Could Blue Origin Actually Beat SpaceX to the Moon?

https://gizmodo.com/could-blue-origin-beat-spacex-to-the-moon-nasa-artemis-1851308542

Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos, is finally setting some ambitious timelines, saying it plans to conduct an uncrewed Moon landing in as little as a year from now, deploying a demonstration version of its Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) cargo lander. This ramps up the space rivalry big time, putting Bezos head-to-head with Musk in a potential lunar showdown.

China’s Plan to Land Astronauts on the Moon

John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin, discussed these plans during an interview on CBC’s 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday, March 3. “We’re expecting to land on the Moon between 12 and 16 months from today,” he said. “I understand I’m saying that publicly, but that’s what our team is aiming towards.”

Couluris knows he needs to be careful with his phrasing; a Congressional memo recently accused Rocket Lab of misrepresenting the launch readiness of its upcoming Neutron rocket to “gain competitive advantage” against rival bidders for a Space Force contract. Overly optimistic wording can cost a company lucrative deals, but Blue Origin is making a concerted effort to shed its image as the company that likes to take its sweet time.

The upcoming pathfinding mission, known as MK1-SN001, is meant to showcase various capabilities of the MK1 cargo vehicle. Focusing on key tests will be crucial, including checking the BE-7 engine, cryogenic fluid power and propulsion systems, avionics, ensuring steady communication links, and achieving precise landings within 328 feet (100 meters) accuracy. After the pathfinder mission, MK1 will be offered to customers, but MK1-SN001 will also serve as a critically important test in verifying the technologies needed for Blue Origin’s Human Landing System, known as Blue Moon, which it’s building for NASA.

The newly stated timeline of just 12 to 16 months from now comes as a surprise, given that the project only officially began in May 2023, when NASA announced the $3.4 billion contract with Blue Origin to develop a second Moon lander for its Artemis missions. Blue Moon Mark 1 is included in the agreement—a lunar cargo lander meant to pave the way for the human-friendly version. NASA contracts for the first human landing system were previously awarded to SpaceX, for Artemis 3 and 4, valued at $2.89 billion and $1.15 billion, respectively.

In contrast to the single-use MK1, the 52-foot-tall (16-meter) Blue Moon is designed for repeat missions. It will transport astronauts to the lunar surface and then bring them back to lunar orbit. Significantly, Blue Origin intends to launch Blue Moons to lunar orbit, “and we’ll leave them there,” Couluris explained. “And we’ll refuel them in orbit, so that multiple astronauts can use the same vehicle back and forth.”

The company’s ambitious timeline is also surprising given that it has yet to launch its 320-foot (98-meter) New Glenn rocket—the designated launch vehicle for both MK1 and Blue Moon. That said, Blue Origin raised its rocket for the first time during recent tests at Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36 in Florida. Its inaugural launch could happen later this year. Finally.

The bold new timelines and Blue Origin’s markedly more assertive approach are not entirely unexpected. Last year, the company hired former Amazon executive David Limp as CEO, bringing him in from Amazon to accelerate development. Under previous CEO Bob Smith, who stepped down after six years of service, the company was often criticized for its ultra-cautious, snail’s pace approach to spaceflight. Blue Origin may or may not hit the timelines disclosed by Couluris, but it’s certainly wanting to give the impression that it’s trying.

Blue Origin is not going it alone, forming the National Team consisting of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics. NASA wants the fully reusable four-person Blue Moon lander for the Artemis 5 mission, currently scheduled for 2029.

SpaceX and NASA intend to leverage Starship as the human landing system for Artemis 3 and 4, scheduled for 2026 and 2028. Artemis 3 was originally supposed to happen in 2025, but a recent report from the Government Accountability Office warned of potential delays, saying SpaceX has made limited progress in developing the technologies required to “store and transfer propellant while in orbit,” as a “critical aspect” of the company’s plan “is launching multiple tankers that will transfer propellant to a depot in space before transferring that propellant to the human landing system.” In January, NASA made it official, saying Artemis 3 won’t happen until 2026 at the earliest due to these and other delays.

