Space Age Research Articles

Dimensión educativa en procesos rituales de comunidades indígenas

This paper summarizes progress in the research project on Education and Ritualism among Indigenous Peoples, approved and financed for 2016-2018 by the Diversity and Interculturality Academic Area of the National University of Education Sciences (UPN)-Ajusco campus. The purpose is to study diversity from a perspective of intercultural and education, arguing conceptually and methodologically the importance of the Mesoamerican world view in research into the educational process immersed in rituals into which members of indigenous communities participate. One of the two contexts under study is Mixe indigenous family-community education. The other context is classroom education for itinerant Nahua and Otomi children in a town of original peoples in the south of the Valley of Mexico, specifically in a school for 9-14 year olds in the Xochimilco district. Both investigations are advancing in their empirical referents and conceptual analyses. The first piece of research is carried out by Blanca Zitlali López Martínez on the topics of identity, culture, and education implemented via a family-community ritual. The second project by Tahnee Nemo Ramírez problematizes aspects related with the political socialization of children under itinerant situation of over age in the urban educational space, within other aspects.

Aloha and the Regulation of Commercial Spaceports

Despite numerous setbacks and delays, it seems that with the passing of each year the space industry is one step closer to seeing the actualization of the second Space Age come to fruition. While there have been monumental breakthroughs in the space industry within the last 5 years, such as the Rosetta mission, what the space industry needs now is a significant breakthrough in the commercial sector. With commercial spaceports and suborbital operators being at the forefront of space industry development, it seems that a significant part of the breakthrough that is needed will come from the commercial human spaceflight industry. However, such breakthroughs seldom happen without risks and these risks open up the space industry to an enormous amount of liability exposure. For this reason, this article proposes the need for a Space Safety Institute recognized by the U.S. Congress and the United Nations to be established. This Space Safety Institute should be industry created and aim to develop, enforce, and adopt standards of excellence to allow the industry to thrive especially in terms of liability and insurance. This article will analyze the current policies different states have regarding liability issues facing commercial spaceports. Due to the amount of space activity currently happening in the United States, there will be a focus on U.S. Federal policies as well as the particular effect on the development of the proposed spaceport at Kona International Airport in Hawaii. Finally, this article suggests recommendations for the current challenges of liability facing the space industry development by establishing a Space Safety Institute. This Space Safety Institute will help the industry continue to grow by providing a framework for spaceport developers to legally protect themselves from liability. Ultimately, the space industry as a whole should strive for a global Space Safety Institute to be established.

Taking cinematic aesthetics into outer space: Dreaming of Space and Paper Soldier

Abstract This article takes up Rancière’s conceptualization of the regimes of art in order to explore what might be left of art, if the scale of the world is expanded to the cosmos, rather than constrained to earth. Starting from the assertion that the beginning of the space age may be considered an event that radically reshapes the coordinates of subjectivity, the paper discusses its reverberations in the realm of aesthetics. The text focuses on two recent Russian films about the beginning of the space age: Dreaming of Space (2005) and Paper Soldier (2008). Both films are examined as statements – ones that are contextually bound and yet that harbour an element of excess – rather than as mere representations of a certain socio-cultural context.

Esquivel! Space Age Sound Artist by S. Wood

Wood, Susan. Esquivel! Space Age Sound Artist, illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh. Charlesbridge, 2016.This is a picture book that tells the story of Mexican composer, band leader and pianist, Juan Garcia Esquivel. “Esquivel!”, as he came to be known, came from a poor family and became a very popular and wealthy composer. He was a pioneer in sound art in the 1950s and 1960s, influencing many later composers of experimental music and sound art. The text is quite ordinary, factual material about the artist, with the exception of words representing sounds. These are often in bright colours, many shapes and sizes and different typefaces. The differing scripts sometimes make reading the sentences difficult. Some of the words and concepts are too high level for a picture book and most children at the picture book reading stage will not understand strange, weird and edgy music, so it is likely that this book will be most useful to older children. The artwork is the most interesting part of the book. The images are all done in black-line, with colour fill being photographs of textures or patterns. The other unusual part of the work is that Duncan Tonatiuh has drawn people in the style of ancient Mexican art, specifically the Mixtec codex. Because this art predates the concept of perspective, all of the images are two dimensional and do not have depth. Also all of the faces are drawn in the style of the ancient artworks. The faces are all in profile with ears shaped like the number 3, pointy mouths and very flat forehead to nose profiles. These sorts of details, while interesting to adults, will be lost on small children.The music message of this book is historical, highlighting Esquivel!’s early contributions to sound art. The work also makes the point that Esquivel! had no formal musical training, showing that music is for everyone. Because there is little written about this Esquivel! at a children’s reading level this book should be bought for public libraries and school libraries.Highly Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Reviewer: Sean BorleSean Borle is a University of Alberta undergraduate student who is an advocate for child health and safety.

