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‘Peaceful’ male bonobos may actually be more aggressive than chimps
Heat and Floods Are Increasingly Hitting Coastlines with a One-Two Punch
Compound events in which coastal flooding and heat waves occur at the same time are happening more often as the planet warms
'Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight' documentary set to conclude on CNN
SpaceX launches Starlink satellites on record 20th reflight of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage
Physicists Finally Know How the Strong Force Gets Its Strength
New discoveries demystify the bizarre force that binds atomic nuclei together
We Are Living in the Pyrocene, the Age of Fire that We Created
Ancient prophecies of worlds destroyed by fire are becoming realities. How will we respond?
Arctic permafrost is now a net source of major greenhouse gases
Arctic permafrost is now a net source of major greenhouse gases
No, you didn't see a solar flare during the total eclipse — but you may have seen something just as special
Does Dark Energy Change over Time?
In just one year of observations, a program that is creating the largest 3D map of the universe to date has sniffed out hints that dark energy may be stranger than scientists supposed
Tech Today: Folding NASA Experience into an Origami Toolkit
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Though the art of origami is centuries old, until the late 20th century it was considered virtually impossible to make insects or other figures with many long, complex protrusions. That changed with the introduction of math-based origami design, which Lang helped pioneer. Today, he’s still drawn to the challenges presented by insects and other arthropods, and they are well-represented in the menagerie of his origami gallery.After uncovering the mathematical underpinnings of origami, Robert Lang left a 20-year engineering career, including over four years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, to pursue his lifelong passion. However, while he was working at JPL, Lang picked up an important key to computational design, allowing him to turn paper into impossibly intricate 3D forms.
In the center’s Micro Devices Laboratory in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Lang worked on building an optical computer that uses light rather than electricity to carry out calculations. This work introduced him to the concept of nonlinear constrained optimization.
Lang explained that a simple nonlinear constrained optimization problem is like packing different-sized balls into a box. The constraint is that the balls can’t overlap, and the solutions are nonlinear because the balls can be any direction or distance from each other. The optimization is making the box as small as possible.
System design optimization for lasers and other components requires minimizing energy consumption, semiconductor materials, and other costs. In origami, optimization means creating the most extensive form possible using a single sheet of paper.
In the mid-1990s, he took his expertise gain at JPL and created an open-source software called TreeMaker, the first program available to design complex origami figures. Lang’s design software uses an equation to map the points that will become features like a head and limbs. It helps decide exactly how far apart any two points have to be, depending on their location in the final shape.
In 2001, he left his last engineering job to become a full-time origamist, and he remains one of the world’s leading figures at the intersection of math and paper folding. Lang’s work ranges from small paper sculptures to huge public art made from metal and other materials, which he co-creates with other artists.
Since Lang left NASA, the agency has called him back in to consult on a few projects that capitalized on his dual background in engineering and origami. One of those was the Starshade concept, a design for a baseball diamond-sized disk that would fold up tightly to fit in a rocket fairing and then unfurl in space. There, it would block the light from a given star so a space telescope could photograph its planets. Credit: NASAThe art of folding has even crept into space technology in recent years. Commercial companies now seek out Lang for his origami and engineering backgrounds to consult on folding hardware, including a collapsible radio antenna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Eyeglass space telescope. He’s also returned to NASA to help figure out how to fold large objects for launch inside rocket fairings.
“The irony is that, when I was employed full-time at NASA, I was not working on origami, but after I left, I’ve been invited back a couple of times to work on origami-related projects,” he said.
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ESA astronaut graduation: launching into the future
One year of basic training will soon bear fruit for ESA’s astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg.
On 22 April 2024, these astronaut candidates will receive their certification at ESA's European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, officially becoming fully fledged astronauts eligible for spaceflight.
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ESA astronaut class of 2022 graduation ceremony
As they reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training, ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg will receive astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024.
The group was selected in November 2022 and began their training in April 2023.
Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with an overall familiarisation and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, as well as survival and medical training.
Following certification, the new astronauts will move on to the next phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond.
Join us for the graduation ceremony live on ESA Web TV on Monday 22 April from 10:00 – 11:30 CEST.
What Is Pollution Doing to Our Brains? 'Exposomics' Reveals Links to Many Diseases
The new science of "exposomics" shows how air pollution contributes to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, bipolar disorder and other brain diseases
Sierra Space wants to drop cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth in 90 minutes
Juice’s first year in space: “it’s real now”
One year since the launch of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), we catch up with core team members Claire Vallat, Giuseppe Sarri, Olivier Witasse and Ignacio Tanco.
From memories of launch day to hopes for the future, they talk honestly about the ups and downs of flying a space mission, and reveal how they’re ensuring that Juice will be a huge success.