It’s not entirely clear if SpaceX will meet the required timelines, as Starship remains a rocket under development, let alone a human-rated landed system; the experimental rocket has flown on two tests to date, with a third pending. Importantly, SpaceX needs to perform a demo mission to the Moon prior to Artemis 3, the timeline of which is entirely ambiguous at this point. It’s conceivable, though certainly not guaranteed, that Blue Origin’s pending MK1-SN001 mission will happen before SpaceX’s uncrewed demo on the Moon. That would be very interesting, adding more fuel to the Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos rivalry.

As far as NASA is concerned, it’s all good. Speaking to 60 Minutes during the same episode, NASA associate administrator Jim Free noted the importance of having access to multiple lunar landers. “If we have a problem with one, we’ll have another one to rely on,” he said. “If we have a dependency on a particular aspect in SpaceX or Blue Origin, and it doesn’t work out, then we have another lander that can take our crews.”

The space race between SpaceX and Blue Origin is—finally—heating up. And there’s even more to this story. As Ars Technica notes, rumors are swirling that Blue Origin is staffing up for an undisclosed project to develop a next-gen spacecraft, one that would rival SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Sierra Space’s upcoming Dream Chaser space plane. Bring it on, I say.

For more spaceflight in your life, follow us on X and bookmark Gizmodo’s dedicated Spaceflight page.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

March 5, 2024 at 11:00AM

Is This New 50-Year Battery for Real?

https://www.wired.com/story/is-this-50-year-battery-for-real/

Wouldn’t it be cool if you never had to charge your cell phone? I’m sure that’s what a lot of people were thinking recently, when a company called BetaVolt said it had developed a coin-sized “nuclear battery” that would last for 50 years. Is it for real? Yes it is. Will you be able to buy one of these forever phones anytime soon? Probably not, unfortunately, because—well, physics. Let’s see why.

All batteries do the same thing: They produce an electric current to do some kind of work. But energy isn’t free. If that work is blasting music on your Bluetooth speakers, there has to be something that decreases in energy. In a good old AA, there’s a chemical reaction to produce the current. That chemical reaction doesn’t last forever, so the battery will eventually die.

In a nuclear battery, the power source is a piece of radioactive material, and it will keep on going like the Energizer bunny until the source is no longer radioactive—which isn’t forever, but it’s a heck of a lot longer. These aren’t actually new. The Voyager 1 space probe, launched in 1977, has a nuclear battery. It’s now over 15 billion miles away, and it still has a little juice. That’s pretty good mileage!

The specific type on Voyager is called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which is a big name for what is basically a hunk of plutonium in a box. As the plutonium decays, it converts mass to energy, producing heat. If you stick a solid-state device on it, the difference in temperature between the hot and cold metals produces voltage and causes an electric current to flow.

It’s kind of crazy that a temperature difference alone can generate electricity, but you can test this out at home using some copper wire and a paper clip (without the plutonium), by sticking one end in ice water and the other in hot water. This type of power source is great for space probes because it has no moving parts, so it won’t break down, and it lasts for decades.

Now, this new battery announced by BetaVolt uses a different technology called betavoltaic generation. Instead of tapping thermal energy, it captures the ejected electrons, known as beta particles, from a radioactive isotope of nickel to form an electric circuit. It’s made up of several layers of nickel sandwiched between plates of diamond, which serve as a semiconductor. There’s a bunch of cool stuff to go over here, so let’s dive in.

What Happens in Radioactive Decay?

Nickel-63 is an isotope of the stable version of the element, nickel-58. That number is the atomic weight—the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. Nickel-63 has five extra neutrons, which makes it unstable. Over time, one of those extra neutrons will decay into a proton and produce a new electron. With an extra proton, the atom will now be copper-63, the next element in the periodic table. This nuclear reaction produces energy, shooting the electron out of the atom at high speed.

It’s important to know that the rate of radioactive decay isn’t constant; it depends on the number of atoms of the material present, so the production of electrons declines exponentially over time. In the case of nickel-63, half of the atoms will decay in about 96 years—we say it has a “half-life” of 96 years.

via Wired Top Stories https://www.wired.com

February 23, 2024 at 09:06AM

Tesla’s Charging Network Is Now Open to Other EVs—and Ford Is First in Line

https://www.wired.com/story/public-ev-charging-tesla-ford/

Every six months, the automotive research company JD Power surveys some 5,000 US electric vehicle owners about their experiences driving their battery-powered cars. The latest edition of this survey, out this week, found that EV’s perennial bugbear is still bugbear-ing. In fact, it’s got worse: Drivers say they are even more dissatisfied with the availability of public charging stations than they were a year ago.