Engineering world society? Scientists, internationalism, and the advent of the Space Age

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the English School concept of world society and how it helps to illustrate the role of non-state actors and the promotion of cosmopolitan values. Yet, less attention has been paid to the idea of science and technology as a key feature of solidarist conceptions of justice and as a unifier of humankind, usually expressed in the form of scientific internationalism. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it suggests that it is important to incorporate the role of scientists and engineers as agents of international society and to assess the significance of scientific internationalism in terms of its impact on facilitating world society. Second, however, it is also necessary to consider how this solidarist conception of science and technology is staged as complementary to a pluralist logic. This is because of the political and social embeddedness of scientists and engineers as actors who also think and act on behalf of the state. I develop this argument by examining two key turning points that paved the way towards the advent of the Space Age: the spaceflight movement of the 1920s and 1930s and the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year.

Extra-planetary mobilities and the media prospects of virtual space tourism

This paper responds to the emergence, proliferation and increasing relevance of various forms of virtual tourism set in outer space. It approaches virtual space tours as a distinct register of the changing nature of travel within global media cultures in their space age, framing them as a part of the ongoing socio-technical momentum of our emerging ‘extra-planetary mobilities’. We consider the extraterrestrial provisions of virtual tourism, including a host of space apps offering Martian tours and explore the ways in which the domestications of outer space through quotidian media practices affect our tourist disposition, altering collective ways of traveling and seeing, performing and consuming and configuring our mediated and embodied senses of place. We suggest that the prospects of mediated space travel are progressively shaping the relationship between human societies and our planetary exterior, sculpting the ambits of a ‘global abode’ beyond the globe.

To live among the stars: artificial environments in the early space age

Startled by NASA’s decision to let orbiting astronauts collect their own feces in a bag for medical experiments, a pair of sanitary engineers at Berkeley designed an algae-based bio-regenerative system to recycle oxygen, water, and even nutrients. This article explains the technological choice facing the emerging space program between the infamous ‘fecal-bag’ and a now-forgotten alternative, the ‘Algatron’, in the mid-1960s. The article situates the case of the Algatron at the intersection of the history of the space program and the history of biology; it uses the case of the Algatron to expose the different meanings of ‘shit’ as an object of scientific, medical, and engineering study. For nearly a decade after Sputnik, engineers worked under the assumption that human waste was part of a new space ecology, but by the time Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, human excrement had become understood solely as a diseased and disposable medical object to be contained and preserved in a bag. The ecological system was rejected in favor of a medical device and served to elevate Man above Nature in contrast to placing people as but one component in a biospheric system.

Aging in Activity Space: Results From Smartphone-Based GPS-Tracking of Urban Seniors.

Prior research emphasizes the importance of the residential neighborhood context during later life but little attention has been afforded to other areas that older adults encounter as they move beyond their residential environments for daily activities and social interactions. This study examines the predominance of the residential context within older adults' everyday lives. We provided 60 older adults in four New York City neighborhoods with iPhones, which captured Global Positioning Systems (GPS) locations at 5-min intervals over 1 week (n = 55,561) and 17 ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) over 4 days (n = 757) to assess real-time activities. Older adults in our sample spent nearly 40% of their time outside of their residential tracts and they visited 28 other tracts, on average. Exercising, shopping, socializing, and social activities were especially likely to take place outside of residential tracts. Differences in residential and nonresidential poverty exposure vary across gender, race/ethnicity, education, car ownership, and residential areas. Measuring activity space, rather than relying on residential tracts, allows examination of the social environments that are relevant for older adults' everyday lives. Variation in characteristics of activity spaces may be an underexplored source of differences in health and well-being during later life.

