How small are we really? Just have a peek at the largest NASA photo ever taken–a super-high resolution image of Andromeda from Hubble–and feel how incredibly vast the universe is. It is simply breathtaking. 

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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A call for sustainable ideas that revolutionize the development of  fabrics.

Back in 2010 NASA, Nike, the US Agency for International Development and the US Department of State joined forces in an effort to bring together sustainable ideas for developing solutions to global challenges. Called LAUNCH, this worldwide initiative has been creating an open forum for the presentation of various sustainability solutions for issues such as energy, health and water.

For 2013 the LAUNCH Systems Challenge 2013 the team is looking for solutions in the development, manufacturing and recyclability of textiles, with successful submissions to be presented at the end of September. This year’s challenge looks to “transform the system of fabrics to one that advances equitable global economic growth, drives human prosperity and replenishes the planet’s resources.”

The challenge is calling for innovations with the potential to scale up in two years, alongside early stage technologies with a focus on positive environmental and social impact. Anything from business models and financial instruments to technologies, research accelerators and education schemes will be accepted, as well as education. Submissions should align with at least one of the following points of interest:

In textiles:

• Multi-purpose synthetic and biosynthetic materials.
• Smart and/or self-­healing materials.
• Technical fabrics with novel or surprising attributes.
• Fabrics that efficiently and effectively enable recycling.
• Applications that eliminate toxins in fabrics.
• Models that accelerate the development of low or positive environmental impact fabrics.
• Data generation and capture technologies and mechanisms that enable traceability across a product or fabric’s lifecycle.
• Decision support and educational tools that guide positive impact design and inform better choices of chemistries and materials.
• Open technology platforms to enable sharing, collaboration, contribution and unlimited accessibility to data that improves the analysis of sustainability impacts and stimulates an open data ecosystem.

In textile manufacturing:

• Solutions that increase energy, water, and raw material efficiency in the manufacturing process.
• Manufacturing processes and technologies that enable maximum conversion of materials and minimum consumption of natural resources.
• Solutions that put workers at the heart of the innovation process.
• Zero waste or closed loop systems that eliminate waste and create equitable, empowered workforces.
• Scalable, innovative business models that are sustainable and equitable.
• Manufacturing processes that reuse waste.
• Programs that support local business inclusion across the system of fabrics.
• Information and data exchanges that build entrepreneurial capacity & worker inclusion.
• Data generation and capture technologies and mechanisms to increase transparency across the value chain.

The challenge is now open for submissions and early-bird submissions are due by June 15^th, and  the challenge closes on July 15^th. Proposals from companies (small to large), consultants, entrepreneurs, inventors, non-­profits, research institutions, social enterprises and venture capitalists are welcome. The 10 winners of the challenge will be announced at the forum held from September 26^th to 28^th, 2013, where their innovations will also be presented. Although no cash prize is awarded, the winners will receive support, networking and mentoring from influential business and government leaders.

If you don’t quite meet the criteria of the LAUNCH challenge, check out the nano-challenge for university students. This complementing challenge will be accepting submissions that adhere to the same criteria and timeline as the official challenge, and will be acknowledged at the September forum. Make sure to spread to word or begin working on your own submission!

Images: launch.org

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Pioneered by NASA, this completely filterless air purification technology eliminates pollutants that aggravate your allergies and make you feel sick.

When someone says “air pollution” I almost instantly envision power plant smoke stacks and smog over Los Angeles. It’s disturbing to realize that the air inside our homes can be much more polluted than what’s outside.

Studies of human exposure to air pollutants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate that indoor levels of pollutants may be 2 to 5 times – and occasionally more than 100 times – higher than outdoor pollutant levels. Indoor air pollutants have been ranked among the top five environmental risks to public health.

Living in homes full of contaminated air puts our families at risk for serious health problems. Air filtration systems are common, but most do a poor job of actually removing chemicals and other contaminants from the air. After 12 years of rigorous scientific research, NASA recently launched the Airocide, a filterless air purification system that’s been proven to remove the worst indoor air pollutants.

Like many of our most revolutionary technologies, the Airocide was developed in response to a problem in space: space station astronauts needed a way to eliminate the ethylene gas produced by ripening plants. With the help of some University of Wisconsin researchers, NASA engineers came up with a solution.

