Firefly’s blue ghost makes history: first commercial lunar landing & the future of space navigation

While everyone was deeply concerned about Russia-Ukraine war, M23 rebels in Congo, Israel-Hamas fight, trade wars and many other things, a revolution was going on. Texas based aerospace company - Firefly - which launched Blue Ghost on Jan 25 using SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was able to successfully land (and thus become the first commercial company to do so) their the module on moon on March 2. Lander is stable and in vertical condition. Equipment is expected to work for one lunar day (14 earth days). Blue ghost is among a number of private companies funded by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) as part of Artemis program. In last February, 'Intuitive Machines' landed their module in moon but unfortunately it fell on its side and became un-operational. 'Intuitive Machines' is going again with their Athena lunar module.

The entry of multiple private companies in to space will bring in competition and eventually reduce the overall cost. This will only meake the dream of humanity to start a colony first on moon and then on mars a step closer to reality. If not human colony, probably we may be able to bring in valuable minerals from space and build things here in earth in near future!!! May be moon and mars will end up as launch pads for human race's expansion further in to space. 

Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE)

There are multiple paylods carried by Blue Ghost. Out of that one seems to be very interesting - The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE). This is a joint effort between NASA and Italian Space Agency to see the viability of using "existing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signals for positioning, navigation, and timing on the Moon. GNSS constellations support essential services like navigation, banking, power grid synchronization, cellular networks, and telecommunications. Near-Earth space missions use these signals in flight to determine critical operational information like location, velocity, and time. The LuGRE payload is one of the first demonstrations of GNSS signal reception and navigation on and around the lunar surface, an important milestone for how lunar missions will access navigation and positioning technology. If successful, LuGRE would demonstrate that spacecraft can use signals from existing GNSS satellites at lunar distances, reducing their reliance on ground-based stations on the Earth for lunar navigation".

Ok, long story short. What if future humans have a GPS/similar kinds of navigation system in moon or in mars. Imagine we are driving a shuttle through moon by looking at maps in our mobile!!! and this moble won't need to get signals directly from earth stations but intermediate and may be from moon itself!!! Also there is a 'Moonlight' initiative/LCNS (Moonlight Lunar Communications and Navigation Services) by ESA (European Space Agency); their goal is to create uninterrupted telecommunications satellite coverage between Earth and the Moon; as well as lunar satellite navigation.

There are many more provate companies engaged in lunar missions (see below). 

Blue Moon (Blue Origin)

SERIES-2 (Draper)

Peregrine (Astrobotic)

Starship HLS (SpaceX)

Hakuto-R Mission 1 (ispace)

IM-2 (Intuitive Machines)

In coming years, we will see more commercial launches and declining cost/launch. Moon and mars may no longer remain as final frontier for human race.

Sajeev

References

1, Blue Ghost by Firefly

2, Wired

3, NASA 

Another life extension for Moore's law!!!

There is a law (a prediction actually) in electronics, which everyone knew will break one day; because it's impossible to stay on the explosive growth trajectory predicted by that law. Surprisingly, this law still has life and kicking. Some of you may already figure out that prediction by now; yes, it's the famous Moore's law (prediction by the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel). He, in 1965 stated that the number of components in an integrated circuit will double every year; he also projected that this state of growth will continue for at least another decade. In 1975, he revised the forecasting of doubling-in to every two years.

There is a wonderful animation about Moore's law over decades here. @datagrapha

Now, the new inventions by IBM researchers at Albany gave another life for that law. As per IBM, with new methodology, it's possible to pack two-thirds of components more than what was previously possible. Translating this to common language; it says - using this process a smartphone can run 45% faster at the same time consuming only 1/4 energy. Currently, chip makes uses a design called FinNET - where electrons flow vertically. IBM took this to next level, by stacking one nanosheet over another one. New process called '2 nanometer' is three generations ahead of current technology. Since IBM don't have a chip-making facility now, this might be licensed to Intel or some other companies. It may take some more years for these chips to power our phones and other electronics equipments.

This time it may take some time for Samsung and TSMC (from Taiwan) to catch up. 

Wonderful news at the time of Covid.  

Sajeev. 

References

1. To Make These Chips More Powerful, IBM Is Growing Them Taller - Wired

Fighting for future: US vs China

Huawei HQ in China

One thing which is very clear to those who follows US actions against Huawei is - it’s not about Huawei; it’s about future of supremacy in technology.

In past half century they faced this situation twice. First with USSR, which is now dubbed as space race era. With the end of towering USSR scientists Kirill Shchelkin, Yulii Khariton, Andrei Sakharov, Mstislav Keldysh, Boris Vannikov, Sergei Korolev etc USSR's technological challenge came to an end. After death of Sergei Korolev (which was accelerated by various Soviet programs), Soviets were not able to continue with their supremacy in space. Slowly but steadily leadership of USSR became more interested in political survival and maintaining military strength rather than funding huge S&T programs. With the disintegration of USSR that also came to an end.

Later it was Japan. Her supersonic cruise in all spheres of economy and technology seriously threatened US supremacy. However, Japan was US ally and their supersonic growth came to abrupt halt in early 90s. Though Japanese firms kept on investing in technology and maintained leading position they were never able to be the Japans of 80s.