In North America, additional charging stations are on their way, thanks in part to a US federally-funded program that seeks to get at least half a million more in the ground by 2030. But in this messy middle period, automakers have come up with another solution: Let Tesla take care of it.

Tesla has the most widespread and dependable charging network in the United States. (In fact, the new survey found that upscale EV drivers are more likely to be happy with public charging—and the majority of them drive Teslas.) It also has a unique charging plug, called the North American Charging Standard. Nearly every global automaker has now pledged to add that plug to its electric vehicles, allowing its drivers to tap into the Tesla charging network.

Ford piloted the “let Tesla take care of it” model last May when it announced it would adopt that plug. Its EVs will come with the connector standard by 2025. And starting today, existing drivers of the Mach-E Mustang and Lightning pick-up truck owners will get access to a hearty chunk of Tesla’s supercharger network, courtesy of free adapters that they can now order off a website Ford just launched. The adapters will be gratis between now and July; after that, they’ll retail for $230, Ford says. The company expects the adapters to begin shipping in late March.

Tesla Saves Best New Chargers For Its Own

Yes, Ford drivers can now use Tesla Superchargers, but Elon Musk’s EV company has reserved a select few newer ones for its drivers only.

Courtesy of Ford

Ford regularly surveys its own drivers and “their main pain points have to do with public charging,” Ken Williams, the automaker’s director of charging and energy services, said on a call with reporters this week. The adapter will give Ford drivers access to 15,000 new chargers, bringing the total up to 126,000 chargers and more than 28,000 fast chargers across the US and Canada. (That doesn’t include every charger in the Tesla network; Ford drivers won’t get access to older Tesla charging stations, and Tesla has reserved a select few newer ones for its drivers only.) Drivers will be able to access and pay to charge at the stations through Ford’s app.

via Wired Top Stories https://www.wired.com

February 29, 2024 at 07:09AM

Spain’s Tragic Tower Block Fire Exposes the World’s Failing Fire Regulations

https://www.wired.com/story/valencia-tower-fire-grenfell-cladding-siding/

On February 22, a fire swept through a 14-story apartment block in the Campanar neighborhood of Valencia, Spain. Ten people died in the blaze. Smartphone footage showed an awning on a seventh-floor balcony catching fire at around 5:30pm CET, before the flames rushed upwards. Within 15 minutes, the entire building was engulfed, aided by 40 mph winds.

The inferno quickly drew comparisons to London’s Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people in 2017. While what drove the blaze in Valencia is unclear, attention immediately turned to the building’s cladding—material added to the outside of high-rise blocks to improve insulation and aesthetics, and which helped the Grenfell fire spread so quickly. Until 2019, Spain, like many nations, permitted flammable materials to be included in cladding on new high-rises. While the law has changed, hundreds if not thousands of existing Spanish buildings are likely encased in non-flame-retardant panels.

The same danger lurks internationally. Many countries still allow highly flammable cladding to be used in construction. Others, despite banning dangerous materials on new buildings, still have older ones encased in layers of materials highly vulnerable to fire. “Valencia will not be the last one,” says Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at the department of mechanical engineering of Imperial College London. “Not in Spain, nor anywhere else.”

The world’s cladding crisis stems from another. In the 1970s, the oil crisis created a problem for architecture to solve: how to design more energy-efficient buildings in the face of soaring fuel prices. Facades were to be redrawn from the ground up. “They were once only made of stone, brick, or concrete and very simple,” says Rein. “But they play a complex role: the interface between inside and outside; sunlight and darkness; warmth and cold; noise and quiet.”

Integral to the design of new facades were synthetic polymers: materials made of chains of repeating subunits, and which are the main ingredient of household plastics. Versatile, lightweight, strong, and inexpensive, polymers became architects’ wonder material, offering improved insulation and faster construction time than concrete mixed on-site. It solved all their biggest problems, says Rein, except one. “All polymers are flammable.”

For more than five decades, a polymer core has typically been sandwiched between ultra-thin panels made from aluminum composite material (ACM) on the facade of modern high-rises. “Architects love what you can do with aluminum. You can curve the facade, add a shine, and make it visually appealing,” says Rein. “And it hides the ugly insulation beneath it.”