Tests showed that the filterless air purifier they created was capable of eliminating 99 percent of ethylene gas from the air. This made the researchers wonder what else it could scrub from the atmosphere. More tests revealed that clears the air of virtually 100 percent of the nasty Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s)–the harmful gasses emitted by products you have around your home, like aerosol sprays, cleaning supplies, disinfectants, hobby supplies, dry-cleaned clothing, building materials, paints and paint thinners, strippers, pesticides and even air fresheners–swirling around in most houses.

This FDA approved device also completely eliminates all mold, fungi, viruses and bacteria (all major causes of allergy symptoms) that enter the chamber. But how?

“Airocide draws in harmful airborne pathogens and forces them into a densely packed matrix of highly reactive catalysts that are activated by a high intensity 254-nanometer light,” explains the website. “The reaction destroys these harmful pathogens on contact. Nothing is captured so there is nothing to clean. All that exits is crisp, clear air, with zero ozone emissions.” Available for $799

Image: Airocide

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A new climate era is here.

If you wanted more proof of climate change (Really? More proof? Really?) then this picture should shut you up for good.

This month, the sea ice around the Arctic shrank to its lowest extent since records began, beating the previous record-breaking minimum (in 2007) by a truly worrying extent.

Every year the ice at the top of our world spreads and withdraws in a largely predictable way according to the seasons and influenced by all sorts of factors including sea currents, wind patterns and, of course, temperature. In 2007 the summertime extent of sea ice reached a new minimum of 4.17 million km². On the 26th of August this year the ice again shrank down to this level – and kept going. On the 16th of September the National Snow & Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado recorded arctic ice coverage at 3.41 million km² – the lowest since records began. (The yellow line denotes the extent of the average minimum over the last 30 years).

It’s difficult to grasp the scale of this but picture about a dozen United Kingdoms lined up side by side: that’s how much more sea ice has vanished beyond the average amount left at the end the summer over the past 30 years.

 – David Shukman, Science Editor, BBC News

So what’s going on here, since Antarctic sea ice levels are remaining relatively stable? Simple – it seems that arctic ice is proving a reliable gauge of the way our planet is warming up, while the Antarctic is proving slower to respond. And what will happen next? Nobody can say for sure, although it seems likely that atmospheric disruptions will follow, along the lines of the jet stream displacement that has been causing unusually poor weather across Northern Europe all summer and gave the UK its wettest June for over a century.  It also seems like that so-called “extreme weather” events become more commonplace.

Our northern ice-cap, a permanent feature for all of human history, could be well on the way to becoming a seasonal feature – and our world is visibly changing. Welcome to a new climate era.

Image: NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio, via New Scientist.

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There are a lot of mysteries out there.

Journalists and designers developed the infographic as a way to interpret vast amounts of data. And what has a vaster amount of data than the final frontier? That’s right—NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently started JPL Infographics, where space nerds and graphic design wizards can take NASA data and create their own illustrations. Take a look at these ten infographics and brainstorm a few ideas of your own.

Are We Alone in the Universe?: A list of possibly habitable planets.

NASA’s Space Shuttle: The United States shuttle program has been shut down, but its manned spacecraft is still a technological marvel.

The Moon 1990-Future: A catalog of the various countries that have landed on Earth’s only natural satellite.

Space Invaders: Do you believe in aliens? A surprising number of people do.

Space Race: How far away from the planet have we gotten?

Big Brothers: We’ve managed to litter even the vast blankness of our skies.

15 Things You Didn’t Know About Space: It’s a myth that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object you can see from space. What other facts have you missed?

50 Years of Space Exploration: Where we’ve been, where we should go.

Funding the Final Frontier: Bravery isn’t the only currency that the space program recognizes.

Women in Space: Sally Ride isn’t the only woman to crack the glass ceiling.

Image: Sweetie187.

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Allow me to wax cosmic: There are certain events that take us outside of ourselves. Big ones, dwarfing our most significant human travails. Events where we look up for a moment and submit to the understanding that we’re part of a stupefying stellar picture, passing through a heavens so overwhelming that we’re simply owned – and there’s nothing to do but watch and accept our role in the show. Beautiful stuff.

