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Elon Musk's SpaceX has launched roast turkey, cranberry sauce, and cornbread dressing
to astronauts on the International Space Station


SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Yichuan Cao/Getty Images

* A SpaceX cargo ship carrying meteorite samples, live mice, and a roast turkey dinner is set to arrive at the International Space Station on Monday afternoon.

* This marks the first flight of SpaceX's updated Dragon cargo ship. The new design can carry more cargo and can be used for up to five return journeys, up from three for the previous model.

* The capsule will join another Dragon ship already docked at the station, marking the first time SpaceX has had two capsules there at the same time.

* This mission is bringing about 6,400 pounds of supplies to the ISS, including about 4,400 pounds of research. This includes microbes and meteorite samples and 3D engineered heart tissue.


SpaceX launched a capsule carrying a roast turkey, live mice, and meteorite samples to the International Space Station on Sunday morning.

It marked the 21st commercial resupply mission for Elon Musk's aerospace giant, and the first flight of SpaceX's updated Dragon cargo ship.

The unmanned capsule, which was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida by a Falcon 9 rocket booster, is expected to arrive Monday at 1:30 p.m. ET, after the mission was delayed by a day because of poor weather.

This mission is bringing about 6,400 pounds of supplies to the ISS, including about 4,400 pounds of research. This includes microbes and meteorite samples to investigate how microgravity affects biomining, 3D engineered heart tissue, a medical device that will provide quick blood test results for astronauts, and a new airlock.

It will join another Dragon capsule that docked at the ISS last month, and it will be the first time SpaceX has had two capsules there at the same time. SpaceX is hoping to always have at least one Dragon docked at the ISS.

The new Dragon model can carry roughly 20% more weight than the previous one.

The capsule is also bringing 40 mice, which will be used to research the impact that living on the ISS can have on astronauts' bones and eyes, the AP reported.

The experiments make it the "the ultimate Christmas present" for the NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Kenny Todd, NASA's deputy space station program manager, said during a press conference on Friday.

When asked whether the capsule was bringing personal presents to the ISS for the seven astronauts on board, Todd said: "Let's see what happens when they open the hatch … I'm optimistic."

Todd did say the Dragon was bringing a festive meal for the astronauts, including roast turkey, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, shortbread biscuits, and tubes of icing.

The capsule is expected to remain at the ISS for about a month before returning to Earth with experiments and old equipment.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 booster detached and landed on SpaceX's drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean about nine minutes after launch. The ship catches falling boosters so SpaceX can use them again.

The updated Dragon model is capable of up to five flights to and from the ISS, compared with three for the previous version, and can dock there by itself rather than using the ISS's robot arm for anchoring.

It can also stay on the station more than twice as long as the previous version of Dragon and can hold twice as many powered lockers, which preserve science and research samples during transport to and from Earth.

The flight was the first of at least nine agreed under a space-resupply contract between SpaceX and NASA.



Source: BusinessInsider.com
Website: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon...y4flcv9_T0qrks
Date: December 7, 2020

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Elon Musk Confirms He Relocated To Texas From California

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday he has personally relocated to Texas, citing repeated complaints with California’s regulations over technology companies as well as what he called innovation complacency throughout Silicon Valley.

“If a team has been winning for too long, they do tend to get a little complacent, a little entitled, and then they don’t win the championship anymore. California has been winning for too long,” Musk said at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council summit Tuesday during an interview with Editor-in-Chief Matt Murray.

When asked if he had moved from California, Musk first emphasized the presence his companies still have in the nation's largest state.

“First of all, Tesla and SpaceX obviously have massive operations in California,” the South Africa native said, according to CNBC. “In fact, it’s worth noting that Tesla is the last car company still manufacturing cars in California. SpaceX is the last aerospace company still doing significant manufacturing in California.”

“There used to be over a dozen car plants in California, and California used to be the center of aerospace manufacturing,” he continued. “My companies are the last two left. ... That’s a very important point to make.”

“For myself, yes, I have moved to Texas.”

Musk added that he believes Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area have “too much influence on the world” but that it likely will be reduced as a result of the pandemic, the Journal reported.

