Category: Space


Space Crops

Filed Under: Space, Vegetables by Husaan Iqbal — Leave a comment
May 1, 2014

Hey Readers, I have made a guest post on Henry Tam’s “Food Adventure” blog (Link). The post is about growing vegetables in Space. Through the use of a chamber with LED lights and an environmentally controlled environment, astronauts will be able to enjoy fresh veggies. Soon to be sent up to the International Space Station, the cargo will include vegetables and the chamber to join the space team, where they will study how plants grow in weightlessness. Besides the benefits of having healthy food in space, the veggies will also recycle air and water. Read more about this on Henry’s blog.

Space Lettuce farming with LED Lighting

Space Lettuce farming with LED Lighting

 

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Food and Robot Machinery (Guest post)

Filed Under: Space by Henry Tam — 1 Comment
April 30, 2014

What’s up readers?! Henry Tam here, from Henry’s Food Adventures. Today, I’m going to be guest blogging about the use of Robot Machinery and food production and it’s pros on Husaan Iqbal’s blog.

Have you ever thought about how that piece of steak you’re eating for dinner ended up on your plate? Chances are that the piece of cow you’re eating has been part of robot machinery processing. The use of robot machinery plays a significant role in the food industry in terms of processing speed, and how fast the unfinished parts of the foods end up on the shelves of supermarkets and later onto the plates of the consumers.

 The use of robot machinery will also cut down on the labor hours of factory workers. Let’s face it…sooner or later, a majority (if not all) of human labor is going to be replaced by robot machinery. The food management wouldn’t have to pay its factory workers anymore, and flawed human error in factories will eventually diminish. We wouldn’t have to worry as much about viruses appearing in the stomachs of consumers anymore, since there is less human hand interaction with animal meats. From a human worker’s perspective, injuries like chopped off arms and worry about blood getting into the food supply will also diminish. Everything will be done with machinery. Also, machines can work for a much longer period than any human can. There are only 24 hours in a day, we need our sleep. Let the machines and robots do it’s work.

All these points are clearly explained in the following Robotworx article.

http://www.robots.com/blog/viewing/how-robots-are-changing-the-face-of-food-production

66257674robot-burger-breakdown.jpg

This is an example of complex machinery that can produce 360 gourmet burgers in one hour!
This burger was made completely by robot machinery. 29634605robot-burger-completed.jpg

Being a guest poster, I may not be very knowledgeable about the robot machinery industry and how food is produced but, you can check out my food blog since we’re on the topic of food.https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/htam1993/

I’m pretty sure that the foods provided in New York City’s restaurants and food carts have somehow been involved in the robot machinery process!

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Visualizing Space

Filed Under: Space, Vision by Husaan Iqbal — Leave a comment
April 23, 2014

 

International Space StationToday’s blog topic concerns our depiction of Space as an alien environment, cold and shallow. As the majority of Humans have never experienced the conditions of Space and probably never will, we can’t say we haven’t been there. The closest thing Humans have to living in Space is the International Space Station, which lives in low Earth orbit. The image of the ISS is intimidating and lifeless, but shows our accomplishments to build and occupy a lab in Space the size of a football field. The Space Station is a border-less collaboration of many nations that build and experiment for the sciences. It is the longest occupied human presence in Space, yet is peaceful and unaffected by human relations down on Earth. All the violence, all the bias motives, and all the politics don’t reach the ISS, everything remains quite and neutral up here. A person can literally get away from it all up in Space. This image is from one of NASA’s renderings that show their great accomplishments of sending and building the parts and people that make the ISS possible. The image shows the completed International Space Station in all its glory, which is available as wallpaper for desktops of Space enthusiasts. What’s appealing to me about this image is its calmness. With all the extravagant efforts and restless nights planning and executing every peace of the Space Station, it finally floats finished but not forgotten. Although the Space Station is a technology mecca itself, the work being performed inside it is also revolutionary. Unlike other visual media in my blog, this one displays something that already orbits Space, a reliable and proven machine which has made other discoveries possible. The image encourages me to keep working towards a field with potential to build something like the ISS and bring us closer to Space. What I hope others will find appealing about this image as i do is that Space has no ceiling, and neither should our ambitions to grasp it.

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Next Gen Space Robots (4 of 4)

Filed Under: Robots, Space by Husaan Iqbal — Leave a comment
April 21, 2014

CHANG’E-5

CChang'e-5hang’e-5 will be an unmanned Chinese Lunar Exploration mission, which will be landing on the moon in 2017. The mission will be a sample return one, which will return 2 kilograms of moon soil and rock samples back to Earth. The probe will be launched into orbit by the Long March 5 rocket from Hainan Island. By the assistance of landing cameras, optical cameras, a gas analyzing instrument, other sampling instruments, and a drilling rig; the probe will softly land on Moon’s surface and dig to collect lunar soil 2 meters below the surface. Once the probe has what it needs, it will launch back into orbit and return to Earth in a return module. Chang’e-3 and Chang’e-4 probes will be sent on a separate mission in 2015 to not return, but set the stage for Chang’e-5 successful mission of returning moon sample in 2017. Link

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Next Gen Space Robots (3 of 4)

Filed Under: Robots, Series, Space by Husaan Iqbal — Leave a comment
April 17, 2014

NASA’s MAVEN ORBITER

MAVEN, short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, is a Martian climate change probe capable of making unprecedented observations of the planet’s atmosphere. Launched on November 18th 2013, the orbiter will be inserted into areocentric elliptic orbit of Mars on September 22nd 2014. As part of the Mars Scout Program, the $671 Million MAVEN spacecraft will study Mars’ upper atmosphere to explore how the planet may have lost its atmosphere and water over time. Nine instruments will make up the probe, which was built in collaboration with UC Berkley, University of Colorado Boulder, and Goddard Space Flight Center. MAVEN’s instruments will measure characteristics of Mars’ atmospheric gases, atmosphere, ionosphere, and their relationship with solar winds. MAVEN will perform measurements while in orbit over a period of one Earth year, with five low altitude passes to sample the upper atmosphere. Link

 

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Next Gen Space Robots (2 of 4)

Filed Under: Robots, Series, Space by Husaan Iqbal — Leave a comment
April 14, 2014

MARS ORBITER MISSION (MOM)

India’s first orbiter to Mars, Mangalyaan, is closing in on its final destination through a 300 day mission traveling at 28 km/s. Launched in November of 2013, the 1337 kg spacecraft is carrying five instruments that will study a range of things including early signs of life on the red planet and its atmosphere. This particular mission is a demonstration mission to test the technologies required for design, planning, and operation of future Space missions. The orbiter is equipped with a Photometer, Composition Analyzer, Color Camera, Methane Sensor, and a Thermal Infrared camera. All the information procured from these instruments will be down-linked to Earth through Antennas during regular communication sessions. Hopes are to explore Mars’ surface, morphology, and mineralogy as well as to exercise the capabilities of deep space communication, navigation, and management. If all goes well, the Mangalyaan Orbiter will arrive into Mars’ orbit on September 24th of this year, 2 days after NASA’s Maven Orbiter; which will be the next topic of this series. LinkMangalyaan Orbiter

 

 

 

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