Category: Geeking Science

T is for Toyota RV Lunar Life

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Toyota working together – picture from the Interweb

Since 2019, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Toyota have been working together to create an recreational vehicle (RV) knockoff for off-roading on the moon, not that the moon has a lot of roads. Named “Lunar Cruiser” after the Toyota famous Land Cruiser, the pressurized rover (a glorified camper van crossed with a mobile lab unit) will allow astronauts to spend several days on the surface of the moon at a time exploring and experimenting. (Note: All the American and scientific websites are saying “days”, the Toyota website says “approximately a month”. That is some ambitious goals they got there.)

America and Japan have signed treaties (which hopefully future presidents will not renege on) to bring the rover to the moon. America is also developing a smaller, non-pressurized rover, similar to the beach buggy used in the past where spacesuits will be required to ride. The plan is to have all of these vehicles on-line for the later Artemis moon landings – around 2030.

The really cool part is the Lunar Cruiser is expected to have a ten-year life span. Once it has touched down on the moon, it will be reused for multiple missions. (And we know how long Toyota products usually last beyond their intended lifespan!)

Solar panels in the tubes stored on its side will allow the vehicle to charge when not in motion and between missions.

Now to get into all the technology being developed for the moon Land Cruiser which will also benefit us here on earth:

  1. Not directly mentioned on the Toyota website but clearly shown on the videos are the new ever-inflated tires used in construction, only metal version instead of rubber since rubber doesn’t do well in moon temperature extremes and airless surface. Air pressurized wheels aren’t the best for a moon environment. (Bridgestone Corporation is helping with these.)
  2. Reducing strain on the astronauts working by making most of the driving automated. Yep, an automated “car” specifically build for off-the-road consideration (and 1/6 gravity). The astronauts will only need to intervene for the hardest parts. – technologies feeding into this include “radio signal navigation, safe driving route generation, an intuitive driving control, <and> driving assistance with a superimposed display.” (Toyota)
  3. With the cruiser being automated (for the most part), when astronauts aren’t in residence, the vehicle can still explore the surface whenever the cruiser is on the sunlight side of the moon. – For earth technology benefits: “remote and automated scanning of disaster areas or goods transportation in dangerous zones.” (Toyota)
  4. Rollover prevention.
  5. The deployable solar panels can also help make Earth-side vehicles more sustainable for remote villages and refugee camps.

Are you reading to go on some serious off-the-road RV-ing? I know I am.

Bibliography 

Nevistanegocios. “Lunar Cruiser’: El Vehiculo de Exploracion Espacial Tripulado de Toyota y Jaxa ya Tiene Nombre.” 2020 September 7. (https://revistanegocios.es/lunar-cruiser-el-vehiculo-de-exploracion-espacial-tripulado-de-toyota-y-jaxa-ya-tiene-nombre/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Pearlman, Robert Z. “Japanese astronauts will join NASA moon landings in return for lunar rover.” space.com. 2024 April 11. (https://www.space.com/japan-astronauts-moon-rover-artemis-agreement – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Smith, Marcia. “Biden and Kishida: First Non-US Astronaut on the Moon will be Japanese.” SpacePolicyOnline.com. Updated 2024 April 11. (https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/biden-and-kishida-first-non-us-astronaut-on-the-moon-will-be-japanese/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Toyota. “Toyota’s Lunar Cruiser from Earth to the moon and back.” 2023 August 30. (https://www.toyota-europe.com/news/2023/lunar-cruiser – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Toyota Motor Corporation. “Pressurized Rover (New Image) Movie.” 2023 October 30. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkJv3ciCf3M – embedded link above)

ZigWheels. “Meet Toyota Lunar Cruiser, the one built for the moon.” 2020 August 21. (https://www.zigwheels.my/car-news/meet-toyota-lunar-cruiser-the-one-built-for-the-moon – last viewed 5/22/2024) – I think the author of the article is Purva Jain.

 

Geeking Science: N is for No-Fault Divorce

Erin Penn 5 Comments

Meme from the Interwebs, basically public domain because of wide-spread distribution

With the present rapid changes, and even before, I often sent forward memes that crossed my path on Facebook for others to either enjoy or learn from. Recently, a few people have (RIGHTLY) called me out for not fact-checking things I was sharing. Two deeper dives have ended with me deleting the post; in another case, I didn’t have the energy to do the research – I think it was correct, but gut feeling is not enough – and so just deleted it.

For the Meme above, written  by Qasim Rashid, I merrily forwarded it and then went, wait, I need to fact check it.

