Skip to main content

Fram2 Crew Returns To Earth After Polar Orbit Mission

3 months 1 week ago
SpaceX's Fram2 mission returned safely after becoming the first crewed spaceflight to orbit directly over Earth's poles. From a report: Led by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang, who is the financier of this mission, the Fram2 crew has been free-flying through orbit since Monday. The group splashed down at 9:19 a.m. PT, or 12:19 p.m. ET, off the coast of California -- the first West Coast landing in SpaceX's five-year history of human spaceflight missions. The company livestreamed the splashdown and recovery of the capsule on its website. During the journey, the Fram2 crew members were slated to carry out various research projects, including capturing images of auroras from space and documenting their experiences with motion sickness. [...] This trip is privately funded, and such missions allow for SpaceX's customers to spend their time in space as they see fit. For Fram2, the crew traveled to orbit prepared to carry out 22 research and science experiments, some of which were designed and overseen by SpaceX. Most of the research involves evaluating crew health.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BeauHD

Trump fires NSA boss, deputy

3 months 1 week ago
'Nonpartisan' intelligence chief booted less than two years into the job

President Trump yesterday fired the head of the NSA and US Cyber Command and his deputy.…

Iain Thomson

Scientists Warn Indonesia's Rice Megaproject Faces Failure

3 months 1 week ago
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's ambitious plan to create 1 million hectares of new rice farms in eastern Merauke Regency faces strong criticism from scientists who have warned it will fail due to unsuitable soils and climate. Military "food brigades" are currently guarding bulldozers clearing swampy forests in Indonesian New Guinea for the project, which aims to boost food self-sufficiency for the nation's 281 million people. Soil scientists warn that Merauke's conditions could lead to acidic soils unable to support economically viable rice farming, potentially resulting in abandoned fields vulnerable to wildfires. "Farmers will get no profit at all," said Dwi Andreas, a soil scientist at Bogor Agricultural University who tested 12 rice varieties in similar soils with poor results. The initiative mirrors past failed megaprojects, including a 1990s attempt to convert 1 million hectares of Borneo peatlands to rice paddies and a 2020 onion and potato farming expansion in North Sumatra that saw 90% of fields abandoned. A previous 2010 attempt to expand rice farming in Merauke also failed, destroying forests that Indigenous Papuans relied on and increasing childhood malnutrition, according to anthropologist Laksmi Adriani.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

msmash