Incidence of deep fascial space infections following lower third molar removal

AbstractAimThe aim of this study is to investigate the incidence of systemic infection in the deep fascial spaces after a third molar extraction of the neck.Material and methodsThis article presents a retrospective study of 723 cases of third molar extractions under the care of Edinburgh Dental Institute over a 1 year period (July 2012 to the end of June 2013) and investigates the incidence of systemic infection in the deep fascial spaces of the neck.Results and conclusionsFour (0.5%) out of the 723 cases acquired a deep fascial space infection and required hospitalisation and further treatment. No correlation saw between the development of a deep cervical space infection and age, gender, smoking status, predisposing medical history, difficulty of extraction or experience of operator. Patients are now informed of the low risk of post‐operative deep fascial space infection following lower third molar removal. But there is a need for prospective studies, which would provide reliable and accurate information on the true incidence of this significant post‐operative complication.

Orbital debris: What are the best near-term actions to take? A view from the field

The geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite belt11In this work we will refer to the geostationary ring as the altitude at which the orbital period exactly matches the rotation of the earth, with zero eccentricity and zero inclination, such that the object appears exactly fixed in the sky from an earth-based observer. Similarly, the geosynchronous belt, as, similarly to the geostationary ring, that volume where the orbital period is almost synchronous with the rotation period of the earth, and the inclination and eccentricity are not constrained to being zero. Though this implies an unlimited region for geosynchronous objects, the limitation of launch geometries and perturbations constrain the geosynchronous objects to a "band" around the Earth. is a unique location above the earth affording a continuous line-of-sight to satellite uplink and downlink stations. The volume defined by this belt is large, but available slots are limited. During the last fifty years of the space age, this volume has become more crowded, as humankind has launched more and more satellites into this particular orbital regime, and satellites that suffered incapacitating anomalies and space debris have remained in the belt. The latter pose a hazard since they are uncontrolled, and the only way for satellite operators to avoid collisions with space objects is to maneuver. Knowing when and where to maneuver requires space situational awareness (SSA), but this is just one aspect needed to maintain safety of flight in this very valuable orbital regime.This paper reports on, from the point of view of an SSA practitioner, what the key issues and dangers surrounding the current situation in the GEO belt are, and what the best possible set of near-term actions could be, involving international cooperation (through bodies such as the United Nations Committee On the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS)), data sharing between actors in the space arena, public and private sector SSA efforts, and nascent research efforts into active space debris removal. Where should limited available resources be applied to affect the best possible outcome?

Health-Related Attitudes and Behaviors Among Olympic Host City Residents From Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, and Beijing Olympic Games: Exploring Potential Legacies

The potential power of the Olympic Games as an intervention that influences changes in health, sport participation, and exercise has been discussed in the literature as a legacy outcome. However, a temporal evaluation of health-related attitudes and behaviors has not been presented in the literature. The purpose of this study was to explore residents' health attitudes and behaviors, and further examine those constructs temporally (i.e., since the time from the conclusion of an Olympic Games). Data were collected in 2010 from convenience samples of Olympic Games host city residents in: Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, and Beijing. ANCOVA was used to analyze data among residents from each host city. Beijing residents held more positive attitudes and behaviors toward health-related issues, while the covariates of age and importance of physical spaces for physical activity and recreation significantly influenced health-related attitudes and behaviors across all cities at the time of measurement, which varied from 2 to 14 years for each sample since the conclusion of the Games. Implications for health legacy planning are provided.

Global media cultures among the stars: Formations of celebrity in outer space

The space age launched its own breed of celebrity onto the world stage. From Sputnik onwards, exploration of outer space has endowed media cultures with many spectacular events and prominent heroes, extending the currencies of fame beyond the planet. Under the rubric of ‘space celebrity’, this article gathers those famous people, animals and technologies that have been sent as our envoys into the unknowns of space, framing their exploits as a distinctive register of our mediated public culture and its global provisions. It traces the historical emergence and unfolding of space celebrity and explores the ways in which its human and non-human protagonists shape the extra-planetary horizon of our common world.