Now decades after victory in space race, US is facing tough competition from anther rising Asian power - China. China became pragmatic and broke shackles of ideological dogma during Deng era and started sprinting. Unlike Soviets (who were able to remain as single country due to military might), Chinese are more coherent, focused, planned and certainly do not want to make repeat the mistakes of their erstwhile neighbor. It’s a different matter that in Xi era, China looks more like moving towards Soviet's way).

China is pushing hard in Space. In response, US recently created a new space command and pulled back NASA from its cash strapped, less ambitious vision. Focus also changed from Atlantic theatre to Indo-Pacific especially in South China sea. In both cases US has an upper hand. However, when it comes to technology (especially in Telecom, AI, Face recognition etc) it’s a different ball game. In fact, lot of patents in this area are with Chinese. In facial recognition and associated technologies, there are hardly anyone who can compete with Chinese.

US don't have any companies with the stature of Huawei in telecommunications sector. Sure, they have Cisco, but they are in a different field. Then Qualcomm, again in related but different area. ARM is British (or Japanese because of Softbank?). We hardly heard anything about AT&T Bell which pioneered a lot of earlier innovations for a while. Bell Labs are currently under Nokia which is a Finnish company. You may be remembering another company called Western Electric. They underwent many transformations (became Lucent in between) and now under Nokia's umbrella. Then there is Ericson. Hold on... Ericson is Swedish.

Looks like US also understand this. After all they blocked sale of Qualcomm to Singapore based Broadcom on national security grounds. Investments by any Chinese firms to US companies holding key technologies were also blocked citing national security reasons.

In fact, all major 5G, high end telecom gear manufactures are non-US companies - Huawei (with over 100bn USD in revenue), ZTE, Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson. Now, you may be thinking what so special about 5G. Why US is worried?

5G is a major variable in future technological landscape. It’s going to revolutionize Telecommunication networks, Internet, Industrial IoT, Control of remote and critical infrastructure, Entertainment and Multimedia, Smart Vehicles and driverless cars, Transportation, Low latency machine communications, Smart homes, Smart city development, Security and surveillance etc.

US may probably never been in this situation for at least two centuries. While US was pumping billions of dollars for non-winnable wars in Afghanistan, Iraq etc Chinese pumped many billions into research as well as for investing in key western companies. They made state champions and created alternatives for major western technology giants. It is another matter that, during this sprint they hardly cared about intellectual property rights and patents. What US saw when they took a break in fixing Afghanistan and trying to get out of Iraq was Chinese leading world's transition to 5G!!!

Panicked, they acted fast, targeting leading Chinese companies Huawei, ZTE. ZTE almost came to its knees before US relaxed sanctions. Huawei was added to sanctions list. Following that Google pulled Huawei’s Android license. This means, Huawei phones can't use Android OS (I think they can still use opensource part of Android) and google services including play store.
Was Chinse companies’ victims?

I don't think anyone describes Chinese companies as pure victims. Main accusation against Chinese giants are theft of trade secrets and surveillance for Chinese state. When US asked Canadians to arrest Huawei's CFO (Meng Wanzhou - daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei) charges were theft of trade secrets and violations of sanctions against Iran. As a matter of fact, company founder Ren’s resume includes working for 'Information Technology research unit' of PLA (Chinese Army).

A little History of Huawei


2003 - Networking firm Cisco accused Huawei of intellectual property theft. Cisco later dropped the suit.

2005 - RAND Corporation study, commissioned by US Airforce (USAF) - noted that, "Huawei maintains deep ties with the Chinese military, which serves a multi-faceted role as an important customer, as well as Huawei’s political patron and research and development partner."

2007- FBI interviewed Huawei’s founder, Ren in 2007 in relation to potential violations of US trade sanctions on Iran.

2008 - Companies efforts to buy 16% stake in 3Com (provider of anti-hacking software for US military) was blocked.

2010 Motorola filed a lawsuit accusing Huawei of corporate espionage, but later settles with the company

2014- T-Mobile sued Huawei. Later US telecom companies excluded Huawei from their contracts

Reuters reports that, "A major Iranian partner (Skycom, a private company registered in Hong Kong) of Huawei Technologies offered to sell at least 1.3 million euros worth of embargoed Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran’s largest mobile-phone operator in late 2010". Problems is as per reports, Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, served on board of Hong Kong firm. This firm is also considered as front-end for Huawei.

As per the same report, “an Iranian job recruitment site (Irantalent.com) describes Skycom as “a leading telecom solution provider” and goes on to list details that are identical to the way Huawei describes itself on its U.S. website: employee-owned, selling “solutions” used by “45 of the world’s top 50 telecom operators” and serving “one-third of the world’s population. On LinkedIn.com, several telecom workers list having worked at “Huawei-skycom” on their resumes. A former Skycom employee said the two companies shared the same headquarters in China. And an Iranian telecom manager who has visited Skycom’s office in Tehran said, “Everybody carries Huawei badges.”

Iranian project was to double prepaid customer capacity of Iranian telecom operator from 20m to 40m. As per this proposal (marked as Huawei confidential) requires HP hardware - one server, 20 disk arrays, 22 switches and software - in Tehran and Shiraz as part of hardware design. Total project cost was around 19.9mn euro. Same report states that, "...China’s ZTE Corp, a Huawei competitor, had sold or agreed to sell millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. computer gear, including HP equipment, to Telecommunication Co of Iran, the country’s largest telecommunications firm, and a unit of the consortium that controls TCI."

