Scientists have finally studied their first full samples returned from an asteroid in space, and they confirm what you'd expect — while providing some new insights. ScienceAlertreports researchers have released twopapers revealing their first analysis of samples from Ryugu, the space rock the Hayabusa2 probe visited in February 2019. The team knew Ryugu would be a common, carbon-rich C-type asteroid, but that still makes it a good peek at the ingredients of the early Solar System.

The sampling indicates Ryugu has a carbon-dominated composition similar to the Sun's photosphere (outer shell), much like certain meteorites. It's made of the most primitive materials in the Solar System, emerging from the dust disc that formed along with the Sun itself. It's also quite porous, like many asteroids. However, it's not quite a neat and tidy example. Most C-type asteroids have a low albedo (solar radiation reflectivity) of 0.03 to 0.09 due to their carbon, but Ryugu's is 0.02. It's dark even by the standards of its cosmic neighbors.

As it stands, the very existence of these studies represents an achievement. The first attempt to return a sample, from the astroid Itokawa in 2010, only netted a tiny amount of dust. There's still more to come from Ryugu, but even the existing data could help scientists reshape their understanding of the Solar System's birth and development.

We’re in the midst of a modern day space race. Where once the two most powerful empires on the planet vied to be first to the moon, we now have corporations led by billionaire barons — Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic — boasting a future filled with exo-planetary tourism. In 2021, the heads of these private companies finally made good on their myriad promises, successfully launching civilians, astronauts and, in two cases, themselves into the uppermost reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.

SpaceX continues to lead the burgeoning private spaceflight industry from the front. In January, the company successfully launched its first “rideshare mission” aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, ferrying 133 microsatellites into orbit along with 10 of its own Starlink satellites. SpaceX’s Starlink ISP service, which now serves more than 10,000 customers, has put some 1,475 of the microsats into orbit above the planet (with a total of 42,000 planned, offering global coverage by September), despite the vehement protests of astronomers who fear their presence will blind ground-based telescopes.

SpaceX’s endeavors to get its Starship prototype off the ground have not been nearly as successful as Starlink, mind you. The 100-passenger spacecraft, which was designed to help fulfill CEO Elon Musk’s dream of colonizing Mars and, presumably, titling himself God Emperor of the Red Planet (or some such), spectacularly exploded on the launchpad following a high-altitude test flight in March.

A subsequent test of the SN11 Starship prototype later that month didn’t even get back to the landing pad. SN15, which launched in May, did however manage to land in one piece. The company is currently working on a plan to launch a Starship prototype into orbit, though no timetable is currently set for that launch — it was originally slated for July then pushed back to November, depending on regulatory approval, and is now set for January.

But those failed tests have done little to slow SpaceX’s roll over its competition. In February, NASA awarded SpaceX with a $331.8 million contract to bring its Gateway station into lunar orbit in 2024. And in April, NASA gave the company a $2.9 billion contract to ferry its Artemis lunar lander to the moon.

Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin responded to the Artemis contract by first protesting the “fundamentally unfair” decision with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), which delayed progress on the project until July when the GAO dismissed the claims, even though Bezos offered NASA $2 billion to grant them the contract instead.

"We stand firm in our belief that there were fundamental issues with NASA's decision, but the GAO wasn't able to address them due to their limited jurisdiction," the company said following the GAO’s announcement.

Still seething from the GAO’s rebuke, Bezos then filed suit against NASA in Federal Claims court, essentially trying to “sue [its] way to the moon,” per Musk. Blue Origin claimed this was done "in an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System," a spokesperson for Blue Origin told Engadget in August. "We firmly believe that the issues identified in this procurement and its outcomes must be addressed to restore fairness, create competition, and ensure a safe return to the Moon for America." Blue Origin eventually lost that lawsuit as well.

And that’s when a prestige competition between the two richest men on Earth devolved into a middle school slap fight with SpaceX accusing Amazon of intentionally delaying proposals for its Starlink service while Amazon countered with incriminations that Musk and SpaceX “don’t follow the rules.”

