Trying To Figure Out The Axiom Team's NASA Agreements

Keith's note: On 27 January 2020 NASA issued a release NASA Selects First Commercial Destination Module for International Space Station. This title and a lot of the wording are misleading since the release actually says "NASA selected Axiom from proposals submitted in response to a solicitation through Appendix I of NASA's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) 2 Broad Agency Announcement, which offered private industry use of the station utilities and a port to attach one or more commercial elements to the orbiting laboratory."

The Appendix says "All awardees will receive Task Order 1 for concept and business plan development." That's it. Down the road NASA says "At the time of contract award, depending on the concept maturity and availability of funds, NASA may award Task Order 2 to begin the early design phase and mature business plans, leading to subsequent task orders and an eventual decision point for prioritization of use of the ISS port."

This NASA agreement with Axiom is actually the first step in a series of agreements. NASA did not select Axiom to do anything other than come up with a plan - to develop a plan - do something that NASA still has to evaluate - something that requires lots of follow-up Agreements - and more plans. But everyone is reacting as if they are about to start cutting hardware. See "Expanding The ISS For Customers That No One Can Identify" for more thoughts on the Axiom agreement

According to a 30 January 2020 press release In a Space Industry First, NASA Grants KBR the Right to Train Private Astronauts at NASA Facilities from NASA contractor KBR (one of the partners in the Aziom team) "KBR (NYSE: KBR), a leading solutions provider to the civil, military and commercial space industry, will become the first company to train private astronauts at NASA facilities. The company recently signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA Johnson Space Center allowing it to provide human spaceflight operation services to commercial companies. KBR currently holds the only agreement with NASA to provide these services using the agency's facilities and capabilities." and "The agreement directly supports one of five elements of NASA's plan to open the ISS to new commercial and marketing opportunities that will continue the agency's efforts to enable a sustainable low-Earth orbit economy. As was recently announced, KBR will further support this mission by working as a subcontractor to Axiom Space on the first commercial destination module for the ISS."

If you go to this NASA web page Current Space Act Agreements there are links to 4 recently updated lists of current agreements between NASA and a panoply of companies, organizations, educational institutions, and others. On this list (last updated 30 September 2019). There is no mention of "KBR" among the 1,131 SAAs listed. There are 3 SAAs with with Wyle Laboratories, Inc, a KBR subsidiary. One of these agreements is titled "NASA NEUTRAL BUOYANCY LABORATORY FACILITY USAGE AGREEMENT: with Wyle Laboratories, Inc (a KBR subsidiary). This SAA started 10 April 2017 and runs to 31 May 2021 (SSA-SA-16-22103-02). This SAA was signed in 2017 (but the text is not posted online) so I am not certain if that qualifies as "recent" unless there is another NASA SAA with KBR and/or Wylie signed after 30 September 2019 that we have not been told about.

Axiom has 4 SAAs in place with NASA. These 2 are posted online: ""Flight Operations Directorate Axiom Training (which mentions KBR and several documents as being attached to the SAA which are not provided in the online text of the SAA)" and "Low-Earth Orbit Commercial Development Utilizing the ISS" which is an "umbrella agreement" established "for the purpose of establishing a reimbursable agreement between NASA and Axiom whereby NASA provides unique services and capabilities to Axiom in support of commercial development activities including pre-flight mission planning for prospective astronaut trainees" But nothing specific is mentioned as who pays how much for which service. And neithert KBR or Wylie mentioned.

There are SAAs between Axiom and NASA to use services (and KBR is in the mix on one of them) but there is no evidence of a SAA between NASA and KBR, as mentioned in their press release. Or are they talking about an older one from 2017 with Wylie (i.e, not "recent")? It would seem that KBR issued this press release about a SAA they claim to have that is actually several years old with one of its subsidiaries. NASA makes no mention of any SAA with KBR yet mentions over a thousand other SAAs. It looks like KBR tossed out this press release to capitalize on the recent news of the Axiom agreement signed with NASA representing a team to which KBR belongs.

Right now no one has given Axiom the green light to build and operate anything connected to ISS - just to pursue studies that would lead to further agreements. Good news. Someone has a basic plan that may bear fruit. I have asked NASA for a copy of this Space Act Agreement mentioned by KBR in direct reference to the Axiom activity and any others between NASA and KBR/Wylie that relate to astronaut training and/or use of NASA training facilities.

