August 2022

NASA’s new moon rocket remained on track to blast off on a crucial test flight Monday, despite a series of lightning strikes at the launch pad.

The 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful ever built by NASA. It’s poised to send an empty crew capsule into lunar orbit, a half-century after NASA’s Apollo program, which landed 12 astronauts on the moon.

Astronauts could return to the moon in a few years, if this six-week test flight goes well. NASA officials caution, however, that the risks are high and the flight could be cut short.

In lieu of astronauts, three test dummies are strapped into the Orion capsule to measure vibration, acceleration and radiation, one of the biggest hazards to humans in deep space. The capsule alone has more than 1,000 sensors.

Officials said Sunday that neither the rocket nor capsule suffered any damage during Saturday’s thunderstorm; ground equipment also was unaffected. Five lightning strikes were confirmed, hitting the 600-foot (183-meter) towers surrounding the rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The strikes weren’t strong enough to warrant major retesting.

“Clearly, the system worked as designed,” said Jeff Spaulding, NASA’s senior test director.

More storms were expected. Although forecasters gave 80 percent odds of acceptable weather Monday morning, conditions were expected to deteriorate during the two-hour launch window.

On the technical side, Spaulding said the team did its best over the past several months to eliminate any lingering fuel leaks. A pair of countdown tests earlier this year prompted repairs to leaking valves and other faulty equipment; engineers won’t know if all the fixes are good until just a few hours before the planned liftoff.

After so many years of delays and setbacks, the launch team was thrilled to finally be so close to the inaugural flight of the Artemis moon-exploration program, named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology.

“We’re within 24 hours of launch right now, which is pretty amazing for where we’ve been on this journey,” Spaulding told reporters.

The follow-on Artemis flight, as early as 2024, would see four astronauts flying around the moon. A landing could follow in 2025. NASA is targeting the moon’s unexplored south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are believed to hold ice that could be used by future crews.
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The world’s population is surging, and with it, the global demand for poultry and seafood. Some companies are hoping to offer lab-grown meat-based products with the same taste and texture as animal flesh. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more from Washington.
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Years late and billions over budget, NASA’s new moon rocket makes its debut next week in a high-stakes test flight before astronauts get on top.

The 98-meter (322-foot) rocket will attempt to send an empty crew capsule into a far-flung lunar orbit, 50 years after NASA’s famed Apollo moonshots.

If all goes well, astronauts could strap in as soon as 2024 for a lap around the moon, with NASA aiming to land two people on the lunar surface by the end of 2025.

Liftoff is set for Monday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

The six-week test flight is risky and could be cut short if something fails, NASA officials warn.

“We’re going to stress it and test it. We’re going make it do things that we would never do with a crew on it in order to try to make it as safe as possible,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The retired founder of George Washington University’s space policy institute said a lot is riding on this trial run. Spiraling costs and long gaps between missions will make for a tough comeback if things go south, he noted.

“It is supposed to be the first step in a sustained program of human exploration of the moon, Mars, and beyond,” said John Logsdon. “Will the United States have the will to push forward in the face of a major malfunction?”

The price tag for this single mission: more than $4 billion. Add everything up since the program’s inception a decade ago until a 2025 lunar landing, and there’s even more sticker shock: $93 billion.

Here’s a rundown of the first flight of the Artemis program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister.

Rocket power

The new rocket is shorter and slimmer than the Saturn V rockets that hurled 24 Apollo astronauts to the moon a half-century ago. But it’s mightier, packing 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust. It’s called the Space Launch System rocket, SLS for short, but a less clunky name is under discussion, according to Nelson. Unlike the streamlined Saturn V, the new rocket has a pair of strap-on boosters refashioned from NASA’s space shuttles. The boosters will peel away after two minutes, just like the shuttle boosters did, but won’t be fished from the Atlantic for reuse. The core stage will keep firing before separating and crashing into the Pacific in pieces. Two hours after liftoff, an upper stage will send the capsule, Orion, racing toward the moon.

Moonship

NASA’s high-tech, automated Orion capsule is named after the constellation, among the night sky’s brightest. At 3 meters (11 feet) tall, it’s roomier than Apollo’s capsule, seating four astronauts instead of three. For this test flight, a full-size dummy in an orange flight suit will occupy the commander’s seat, rigged with vibration and acceleration sensors. Two other mannequins made of material simulating human tissue — heads and female torsos, but no limbs — will measure cosmic radiation, one of the biggest risks of spaceflight. One torso is testing a protective vest from Israel. Unlike the rocket, Orion has launched before, making two laps around Earth in 2014. This time, the European Space Agency’s service module will be attached for propulsion and solar power via four wings.

Flight plan

Orion’s flight is supposed to last six weeks from its Florida liftoff to Pacific splashdown, twice as long as astronaut trips in order to tax the systems. It will take nearly a week to reach the moon, 386,000 kilometers (240,000 miles) away. After whipping closely around the moon, the capsule will enter a distant orbit with a far point of 61,000 kilometers (38,000 miles). That will put Orion 450,000 kilometers (280,000 miles) from Earth, farther than Apollo. The big test comes at mission’s end, as Orion hits the atmosphere at 40,000 kph (25,000 mph) on its way to a splashdown in the Pacific. The heat shield uses the same material as the Apollo capsules to withstand reentry temperatures of  2,750 degrees Celsius (5,000 degrees Fahrenheit). But the advanced design anticipates the faster, hotter returns by future Mars crews.