“Whether it is launching satellites with unlicensed antennas, launching rockets without approval, building an unapproved launch tower, or re-opening a factory in violation of a shelter-in-place order, the conduct of SpaceX and other Musk-led companies makes their view plain: rules are for other people, and those who insist upon or even simply request compliance are deserving of derision and ad hominem attacks,” Amazon’s FCC filing reads.

This year, not only did SpaceX become the first private company to successfully transport astronauts to the ISS, it also offered its first orbital flight for civilians with the launch of the Inspiration4 mission in September. A quartet of amatuer astronauts spent three days circling the Earth in a Dragon Capsule before safely returning. And while Musk has not yet left the planet’s atmosphere aboard a rocket of his company’s design, he has reportedly made a $10,000 down payment on a trip aboard a future Virgin Galactic flight.

One notch Bezos has on his belt that Musk does not is the fact that he has, in fact, flown aboard his own spacecraft. Following successful test flights of Blue Origin’s upgraded New Shepard in both January and April, Jeff Bezos and his brother — along with 18-year old Oliver Daemen (whose parents spent $28 million for the honor) and 84-year-old Wally Funk — successfully traversed the Karman line on July 20th. Blue Origin followed up that feat in October when it shuttled William Shatner, of Star Trek fame, into space. During that flight, Shatner, who is 90, unseated 84-year-old Funk as the oldest person to go to space. Way to snatch the last few highlights from an old woman’s life, Captain Kirk.

Looking ahead, Blue Origin is working on a spacecraft capable of handling a Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system for DARPA — and competing against Lockheed Martin to successfully demonstrate it outside of low Earth orbit in 2025. The company also announced at the end of October that it hopes to build and deploy a commercial space station called the Orbital Reef — think, the ISS but with more intrusive advertising — by the second half of this decade. NASA has since awarded the project a Space Act Agreement, along with funding through the design phase, as part of its Commercial LEO Development program.

Virgin Galactic, on the other hand, started its 2021 off in a holding pattern. The company’s SpaceShip II test at the end of last December — its first major flight out of the Spaceport America site in New Mexico – ended in abruptly after the ship’s engine failed to ignite. A subsequent redo test scheduled for February was also delayed to May after the company opted to make additional “technical checks.”

While these aren’t major setbacks in the same vein as say an exploding StarShip, VG’s continued delays have pushed back the company’s goal of commercial space tourism flights to at least 2022. They did not, however, impact Virgin Galactic’s unveiling of SpaceShip III in March.

In May, VG’s perseverance paid off when SpaceShip II successfully completed its rocket-powered test flight, flinging a pair of pilots and a cargo hold full of NASA experiments into the very upper reaches of the atmosphere. The following month, Virgin Galactic received approval from the FAA to begin commercial operations, becoming the first such company to secure permission from the aviation industry. With the FAA’s blessing firmly in hand, Virgin Galactic decided to blast CEO Sir Richard Branson into space — heedless of Blue Origin’s derisions — the following month. On July 11th, Branson and his crew did just that — well, technically.

Buoyed by the success of their boss’ flight, Virgin Galactic began offering tickets to would-be space tourists for the low, low discount price of $450,000. As of the start of November, more than 100 tickets have been sold.

Branson’s flight was not flawless, however, and that raised the ire of the FAA. During SpaceShip II’s landing, the spacecraft “deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance as it returned to Spaceport America,” per the FAA. In a subsequent statement from the company, Virgin disagreed with the FAA’s characterization.

“When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters,” the company argued. “Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they were trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures. Although the flight’s ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, it was a controlled and intentional flight path that allowed Unity 22 to successfully reach space and land safely at our Spaceport in New Mexico. At no time were passengers and crew put in any danger as a result of this change in trajectory.” A brief investigation by the FAA eventually cleared the company to resume test flights.

Despite these advances in private spaceflight systems, don’t expect the space tourism industry to take off before at least the start of the next decade. If Virgin Galactic’s recent price hike from $250,000 to $450,000 per ticket is any indication, very few people will be able to afford such a trip for the foreseeable future. So while two of the world’s richest men may have had the honor of temporarily escaping our gravity well, don’t think you’ll get your chance anytime soon — unless you can win it like a Golden Ticket like Keisha S did.

