Swivro Blog

Yes, humans can colonize Mars, but there are some issues that we would need to get around. Let's say you launch a rocket into earth-orbit, then from there, fired your engines to put yourself on a trajectory to rendezvous with Mars sometime within the next few months. Sure, you can arrive at Mars, and land, as long as you have a heat shield to survive atmospheric entry and engines that you can start up to touch down safely, but you need a way to get back to Earth, and you also need a way to communicate with Earth. Mars orbits farther away from the Sun than Earth does, so the 2 planets' orbits are not in sync. Mars orbits slower than Earth, so at one point, Mars and Earth will be exactly horizontal from each other, like this image below. The sun is now in between Earth and Mars, so you don't really have a way to communicate, as our huge star, The Sun, is right in the way for our antennas on Mars to communicate with ground stations or satellites on or around Earth. This means,

A private company called Axiom Space is creating a privately funded commercial space station, that will be attached/docked with the International Space Station, but eventually out as its own separate commercial space station. Commercial crew members will be able to purchase a ride on a spacecraft like SpaceX's Crew Dragon, Boeing's Starliner, and more vehicles. This commercial space station is great, because it is making access to space easier and cheaper, getting one step closer to the ultimate goal for space enthusiasts, a space fairing civilization. One ride to this space station will cost $55 million dolars for all the crew, so if you have 4 crew members, each one would pay $13.75 million dollars.  This space station definitely isn't a good idea, but it isn't the best. For people that will be on this space station for a long stay, they will receive higher amounts of radiation than usual, which could be harmful. You can partially fix this by having some material in t

  Solar panels, yeah sure, they are clean, but you may not know how inefficient they are. These pros and cons listed below will let you know almost everything about solar panels and will let you decide whether it is worth it or not. Pros: Works in almost any climate: Solar panels work in many different climates, which is why they are also used in space, most noticeably, on the International Space Station, being pretty much its main source of electrical power. Solar panels are great in space, but not so great down here on Earth in our atmosphere - more on that later. Long lifespan: Solar panels have a long lifespan, so you don't have to often replace your solar panels, which is usually not so cheap. This is definitely a plus, as they also do not require maintenance all the time, making all your solar panels easier to manage, saving lots of time. This also does depend upon the solar panel brand you are using, but for something like Tesla's solar panels, they do indeed require min

  Solar sails: The future of propulsion in space? Introduction: A solar sail can come in quite a few forms, but the most common one consists of a large thin surface of a type of foil material, NASA has launched a solar sail test-bed on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, that when collapsed was about the size of a dishwasher (A specification which is taken from NASA's website), and when unfolded it had an area of about 13000 square feet (1207 square meters). A solar sail uses photons, which in a nutshell are the particle that is responsible for light, massless but slowly builds up against the body of a solar sail providing a marginal amount of propulsion in the vacuum of space. Pros and cons of the solar sail system: Pros: No reaction mass is needed. A solar sail does not any propellant or any mass other then the sail itself. This saves quite a bit of mass and drastically extends the lifetime of a mission. Unprecedented Specific Impulse that cannot be achieved on any chemical

Background: Recently Boeing Space (and Boeing) have been under a lot of hate by fans of spaceflight. The reason that they have been receiving hate boils down to a few reasons, the main reason is; slow progress on the NASA SLS Rocket (Space Launch System) and the Starliner capsule. The main focus of this post is the Starliner capsule, so we will not be going into much detail about the SLS. Delays: The Boeing Space Starliner Capsule has been delayed for over 3 years at this point, and soon maybe 4, originally targeting 2018 for its first crewed test flight. It has since only executed one un-crewed test flight that was only considered a partial success since a clock failure caused the vehicle to burn through massive amounts of RCS fuel, because without its clock it did not know which way it was pointing. The mission ultimately was barred from rendezvousing with the International Space Station due to these failures. "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it slips i

NASA is creating the Space Launch System, which will be the most powerful rocket that they have ever created. The Space Launch System first stage consists of 4 main RS-25 engines that run on Hydrogen and Oxygen and 2 additional solid rocket boosters. Today, January 16th, 2021, they will be testing the core stage, which is the first stage with the 4 RS-25 Engines. This does not include the solid rocket boosters, as they have already been tested. The reason this hot fire test is so exciting, if all goes well, this same core stage will launch the Orion Capsule to the Moon later this year in November, and will also prove that the core stage performs flawlessly, so this also matters for future SLS missions. SLS is part of the NASA Artemis Program, which is Apollo’s sister in Greek mythology, and Apollo was the previous NASA program that also had a goal of sending humans to the moon. (if you didn’t know, Artemis’ goal is to send many humans to the moon over a long period of time.) You will b

