Month: August 2024
SpaceX will soon send the Polaris Dawn crew off to attempt the first commercial spacewalk
Polaris Dawn, a private space mission that aims to complete the first-ever civilian spacewalk, is expected to launch this week. On X, SpaceX said it’s targeting Tuesday August 27 at 3:38AM ET for liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the Polaris Dawn crew to orbit. Led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn plans to send its crew of four private citizens as far as 870 miles from Earth — farther than any human has traveled since the Apollo program. The spacewalk, in which two of the crew members will step outside the SpaceX Dragon capsule, will take place at an altitude of 435 miles above Earth.
The Polaris Dawn crew includes Isaacman, CEO of Shift4, as commander, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott “Kidd” Poteet as its pilot, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon as mission specialists. Menon will also serve as the medical officer. The mission is expected to last about five days.
Polaris Dawn and SpaceX completed a full rehearsal of launch day activities ahead of liftoff on Tuesday pic.twitter.com/qz2RD5bnVM— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2024
While only two crew members will actually leave the spacecraft during the flight, all will be exposed to the vacuum of space when the hatch opens — the Dragon capsule doesn’t have an airlock. It’ll be a critical test for SpaceX’s new Extravehicular Activity space suits, which the entire Polaris Dawn crew will have to wear to keep them safe. In an interview with Florida Today ahead of the mission, Menon said the suits have gone through extensive testing on the ground and expressed confidence in their performance. “We absolutely know the suits can pressurize there,” Menon said, adding that the team has “spent a lot of time pressurizing the suits at this point.”
Polaris Dawn will also put Starlink laser-based communications to the test in space for the first time, and gather data to support research into the effects of spaceflight on human health. The mission comes several years in the making and is the first of three planned Polaris spaceflights.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-will-soon-send-the-polaris-dawn-crew-off-to-attempt-the-first-commercial-spacewalk-171538506.html?src=rss
Polaris Dawn, a private space mission that aims to complete the first-ever civilian spacewalk, is expected to launch this week. On X, SpaceX said it’s targeting Tuesday August 27 at 3:38AM ET for liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket that will carry the Polaris Dawn crew to orbit. Led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn plans to send its crew of four private citizens as far as 870 miles from Earth — farther than any human has traveled since the Apollo program. The spacewalk, in which two of the crew members will step outside the SpaceX Dragon capsule, will take place at an altitude of 435 miles above Earth.
The Polaris Dawn crew includes Isaacman, CEO of Shift4, as commander, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott “Kidd” Poteet as its pilot, and SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon as mission specialists. Menon will also serve as the medical officer. The mission is expected to last about five days.
Polaris Dawn and SpaceX completed a full rehearsal of launch day activities ahead of liftoff on Tuesday pic.twitter.com/qz2RD5bnVM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2024
While only two crew members will actually leave the spacecraft during the flight, all will be exposed to the vacuum of space when the hatch opens — the Dragon capsule doesn’t have an airlock. It’ll be a critical test for SpaceX’s new Extravehicular Activity space suits, which the entire Polaris Dawn crew will have to wear to keep them safe. In an interview with Florida Today ahead of the mission, Menon said the suits have gone through extensive testing on the ground and expressed confidence in their performance. “We absolutely know the suits can pressurize there,” Menon said, adding that the team has “spent a lot of time pressurizing the suits at this point.”
Polaris Dawn will also put Starlink laser-based communications to the test in space for the first time, and gather data to support research into the effects of spaceflight on human health. The mission comes several years in the making and is the first of three planned Polaris spaceflights.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-will-soon-send-the-polaris-dawn-crew-off-to-attempt-the-first-commercial-spacewalk-171538506.html?src=rss
AI was responsible for the fake quotes in the Megalopolis trailer
Adam Driver in Megalopolis. | Screenshot: YouTube
So, all those faked review quotes from the Megalopolis trailer that got pulled last week were apparently AI, after all. Not only that, but the person who was in charge of the materials for the trailer, Eddie Egan, has been removed from the movie’s marketing team.
That’s all according to Deadline, which reported on Friday that the AI-ness of it all was confirmed in an investigation after the fact. Neither Egan nor Megalopolis studio Lionsgate meant to fake the quotes, which had purported to be critical notes from contemporaneous reviews of Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola’s past films.
According to some of the trailer’s quotes, critics had called The Godfather a “sloppy, self-indulgent movie,” while Apocalypse Now was “an epic piece of trash.” But as Vulture noted when it first reported on the quotes’ spuriousness, the actual reviews the quotes were attributed to not only didn’t say those things, but often were actually written in praise of the movies.
It’s easy to see how this could have happened. AI’s casual, confident delivery of falsehoods is well documented at this point; even the companies that make AI products end up with factual errors in their own presentations.
That reality not being well-understood has led to people like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s own attorney submitting court documents that referenced multiple non-existent court cases. Lawyers for a Columbian airline fell into the same trap, and Fugees rapper Pras Michél lost a federal conspiracy case when his lawyer submitted an AI-generated closing argument.
Adam Driver in Megalopolis. | Screenshot: YouTube
So, all those faked review quotes from the Megalopolis trailer that got pulled last week were apparently AI, after all. Not only that, but the person who was in charge of the materials for the trailer, Eddie Egan, has been removed from the movie’s marketing team.
That’s all according to Deadline, which reported on Friday that the AI-ness of it all was confirmed in an investigation after the fact. Neither Egan nor Megalopolis studio Lionsgate meant to fake the quotes, which had purported to be critical notes from contemporaneous reviews of Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola’s past films.
According to some of the trailer’s quotes, critics had called The Godfather a “sloppy, self-indulgent movie,” while Apocalypse Now was “an epic piece of trash.” But as Vulture noted when it first reported on the quotes’ spuriousness, the actual reviews the quotes were attributed to not only didn’t say those things, but often were actually written in praise of the movies.
It’s easy to see how this could have happened. AI’s casual, confident delivery of falsehoods is well documented at this point; even the companies that make AI products end up with factual errors in their own presentations.
That reality not being well-understood has led to people like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s own attorney submitting court documents that referenced multiple non-existent court cases. Lawyers for a Columbian airline fell into the same trap, and Fugees rapper Pras Michél lost a federal conspiracy case when his lawyer submitted an AI-generated closing argument.
Five tips for turning gaming from a hobby to a job
Gaming: Five tips for turning your hobby into a job
Gaming: Five tips for turning your hobby into a job