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20 years of otherworldly thought experiments: A Q&A with artist Jonathon Keats, ,

The master of the absurd but profound thought experiment is getting some of his artistic due.

For the past two decades, Jonathon Keats has been asking us to recalibrate our assumptions about the universe and our place in it, through a series of projects that bury multiple layers of meaning beneath a veneer of playfulness and seeming frivolity.

Many of Keats’ efforts have a space theme, or at least draw inspiration from humanity’s scrabbling attempts to explore and understand the final frontier. In 2006’s “Speculations,” for example, he sold the development rights to the extra dimensions predicted by string theory. Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter served as a consultant on the project.

In 2011, Keats pushed for a Copernican revolution in the arts, urging painters, composers and writers to strive for the mediocrity that defines our universe rather than strain to create jarringly atypical masterpieces.

And six years later, Keats and space archaeologist Alice Gorman developed a potential solution to the Fermi Paradox — a “cosmic welcome mat” designed to let passing aliens know that we’d happily receive them here on Earth. (Perhaps they’ve been waiting for just such an invitation.)

Alien thinking: The conceptual space art of Jonathon Keats (gallery)

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One iteration of the cosmic welcome mat developed by Keats in 2017, in consultation with space archaeologist Alice Gorman. (Image credit: Michelle Szep/Flinders University)

These installations and many more have been shown in galleries around the world — and you’ll soon be able to keep a diverse sampling of them on your coffee table. “Thought Experiments: The Art of Jonathon Keats” (2021, Hirmer), a monograph celebrating and examining his work, comes out next Thursday (April 15) and is available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.

“Thought Experiments,” which will be published by the German house Hirmer, features deep dives into 20 of Keats’ projects, with accompanying essays by folks such as sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling, Science Gallery founder Michael Jon Gorman, and the monograph’s two editors, art historian Alla Efimova and Anchorage Museum director Julie Decker.

Space.com caught up with Keats recently to discuss why he keeps dipping into the infinite space well, the importance of absurdity in art and how it feels to be the focus of a 350-page book. The following interview has been edited for length. (It’s much shorter and less detailed than the one in the monograph.)

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Thought Experiments: The Art of Jonathon Keats. $45 at Amazon.
Celebrate 20 years of conceptual space artist Jonathon Keats in this new Hirmer book by editors July Decker and Alla Efimova. It is available April 15.View Deal

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“Thought Experiments: The Art of Jonathon Keats” will be published by Hirmer on April 15, 2021. (Image credit: Hirmer Publishers/Jonathon Keats)

Space.com: I’ve written about a lot of your projects, because you touch on space so much and in such interesting ways. Why do you think that space is such a recurring theme with you? What is it about space science and exploration that fits so well with what you’re doing?

Jonathon Keats: At the most basic level, the most banal level, I am interested in everything. And I am especially interested in what others are interested in, and interested in activating deeper and alternative ways of thinking about them. So, if we were not in the space age, I might not touch on space as much as I do.

In the same way, I find myself engaging in questions related to economics and politics a lot right now, and also to an ever greater extent in terms of ecology. I’m looking at space and into space because we really need to be thinking deeply about what we are trying to do when we look out there, and potentially when we go to other planets, and even, possibly, colonize them.

But the deeper level, or a level that is perhaps not quite as banal as that, is the philosophical level. And here I am in no way being original, because there’s a long tradition of philosophers taking space as a subject in order to be able to think expansively, or to look upon our world from an outside perspective. That’s the move that I am making when I undertake a thought experiment in any case, and space is manifestly alternate in the sense that it is not here, and by virtue of the fact that it is there, it becomes a vantage for looking at here.

And, moreover, it is the unknown, in its most vast and most extensive form. The fact that we cannot, in physical terms, access the multiverse or get beyond the horizon established by the Big Bang means that there is inherently an unknown, and even where there is the possibility physically to make observations, access is incomplete.

The universe: Big Bang to now in 10 easy steps

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In 2008, Keats drew on the work of physicist Hugh Everett, who proposed the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1957, to build a universe generator. Above is a prototype of Keats’ device. (Image credit: Jonathon Keats)

So space invites speculation, and it invites speculation in a way that is complicated by the fact that it is neither entirely fictional nor entirely factual. Which is not to say that astronomers are not rigorous; many of them are. But, nevertheless, looking out into space and taking space as a place in which to place work and to set ideas sets aside inherently a lot of assumptions and militates against any misuse of experiences that might distort our thinking, because we know we haven’t been there. And that’s a great starting point, I think, for being able to think about things without assuming.

And finally, it’s really a matter of all of the many different possibilities that there are for considering some of the greatest issues of our time by way of extrapolation. I’m thinking specifically of all the ways in which qualities such as tolerance and xenophobia, potentially, are addressed when we consider the more extreme case of being from elsewhere in the universe in order to put in perspective the alien nature, or the alien identity, we place on beings who are down on the border.

