The big launch finally happens in 2 minutes. "All systems are go for tonight's launch at 7:27 p.m. EST of Crew Dragon's first operational mission with four astronauts on board," SpaceX tweeted this morning. But live coverage is already streaming on SpaceX's web site. Space.com explains it's the first operational flight of SpaceX's "astronaut taxi," the Crew Dragon: Called Crew-1, this will be the second Crew Dragon mission to carry astronauts. NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, will lift off from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:27p.m. EST (0027 GMT) to begin a six-month mission. Space.com reports that the astronauts completed their 9-mile (14 km) drive to the Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad inside a pair of Tesla's electric Model X SUVs. In another report, CBS News has confirmed that SpaceX "plans to reuse the booster for the next Crew Dragon flight." NASA is counting on the Crew-1 flight and follow-on missions by SpaceX and Boeing to end the agency's sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for trips to and from low-Earth orbit. NASA has spent $4 billion since 2006 buying seats aboard Soyuz spacecraft and another $6 billion to date on its Commercial Crew Program, ultimately awarding contracts to SpaceX and Boeing... With two successful test flights behind them, NASA engineers were able to certify the spacecraft after a detailed analysis of telemetry and inspections of the flight hardware. It was the first such certification since the space shuttle was being built in the 1970s and the first ever granted a commercially developed spacecraft. "I believe 20 years from now, we're going to look back at this time as a major turning point in our exploration and utilization of space," said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters. "It's not an exaggeration to state that with this milestone, NASA and SpaceX have changed the historical arc of human space transportation... The station's life support systems, including its water recycling equipment and carbon dioxide removal gear, have been beefed up to support a seven-member crew and additional stores and supplies have been laid in. But the U.S. segment of the station only has four crew "sleep stations" and Hopkins plans to bunk with a sleeping bag in the powered-down Crew Dragon.

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Slashdot has featured "the 61 books Elon Musk has recommended on Twitter" as well as the 41 books Mark Zuckerberg recommended on Facebook. Both lists were compiled by a slick web site (with Amazon referrer codes) called "Most Recommended Books." But they've also created pages showing books recommended by over 400 other public figures — incuding Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs — which provide surprisingly revealing glimpses into the minds of two very different men. Here's some of the highlights...

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Long-time Slashdot reader PuceBaboon tipped us off to a story in Japan Times: About 18 million yen ($169,563) has been stolen from bank accounts linked to NTT Docomo Inc.'s e-money service, the company said Thursday, prompting police to begin an investigation into a suspected scam. As of Thursday, 66 cases of improper withdrawals from bank accounts linked to the mobile carrier's e-money service had been confirmed, NTT Docomo Vice President Seiji Maruyama told a news conference in Tokyo. "We apologize to the victims" of the improper withdrawals, Maruyama said at the news conference, which was also attended by other company executives. Maruyama acknowledged that checks on user identification had been "insufficient." NTT Docomo, which has stopped allowing customers to create new links between its e-money service and accounts at 35 partner banks, has said it will try to compensate victims for the full amounts stolen through negotiations with the banks.... In May last year, there were similar cases of improper withdrawals from Resona Bank accounts linked to NTT Docomo's e-money service. Docomo acknowledged it had failed to boost user identity checks to prevent a recurrence... In the recent cases, third parties are believed to have obtained the victims' bank account numbers and passwords, and used them to register with the e-money service to transfer funds.

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Slashdot reader damitr shared IEEE Spectrum's look at Japan's push for flying taxi services: Last year, Spectrum reported on Japan's public-private initiative to create a new industry around electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles and flying cars. Last Friday [August 28th], start-up company SkyDrive Inc. demonstrated the progress made since then when it held a press conference to spotlight its prototype vehicle and show reporters a video taken three days earlier of the craft undergoing a piloted test flight in front of staff and investors... In May, SkyDrive unveiled a drone for commercial use that is based on the same drive and power systems as the SD-03. Named the Cargo Drone, it's able to transport payloads of up to 30 kg and can be preprogrammed to fly autonomously or be piloted manually. It will be operated as a service by SkyDrive, starting at a minimum monthly rental charge of 380,000 yen ($3,600) that rises according to the purpose and frequency of use.... Tomohiro Fukuzawa, SkyDrive's CEO, established SkyDrive in 2018 after leaving Toyota Motor and working with Cartivator, a group of volunteer engineers interested in developing flying cars. SkyDrive now has a staff of fifty. Also in 2018, the Japanese government formed the Public-Private Conference for Air Mobility made up of private companies, universities, and government ministries. The stated aim was to make flying vehicles a reality by 2023... Fukuzawa is also targeting 2023 to begin taxi services (single passenger and pilot) in the Osaka Bay area, flying between locations like Kansai and Kobe airports and tourist attractions such as Universal Studios Japan. These flights will take less than ten minutes — a practical nod to the limitations of the battery energy storage system. "What SkyDrive is proposing is entirely do-able," says Steve Wright, Senior Research Fellow in Avionics and Aircraft Systems at the University of West England. "Almost all rotor-only electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles projects are limited to sub-30-minute endurance, which, with safety reserves, equate to about 10 to 20 minutes flying."

