Learn - Blog Posts

Artist Problems

Having a ton of ideas for things you want to make but not being able to use any of them.

Because:

- You don’t have time to make them because of school, work, personal problems or other stuff.

- You forgot to write it down and now it’s lost in void of your thoughts (probably) forever.

- Either you have no motivation enough to make it. Or you realise it won’t ever come out the way you had in mind because your not at the skill level needed for the making that kind of piece.

- You have an artblock or procrastinate for any other possible reason whatsoever.

- You get demotivated because someone already made something similar looking and you’re under the assumption they’re way better anyway.

- People critisize your ideas to the point where you don’t even believe in them anymore.

- You get distracted by social media, tv, events or other stuff.

- Your ideas include way to much work to do all alone. But you don’t know not enough people who would possibly want to help you create even one idea without getting payed.

- Someone steals your ideas and keeps using them without permission.

- You started a project but the people who you worked with you on it throw you out of the group, mistreat you or leave the project themselves.

- You get sick, injured or don’t feel good for another reason. And are practicly unable to work.

- Your art teacher laughs at your ideas and way of making them.

- Your inspiration runs out and you get stuck.

@thinthle

Reblog if this is is relatable. And feel free to send me solutions to these problems if you have any.

TikTok moron tried to hit Denzel for clout, got himself arrested with a broken arm.

So apparently this crispy creme tiktok prankster was attempting to - start recording - punch a stranger in the face - clip out the part with the punch - and then act like a victim of black violence

Their plan failed at step 2 when they chose Denzel as their target, a man who's won every fight he's been in and has a long history of violence stretching back to being a toddler.

The only reason Denzel never gets arrested is because he never starts any of these fights but boy does he end them.

Denzel - sensed the punch coming - stepped away - swung round to face his opponent - grabbed the wrist of his attacker while the punch was still mid-swing - twisted this dude's arm backwards - slammed him face first into the concrete sidewalk - kicked the dumbass in the armpit - and then when the prankster started wailing started yelling at him "We good? We good, son?"

The police turned up and collected the big white baby off the floor and Denzel was later told that he'd shattered the man's elbow.

Denzel's reaction to this information... "Tell me something I don't know."

White violence is a thing. Some people forget that certain people are very used to it.

(so mad i can’t see straight) Yeah i just don’t think chat gpt is a good classroom tool

Read books guys

I'm telling you. Read books. There's an entire world of dead useful knowledge contained. There are so many books that have a TON of useful information while also being easier to read than textbooks.

Listen, I know the internet's gone to pieces. Misinformation is practically the only thing you can be certain of with any search engine.

But books.

I mean yeah, there are books that are inaccurate. Or outdated. But for the most part, if someone cares enough to compile so much information on a subject together into a book, they care enough to make sure it's right. After all, it's not so easy to edit it like a blog once it's published. They're not spending so much time and labor putting together random units of information they stumbled across on the internet. They're doing this with genuine research and careful time and knowledge.

Let me emphasize one more time that there are so many books with real information that are NOT COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS (though those can be incredible sources of information too!). There is real information out there in very easy to process formats if you're willing to open a book and thumb through the index, table of contents, or even just all the pages.

...I mean, it does require us to care a little bit. It's certainly not as fast and convenient as a quick internet search. But it is so much more reliable, and if you care to know more about a subject I think it's important to care enough to get some solid information about it and not just a once-and-done.

Side note, did you know the Dewey Decimal System has a number for everything? Actually everything? Want to pick up a book on crochet or leatherworking? Dewey's got you. Learn about moths? Yup. Politics? Public speaking? Languages? Writing? Architecture? Librarians have master's degrees specifically so they can help you find things in the DDS (and also for other reasons but ya know).

Finalists for a Future Mission to Explore the Solar System

We’ve selected two finalists for a robotic mission that is planned to launch in the mid-2020s! Following a competitive peer review process, these two concepts were chosen from 12 proposals that were submitted in April under a New Frontiers program announcement opportunity.

What are they?

In no particular order…

CAESAR

CAESAR, or the Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return mission seeks to return a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the comet that was successfully explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft – to determine its origin and history.

This mission would acquire a sample from the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and return it safely to Earth. 

Comets are made up of materials from ancient stars, interstellar clouds and the birth of our solar system, so the CAESAR sample could reveal how these materials contributed to the early Earth, including the origins of the Earth's oceans, and of life.

Dragonfly

A drone-like rotorcraft would be sent to explore the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of dozens of sites on Saturn’s moon Titan – one of the so-called ocean worlds in our solar system.

Unique among these Ocean Worlds, Titan has a surface rich in organic compounds and diverse environments, including those where carbon and nitrogen have interacted with water and energy.

Dragonfly would be a dual-quadcopter lander that would take advantage of the environment on Titan to fly to multiple locations, some hundreds of miles apart, to sample materials and determine surface composition to investigate Titan's organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies.

