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People accuse SpaceX of displacing Texas residents, destroying wildlife in new documentary
Link: https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/517665-people-accuse-spacex-of-displacing-texas
After Celia Garcia retired from social work in Michigan, she started spending winters in Boca Chica, Texas, where she was born and raised, due to her severe asthma. When the coronavirus pandemic began, she moved there full time to enjoy the quiet, with no neighbors in sight and abundant wildlife around.
“It’s been a very stressful year,” she told Changing America.
Not because of the pandemic, but her new neighbors: SpaceX, which built a private rocket production facility, test site and spaceport in Boca Chica — about 20 miles east of Brownsville, Texas, on the Gulf Coast.
A new documentary by Vice TV, “VICE VERSA: Between Musk and Mars," features Garcia and several of her neighbors who have refused buyout offers and are watching SpaceX transform their homes.
“It’s a very, very unique beautiful area, [it’s] not for everyone because it’s very remote — 20 miles away from Brownsville — but that’s what I loved about it was the remoteness, the quietness, the unpopulated area and the wildlife,” Garcia said.
Changing America has reached out to SpaceX for comment.
Garcia said the SpaceX CEO and billionaire has visited several times, trying to convince her to sell and even threatening to file for eminent domain, although that power rests only with the government. She’s not moving and was insulted by the 64-page contract offering $190,000 for her home, calling it a "gunpoint offer."
“Space X is supposed to be a good neighbor but they’re not, they act like they are God's employees,” Garcia said. “But I'm a good neighbor. I try not to cause problems or do anything.”
Blue Origin will launch its next New Shepard suborbital test flight Thursday
Link: https://www.space.com/blue-origin-new-shepard-ng-13-launch-september-2020
Blue Origin's reusable New Shepard spacecraft will take to the skies this week for the first time in nine months.
New Shepard, which is designed to ferry people and payloads to suborbital space and back, will launch on an uncrewed test flight Thursday (Sept. 24) at 11:00 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) from Blue Origin's Texas location, company representatives announced today (Sept. 22).
The suborbital flight will be the seventh for this particular vehicle and the 13th for Blue Origin's New Shepard program overall. Thursday's liftoff will also be the first launch for the company since December 2019, when this same New Shepard vehicle launched on its sixth test flight.
New Shepard consists of a rocket and a capsule, both of which are reusable. The rocket comes back to Earth for a powered, vertical landing, like the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9 orbital rockets, and the capsule makes soft, parachute-aided touchdowns.
New Shepard will eventually fly paying customers to and from suborbital space, if all goes according to Blue Origin's plan. That could start happening relatively soon, though New Shepard has yet to conduct a crewed test flight.
These Are The 4 Most Promising Worlds For Alien Life in Our Solar System
Link: https://www.sciencealert.com/these-are-the-four-worlds-that-looks-most-promising-for-alien-life
The Earth's biosphere contains all the known ingredients necessary for life as we know it. Broadly speaking these are: liquid water, at least one source of energy, and an inventory of biologically useful elements and molecules.
Mars
Mars is one of the most Earth-like worlds in the Solar System. It has a 24.5-hour day, polar ice caps that expand and contract with the seasons, and a large array of surface features that were sculpted by water during the planet's history.
The detection of a lake beneath the southern polar ice cap and methane in the Martian atmosphere (which varies with the seasons and even the time of day)...