As per US authorities, Huawei "...retained control of Skycom, using it to sell telecom equipment to Iran and move money out via the international banking system… banks unwittingly cleared hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions that potentially violated economic sanctions Washington had in place at the time".

Another allegation is, Canicula (allegedly linked to Huawei) had business operations in Syria, another country that has been subject to U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Financial transactions via Skycom came to light during an HSBC internal investigation. HSBC was trying to dismiss criminal charges filed by US Department of Justice for violation of U.S. sanctions.

Security Risk

US intelligence agencies also fear that, Huawei equipment could contain 'backdoors' for Chinese state espionage. Huawei vehemently denied these claims. However, Australia and New Zealand went ahead and banned Huawei from building their mobile phone networks. Austria is trying to reduce overwhelming Chinese influence in their country. British are yet to ban the company but expressed reservations. It’ hard for British to say no to Chinese money during and after Brexit process.

In fact, Chinese law require companies to assist in national intelligence work. Well, you may be thinking isn’t US companies cooperate with US government in their intelligence gathering. Well, it’s a good questions and we know the answer from Snowden papers.

Ownership of Huawei

Ownership of Huawei is one of the most interesting puzzles in the game. You might be thinking founder Ren Zhengfei is the owner of the company. Interestingly no. He owns around 1%. Huawei is not a publicly traded company and never sold shares to public in last three decades. As per records, Huawei Technologies is wholly owned by a holding company called Huawei Investment & Holding. This holding company has two shareholders, Ren and Huawei’s labor union (Union of Huawei Investment & Holding).

Interestingly Huawei shares are different from normal shares. These shares can't be transferred to another or owned by nonemployee. If an employee exit Huawei, then company buys all shares back. If employee have certain seniority, then they many not buy it back. Labor Union, elect members to Huawei’s Representatives’ Commission, which in turn elects’ members of the board of directors. Union doesn't have any control over the operations of company.
Accusation (which Huawei trying to discredit but so far unsuccessful) is that Chinese party, military or government has significant control over Huawei.

Why American's Act Now?

China is very different from all other US enemies who are a threat to US interests. For e.g. whatever Russians do, they don’t pose a significate threat to US outside old USSR sphere of influence (except in Arctic). Moreover, Russians are neither investing in future nor cared about anything in economy other than Petro-gas and selling military weapons.

Iranians are a threat to US allies in Middle East including Israel. However, Iran won’t directly attack Israel.  In addition to that, Iran's strength is Oil and gas and its geographical position and influence over insurgencies in neighboring countries. Though Iran has a powerful army, its decades behind in military technologies and halfway across the world. Even minor disruptions, in global crude supply might not affect US market as they already became a net exporter of Oil due to significant shell oil extraction over past decades.

North Korea, despite all its grand standing; and Afghanistan don't pose any threat to US technological supremacy. As far as Europe is concerned, most economies (other than Germany) are cash strapped and they themselves looking for foreign investment (yes, including Chinese). Germany is a close US ally.

Made in China 2015 – 2025 - 2049

Huawei P30 phone with triple lens

With China its different. Chinese strength is not coming from any Oil and Gas deposits. China is the factory of world. After decades of building duplicates, they are moving towards original manufacturing. Getting contracts across the world from road construction to 5G rollout.

China aspires to be world's leading technological power. They came up with a plan – which released in 2015 - aims for developments in 10 key sectors by 2025. They also plan to achieve 70% self-sufficiency by 2049. Many of these plans violates many WTO provisions. Crashing of solar panel industry is a case in point. We will discuss this in another article.

Another issue is market access. While western markets are open for Chinese export, she put in place serious restrictions on opening her own market (which is very huge) to non-Chinese companies.

For investing or doing business in China foreign companies must enter into joint ventures with local firms. These agreements also required foreign firms to share key intellectual property and advanced technologies. Some rules were related later.

China also happens to be leading exporter of rare-earth metals. These metals are critical for electronics and battery manufacturing.

What will be Chinese reaction?

I don’t think Chinese will make any hard decisions. They think a lot before taking decisions. After all its the land of Sun Tzu. They will even wait till Trump’s term is over.

Some Chinese may be arguing for banning Apple. Will they do it? Very less chance. Apple phones are as Chinese as any other Chinese phones. Out of 800 suppliers for Apple approximately half comes from mainland China.  Why should they shoot on their own foot. However, Chinese users may choose not to buy Apple phones.

Many policy analysts argue that Chinese may ban export of rare earth metals. If US pushed had it is possible that, they might reduce export of rare earth metals. However, complete ban may not happen. After all, why to create significant disruptions in global chain when Chinese sits at a very important position in it.

How it is going to affect others?

Rough Waters for Huawei

Exclusion from using Android may not create significant impact in home market. However, in other markets - say, India - they won't be able to sell phones without Android OS and Google Services. They will face dip is revenue from overseas operations and without US chips (HiSilicon might not be able to provide a replacement for ARM or Qualcomm in immediate future) it’s going to be a hard struggle. Chinese government may compensate Huawei in one way or other. China may also try to get some reprieve for Huawei by making it as a bargaining chip in future US – China trade talks.
Costlier Telecom equipment’s

Equipment’s form Ericson and other companies will be costlier. This will delay 5G rollout and make it costlier.

