TYB
https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Salvatore+Cezar+Pais
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 26, 2023
IC 4628: The Prawn Nebula
South of Antares, in the tail of the nebula-rich constellation Scorpius, lies emission nebula IC 4628. Nearby hot, massive stars, millions of years young, irradiate the nebula with invisible ultraviolet light, stripping electrons from atoms. The electrons eventually recombine with the atoms to produce the visible nebular glow, dominated by the red emission of hydrogen. At an estimated distance of 6,000 light-years, the region shown is about 250 light-years across, spanning over three full moons on the sky. The nebula is also cataloged as Gum 56 for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum, but seafood-loving deep sky-enthusiasts might know this cosmic cloud as the Prawn Nebula. The graceful color image is a new astronomical composition taken over several nights in April from Rio Hurtado, Chile.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Nasa briefly loses contact with ISS after power outage and relies on backup systems for first time
Tue 25 Jul 2023 20.34 EDT
A power outage at Nasa’s building in Houston disrupted communication between mission control and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, forcing the space agency to rely on backup control systems for the first time.
The outage meant mission control lost command, telemetry and voice communications with the station in orbit. The power outage hit as upgrade work was under way in the building at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
The crew was notified of the problem through Russian communication systems, within 20 minutes of the outage.
Space station program manager Joel Montalbano said neither the astronauts nor station were ever in any danger and that backup control systems took over to restore normal communications within 90 minutes. “It wasn’t an issue on board. That was purely a ground problem,” he said. “At no time was the crew or the vehicle in any danger.”
Nasa briefly loses contact with ISS after power outage and relies on backup systems for first time
Loss of communications with International Space Station forced Nasa to rely on Russian systems instead
Staff and agencies
Tue 25 Jul 2023 20.34 EDT
A power outage at Nasa’s building in Houston disrupted communication between mission control and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, forcing the space agency to rely on backup control systems for the first time.
The outage meant mission control lost command, telemetry and voice communications with the station in orbit. The power outage hit as upgrade work was under way in the building at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
The crew was notified of the problem through Russian communication systems, within 20 minutes of the outage.
Space station program manager Joel Montalbano said neither the astronauts nor station were ever in any danger and that backup control systems took over to restore normal communications within 90 minutes. “It wasn’t an issue on board. That was purely a ground problem,” he said. “At no time was the crew or the vehicle in any danger.”
“We knew this work was going on, and in preparation for that we have the backup command and control system that we would use if we have to close the centre for weather emergency, especially important during the hurricane season,” he said.
It is the first time Nasa has had to fire up these backup systems to take control, according to Montalbano. He said Nasa hoped to resolve the issue and be back to normal operations by the end of the day.
Nasa maintains a backup control centre miles from Houston in the event of a disaster requiring evacuations. But in Tuesday’s case, the flight controllers stayed at mission control since the lights and air-conditioning still worked.
“We’ll better understand what happened and then take lessons learned and move forward,” Montalbano said.
The tensions between the US and Russia on Earth do not prevent their respective space agencies from working together, although Moscow has said it will withdraw from the ISS after 2024 and build its own station instead. In February, Moscow launched a rescue vessel to the ISS to bring home three crew stranded after their original capsule was hit by a meteoroid.
Last year, cosmonauts arrived at the ISS wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, colours that match the Ukrainian flag, shortly after Russia’s invasion began. The message, if any was intended, was unclear. Months later, Russia’s space agency published photos appearing to show cosmonauts on the ISS holding the flags of the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/26/iss-power-outage-nasa-contact-international-space-station-backup-systems
Sustainable, airless tires adopt NASA technology
Wed, July 26, 2023 at 2:06 AM PDT
These airless tires were invented by NASA for roving around on the Moon but now an LA-based company is bringing the technology back down to Earth, in the hopes of making punctures a thing of the past.
According to the SMART Tire Company the tires are airless, durable and will never go flat - making them more sustainable and durable than traditional all-rubber tires.
The tires have a springy mesh design made of shape memory alloy - or SMA.
[Earl Cole, Co-founder and CEO, The SMART Tire Company]
"What makes shape-memory alloy so special is it's like a super elastic material. It's a very flexible, lightweight metal that's elastic like rubber, but strong like titanium. So you can actually deflect a tire way down to the rim and it will just always bounce back to its original shape. So you're able to use this as a structural element in a tire now, so you don't need any pressurized air. So that means an airless tire; punctures don't matter. It would never, ever get a flat so your tire can last the life of your vehicle."
Despite immense advances in car technology, Cole says tires haven't changed much in over a hundred years.
