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Category: space – Page 1035

Game-changing technologies can be a waste of money or a competitive advantage. It depends on the technology and the organization.

It seems like the term “game-changing” gets tossed around a lot lately. This is particularly true with respect to new technologies. But what does the term mean, what are the implications, and how can you measure it?

With regarding to what it means, I like the MacMillan dictionary definition for game-changing. It is defined as “Completely changing the way that something is done, thought about, or made.” The reason I like this definition is it captures the transformational nature of what springs to mind when I hear the term game-changing. This should be just what it says. Not just a whole new ball game, but a whole new type of game entirely.

Every industry is unique. What is a game-changer for one, might only be a minor disruption or improvement for another. For example, the internal combustion engine was a game-changer for the transportation industry. It was important, though less of a game-changer for the asphalt industry due to secondary effect of increased demand for paved roads.

Just as every industry is unique, so is every organization. In order to prosper in a dynamic environment, an organization must be able to evaluate how a particular technology will affect its strategic goals, as well as its current operations. For this to happen, an organization’s leadership must have a clear understanding of itself and the environment in which it is operating. While this seems obvious, for large complex organizations, it may not be as easy as it sounds.

In addition to organizational awareness, leadership must have the inclination and ability to run scenarios of how it the organization be affected by the candidate game-changer. These scenarios provides the ability to peek a little into the future, and enables leadership to examine different aspects of the potential game-changer’s immediate and secondary impacts.

Now there are a lot of potential game-changers out there, and it is probably not possible to run a full evaluation on all of them. Here is where an initial screening comes in useful. An initial screen might ask is it realistic, actionable, and scalable? Realistic means does it appear to be feasible from a technical and financial standpoint? Actionable means does this seem like something that can actually be produced? Scalable means will the infrastructure support rapid adoption? If a potentially transformational technology passes this initial screening, then its impact on the organization should be thoroughly evaluated.

Let’s run an example with augmented reality as the technology and a space launch services company. Despite the (temporary?) demise of Google Glass, augmented reality certainly seems to have the potential to be transformational. It literally changes how we can look at the world! Is it realistic? I would say yes, the technology is almost there, as evidenced by Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens. Is it actionable? Again, yes. Google Glass was indeed produced. Is it scalable? The infrastructure seems available to support widespread adoption, but the market readiness is a bit of an issue. So yes, but perhaps with qualifications.

With the initial screening done, let’s look at the organizational impact. A space launch company’s leadership knows that due to the unforgiving nature of spaceflight, reliability has to be high. They also know that they need to keep costs low in order to be competitive. Inspection of parts and assembly is expensive but necessary in order to maintain high reliability. With this abbreviated information as the organizational background, it’s time to look at scenarios. This is the “What if?” part of the process. Taking into account the known process areas of the company and the known and projected capabilities of the technology in question, ask “what would happen if we applied this technology?” Don’t forget to try to look for second order effects as well.

One obvious scenario for the space launch company would be to examine what if augmented reality was used in the inspection and verification process? One could imagine an assembly worker equipped with augmented reality glasses seeing the supply chain history of every part that is being worked on. Perhaps getting artificial intelligence expert guidance during assembly. The immediate effect would be reduced inspection time which equates to cost savings and increased reliability. A second order effect could be greater market share due to a better competitive advantage.

The bottom line is this hypothetical example is that for the space launch company, augmented reality stands a good chance of greatly improving how it does business. It would be a game-changer in at least one area of operations, but wouldn’t completely re-write all the rules.

As the company runs additional scenarios and visualizes the potential, it could determine whether or not this technology is something they want to just wait and see, or be an early adopter, or perhaps directly invest in to bring it along a little bit faster.

The key to all of this is that organizations have to be vigilant in knowing what new technologies and capabilities are on the horizon, and proactive in evaluating how they will be affected by them. If something can be done, it will be done, and if one organization doesn’t use it to create a competitive advantage, rest assured its competitors will.

By Katie Peek — Popular Science
As you fall feet first across an event horizon—the point where nothing can escape the black hole’s gravitational pull—you don’t feel anything change. But eventually, gravity is so much stronger at your feet than your head that you’re stretched apart, like Play-Doh, until you snap. Or at least, that’s the picture physicists drew after Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity in 1915. In the past few years, new possibilities for your untimely end have emerged.