While commercial ACM manufacturers have always fire-tested these materials, before Grenfell, results would often be obfuscated from the building sector, says Rein. A typical test would see a blowtorch applied to the front of the ACM—the metal would sustain the flame long enough for the manufacturer to claim it was “fire resistant.” However, flammability comes from the polymer, not aluminum. And these tests didn’t necessarily engulf the material the way an actual fire would.

“If you turn the ACM 90 degrees, and attack the edge with the polymer exposed, the aluminum peels off in 20 seconds and a ball of fire rips, creating black smoke and big flames,” Rein says.

via Wired Top Stories https://www.wired.com

March 1, 2024 at 01:09AM

‘Quantum gravity’ could help unite quantum mechanics with general relativity at last

https://www.space.com/gravity-quantum-theory-cosmic-mysteries

Scientists have determined a way to measure gravity on microscopic levels, perhaps bringing them closer to forming a theory of "quantum gravity" and to solving some major cosmic mysteries.

Quantum physics offers scientists the best description of the universe on tiny scales smaller than atoms. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, on the other hand, brings about the best description of physics on huge, cosmic scales. Yet, something is frustratingly missing even after 100 years of both theories passing a wealth of experimental verification.

As robust and accurate as the two theories developed at the turn of the 20th century have become, they have refuse to unite. 

One of the primary reasons for this dilemma is that, while three of the universe’s four fundamental forces — electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force — have quantum descriptions, there is no quantum theory of the fourth: Gravity

Now, however, an international team has made headway in addressing this imbalance by successfully detecting a weak gravitational pull on a tiny particle using a new technique. The researchers believe this could be the first tentative step on a path that leads to a theory of "quantum gravity."

"For a century, scientists have tried and failed to understand how gravity and quantum mechanics work together," Tim Fuchs, team member and a scientist at the University of Southampton, said in a statement. "By understanding quantum gravity, we could solve some of the mysteries of our universe — like how it began, what happens inside black holes, or uniting all forces into one big theory."

Related: ‘Wavy space-time’ may explain why gravity won’t play by quantum rules

Gravity gets the ‘spooky’ treatment

It is maybe fitting that general relativity and quantum physics don’t get along; after all, Einstein was never comfortable with quantum physics. This is because while quantum physics has many counterintuitive aspects, he found one in particular very troubling.

It was the notion of entanglement. At risk of simplification, entanglement has to do with coordinating particles in such a way that changing the properties of one particle instantly alters the properties of an entangled partner particle, even if the partner is located on the opposite side of the universe. Einstein called this "spooky action at a distance" as it challenged the concept of local realism.

Local realism is the idea that objects always have defined properties and that interactions between those objects are limited by distance and the speed of light, a universal speed limit introduced by Einstein as the foundation of special relativity. Special relativity is, in fact, the theory that led to the formulation of general relativity in the first place. Yet, despite Einstein’s protestations, scientists have indeed proven that entanglement and other counterintuitive aspects of quantum physics are truly factors of reality at sub-atomic scales.

Such proof has been achieved with a multitude of pioneering experiments. Fuchs and colleagues, for instance, are following in the footsteps of physicists such as Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, who won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for experimentally verifying the non-local nature of entanglement.

In their new quantum experiment, the researchers, including scientists from Southampton University, Leiden University and the Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies, used superconducting magnetic "traps" to measure the weak gravitational pull on the smallest mass anyone has ever attempted to investigate in this way.

The tiny particle was levitated in the superconducting trap at temperatures of around -459.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-273 degrees Celsius), which is just a few hundredths of a degree above absolute zero, the hypothetical temperature at which all atomic movement would cease. This frigid temperature was needed to limit the vibrations of the particles to the very minimum. The team ultimately measured a gravitational pull of 30 "attoNewtons" on the particle.

AttoNewtons represent a measure of force; to give you an idea of how tiny the gravitational force on the studied particles was, one Newton is defined as the force needed to provide a mass of one kilogram with an acceleration of one meter per second per second. And 30 attoNewtons is equivalent to 0.00000000000000003 Newtons!

"Now we have successfully measured gravitational signals at the smallest mass ever recorded, it means we are one step closer to finally realizing how it works in tandem," Fuchs said. "From here, we will start scaling the source down using this technique until we reach the quantum world on both sides."

