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Eclipse chasers take three different routes to totality

Diamond-ring effect before total solar eclipse
A diamond-ring effect is visible just before the beginning of a total solar eclipse, as seen from Arkansas. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

NASHVILLE, Ind. — There’s nothing like a total solar eclipse to remind you of the unstoppability of nature — and the tenuousness of technology.

Not that we need much of a reminder: The challenges of climate change, ranging from floods to wildfires, and the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic amply show the limits of humanity’s control over nature.

But chasing totality is a more benign example showing just how hard it is to predict which paths Mother Nature will take, and how technology may or may not catch up.

It was tricky to pinpoint the best place to see today’s total eclipse, because totality was visible only along a narrow track stretching from Mexico to Newfoundland, for no more than four and a half minutes over any location. If clouds roll in at 3:04 p.m., and totality begins at 3:05, there’s nothing OpenAI or SpaceX can do about it.

Based on historical precedent, a stretch of Texas around Austin was supposed to have the best chance of clear skies. Here in Nashville, a well-known tourist destination south of Indianapolis, the cloud-cover predictions varied from totally sunny to as much as 60% clouded over. Meanwhile, some air travelers hoped to catch sight of the blacked-out sun as they flew above the clouds. How did it all turn out? Check out three tales from GeekWire’s eclipse team.

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Your (nearly) last-minute guide to the solar eclipse

Seattle eclipse-watchers wearing protective glasses in 2017
Eclipse watchers at Kerry Park in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood in 2017. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

It’s prime time for eclipse-chasers: A total solar eclipse will trace a line from coast to coast on Monday, and the anticipation is at its peak. So are the travel costs.

Hard-core eclipse fans made their travel arrangements long ago. That was also the case back in 2017, when a similar all-American solar eclipse turned central Oregon into one of the nation’s hottest hotspots (made even hotter by that summer’s wildfires). Witnessing a total solar eclipse in person is something everyone ought to do at least once in their life, and if you want to get in on the experience this time around, it’s still possible.

I should know: That’s exactly what I’m doing.

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Black flier gets a second chance to make space history

Ed Dwight as Air Force test pilot
Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight missed out on space in the 1960s. (Courtesy of Ed Dwight via National Geographic)

If the fates decided differently, Air Force test pilot Ed Dwight could have become NASA’s first Black astronaut in the 1960s — but he lost out, amid racial controversy. Now he’s in line to travel to the final frontier with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

Blue Origin listed the 90-year-old Dwight among six people who’ll be on its New Shepard suborbital rocket ship when it resumes crewed flights, on a date yet to be announced. Crewed flights were suspended after an uncrewed research mission went awry in 2022, but a repeat of that uncrewed mission went off without a hitch last December.

Dwight, who became a sculptor after resigning from the Air Force as a captain in 1966, will have his flight sponsored by Space for Humanity and by the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation, which was created by the founders of Seattle-based Dream Variation Ventures.

Dwight’s life story is featured in a National Geographic documentary titled “The Space Race.” In 1961, he was chosen to enter an Air Force flight training program that was regarded as a pathway to NASA’s astronaut corps, and went on to win an Air Force recommendation to join NASA. But Dwight was passed over — and he later said that racism was to blame.

“My hope was just getting into space in any kind of way,” Dwight said in the documentary, “but they were not going to let that happen.”

It would be another two decades before Guion Bluford Jr. became the first Black American in space in 1983.

This isn’t the first time Blue Origin has put a would-be pioneer astronaut on its crew list. The quartet for the company’s first crewed flight in 2021 included Wally Funk, a member of the “Mercury 13” group of women fliers who missed out on joining NASA’s early astronaut corps.

Dwight could be in line to attain a different kind of distinction in space history: As of now, the oldest person to reach space, albeit on a suborbital trip, is William Shatner, the star of the first set of “Star Trek” TV shows and movies. His age was 90 years and 205 days at the time of his flight in October 2021. Dwight is currently 90 years and 208 days old. He could thus wrest away Shatner’s space title. (Blue Origin said “the flight date will be announced soon.”)

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How to turn down the noise in quantum computing

Quantum researchers in lab
Scientists make adjustments to a beam-line array used to deliver laser pulses in quantum computers. (Quantinuum Photo)

Microsoft and Quantinuum say they’ve demonstrated a quantum computing system that can reduce the error rate for data processing by a factor of 800.