What JSC and HEOMD ought to be doing is to explain what these agreements are and (more importantly) are not. They need to explain - in normal language, who does what with/from whom, when everything happens, who pays NASA to do do things, and how much it costs (NASA has published "Commercial and Marketing Pricing Policy" price list). The press release by NASA is extremely misleading. Yes these agreements are a start but the title of the NASA press release should have been "NASA Selects The First Company To Submit Plans For A Commercial Destination Module for International Space Station". Just syain'

Oh yes ... we've covered some earlier commercial astronaut training stories at JSC ...

- Waypoint2space Clarifies A Few Things About Astronaut Training at NASA JSC, earlier post (2016)
- Waypoint2space Wants You To Train Like An Astronaut (But You Won't Be One), earlier post (2016)
- More Q&A With Opifex Global About Their Astronaut Training Thing, earlier post (2019)

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Why Does Iowa Get to Vote First Every Single Time?

Illustration by Slate.

1. It’s Iowa Time
2. Key Republican Announces He’s Ready to Make the Impeachment Trial Go Away
3. Without Impeachment Witnesses, the Senate Majority Sees No Need for Impeachment Witnesses
4. Amy Klobuchar Hurries Back to Iowa as Rivals Circle Her Supporters

On this week’s Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discussed the current state of the Democratic presidential race going into the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses—a conversation that ended with this debate about the fundamental unfairness of Iowa always going first. This transcript of their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

David Plotz: Every time Iowa comes around, people ask if it’s useful to have this unusual caucus format, where effectively there’s a form of ranked-choice voting because supporters of candidates who get less than 15 percent can shift their allegiance to another candidate, where everyone has to gather and spend an evening together, making it hard to vote and taking up lots of time. And then there’s the question of whether Iowa is the right state to start anything in—it’s so rural, it’s so white.

I go back and forth. Part of me thinks this is a great way to start the campaign, because it’s such a test of enthusiasm, of organizing ability, of regional campaigning. You get higher-information voters who are willing to participate, and that sends a signal to the country: The higher-information people really feel like this guy or this woman is the best candidate. That seems good. It would be better if they did this in Michigan or Georgia than in Iowa, but in general, I’m slightly in favor, despite myself.

Emily Bazelon: I come down really hard on the other side. It’s infuriating that Iowa plays this role, because it’s so white and rural, but it’s also infuriating that the same state plays it every time.

I am so tired of not having my vote count. There is nothing better about the people in Iowa and New Hampshire than the rest of us. We should get our turn, or they should do it on the same day, or something. It’s so drastically unfair.

Plotz: Why don’t they rotate it? Why is it that Iowa, New Hampshire, and now Nevada and South Carolina get this lock?

John Dickerson: It’s a complicated historical thing, but it goes back to local parties and their traditions. If you’re running for office, and you think you’ve got a chance in Iowa, you suck up to the party, and you want Iowa to be the first. Also, you’ve been campaigning for other candidates in Iowa for years, and you’ve been building up chips with the game as it is now played; you’ve banked a lot.

I think it would be great if every time they just picked a new state, because there’s a lot of built-in stuff in these states that leads to patterns of behavior that you would want to shake up. You wouldn’t want the local poohbah, who’s really important, to have that much power. You’d want a new poohbah, who had to be freshly convinced.

Plotz: Everyone knows this. Why doesn’t some candidate who everyone knows is going to be a strong candidate say, we’re going to shake it up and we’re going to do it in California first.

Dickerson: John McCain tried a version of that when he didn’t play in Iowa and was nominated to the party by playing in New Hampshire. Others have tried that. There’s not a strong enough candidate to change the system. Also, once you get strong enough, you’d have to be president, and then you’ve got other stuff to worry about.

It would require the electorate to force the Democratic Party to do this. You’d have to have the reform bubble up through the Democratic Party systems, which is how the superdelegates got watered down.

Also, people could just not put so much weight on Iowa. When somebody scores first in basketball, people don’t leave the stadium. They expect a contest in which people shoot additional baskets, and then at the end of the game there’s a score.