There are so many opportunities. And I think that every time that I start to develop a new work, I find new resonances.

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In 2010, Keats created the Local Air & Space Administration, which (among other things) sold mineral water infused with tiny pieces of Mars, the moon and distant stars. (Image credit: Photography by Sibila Savage)

Space.com: Maybe I’m wrong about this, but it also strikes me that there’s something fundamentally absurd about space and our attempts to understand it, because in some ways those attempts are futile. Our brains aren’t well equipped to understand things on the quantum scale, or on the scale of the very large. In the Q&A in the new book, you mention that absurdity is often a key part of your thought experiments — that it helps people get into the right frame of mind to access them. So do you think there’s a sort of marriage between the absurdity of space and the absurdity that you aim for in much of your work?

Keats: I find the absurd to be productive, because the absurd is disorienting and therefore calls for a reorientation. The absurd has that quality in common with elsewhere, where elsewhere is another planet or another galaxy.

So I think that the absurd is perhaps the condition of outer space in microcosm. There’s also, as you point out, the futility, which is, I think, a quality that’s related to absurdity — the absurdity of asking some of the questions that we feel impelled to ask as a result of the answers that we have to the questions that we asked previously that perhaps were more answerable, and the ultimate delocalization of our focus, the ultimate opening up of our purview.

In other words, I don’t think that you would find many Cro-Magnons having conversations about the multiverse. I could be wrong; I’m not Cro-Magnon, and I wasn’t there. But certainly, I would not be surprised to find Cro-Magnons having profound discussions in whatever form that might be — and it may not involve any given language as we currently define language — about physics, the physics that relates to what was in their midst.

And so what we find in the sciences, I think, are theories that build on observations, and those theories then suggest new areas of observation, and this iterative process leads us to a greater and greater purview. And, in some way, the story of how we came to ask whether there’s a multiverse is a story that begins with Cro-Magnons, or with whatever other hominid you choose, trying to figure out how best to attach stone to wood, or more generally, how to get the next meal.

That is really interesting to me, because it’s a way in which the practical leads us naturally, seemingly — or inevitably, maybe, given the way that our minds work — to the futile. And there’s something that is really absurd in the question of whether there is a multiverse, because it is a question that is unanswerable and yet there’s something inevitable about it. And the fact that it’s inevitable makes it even more absurd and brings that quality of absurdity home to all of the questions that were proximate, all the questions that got us there, so that we, I think, as a result of this, end up less certain about what was absolute, or what we thought we knew in our own midst.

So the de-centering effect, or the disorienting effect, comes right back around and leads us to question what we thought we knew, and to enter into an uncertainty that I think is essential from the standpoint of sustaining an openness, a curiosity and a capacity to the sort of tolerance and mutual efforts toward some set of common interests that can sustain us as a society.

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“The First Intergalactic Art Exposition” (2006) aimed to decode, via abstract art, a mysterious cosmic signal detected by the Arecibo Observatory in 2003. (Image credit: Photography by Sibila Savage)

Space.com: Of all your space-related projects, are there any that stand out in particular as your favorites?

Keats: I find that I keep coming back to some of the questions that initially arose in the “First Copernican Art Exposition,” which I don’t think is included in the book, then was, in fuller form, or even more developed form, the basis for “Intergalactic Omniphonics.”

I think that in many ways, that project is one that continually gives more, the more that I delve into those questions and try to develop those ideas. And I think that is because the project allows for — invites, insists upon — a way in which to frame our lives here on Planet Earth today in terms that are nearly infinite, spatially and temporally. And therefore the project has urgency, especially in terms of the political issues that are brought to bear around questions of tolerance, but also that the project [derives] from that very tangible and immediate relevance and the interactions that come about because of that relevance, such that the biggest questions of all are generated through those interactions. And by that I mean, questions about whether we are alone — but more than that, what might constitute life and intelligence aside from the example that we have here on Earth.

That is to say, that we can start to speculate in a rigorous way about sensory systems, about cognition, about all of the many questions that are latent and, I think, go unexplored about ourselves. They are activated through speculation about others and through the process of trying to bring us all together and to find commonality to discover universality. It is, I think, a very powerful mechanism by which to recognize and appreciate difference, and to therefore better understand and appreciate who and what we are.

Related: 13 ways to hunt intelligent aliens

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In his 2011 Copernican art manifesto, Keats called for all paintings to be beige, to match the average color of the universe. (Image credit: Photography by Sibila Savage)

Space.com: Another recurring topic in your work is environmental degradation, especially the damage we’re inflicting via human-caused climate change . Do you feel a sense of responsibility to try to get people to think about and mitigate such issues, to try to make the world a better place?