“Today signifies a major achievement for the entire quantum ecosystem,” Jason Zander, Microsoft’s executive vice president for strategic missions and technologies, said in a blog posting about the achievement.

Quantum computing could solve certain types of problems — ranging from data encryption and system optimization to the development of new synthetic materials — on a time scale that would be unachievable using classical computers. “Scaled quantum computers would offer the ability to simulate the interactions of molecules and atoms at the quantum level beyond the reach of classical computers, unlocking solutions that can be a catalyst for positive change in our world,” Zander said.

The secret to success lies in quantum bits, or qubits, that can represent multiple values until the results of a computation are read out. Qubits typically make use of exotic materials, such as superconducting circuits, diamonds with defects or laser-cooled ions.

One big challenge is that qubits tend to be “noisy” — that is susceptible to perturbations that introduce errors. For years, researchers have been hunting for ways to maintain the fidelity of qubits and correct any errors that arise. Such strategies typically involve linking up multiple physical qubits to represent a single “logical qubit.”

Just a couple of years ago, Microsoft researchers were saying that a quantum computer would need at least a million physical qubits in order to demonstrate an advantage over classical computers. But that’s because it was thought that thousands of physical qubits would be required to produce a single logical qubit. If fewer physical qubits are required for error correction, that would make it easier to build useful quantum computers.

The newly reported demonstration addresses that challenge: Microsoft and Quantinuum said they created four highly reliable logical qubits from just 30 physical qubits. “With this system, we ran more than 14,000 individual experiments without an error,” Zander said.

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Radian Aerospace updates design for orbital space plane

Illustration: Radian One space plane in orbit
An artist's conception shows the Radian One space plane in orbit. (Radian Aerospace Illustration)

A Seattle-area startup called Radian Aerospace is fine-tuning the design of its orbital space plane, with an eye toward building a subscale prototype as early as this year.

The company is also in the midst of a fresh round of fundraising, following up on $27.5 million in investment that was announced in 2022, according to Livingston Holder, Radian’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “That round will be larger,” Holder told me.

Over the past two years, Radian has made progress on an ambitious plan to create a reusable winged space plane that would be launched toward low Earth orbit by a rocket-propelled sled and its own rocket engines. The single-stage-to-orbit concept, or SSTO, has been called a “holy grail” for cheap access to space.

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Totally cool! Three options for seeing the solar eclipse

Skywatchers track the progress of 2017's solar eclipse at Seattle's Gas Works Park. (GeekWire Photo)

After a seven-year gap, a total solar eclipse is once again due to make a coast-to-coast run across North America, boosting popular interest (and airfares) to astronomical proportions.

The track of totality for the April 8 eclipse doesn’t come anywhere close to the Pacific Northwest. That’s in contrast to the 2017 total solar eclipse, when the moon’s shadow crossed the Oregon coast to begin its continent-spanning sweep.

You can still get in on the thrill of the event. It’s not too late to book a last-minute trip to someplace within driving distance of the total eclipse’s path, which stretches from Mexico up through Texas and the Midwest to the northeastern U.S. and Atlantic Canada. It’s just going to cost you.

Outside the track of totality, a partial solar eclipse will be visible throughout Canada, Mexico and the Lower 48 states. That’s assuming skies are clear, which is nowhere near a sure thing for the Pacific Northwest in April. Even if the sun is visible, you’ll want to make sure you see the eclipse safely.

There’s one almost surefire way to catch totality, and that’s to watch it online. It’s no substitute for experiencing darkness at midday in person, but it’s a no-muss, no-fuss, low-cost way to get in on the action. And it might well whet your appetite for the next eclipse opportunity.

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How to find signs of extraterrestrial life in a grain of ice

Illustration: Europa Clipper flying over Europa
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Europa Clipper probe flying over Europa. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration)

Scientists have verified that a method to look for cellular life on Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter, just might work. The technique could be put to the test in the 2030s, when NASA’s Europa Clipper probe is due to make multiple flybys over the Jovian moon.

The technique involves analyzing grains of ice that scientists expect one of the instruments on Europa Clipper — known as the Surface Dust Analyzer, or SUDA — to pick up as it flies through plumes of frozen water rising up from Europa’s surface.

