Elon Musk’s big win: SpaceX has landed its reusable rocket on a drone ship
After four failed attempts, SpaceX has successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a sea-going platform.
The landing is a critical success in founder Elon Musk’s mission to disrupt the space access business, cutting the costs of a launch by reusing the first stage of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets.
The rocket delivered a Dragon spacecraft full of cargo destined for the International Space Station into orbit. Chants of “USA! USA!” rang out from the SpaceX control room after the rocket touched down. Its landing platform was an autonomous ship dubbed “Of Course I Still Love You,” a reference to a cult science fiction series.
Musk’s rocket company has been testing the reusable rocket during missions since 2014, but this is the first time it has actually landed the rocket on the droneship. In the past they have resulted in spectacular explosions.
SpaceX previously landed a rocket on the ground at Cape Canaveral following a mission to the ISS in December 2015. However, using the sea-going platform will be necessary to make the reusable rockets viable for high-altitude cargo, which requires too long of a flight to return to the launch site.
Landing the first stage is a major success for SpaceX’s reusable rocket program, which plans to cut the cost of the rocket to $40 million per launch from $60 million currently. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket sits on its landing ship. (SpaceX)Reusability has long been a dream in the rocket industry—no one thinks throwing away the rocket the first time you use it is a great idea. But the relatively few clients for rocket launches, coupled with an emphasis on reliability, made investments in reusable technology unattractive.
But, in founding SpaceX, Musk envisioned launching dozens of rockets a year, a vision that makes reusability economical in theory.
That left only the technological challenges. SpaceX has planned for reusability since the company was founded in 2008. It began testing reusable technology in earnest by 2012, even before it delivered its first load of cargo to the ISS.
Last month, an executive at rival rocket firm ULA called SpaceX’s reusability plan “dumb” during a set of candid remarks about the industry that led to his resignation. To fully prove him wrong, SpaceX must demonstrate it can fly its rocket again. The rocket that landed at Cape Canaveral was successfully test-fired but SpaceX says it will not be flown. Today’s rocket presents another chance.
Earlier this month, Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin flew its reusable suborbital rocket, the New Shepard, for the third time, but it is much smaller and operates at much slower velocities than SpaceX’s 70-meter tall Falcon 9. The two companies had fought in court over the intellectual property involved in landing a rocket at sea.
WHAT-SpaceX has landed its reusable rocket on a drone ship
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Amazon makes first drone delivery: 4 other deliveries by unmanned aerial vehicles
A quadcopter drone delivered an Amazon Fire TV box and a bag of popcorn to a customer near Cambridge, England.
With drone delivery, the sky is no longer the limit, but Amazon is not the only one doing drone delivery tests.
Google parent Alphabet has a similar project known as Wing and US retail giant Wal-Mart has been reportedly studying drone deliveries too.
In Singapore, the National University of Singapore and Airbus Helicopters announced in February that they were working on a trial network for parcel deliveries across campus by drone.
Here are other instances of delivery by drone.
1. A letter and shirt to Pulau Ubin
In October 2015, SingPost delivered a letter and a T-shirt in a parcel by drone from Lorong Halus to Pulau Ubin.The 2km delivery took about five minutes.
Similar trials had been run in other countries such as Germany and Switzerland, but SingPost said then that its trial was "the first time in the world a postal service has successfully used an unmanned aerial vehicle for point-to-point recipient-authenticated mail delivery".
The drone was developed by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and built using the Pixhawk Steadidrone platform by IDA Labs.
2. Pizza delivery in New Zealand
in November, New Zealand pulled off a pizza delivery by drone.Fast food giant Domino's delivered two pizzas using an unmanned aerial vehicle to a customer at Whangaparaoa, north of Auckland, on Nov 17.
It rolled out pizza delivery by drone to select customers in the area before expanding it to other places in New Zealand.
Domino's said it was also looking into expanding its use of drones to Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Japan and Germany.
WHAT-SingPost delivered a letter and a T-shirt in a parcel by drone from Lorong Halus to Pulau Ubin.