Bazelon: I want to go back to your affection for the caucuses, David. It’s a terrible idea to up the cost of participating in democracy. You end up with a smaller group of people and, sure, they’re committed and they’re high-information, but what we should have is a democracy that lowers the barriers so that we hear from as many people as possible.

There’s lots of research from cities that shows that when you have neighborhood groups, local zoning meetings, the people who come are the loudest people, the retirees, the people with time. A political scientist crunched a ton of data in New York state, and it showed that these were people who are older and whiter and more conservative than the communities they came from. And they had a lock on the local process because they were showing up to these meetings. That should not be the test. That should not be what decides policy.

To listen to the full episode, in which the Gabfest hosts also discussed the Senate impeachment trial and an important Supreme Court ruling from earlier this week, click the player below or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Good Place Finale Gave Us 70 Minutes in TV Heaven

“Whenever You’re Ready” offered a fitting end to perhaps the last great network sitcom.

Colleen Hayes/NBC | 2019 NBCUniversal Media, LLC

1. The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, and Hulu in February
2. The 2020 Grammys Felt Like a Party Thrown by Your Dad
3. This New Zealand Fantasy Masterpiece Needs to Be Published in America, Like, Now
4. The Absolute Best Way to Cook Chicken Breasts, According to 28 Tests

If the world had ended between last week and this—destroyed, perhaps, by a swarm of giant flying shrimp—The Good Place would still have ended on a perfect note. The penultimate episode, “Patty,” left us where most finales would, with its central couple frozen in a moment of romantic bliss. But the show’s actual finale asked the question that happily-ever-after endings try to finesse: What happens next?

“Patty” found the series’ formerly damned souls finally arriving in actual heaven, and also introduced the idea that, given an infinity of time, even perfect happiness would become intolerably dull. That meant that the only true paradise was one from which you could eventually opt out: Life is made meaningful by death, and the afterlife by … whatever comes after that. It seemed inevitable that the finale would find the Soul Squad making the choice, one by one, to step through the door that would end their existence for good. Even its title, “Whenever You’re Ready,” coached us to brace for a series of teary farewells.

It made sense that Jason was the first to go: When your highest goals are racing go-karts with monkeys and playing a perfect game of Madden, it’s only a matter of time, even if that time is measured in Bearimys. Then it was Tahani, although she found another way out, trading the endless on-demand resources of the Good Place for the challenge of building new places. Their ends were fitting—especially when it turned out that even walking through a doorway was too complicated a task for Jason to handle—but it also felt like they were being moved aside to the show could get to the really important stuff.

The Good Place’s final season reminded us on numerous occasions that its core quartet had only persevered through their collective strength. As the reformed demon Michael once put it, when it comes to explaining how four morally compromised humans managed to rewrite the laws that govern all of existence, the reason is friends. But it was clear as far back as the end of the third season that the union of Eleanor and Chidi was the show’s endgame, and that its aspirations to take on the weighty issues of what it means to live a good life, especially in a world where even the smallest actions can have consequences thousands of miles away, would be constrained by the need to push them together and make it stick.

Chidi and Eleanor had eternities on end together, but when Chidi traded his philosophy texts for a copy of The Da Vinci Code, it was clear that his end, at least, was nigh. (And that was even before the familiar notes of Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel” faded in.) They took a final tour of the sites where Chidi’s idols once lived, gazing at the Acropolis and passing by Les Deux Magots, but the man whose life was a torment of indecision had no doubts about his choice. William Jackson Harper’s final monologue, which filters Buddhist ideas about reincarnation through the “never let go” pledges of Titanic, was as pure and crystalline a moment of emotion as the show ever achieved. But it was Kristin Bell’s reaction that opened the floodgates, as Eleanor realizes that the only selfless, truly loving action is to let him go.

In an era when TV shows are judged on whether or not they stick the landing, there was something apt about the idea that the ultimate reward is the ability to leave before you get sick of the damn place.

Introducing a painless exit from the afterlife allowed The Good Place to punt on some of its biggest questions, like who created the universe (the highest-ranking figure we ever meet, the nearly-omnipotent Judge Gen, still feels like she’s enforcing someone else’s rules) and what happens after we die (the second time). The idea that going through the door would simply allow a person’s energy to rejoin the universe—as Eleanor took the fateful step, she dissolved into otherworldly fireflies that wafted down to Earth—felt more like New Age goop than moral philosophy, or maybe just a midway point between Immanuel Kant and Dan Brown. But in an era when TV shows are disproportionately judged on whether or not they stick the landing, there was something apt about the idea that the ultimate reward is the ability to leave before you get sick of the damn place.

