Frontier AI Labs with Wil Waldon

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SpaceX sues goverment for $2 billion and Lightsail 2 gets postponed Jun 11, 2019

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Seven months ago, the Defense Department made a controversial call. In a trio of contracts announced on its daily digest of contract awards, the Pentagon announced it was awarding these rocket development contracts:

A $967 million deal to United Launch Services, a subsidiary of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) joint venture formed between Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT).
A $791.6 million contract to Orbital Sciences, part of Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC).
And one worth $500 million to Blue Origin, the space launch venture created by Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos -- and financed by $1 billion worth of sales of his own Amazon stock annually.

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NASA astronauts excited about SpaceX Dragon flight to ISS Jun 10, 2019

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The first U.S. astronauts chosen to fly aboard a SpaceX capsule built for NASA shrugged off a spate of design and test mishaps, saying such setbacks were “part of the process” and the new technology was far more advanced than the space shuttle program that ended eight years ago.

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Trump Says Moon is part of Mars and A MARS HELICOPTER Jun 08, 2019

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President Donald Trump tweeted that the Moon is part of the Mars mission and A MARS HELICOPTER!

NASA opens ISS to Private Astronauts Jun 07, 2019

Show notes

NASA also is enabling private astronaut missions of up to 30 days on the International Space Station to perform duties that fall into the approved commercial and marketing activities outlined in the directive released Friday, with the first mission as early as 2020. A new NASA Research Announcement focus area issued today outlines the path for those future private astronaut missions. If supported by the market, the agency can accommodate up to two short-duration private astronaut missions per year to the International Space Station. These missions will be privately funded, dedicated commercial spaceflights. Private astronaut missions will use a U.S. spacecraft developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The commercial entity developing the mission will determine crew composition for each mission and ensure private astronauts meet NASA’s medical standards and the training and certification procedures for International Space Station crew members. Market studies identified private astronaut missions to low-Earth orbit as a key element to demonstrate demand and reduce risk for future commercial destinations in low-Earth orbit.

NASAs Mars InSight Lander Stuck but not out of Hope Jun 06, 2019

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Engineers craft new plan to unstick NASA's Mars InSight lander. By using InSight's lander arm to lift the support structure of the lander's burrowing mole, engineers aim to get a better look at the blockage.

Jeff Bezos ReMars Conference - What to expect Jun 05, 2019

Show notes

Amazon has already exploited the power of AI to dominate e-commerce, push forward the potential of cloud computing and bring an ever-present personal assistant into your home. At its re:Mars conference in Las Vegas this week, Jeff Bezos's corporation intends to shed some light on where it expects artificial intelligence to take us in the future.

The re:Mars conference is effectively the public version of Bezos's exclusive MARS conference, an annual, invitation-only gathering that brings together experts in academia and industry to discuss the future of Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space (MARS). While MARS is intended to stimulate optimism and creative thinking, re:Mars has some more down-to-Earth goals: teaching its attendees how to apply AI and machine learning to their own businesses.

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SpaceX Starship tests on hold and Starlink makes Astronomers Upset Jun 05, 2019

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SpaceX Starship tests on hold in Boca Chica and Starlink makes Astronomers Upset because they may interfere with viewing and radio transmissions.

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European rover has better chance of discovering life than NASAs Mars 2020 Jun 04, 2019

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In 2020 three rovers, one from the US, one from Europe and one from China will depart for Mars with a single goal; to look for past or present life on The Red Planet.

The rovers will also provide a critical step in the efforts to return samples of Martian regolith to the Earth. This would give scientists the opportunity to learn a great many more details about Mars and its habitability, since laboratories on Earth have much more sophisticated instruments than the ones riding on the rovers on Mars.

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SpaceX Starlink Powered ON Jun 03, 2019

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The first 60 v0.9 satellites comprising the Starlink constellation launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) on May 24 have powered up and contacted ground stations.

SpaceX said all 60 of its Starlink satellites have deployed their lone solar arrays. Most of these small satellites (smallsats), which weigh some 227 kg each, are in the process of climbing from their current 440 kilometer altitude drop-off point to their 550 km target orbit.

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NASA cannibalizing other programs for Moon money Jun 03, 2019

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Over the last two months, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has repeatedly said the agency's ambitious new Artemis plan for sending humans to the Moon in 2024 will not require raiding other areas of its budget, such as its broad array of science programs, technology research, or aeronautics work.

The reason, he said, is simple. The surest way to torpedo support for a program inside the agency is to take funding from someone else to pay for the new plan, and the surest way to lose support in Congress is to take work away from various field centers around the country.

"We can't cannibalize one part of the agency to feed another part of the agency," Bridenstine told Ars in April, which reflects comments he has made many times. "We can't cut the Science Mission Directorate to feed human exploration. We can't cannibalize the International Space Station to feed the Moon mission. So if we go in those directions, which have all been tried in the past, it never works politically. We can't do the same thing again and be upset that it didn't work."

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