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WHERE-Similar trials had been run in other countries such as Germany and Switzerland
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Paris climate change agreement: the world's greatest diplomatic success
I
n the final meeting of theParistalks on climate change on Saturday night, the debating chamber was full and the atmosphere tense. Ministers from 196 countries sat behind their country nameplates, aides flocking them, with observers packed into the overflowing hall.
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, talked animatedly with his officials, while China’s foreign minister Xie Zhenhua wore a troubled look. They had been waiting in this hall for nearly two hours. The French hosts had trooped in to take their seats on the stage, ready to applaud on schedule at 5.30pm – but it was now after 7pm, and the platform was deserted.
After two weeks of fraught negotiations, was something going badly wrong?
Then at 7.16pm, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, returned abruptly to the stage, flanked by high-ranking UN officials. The last-minute compromises had been resolved, he said. And suddenly they were all on their feet. Fabius brought down the green-topped gavel, a symbol of UN talks, and announced that a Paris agreement had been signed. The delegates were clapping, cheering and whistling wildly, embracing and weeping. Even the normally reserved economist Lord Stern was whooping.
Outside the hall, a “Mexican wave” of standing ovations rippled across the conference centre as news reached participants gathered around screens outside for the translation into their own language. The 50,000 people who attended the summit had been waiting for this moment, through marathon negotiating sessions and sleepless nights.
The contrast with the last global attempt to resolve climate change, at Copenhagen in 2009, which collapsed into chaos and recriminations, could not have been greater. In a city recently hit by terrorist attacks that left 130 dead and scores more critically injured, collective will had prevailed.
Paris produced an agreement hailed as “historic, durable and ambitious”. Developed and developing countries alike are required to limit their emissions to relatively safe levels, of 2C with an aspiration of 1.5C, with regular reviews to ensure these commitments can be increased in line with scientific advice. Finance will be provided to poor nations to help them cut emissions and cope with the effects of extreme weather. Countries affected by climate-related disasters will gain urgent aid.
Like any international compromise, it is not perfect: the caps on emissions are still too loose, likely to lead to warming of 2.7 to 3C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the 2C threshold that scientists say is the limit of safety, beyond which the effects – droughts, floods, heatwaves and sea level rises – are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. Poor countries are also concerned that the money provided to them will not be nearly enough to protect them. Not all of the agreement is legally binding, so future governments of the signatory countries could yet renege on their commitments.
These flaws may shadow the future of climate change action, but on Saturday night they took second place. As the news spread through the world, the reaction from civil society groups, governments and businesses, was overwhelmingly positive.
Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, summed up the mood: “It sometimes seems that the countries of the UN can unite on nothing, but nearly 200 countries have come together and agreed a deal. Today, the human race has joined in a common cause. The Paris agreement is only one step on a long road and there are parts of it that frustrate, that disappoint me, but it is progress. The deal alone won’t dig us out of the hole that we’re in, but it makes the sides less steep.”
Even as delegates celebrated at the conference’s end, there was a palpable sense of relief from the exhausted French hosts. At many points in this fortnight of marathon negotiating sessions, it looked as if a deal might be beyond reach. That it ended in success was a tribute in part to their diligence and efficiency and the efforts of the UN.
“France has brought openness and experience in diplomacy, and mutual respect to these talks,” said Stern, one of the world’s leading climate economists. “They have taken great care to make everyone listened to, that they were consulted. There was a great sense of openness, of professional diplomacy, and skill.”
Saturday night was the culmination not only of a fortnight of talks, but of more than 23 years of international attempts under the UN to forge collective action on this global problem. Since 1992, all of the world’s governments had been pledging to take measures that would avoid dangerous warming. Those efforts were marked by discord and failure, the refusal of the biggest emitters to take part, ineffective agreements and ignored treaties.
For these reasons, the Paris talks were widely seen as make-or-break for the UN process. If they failed, collective global efforts would be at an end and the world would be left without a just and robust means of tackling climate change.
The threat was catastrophic and the stakes could scarcely be higher. Without urgent action, warming was predicted to reach unprecedented levels, of as much as 5C above current temperatures – a level that would see large swathes of the globe rendered virtually uninhabitable. What is more, infrastructure built today – coal-fired power plants, transport networks, buildings – that entail high carbon emissions will still be operating decades into the future, giving the world a narrow window in which to change the direction of our economies.
