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Space Station Arm "Tames" Dragon Capsule—SpaceX Docking Is a First
For the second time in five months, the commercial rocket company SpaceXhas successfully docked its Dragon capsule at the International Space Station (ISS)—this time on its first official cargo run under a supply contract with NASA.
"Looks like we've tamed the Dragon," station commander Sunita Williams, a U.S. Navy officer, told controllers on the ground after the ISS's robotic arm had grabbed the unmanned craft just before 7 a.m. ET, accomplished with the assistance of Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshideh. (Related: "Robot Arm to Grab Robotic Ship—A Space Station First.")
"We're happy she's on board with us."
SpaceX's Dragon—the first and only commercial spacecraft to berth at the station—made contact with the station 252 miles (406 kilometers) above Earth. The capsule is packed with nearly a thousand pounds (450 kilograms) of essential supplies and gear, as well some arguably nonessential chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream and, for a school science experiment, some Silly Putty.
High-flying SpaceX, founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, won a nearly U.S. $1.6 billion contract with NASA in 2008 to supply the space station via a dozen flights in the years ahead.
Unlike any government-owned capsules supplying the ISS, the SpaceX Dragon is designed to return intact to Earth, and so can be used as a two-way ferry. The capsule brought back 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of science experiments and space hardware after its test berthing in May and will do the same later this month.
SpaceX Contract an Investment in the Future?
Today's first formal berthing at the International Space Station under the NASA cargo-supply contract was broadly cheered as a milestone, and perhaps a harbinger of much more to come.
"I think it would be fair to say the successful docking under the NASA contract is parallel to the early days of the commercial airline industry," said John Logsdon, space policy emeritus professor at George Washington University and longtime NASA adviser.
"The government paid airline owners to deliver the mail and gave the early industry the financial support it needed to grow," he said. "Clearly, NASA is hoping the same will happen here—that giving commercial space companies contracts to supply the space station will act as a huge boost to the early commercial space industry."
In a statement issued after the berthing, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said: "This marks the start of a new era of exploration for the United States, one where we will reduce the cost of missions to low-Earth orbit so we can focus our resources on deep-space human missions back around the moon, to an asteroid, and eventually to Mars."
While SpaceX is the only commercial rocket company to fly to the International Space Station so far, several others—including Orbital Sciences, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin—are developing systems to carry cargo and ultimately crew as well.
The push to have private companies handle some of the basic space transport to the ISS began under U.S. President George W. Bush but picked up steam under President Obama—often against strong opposition from legislators in the U.S. Congress, who were largely concerned with NASA job losses and crew safety.
Mars or Bust?
With three successful Dragon launches now and two berthings at the ISS, the viability of commercial space transport is by all accounts improving. Nonetheless, Musk, speaking before Sunday's launch, said it's too soon to consider the SpaceX launches routine.
His assessment was soon proved correct during takeoff with the failure of one of the nine Falcon 9 rockets intended to boost Dragon beyond Earth's atmosphere. But the lapse didn't affect the launch, SpaceX officials said, because the propulsion system was designed to launch without all rockets firing, as are those commissioned by NASA.
The importance of SpaceX and the other commercial space companies that will follow grew substantially after NASA retired the last of the space shuttles in 2011. Without the shuttle, the United States has had no way to ferry cargo or crew to and from the station, and has purchased rides from Russia and Japan as well as from European operators.
Illustrating that reality, the Dragon capsule is currently docked next to theRussian Soyuz spacecraft that brought commander Williams and others to the station and will bring them back to Earth. Next to the Soyuz was an automated Russian craft, a Progress cargo ship.
Originally sceduled to be opened for unloading on Thursday, the Dragon capsule's hatch was instead unlocked at 1:40 p.m. ET Wednesday. ISS crew members had raced through post-berthing procedures, NASA explained.
After several weeks, the capsule is to return to Earth with a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on October 28.
While the main focus of SpaceX has been the effort to bring cargo—and within a few years, astronauts as well—to the space station, CEO Musk's ambitions are far larger. He got into the space business, he's said, with the ultimate goal of building rockets to carry substantial numbers of people to Mars.
Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121010-spacex-international-space-station-nasa-dragon-science-hatch/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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