The thought experiments attempt to resolve a paradox that physicist Stephen Hawking outlined in the 1970s. He showed that in their current forms, the two major pillars of physics—quantum mechanics and general relativity—can’t both be true near a black hole. General relativity governs how very massive objects work, while quantum mechanics governs how very tiny objects work. In most of the universe, physicists can choose which set of rules to apply—general relativity for a galaxy cluster, quantum mech­anics for a particle accelerator—but a black hole is both very massive and very small. Read more

I read all the news about SpaceX’s Falcon 9 latest “failure” to land on an autonomous spaceport drone ship aka barge. I view these as trials to success. Here’s why.

1. Grasshopper Successes: The two videos below show that the early landing trials aka Grasshopper from several heights between 250m and 1,000m.

The lessons here are:

a) Pinpoint landing of a 1st stage rocket is technologically feasible.

b) This 1st stage rocket has to attain zero vertical velocity at a minimum 250m above the barge.

Video of 250m test

Video of 1,000m test

2. Falcon 9 1st stage crash landing — 1st attempt: SpaceX tells us that the failure was due to a hard landing (see video below) but at 0:03 minutes into the video one can see that the 1st stage has substantially tilted before it hit the deck i.e. the 1st stage did not tilt because it hit the deck.

The lessons here:

a) A wobble — a dynamic instability — occurs before landing.

b) The guidance systems are unable to cope with new wobble.

Video of 1st attempt

3. Falcon 9 1st stage crash landing — 2nd attempt: The video of the second attempt (below) confirms that indeed a wobble has been introduced before the stabilization fins are deployed. Further, this deployment exacerbates the wobble, and the guidance systems is unable to handle this exacerbated wobble.

The lessons here:

a) 1st stage vertical velocity needs to be zero by at least 250m above deck.

b) The stabilization fins need to be redesigned to alleviate exacerbation.

c) Like the Space Ship One’s shuttlecock approach, the 1st stage upper fins need to be deployed before the lower fins are.

d) Upgrade the landing guidance system to account for more severe wobbles.

If at a minimum, SpaceX achieves zero velocity at 250m before deployment of landing gear it will be successful. The other recommendations are good to have.

I expect SpaceX to be successful by their 3rd try.

Vivian Giang | Quartz


“‘Mars has been unanimously agreed upon by the world’s space agencies as the ‘horizon goal’ for human spaceflight,’ said Do, part of the MIT research group responsible for a widely read report debunking Mars One’s mission as unfeasible. ‘It is widely agreed that Mars is the most promising destination for near term colonization.’” Read more

By Caleb A. Scharf — Scientific American
Gravity, as the old joke goes, sucks.

It drags us down, pulls on our weary limbs, makes our feet tired, makes parts of us droop. But it’s also a critical factor for our long term well-being. Astronauts and cosmonauts circling the Earth over the past 60 years have discovered that zero-g, or microgravity, is really not very good for you. Read more

by Fraser Cain — Universe Todayhttp://i2.wp.com/www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cygx1_ill.jpg
I remember back to a classic episode of the Guide to Space, where I provided an extremely fascinating and concise explanation for what a quasar is. Don’t recall that episode? Well, it was super. Just super. Alright slackers, let’s recap.

Quasars are the brightest objects in the Universe, visible across billions of light years. Likely blanching life from everything in the path of the radiation beam from its lighthouse of death. They occur when a supermassive black hole is actively feeding on material, pouring out a mountain of radiation. Black holes, of course, are regions of space with such intense gravity where nothing, not even light itself, can escape. Read more

By Ryan Faith — Vice News
https://lifeboat.com/blog.images/this-is-why-bitcoin-is-being-launched-into-space.jpg
Bitcoin becomes more valuable as bitcoin transactions become more secure. That is an important thing to keep in mind when trying to understand why the hell bitcoin is being launched into space.