I’m talking solar and lunar eclipses. I’m talking comets. And I’m talking meteor showers, the most intense of which is about to make its annual clockwork appearance, erupting out of Gemini early next week to the delight of night-sky devotees who never miss its arrival. The Earth, says NASA, “will pass through the Geminid debris stream, producing as many as 120 meteors per hour over dark-sky sites.” The shower will peak probably between midnight and sunrise on Tuesday, “when the Moon is low and the constellation Gemini is high overhead, spitting bright Geminids across a sparkling starry sky.” (See NASA waxes, too.)

The thing about the Geminids is that they’re unlike other meteor showers in that their “shooting stars” do not come from our passing through the tail of a comet, but rather from a “weird rocky object” called 3200 Phaethon. This smallish rock with an odd orbit is believed to have come from an impact event with asteroid called Pallas. In any event, there’s a ton of strange and unique features to this show, many of which remains a mystery to scientists. Its big deal, though, is, well, its bigness.

“Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids’ is by far the most massive,” says NASA astronomer Bill Cooke. “When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500.” Says the NASA site: “This makes the Geminids the 900-lb gorilla of meteor showers.”

So go. Watch. Obey the heavens and enjoy the show.

Images: Dr. Rawhead, St0rmz, Nasa Images, Navicore, Noel Feans

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Eyes on the prize: Google announces ‘Earth Engine’

Offering scientists and conservationists a better look-see at Mama Earth, Google Labs unveiled its Google Earth Engine yesterday at the International Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. The product puts an “unprecedented amount of satellite imagery and data – current and historical – online for the first time,” says Google, allowing for monitoring and measurement of changes in the Earth’s environment. The images are designed specifically for environmental protection use, providing information on the “locations and extent of global forests, detecting how our forests are changing over time, directing resources for disaster response or water resource mapping,” among other data. One important value of the system is that it will function like a watchdog camera, supporting the development of “monitor, report and verify” (MRV) efforts to stop global deforestation. The company released an example image, generated in collaboration with Mexico’s National Forestry Commission, of a forest cover and water map of Mexico which is the finest-scale to date. The company says the map required 15,000 hours of computation, but was completed in less than a day on Google Earth Engine using 1,000 computers.

Happy birthday EPA!

Now more than ever is a good time to celebrate the Environmental Protection Agency. As the mostly on-our-side government agency is turning 40, it’s coming under severe attacks from a hostile new (corporate-sponsored) Congress, and other science and climate-change deniers around the the world. GreenBiz has it right when it says: “a testament to the scale and scope of the EPA’s successes over the past 40 years that they’ve faded into the background, or been woven into the fabric of daily life.” However, any take-it-for-granted attitude would be a grave mistake right now given the current political climate, and it’s good that sites like Green For All (ThankYouEPA.com), are out there helping to get the word out. There’s an informative quick take, too, from the Aspen Institute in a 10 reasons we love ’em format. Among the highlights from the agency’s 40 years are banning the widespread use of DDT, addressing the acid rain problem, championing the reuse of waste, taking the lead on reducing vehicle emissions, cleaning up our water supply and being a  general conduit for public information.

Strange life forms found in (where else?) California!

While you would figure NASA would spend a lot time looking up, the organization just announced that one of its astrobiology research efforts that’s focused way down under one of California’s weirdest lakes has led to discovery that folks are saying will fundamentally shift the way we define life – and vastly expand the playing field in terms of how we look for life on other planets. These researchers have discovered the first known microorganism able to “thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism, which lives in Mono Lake, substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of its DNA and other cellular components.” Quoted in the NY Daily News, Mary Voytek, director of NASA’s astrobiology program, says, “It’s terrestrial life – but not life as we know it.” The story adds that “all life discovered so far, from teeny amoebas to enormous elephants, are composed of combinations of the same six elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus,” but the new bacteria (its catchy name is GFAJ-1) can live without any phosphorus and instead uses arsenic to build cells. Why do we care? “The implication is that we still don’t know everything there is to know about what might make a planet habitable,” says another NASA scientist. “Maybe we’ll be able to find ET now.”

