Paris. Despite their presence, the French were reminded of the threat when police shot a man outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris earlier this month.The suspect, a 40-year-old Algerian doctoral student, attacked an officer with a hammer while shouting "This is for Syria."One worrying trend to emerge from the British attacks is that in all three attacks, at least one of the perpetrators was known to the authorities. The three attacks included the Westminster Bridge and London Bridge killings in London and the attack in Manchester which also targeted children.As radicalization become ever more complex and multifaceted, many now agree that it is necessary to move beyond a mere cause-effect analysis and look at the problem from different angles. You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.China is making preliminary preparations for a manned lunar landing mission. That's according to Yang Liwei, deputy director general of the China Manned Space Agency.Yang said it will not take long for the project to get official approval and funding. He made the remarks during a group conference at the Global Space Exploration Conference.Yang is China's first astronaut. When asked whether he has any plan to step onto the Moon, he showed great excitement, saying that if he is given the opportunity, there is no problem!A senior official from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation also said China is working on a manned lunar landing plan.The mission will consist of a manned spaceship, a propulsion vehicle and a lunar lander. The manned spaceship and the lunar lander will be sent into circumlunar orbit separately.This is Special English.SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon cargo ship has arrived at the International Space Station, carrying for the first time an experiment independently designed by China and also supplies for the astronauts living in the orbiting laboratory.NASA astronauts Jack Fischer reached out with the space station's robotic arm and grappled the spacecraft, as the space station was flying over the South Atlantic Ocean, just east off the coast of Argentina.Dragon carried almost 6,000 pounds, roughly 2,700 kilograms of cargo for its 11th commercial resupply mission for NASA, including solar panels, tools for Earth-observation and equipment to study neutron stars.Among the cargo is a 3.5-kilogram device from the Beijing Institute of Technology that aims to investigate how the space radiation and microgravity environment affect DNA.The deal for the delivery was reached in 2015 with NanoRacks, a Houston-based company that offers services for the commercial utilization of the space station.U.S. legislation known as the Wolf amendment bans cooperation between NASA and Chinese government entities, but the deal is purely commercial and therefore considered legal.Dragon, launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on 4th of June, was expected to remain docked with the space station until early July.You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.A new undersea telecommunications cable known as MAREA that aims to improve connections between Europe and the United States is scheduled to reach the Spanish coast on July 12.Deployment of the cable, which is being jointly laid by Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica, along with Microsoft and Facebook, began from the east coast of the United States on May 24. It reached the French city of Calais on June 9, before continuing to a town in northern Spain.Microsoft described MAREA as the highest-capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic. It features eight fiber pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160 TeraBits per Second. That rate is 16 million times faster than a standard home internet connection. Scientists say it's routing south of other trans-Atlantic cables means it will become "the first to connect the United States to southern Europe: from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao in Spain and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.This is Special English.Eight computer science professors at Oregon State University have been tasked to make systems based on artificial intelligence, including autonomous vehicles and robots, more trustworthy.Recent advances in autonomous systems that can perceive, learn, decide and act on their own stem from success of the deep neural networks branch of artificial intelligence, with deep-learning software mimicking the activity in layers of neurons in the neocortex, the part of the brain where thinking occurs.The problem, however, is that the neural networks function as a black box. Instead of humans explicitly coding system behavior using traditional programming, in deep learning the computer program learns on its own from many examples.Potential dangers arise from depending on a system that not even the system developers fully understand.With a 6.5 million U.S. dollars grant over the next four years from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, under its Explainable Artificial Intelligence program, a news release from Oregon State University said its researchers will develop a paradigm to look inside that black box, by getting the program to explain to humans how decisions were reached.You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. You can access the program by logging on to crienglish.com. You can also find us on our Apple Podcast. Now the news continues.Experts predict that the United States, China and India are considered to be the most prospective destinations for foreign direct investment. The statement was made by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in its annual report on investment.According to the World Investment Report 2017: Investment and the Digital Economy, global foreign direct investment flows retreated marginally in 2016 by 2 percent to 1.75 trillion U.S. dollars, amid weak economic growth and significant policy risks perceived by multinational enterprises.Flows to developing countries were especially hard hit, with a decline of 14 percent, while foreign direct investment outflows from developed countries decreased by 11 percent, mainly owing to a slump in investments from European multinational enterprises.The United States remained the largest recipient of foreign direct investment, attracting 391 billion U.S. dollars in inflows, followed by Britain with 254 billion dollars, and China with inflows of 134 billion dollars.According to the report, with a surge of outflows, China also became last year the second largest investing country. In 2017, global foreign direct investment is expected to rise by 5 percent, to almost 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars.This is Special English.An international research team has evaluated 145 peer-reviewed studies and concluded that "highly protected" marine reserves can help mitigate the effects of climate change.Jane Lubchenco is a professor in the College of Science at Oregon State University and co-author on a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She said marine reserves cannot halt or completely offset the growing impacts of climate change. But they can make marine ecosystems more resilient to changes and, in some cases, help slow down the rate of climate change.Around the world, coastal nations have committed to protecting 10 percent of their waters by 2020, but thus far only 3.5 percent of the ocean has been set aside for protection, and 1.6 percent, or less than half of that, is strongly protected from exploitation. Some researchers have argued that as much as 30 percent of the ocean should be set aside as reserves to safeguard marine ecosystems in the long-term.The professor says protecting a portion of our oceans and coastal wetlands will help sequester carbon, limit the consequences of poor management, protect habitats and biodiversity that are key to healthy oceans of the future, and buffer coastal populations from extreme events. She says marine reserves are climate reserves.You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.Plant embryos have cells that function as a brain. That's according a study published recently by scientists at the University of Birmingham. The study has revealed that the group of brain cells can assess environmental conditions and dictate when seeds will germinate.The researchers say that a plant's decision about when to germinate is one of the most important it will make during its life. Too soon, and the plant may be damaged by harsh winter conditions; too late, and it may be outcompeted by other more precocious plants.The Birmingham scientists have shown that this trade-off between speed and accuracy is controlled by a small group of cells within the plant embryo that operate in similar way to the human brain.The "decision-making center" in a plant contains two types of cell, one that promotes seed dormancy, and one that promotes germination. The two groups of cells communicate with each other by moving hormones, an analogous mechanism to that employed by our own brains when we decide whether or not to move.The scientists used mathematical modelling to show that communication between the separated elements controls the plant's sensitivity to its environment.This is Special English.Fossils of a complete crocodile and bones belonging to at least six different dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Period, 145 to 66 million years ago, have been excavated in northeast China's Jilin Province.After a year of preparation, paleontologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a local fossil center began the excavation in late May, following the discovery of dinosaur fossils in a nearby city in May 2016.（全文见周六微信。）