Why? Because what’s a more secure place for the computers processing bitcoin transactions than in orbit several miles above the earth? That’s why core bitcoin developer and founder of Dunvegan Space Systems Jeff Garzik has developed the BitSat program, which plans to launch computers on small, (relatively) cheap satellites in 2016.Read more

A realistic and desirable human destination would produce a different space program than what we have today.

“We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.” This is NASA’s Vision Statement. This is NASA’s reason for being, its purpose. This is a vision statement for science and knowledge. This vision statement was crafted in a solar system that has only one planet that is environmentally friendly to human life.

Thanks to the ongoing search for exoplanets, we’ve identified several planets in our galaxy that are Earth sized and in their star’s habitable zone. Based on statistics, potentially billions more are waiting to be found. We are just now developing the technology to detect them. But we’re nowhere near having the technology needed to get to visit them. They are simply too far away.

Now here is where I’d like to pose a what if question: What if there was another habitable planet just like Earth, right here in our own solar system? What would Earth’s space programs look like, if anyone with a good telescope could look up and see another world with oceans, and continents, and clouds, and green forests? I think that it is safe to say that space programs in this imaginary solar system would be vastly different than ours today. This is conjecture, but it seems likely that the vision statement above, would be more in line with making that new world available for humanity.

Of course the key difference between our present reality and this imaginary scenario is the existence of an obviously desirable destination relatively close by to Earth. This lack of obviously desirable destinations has shaped space programs into the form we see them today. The science oriented form described in the current NASA vision statement is a good example.

It has been said that leadership begins with a vision. To be compelling, a vision describes a desirable end state to be obtained. In the case of the fictional scenario with another Earth like planet in the solar system, that leadership vision might include making it possible for people to move freely to this new world.

As an analogy, in the mid 1800’s, the transcontinental vision (paraphrased) was to secure the U.S. position on the Pacific through a speedy and direct means of travel from one coast to the other. That vision did not include establishing and building the city of San Francisco! The prior existence of San Francisco, enabled the vision of a transcontinental railroad.

Since our situation lacks a visible desirable destination, a bit more effort is required in the vision department. We know that the solar system contains all the resources we need in order to construct vast places for people to live. Immense structures with forests, streams and farmland as advocated by Dr. Gerard O’Neill back in the 1970’s are all possible. We can achieve the same vision of having another habitable planet in this solar system, we just have to add the intermediate step of a vision to develop the manufacturing capability to construct our own desirable destinations!

Using the transcontinental vision as a guide, it is premature for the space vision to focus on sending millions of people out into space, since apart from the International Space Station, there are no destinations yet! No, to get to the transcontinental vision for space, we first need a vision of building a San Francisco in space! But in order for that vision to be considered, it must be realistic. The focus would be on developing the tools and robots necessary to rapidly and economically build up in-space manufacturing industries that can begin the construction of the first villages that will grow into the human cities.

Even though we do not have another Earth in our solar system, it is possible to envision the creation of other Earth equivalents. This leap in leadership would produce a vision unlike what we have now. This new vision, focused on manufacturing and development utilizing the resources of our solar system, would empower capabilities for even greater accomplishments in the future.

By: Leigh Cooper — Inside Science
Novel technologies, innovative engineering and breathtaking discoveries could be the story of the next 100 years of space exploration. But space travel involves more than math, telescopes and rovers according to the speakers at a session at last month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California. Modern space exploration mixes together governments and private companies, science and ethics, promise and possibilities.

Chris Impey, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, thinks that the desire to explore, which has pushed humans to cross oceans and conquer mountains, will continue to propel humans into space.

“I think what is happening now is as profound as the transition that took place among hunter gatherers when they left Africa 50 or 60 thousand years ago,” said Impey. “It took an amazing short time – just a couple hundred generations – for simple tribal units of 50 or 100 to spread essentially across the Earth.“Read more

One of the things that I’ve always liked about Star Trek, is the concept of a galaxy spanning civilization. I would expect that before we ever get to that point, we will have a civilization that spans our solar system. Having a solar system spanning civilization has many advantages. It would give us access to resources many times greater than what is found here on Earth. It also provides the opportunity for civilization to expand, and in a worst case scenario, help ensure the survival of humanity.

