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Recommended Reading: The race back to the Moon
Dueling superpowers, rival billionaires. Inside the new race to the Moon Jeffrey Kluger, Time SpaceX, Blue Origin and others are in a heated battle to help NASA return the US to the Moon. Time takes an in-depth look at the new space race and the key players fighting for a piece of the prize.
The sneakers inspired by Apollo 11 and the Moon landing
NASA's Apollo 11 has had an outsize influence on our culture since July 20th, 1969. That's the day the spaceflight mission successfully completed its lunar landing, paving the way for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to become the first humans to ever set foot on the Moon. To this day, Apollo 11 remains one of the biggest achievements in the history of space exploration. It's only fitting, then, that those first steps Armstrong and Aldrin took have also made their mark on sneaker culture. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this week, we're showing you some of the best shoes that have drawn inspiration from the mission and its Moon landing. Brands such as Adidas, Nike, New Balance and Vans have all created designs paying homage to this historical feat, in official and unofficial ways. While there are sneakers that NASA has collaborated on, others simply look like they were meant to be Moon boots. Let's take a look and appreciate them one by one.
Watch astronauts reach space on Apollo 11's 50th anniversary
Earth is about to mark Apollo 11's 50th anniversary in one of the most fitting ways possible: sending people to space on the same day. NASA's Andrew Morgan (shown at left), Roscosmos' Alexander Skvortsov and the ESA's Luca Parmitano are launching on a trip to the International Space Station at 12:28PM ET today (July 20th), with NASA's live coverage starting at 11:30AM Eastern. The rendezvous with the ISS is slated for around 6:50PM ET. The crew will be joining NASA's current ISS residents Nick Hague and soon-to-be record setter Christina Koch, as well as Russia's Alexey Ovchinin.
How HoloLens is helping advance the science of spaceflight
AR headsets haven't exactly caught on with the general public -- especially after the Google Glass debacle. Mixed reality technology has garnered a sizable amount of interest in a variety of professional industries, though, from medicine and education to design and engineering. Since 2015, the technology has even made its way into aerospace where NASA and its partners have leveraged Microsoft's HoloLens platform to revolutionize how spacecraft are constructed and astronauts perform their duties while in orbit.
Did Frankenstein go to the Moon?
There's a mystery at the heart of the first Moon landing. And no, it's not whether the whole thing was staged. Instead, historians are wondering whether a small company in Manchester helped NASA design its iconic Apollo 11 spacesuit.
The Morning After: 2020 Corvette adds NFC, 1080p and OTA updates
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Welcome to your weekend! Chevrolet unveiled its tech-filled 2020 Corvette, and Comic-Con is in full swing. We'll take a look back at someone this week's highlight stories, like Neuralink's plan to connect brains with computers, and fresh news from Friday like Hulu's surprise Veronica Mars drop.
What to watch to celebrate Apollo 11's 50th anniversary
What better way to celebrate the Moon landing than to gather your family around the couch and relive the experience? Even if you weren't lucky enough to see Neil Armstrong plant his feet on the Moon fifty years ago, there are plenty of films and shows that'll let you recapture the magic of that moment. And if you're not eager to honor the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11's momentous mission (you monster), it's still worth reminding yourself of what NASA, and mankind writ large, can do under pressure. The planet might be in the midst of a political and environmental meltdown today, but we managed to walk on the Moon once, damnit. It's all a reminder there may be hope for us yet.
How NASA keeps its astronauts safe and sane in space
Astronauts endure one of the most dangerous, high stakes, high stress professions on (or off) the planet -- a job matched in isolation, confinement and extremity perhaps only by arctic field scientists and ballistic missile submarine crews. Of course, the latter two rarely have to deal with radiation exposure, gravity changes, or the prospect of being sucked out an airlock.
NASA's plan to return to the Moon with Project Artemis
On July 21, 1969, the first humans set foot on the Moon. With Neil Armstrong's simple words, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," the world changed irrevocably. For a few hours, we existed on multiple worlds. That was fifty years ago. Now, in the shadow of Apollo, we are once again looking to venture back out into the stars, past the low Earth orbit where we've been learning about space over the past few decades. We know better how to live and work in orbit thanks to the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. Now NASA says it's time to return to the lunar surface. But this time, it wants to stay there. NASA's Project Artemis (aptly named as the goddess of hunting is Apollo's twin sister) aims to take humans back to the Moon by 2024. But there are many lingering questions about the destination, the goals, the motivations, the project itself, NASA's current readiness level and whether it has the support in Congress to move forward.