The Parker Solar Probe has become the first spacecraft to fly through the Sun's upper atmosphere or corona, NASA announced. In April, it passed within 15 solar radii (around 6.5 million miles) from the Sun's surface in a region where magnetic fields dominate solar conditions. "Parker Solar Probe 'touching the Sun' is a monumental moment for solar science and a truly remarkable feat," said NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen. 

The Sun has a superheated atmosphere called the corona (visible from Earth only during a solar eclipse) that's bound to it by gravity and magnetic fields. At a certain limit called the Alfvén critical surface, materials are able to escape those forces and become part of the solar wind, permanently severing their connection to the Sun.

Scientists have estimated that the corona is between 10 to 20 solar radii from the Sun's surface, or around 4.3 to 8.6 million miles. The Parker Solar probe detected the specific magnetic and particle conditions required for the corona at around 18.8 solar radii, or around 8.1 million miles. It passed in and out of the boundary several times, proving that the Alfvén critical surface has spikes and valleys and isn't shaped like a smooth ball.

Inside that region, the probe encountered features called pseudostreamers, or massive structures rising above the Sun's surface visible during solar eclipses. Flying through the objects was like "flying into the eye of the storm" because of the quieter conditions and slowing particles, NASA said.

It also made observations that may helped scientists figure out where "switchbacks," or kinks in the solar wind form. It detected bursts of switchbacks as it passed closer to the sun, and scientists were able to trace those back to the visible surface. Specifically, they found that some types of "fast" switchbacks form in the magnetic funnels created between convection cells on the sun's surface. 

The probe has not only made the closest-ever pass by the sun, it's traveling at the greatest speed of any manmade object ever, currently around 430,000 MPH. The next close pass will happen in January 2022, when scientists will try to determine exactly how switchbacks and other solar phenomena form. "Such measurements from the corona will be critical for understanding and forecasting extreme space weather events that can disrupt telecommunications and damage satellites around Earth," NASA wrote.

NASA was hoping to send the James Webb telescope on its way to space by December 22nd, but its launch has been delayed yet again. You've probably read several variations of that sentence by now if you've been keeping track of the observatory, seeing as its launch has been pushed back quite a few times already. In an announcement posted on the project's official page, NASA said that the James Webb team is working on a communication issue between the telescope and its Ariane 5 launch vehicle. As such, it will be launched no earlier than December 24th.

The James Webb project has experienced numerous setbacks since development started in 1996, due to various reasons that include going overbudget and major redesigns. After testing was suspended in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA worked towards an October 18th, 2021 launch. However, after testing by the agency and primary contractor Northrop Grumman, it was determined that the telescope wouldn't be ready until November or December this year. NASA previously announced a December 18th launch date, which was moved back to the 22nd after an unplanned release of a clamp band that secures James Webb to the launch vehicle adapter prompted a thorough check to ensure the telescope wasn't damaged. 

If everything goes as planned this time, December 24th is the earliest possible launch date that could be scheduled. The telescope could be heading towards the second Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system later than Christmas Eve — NASA says it will reveal more details about its new target launch schedule on December 17th. When it does reach its destination, James Webb will observe the universe with a keener eye than Hubble, thanks to instruments that will allow it to see objects too old and too distant for the older telescope.

Becoming an astronaut requires perfect 20/20 vision, but unfortunately, the effects of space can cause astronauts to return to Earth with degraded eyesight. Now, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have developed a sleeping bag that that could prevent or reduce those problems by effectively sucking fluid out of astronauts' heads.

More than half of NASA astronauts that went to the International Space Station (ISS) for more than six months have developed vision problems to varying degrees. In one case, astronaut John Philips returned from a six month stint about the ISS in 2005 with his vision reduced from 20/20 to 20/100, as the BBC reported. 