With its endless reboots and play-acting demons, The Good Place was as much a show about TV shows as it was about the mysteries of the universe. One of its underlying questions was whether we can inch our way towards enlightenment by replaying the same scenarios over and over again, or whether real change involves ripping everything up and starting afresh. As a network sitcom—perhaps the last great one—the show was inherently incrementalist, bound to commercial breaks and setup-joke structures, although there were stretches of the last season when humor took a distant backseat to heart. But as virtually all of TV’s creative energy drifts in the direction of cable and streaming, the show’s dedication to working within those constraints—its insistence that you could make something meaningful and distinctive and still send it out over the airwaves for free—was in itself a small act of moral generosity. The Good Place went out on its own terms, with a finale that argued that choosing your own ending is both a reward you earn and a gift you give.

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Jason Davis • January 31, 2020

The Downlink: Spitzer Says So Long, Voyager 2 Recovering after Glitch

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The Orion Nebula by Hubble and Spitzer

This image of the Orion nebula was created using data from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Hubble sees in ultraviolet and visible light, while Spitzer sees in infrared light. When combined, these views produce a richer view of the nebula than what human eyes can see.

Welcome to The Downlink, a planetary exploration news roundup from The Planetary Society!  Here's everything that crossed our radar this week.

NASA shut down the long-lived Spitzer Space Telescope this week. Launched in 2003 on a two-and-a-half year mission to study the universe in infrared light, the telescope made vital contributions to astronomy and exoplanet science. Here are highlights of some of Spitzer’s exoplanet discoveries.

NASA’s stalwart Voyager 2 spacecraft automatically and safely switched off its science instruments after overdrawing its available power. The spacecraft, which launched in 1977 on a tour of the outer planets, is currently exploring interstellar space. Its radioactive power supply fades by about 4 watts each year. Engineers are reviewing data from Voyager 2 and expect it to return to normal operations soon. 

The International Space Station is getting a new, privately operated module as part of NASA’s plan to open up the station for commercial opportunities. Axiom Space, a company we profiled in 2017, plans to launch the module in 2024 and connect it to the station’s forward-most port. That port was used in the past by visiting space shuttle crews.

Astronauts Andrew Morgan and Luca Parmitano completed the fourth and final spacewalk outside the International Space Station to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a science instrument that helps astronomers hunt for dark matter. Meanwhile, a Cygnus cargo spacecraft stuffed with trash departed today. It will eventually be sent into the atmosphere to burn up. 

CHEOPS, the European Space Agency’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite, successfully opened the protective cover of its telescope. The cover, akin to a camera’s lens cap, protected the telescope’s mirror and electronics during launch. CHEOPS, which launched in December 2019, will precisely measure the diameters of known exoplanets. Learn more about CHEOPS here.

NASA marked its annual Day of Remembrance to honor astronauts who have perished in spaceflight over the years. The day is timed to coincide with several tragic space anniversaries: the Apollo 1 fire on 27 January 1967, the Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986, and the loss of Columbia on 1 February 2003.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is unlikely to meet its March 2021 launch date, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope will serve a broad range of astronomers and planetary scientists by studying some of the most distant objects in the universe and directly imaging exoplanets. But first, it has to get off the ground; the telescope is severely behind schedule and over budget.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured new views of the spot where Europe’s Schiaparelli lander crashed into the surface in 2016. The new images provide a much sharper view of the crater created by the lander. The spacecraft crashed after its computer erroneously determined that the spacecraft had already landed even though it was still almost 4 kilometers above the surface.

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The History of Novelty Songs on the Charts, From the Big Bopper to Tiny Tim to Weird Al

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Episode Notes

Sped-up voices. Wacky instruments. Songs about cavemen, bathtubs, bikinis and mothers-in-law. From the very birth of rock-and-roll, novelty songs were essential elements of the hit parade. Right through the ’70s—the age of streaking, CB radios, disco and King Tut—novelty songs could be chart-topping hits. But by the corporate ’80s, it was harder for goofballs to score round-the-clock hits on regimented radio playlists.