Hitchhikers

Besides three test dummies, the flight has a slew of stowaways for deep space research. Ten shoebox-size satellites will pop off once Orion is hurtling toward the moon. The problem is these so-called CubeSats were installed in the rocket a year ago, and the batteries for half of them couldn’t be recharged as the launch kept getting delayed. NASA expects some to fail, given the low-cost, high-risk nature of these mini satellites. The radiation-measuring CubeSats should be OK. Also, in the clear: a solar sail demo targeting an asteroid. In a back-to-the-future salute, Orion will carry a few slivers of moon rocks collected by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, and a bolt from one of their rocket engines, salvaged from the sea a decade ago. Aldrin isn’t attending the launch, according to NASA, but three of his former colleagues will be there: Apollo 7’s Walter Cunningham, Apollo 10’s Tom Stafford and Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, the next-to-last man to walk on the moon.

Apollo vs. Artemis

More than 50 years later, Apollo still stands as NASA’s greatest achievement. Using 1960s technology, NASA took just eight years to go from launching its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, and landing Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon. By contrast, Artemis already has dragged on for more than a decade, despite building on the short-lived moon exploration program Constellation. Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 through 1972, staying no longer than three days at a time. For Artemis, NASA will be drawing from a diverse astronaut pool currently numbering 42 and is extending the time crews will spend on the moon to at least a week. The goal is to create a long-term lunar presence that will grease the skids for sending people to Mars. NASA’s Nelson, promises to announce the first Artemis moon crews once Orion is back on Earth.

What’s next

There’s a lot more to be done before astronauts step on the moon again. A second test flight will send four astronauts around the moon and back, perhaps as early as 2024. A year or so later, NASA aims to send another four up, with two of them touching down at the lunar south pole. Orion doesn’t come with its own lunar lander like the Apollo spacecraft did, so NASA has hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide its Starship spacecraft for the first Artemis moon landing. Two other private companies are developing moonwalking suits. The sci-fi-looking Starship would link up with Orion at the moon and take a pair of astronauts to the surface and back to the capsule for the ride home. So far, Starship has only soared 10 kilometers (six miles). Musk wants to launch Starship around Earth on SpaceX’s Super Heavy Booster before attempting a moon landing without a crew. One hitch: Starship will need a fill-up at an Earth-orbiting fuel depot, before heading to the moon.
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Citing unparalleled attacks on health care facilities, the World Health Organization said this week it is working to reconstruct Ukraine’s health system. The system has suffered extensive damage since Russia invaded the country six months ago.

Over the past six months, the U.N. health agency says it has verified 173 attacks on medical facilities, which have resulted in nearly 100 deaths and 134 injuries.

WHO Ukraine representative Jarno Habicht told reporters this week that deaths and injuries continue to rise and will continue to do so until Russia ends the war.

“While these attacks are not only the violation of international law, they also are a barrier for many who need care as we are going through the war,” he said. “So, it is not only the supplies and others that we need to support, we need to ensure also that the services are available. But also, the health care workers are under immediate risk as we go through these times.”

The United Nations says the war has killed more than 5,500 civilians and injured nearly 8,000, including almost 1,000 children. UNICEF says about five children on average are killed or injured every day. The children’s agency says this is due to the indiscriminate use of weapons, often in heavily populated areas.

Speaking via videolink from an air raid shelter in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, Habicht said many people are on the move and many are suffering and need care.

He said the WHO is accelerating efforts to reach out and provide humanitarian assistance to millions of people across the country.  At the same time, he said the WHO is working on rebuilding Ukraine’s shattered health system in coordination with national and local authorities.

“Reconstruction of the health system has to be part of the recovery of the whole country across all the sectors,” he said. “And that is why we are currently concentrating both on the humanitarian response, as well looking to the recovery as we have seen in the health sector and other sectors.” 

To date, the WHO has delivered more than 1,300 metric tons of medical supplies in Ukraine, including medicines for diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and other noncommunicable diseases.

Habicht said support also is being provided for mental health, trauma, and emergencies. He also said COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to Ukraine in recent weeks in light of the increasing mortality rate from the virus across the country.
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Canada’s decision to legalize recreational marijuana in October 2018 was greeted by advocates and critics with predictions of dramatic benefits or dire consequences. Almost four years later, questions about the impact of the move elicit mainly shrugs.

“Maybe I am the wrong demographic, but I have not noticed any serious problems arising from legalization,” said one senior veteran of the Canadian legal system, who declined to be identified because of his role in administering the law.

“I think it probably has reduced policing costs and court time arising from simple possession offences (as opposed to trafficking),” the legal veteran added in an email to VOA. “No evidence of lawyers or bankers or Bay Street types going wild. Maybe alcohol is still the drug of choice.

“You do get the occasional whiff of weed walking down Bay Street,” Toronto’s financial industry core, the legal practitioner added, “and there has been an unbelievable (and maybe unsustainable) proliferation of marijuana stores.”