Trade War

Tit for tat taxes exports between US an China will be a step back for freedom of trade, liberalization and globalization.


Alternate pressure point

For a set back here, China can create problems for US and allies elsewhere. May be boosting North Korea a bit. Building some more artificial islands in South China Sea etc.

Middle- East, Eastern Europe and Iran

A significant event in Middle East or Eastern Europe may take all the focus away from current problem and negotiations may go on slowly behind the scenes.
US

China will try to reduce import of US agricultural produce which will create problems for US president in key agrarian states.  After all US presidents must worry about elections unlike their Chinese counterparts. It is even possible that, China may simply wait till current US administration changes.

Whatever happens we are going to see a new technological race between US and China in coming days. Though it disrupts global supply chain and make a dent to global growth rates, we will eventually see more investments by US and China in science and technology. We will see more space explorations and even colonization’s of moon and mars. Who knows we may even bring fuel from moon to power machines in earth?

Sajeev.


References.

1. https://in.reuters.com/article/huawei-iran/exclusive-new-documents-link-huawei-to-suspected-front-companies-in-iran-syria-idINKCN1P21MKhttps://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/hsbc-probe-helped-lead-to-us-charges-against-huawei-cfo.html
2. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/hsbc-probe-helped-lead-to-us-charges-against-huawei-cfo.html
3. https://qz.com/1535995/the-full-list-of-crimes-huawei-is-accused-of-committing-by-the-us/
4. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/huawei-could-be-part-of-china-deal-but-cant-work-with-iran-marc-short.html
5. https://qz.com/1627149/huaweis-journey-to-becoming-us-tech-enemy-no-1/

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

Advances in Brain-Machine Interfaces

On one end, we are discussing how AI will advance in the future and how many of current jobs will be wiped out by its onslaught. On the other end, we are making much progress in developing brain -machine interfaces which will help in curing many neuron related diseases partially or fully.

See the excerpt below from WSJ,

"Nancy Smith, who was injured in a car accident seven years ago... only able to move her shoulder and head. Neurosurgeons and neuroscientists in California implanted a tiny “bed of nails” array of electrodes in the region of her cortex that encodes her intention to grasp a cup or to press piano keys. Algorithms decode her neural signals and pass instruction to a musical synthesizer, so that she can play music with her mind"

"Bill Kochevar was... paralyzed below the shoulders following a bike accident many years ago. A Cleveland-based team of doctors and neuroscientists placed electrodes into his left motor cortex; these read out the electrical tremors of about 100 neurons, decoding the patient’s intention and then electrically stimulating muscles in his arm and hand to enable him to reach and to grasp. Such functional electrical stimulation is akin to “writing” the nervous system, giving instructions that mimic, however crudely, what occurs naturally. Functional stimulation lets Mr. Kochevar eat and drink by himself. There are more than 50 such patients with listening devices installed in their brains."

"When we move in the world, our bodies receive massive feedback from sensors in our limbs that signal their location in space and from touch sensors in the skin. Neuroscientists are seeking to replace these signals in patients who don’t feel their limbs by electrically stimulating their somatosensory cortex using implanted electrodes."

It is expected that future research for brain-machine interfaces will help in treating OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), Treatment resistant depression, Essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease, Epilepsy, Stroke recovery, blindness and other neuron related diseases.

References

1. To Keep Up With AI, We’ll Need High-Tech Brains - WSJ

Robots are getting closer!!!

One of the biggest challenges for Robotic Engineers is, how to make robots which could do things that are very easy for humans. That is exactly why DARPA added below scenarios in their challenges,
1. Drive a utility vehicle at the site.
2. Travel dismounted across rubble.
3. Remove debris blocking an entryway.
4. Open a door and enter a building.
5. Climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway.
6. Use a tool to break through a concrete panel.
7. Locate and close a valve near a leaking pipe.
8. Connect a fire hose to a standpipe and turn on a valve.

Recently Boston Dynamics achieved a remarkable feat in this area, its four-legged robot opened a closed door and walked out. See that video and some other interesting videos from Boston Dynamics below.


Spot Mini opening a door




Intersting walking by a Spot Mini




Robot Doing Back-flipping




Robot which stands up to Bullies




More from Atlas



Sajeev

References

1. Wired
2. Boston Dynamics

Voyager - Messenger of Earth to Alien Species

At a time when we are bombarded with sad news like terror attacks, wild fires, cyclones, sexual harassments; this one came as ray of hope in otherwise black sky.

NASA's Voyager team successfully completed probe’s Trajectory Correction Maneuver(TCM) by firing back up thrusters. They are using these thrusters after a long 37 years; and yes, it worked. As per Voyager’s project manager, TCM will enable the probe to extend its life by two or three years.
Voyager 1 was launched 40 years back (Sep 5, 1977; after its twin Voyager 2). Voyager 2 explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Meanwhile Voyager 1 overtook all probes send before it (Voyager 2, Pioneer 11 and Pioneer 10) and entered interstellar space (by the way Voyager 2 is also heading towards interstellar space). Voyager 1 is expected to continue her communication with earth till 2025; till she run out of electric power to operate its instruments.