Keats: I absolutely feel a sense of responsibility, and I want to do what I consider to be important. Even if I’m not necessarily contributing anything of any value, I can at least try to do some good. And I can use the methodologies that I’ve developed to the best of my ability toward that end.

So there is the external factor, that climate and climate change are being discussed and debated right now. And because I tend to see any given conversation that is becoming a major conversation or is predominant as being a conversation that I want to participate in; and also because I see climate catastrophe as being a real possibility; and also because I see our arrogance and hubris as a species as being central to that; and because I see injustice in terms of what that inflicts upon other species — for all these reasons, I am impelled to work within that realm.

And so I find that many of my projects that are not necessarily connected at the outset, and even that do not start out with those questions in mind, ultimately end up addressing those questions in some way. So that I’ve been working now for a decade or more on a project trying to reimagine democracy. And that project has resulted in the recognition of more profound and radical and fundamental changes beyond just the changes that need, I believe, to take place, or at least the questions we need to be asking about how humans interact in terms of democratic decision making, to recognize that humans should not be the only ones making those decisions. In fact, we need to involve other species; we need to enfranchise other species.

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For “Intergalactic Omniphonics” (2018), Keats created instruments designed to produce music that can be enjoyed by creatures throughout the cosmos, no matter what sensory modalities they rely on. (Image credit: Photography by Sibila Savage)

Space.com: So, how does it feel to have a monograph written about you and your work? What is it like to be memorialized in this way, celebrated in this way?

Keats: The plurality of perspectives counteracts the potential for the monograph to be a consolidation, in the sense of being a resolution. And therefore, I think that what I gained from it has been a set of different mappings, or a set of different perspectives that actually seem like they might be generative. They might help me going forward, because none of them are definitive; no one is dominant. That might actually open up the space for further exploration.

Conceptually speaking, I think that I have managed to avoid what would have been the greatest peril. And I think that actually it can be a ramifying force or factor in my work going forward.

Space.com: When you say “the greatest peril,” do you mean a sort of ossifying force? Of seeing the weight of the past two decades of your work and feeling a sense of satisfaction, or feeling a sense of being constrained by these boundaries that the book puts around you? Is that what you’re trying to avoid?

Keats: I think that actually you’ve identified what would be the greatest peril, which is not what I was referring to. But I think that is absolutely right: Satisfaction would be catastrophic, because that would suggest that the only thing left for me was retirement.

I see success as a sort of failure, where that success is a form of closure. And I think that that is more broadly what I have been cautious about and concerned about, in the process of working on this project with Alla and Julie — the risk that it is in some way definitive or, more broadly, defining.

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Experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats. (Image credit: Jonathon Keats courtesy of Jen Dessinger)

Space.com: You’ve said that you don’t like following the traditional way that thought experiments are done, which is to lead people down a path to a hypothesis that the originator has chosen. You want it to be far more participatory — you want everybody who comes into the gallery, or who experiences the experiment in some other way, to take some of it with them, and to put their own mark on it. That’s the whole point of getting ideas out into the world, right?

Keats: Absolutely it is meant to be participatory. The experiment is meant to be experimental, in the sense that I’m setting out the initial conditions, and I don’t know what the results will be. In my case, I’m not doing so necessarily in a Petri dish. But I am doing so as a matter of setting up circumstances — taking the thought experiment in philosophy as a framework for doing so where I am putting a counterfactual or an alternate reality out in the world where people can encounter it, and we can work out the implications together.

Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Hubble telescope finds rare double quasars in ancient galactic collisions, ,

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured not one but two pairs of distant quasars that existed some 10 billion years ago, a new study reports.

According to the team leading the research, the discovery was like finding a needle in a haystack, as the chance of locating a double quasar compared to a single quasar is just one in 1,000.

Imagery captured by the long-serving space telescope shows that the quasars within each pair are only about 10,000 light-years apart. For comparison, our sun is 26,000 light-years away from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. The researchers, led by Nadia Zakamska of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, believe that the quasars are knitted so closely to each other because each pair lies at the center of two galaxies in the midst of a smashup.

Related: Scientists find most distant quasar shooting powerful radio jets

A quasar is an intense emission of light from the center of a galaxy that’s fuelled by the gluttonous supermassive black hole at its core. “Quasars make a profound impact on galaxy formation in the universe,” Zakamska said in a statement released on April 6.

When two galaxies collide, their intense gravity causes the structures to become warped. More material is funneled into their respective black holes as a result, igniting their quasars. Over time, the intense radiation fuels galactic winds that strip away most of the gas from the merging galaxies.

This process results in the formation of an elliptical galaxy. A similar sequence is predicted to happen a few billion years from now when the Milky Way merges with its nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy.