  1. I found out who Qasim Rashid was: an attorney who has run on the Democratic ticket for state senate in Virginia
  2. When he wrote it: International Woman’s Day in 2023
  3. I found a fact checking website (truth or fiction) which confirmed the data through their research – complete with article sources on the bottom (LaCapria)
  4. I found further data on the South Dakota ACLU website. (Chapman)

As someone who took a lot of Sociology in college (one of my two majors), I was fascinated by the statistical study which could happen because states legalized no-fault divorce at different times. As a result, scientists were able to run models to see if suicides rates impacted:

“For example: California changed its law in 1969, Massachusetts in 1975. “If we expect the suicide rate to fall, we expect it to fall six years earlier in California than in Massachusetts,” said Wolfers.” (Chapman)
This step-stone approach allowed Stevenson & Wolfers to examine suicide rates outside of larger on-going cultural changes such as allowing contraceptives, change in medicines to help with depression, women getting the right to have credit cards and start their own businesses, etc.
The impact? A six percent (6%) decrease nearly immediately for women, no change for men. A twenty percent (20%) decrease in rates after a couple of decades – for women. I suspect why the full impact wasn’t immediate was community pressure – families, churches, and other support systems returning women to the untenable situations, refusing to help them escape even after it became legally possible.
Going further down the rabbit hole, I discovered domestic violence decreased (for both men and women), and murder by partner decreased (for women only).
In other words, when men cannot get out of a poisonous relationship, they kill their partner, and when women cannot escape the situation, they kill themselves.
What is needed for a Fault Divorce? Prove wrongdoing by the spouse: cruelty, adultery, or desertion were the common causes.  But the woman or man would have to prove it IN COURT, telling the judge and other members of THE COMMUNITY WHERE THEY LIVE how they were raped (if the state allows one to claim rape by a spouse, that is a fairly new thing too – South Dakota and Nebraska were the first two states to completely outlaw it in 1975 (wikipedia)), or beaten, or verbally abused. The spouse would need to show bruises, which likely have healed by the time the court date came around, if the woman or man lived that long.
Otherwise, if fault cannot be proven to the satisfaction of the court, the divorce ending the marriage had to be mutually consented to. In a world where women could not own property, would lose a job if they got pregnant, needed a male “owner” (for lack of a more accurate term) to sign off on even getting a bank account, many would refuse to get a divorce because they could not survive without a husband. (Hence why males chose option B, homicide.) On the other side of the equation, men did not have time to work in the house and on the job. Losing the partner (or forced domestic-laborer), would result in lack of food, clean clothing, and a host of other necessary services to be well-placed within the job force. Getting both people to agree to lose these economic benefits was rare, even at the steep cost of mental health and relationship well-being.
If America returns to the age of either mutual agreement or proving fault for a divorce to occur, especially with the ongoing stripping of women rights, one of two things will happen – (1)  females will return to the previous situations resulting in “trapped” reactions – suicide and murder or (2) females will just stop getting married (which will be an interesting side-effect for the “Family” crowd pushing for this legal change to deal with).
A healthy relationship needs the participants to have the power to end it when it is no longer beneficial. I love reading romances, and the healthy relationships resulting in HEA are the best.
Bibliography
Chapman, Samantha. “Attacks on No-Fault Divorce are Dangerous – Especially for those Experiencing Domestic Violence.” ACLU South Dakota. 2023 October 20. (https://www.aclusd.org/en/news/attacks-no-fault-divorce-are-dangerous-especially-those-experiencing-domestic-violence – last viewed 3/31/2025)
LaCapria, Kim. “After No Fault Divorce Was Legalized in 1970, Female Suicide Rates Dropped 20 Percent.” Truth or Fiction. 2023 March 8. (https://www.truthorfiction.com/after-no-fault-divorce-was-legalized-in-1970-female-suicide-rates-dropped-20-percent/ – last viewed 3/31/2025)
Pickler, Les. “Divorce Laws and Family Violence.” The Digest. 2004 March 01. (https://www.nber.org/digest/mar04/divorce-laws-and-family-violence – last viewed 3/31/2025)
Stevenson, Betsey & Wolfers, Justin. “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress. (Working Paper 10175).” National Bureau of Economic Research. December 2003. (https://www.nber.org/papers/w10175 – last viewed 3/31/2025)
Wikipedia. “Marital Rape in the United States.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_in_the_United_States – last viewed 3/31/2025)
Wolfers, Justin. “Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results.” The American Economic Review. December 2006. (https://users.nber.org/~jwolfers/papers/Divorce%28AER%29.pdf – last viewed 3/31/2025)

Geeking Science: Artemis Accords

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Government provided logo for the Artemis Accords

The Artemis Project (returning mankind to the Moon by 2026 to develop a testing station for technology to use when visiting other planets, a research station for learning about our Moon, and port for jumping off to explore Mars) has created the opportunity for the Artemis Accords. Over forty countries have signed the Accords, that is a fifth of Earth’s nations. (Note that the biggest “competitors” to the USA in space, China and Russia, have not joined.) 