Anecdotal evidence of that sort is the best measure so far of legalization’s impact in just the second country to legalize recreational use of the drug, given a dearth of hard data on the effect on traffic accidents, drug overdoses, mental health outcomes or petty crime.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been concrete data I’ve seen that allows someone to comment on all of those goals and how Canada is doing in regards to them,” said Jonathan Wilson, chief executive officer of Crystal Cure Inc., a craft producer of cannabis in the eastern province of New Brunswick.

The 2018 legislation legalizing marijuana called for a thorough assessment of the impact after three years, but the government still has not begun that process, a source of frustration for some in the legal marijuana industry who are seeking reforms that would give them a boost against their illicit competitors.

In fact, the illicit trade has proven surprisingly durable despite the ready availability of legal marijuana at government-licensed outlets. One reason for that may be user complaints about the taste and quality of the legally approved products.

Jon Cappetta, vice president of content with U.S.-based High Times Magazine, said in an interview that the Canadian industry has a reputation for low-quality mass-produced marijuana, which he dismissed as “Walmart weed.”

“That’s not to say there’s not great product up there,” Cappetta said. “But it’s mainly on the traditional market, not the legal one.”

Wilson said it was not until the end of last year that legal marijuana sales surpassed illicit sales, according to estimates by the Ontario Cannabis Store, the only legal online retailer of recreational marijuana in Canada’s most populous province.

“We don’t know exactly how this is measured, but regardless of the lack of empirical data on this, it is very apparent in many parts of the country that the illicit market is very much alive and well.”

That has cut into early projections for a big boost to the economy through direct and indirect taxes, though the benefits are not insignificant.

According to a report prepared by the Deloitte consultancy firm and reported by MJBiz Daily in February, the industry had contributed $34.2 billion through the end of 2021 to a national GDP that totaled almost $2 trillion last year.

On the other hand, fears of an epidemic of underage marijuana use have also not borne out. “Regarding prevalence, there appears to have been no marked increase in cannabis use by youth in Canada yet,” reported the Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2021.

The report went on to say, “In the lead up to legalization, professional associations including the Canadian Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Medical Association, and the Canadian Pediatric Society suggested that legalization posed a threat to public health, advocated for the legal age for cannabis use to be set at a minimum age of 21 or 25, or that Canada should not legalize at all because it would place youth at greater risk of harm. With such categorical fears now shown to be largely unfounded, this should provide the basis to move forward on more nuanced grounds.”

The Canadian Medical Association, for its part, continues to advise caution. “Today, we continue to advocate for a public health approach to cannabis with three primary aims: prevent problematic drug use; make assessment, counseling and treatment services more available; and improve safety for those who use through harm reduction programs and awareness,” it says on its website.

The limited data that exists provides a mixed picture of the impact on road safety. The federal agency Public Safety Canada reported last year that “while police-reported data tends to indicate a significant decline in overall trends in impaired driving incidents over the past ten years, the proportion of [drug-impaired driving] incidents reported by police has significantly increased from about 2% of the total in 2009, to approximately 9% in 2020.”

On the other hand, the report said, its survey data “tends to indicate that public education and awareness campaigns … appear to have effectively changed Canadians’ perceptions around driving after cannabis use, with an increasing number of respondents agreeing that cannabis use impairs driving abilities. Furthermore, the proportion of Canadians reporting driving after cannabis use has continued to decline in 2020.”

One of the more challenging issues for the nation’s police forces has been whether to permit their own officers to indulge while off duty. Many forces, including the storied Royal Canadian Mounted Police, banned its use altogether while others, particularly in liberal-leaning cities like Vancouver, authorized its off-duty use as long as the officers showed up to work fit for duty.

John Orr is president of the police association in Calgary, Alberta, where officers in February won the right to use cannabis while off duty. Such use “is not unheard of and in Vancouver, it’s been my understanding there’s been no issues at all,” Orr told the Calgary Herald newspaper at the time.

The same article quoted Andrea Urquhart, the executive director of human resources with the Calgary Police Service, saying, “There’s no evidence this particular change would be detrimental to our fundamental goal to serve and protect.”

Jo-Ann Roberts, a former interim leader of the Green Party of Canada, sees what data is available as a vindication of the party’s early advocacy for legalization.

“We believed it would not result in the lawlessness many predicted. In fact, we believed it would reduce policing costs, take pressure off the courts and reduce the influence of organized crime,” she told VOA. “I think provinces and producers are still working out the details of delivering the product, but overall the transition from illegal to legal has gone smoothly.”

Brennan Sisk, the former cannabis coordinator for an NGO based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, argued that legalization has opened the door to peer-reviewed research on the health impact of marijuana and the development of industrial uses.

But, he said, the government has not embraced cannabis as a legal part of everyday culture and continues to approach it “strictly from a harm reduction mechanism.”

“I think Canada has developed a good set of best practices and is ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying practical and productive changes to restrictions,” Sisk said.

“Those working in the Canadian system are well positioned to advise new jurisdictions on how to roll out a legal plan while benefiting from an economic development perspective.”
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