Voyager 1 is one of the finest accomplishments of humanity; born in the golden era of space exploration when the cold war rivalries of US and Soviets provided ample funding for space race and exploration of unknown. Even after 40 years, it is still able to communicate with earth and send data which enabled us to understand more about our outer and interstellar space.

By the way Voyager series contains the golden record - a gold plated audio-visual disc carrying photos of earth, our life forms, scientific information, greetings from top leaders, sounds of various life forms in earth, work of musicians like Mozart, Chuck Berry, Valya Balkanska, Johnson; eastern and western classics etc. In addition to this golden record also has greetings in 55 languages and some information on how to play it. If any intelligent life forms ever found these records, then they will get some comfort from the fact that there are friends in other side of universe.

It is sad to see that golden era of space is over. Now countries pump billions on new generation fighter planes, missile systems etc. New generation equipments are invented to kill more people faster; but hardly much investment is made to exploring the unknown. Hope that at some point of time, governments or private corporations, even if it is for their selfish interests, will pump more money to space exploration.

Sajeev

Launching from Air

As a first US launched Pegasas rocket from air, at a height of 40,000 feet above Atlantic Ocean, using an aircraft. This rocket later placed 8 tiny satellites, designed for better Hurricane intensity predictions,  in to orbits. 

All eight satellites are very small – as small as a microwave oven - but the important thing here is we are moving a step ahead and were able to launch the rocket and satellites from air. 

Current problem faced by whether forecasters is finding out the nature and intensity of wind formed under storm clouds. Current satellite configurations will give the data only twice in a  day. Rest of the data is coming from Hurricane hunter planes. With this grid of micro-satellites we will be able to get data in every 12 minutes for any storm formed in tropics. Without doubt, this enhanced forecasting capacity is going to save a lot of lives.  

Pegasus XL Rocket Launches with CYGNSS Spacecraft

Sajeev

Thank you Rosetta

Rosetta’s lander Philae has returned the first panoramic image from the surface of a comet

On Friday Rosetta will finally say good bye to humans and jump right in to comet; marking the end for 12-year long eventful expedition. 

Built by ESA (European Space Agency), Rossetta’s primary mission is to study Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and send all information back to earth for further analysis. For last two years she was roaming around the comet and transmitting data back to earth. Problem is, as Comet move further away from Sun, her solar panels won’t be able to generate enough power to sustain the mission. 

Alternate way is to hibernate Rosetta for now and awake her later (when the comet approaches sun again). However scientists decided against this approach, as it may not be possible to wake her up later. Instead scientists decided to capture close-up data while Rosetta hit the comet in her final sprint. 

It’s a job well done by Rosetta and ESA team behind it (Rosetta, also had small lander called Philae which it send to the surface of Comet 67P back in Nov 2014). 

Some important findings from Rosetta are, 

a. Comets Can Stick Together.

b. Initial images of Comet 67P confirmed that the comet is not in round shape.

c. Rosetta’s early observations confirmed the lack of much ice on its surface. 

d. Scientists now know for sure that water did not come from comets like Comet 67P. Quantity of deuterium in the stream of water molecules coming off was much higher than the one in Earth’s water.

Sajeev

Courtesy: Multiple Newspapers, ESA.

Welcoming Nihonium, Moscovium, Tennessine and Oganesson to Periodic Table

Yuri Oganesyan

Four elements in periodic table will no longer be some unknown entities; but an entity with a name. As per the proposals of Chemistry’s governing body, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry,

Element 113 is to be named as 'Nihonium (Nh)'
Was created first - 12 years ago - by a team at RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-based Science in Wako, near Tokyo. RIKEN group suggested the name - nihonium. This is a way to say ‘Japan’ in Japanese.

Element 115 is to be named as Moscovium (Mc) 
Named after Moscow region; in order to honour “the ancient Russian land that is the home of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research”

Element 117 is to be named as Tennessine (Ts)
This is in recognition to the contributions of "Tennessee (US), including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and University of Tennessee at Knoxville, to superheavy element research".

Element 118 is to be named as Oganesson (Og) 
Named after Yuri Oganessian, an 83-year-old researcher at Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. He "has helped to discover numerous superheavy elements. It will mark only the second time that an element has been named after a living scientist".

For next five months public can give comments; unless something extraordinary happens these names will be confirmed in November.

ORNL Mail Campus

JINR

Sajeev

References
1. Nature Webstite
2. Photo Courtesy: www.kremlin.ru, Wikipedia, JINR, ORNL

AI Powered Personal Assistant form Viv Labs

The buzz around AI is nothing new. Day by day we are moving slowly but steadily towards a world where more and more things are controlled by decisions taken by AI powered systems. This in not limited to stock purchases, twitter trend analysis, finding out quicker way to reach destination, or better ways to move logistics; but people also want AI to enter in to areas which are considered as uniquely human for a very long time such as write poetry, art etc.

Recently, founders of Siri (Siri was later sold to Apple for 200mn$) came up with a personal assistant – Viv - which can interact with humans.

MIT Technology Review states that, "it might connect weather and geographic knowledge with information from your contact book to respond to a query like: “If it’s going to rain tonight, find me a pizza restaurant near my brother’s place.”

During demo Viv also answered questions like,

“Will it be warmer than 70-degrees near the Golden gate bridge after 5pm the day after tomorrow?” etc.