“This was the last chance,” said Miguel Arias Canete, Europe’s climate chief. “And we took it.”
The terrorist attacks on Paris raised questions about whether the talks would go ahead at all but François Hollande, the French president, insisted that they must and, in a show of unity, more than 150 heads of state landed in the French capital for the opening day. Barack Obama hailed the conference as “an act of defiance” in the face of terrorism.
Immediately after the attacks, the first concern was for security. A planned march through central Paris by protesters was cancelled, though a version of it did go ahead as the talks opened and was marred by clashes with police and a small number of protesters, and arrests. Security for the conference was stepped up, with police and army patrolling the immediate area and transport routes nearby shut down for two days.
This was the biggest ever gathering of world leaders, whose presence was needed to empower their negotiators to move out of positions entrenched for more than 20 years. When they arrived, a series of key meetings were held, with Obama seeing Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India and representatives from the least developed countries. Hollande concentrated on forging links with the developing world. Angela Merkel, in a private meeting with Vladimir Putin, secured his pledge that Russia would not stand in the way of a deal.
Behind the conference centre gates, French delegates were marshalling their diplomatic forces. They had carefully arranged the conference centre so that their part of the compound – behind barriers staffed by UN guards and secret service officers, unlike the rest of the delegations which were open to access – was directly above the UN’s offices.
Fabius, from his office, could be with Christiana Figueres, the UN climate change chief, for a face-to-face chat within seconds. His fellow minister, Ségolène Royal, was just along the corridor, flanked with the offices of ambassadors and high-ranking officials. Within the buzzing control room, screens relayed pictures of what was happening in each of the conference rooms scattered around the compound and 24 hour news from French and international channels.
About 60 French officials were there. In preparation for the all-night sessions that began almost immediately the conference started, a room with 20 cubicled beds was waiting for exhausted officials to refresh themselves with a few snatched moments of sleep.
Procedurally, the French took great care. They instituted a series of talks known as “confessionals”. These were intended as confidential places where delegates could, in the words of one French official, “speak from the heart” to listening French diplomats, with no holds barred and an assurance of privacy.
There were also the absurdly named “informal informals”, in which a small group of delegates from various countries were charged with tackling a small piece of disputed text often as little as a paragraph at a time. Their task was to try to remove the infamous “square brackets” denoting areas of disagreement on the text and they met in small huddles around the conference centre, squatting on the floor in corridors or standing around a smart phone.
After these measures were still not producing enough progress, Fabius turned to “indabas” – by Zulu tradition, these are groups of elders convened to try to discuss disputes in communities. They were first tried out at the Durban climate talks in South Africa, in 2011, and under France’s plan they consisted of groups of up to 80 delegates at a time gathered to thrash out the remaining disagreements.
While the French could draft in experienced diplomats on every side, some of the smallest countries had difficulty in keeping up with the meetings – many happened in parallel and they did not have the personnel to attend them all.
One way of getting around that was the formation of a “coalition of high ambition”, which was announced with three days to Friday’s deadline. Forged by small island states – a key figure was Tony de Brum of the Marshall Islands – and the EU, it was joined by many of the least developed countries, adding up to more than 100 nations. They could then negotiate together, with an agreed common interest. Before the end, this coalition had been joined by the US, Canada and Australia. It was hailed by Europe’s climate and energy commissioner Miguel Cañete as a key factor in the end agreement.
And yet with three days of the conference to go, it looked as if all of these efforts might yet come to nothing. On the second Wednesday of the talks, the French produced a second iteration of the core text, reducing the number of brackets from more than 300 to fewer than 40. They were hopeful that this could be almost the end – and it needed to be in order to have the legal “scrubbers” and linguistic experts assess the text and ensure it was in line with international law and accurate in all languages.
But it soon became apparent that things were not going to plan. As countries examined the draft agreement, ministers started raising concerns. On Wednesday afternoon, leading delegations trooped one by one into Fabius’ personal office: Edna Molewa of South Africa, Xie Zhenhua of China, John Kerry of the US, Julie Bishop of Australia.