Millions of people living in spacious environmentally controlled cities on planetary surfaces and in rotating cylinders in free space, with industry that extends from Mercury to the comets is to me, a grand vision worthy of an ambitious civilization. But trying to make that vision a reality will be difficult. The International Space Station has the capacity to house just six people and cost approximately $100B to put in place. With a little simple division, that works out to about $17B per inhabitant! If we used that admittedly crude figure, it would cost $17 trillion to build a 1,000 person habitat in Earth orbit. Clearly, the approach we used to build the ISS will not work for building a solar system civilization!

The ISS model relies on building everything on Earth, and launching it into space. A different model championed by Dr. Philip Metzger, would develop industrial capacity in space, using resources close to home, such as from the Moon. This has the potential to greatly reduce the cost of building and maintaining systems in space. But how to develop that industrial capacity? Remember we can’t afford to launch and house thousands of workers from Earth. The answer it would seem, is with advanced robotics and advanced manufacturing.

But is even this possible? The good news is that advanced robotics and advanced manufacturing are already being rapidly developed here on Earth. The driver for this development is economics, not space. These new tools will still have to be modified to work in the harsh environment of space, and with resources that are different from what are commonly used here on Earth. While learning to adapt those technologies to the Moon and elsewhere in the solar system is not trivial, it is certainly better that having to develop them from scratch!

Advanced robots are already having a very positive impact on our economy and play a significant role in what is referred to as next shoring. Next shoring is the move to bring manufacturing closer to the customer. For U.S. customers, that means the return of manufacturing to the U.S. This only makes business sense if the manufacturing costs are as low or lower here, than elsewhere. It is evident that the labor share of manufacturing is lower in those countries that have a high degree of automation. We are getting closer and closer to the cost of materials and transportation being the main drivers in manufactured goods. This is just what we would like to see happen for our solar system civilization. Developing materials and transportation systems from local resources through automation will drive down the cost of opening up the solar system.

While this is great news for developing space, there are implications for our terrestrial civilization. Remember the push for automation in manufacturing isn’t driven by a space need, it is driven by Earthly economics. That means getting to market faster with a better product and at a lower cost. The implication to our terrestrial civilization is twofold. First, manufacturing corporations see greater productivity per employee. This makes sense in that you can increase productivity by adding robots while maintaining or even reducing the workforce. This equates to greater profits and happier shareholders! The downside of that increased productivity however, is a reduction in job growth, if not an outright decline. The very technologies that will make a solar system civilization possible may very well stifle the job market here.

Are people worried about this? You bet they are! This issue became apparent at the 2015 SXSW Festival in Texas. At that event a protest (a staged marketing stunt as reported in IO9) to “stop the robots,” occurred. Much to the surprise of the organizers, this protest generated a lot more attention than they planned, and was picked up by multiple news organizations. It would seem that this interest is driven by very real personal concerns that people have about losing jobs to robots.

Now this is where things get interesting. Economics is driving the development of advanced robots. These advanced robots enable space development but can potentially hurt the job market. From a systems viewpoint, we cannot champion the arrival of advanced robots as a boon for both industry and space development, without considering the potential downside.

People need jobs, and not surprisingly, they particularly like important work. We need to welcome the benefits that advanced robotics bring and at the same time, we need to be proactive in stepping up to the challenges that come along with the benefits. There are lots of ways to address this issue, but it is apparent from the concern shown at SXSW, that this is a conversation that needs to begin sooner rather than later.

We do live in a changing world, which is changing at an ever increasing pace. As leaders, we can chose to either react to the changes being brought on by a growing robotic workforce, or we can chose to lead the transformation of our institutions to successfully accommodate that change. If we chose to lead, the first step, as identified by Professor John Kotter, is a sense of urgency. That sense seems already to be building. Next steps are to develop a vision for ways to accommodate the necessary changes, and building coalitions necessary to implement it. It might be wise to start looking at these steps now.

Like any complex problem, multiple approaches will most likely be needed in order to address workforce disruption. With broad discussion, planning and leadership now, we can mitigate the downside issues, while enabling a strengthened economy now and a bright future among the stars.

Mark