More than 100 double quasars have been discovered in merging galaxies, though none are as old as the two pairs found in this study. The newly discovered quasars are from an era associated with an abundance of quasar formation, about 10 billion years ago. Astronomers had previously suggested there should be myriad dual quasars during that time, but none had been detected until now.

Related: Distant ‘quasar tsunamis’ are ripping their own galaxies apart

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These images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal two pairs of quasars. The pair on the left are catalogued as J0749+2255 (taken January 5 2020) and the pair on the right as J0841+4825 (taken on November 30 2019). Both images were taken in visible light with Wide Field Camera 3. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, H. Hwang and N. Zakamska (Johns Hopkins University), and Y. Shen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign))

“This truly is the first sample of dual quasars at the peak epoch of galaxy formation with which we can use to probe ideas about how supermassive black holes come together to eventually form a binary,” Zakamska said.

The discovery of these four quasars not only informs researchers on the merging of supermassive black holes in the early universe, but also highlights the benefits of employing a variety of techniques to detect and image elusive dual quasars, study team members said.

Although Hubble is the only telescope with a high enough resolution to distinguish these two close quasar pairs, its sharp eye wasn’t quite good enough to locate them on its own. Astronomers needed to point Hubble in the right direction, and for that they enlisted the help of the European Space Agency’s star-mapping Gaia satellite and the ground-based Sloan Digital Sky Survey to compile a list of possible candidates for Hubble to investigate.

When the researchers then observed the first four targets with Hubble, they found that two of the targets were actually two pairs of close quasars. The researchers said it was a “light bulb moment” that reaffirmed their plans to use Hubble, Sloan and Gaia to search for quasar duos.

“The new technique can not only discover dual quasars much further away, but it is much more efficient than the methods we’ve used before,” said Xin Liu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was also part of the study.

The team’s research appears in the April 1 online issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.

You can follow Daisy Dobrijevic on Twitter at @DaisyDobrijevic. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Director Neil Burger’s ‘Voyagers’ launches a colony ship to the stars, ,

Writer-director Neil Burger is well known for his provocative cinematic projects, most notably 2006’s period-set magician movie “The Illusionist,” 2011’s psychological thriller “Limitless,” and a trio of “Divergent” films adapted from author Veronica Roth’s young adult sci-fi novels.

Now Burger has his eyes fixed on the stars with his new science fiction adventure flick, “Voyagers,” which revolves around the perils inside a generation spaceship carrying 30 home-grown candidates on a one-way mission to settle an exoplanet 86 years from Earth.

Lionsgate will release “Voyagers” nationwide on April 9. The film’syouthful cast includes Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, Chante Adams, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Viveik Kalra, Archie Madekwe, Quintessa Swindell, Madison Hu, and Colin Farrell. The premise finds the crew discovering that they’re being drugged with an emotional suppressant called “The Blue,” and centers on the heightened chaos that ensues when they stop drinking their medicine.

Related: Astronauts on Mars missions could suffer cognitive and emotional problems

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The long-haul spaceship of director Neil Burger’s “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)

Here’s the official “Voyagers” synopsis:

“With the future of the human race at stake, a group of young men and women, bred for intelligence and obedience, embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet. But when they uncover disturbing secrets about the mission, they defy their training and begin to explore their most primitive natures. As life on the ship descends into chaos, they’re consumed by fear, lust, and the insatiable hunger for power.”

Space.comspoke with Burger on the genesis of “Voyagers,” what sort of mood and visual style he hoped to attain, the origins of the azure-hued cocktail known as “The Blue,” his inspiration for the plot, and visiting SpaceX to create a realistic set environment for his actors.

Space.com: What was the creative seed for writing and directing “Voyagers?”

Neil Burger: I was interested in human nature in a vacuum. We’ve seen other space movies that are going to a distant planet, but I wanted to delve into the idea of what’s it really like to be confined on one of these ships if we were really going to go someplace and how does that work. It’s not a shopping mall in space, you need to conserve weight and conserve fuel and it’s all the bare minimum. It’s tight quarters so we designed this set with these long narrow hallways leading to confined compartments. So then it’s how do people hold up under that kind of pressure for their entire lives. And if things do start to break down what’s that look like?

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“Voyagers” director Neil Burger and actor Lily Rose-Depp inside their giant spaceship’s gym. (Image credit: Lionsgate)Image 2 of 4

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A look behind the scenes of “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)Image 3 of 4

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A scene from the sci-fi-thriller “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)Image 4 of 4

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A scene from the sci-fi-thriller “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)

Space.com:You’ve explored elements of human potential and limitations in other movies. How does “The Blue” operate as a narrative device in the screenplay’s framework?