The space environment before the space age

The space environment before the space age

From shamanism to the space age: reconciling with ancient beliefs may prepare us for Contact

From shamanism to the space age: reconciling with ancient beliefs may prepare us for Contact

Inferring the Heliospheric Magnetic Field Back through Maunder Minimum

Abstract Recent solar conditions include a prolonged solar minimum (2005–2009) and a solar maximum that has not fully recovered in terms of the Heliospheric Magnetic Field (HMF) strength when compared to the previous maximum values. These anomalies may indicate that we are entering an era of lower solar activity than observed at other times during the space age. We study past solar grand minima, especially the Maunder period (1645–1715) to gain further insight into grand minima. We find the timescale parameters associated with three processes attributed to the magnetic flux balance in the heliosphere using chi-square analysis. We use HMF time series reconstructed based on geomagnetic data and near-Earth spacecraft measurements (OMNI) data to find the fundamental timescales that influence heliospheric field evolution through conversion or opening of magnetic flux from coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into the ambient heliospheric field, removal or loss of the ambient heliospheric field through magnetic reconnection, and interchange reconnection between CME magnetic flux and ambient heliospheric magnetic flux. We also investigate the existence of a floor in the heliospheric magnetic flux, in the absence of CMEs, and show that a floor nT is sufficient to successfully describe the HMF evolution. The minimum value for the HMF at 1 au in the model-predicted historic record is 3.13 ± 0.35 nT. Our model results favorably reproduce paleocosmic data and near-Earth spacecraft measurements data and show how the HMF may evolve through periods of extremely low activity.

Safety, Security, and Society in the New Space Age: Exploring the Enforcement Structures and Concerns of Postplanetary Humanity

With a seemingly resurgent public interest in the exploration and utilization of space (and its many recent successes), the increasing likelihood of regular manned spaceflight, the general commercialization of space, the privatization of spaceflight, a reformed curiosity in planetary defense, and the nascent militarization of space, the issues of operations, exploration, and safety in space—particularly in the various Earth orbits—are now more pressing than ever before. How space is used, by whom, and in accordance with what conventions, treaties, or pragmatic considerations are now very important topics for consideration, particularly as orbital debris now poses a very serious threat to satellites and space-faring humans alike. Although often considered a fanciful notion without merit and well within the realm of science fiction, the time has come to seriously consider addressing a growing need of modernity: safety, security, and society in the new space age.

Fifty years of IAA History Symposia (1967–2016)

The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Symposia on the History of Rocketry and Astronautics have been held annually at the International Astronautical Congresses since 1967. During these past 50 years nearly 800 papers have been presented and subsequently published in the proceedings.With a 20-year rule imposed for historical presentations, the first 10 symposia concentrated on pre-World War II and early 1950s activities. A surprisingly large number of papers on early, less well-known Soviet-Russian contributions to rocketry and astronautics were presented in the first symposia, despite the ongoing Space Race between the U.S and USSR. Another important element in these symposia involved memoir papers offered by pre- and post-war rocket and astronautics pioneers from many countries, and the participation of many of these pioneers in person. In sum, the history of national space and rocket projects from some 40 countries were presented over the years in IAA History Symposia.These 50 symposia have provided a platform for scholars and professional and non-professional historians to meet and discuss the history of rocketry and astronautics, and to personally interview many space pioneers, most of whom today are deceased. Their personal recollections have since been shared with a large audience.Over time, IAA history papers divided into recognizable periods: ancient times through the 19th century, and the 20th and 21st centuries, which separate among actions and events that took place before 1945, in 1945 to 1957, and after 1957 (which marked the beginning of the space age). Proceedings of the IAA History Symposia have been published in English, ultimately in the History Series of the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and its publishing arm, Univelt Inc., under an agreement secured with the IAA.This paper presents an overview of the IAA History Symposia. It examines the early years of the history committee and its first symposium, the evolution of subsequent symposia, and it recognizes those individuals who shaped these symposia and the publication of its proceedings.