What’s Next?

The CAESAR and Dragonfly missions will receive funding through the end of 2018 to further develop and mature the concepts. It is planned that from these, one investigation will be chosen in the spring of 2019 to continue into subsequent mission phases.

That mission would be the fourth mission in the New Frontiers portfolio, which conducts principal investigator (PI)-led planetary science missions under a development cost cap of approximately $850 million. Its predecessors are the New Horizons mission to Pluto and a Kuiper Belt object, the Juno mission to Jupiter and OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with and return a sample of the asteroid Bennu. 

Key Technologies

We also announced that two mission concepts were chosen to receive technology development funds to prepare them for future mission opportunities.

The Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) mission concept will receive funds to enable life detection measurements by developing cost-effective techniques to limit spacecraft contamination on cost-capped missions.

The Venus In situ Composition Investigations (VICI) mission concept will further develop the VEMCam instrument to operate under harsh conditions on Venus. The instrument uses lasers on a lander to measure the mineralogy and elemental composition of rocks on the surface of Venus.

The call for these mission concepts occurred in April and was limited to six mission themes: comet surface sample return, lunar south pole-Aitken Basin sample return, ocean worlds, Saturn probe, Trojan asteroid tour and rendezvous and Venus insitu explorer.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

New Research Heading to Earth’s Orbiting Laboratory

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a…dragon? A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is set to launch into orbit atop the Falcon 9 rocket toward the International Space Station for its 12th commercial resupply (CRS-12) mission August 14 from our Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It won’t breathe fire, but it will carry science that studies cosmic rays, protein crystal growth, bioengineered lung tissue.

Here are some highlights of research that will be delivered:

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ISS-CREAM! 

Cosmic Rays, Energetics and Mass, that is! Cosmic rays reach Earth from far outside the solar system with energies well beyond what man-made accelerators can achieve. The Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (ISS-CREAM) instrument measures the charges of cosmic rays ranging from hydrogen to iron nuclei. Cosmic rays are pieces of atoms that move through space at nearly the speed of light

The data collected from the instrument will help address fundamental science questions such as:

Do supernovae supply the bulk of cosmic rays?

What is the history of cosmic rays in the galaxy?

Can the energy spectra of cosmic rays result from a single mechanism?

ISS-CREAM’s three-year mission will help the scientific community to build a stronger understanding of the fundamental structure of the universe.

Space-grown crystals aid in understanding of Parkinson’s disease

The microgravity environment of the space station allows protein crystals to grow larger and in more perfect shapes than earth-grown crystals, allowing them to be better analyzed on Earth. 

Developed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, Anatrace and Com-Pac International, the Crystallization of Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) under Microgravity Conditions (CASIS PCG 7) investigation will utilize the orbiting laboratory’s microgravity environment to grow larger versions of this important protein, implicated in Parkinson’s disease.

Defining the exact shape and morphology of LRRK2 would help scientists to better understand the pathology of Parkinson’s and could aid in the development of therapies against this target.

Mice Help Us Keep an Eye on Long-term Health Impacts of Spaceflight

Our eyes have a whole network of blood vessels, like the ones in the image below, in the retina—the back part of the eye that transforms light into information for your brain. We are sending mice to the space station (RR-9) to study how the fluids that move through these vessels shift their flow in microgravity, which can lead to impaired vision in astronauts.

By looking at how spaceflight affects not only the eyes, but other parts of the body such as joints, like hips and knees, in mice over a short period of time, we can develop countermeasures to protect astronauts over longer periods of space exploration, and help humans with visual impairments or arthritis on Earth.

Telescope-hosting nanosatellite tests new concept

The Kestrel Eye (NanoRacks-KE IIM) investigation is a microsatellite carrying an optical imaging system payload, including an off-the-shelf telescope. This investigation validates the concept of using microsatellites in low-Earth orbit to support critical operations, such as providing lower-cost Earth imagery in time-sensitive situations, such as tracking severe weather and detecting natural disasters.

Sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory, the overall mission goal for this investigation is to demonstrate that small satellites are viable platforms for providing critical path support to operations and hosting advanced payloads.

Growth of lung tissue in space could provide information about diseases

The Effect of Microgravity on Stem Cell Mediated Recellularization (Lung Tissue) uses the microgravity environment of space to test strategies for growing new lung tissue. The cells are grown in a specialized framework that supplies them with critical growth factors so that scientists can observe how gravity affects growth and specialization as cells become new lung tissue.

The goal of this investigation is to produce bioengineered human lung tissue that can be used as a predictive model of human responses allowing for the study of lung development, lung physiology or disease pathology.

These crazy-cool investigations and others launching aboard the next SpaceX #Dragon cargo spacecraft on August 14. They will join many other investigations currently happening aboard the space station. Follow @ISS_Research on Twitter for more information about the science happening on 250 miles above Earth on the space station.  

Watch the launch live HERE starting at 12:20 p.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 14!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com