Images: Google, jessica.diamond, NASA

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The space-obsessed were treated to a Foursquare check-in from the wild black yonder last week from NASA astronaut and International Space Station Commander Doug Wheelock. For his efforts, he was told: “You are now 220 miles above Earth traveling at 17,500 mph and unlocked the NASA Explorer Badge! Show this badge and get a free scoop of astronaut ice cream.” Tons of press. Presumably, he’s the mayor of Space – for now, anyway. And for all you future-trippers, here’s something you might want to start worrying about right away. I mean, we do have our green priorities.

Bad news, says NewScientist: “Space tourism could have major consequences for Earth’s climate.” This based on brand spanking new computer simulations that say soot-spewing rockets (we recently told you about the climate evils of soot) could have an effect far nastier than airplanes, even though the model would have them “belch out” only about 600 tons of the stuff, which is less than airplanes currently bless us with.

This is because spacecraft are so far out – literally: “…plane soot occurs at low enough altitudes for rain to wash it out of the atmosphere in just days or weeks. Rockets expel the stuff at altitudes three times as high – in the stratosphere more than [about 25 miles] above sea level. There, well above the weather, it can remain for up to 10 years,” the article says.

Why should we worry about this? Well “in the next few years,” (ya think? really?) “space tourism companies hope to start routinely flying passengers on suborbital space flights.” Based on what some companies are saying, their business plans in the “by 2020” column, the simulations were based on an assumed rate of 1,000 suborbital trips per year.

The science is that the soot could warm air in the stratosphere and strengthen currents that carry air from the equator to the poles. This is “not a pretty picture for the Arctic or Antarctic,” says Charles Zender of the University of California, Irvine.

So a word of warning for you green folks who are looking to purchase advance tix for the Buck Rogers express: your eco-priorities might conflict with your moonage daydreams (or Foursquare badge aspirations). I don’t know, though. You might have some time to think about it. In the meantime, maybe stick to “unlocking” where you’re at.

Image: x-ray delta one

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Is space worth it?

Another year, another whirl of astronautical triumphs and failures, all at the taxpayer’s expense. With environmental problems already testing us to our limits, do we really need to go in search of the mysteries of the universe?

Not Worth It

Space eats money. The technical challenges of space exploration, particularly the manned variety, are such that any extraterrestrial venture is fabulously expensive. NASA’s 2007 budget? $16 billion. Accompanying this massive outlay is the failure rate. Space is the most hostile environment we know of – yet we’re launching super-expensive machinery into it, hoping everything will be fine. All too often, it isn’t. India has recently lost an £80m lunar probe. NASA lost both its Mars Surveyor spacecraft in 1998, at a cost of $125m. It’s a bottomless black hole. Why keep trying to fill it?

Space Can’t Solve Our Problems. “Spread humanity into space” goes the argument, but when only the richest reach the stars, it’s surely a nonsense idea. How exactly does this help our worsening overpopulation problem? It makes sense in the long run – but first things first, we have a planet to save.

Space Is Too Damn Big. The number of discovered exoplanets (“those outside the solar system”) now exceeds 400, with more popping into view every month. But in a practical sense, this is meaningless. They’re just too far away to ever go there. Not for nothing is space described as the “final frontier”: the distances are impossibly vast. When the best imagined speed to the nearest star results in a century’s travel-time (one way), you can be sure E.T. won’t be popping by for candy anytime soon.

Worth It

Space Is A Bargain. The work that NASA did with its relatively paltry $19b budget in 2009 is simply amazing. Sound like a lot? Compare it with the cost of the Iraq War ($10b a month) or GDP ($13 trillion+). Considering how tough it is to work in space, it’s terrific value for money. And the space program isn’t a drain – it generates revenue, creates jobs and stimulates many industries. Space exploration is investment at home. Without it, many technologies we take for granted probably wouldn’t exist. (Not Velcro – that’s a myth).

Space Is How We Fix Our Own Planet. Remember the incredible image of Earth-rise (shown below), described by photographer Galen Rowell as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken”? That’s a gift the space program has bestowed upon us – ecological self-awareness. We know how fragile our world is because we can see it, bright and alive against the backdrop of the most profound emptiness we know. The help to our planet is technological, too: For example, you may have heard of a little invention developed for spacecraft called solar panels.