Burger:Basically, they put these young people on the ship who are going to just live their lives and procreate on the ship and have the next generation and then the next generation, and that’s how they’re going to get there. The mission planners have accounted for everything, so they have them on what we call “The Blue.” It’s like a sedative. It’s something making them docile and dulled down so that they don’t act out and procreate at the right time to conserve food. They don’t know that’s what it’s doing to them, they think it’s some vitamin supplement.

But they’re super smart and one of them hacks into a computer and stumbles upon the truth of what this is. So he and his friend go off of it and they suddenly awaken to this emotion and human sensation that they’ve never felt before. In a way, going off the drug is like being on a drug for them. It’s intoxicating. Slowly the whole crew goes off of it and all hell breaks loose.

Related: Is Interstellar Travel Really Possible?

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A scene from the sci-fi-thriller “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)

Space.com: What were some of your influences and inspirations in creating a mood and tone for “Voyagers?”

Burger: Because I wanted it to be about human nature in a vacuum, I wanted to strip everything down with the ship. Which sort of makes sense they’d have a minimal craft to take them there. So simple rooms and simple corridors all in white. I like that because it featured the human aspect of it. Certainly the ship is a character but it’s just white ceilings and white floors. And I also saw it, because of the confinement and claustrophobia, as a little bit like a submarine movie. So I looked a lot at “Das Boot” to see how those sailors were dealing with the stressors of being confined underwater. This is different, but it’s a similar thing.

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The young astronauts of the space thriller “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)

Space.com: In your research, what were some shocking or surprising facts you discovered about colony ships and space travel?

Burger:Once I came up with the idea, for me it always has to be based in reality. I wanted it to all ring true. The most wonderful thing we did is spend time at SpaceX in California. [SpaceX’s headquarters and rocket factory are in Hawthorne, Calif.] We went there and went through the whole design process and hung out with their engineers and got to sit in a capsule and see how their controls were done. So that was very informative, what they were working on, and to see how they were simplifying everything. You look at these old spaceships or even old airplanes and there’s a million different switches and toggles. They brought it all down to basically an iPad’s worth of touchscreens. It was just inspiring to be there.

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The poster for “Voyagers.” (Image credit: Lionsgate)

Space.com: Would you climb aboard a starship and blast into space if given the chance?

Burger: I would go up in space, yeah. I think it would be amazing. People don’t realize the stresses it puts on you. I would love to do it.

You live your life on Earth and get into all your petty concerns and worries. To be up in the heavens looking down would put it all in perspective.

“Voyagers” launches into theaters Friday, April 9. The PG-13 movie runs 1 hour, 48 minutes.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Samsung reportedly inks deal to buy OLED TV panels from rival LG Display,

Samsung Electronics is close to ordering millions of OLED TV panels from LG Display, according to new reports from MTN, ETNews, and Seoul Economic Daily. Officials reportedly met recently to agree to the deal, which would see 1 million panels supplied to Samsung in the second half of this year, rising to 4 million panels next year. If the deal is finalized, it would be the first time Samsung has bought OLED panels from its South Korean rival and market leader. TVs with LG’s OLED panels consistently rate amongst the best in professional reviews.

Samsung exited the OLED TV market over half a decade ago. Today, LG Display supplies OLED panels to a variety of TV manufacturers including Sony, Vizio, and Hisense, as well as LG Electronics. Last year LG Display announced an expansion of its OLED production lines, and market research firm TrendForce says its production capacity is due to further increase in the second quarter of this year. MTN reports that LG Display’s total OLED TV panel production capacity is around 8 million units this year.

Today’s reports are the latest indication of Samsung’s shift away from LCD panels, which it currently uses across its television lineup. Even its QLED TVs still use LCD panels behind that quantum dot layer. Last year Samsung Display announced it would stop producing LCD panels in the face of stiff price competition from Chinese competitors, however it reportedly postponed this shutdown after the pandemic led to a rise in demand.

While falling LCD panel prices were believed to be behind last year’s move, MTN reports that the trend is reversing this year. LCD panels are reportedly growing more expensive, prompting Samsung to explore alternatives.

While Samsung Electronics plans to buy panels from LG Display, its own display division is believed to be working on Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) TV panels. A report from South Korean publication The Elec this week says Samsung Display is currently working on a prototype TV using the technology, which will be sent to potential customers like Samsung Electronics after it’s produced in June. However, QD-OLED panel samples sent to Samsung Electronics in January was reportedly criticized for their low brightness.

QD-OLED isn’t the only new display technology on Samsung’s horizon. It recently commercialized a new display type called Micro LED, which uses an array of tiny self-emissive LEDs to produce an image. Although Samsung has released the technology in a series of ultra-high end TVs, it’s believed to be years away from being affordable enough for mass-market sets. There are also reports that the company is working on self-emissive quantum-dot TVs.