“It’s astonishing how the analysis of these tiny ice grains may tell us whether or not there is life on an icy moon. At least we now know that SUDA has these capabilities,” University of Washington planetary scientist Fabian Klenner told me in an email. Klenner is the lead author of a research paper about the process, published today in the open-access journal Science Advances.

SUDA will be capable of analyzing the chemical content of material that hits its detector, using a process called impact ionization mass spectrometry. The key feature of the process described by Klenner and his colleagues is that the analysis would be done on single ice grains, rather than on a blizzard of ice particles. That way, scientists can focus on individual grains that might hold a high concentration of the ingredients of a single cell.

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Blue Origin makes plans to test Blue Ring tech in orbit

Illustration: Blue Ring logistics vehicle in orbit
An artist’s conception shows the Blue Ring logistics vehicle in orbit. (Blue Origin Illustration)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says that technology for its Blue Ring orbital platform will be put to the test during an upcoming mission sponsored by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit.

Blue Ring is a multi-mission, multi-orbit vehicle that’s being developed to facilitate logistical services in orbit. The Pentagon-backed mission, known as DarkSky-1, will demonstrate Blue Origin’s flight system, including space-based data processing and storage capabilities, ground-based radiometric tracking and Blue Ring’s telemetry, tracking and command hardware, also known as TT&C.

“The lessons learned from this DS-1 mission will provide a leap forward for Blue Ring and its ability to provide greater access to multiple orbits, bringing us closer to our vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth,” Paul Ebertz, senior vice president of Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems business unit, said today in a news release.

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Interlune lays out its plan to harvest helium-3 on the moon

Illustration: Interlune robotic harvester on the moon
An artist’s conception shows Interlune’s robotic harvester on the moon. (Interlune Illustration)

Seattle-based Interlune officially lifted the curtain today on its plans to build a robotic harvester that could extract helium-3 from moon dirt and send it back to Earth for applications ranging from quantum computing to fusion power.

Rob Meyerson, a co-founder of the startup and former president of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, told me that an initial prospecting mission could be launched as early as 2026, with commercial operations beginning in the 2030s.

“For the first time in history, harvesting natural resources from the moon is technologically and economically feasible,” Meyerson said today in a news release. “With our uniquely experienced and qualified team, Interlune is creating the core technologies to extract and process lunar resources responsibly to serve a wide range of customers.”

Today’s announcement confirmed previous reports that Interlune has raised $18 million in seed capital, including angel investments as well as more than $15 million in funding that was reported in a regulatory filing last month.

That funding round was led by Seven Seven Six, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture firm, with participation by other investors including Aurelia Foundry Fund, Gaingels, Liquid 2 Ventures, Shasta Ventures and alumni from the University of Michigan (where Meyerson went to school).

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Lumen Orbit raises $2.4M to put data centers in space

Illustration: Lumen Orbit satellite in space
An artist’s conception shows Lumen Orbit’s satellite in space. (Lumen Orbit Illustration)

Bellevue, Wash.-based Lumen Orbit, a startup that’s only about three months old, says that it’s closed a $2.4 million pre-seed investment round to launch its plan to put hundreds of satellites in orbit, with the goal of processing data in space before it’s downloaded to customers on Earth.

The investors include Nebular, Caffeinated Capital, Plug & Play, Everywhere Ventures, Tiny.vc, Sterling Road, Pareto Holdings and Foreword Ventures. There are also more than 20 angel investors, including four Sequoia Scouts investing through the Sequoia Scout Fund. “The round was 3x oversubscribed,” Lumen CEO and co-founder Philip Johnston told GeekWire in an email.

Johnston is a former associate at McKinsey & Co. who also co-founded an e-commerce venture called Opontia. Lumen’s other co-founders are chief technology officer Ezra Feilden, whose resume includes engineering experience at Oxford Space Systems and Airbus Defense and Space; and chief engineer Adi Oltean, who worked as a software engineer at SpaceX’s Starlink facility in Redmond, Wash.

“We started Lumen with the mission of launching a constellation of orbital data centers for in-space edge processing,” Oltean explained in an email. “Essentially, other satellites will send our constellation the raw data they collect. Using our on-board GPUs, we will run AI models of their choosing to extract insights, which we will then downlink for them. This will save bandwidth downlinking large amounts of raw data and associated cost and latency.”

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