Musk is just the latest in a series of startup executives and employees who have moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to cheaper locations since the pandemic forced many to begin working remotely.

Last week, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced that it planned to move its headquarters to Texas, and earlier this year, Palantir Technologies Inc., founded in the Bay Area in 2003, moved its base of operations to Denver.

In August, Palantir CEO Alex Karp accused Silicon Valley of being out of touch with the principles and societal needs of everyday Americans.

“Our society has effectively outsourced the building of software that makes our world possible to a small group of engineers in an isolated corner of the country,” Karp wrote in a letter to investors. “The engineering elite of Silicon Valley may know more than most about building software. But they do not know more about how society should be organized or what justice requires.”

During his remarks Tuesday, Musk also condemned government regulations and bureaucracy that he says have limited new startup creation by favoring monopolies and duopolies.

“You have a forest of redwoods, and the little trees can’t grow,” Musk said, adding that the government should “just get out of the way” of innovators.

In May, Musk threatened to move Tesla out of California when a countywide stay-at-home order prevented his U.S. car factory from reopening, which Musk claimed was “fascist,” likening the restrictions to “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes.”

Musk eventually announced his intentions to reopen the factory in defiance of the health order, which the Alameda County Public Health Department responded to within days by saying it would allow the Tesla factory to reopen under specific safety conditions.

In July, Musk announced that Tesla would be building a $1 billion assembly plant near Austin, Texas, its second in the U.S. and first outside Silicon Valley. Musk’s SpaceX also has operations in Texas.



Source: thehill.com
Website:
Date: December 8, 2020

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Deepak Chopra Made a Digital Clone of Himself, and Other Celebs Could Soon Follow.

I spoke with Digital Deepak and then talked to the real one: Here's a preview of how celebrities could AI themselves.


This isn't Deepak Chopra. It's Digital Baby Deepak.

I'm sitting down on a sofa, talking to what looks like a Facetime with Deepak Chopra on a phone. It's not him, though. It's an animated, sometimes realistic, talking head. He asks me how I feel. I end up discussing work stress. He suggests a meditation.

For a few minutes, I'm having a little session with a Deepak that doesn't exist.

A few weeks later, I'm talking to actual Deepak Chopra on the phone about what I experienced. The successful author and personal transformation guru is launching a free AI version of himself, which will tap into his collected books and build a personal relationship with whoever's talking to him. The software, created by a company called The AI Foundation, is looking to use this technology to make virtual AI archives of anyone who wants to be immortalized or remembered. Mr. Chopra is the first on deck.

"Well, here's the reason I did it: I'm now 73 years old, and I'm in perfect health, I feel like I'm 35, but you know, the next chapter is physical death. This digital Deepak can actually consume my work after I'm gone, and probably improve on it because it learns with every interaction," Chopra tells me. He calls his AI "Digital Baby Deepak," because he sees it as a part of himself that will grow. "It can become a teenager soon and an adult, and ultimately a wise person, and it can do that very fast because it doesn't have the time limitations that humans have. It can learn simultaneously from all these interactions."

Deepak Chopra has explored AI frontiers before. Last year, he released an Alexa skill that played daily recorded reflections. This new AI initiative crosses over to add visuals, and far deeper interactive ambitions.

"I will learn from it, and it will learn from me.
I mean, we're twins, now." -Deepak Chopra

This Digital Deepak will personalize itself based on the details we give it, which could be a lot. "If you want, you can share anything you want with it privately, it'll be very ethical about that information, including your medical records if you wish to share with them," says Chopra, "And it will be able to consult with experts and give you advice."

Chopra also sees possibilities of using his digital self to learn more about his physical self. "I will learn from it, and it will learn from me. I mean, we're twins, now."

My mind races to consultations with holograms of historical figures, like in Watchmen's alternate-2019 universe, and VR experiences I've actually had, virtually meeting Holocaust survivors. I also think about talking to my dad, who's been gone for seven years.



Source: cnet.com
Website: https://www.cnet.com/news/deepak-cho...lts-nUozPHvcaI
Date: December 5, 2020