This is something to Geek About!!!

“The accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations. … The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also strengthen the commitment by the United States and signatory nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices NASA and its partners support, including the public release of scientific data. More countries are expected to sign the accords in the months and years ahead, which are advancing safe, peaceful, and prosperous activities in space.” (Bardan)

That said, the Artemis Accords are very USA centered in the interpretation of how space law should work, including the commercial activities such as mining. Both Russia and China object to that base. (Wikipedia)

The key principals in the Accords is as follows (from Lea):

  1. Peaceful Exploration of space
  2. Transparency / public release of scientific information
  3. Emergency Assistance
  4. Registration of Space Objects
  5. Preserving Heritage – Preserving robot or human landing sites of historical significance
  6. Space Resources – Extracting and using resources from celestial bodies is needed to explore space and permitted.
  7. Orbital Debris.

The full Artemis Accords wording can be found here: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Artemis-Accords-signed-13Oct2020.pdf

The Orbital Debris (Section 12) is an interesting addition and includes both reduction of the present debris and requiring all new space structures come with a de-orbit plan for safe disposal. I also adore the Transparency section.

Fingers-crossed, the spirit of international cooperation will continue.

Biography

Bardan, Roxana. “NASA Welcomes Greece as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory.” NASA. 2024 Feb 9. (https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-greece-as-newest-artemis-accords-signatory/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Lea, Robert. “Artemis Accords: What are they & which countries are involved?” space.com. 2024 May 16. (https://www.space.com/artemis-accords-explained – last viewed 5/22/2024)

NASA. “The Artemis Accords.” (undated) (https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

US Mission Unvie. “An Interview with NASA’s Kevin Conole.” US Mission to International Organizations in Vienna. 2022 February 25. (https://vienna.usmission.gov/nasas-kevin-conole-on-the-artemis-accords/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Wikipedia. “Artemis Accords.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords – last viewed 5/22/2024

Geeking Science: Cementing Solar Power’s Future

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Daniele La Rosa Messina on Unsplash

I’m looking forward to a future with Solar Power and unchaining mankind’s future from fossil fuels. But I have always watched it with a careful eye – solar panels needed fossil fuels to create them initially. Then batteries good enough for cars suck up the scare lithium of our planet, using either pit mining techniques or extensive chemicals sprayed underground, with the possibility of entering the water table, to extract the necessary ore. All the while Climate Change and our huge carbon footprint has been ticking a countdown clock.

Will we, as a species, beat the clock we set in motion? Will we run out of coal, (a resource created before microbes started breaking down plantlife (as found in the planet’s present cycle of growth, death and renewal) and so now will never be created again)? We will run out of oil (a resource made on the bones of dinosaurs long extinct)? Will we stop burning our plantlife, releasing carbon into the atmosphere before the greenhouse moves from oven-warming to full-on bake?

Two new things carry a lot of promise of making solar energy cheaper and even more feasible, and they don’t come with a huge chemical price tag further damaging our environment either gathering the material or making it.

The first is a carbon material that is strong, light, and conductive. Resulting from a $20 million investment by the US Air Force, Department of Energy, and NASA, Galvorn is made by splitting hydrocarbons and basically can be made into a variety of fiber-like products: yarn, thread, or mesh cloth. As strong as steel and as light as aluminum, the material can be used instead of rebar to support cement. All the crazy things Frank Lloyd Wright did with the new reinforced concrete may be taken on another level by those who dare to experiment. Imagine walls with areas built in for recharging (because Galvorn is also as conductive as copper)! Beyond sneakers flashing while walking, entire outfits could be designed to carry electric needs. Already used to help de-ice plane wings, this light material applications are only beginning to be defined. (Kazmer)

An added bonus is Galvorn types up carbon. MIT also used carbon to develop a new supercapacitor. While cutting back on carbon footprint has been a struggle when going green, combining green materials with containing carbon is a win-win. Simple readily available cheap renewal materials to make green products. Winning the Geeking Science game all the way around.