For multi-year trips to Mars, for example, this could become an issue. "It would be a disaster if astronauts had such severe impairments that they couldn't see what they're doing and it compromised the mission," lead researcher Dr. Benjamin Levine told the BBC.

UT Southwestern/NASA

Fluids tend to accumulate in the head when you sleep, but on Earth, gravity pulls them back down into the body when you get up. In the low gravity of space, though, more than a half gallon of fluid collects in the head. That in turn applies pressure to the eyeball, causing flattening that can lead to vision impairment — a disorder called spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS. Dr. Levine discovered SANS by flying cancer patients aboard zero-G parabolic flights. They still had ports in their heads to receive chemotherapy, which gave researchers an access point to measure pressure within their brains.

To combat SANS, researchers collaborated with outdoor gear manufacturer REI to develop a sleeping bag that fits around the waist, enclosing the lower body. A vacuum cleaner-like suction device is then activated that draws fluid toward the feet, preventing it from accumulating in the head.  

Around a dozen people volunteered to test the technology, and the results were positive. Some questions need to be answered before NASA brings the technology aboard the ISS, including the optimal amount of time astronauts should spend in the sleeping bag each day. They also need to determine if every astronaut should use one, or just those at risk of developing SANS.

Still, Dr. Levine is hopeful that SANS will no longer be an issue by the time NASA is ready to go to Mars. "This is perhaps one of the most mission-critical medical issues that has been discovered in the last decade for the space program," he said in a statement. 

If the weather remains favorable and no technical issues stop it, the New Shepard vehicle carrying six people will be lifting off today at 9:45AM Eastern time. It's Blue Origin's third ever crewed mission and the first time that a flight will be at full capacity with six passengers onboard. One of those passengers is Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard who's known for being the first American to go to space. She'll be making the trip with Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan as guests of the Jeff Bezos-owned aerospace company.

The trip's paying passengers are technology-focused venture fund founder Lane Bess and his child Cameron Bass aka MeepsKitten on Twitch, Voyager Space CEO Dylan Taylor and engineer/Starfighters Aerospace volunteer pilot Evan Dick. Blue Origin NS-19 was supposed to make the trip to suborbital space on December 9th, but it was pushed back due strong winds.

The company launched its first crewed spaceflight in July, carrying Jeff Bezos and his brother above the Kármán line. In October it flew William Shatner into space for its second crewed flight. Mission NS-19 isn't only the third crewed Blue Origin flight this year, it's also one of the many across space agencies and private space companies, including SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. As Jennifer Levasseur, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, told The Washington Post, it's "the busiest year in human spaceflight." She added: "We're entering a new phase of activity that we've never, frankly, seen before. And it creates a lot of excitement."

You can watch the launch and the preparations before it below when broadcast begins at 8:15AM ET.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has blasted off with NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) satellite. First announced in 2017, the IXPE is the first satellite capable of measuring the polarization of X-rays that come from cosmic sources, such as black holes and neutron stars. 

The fridge-sized satellite has three telescopes that can track and measure the direction, arrival time, energy, and polarization of light. When data from all those telescopes is combined, NASA can form images that could give us more insight into how mysterious celestial objects — those that emit X-ray — work. For instance, they're hoping it can give us a more thorough look at the structure of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant with a neutron star rapidly spinning in its center.

By observing black holes, the IXPE will help scientists gain more insight and broaden humanity's knowledge on the regions of space we still barely know. It could provide clues on why they spin and how they gobble up cosmic materials, though it could also lead to new discoveries. Martin Weisskopf, the mission's principal investigator, said during a briefing: "IXPE will help us test and refine our current theories of how the universe works. We may even discover more exciting theories about these exotic objects than what we've hypothesized." 

SpaceX used a Falcon 9 rocket from a previous mission for this launch. If all goes well, the rocket's first stage will land on the company's drone ship "Just Read the Instructions" after ferrying IXPE to space.

NASA's Hubble telescope has been in a "coma" since going into system failure in late October — but today, the agency announced that it is waking Hubble up. After multiple instrument sync failures that required putting Hubble into safe mode, NASA says the telescope is now functioning as normal, with all four active instruments collecting data. 