  Can I move in space? No matter how much you move in space with your arms or legs, nothing will happen, you simply won't go anywhere. You need to create force by pushing something out of an end, usually by converting thermal energy to kinetic energy. How do rockets move in space? Rockets ignite a mixture of a fuel and an oxidizer in space in a rocket engines combustion chamber, and have it shoot out the nozzle at supersonic speeds, resulting in thrust being produce. Any rocket that lifts off from Earth uses this method, no matter if the rocket uses solid fuel, liquid fuel, or uses hybrid fuel. When you burn fuel, energy is released. On Earth, there is oxygen, a lot of it, so if you use a rocket engine on Earth, you don't necessarily always need an oxidizer mixed with your fuel since Earth already has so much oxygen in the air. In space, there is no oxygen, so to burn fuel, you can bring your own oxidizer, usually liquid oxygen. Liquid Oxygen is more dense than gaseous oxygen,

  There are many chat apps out there on the internet, like Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. They are all pretty good in their own way, but what really is generally the best one? Some of these chat applications are created for different reasons. Discord used to be meant for gamers to chat, but is now advertising as, " Whether you’re part of a school club, gaming group, worldwide art community, or just a handful of friends that want to spend time together, Discord makes it easy to talk every day and hang out more often." . Slack and Microsoft Teams are more focused on business.  By far, Telegram is the fastest and most secure chatting application for browser, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and more. Signal is also one of the most secure chat applications, potentially more secure than Telegram, but Telegram wins the fastest chat application. Signal is also super fast but Telegram is indeed slightly faster. Telegram is also more simple, not even requiring a password, just

  Image Credit: Boston Dynamics You probably hear a lot about AI, everyone does. AI is a bigger problem and/or threat than the average person thinks it is. If you thought Siri, Bixby, Google Assistant, or Cortona was smart AI, you clearly haven't seen Boston Dynamics' literal dancing robot. Check it out here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw The fact that the robot can move this human-like, can jump, and can do all of these quick actions, and dance in perfect sync with other robot "friends", is just crazy. If you make a "human suit" that looks realistic, and figure out how to put it on this robot and have the suit move with the robot, you almost wont be able to tell that it is a robot and not a human. I wouldn't go anywhere near this robot when its turned on, or even "off", would you? We mentioned in a previous Blog Post that there are 2 types of AI, one is dangerous and one is not, and based on what this robot in the video shown ab

Alien life can definitely exist on other planets, even Mars, one of the closest planets to us at Earth, or even Venus, another close planet. When we think of Aliens, we usually think of those weird fake green creatures with big heads and giant eyes, and a small body. This is extremely unlikely that an alien can look like this, they probably look like us humans or are a different form of life, like bacteria and/or microbial life. There are some other requirements to have live on an extraterrestrial planet. To have life like us humans, you need to orbit within the habitable zone of a star, you need atmospheric pressure, and you need somewhere around 1G of gravity. Your atmospheric pressure should be somewhere around 14.7 PSI or 1 Bar. If this is your atmospheric pressure, your atmosphere cannot consist of 100% oxygen, but needs some other components, like more Nitrogen, or Helium, or some other inert gas.  At the moment, we do not really know of another planet like this, as of January 4t

  Facebook and other social media companies are dealing with lawsuits about their Privacy Policies. Their privacy policy says, "We will never sell your data to other companies,", but more suspicions grow as the documentary, "The Social Dilemma" is released. Is it ok to use Social Media? Facebook is known for its incredible social sharing on the app. But things you don't know about Facebook are being unmasked here. Today we are going to talk about reasons to reconsider trusting Facebook and other social media platforms with your personal information, or any sensitive information you are sharing through the social media platforms. Are Companies Really Selling My Data? There are lots of questions about Social Media's Privacy Policy. Yes, they're very likely selling your data to companies. Reports say that Facebook earns $30-35 by selling your data. There is a quote, "There is no such thing as Free Lunch," and Social Media isn't an exception. W

  A lot of instructors/teachers/educators say and claim that Wikipedia is a bad source for facts, and you should not use it. Yes, this is correct. Anything on Wikipedia can be changed by literally anyone. Even without approval. This leads to people changing articles to include false facts about things, and making things opinion based, rather than true facts. This also leads to people learning false facts. A simple alternative to Wikipedia, is dictionary.com. Dictionary.com can provide millions of definitions for millions of words. The difference is, the public cannot edit definitions. All definitions are facts, and cannot be modified by anyone besides the people who manage dictionary.com.  Another issue with Wikipedia is privacy. When you make a modification to an article or definition on Wikipedia, unless you are logged into a Wikipedia account (most people aren't), your IP Address is public and now visible to everyone, on the Wikipedia article you edited. All someone needs to do