We Are Too Small. In July 1994, the remnants of comet Shoemaker-Levy smacked into Jupiter. Some of the holes left in its atmosphere were bigger than the Earth. Forget cheesy Bruce Willis films: it’s scientific fact that we’re a celestial sitting duck and it’s only a matter of time. It’s true we can’t move entire populations, but we can colonize other worlds (in theory) and as a species, give ourselves a fighting chance. Yet it’s not just raw survival instinct that should propel us towards the stars – it’s the fact that we’re human, and it’s what we do. We’re pioneers. It’s why we left the trees, why we crossed the oceans, how the proverbial West was won. Without exploration, we stagnate. Exploring space is how we can remain ourselves.

Images: ‘J’, Bill Anders

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Aviation and space exploration suck – fossil fuel that is. Not to mention clean air, and quiet habitat. Can these industries, so essential to global scientific and economic progress, go green? The race is definitely on.

Offering hope, inspiring blog posts and tweets-a-plenty over the past two weeks were the test flight of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which burns 20% less fuel than other passenger planes of its approximate size, and the unveiling of the world’s first, commercial passenger space craft, the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites. SS2 is reportedly more fuel efficient than NASA’s spacecraft.

But such breakthroughs are just the start of what’s possible, in terms of fuel efficiency and other environmental advances, says Joe Parrish, vice president of research and development for Aurora Flight Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Aurora makes innovative aerospace products, including unmanned space vehicles, planes that can fit in your pocket, and planes with a 500-foot wingspan that can stay aloft for five years.

Working on the NASA N+3 “future commercial flight program” with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and the engine technology firm Pratt & Whitney, Aurora Flight Services’ research showed, in preliminary results, “that as much as 40% fuel reduction can be achieved through reduced cruise speed and redesign of aircraft,” Parrish reported.

In other words – a makeover and taking it easy!?

“You can’t take an existing aircraft and just reduce its speed to realize these environmental benefits. It’s not a matter of pulling back the throttle. But the redesigned aircraft does not look totally different from the old,” Parrish notes.

The more fuel efficient flying machine Aurora researchers envision (illustration, above) would be designed to cruise at mach 0.72 instead of the industry standard of mach 0.8. It would not have to use composite materials (which are lighter weight and used in the newly tested Boeing 787 Dreamliner) but it could use conventional aluminum and manufacturing technology, while still saving substantial amounts of fuel.

25% of costs for a typical airliner are spent on fuel, studies show. So the environmental benefits should deliver economic benefits, too.

Can the same efficiencies apply to space travel and space ships? As an industry, commercial space travel is too nascent to “go green,” Parrish says. But it is starting with a very ecological-minded entrepreneur, Richard Branson, along with pioneering spacecraft designer Burt Rutan. Branson famously supported and financed the development of alternative, renewable energy and signed the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006.

A report out on Wednesday (Dec. 16, 2009) from the American Lung Association showed “sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels,” even with new laws in place attempting to regulate and improve air quality. Every little bit of petroleum saved, and greenhouse gas emission avoided, helps.

Read up on the Boeing 787, and the SpaceshipTwo, and make your wishes for greener commercial and space flight known.

Basic Reading:

“With more than 300 future passengers already putting up the $200,000 for a seat on SpaceShipTwo, there appears to be a strong demand for the rides to the blackness of space…” – Wired.com

“Boeing’s first new aircraft for ten years represents a radical departure for the manufacturer, eschewing traditional aircraft materials in favour of composites, in the pursuit of efficiency and lightness. If the composites, comprising 50% of the aircraft by weight, do not perform as expected, major headaches could emerge.”- Center for Asia Pacific Aviation

“The [Boeing 787] Dreamliner will offer greater efficiency for airlines”¦ The plane [should] use 20% less fuel than today’s aircraft of comparable size, provide up to 45% more cargo capacity and include a new interior environment with cleaner air, larger windows, more stowage space, improved lighting and other conveniences.”- AviationRecord.com

Further Resources:

A NasaWatch blog entry in anticipation of the roll out of SpaceShipTwo, entitled “Big Party in the Mojave Tonight”

A blog entry at UniverseToday that includes photos and a video tour of the six-passenger vehicle, the SpaceShipTwo

A story in the New York Times entitled “A Takeoff and Hope for Boeing”

The official home page of N.A.S.A., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the U.S. Government

Image: Aurora

This is the latest installment of EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by columnist Lora Kolodny.

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