As per Charlie Warzel of Buzzfeed, "Viv listens to your voice command and processes both the question and its intent. Then, it determines which programs it should call up to answer your question and writes a bespoke code for it in 10 milliseconds, rather than following a set of rigid, prewritten code scenarios that the user must follow, which is how most other AI assistants work."

It is yet to see what Viv is really capable of and how the new baby in the world of tech giants will fight against apps created by Facbook where the number of users is already 1bn.

Sajeev

Andy Grove - The Intel Insider - RIP

Andy Grove

Time finally took one more giant from IT industry - Andy Grove (original name - András István Gróf), a person who contributed a lot to silicon valley culture and to the growth of Intel.

For Andy life was never easy, his story itself is an inspirational one. Andy born in 1936 in Budapest, Hungry. Hungry was then under the control of Nazi regime of Germany. Andy's Jewish heritage only made this things complicated. After surviving the Nazi Regime and World War II, Hungry came under brutal Soviet style regime. In 1956 Soviet forces brutally suppressed a popular uprising against then Communist regime of Hungry. It was at this time Andy (at the age of 20) fled to Austria and then to US. It is to be noted here that, when he reached US he was barely able to speak English.

After reaching US he got a degree in Chemical Engineering from City College, New York and then a PhD from University of California, Berkeley in 1963. After that, he joined Fairchild Semiconductors. When Gorden Moore and Robert Noyce left Fairchild and cofounded Intel, he joined Intel (first hire) and worked as its Director of Engineering. He went on to become Intel's president in 1979; CEO in 1987; Chairman and CEO in 1997.

He dropped his position as CEO Intel on 1998 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years earlier, though he remained as Chairman of the board till 2004.

Andy was very famous in the world of management with his unique philosophies no nonsense approach.

According to Andy, "Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction... Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive."

May his soul rest in peace.

Sajeev

Photo Courtesy: Stanford University

Cabinet Approved LIGO-INDIA Project

Union cabinet approved the proposal for LIGO-India project. LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) - India project is for setting up state-of-the-art gravitational waves observatory in India in collaboration with LIGO laboratory US, ran by Caltech and MIT.

This will further enhance the study of gravitational waves and will provide an opportunity for Indian scientists to do research on this newly opened up astrophysical frontier. Indian industrial houses may also get an opportunity to work with their US counterparts in building 8 KMs long beam tube at ultra-high vacuum on a levelled terrain for the lab.

Sajeev

References

1. Press Information Bureau - GoI

2. Above video is the announcement of LIGO's discovery of Gravitational Waves

Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion: Stellarator - An answer?

Wendelstein 7-X - Will this be the future of energy

Fukushima accident was a critical incident in the history of nuclear power. World shocked to see the plight and helplessness of Japanese authorities in this sea side city. Germany turned their back towards nuclear power and started working on other renewable energy sources after the accident. Well, nuclear power is not going to go down without a fight.

During recent turn of events ‘Max Planck Institute’s’ ‘Wendelstein 7-X’ was able to produce Helium Plasma lasted just a tenth of a second and heated up to 1 million degree celsius. Unlike other experimental fusion machines this one doesn’t follow tokamak design. This project - which began 9 years ago - already costed one billion euros. But major breakthroughs are results of extreme hard work and cost. If this results in the creation of stable fusion devices - which of course will take many more years to materialize - will be an answer to world's growing hunger for energy.

Energy produced through fusion process is believed to clean. This process tries to duplicate what really happens in Sun. The plan is to heat hydrogen nuclei (it’s heavier isotope called deuterium) to about 100 million celsius required for fusion to take place like in Sun's interior. The stellarator's plasma was created on Thursday by using a microwave laser (Wendelstein 7-X), a complex combination of magnets and just 10mg of helium.

Hope that scientists will soon be able to come up with stable fusion devices.

Sajeev

References

1. German plasma success raises nuclear fusion hopes -BBC

RIP John Nash

Nash

Remember seeing the movie ‘The Beautiful Mind’ starring Russell Crowe? It was based on the life of one of the greatest mathematicians in Game Theory – John Nash.  His contribution to Game theory, Differential Geometry and Partial differential equations are immense. Probably his biggest contribution to the world is his 28 page dissertation paper on Non-Cooperative games (this includes the now famous ‘Nash Equilibrium’ as well) which eventually influenced almost all part of human life. He got 1994’s Nobel Prize in Economics for the same.

On 23^rd of May 2015 Nash (along with his wife) killed in a road accident. He will be remembered forever for his contributions to the field of Mathematics, especially Game Theory.

RIP John Nash.

Sajeev

References
1. John F. Nash Jr. dies; Nobel laureate’s life story inspired ‘A Beautiful Mind’ - Washington Post
2. Famed 'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash, wife, killed in N.J. Turnpike crash - NJ
3. 'Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash, wife killed in car crash - CNN

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

New Indian Neutrino Observatory at Theni

 A neutrino hit a proton in a hydrogen atom. The collision occurred at the point 
where three tracks emanate on the right of the photograph.