When asked about the potential deal in an interview, Samsung Electronics Jong-Hee Han, who oversees the company’s display division, dismissed the reports as rumors.

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Helicopter on Mars! NASA webcast teaches kids about Ingenuity’s upcoming 1st flight, ,

NASA’s education team hosted a special webcast for students on Thursday (April 8) to talk about the Mars helicopter Ingenuity and its upcoming first flight on the Red Planet.

The webcast, hosted by Brandon Rodriguez and Taryn Bailey from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, provided an overview of Ingenuity’s historic mission and answered questions submitted by students. If you missed the live webcast, you can watch a replay on the JPL Education YouTube channel at any time.

The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity helicopter traveled to the Red Planet attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars on Feb. 18. Ingenuity dropped to the Martian surface on April 3 and is expected to make its first test flight this Sunday (April 11), demonstrating the feasibility of flying on another planet.

Related: Mars helicopter Ingenuity gets 1st taste of Red Planet air (video)

“If we can successfully prove that we can fly in a completely different atmosphere than what we are used to [on Earth], then that will usher in a new wave of technology across the board for future space exploration,” Bailey, an engineer at JPL, said in the video.

Ingenuity is equipped with four lightweight carbon-fiber blades, arranged into two rotors, or propellers, that spin in opposite directions at about 2,400 revolutions per minute in order to generate enough lift to fly through the Martian atmosphere, which is much thinner than Earth’s.

“Two propellers stacked on top of each other creates a more stable overall system,” Bailey explained during the webcast. “Newton’s [third] law of physics tells us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, having two counter-rotating propellers stacked on the same axis allows for the overall force of those two to cancel each other out, so that way you have a more stable system.”

The helicopter therefore shouldn’t wobble much as it rises into the Martian air.

The two rotor blades measure a whopping 4 feet (1.2 meters) from end to end, which “just goes to show you the type of proportional differences we have to make in the design in order to lift something in such a thin atmosphere,” Bailey said.

The helicopter will fly autonomously on Mars, without any real-time human intervention. Instead, it will communicate with the Perseverance rover to get its commands, which are pre-planned by NASA engineers. During the webcast, Bailey reviewed the helicopter’s planned flight paths. These begin on Sunday with a simple ascent of about 33 feet (10 m), at which point the helicopter will hover, take a few photos and then land.

If the helicopter succeeds on that first flight, it will attempt up to four additional test flights within a 31-day experiment window. Ingenuity’s subsequent flights will involve more sophisticated choreography, such as flying higher or farther distances, or even possibly flying out to a new landing site. However, the exact paths of the fourth and fifth flights are dependent on how the helicopter performs during the first three test flights, Bailey said.

“Seeing the evolution of Mars exploration — we went from Sojourner [the first Mars rover] to [Ingenuity] in just over 20 years,” Rodriguez said in the video. “We couldn’t even imagine what will come next at this pace.”

You can watch the webcast online, and kids can continue to participate in the Mission to Mars Student Challenge as the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter explore the Red Planet.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Airplane takes off a tonne heavier than expected after computer error weighs adults as children,

A flight from the UK to Spain took off with more than a tonne of unexpected weight after a software error classified female passengers using the title “Miss” as children. This led to the flight’s load sheet estimating the weight of 38 female passengers as 38 kg or 77 pounds each, the standard weight for children, instead of 69 kg or 152 pounds, the standard weight used for female adults.

The error was classified as a “serious incident” by the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) but did not affect the flight’s safety. Despite a discrepancy of 1,244 kg (2,743 pounds) between the expected and actual mass of the aircraft, the thrust used in takeoff by the pilot was only “marginally less” than what was required. “This meant the safe operation of the aircraft was not compromised,” concluded the AAIB.

The error was introduced to the software after the flight operator suspended operations for several months due to COVID-19 restrictions. During this time, it upgraded its IT systems, but in the country where the software was programmed, the honorific “Miss” is used for children while “Ms” is used for female adults. The error affected two more flights from the same operator that same day, July 21, 2020, before it was corrected.

According to a report by the Press Association, the flight was operated by Anglo-German company Tui. In statement the company said: “The health and safety of our customers and crew is always our primary concern. Following this isolated incident, we corrected a fault identified in our IT system. As stated in the report, the safe operation of the flight was not compromised.”

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Apple says iMessage on Android ‘will hurt us more than help us’,

Apple knows that iMessage’s blue bubbles are a big barrier to people switching to Android, which is why the service has never appeared on Google’s mobile operating system. That’s according to depositions and emails from Apple employees, including some high-ranking executives, revealed in a court filing from Epic Games as part of its legal dispute with the iPhone manufacturer.

Epic argues that Apple consciously tries to lock customers into its ecosystem of devices, and that iMessage is one of the key services helping it to do so. It cites comments made by Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddie Cue, senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi, and Apple Fellow Phil Schiller to support its argument.