Team member and University of Southampton scientist Hendrik Ulbricht said this experiment paves the way for tests with even smaller masses, as well as the measurement of even smaller gravitational forces. 

"We are pushing the boundaries of science that could lead to new discoveries about gravity and the quantum world. Our new technique that uses extremely cold temperatures and devices to isolate the vibration of the particle will likely prove the way forward for measuring quantum gravity," he concluded. "Unravelling these mysteries will help us unlock more secrets about the universe’s very fabric, from the tiniest particles to the grandest cosmic structures."

The team’s research was published on Friday (Feb. 23) in the journal Science Advances.

via Space https://www.space.com

February 23, 2024 at 01:09PM

Windows includes built-in ransomware protection. Here’s how to turn it on

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2245853/how-to-turn-on-windows-ransomware-protection.html

Ransomware is nasty stuff. This type of malware encrypts files on your PC so that you can’t access them—unless you must pay the attacker to unlock the data. In other words, your files are held hostage until you cough up the demanded ransom.

The best defense against ransomware is avoiding sites and downloads riddled with it, but you can take other protective measures, too. Modern antivirus software often restrict which apps can change files in folders commonly targeted by ransomware. Microsoft Defender, which is built into Windows, can do this too. (Microsoft changed the name from Windows Defender several years ago, but it’s the same program.) Some antivirus suites also run automatic backups, in case you need to restore your files.

The catch? Unlike third-party antivirus software, these extra safeguards are not turned on by default in Microsoft Defender. You have to enable them yourself.

Further reading: PCWorld’s top picks for best antivirus software 2024.

How to turn on ransomware protection in Windows

Step One: Open Windows Security

Open the Windows Security app on your PC. You can access it in one of several ways:

  • Press Alt + Spacebar on your keyboard, type in windows security, then hit Enter
  • Open your Start Menu and type in windows security, then press Enter
  • Open your Settings app, then choose Windows Security in the left pane

Step Two: Find your ransomware settings

In the Windows Security app, click on Virus & threat protection. Then click Manage ransomware protection at the bottom of the screen.

Next, turn on Controlled folder access. This setting restricts app access to your PC’s default OneDrive, Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, and Favorites folders. You can also manually add other folders to the list.

Not all apps will be barred from these areas in Windows—Microsoft Office programs are automatically allowed to open and alter files. But if it’s not on Microsoft’s internal list of trusted apps, a program can’t see anything in those folders until explicit permission is granted in Windows Security.

Step three: Make sure you’re logged into OneDrive

Limiting access to files and folders won’t completely protect them. Another important method of defense is to have good backups—which Windows automatically does if you’re logged into OneDrive. (You can either connect a Microsoft account to your whole Windows PC, or just the OneDrive app specifically.)

To confirm that this protection is on, you can look at Ransomware protection > Ransomware data recovery.

Of course, for the purpose of warding off ransomware’s worst effects, the safest backup of your files is the one you keep offline. You should make one in addition to anything stored in the cloud—if you only have one copy of your data, you’re not properly backed up after all.

Should you turn on ransomware protection in Windows?

Security and convenience live on opposite ends of a spectrum, and that’s the case here, too. Controlling folder access in Windows can keep attackers out of your important folders, but it can also be slightly inconvenient. Gamers, for example, may find that access to save files might be blocked by default, as they’re often saved in your Documents folder.

You can solve this problem with minimal work—add the app to the access list. Or save game files to a different folder on your PC that does not have controlled access to it. (You’ll just have to use third-party software to set up a schedule for regular backups.)

OUr CURRENT PICK FOR BEST ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE

Norton 360 Deluxe

Norton 360 Deluxe

Price When Reviewed:


$49.99 for the first year

Protect your Windows PC from other online threats, too

For more information about Windows Security (and its different components), you can check out our video overview on YouTube. If you prefer more sophisticated software, plus additional protections, you can also look into upgrading your antivirus software. For example, Norton 300 Deluxe, our current top pick for antivirus, bundles strong malware protection with a VPN, password manager, dark web monitoring for your personal data, and more. It can help simplify staying safer online.

via PCWorld https://www.pcworld.com

March 1, 2024 at 05:33AM