NVIDIA revamps Moon landing recreation in time for Apollo 11's 50th
You knew NVIDIA couldn't resist reviving its GPU-based Apollo 11 recreation for the Moon landing's 50th anniversary. Sure enough, the tech firm has updated the demo to take advantage of its RTX ray tracing technology, allowing a more faithful rendition of the moment Buzz Aldrin followed Neil Armstrong to the lunar surface. The biggest improvement, as you might suspect, is the lighting. Real-time raytracing captures how the Sun's rays bounced off the lunar lander and even the spacesuits -- the glowing highlights and varied shadows are closer to what you saw in the TV footage and photos than the slightly dulled look of the 2014 demo.
Virgin Orbit will launch small satellites for the UK military
Virgin Orbit, the small satellite launch arm of Virgin Galactic, will provide launch capabilities for the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF). Virgin has been angling for government contracts recently and has managed to land a project called Artemis "to demonstrate the utility of small satellites and responsive launch to provide information to the RAF."
SpaceX shows off a highlight reel of Crew Dragon parachute tests
As SpaceX continues its progress toward a Demo-2 launch of its Crew Dragon spacecraft with NASA astronauts aboard the company put together this reel of parachute tests. According to the tag, "SpaceX is returning human spaceflight capabilities to the United States with one of the safest, most advanced systems ever built." I didn't spot a clip from the failed test in April, but that's part of the reason why SpaceX is doing repeated tests from various heights and setups like the one it failed where one of the parachutes was intentionally disabled. It's all to make sure that the system works when it's called upon to provide a safe ocean landing for actual people. Boeing already announced the competing Starliner project has completed a qualification test for its parachute system, although both programs have faced technical issues, like the explosive incident SpaceX recently traced to an oxidizer leak.
Barsys $1,500 robot bartender promises cocktails with AI precision
The "Keurig of cocktails" concept isn't exactly new, but that's not stopping companies like Barsys from perfecting the robotic bartender. Next week, Barsys is launching its robotic cocktail mixer 2.0. Like the original, the next iteration offers automated cocktails and customizable drink recipes. But now, you'll be able to control the machine with up to three devices at a time, thanks to Bluetooth. And Barsys 2.0 will use AI to keep drinks consistent.
Time says its AR depiction of Apollo 11 is the 'most accurate' yet
Time is joining Google in marking Apollo 11's 50th anniversary using augmented reality, although this one is decidedly different -- and may be particularly valuable if you're a history buff. The magazine has introduced a Landing on the Moon AR experience in the Time Immersive app for iOS (coming shortly for Android astronauts; the experience is also available in Engadget sister company Yahoo News's app) that lets you relive the landing (complete with audio), explore the lunar surface and even stand next to Neil Armstrong while he plants the flag.
The latest Google Doodle celebrates the Apollo 11 anniversary
Google wouldn't let the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing go by without a Google Doodle. The company released its commemorative video Doodle today. The nearly five-minute animated clip follows Apollo 11 from launch, to the Moon and back, and it's narrated by someone with firsthand knowledge of the mission: Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins.
Hulu will add NASA TV to its lineup of live channels
Just ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, you'll have another way to tune into NASA TV's live stream. Hulu will carry the feed on its live TV service as of July 19th, and a selection of video-on-demand material will arrive on the platform this week.
Breakthrough searches for signs of alien life in ultra-fast light pulses
Internet investor Yuri Milner's search for extraterrestrial life now includes a hunt for, effectively, interstellar Morse code. Breakthrough Listen is teaming with the partners behind VERITAS (the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) to search for nanoseconds-long optical pulses that could indicate the presence of aliens trying to flash messages across the cosmos. The collaboration will use all four telescopes at once to check for these light-based "beacons," which would could be brighter than stars observed in the same direction.
Toyota will spend 10 years perfecting its astronaut moon rover
Japan has an ambitious plan to send men to the moon by 2030 as part of a multinational mission and is determined they'll have a ride when they get there. Japan's space agency JAXA and partner Toyota have revealed that the pressurized, manned lunar rover -- announced earlier this year -- should be ready to launch by 2029.
Tiny vibration-powered robots could repair your body from the inside
There are many challenges to developing robots that could operate within your body, not the least of which is finding a power source -- you can't exactly strap a big battery on them. That might not be an issue thanks to Georgia Tech researchers. They've developed minuscule "bristle-bots" that move by tapping vibration from a variety of sources, whether it's ultrasound or a nearby speaker. The trick was to mate a tiny piezoelectric actuator to a 3D-printed polymer body whose bristle-like legs are angled to move in specific directions in a resonant response to vibrations.
Watch CBS livestream the original 1969 Apollo 11 launch broadcast
If you weren't alive to witness the historic Apollo 11 mission, CBS has the next best thing. The US broadcaster is livestreaming the original broadcast from July 16th, 1969, letting you relive it as many of us saw it originally -- corny commercials included.