But with regulators turning their scrutiny to tire pollution, tire-makers are under pressure to practically reinvent the wheel.
Scrap tires are a major environmental problem worldwide due to their bulk and the chemicals they can release.
When tires make contact with the road, tiny particles are abraded and emitted.
And ironically that problem is set to become bigger with electric vehicles - given the extra weight of EV's due to their batteries.
The SMART Tire Company hopes to offer a solution while tapping into an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
"This will last much longer than your average tire. So the one key element is not only no flats and it's more sustainable because we use less rubber, but you won't have to throw the whole tire away when the tread wears out. It's going to be one of the first re-treadable tires."
On SMART tires the only rubber part is the tread - the thin sheath-like outer part that gives grip on the road - which can be replaced without throwing away the whole tire, as is currently the case.
"So the only thing you have to change is the trail, which is far more cost effective in throwing out the whole tire and getting a whole new set of tires."
The company says tens of thousands of people worldwide have already joined the waiting list for their first commercial product - an airless SMART bicycle tire - set to launch in Spring 2024
https://news.yahoo.com/sustainable-airless-tires-adopt-nasa-090626985.html
Carl Sagan's master for Voyager Golden Record up for auction at Sotheby's
July 25, 2023
"The undertaking of the Golden Record reflects the incredible optimism, fascination and humility when faced with the great unknown of the universe."
The two reels are not much to look at and the quality of their audio recordings, while described to be "excellent," exists in other formats. Their pedigree, though, is unique, which may be why they are estimated to be worth more than 10 times their weight in gold — an appropriate figure given that they were used in the creation of perhaps the most iconic golden records in existence.
On Thursday (July 27), Sotheby's will offer famed astronomer Carl Sagan and award-winning documentary producer Ann Druyan's personal copy of the master recording for NASA's Voyager Golden Record, identical discs intended as audio-visual time capsule that are now farther away from Earth than any other human-made objects in history.
"The Voyager missions are among the greatest acts of exploration in history, and the undertaking of the Golden Record reflects the incredible optimism, fascination and humility when faced with the great unknown of the universe. Led by Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan, the production of the record was a monumental task and it is a great honor to offer their personal copy of this most profound and unique artifact," Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's global head of science and popular culture, said in a statement.
Sotheby's estimates that the Golden Record reels will command $400,000 to $600,000 (the minimum bid is $300,000). They are listed as Lot 80, the final item in the auction house's upcoming Space Exploration sale in New York.
Launched in 1977 on NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 probes, the Golden Record was designed to communicate to possible space-faring civilizations something about the diversity of life and the culture on Earth. The record held greetings in 59 languages, 115 images, the sounds of our planet (including the call of humpback whales) and 27 pieces from the world's musical traditions.
Druyan, working with her future husband Sagan, selected the audio. The sound essay, which is the contents of the two reels up for auction, included a rain forest noisy with life, a mother's first words to her baby and the rasping of a distant pulsar, as well as the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chuck Berry, and Louis Armstrong.
"Bursting with the myriad sounds of life, Carl and I and our colleagues designed the Golden Record to be a testament to the beauty of being alive on Earth," said Druyan (Sagan died in 1996). "We hoped it would capture the richness and diversity of our world."
In addition to the two discs that are now in deep space, only six other records were made. Today, examples of those original gold-plated copper records can be seen on display at the Smithsonian and at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California,
The Golden Record has also been reproduced. In 1992, Warner New Media released a two CD/CD-ROM box set, which included the full contents of the original Voyager disc, as well as as copy of Sagan's book, "Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record." To mark the 40th anniversary of the probes' launch in 2017, Ozma Records produced a box set with three, heavyweight translucent gold vinyl LPs and a digital code to access the visual content on the flown discs.
Sotheby's is auctioning what is believed to be the only recordings produced in the making in the flown Golden Record to ever be offered for sale.
"Almost half a century since their creation, these tapes, which have never been out of our possession since they were made, present a unique opportunity for a collector to obtain the only original version of the first object to cross the heliopause, that place where the solar wind gives way to the gales of interstellar cosmic rays — it may be the only thing that will live on after everything we know is gone," Druyan said.
The reels come with their original Columbia Recording Studios boxes, with each labelled by hand in blue ink. The two have total running times of 51 minutes, 38 seconds and 60 minutes, 49 seconds.
In addition to the Golden Record, Sotheby's July 27 Space Exploration sale also features a number of original labels removed from the exterior of the Apollo command modules after they splashed down from the moon (est. $6,000 to $60,000) and a Russian Sokol launch and entry suit (est. $40,000 to $50,000).
https://www.space.com/carl-sagan-voyager-golden-record-sothebys-auction