“The #1 most difficult [reason] to leave the Apple universe app is iMessage … iMessage amounts to serious lock-in,” was how one unnamed former Apple employee put it in an email in 2016, prompting Schiller to respond that, “moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us, this email illustrates why.”

“iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove [an] obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones,” was Federighi’s concern according to the Epic filing. Although workarounds to using iMessage on Android have emerged over the years, none have been particularly convenient or reliable.

According to Epic’s filing, citing Eddie Cue, Apple decided not to develop iMessage for Android as early as 2013, following the launch of the messaging service with iOS 5 in 2011. Cue admits that Apple “could have made a version on Android that worked with iOS” so that “users of both platforms would have been able to exchange messages with one another seamlessly.” Evidently, such a version was never developed.

Along with iMessage, Epic cites a series of other Apple services that it argues contribute to lock-in. Notably, these include its video chat service FaceTime, which Steve Jobs announced would be an open industry standard back at WWDC 2010. FaceTime subsequently released across iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but it’s not officially available for any non-Apple devices.

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Soyuz MS-18 crew launches to station 60 years after first human spaceflight, ,

A three-person crew embarked for the International Space Station on Friday (April 9), launching just three days shy of the 60th anniversary of the first human spaceflight.

Cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei lifted off aboard Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft for a three-hour, two-orbit rendezvous with the space station. The Soyuz took flight at 3:42 a.m. EDT (0742 GMT or 12:42 p.m. local time) from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, near where cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made history by becoming the first person to fly into space on April 12, 1961.

To honor the anniversary, the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft was christened the “Yu.A. Gagarin” and bore the name on its exterior insulation.

Infographic: How the first human spaceflight worked

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Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, the “Yu.A. Gagarin,” launches for the International Space Station from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on April 9, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

“It is a big honor for us to fly and celebrate the anniversary of the first flight into space,” said Novitskiy on Thursday (April 8), addressing the Russian state commission that approved the crew’s launch.

“For me,” added Dubrov, “it is a special honor to have my first flight on such an important date when we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the first flight into space.”

That the crew included an American underscored one of the key advancements made since Gagarin’s one-orbit Vostok mission, said Vande Hei.

“Of course, when we started, we were competing with each other and that was one of the reasons we were so successful at the beginning of human spaceflight,” he said. “As time went on, we realized that by working together we could achieve even more, and that continues today, and I hope will continue into the future.”

At present, Vande Hei is the last U.S. astronaut scheduled to fly on a Russian Soyuz, after 26 years of joint missions. Vande Hei’s place on the Soyuz MS-18 mission came as the result of a barter between NASA, the U.S. space services company Axiom Space and Roscosmos.

It is expected that joint flights will resume once an agreement can be worked out for Russian cosmonauts to fly on U.S. commercial crew vehicles, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, but when that will occur is not yet known.

Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei are scheduled to arrive at the space station at 7:07 a.m. EDT (1107 GMT) on Friday, docking their Soyuz to Russia’s Rassvet module. Their arrival will briefly increase the orbiting laboratory’s complement to 10 crew members, including Expedition 64 commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos and flight engineers Sergey Kud-Sverchkov also of Roscosmos, NASA astronauts Kate Rubins, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Soyuz spacecraft: Backbone of the Russian space program

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Soyuz MS-18 commander Oleg Novitskiy (at bottom) and flight engineers Mark Vande Hei (center) and Pyotr Dubrov wave from the launch pad prior to boarding their spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 9, 2021. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins are scheduled to return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-17 on April 16, beginning Expedition 65 aboard the station.

Hopkins, Glover, Walker and Noguchi are scheduled to depart aboard on April 28, six days after the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-2 on the Dragon “Endeavour,” which will carry up NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Thomas Pesquet with the European Space Agency (ESA) and JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide.

Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei are scheduled to stay aboard the space station through at least October. Dubrov and Vande Hei’s stay may be extended out to a year depending on if Russia proceeds with its plans to launch a Russian filmmaker and an actress on a short-stay mission to film a movie aboard the space station in September. If the film crew launches, they will return to Earth with Novitskiy, filling Dubrov’s and Vande Hei’s seats aboard Soyuz MS-18.

“For me, it’s just an opportunity for a new life experience,” said Vande Hei in March when the prospect of the longer stay first became public. “I’ve never been in space longer than about six months, so if someone tells me I got to stay in space for a year, I’ll find out what that feels like. I’m really enthusiastic about it.”

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The Soyuz MS-18 crew mission patch. (Image credit: Roscosmos/spacepatches.nl)

Within their first six months together in space, Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei are expected to help perform over 260 experiments, with more than 40 taking place for the first time during Expedition 65. All three are also expected to conduct spacewalks for the purpose of extending the capabilities of the space station.