The Sputnik of servgoods: Autonomous vehicles

In an earlier paper (Tien 2015), the author defined the concept of a servgood, which can be thought of as a physical good or product enveloped by a services-oriented layer that makes the good smarter or more adaptable and customizable for a particular use. Adding another layer of physical sensors could then enhance its smartness and intelligence, especially if it were to be connected with each other or with other servgoods through the Internet of Things. Such sensed servgoods are becoming the products of the future. Indeed, autonomous vehicles can be considered the exemplar servgoods of the future; it is about decision informatics and embraces the advanced technologies of sensing (i.e., Big Data), processing (i.e., real-time analytics), reacting (i.e., real-time decision-making), and learning (i.e., deep learning). Since autonomous vehicles constitute a huge quality-of-life disruption, it is also critical to consider its policy impact on privacy and security, regulations and standards, and liability and insurance. Finally, just as the Soviet Union inaugurated the space age on October 4, 1957, with the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the Earth, the U. S. has inaugurated an age of automata or autonomous vehicles that can be considered to be the U. S. Sputnik of servgoods, with the full support of the U. S. government, the U. S. auto industry, the U. S. electronic industry, and the U.S. higher educational enterprise.

Keeping Up With The Neighbours? Reviewing National Space Laws to Account For New Technology - The Australian and Canadian Experience

The development of space-related technology since the dawn of the space age in 1957 has given rise to many new and exciting possibilities. It has also meant that space activities continue to evolve, facilitating the participation of a variety of space ‘actors’ other than States. Given the international responsibility of States for ‘national activities in outer space’ under both customary international law and the Outer Space Treaty, there is an imperative for States to enact relevant and contemporary national space law to regulate those non-governmental space actors within their respective jurisdiction. But enacting national space law is not enough – as the paradigm of space-related technology changes and evolves, it is clear that such shifts require the ongoing review of appropriate national regulatory standards over relatively short timeframes. National legislatures have to come to grips with the ever-changing range of space technology, particularly if they wish to become increasingly involved in space activities. Whatever rules are put in place during the review process must find the right balance between, on the one hand, the need for regulation of the economic and technical elements, so as to minimise the risks to an acceptable level, and the facilitation of research and innovation to allow for greater and more efficient access to space, and the potential for commercial returns, on the other. This paper will describe this process of review and rejuvenation of existing national space laws in both Australia and Canada, outlining the relevant factors that were taken into account in order to maximise the utility of the regulations to meet the specific goals and requirements within each country.

The Fault is Not in Our Stars: Avoiding an Arms Race in Outer Space

The world is on the precipice of a new arms race in outer space, as China, Russia, the United States, and others undertake dramatic new initiatives in anti-satellite weaponry. These accelerated competitive efforts at space control are highly destabilizing, because developed societies have come to depend so heavily upon satellite services to support the entire civilian economy and the modern military apparatus; any significant threat or disruption in the availability of space assets would be massively, and possibly permanently, disruptive. International law regarding outer space developed with remarkable rapidity in the early years of the Space Age, but the process of formulating additional treaties and norms for space has broken down over the past several decades, and no additional legal instruments have emerged that could cope with today’s rising threats. This article therefore proposes three initiatives, none of which could suffice to solve the emerging problems, but perhaps they could provoke additional diplomacy, reinvigorating the prospects for rapprochement in space. Importantly, each of these three ideas has deep roots in other sectors of arms control, where they have served both to restore a measure of stability and to catalyze even more ambitious agreements in the longer term. The first proposal is for a declaratory regime of “No First Use” of specified space weapons; this would do little to directly alter states’ capabilities for space warfare, but could serve as a “confidence-building measure,” to temper their most provocative rhetoric and practices. The second concept is a “Limited Test Ban,” to interdict the most dangerous debris-creating developmental tests of new space weapons. Third is a suggestion for “Shared Space Situational Awareness,” which would create an international apparatus enabling all participants to enjoy the benefits of greater transparency, reducing the possibilities for secret malign or negligent behavior. In each instance, the article describes the proposal and its variations, assesses its possible contributions to space security, and displays the key precedents from other arms control successes. The article concludes by calling for additional, more far-reaching space diplomacy, in the hope that these relatively modest initial measures could provoke more robust subsequent negotiations.