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"A new study suggests fresh asphalt is a significant, yet overlooked, source of air pollution," reports Science. "In fact, the material's contribution to one kind of particulate air pollution could rival or even exceed that of cars and trucks." UPI reports: And its emissions double as its temperature increases from 104 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers found. Sunlight plays a key role in these asphalt emissions, with even moderate levels of sunshine tripling the release of air pollutants, according to the study published Sept. 2 in the journal Science Advances... In-use pavement usually gets as hot as between 117 and 153 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, while roofs can reach 167 degrees, the study authors said. As the major contributors to air pollution get cut back — for example, through cleaner vehicle emissions — passive pollution sources like these will have a growing influence on the air we breathe, said Peter DeCarlo, an associate professor and air pollution expert with Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. "In doing that reduction, we are discovering these new sources that are now playing a more prominent role in our air pollution issues," DeCarlo said.... Asphalt probably contributes most to air pollution when it's freshly laid, DeCarlo added. During the paving process, asphalt is heated to as much as 248 to 320 degrees Fahrenheit, the researchers said. "If you've ever been around people laying asphalt, you smell it. It's clear something is getting into the air when that happens," DeCarlo said. But asphalt likely continues to emit air pollutants even after it's aged, when sunlight bakes the material, he noted. Switching to concrete for paving would help reduce emissions, he said, but concrete is not an ideal paving material in all locales. Another possible solution might be the application of "cool pavement" technology, where colored sealants are applied to paved surfaces so they reflect more solar energy and become less likely to heat up, Gentner said. Emissions might also vary with different asphalt application methods and different formulations of the paving product, Gentner suggested.

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"But is that such a bad thing?" asks Popular Mechanics: Earlier this week, Elon Musk said there's a "good chance" settlers in the first Mars missions will die. And while that's easy to imagine, he and others are working hard to plan and minimize the risk of death by hardship or accident. In fact, the goal is to have people comfortably die on Mars after a long life of work and play that, we hope, looks at least a little like life on Earth... [T]he trip itself will take a year based on current estimates, and applicants to settlement programs are told to expect this trip to be one way. It follows, statistically, that there's an almost certain "chance" these settlers will die on Mars, because their lives will continue there until they naturally end. Musk is referring to accidental death in tough conditions, but people are likely to stay on Mars for the duration either way. When Mars One opened applications in 2013, people flocked to audition to die on Mars after a one-way trip and a lifetime of settlement. As chemist and applicant Taylor Rose Nations said in a 2014 podcast episode: "If I can go to Mars and be a human guinea pig, I'm willing to sort of donate my body to science...." Musks exact words: "I want to emphasize that this is a very hard and dangerous, difficult thing, not for the faint of heart. Good chance you'll die, it's going to be tough going, but it will be pretty glorious if it works out."

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Science Alert reports: People who eat a lot of industrially processed junk food are more likely to exhibit a change in their chromosomes linked to aging, according to research presented Tuesday at an online medical conference. Three or more servings of so-called "ultra-processed food" per day doubled the odds that strands of DNA and proteins called telomeres, found on the end of chromosomes, would be shorter compared to people who rarely consumed such foods, scientists reported at the European and International Conference on Obesity. Short telomeres are a marker of biological aging at the cellular level, and the study suggests that diet is a factor in driving the cells to age faster. While the correlation is strong, however, the causal relationship between eating highly processed foods and diminished telomeres remains speculative, the authors cautioned.

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"SpaceX took another step forward Thursday in developing its next-generation Starship rocket, conducting the second short flight test of a prototype in the past month," reports CNBC: Starship prototype Serial Number 6, or SN6, took off from the launchpad at SpaceX's facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It gradually rose to about 500 feet above the ground before it returned back to land, touching down on a concrete area near the launchpad. The flight test appeared to be identical to the test SpaceX conducted of prototype SN5 on Aug. 5... The company is developing Starship with the goal of launching cargo and as many as a 100 people at a time on missions to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX has been steadily building multiple prototypes at a time at the company's growing facility in Boca Chica. While SpaceX's fleet of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are partially reusable, Musk's goal is to make Starship fully reusable — envisioning a rocket that is more akin to a commercial airplane, with short turnaround times between flights where the only major cost is fuel. After SpaceX in May launched a pair of NASA astronauts in its first crewed mission, Musk pivoted the company's attention, declaring that the top SpaceX priority is now development of Starship. Musk said in an email obtained by CNBC that Starship's program must accelerate "dramatically and immediately..." He expects Starship's first flight tests to orbit won't come until 2021, saying that SpaceX is in "uncharted territory." Commenting on the test launch of the bulky spacecraft, Elon Musk tweeted "Turns out you can make anything fly haha."

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