Vande Hei may assist with the installation of new solar arrays to increase the available power supply for expanded commercial activities on the orbital complex. Novitskiy and Dubrov are scheduled to prepare for and begin the integration of a new Russian multipurpose laboratory module, “Nauka,” slated for launch in July.

The launch of Soyuz MS-18 marks Novitskiy’s third mission to the space station, Vande Hei’s second and Dubrov’s first.

A 49-year-old former Russian Air Force pilot, Novitskiy previously served as a member of the Expedition 33/34 and Expedition 50/51 crews in 2012 and 2017, respectively, logging 340 days in space.

Dubrov, 43, was working as a software engineer when he was selected to train as a cosmonaut in 2012.

Vande Hei, 54, was previously a member of the space station’s Expedition 53/54 crew in 2017. A retired colonel in the U.S. Army, he has already logged 168 days in space, including 26 hours and 42 minutes on four spacewalks.

Soyuz MS-18 “Yu.A. Gagarin” is Russia’s 64th Soyuz spacecraft to launch for the International Space Station since 2000 and the 147th to fly since 1967.

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On This Day in Space! April 8, 1964: 1st test flight of Gemini spacecraft, ,

On April 8, 1964, NASA launched the first uncrewed test flight of the new Gemini spacecraft. This was the very first mission of Project Gemini, which would later send crews of two into orbit.

NASA flew a total of 12 Gemini missions, 10 of which had crews on board. For this first mission, NASA was testing the structural integrity of the crew capsule and the rocket. The launch vehicle was a modified version of the U.S. Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile Titan II. Known as the Titan II GLV, this rocket had never flown before.

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NASA’s first Gemini-Titan II launches the first an uncrewed test flight of the Gemini spacecraft from what was then known as Cape Kennedy, Florida on April 8, 1964. (Image credit: NASA)

No major malfunctions occurred during the flight. The rocket actually overperformed and put the spacecraft into a slightly higher orbit than NASA had planned.

Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.

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Tiny Astroscale satellite will test space junk cleanup tech with magnets, ,

Astroscale just launched the first commercial space junk cleanup mission designed to locate and retrieve used satellites and other debris orbiting Earth.

The Japan-based company’s End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration (ELSA-d) mission lifted off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 22. It was among the 38 payloads that were carried into space by a Soyuz rocket as part of the first all-commercial rideshare mission for Russian company GK Launch Services.

The ELSA-d mission will test new technology developed by Astroscale, which consists of two satellites stacked together: a 385-lb. (175 kilograms) “servicer” and a 37-lb. (17 kg) “client.” The servicer is designed to safely remove debris from orbit, while the client spacecraft will serve during the demonstration as a piece of debris to be cleaned up. Once the two satellites separate, they will perform a cosmic game of cat and mouse over the next six months.

Related: Space junk clean up: 7 wild ways to destroy orbital debris

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The End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-demonstration (ELSA-d) mission will test a magnetic docking technique to remove space debris from orbit. The “servicer” satellite will use GPS to locate space debris and then latch onto it using a magnetic docking plate to carry it down toward the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up. (Image credit: Astroscale)

“I am pleased to confirm that Astroscale’s Mission Operations team at the In-Orbit Servicing Centre in Harwell, U.K., has successfully made contact with our ELSA-d spacecraft and established that all initial system checks are satisfactory,” Seita Iizuka, ELSA-d project manager, said in a statement from Astroscale. “I congratulate our team and look forward to moving into the first phase of our technical demonstrations.”

Using a series of maneuvers, Astroscale will test the satellite’s ability to snatch debris and bring it down toward the Earth’s atmosphere, where both servicer and debris will burn up. The servicer is equipped with a magnetic docking plate, as well as GPS technology to estimate the exact position and motion of its target. This debris removal demonstration project is the first of its kind by a commercial satellite operator, according to the statement.

During the trial mission, the company will test whether the servicer can catch the client satellite in three separate demonstrations.

In its first maneuver, the servicer will gently release the test debris then quickly catch it. Next, the servicer will attempt to capture the client as it tumbles through space at up to 18,000 miles per hour.

Finally, Astroscale will simulate an actual mission, in which the servicer will need to search for, locate and capture the client from a distance. If successful, ELSA-d’s magnetic capture mechanism could be installed on future satellites launched into space, allowing future servicers to safely remove these spacecraft when they are no longer in service.

“While leading the way in proving our debris removal capabilities, ELSA-d will also propel regulatory developments and advance the business case for end-of-life and active debris removal services,” Nobu Okada, Astroscale founder and CEO, said in the statement. “This successful launch brings us closer to realizing our vision of securing the safe and sustainable development of space for the benefit of future generations.”

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