- It’s fascinating to pursue historical evidence of how humankind has evolved over the millennia vis-à-vis advancement, improvement, development, and growth while embarking on a journey of embracing new inventions perennially. As the empirical statistics suggest, humanity has made mindboggling progress in the last couple of centuries, conquering hitherto considered humanly impossible tasks with panache. Especially in the last few decades, the advent of information technology-driven initiatives has made life even more enthralling, making it incredibly welcoming. And to top it, the opportunities and avenues opening up on the back of generative artificial intelligence (AI) must be akin to icing on the cake for the global community. No complaints.
PC: NewsBytes
- Of course, humankind has conquered everything under the sun, including space explorations showcasing our ingenuity and pursuit of excellence despite encountering seemingly impossible obstacles along the way. But conquer we did on the back of a never-say-die attitude that has been the hallmark of humankind over the millennia. We landed on the Moon decades ago and have since furthered this endeavour with renewed vigour of late. The global community must be keenly following the development surrounding the Artemis II mission to fly over the Moon with subsequent plans to land soon. However, certain basic challenges of day-to-day life continue to pose irritating challenges. Apollo to Artemis, plumbing is space travel’s Achilles’ heel. Why so?
PC: History.com
- As reported, without flinching nostrils, note that there are 96 bags of human poop on the Moon from our previous adventure. Human ingenuity might make bulletproof rockets and cosmic wave shields, but where’s the toilet to last the trip to Mars? It’s not happening. After 50 years of trying, the best we’ve got is the $30mn UWMS – Universal Waste Management System – that broke down as soon as NASA’s Artemis II mission started, and has proven buggy on the way, too. The crew is lucky they’ve got ‘space plumber’ Christina Koch with them on the 10-day mission. But Mars is at least a nine-month journey one way. We’d need a crew hired entirely from Kendrapara– India’s plumber nursery – to make it there, and back. Then what?
PC: The Times of India
- We could be on a plane that’s forced to turn back midway due to choked toilets. There are several instances of flights returning because of the choked toilets. The most ironic plane tale is from Jan 2018, when a Norwegian flight to Munich U-turned after 20 minutes due to choked toilets. It had 85 plumbers on board. But it’s a lot worse on spacecraft. In declassified files from 1969’s Apollo 10 mission, astronauts are heard asking for napkins to catch faeces floating around the cabin. NASA shuttle Discovery’s waste system failed on 10 of its first 11 missions and needed a $12mn fix. As late as 2021, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft had a malfunction. Still think Mars is doable? Cannot be ruled out in the future. Human creativity always surprises. Let’s brace for it.