Kolar Gold Field (KGF) was not simply a gold mine. It hosted India’s neutrino observatory as well. First atmospheric neutrinos were detected in this mine’s observatory (located more than 2000m deep) in 1965. With the shutting down of KGF, observatory also came to a standstill.
Now with Union government’s decision to construct a new observatory at Pottipuram in Bodi West Hills (Theni Dist, TN), we are once again going to be in the forefront of neutrino research.

This project includes,

(a) An underground laboratory (with a rock cover of more than 1000 metres all around) and associated surface facilities at Pottipuram.
(b) construction of an Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector for studying neutrinos, consisting of 50000 tons of magnetized iron plates arranged in stacks with gaps in between where Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) would be inserted as active detectors, the total number of 2m X 2m RPCs being around 29000, and
(c) Setting up of National Centre for High Energy Physics at Madurai, for the operation and maintenance of the underground laboratory, HRD and detector R&D along with its applications.

Why Pottipuram?

Geologically “southern Indian mountains have the most compact, dense rock (mostly gneiss) while the Himalayas are mostly metamorphic sedimentary rock with pockets of gneiss. A considerable area of peninsular India, the Indian Shield, consists of Archean gneisses and schists which are the oldest rocks found in India. While the Karnataka region has more schistic type rocks, the rock found in BWH is mainly Charnockite, which is the hardest rock known”.
After rejecting Himalayan sites due to geographical reasons, government’s choice was Nilgiri. However, it was not possible for MoEF to give clearance for construction work at such a critical biological hotspot; which is also having Tiger Reserves and Elephant Corridors. Finally Pottipuram was chosen, where the forests are mainly of shrub type.

What is this neutrino?

Neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with half-integer spin. They travel with a speed equivalent to that of light. As Neutrino doesn’t carry charge, they are not affected by Electromagnetic force. They only interact with weak sub-atomic force. This enables them to pass through the normal matters without any problem.

Interesting fact is, around 65bn neutrinos produced by sun is passing through every sq.in of earth - perpendicular to sun - in every second. That means they are passing through our body as well.

With the construction of new observatory, Pottipuram will join with Sudbury (Canada), Kamioka (Japan), Gran Sasso mountains (Italy), Soudan mines (USA) etc. in the world hunt to detect and study neutrinos.

Issues at local level

This doesn’t mean the construction of observatory is an easy task. Local people have some doubts about the project, which the scientists could answer easily. But the problem is with politician’s doubts, in fact that are not doubts. They were waiting for an issue to come up, so that they can rally the people along with them.

If it is not neutrino project then it will be something else. I always wondered how this is working. Most of the time people are against mining in critical biological hotspots, but politicians don’t have problem in giving license. People generally tend to agree for a laboratory (provided they don’t create ecological problem) but many politicians will be dead against it.

See below for three important questions and TIFR scientists’ answers for the same. You can see the entire set of questions and answers at TIFR’s site -
http://www.ino.tifr.res.in/ino/faq.php

1. Will there be any radioactivity?

No. The main reason for locating the laboratory underground is to create an environment free of the radiation that abounds on the Earth’s surface. This radiation is due to cosmic rays and natural radiation of the materials around us. Hence the experiment will neither produce any radioactivity nor can it function well where there is radiation (at the Earth’s surface).

2. Will there be hazardous chemicals and gases?

Detectors measuring the impact of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions with the iron consist of glass sheets kept at a precise separation and hermetically sealed to maintain the purity of a certain kind of gas mixture at about atmospheric pressure. The gas mixture used in the experiment consists of mainly argon, freon (environmentally friendly variety that is now used in all modern refrigerators), small quantities of isobutane and trace amounts of sulphur hexafluoride. These are used regularly in all laboratory environments and the mixture that will be used will conform to international standards of safety. The gas mixture is recycled many times before it is let out in small volumes. The ventilation system mixes the released gases with air to ensure the safety of every one. This is more a precaution to ensure the safety of the workers inside the laboratory.

3. Why should the laboratory be situated underground?

Neutrinos are difficult to detect in a laboratory because of their extremely weak interaction with matter. The background from cosmic rays (which interact much more readily than neutrinos) and natural radioactivity will make it almost impossible to detect them on the surface of the Earth. This is the reason most neutrino observatories are located deep inside the Earth’s surface. The overburden provided by the Earth matter is transparent to neutrinos whereas most background from cosmic rays is substantially reduced depending on the depth at which the detector is located.
Hope that everything will go well and we will have an observatory soon.

Sajeev.

References

1. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research – INO
2. Opposition to the project – The Hindu

Opportunity broke off-earth driving record

An Image Taken by Oppertunity

‘Sky is the limit’ became an old saying long time back. Human race crossed these limit years ago and reached surface of the moon. Many space-crafts send by us crossed solar system as well. Now NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover (which reached Mars on 2004) clocked 40KM on its odometer. This mile stone achieved on July 27 is an off-earth driving record (earlier record was 39km by Soviet Union’s Lunokhod ). Will all the best for Opportunity and the team which works relentlessly behind Opportunity project.

Sajeev

For more information on NASA's Spirit and Opportunity:

http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

http://twitter.com/MarsRovers

http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers

For an image of Lunokhod 2's tracks - http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/774

Photo Courtesy: NASA

Uncertainty

Just watched the video - ‘The Story Telling of Science’. One thing that stuck me was the question on uncertainty. Anyone remember the uncertainty principle which we all studied in Physics classes? I think as a kid I probably loved uncertainty; I may even felt it natural. But now… all my efforts may probably to reduce or avoid uncertainty altogether, than love it. Are we afraid to live in a world of uncertainty? Fearing it to such an extent that, we often end up making elaborate plans, back up plans, plan c and plan d as well?

