On November 20th 2015, NASA announced that it had made its first crewed mission order from SpaceX. With this order, SpaceX becomes the second private company to be awarded one of four guaranteed orders under NASA's CCtCap (Commercial Crew Transportation Capability) contracts. In May of 2015, NASA made an order for Boeing to send a commercial crew to the ISS (International Space Station) in 2017.
NASA states that SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 have been certified after successfully passing through their development phases. NASA is looking to Boeing and SpaceX as a means of reducing the cost of accessing space. Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, NASA has been paying Russia $70 million a seat for a ride on a Soyuz to the ISS. NASA expects to have each mission carry four crew members and 220lb of pressurized cargo.
NASA has been working for some time to cede control of its low earth orbit operational flights to private companies. The idea is to move the agency back to mission destinations like the moon, an asteroid, or Mars. Meanwhile, since CCtCap orders are made two to three years in advance, and both Boeing and SpaceX have now both received orders, the race is on to see which company will launch first.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Breakthrough Brings IBM To Nanotube Chips
On October 1st 2015, IBM announced that they had made a breakthrough in their efforts to continue the miniaturization of computer chips. A $3 billion project has helped researchers develop computer chips that are made of carbon nanotubes. Current silicon based technology has been swiftly approaching a barrier to further chip miniaturization, due to the inability to continue to scale transistors. Carbon nanotubes have solved this problem.
Nanotubes are hollow cylinders with walls that are made of a single layer of carbon atoms aligned in a hexagonal lattice. The lattice is 10,000 times smaller than a human hair and looks like a tiny roll of chicken wire. Electrons in carbon transistors move freer and easier than in silicon based devices, which allows for quicker transport of data. An advantage of using nanotubes, is that they can be shaped for transistors at the atomic level.
Transistor gate and contact length have been the two major issues in regard to chip scalability. The gate issue was solved by IBM two years ago. IBM has now solved the contact length issue by shrinking down the contact length to 9nm, without any increase in resistance. IBM scientists say that at maximum power, the carbon nanotube chips could run at significantly faster speeds.
Nanotubes are hollow cylinders with walls that are made of a single layer of carbon atoms aligned in a hexagonal lattice. The lattice is 10,000 times smaller than a human hair and looks like a tiny roll of chicken wire. Electrons in carbon transistors move freer and easier than in silicon based devices, which allows for quicker transport of data. An advantage of using nanotubes, is that they can be shaped for transistors at the atomic level.
Transistor gate and contact length have been the two major issues in regard to chip scalability. The gate issue was solved by IBM two years ago. IBM has now solved the contact length issue by shrinking down the contact length to 9nm, without any increase in resistance. IBM scientists say that at maximum power, the carbon nanotube chips could run at significantly faster speeds.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Closest Earth Sized Exoplanet Is Found
On November 12th 2015, a team of scientists announced the discovery of what they are calling the closest rocky exoplanet ever found. The planet is named GJ 1132b, which is derived from the name of the star that it orbits. The star the planet orbits is 39 million light years away. The scientists say that this is important because it means that GJ 1132b is close enough that they can use telescopes to examine the chemistry of its atmosphere.
The planet, GJ 1132b orbits a red dwarf star in the constellation Vela, which can be found in the southern sky. GJ 1132b is about 16% larger than the Earth and orbits at 1.4m miles from its sun. This is closer than Mercury is to our sun which orbits at 39m miles. Scientists estimate that it has a surface temperature range between 278 degrees and 572 degrees. These temperatures are too hot for the planet's surface to retain water, so life there would be impossible.
The scientists are hoping that this planet has an atmosphere. The belief is that if it does have an atmosphere, it may be possible that they will find cooler planets just like it that orbit smaller stars and have atmospheres. GJ 1132b is tidally locked to its star, so that one side of the planet faces its sun, just as our moon is locked to the Earth. The team has already asked for more time on the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes so they can examine the planet in more detail.
The planet, GJ 1132b orbits a red dwarf star in the constellation Vela, which can be found in the southern sky. GJ 1132b is about 16% larger than the Earth and orbits at 1.4m miles from its sun. This is closer than Mercury is to our sun which orbits at 39m miles. Scientists estimate that it has a surface temperature range between 278 degrees and 572 degrees. These temperatures are too hot for the planet's surface to retain water, so life there would be impossible.
The scientists are hoping that this planet has an atmosphere. The belief is that if it does have an atmosphere, it may be possible that they will find cooler planets just like it that orbit smaller stars and have atmospheres. GJ 1132b is tidally locked to its star, so that one side of the planet faces its sun, just as our moon is locked to the Earth. The team has already asked for more time on the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes so they can examine the planet in more detail.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Twitter Replaces Favorites With Likes
On November 3rd 2015, Twitter officially changed its star symbol for favorites to a heart symbol for likes. The change will take place on Vine as well, which is also owned by Twitter. The move was made in an effort to simplify the the Twitter experience and to woo new users to the service. Twitter's product manager, Akarshan Kumar said, "We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers."
Favorites came about shortly after the birth of Twitter. Originally, favorites were designed as a means of bookmarking tweets. Over time, the act of favoring was made possible in real time. This gave power users like journalists a way to save articles that they wanted to read at a later date. Retweets and Hashtags were added later. With the move to hearts, Twitter is taking a cue from Facebook which is considering adding emojis as a means of giving its users more ways to express themselves.
Opinions about this latest move by Twitter are mixed. It's hard to imagine that the change will make a huge difference, as long as the functionality of the new heart symbol remains the same as the star symbol. The gamble will be whether it is easier and more rewarding to like something than it is to favorite something.
Favorites came about shortly after the birth of Twitter. Originally, favorites were designed as a means of bookmarking tweets. Over time, the act of favoring was made possible in real time. This gave power users like journalists a way to save articles that they wanted to read at a later date. Retweets and Hashtags were added later. With the move to hearts, Twitter is taking a cue from Facebook which is considering adding emojis as a means of giving its users more ways to express themselves.
Opinions about this latest move by Twitter are mixed. It's hard to imagine that the change will make a huge difference, as long as the functionality of the new heart symbol remains the same as the star symbol. The gamble will be whether it is easier and more rewarding to like something than it is to favorite something.
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