This week, NASA officially announced that NanoRacks will be adding an airlock onto the International Space Station to add capabilities and capacity to their already-up-and-running business. That announcement, along with some early insight into NASA policy in 2017, got me thinking about commercial opportunities within government programs, beyond Commercial Cargo and Crew. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 4 executive producers—Pat O, Matt Giraitis, Jorge Perez, and one anonymous—and 28 other supporters on Patreon. NASA Announces Acceptance of NanoRacks Airlock Proposal - Main Engine Cut Off T+20: Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks on NanoRacks’ History, NextSTEP, and Wet Workshops - Main Engine Cut Off Issue #13 - Main Engine Cut Off NextSTEP Pushes Forward to Ground Prototypes - Main Engine Cut Off NASA Releases RFI for EM-2 Payload - Main Engine Cut Off Video from Orbital ATK Featuring Cygnus-Derived Habitats - Main Engine Cut Off Email your thoughts and comments to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Subscribe on iTunes, Overcast, or elsewhere Subcribe to Main Engine Cut Off Weekly Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

NASA released an RFI for small scientific payloads bound for the lunar surface, meant to “address strategic knowledge gaps” associated with human missions to the Moon. I talk about how this could indicate a shift of the SLS/Orion roadmap, and how NASA may be focusing on lunar surface missions in order to build more political capital for the program of record. Lunar Commercial Cargo Lite - Main Engine Cut Off NASA signals interest in extending commercial spaceflight to the Moon | Ars Technica Lunar CATALYST | NASA Eric Berger on Twitter T+27: Financial vs. Political Capital and Mission Sustainability - Main Engine Cut Off Moon Village: humans and robots together on the Moon / DG's news and views / About Us / ESA T+20: Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks on NanoRacks’ History, NextSTEP, and Wet Workshops - Main Engine Cut Off Email feedback to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Subscribe on iTunes, Overcast, or elsewhere Subcribe to Main Engine Cut Off Weekly Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks, joined me this week to talk about his incredibly interesting career in spaceflight, the past and future of NanoRacks, their NextSTEP proposal, and a handful of other topics. Mike Johnson | NanoRacks' Chief Technology Officer To boost commercial activity, NASA may add private airlock to ISS | Ars Technica NanoRacks To Catalyze Concepts for Deep Space Habitats NextSTEP Partners Develop Ground Prototypes to Expand our Knowledge of Deep Space Habitats T+17: NextSTEP Habitat Prototypes, and the Zombie Centaur - Main Engine Cut Off NextSTEP Pushes Forward to Ground Prototypes - Main Engine Cut Off Some More Details on NanoRacks’ Centaur Wet Workshop Concept - Main Engine Cut Off NASA Funds Plan to Turn Used Rocket Fuel Tanks Into Space Habitats - IEEE Spectrum Email feedback to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

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