On October 23rd, NASA first noticed that Hubble's instruments weren't receiving sync messages from the telescope's control unit. Communications issues continued for several days, which led NASA to put the telescope into a sort of safe mode — something that takes a long time to come out of because of the sensitivity of Hubble's hardware. Rapid power or temperature changes aren't good for its lifespan, so NASA took its time here.

This shutdown was the second that was required in 2021, with another month-long "coma" taking place in July to deal with an unrelated issue. Given the 31-year-old telescope's age, it's entirely possible that Hubble is nearing the end of its useful life in space, but for now NASA expects Hubble to work in tandem with the Webb telescope "well into this decade." After numerous delays, the Webb telescope is expected to finally launch on December 22nd.

Scientific research and technological advancement have gone hand-in-hand since the invention of the wheel. Without research, we lack the knowledge base to advance the state of technology and, without technological advancement we lack the functional base for further scientific exploration. In their new book, The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Harvard University Professor of Technology and Public Policy, Venkatesh Narayanamurti, and Sandia National Laboratories Senior Scientist, Jeffrey Y. Tsao, explore the symbiotic relationship between these two concepts and how their interaction might be modulated to better serve the rapidly accelerating pace of 21st century technoscientific discovery.

Harvard University Press

Excerpted from THE GENESIS OF TECHNOSCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS: RETHINKING THE NATURE AND NURTURE OF RESEARCH by VENKATESH NARAYANAMURTI AND JEFFREY Y. TSAO, published by Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Network Is Hierarchical: The Nesting of Questions and Answers

The way in which scientific and technological knowledge are hierarchical stems from the nesting discussed in the last chapter, both of scientific facts and explanations and of technological functions and the forms that fulfill them.

Harvard University Press

In science, at the top of the hierarchy are facts — raw patterns in observed phenomena. These patterns can be thought of as questions: Why does a particular pattern occur? Why when one releases a ball does the ball fall and fall faster the farther it has fallen? Explanations of those raw patterns come a level below in the hierarchy, and can be thought of as answers to those questions: Galileo’s sixteenth-century explanation of the observed distance-versus-time pattern was that the velocities of falling balls increase linearly with time. But this answer, or explanation, becomes itself another question: Why do the velocities of falling balls increase linearly with time? This question begs a deeper explanation, a deeper answer: Newton’s explanation was that gravity is a force, that uniform forces cause uniform acceleration, and that uniform acceleration causes linear increases in velocity. Scientific understanding is always incomplete, of course, so there is always a point at which we have no deeper explanation. This in no way detracts from the power of the explanations that do exist: science seeks proximate whys but does not insist on ultimate whys. The general theory of relativity explains Newton’s laws of gravity, even if its own origin is yet to be explained.

In technology, at the top of the hierarchy are human-desired functions. These functions present problems that are solved by forms below them in the hierarchy. Forms fulfill functions, but those forms present new problems that must be solved at successively deeper levels. Shifting from the problem-solution nomenclature to the equivalent question-answer nomenclature, we can say that the iPhone represented a technological question: How do we create an Internet-capable cellular phone with a software-programmable interactive display? A partial answer came in the form of multi touch capacitive surfaces, opening up a significant design space for user interaction when multiple fingers are used simultaneously. But the opaqueness of existing multitouch surfaces itself became a question: How do we make multi touch surfaces transparent so that the display is visible? The multi touch transparent surface display provided an answer.

In other words, science and technology are both organized into hierarchies of question-and-answer pairs, with any question or answer having two “faces.” One face, pointing downward in the hierarchy, represents a question to an answer just below it in the hierarchy. The other face, pointing upward in the hierarchy, represents an answer to a question just above it in the hierarchy. We emphasize that our depiction of questions as “above” answers and answers as “below” questions is arbitrary — it does not signify relative importance or value but is simply intended to be consistent with common usage. In science, an explanation is deeper and more “foundational” than the fact it explains, especially if it generalizes to explanations of many other facts. Special relativity is, in that sense, deeper than the constancy of c because it answers the question of why c is constant; it also answers the question of how much energy is released during nuclear fission and fusion. In technology, forms are deeper and more “foundational” than the functions they fulfill, especially if they have been adapted to fulfill many other functions. The multi touch transparent surface display is more foundational than the iPhone because it not only helps answer the question of how to create the iPhone, but also helps answer the question of how to create human-interactive displays in general. Rubber is more foundational than a bicycle tire because it not only helps answer the question of how to create a bicycle tire, but also helps answer the question of how to create a myriad of other kinds of tires.