For South Africa, issues over “loss and damage” emerged – for developed countries, this meant the question of whether developing countries should be entitled to special aid in the event of climate-related disasters; for the developing, it meant compensation and liability, which the US would never agree to. For China, a key sticking point was differentiation – the concept that developing countries have less responsibility for climate change. For the US, some parts of the deal could not be legally binding in order to pass Congress.
Fabius sought to allay their concerns and find a compromise. At 8pm, he convened a new plenary session, at which all countries were able to speak. It carried on through the night.
At this point, it was clear that further efforts were needed. There followed a rapid round of telephone diplomacy. Obama spoke personally to the Chinese leader. Hollande picked up the phone to as many of his counterparts across the world as he could manage.
Finally, after two more days of fraught negotiation, a consensus emerged. None of the major countries wanted to be seen as wrecking a deal that had come so close. All could agree that they wanted an agreement and all made compromises. The EU backed down on having the intended emissions cuts, agreed at a national level, to be legally binding; the US accepted language on “loss and damage”; China and India agreed that an aspiration of holding warming to 1.5C could be included.
For the diplomats involved, the efforts were exhausting. The talks took a personal toll. In the months before the conference, Laurence Tubiana, appointed as special ambassador on climate change, played a key role in liaising with developing and developed countries. Then disaster struck. A week before the COP was scheduled to begin, she suffered a sudden sharp pain. It was acute appendicitis, necessitating emergency surgery. Within days, however, she had resumed her key role. When the deal was signed, she was on the podium, receiving hugs from Ban Ki-moon, Figueres, Fabius and Hollande, a recognition of the sacrifices she had made.
All of these efforts came to a head in the final crucial days. On Saturday morning, a new draft text was prepared. Fabius assembled the delegates and told them to have lunch while they waited for it to be translated. That afternoon, they examined the text and nearly all agreed that, with minor reservations, they could accept it. The final meeting was scheduled for 5.30pm. As for the last-minute hitch that kept delegates waiting in the hall for two hours? A matter of minor aspects of wording, including the translation of a few terms and the placement of a comma. It was rectified, apologies given, and the jubilation could begin.
It is easy to forget what an extraordinary event these UN talks were. The UNFCCC is one of the last remaining forums in the world where every country, however small, is represented on the same basis and has equal say with the biggest economies. Most modern diplomacy carries on in small, self-selected groups dominated by richer countries – the G7, the G20, the OECD, Opec – but all 196 states have a seat and a say at the UNFCCC. Agreement can only be accepted by consensus.
If this makes for an unwieldy and frustrating process, it is also a fair one. The poorest countries of the world, so often left out of international consideration, are those which have done least to create climate change, but will suffer the most from it. Only at the UN are they heard.
Matt Damon, Ridley Scott, The Martian-Jouney To Mars
The worldwide movement to join the "Journey to Mars" is building daily and is bound to skyrocket with 20th Century Fox’s film The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, opening on October 2nd. A press day was held recently at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
A screening of the film was followed by a panel discussion which included; opening remarks from Director of JPL Charles Elachi, Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters Jim Green, author of "The Martian” Andy Weir, Director Ridley Scott, Actor Matt Damon, and NASA astronaut Drew Feustel.
In “The Martian,” Damon plays the role of astronaut Mark Watney, a member of a crew sent to Mars who gets left behind after a fierce storm and is presumed to be dead. His character survived and has to use what is around him on the hostile planet to send a signal to Earth so he can be rescued.
Damon spoke about taking on the role as Astronaut Mark Watney, "I think us mere mortals are always captivated by the way people can do this and seem to have some preternatural calm when they’re in these incredibly high stress situations and that was what was really attractive about the character, how he [Astronaut Mark Watney] kept his sense of humor and kept this incredible, logical, practical, solve one problem at a time type of thinking.. It’s what these real guys, I’m sitting right next to one of them [NASA Astronaut Drew Feustel ] actually do” Damon shared.
Damon was asked if he would be interested in going to Mars given the opportunity. His response,”I think it takes a special type of person. I’m glad there are those type of people already. It would be tough for me to do it. I’ll let SpaceX and those guys get out there for about 20 years or so before I go on a flight” He laughs.
