Month: October 2024

Human Adaptation to Spaceflight: The Role of Food and Nutrition

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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Victor Glover of NASA sips on a water bag. The latest book marks our third effort to review available literature regarding the role of nutrition in astronaut health. In 2009, we reviewed the existing knowledge and history of human nutrition for spaceflight, with a key goal of identifying additional data that would be required before NASA could confidently reduce the risk of an inadequate food system or inadequate nutrition to as low as possible in…

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‘Futurama’ creator Matt Groening says ‘great episodes in the works’ for upcoming Season 13

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Good news everyone! Hulu’s “Futurama” Season 12 just wrapped up its weird and wacky run of 10 episodes on Sept. 30 and fans of Fry, Leela, Bender, Professor Farnsworth and their memorable 31st century misadventures are eager for more crazy cosmic missions. This past Sunday at New York Comic Con, “Futurama” faithful packed the house to honor the 25th anniversary of the animated sci-fi series created by “The Simpsons’” Matt Groening and David X. Cohen and to glean info on what to look forward to when Season 13 lands back…

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October Transformer of the Month: Nipa Phojanamongkolkij

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Dr. Nipa Phojanamongkolkij does not always do things the traditional way. As a systems engineer (SE) at Langley Research Center working closely with the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, Nipa pushes boundaries and draws connections where few others would think to look. When she envisioned a way to use ChatGPT to help SE teams working on the Advanced Air Mobility Mission, she presented her initial idea to her team wondering, “Is this crazy?” Her idea evolved into a successful prototype, which is now used for air traffic management in the Airspace…

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NASA Invites Media to 2024 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium

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2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Hundreds of students, scientists, and other stakeholders listen in person and online as NASA leaders discuss the Artemis missions during the 2023 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium held Oct. 25–27 at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. NASA / Charles Beason Media are invited to attend the 2024 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium Monday Oct. 28 to Wednesday, Oct. 30 at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Organized by the American Astronautical Society in collaboration with NASA’s Marshall Space…

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Headless ‘Halloween comet’ could already be doomed

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The latest update concerning “the other comet” of October 2024 — Comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) — is that it continues on target to completely disintegrate before it sweeps around the sun early next Monday.  Back on Oct. 10, Space.com published an article indicating that this comet — which belongs to the Kreutz family of sungrazing comets — was in the process of disintegration and would likely not develop into an eye-catching object like its early October predecessor, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.  However, an online story published this past Monday evening (Oct. 21)…

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Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New Guided Tour of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon

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Learn Home Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New… Europa Clipper Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science   3 min read Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New Guided Tour of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is on its way to explore a moon of Jupiter that researchers believe may be one of the best places in the Solar System to search for life beyond Earth. While the spacecraft makes its more-than-five year journey to Europa, scientists, students, teachers, and the…

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James Webb Space Telescope sees lonely supermassive black hole-powered quasars in the early universe

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Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have peered back 13 billion years to discover surprisingly lonely supermassive black hole-powered quasars.  The James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) observations are confusing because isolated black holes should struggle to gather enough mass to reach supermassive status, especially just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The discovery further muddies the waters when it comes to the puzzle of how some black holes grew to masses equivalent to millions or even billions of suns when the universe was less than a…

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SpaceX’s Starlink internet flies on a Boeing 777 jet for the 1st time

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SpaceX’s Starlink internet service continues to make inroads around the globe. Starlink provided Wi-Fi on a Boeing 777 jet for the first time today (Oct. 22), during a Qatar Airways flight from the Qatari capital of Doha to London. The 777 is the “largest and longest-range passenger aircraft equipped with Starlink to date,” SpaceX representatives said in an emailed statement today. #QatarAirways launches the world’s first Boeing 777 Starlink-equipped flight. @StarlinkWe are proud to be the airline that leads the way, setting new standards in the airline industry. ✈️#QatarAirwaysStarlink pic.twitter.com/347ZnclANbOctober…

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