What is better? The excitement of uncertainty or the boring but low risk certainty?

An interesting set of videos to watch.

The Storytelling of Science (Part 1)

The Storytelling of Science (Part 2)

Sajeev.

ITRA – Policy Paralysis or Lack of Imagination?

“R&D projects of Information Technology Research Academy (ITRA) in the areas of ‘Mobile Computing, Networking and Applications (ITRA-Mobile)’ and ‘IT based Innovations in Sustainability of Water Resources (ITRA-Water)’ have been launched... Shri J Satyanarayana, Secretary...further emphasized that the initiative is in line with the R&D framework of DeitY which has been drawn up to strike the right balance between basic and applied research and addresses some of the domains which have been emphasized by the R & D framework such as Agriculture, Water, Energy etc. He further stressed that R&D focus must culminate into transfer of technology and commercialization of research. 

14 team projects have been initiated at 44 institutions across the country in these two areas of ‘ITRA- Mobile’ and ‘ITRA-Water’. These projects are expected to enable in the generation of about 150 quality PhDs. More areas for initiation of R&D team projects are under consideration.” - GoI Press Release.

Because of curiosity I went through the list of participating institutions. You can see the list here -> http://medialabasia.in/itra/itra/index.php/getting-involved/menu-itra-institutions. Interestingly I am not able to find any private companies there.

It is good to promote R&D and commercialization of research; it is good to bring in academic institutions. But, why government is not so interested in bringing private companies? An academic-industrial partnership will create better results, than making these projects simply another government funded ones. Focus should not be on more PhDs but on the viability and real potential of these projects.

One can take a metal oxide, spend some three years, and come up with a PhD; but how far these PhD are useful for industry and(or) society? That’s what we have to focus on. There are hundreds of small and big Indian companies working on mobile and networking. Why don’t bring them in?

Sajeev.

CNR Rao calls politicians 'idiots'; Are they alone in that category?

"... for the money that government has given to scientific sector, we have done much more," he retorted.

"... Why the hell these idiots these politicians have given so little for us. Inspire of that we scientists have done something..." - TOI

Politicians may never imagined that, they would get such a reply soon after announcing Bharat Ratna to one of India's renowned scientist. Even if they knew, does it matter? Now-a-days public, media, bankers, industrialists etc. are so often calling them different names. In short, it doesn’t matter!!!

Still, I would like to say something about Mr. Rao's statement. It is true that a certain politician in UP thought, it is more important to create huge number of mammoth statues than to invest something in Science. It is true that another politician in a big Indian state found it essential to spent huge amount of money on irrigation projects (which hardly created any additional water flow) than to invest the same in a scientific establishment. It is true that, India is always ready to increase salaries of lawmakers than to give higher pay to scientists. It is true that politicians are ready to spent government money to buy TV to every household, in return for votes. It is true that, government is willing to burn enormous amount of cash to support a public airline - which hardly do any national service – than investing the same in scientific projects. Ready to recapitalize the banks which are competitively acquiring more NPA.

But isn’t it also true that, whatever money government is spending (that is not a small amount) is not creating proportional results? How many college professors/lectures are writing at least one article/year in a well-known international journal? What happened to enormous amount of money India spend in various projects? How many times we are hearing the cry for technological transfer (from foreign companies)? Why we are struggling to produce a native replacement for Bofors guns, even after having the drawings? How many aircraft engines we produced - original research - even after some labs are tirelessly working for a long time? Why Tejas is flying with a foreign engine? Even after having such a huge number of scientists in the payroll, how may high quality research papers are produced in a year? Why India’s import bill for electronics is rising so fast (soon it may even overrun India’s oil import bill)?

Probably My Rao is correct on his statement. I appreciate his balancing part as well.

“We also have to take blame on ourselves, Indians we don't work hard, we are not like Chinese. We are easy going and we are not as much nationalists ... If we get some-more money we are ready to go abroad." - TOI

With one leg we can't go fast. Along with funding we need a visionary, efficient administration and inspirational guiding figures to take us to the front line of scientific research. Otherwise the dreams of Satish Dhawan, Vikram Sarabhai, H.J. Baba etc will remain as dream only.

Sajeev.

References

1. In angry outburst scientist CNR Rao calls politicians 'idiots' - TOI

Developing Diesel Engines in India

Finally Maruti (MSIL) is planning to do what it supposed to do decades back - manufacturing engines.

According to ET report, "Maruti Suzuki is exploring...plan to build its own family of diesel engines, to power vehicles across segments. So far, Maruti has been relying on Italian carmaker Fiats 1-3 multi-jet-diesel engines...diesel engines will be developed with key inputs from its Indian subsidiary's R&D... at Rohtak in Haryana”.

It’s already late for Indian companies to focus on critical technology sectors like engine etc.

The problem is Maruthi is currently a subsidiary of Suzuki, so to what extend that engine will be developed in India is yet to see.

Sajeev.

References

1. Maruti Suzuki exploring plan to build its own family of diesel engines - ET