"It’s a funny thing about astronauts, we have to be smart enough to fly a spacecraft back to earth, but just a little bit whacky enough to sit on top of that rocket fuel," Feustel quipped. "We’re all a little bit Six Sigma in some way or another that allows us to take that trip. When the count down gets to zero, you definitely are having second thoughts about the decisions you're making in life, but you get there and for us it’s about doing the job that we were trained to do and carrying out the mission."
There are many different movement taking flight on social media,about travel to Mars, including “MarsorBust2030”( a way of exciting the public about going to Mars in that decade) “Mars One,” (those buying a one-way ticket to colonize on Mars0 “Mars Generation” (too young to have seen man take his first step on the moon, the Mars Generation is 18-34 years who will witness a man or woman stepping foot on Mars).
"Some of us were around when we landed on the moon, we were the lunar generation, that was pretty spectacular but when we landed Curiosity on Mars, we had the worlds attention and thats the 'Mars Generation,’ “ Green explained. “ hat’s the inspiration that will propel our economy forward by bringing in the scientist and the engineers. And the movie and the book [The Martian] is a fabulous opportunity for us to celebrate that.”
'Mars Generation,'Abby Harrison or "Astronaut Abby" as her 44.4K twitter followers refer to her, said she has wanted to be an astronaut for as long as she can remember and go to Mars when she was only 8 or 9. Now 18, she has set her course to do just that. She's pursuing her undergraduate degree in astrophysics, continuing studies of Chinese and Russian, furthering her SCUBA experience, and soon beginning her pilots license. Harrison takes the “Mars Generation" seriously, "It is the Mars Generation that is now tasked with leading the world to the next great exploration. Many generations before us have been explorers, exploring Earth from the ground, then expanding to the sky, then the lower orbit and the moon,” Harrison shared. "Without this progress, we’d be in a much different place than we are today. And now it’s our turn.”
Henderson hopes the world will share in her enthusiasm for Mars with the release of the film. "The Martian represents our future in space- but hopefully with less drama! It's great to see this coming to life on the big screen and permeating excitement around the world.” Henderson said.
After the Q&A, attendees toured NASA/JPL Mars Program and JPL’s ‘ MarsYard’-a simulated Martian landscape used by the research and flight projects to test different robotic prototypes, including; Curiosity Rover replica, the Wheel Life Cycle testing rig, testing for highest factuality use of aluminum wheels for use on Mars, and a variety of rocks, beach sand and granite throughout the “Yard” to support multiple test conditions. This is only a small example of components on the 'MarsYard’, site.
The film The Martian has received critical acclaim by NASA for it’s realistic view of the climate and topography of Mars, based on NASA data, and some of the challenges NASA faces.
(CNN)Well, all that beard growing and bison liver-eating paid off.
Nineteen years after "Titanic" made him a global star, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an Oscar Sunday night for his uncompromising role as a vengeful frontiersman in "The Revenant," his first win after coming away empty-handed at four previous Academy Awards shows.
The actor, 41, was composed but heartfelt in his best actor acceptance speech, in which he thanked mentor Martin Scorsese and urged viewers to combat climate change.
"Making 'The Revenant' was about man's relationship to the natural world, a world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow," he said.
"Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children's children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.
"I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted."
The actor received his first Oscar nomination in 1994 for his supporting role as Johnny Depp's mentally disabled little brother in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." But the award went to Gene Hackman for "Unforgiven." DiCaprio was later nominated for playing Howard Hughes in 2005's "The Aviator," a diamond smuggler in 2006's "Blood Diamond" and a crooked stockbroker in Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street," released in 2013.
Most Oscar pundits had expected him to win for Alejandro Iñárritu's "Revenant," an 1820s frontier drama that became famous for its arduous wintertime shoot -- and a brutal onscreen bear attack -- long before moviegoers ever saw the completed film. DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a fur trapper who survives the bear mauling and journeys hundreds of miles to seek revenge on the man who betrayed and abandoned him.
For one scene the actor ate a real raw bison liver -- a commitment that may have swayed academy voters.