And as cool as what Galvorn is, MIT really outdid themselves. They made cement into a supercapacitor. Not just a conductor, moving energy from one place to another, like Galvorn, but a capacitor – a storage device! We can solar power all the houses we want, but without the ability to store the energy to be used at night or on rainy days, power grids (and power grid failures) won’t be going away.

But now imagine if the cement foundation of the house stored about a day’s worth of energy! Fill it up during the day, use it during a long winter’s night. Still not perfect for rainy Seattle, but a huge step in the storage solution. Carbon is carried by water throughout the cement mix and creates a percolated carbon network. So much win all the way around – still strong enough to be a foundation to a house (still need testing on longevity), no new equipment needed to be build in or maintained, no real change in how a house functions for the people living inside it. The perfect answer to a solar house needs; as new buildings are built, solar roofs and cement capacitor foundations will become a way of life. It won’t be as good for urban environments, but wait … there is more. (Chandler)

Road are made from concrete, of which one of the primary ingredients is cement. Imagine road being recharging stations for electric cars. You drive, but you don’t run out of power! Just like the wireless technology to charge your phone, the capacitor-cement will recharge your car. Parking lots could have solar pavilion coverings (a god-send of shade in the south), which immediately dump the energy into the storage that is the parking lot cement itself, and recharging the cars in the lot without anyone plugging in.

Folks this is hard near-future science fiction. We have the technology; we just have to implement it.

Cheap, easy, sustainable. No extra work for the average joe or joan. It isn’t even a lot of new skills for construction workers – a few new tests to make sure the capacitor distributed appropriately during the drying process. The next step is develop the machines and distribute them; some incentives will be needed for companies, because new equipment always is costly.

If you have been putting off getting an electric car because of lack of distance and/or ability to recharge, imagine if every Interstate was basically one long trip without a single plug-in needed. No gas cost at all from New York to LA.

I want this for Christmas.

Bibliography

Chandler, David L. “MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials.” MIT News. 31 July 2023. (https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-engineers-create-supercapacitor-ancient-materials-0731 – last viewed 11/16/2023)

Kazmer, Rich. “Scientists discover ‘magical’ material that’s stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum – and its potential is dizzying.” The Cool Down. 29 October 2023. (https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/galvorn-material-conductivity-steel-electronics-copper/ – last viewed 11/16/2023)

Geeking Science: Reading and the Brain

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

When I surface from a book and sounds return to my ears, I’m always amazed at how deep a book can take you. Peripheral vision goes as I focus on the words. Sounds processing diminishes as my eyes turn over the words to process through the hearing and speech centers. And when I emerge, the aches and pains of my body return. And, strangely, the last scent and taste described in the scene linger against my nose and tongue.

Reading is intense.

It activates our brain feel the words before us – a crackling fire teases our ears and warms our fingers, a favorite sweater pulls our hair as the hero yanks it over his head, and a punch whistling before the heroine’s face causes our heart to jump in a fight or flight mix.

This gives writers a very particular power. “According to neuroscience, we have two different types of memory: semantic and episodic.” (DeFreitas)

Semantic is library storage – things learned and then shelved. They go moldy over time if they are not taken down and brushed off. For some people, Algebra is no longer a thing and for others, the history dates memorized to carefully pass tests in high school. If you can web them into other things, sharing shelf space, they stay clean longer and are easier to restore – checks are similar to deposits and paying bills online. It might take a moment to remember all the details needed to write a check at this point, but so long as you keep the rest of the banking-system shelf active, it can be done.

Episodic memory is capturing a whole scene. The time you cried your heart out because you lost a card game, going off to overnight camp the first time, a first kiss. You remember names, and smells, and lights, and emotions.

It’s like reading a scene in a book.

Now here is the Geeking Science part to tap into for NaNoWriMo – please use this power for good. You want people to remember something – not just the facts, but the emotions, write the information to activate the episodic memory, not the semantic. We all remember The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank’s Diary) because of the emotions, not the facts. People argue about whether the holocaust occurred, but that book, that gave teens something to hang history onto.

Create stories to expose people new thoughts, new people, new concepts, new science. They might never really “get” it when they read it in a newspaper, but the fiction reaches them. They see it, they hear it, they smell it. They feel it.

Now, go write.

Go read.

Bibliography

DeFreitas, Susan. “The Fascinating Neuroscience of the Scene.” Jane Friedman. 8 June 2023. (https://janefriedman.com/the-fascinating-neuroscience-of-scene/ – last viewed 11/16/2023)