Until one perm-headed, mustachioed, accordion-playing parodist who called himself “Weird” rebooted novelty hits for the new millennium. A video jokester before YouTube, he just might have ushered in the age of the meme. So join Hit Parade this month as we walk through the history of novelty hits on the charts—most especially if M.C.
Escher is your favorite M.C.

Podcast production by Justin D. Wright.

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Gig-Economy Apps Are Changing Friendship

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.

1. Could a Mars Fantasy Ruin NASA’s Space Exploration?
2. Artificial Wombs Aren’t a Sci-Fi Horror Story
3. The Three Civil Rights–Era Leaders Who Warned of Computers and Racism
4. How the Chinese Government Is Trying to Quash Coronavirus Rumors on Social Media

My first job as a TaskRabbit was easy. A woman who lived in my Brooklyn neighborhood needed someone to wait in her apartment, just a 10-minute walk from mine, for her new bed to be delivered while she was at work. For around $20 an hour, I sat in her kitchen typing on my laptop and hoping the delivery guys would arrive at the end of the window so I’d make more money. I cannot believe I’m getting paid to do this, I thought. I was in luck: I left $72.45 richer.

Afterward, the client offered to take me out for a glass of wine as a thank-you. That would be great! I texted back, and I meant it, sort of. It was a nice gesture, and I liked the idea of getting to know one of my neighbors, but the premise for getting drinks also struck me as odd. This wasn’t a favor between friends—I’d been paid for my time. We never actually met up.

Gig-economy apps like TaskRabbit, Rover, Uber, Postmates, and others promised to revolutionize the future of work. But they’re also changing our concept of community — and not in the idealized way some startups sell, where hiring a neighbor to run an errand or “hosting” strangers in our spare bedrooms is supposed to bring us closer together.

“We are witnessing a financialization of activities that used to be an expression of social capital,” writes Trebor Scholz, a professor of culture and media at the New School, in Uberworked and Underpaid: How Workers Are Disrupting the Digital Economy. “What used to be favors among friends now has a price tag: the pickup from the airport, hauling clothes to the laundry, or helping to paint the apartment.”

Social capital, as defined by Robert D. Putnam in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, is the value of our interpersonal relationships and the “norms of reciprocity” they engender. If I bring in my neighbor’s mail while she’s on vacation or pick up my brother’s kids while he’s stuck at work, the thinking goes, they’ll be there for me when I need it.

Of course, taxis, movers, handypeople, and cleaners aren’t new, and wealthy people have always hired help. However, smartphone apps have made it possible for people who aren’t rich—but have enough disposable income to throw some money at a problem—to hire someone on demand at a relatively accessible price. When these companies’ affluent, city-dwelling target market is increasingly strapped for time—or “at capacity“ in one sense or another—outsourcing can become an attractive option.

For those who can afford it, or run in circles with people who do, paying for these services often goes from a backup plan or a special treat to a social expectation. It can be jarring to realize your peers aren’t dealing in pizza and beer anymore—especially when you’re not as flush as they are.

Gig-economy apps promised to revolutionize the future of work. But they’re also changing our concept of community.

“Instead of asking a friend or relative for a favor that’s repaid with a pizza or a couple of beers, a homeowner or renter using TaskRabbit gets a jack-of-many-trades who might bill, in this market, $35 an hour,” Martha Quillin explains in North Carolina’s News & Observer.

Originally launched as RunMyErrand in 2008, TaskRabbit once billed itself as “an old school concept—neighbors helping neighbors—reimagined for today.” Founder Leah Busque came up with the idea after she and her husband were headed out to dinner one night and realized they were out of dog food. “Wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere online and say, ‘We need dog food,’ name a price we’d be willing to pay, and find someone in our neighborhood, maybe at the store that very moment, who could help us?” she recounted in a 2011 interview with Business Insider.

I find her choice of words interesting: not someone who could do the job, but someone who could help. This frames the task almost as a favor, while simultaneously acknowledging that it should be compensated—because few of us would run a stranger’s errand for free, and without getting money involved, Busque wouldn’t have a business model.

