Hello TechBandits! We’ve got some solar system highs and ocean trench lows and a whole lot of fun stuff in between!
Us humans are getting another giant leap closer to asteroid mining!
On Tuesday October 20th 6:12pm EDT OSIRix Rex is going to do a touch and go (TAG) sample grab from the surface of the asteroid 101955! If you want to watch NASA’s coverage live, you will be able to tune at https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive Nasa Live
https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-osiris-rex-will-land-on-asteroid-bennu-tuesday-this-is-
Why am I so excited about asteroid mining? Well, let’s find out… with the always amazing kurzgesagt!
This reminded me of Nordea’s expose on child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Amnesty International’s coverage of this natural resource rich country which is also one of the poorest!? There are whole communities, kids included, working in terrible mining conditions, hand-picking the cobalt and other rare earth minerals, from toxic, life threatening environments, so that we can get our new cell phones, electic cars and laptops etc… WARNING…this is some disturbing stuff!
Who would buy materials mined like this!? Well, it looks like we all do!
It’s a really startlingly awful result of our technology-centric existence. How do you think we could fix this?
It all makes Asteroid mining look far more attractive, no? Here’s a bit of background about the Asteroid Bennu:
And an idea of just how hard it is for NASA to make this happen!
I should point out, that we have done this before…but is there ever too much asteroid landings? And look how cool it was!
https://www.cnet.com/news/japans-hayabusa2-spacecraft-successfully-lands-on-asteroid-ryugu/
So if we can land on asteroids, why is it that we haven’t explored more of our own oceans… we’re trying, but it turns out we’re under a lot of pressure certainly when we recently broke the deepest solo dive record of 10,928 meters… which is deeper than Everest is tall!
Underwater crafts like “The Limiting Factor” are a great way for us to learn about our own oceans, but autonomous robo-subs are capable of doing much more than the human piloted ones! Here are new approaches we’re taking to exploring some more spacey oceans… like, on other planets!
Cool fact: The pitch black, ocean areas deeper than 6,000 meteres are named after the Ancient Greek god of the Underworld Hades, and called the Hadal Zone!
When we last visited Marnineland, we were shocked to realize how wrong it has been to keep all these magnificent creatures trapped in tiny pools and forced to intereact with hordes of tourists. We came away thinking it was completely wrong! To fix that, and rapidly declining attendance, marine parks are trying out some incredibly life-like robots!
They are already doing stunts for Spiderman!
And if they can do spiders, then how about ants, man?
And if you’re making tiny robots, you want them to be able to work together… even if it’s just for the most incredible light shows!
See you all Monday at 4pm EDT!