The Network Is Modular: Facilitating Exploitation and Exploration

Closely related scientific questions and answers are organized into what we might call scientific domains, which we will refer to as scientific knowledge modules. Closely interacting technological problems and solutions are organized into engineered components, which we will refer to as technological knowledge modules.

Harvard University Press

Closely related scientific questions are often answerable within a scientific knowledge domain, or scientific knowledge module, drawing on multiple subdomains nested within the larger domain. A question related to some electron transport phenomenon in a particular semiconductor structure lies in the broad domain of semiconductor science but the answer might require an integrated understanding of both the subdomain of electron transport physics as well as the subdomain of the materials science of the synthesized structure. The subquestion associated with electron transport physics might require an integrated understanding of the subdomain of electrons in various kinds of structures (bulk materials, heterojunctions, nanostructures, coupled nanostructures) and of the sub-subdomains of interactions of electrons with phonons in those structures. The subquestion associated with the materials science of the synthesized structure might require an understanding of the sub-subdomains of substrates and epitaxy, thin films, or post materials synthesis fabrication. In other words, we can think of scientific knowledge domains as a modular hierarchy, and think of its subdomains as submodules and sub-submodules.

Closely related technological problems, likewise, are often solved by key technological components, or technological knowledge modules, perhaps integrating multiple subcomponents nested within the larger components. An iPhone is a component itself composed of many subcomponents, and each subcomponent is similarly subdivided. We can think of the “problem” of the iPhone as a component that is “solved” by its subcomponents — an enclosure, a display, a printed circuit board, a camera, and input / output ports. We can think of the “problem” of a printed circuit board as a subcomponent that is “solved” by sub-components that include low-power integrated circuit chips. Conversely, an iPhone is also a component that is itself nested in a hierarchy of use functions. An iPhone might be used as a solution to the problem of “running” a text-messaging app; a text-messaging app might be used as a solution to the problem of sending a mass text message to a friend group; the mass text message might be used as a solution to the problem of organizing the friend group into a protest in Times Square; and the protest in Times Square might be part of a solution to the problem of organizing a wider social movement for some human-desired social cause.

One might ask: Why is scientific and technological knowledge modular? They are modular because they are complex adaptive systems — systems sustained by and adapted to their environment by complex internal changes — and virtually all complex adaptive systems are modular (Simon, 1962). Complex adaptive systems both exploit their environments and explore their environments to improve that exploitation. Modularity enables efficiency, both in the exploitation of existing knowledge about the environment and exploration of that environment to create new knowledge.

Scientists are getting better at characterizing exoplanets, and that's leading to some surprising discoveries. As Reutersreports, a DLR-led team has determined that the relatively nearby (31 light-years) planet GJ 367b is significantly smaller than Earth at 5,592 miles across, but is more dense than Earth — it's about as dense as iron, and 86 percent of the planet is made from the metal. The planet more closely resembles Mercury than humanity's homeworld.

GJ 367b certainly isn't habitable. It's so close to its host red dwarf star that an orbit takes just 7.7 hours, and the radiation is so intense that it could reach up to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit. That's enough to melt any metals and rocks, and certainly wouldn't allow for life as we know it. It's safe to presume there won't be any colonization missions as a result.

The assessment by itself is notable, however. GJ 367b is the smallest planet ever characterized to this level of detail, and that could help in the search for more habitable exoplanets, understanding planet formation and even gauging the criteria for habitability. Those, in turn, could help astronomers determine whether or not the relatively life-friendly Solar System is as rare as it seems.