Many Americans no longer have the kind of relationships where we can ask a neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar, let alone pick up a bag of dog food. According to a 2015 report by the think tank City Observatory, a little more than one-third of us have no interactions with our neighbors, compared with about 20 percent of Americans in the mid-1970s. Besides, those of a certain class can Postmates that missing sugar mid-recipe if they really need it.

But favors like feeding your neighbor’s cat or helping the college kids downstairs put together their new kitchen island can build social ties. I once responded to an urgent TaskRabbit request to pick up a dog from the groomers; I took the subway to get there and walked the nervous pup back to his owner, who was stuck at home watching a sick kid. It felt good to be helping a mom out on a rough day. If we’d been connected socially, this might have been the start of a deeper relationship. Instead, it was just a job, for which I received $40.80.

Whether between neighbors or friends, favors make us feel like part of a community. A friend of mine recently moved to a small city in Oregon, where she reconnected with a grad school classmate. She told me she’d be flattered if this woman hit her up for a ride to the airport, because it would confirm they’ve moved out of acquaintance territory: “It means they feel our friendship is deep enough that they’re willing to ask.” I felt the same when my colleague at a relatively new job asked if I wanted to housesit for her. In many cases, people really enjoy helping, and our fears we’ll be rejected if we ask for a favor are overblown.

Despite this, I often feel awkward approaching my friends for help. I hate feeling like a burden, and the hassle of getting across New York means even a small favor might require two hours of someone’s time. As a member of the generation suffering from what Anne Helen Petersen dubbed “errand paralysis” in her viral essay on millennial burnout, I’m conscious of how much other stuff my friends have on their plates. A favor? In this economy?

So sometimes when I’ve had the money to do so, I’ve turned to TaskRabbit. Rather than asking a friend to help me put in my air conditioner and coordinating a time that works for both of us, I paid someone to install it on my schedule. Hesitant to ask my friends to help me move again, only eight months after they’d hauled my stuff up three flights of narrow, hard-to-maneuver stairs, I hired someone to do it instead.

Outsourcing these tasks was freeing but also felt somewhat shameful: it’s a waste of money, and anyway, I should have more people in my life who can help when I need it. “TaskRabbit can get the job done, but it can also save you from depending on others outside of economic exchanges,” Sarah Sharma writes in “Time to Care Less,” a chapter in the anthology Appified: Culture in the Age of Apps. Yet relying on others is what holds us together—in families, romantic relationships, friendships, and as a society at large. Instead of worrying about putting someone out, I’m trying to think of it this way: If I don’t ask for help, people may not ask me to help them and my social network will weaken.

Of course, it’s possible to take advantage, and some “favors” really should be paid gigs. “People would ask: ‘Can you help me move?’ ‘Can you run to the store?’ ‘Can you pick me up spaghetti sauce?’ ” a former pilot with a flexible schedule told the Wall Street Journal. “Eventually, I felt, ‘Why am I doing this for free?’ ” As a freelancer, I can relate. I was happy to pick up a friend from a medical appointment recently, but I can’t always rearrange my entire day to help out. Now more than ever, my time is money.

In one sense, apps can enable us to maintain needed boundaries with loved ones and acquaintances alike. Sorry, I can’t come over and help you move that couch, but this TaskRabbit I hired was great. No, I can’t meet your flight at two in the morning, but let’s get you an Uber. On the flipside, as Scholz writes, these apps have monetized some of the ways we’ve traditionally showed one another we care.

When it’s possible to summon a stranger with the touch of a button, a favor from someone you actually know can feel extra special. Another friend of mine who works for the foreign service says she asks for and offers help much more often when she’s living overseas. “I love to take soup and meds and tea to friends when they are sick, especially because I had a stockpile of American soup and meds,” she told me. Back in the U.S., she says, “I’m more like, ‘There are 700 delivery apps and 57 CVSes, meh.’ ”

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/30/2020

Electro-static Levitation Furnace (ELF): The crew removed and cleaned sample cartridge #3 from the ELF and installed a new sample cartridge. The ground then initiated an experiment run. ELF is an experimental facility designed to levitate, melt and solidify materials by containerless processing techniques using the electrostatic levitation method.  With this facility thermophysical properties of …

January 31, 2020 at 12:00AM
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