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<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.blueorigin.com/">Blue Origin</a></span></p><p class="caption">Blue Moon is a concept for a "large lunar lander" that Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, Blue Origin, plans to build and launch.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/jeff-bezos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeff Bezos</a>, the richest person on Earth, is designing a spacecraft to land on the moon.</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/blue-origin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blue Origin</a>, Bezos' 18-year-old rocket company, announced the plan on Wednesday.</strong></li><li><strong>Bezos has said he wants to move heavy industry off of Earth and into space to make "a very beautiful planet" and colonize space.</strong></li></ul><p>Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon - and now the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-richest-person-modern-history-spends-on-charity-2018-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">richest person on Earth</a> - is taking another concrete step toward colonizing space.</p><p>Bezos' 18-year-old rocket company, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-rocket-company-most-important-2018-4">Blue Origin</a>, announced on Wednesday that it's "in the conceptual design phase of a large lunar lander."</p><p>The goal of the mission, called Blue Moon, is to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bezos-moon-colonization-blue-origin-wapo-2017-3">land on the moon</a> and scout it for resources like water, which can be mined and potentially <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-ice-deposits-crater-map-lunuar-base-2018-8">turned into rocket fuel</a>. The effort is also part of a larger multi-partner competition called The Moon Race, which hopes to spur the creation of a lunar economy (and pick up where the Google Lunar XPRIZE <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-moon-probe-lunar-landing-2018-8">left off</a>).</p><p>"The future will be better for our children - and our children's children - if we use space to benefit life on Earth and enable millions of people to live and work in space," Blue Origin's written announcement said.</p><p>Bezos is selling about $1 billion' worth of his Amazon stock <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-liquidates-billions-to-fund-blue-origin-2018-4">every year</a> to fund Blue Origin's research and development. That work includes building a suborbital tourism rocket called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-new-shepard-rocket-test-launch-success-2017-12">New Shepard</a>, as well as a much larger reusable rocket system called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blue-origin-vs-spacex-falcon-heavy-vs-new-glenn-2016-9">New Glenn</a>, which is expected to debut in 2020.</p><p>Aside from Bezos' influx of cash, Blue Origin recently won NASA grants to develop its technologies and a contract to <a href="https://www.blueorigin.com/news" target="_blank" rel="noopener">build powerful new BE-4 rocket engines</a> for United Launch Alliance's newest rocket system, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-vulcan-rocket-works-united-launch-alliance-2018-2">Vulcan</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.blueorigin.com/gallery">Blue Origin</a></span></p><p class="caption">A test firing of Blue Origin's methane-burning BE-4 rocket engine.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Blue Origin's announcement about the lunar lander came soon after Elon Musk revealed that a Japanese billionaire named Yusaku Maezawa would be SpaceX's first moon tourist. Musk also gave new details about his aerospace company's Big Falcon Rocket system.</p><p>Whereas SpaceX's primary goal is to colonize Mars, Blue Origin's is to move heavy industry off of Earth and into space.</p><p>Bezos <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-rocket-company-most-important-2018-4">elaborated on his rationale</a> for this during a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezo-advice-to-amazon-employees-dont-aim-for-work-life-balance-its-a-circle-2018-4">wide-ranging interview</a> with Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Axel Springer (Business Insider's parent company) on April 24 in Berlin.</p><p>"I believe and I get increasing conviction with every passing year, that Blue Origin, the space company, is the most important work I'm doing," Bezos told Döpfner. "We will move all heavy industry off of Earth, and Earth will be zoned residential and light industry. It will basically be a very beautiful planet."</p><p>Bezos added: "The solar system can easily support a trillion humans. And if we had a trillion humans, we would have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts and unlimited - for all practical purposes - resources and solar power and so on. That's the world that I want my great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren to live in."</p><h2>Read Blue Origin's full announcement</h2><p>Here is the full email announcement that Blue Origin sent on Wednesday, which included an illustration of the Blue Moon spacecraft (shown at the top of this story).</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Hi There,<br /><br />Moving heavy industry from Earth into space is at the core of Blue Origin's mission. The future will be better for our children - and our children's children - if we use space to benefit life on Earth and enable millions of people to live and work in space.<br /><br />The next logical step in this path is a return to the moon. To do this we need reusable access to the lunar surface and its resources. Were in the conceptual design phase of a large lunar lander that will provide that access called Blue Moon.<br /><br />We are not alone in our drive to return to the moon, and there have been some exciting updates this week at the 69<sup>th</sup> Annual International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany.<br /><br />Blue has joined leading space companies and agencies to support the creation of <a href="https://www.themoonrace.org/en/challenges/themoonrace" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://blueorigin.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dca4c14684ac1af3f1219b4382%26id%3D7cef927497%26e%3D207cea3252&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1538671833268000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEJE_K0FHz4RtiKqTxIqAq292Pldg">The Moon Race</a>, a non-profit working to launch a competition for teams looking for a ride to the lunar surface. The goal is consistent with our aim to land large payloads on the moon that can access and utilize the resources found there. We're supporting this initiative, along with ESA, Airbus, and other entities seeking to foster the next generation of lunar exploration - with Blue Moon and New Glenn.<br /><br />Were also excited to announce a collaboration with OHB SE and MT Aerospace on a <a href="https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1046813857706987520" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://blueorigin.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dca4c14684ac1af3f1219b4382%26id%3D3a78b71971%26e%3D207cea3252&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1538671833268000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGlToeLzTOyxM5Ao4D6A0E5vcauUQ">future Blue Moon mission</a>.<br /><br />Check out our tweets about <a href="https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1047495626550693888" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://blueorigin.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dca4c14684ac1af3f1219b4382%26id%3D17ec28a0ac%26e%3D207cea3252&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1538671833268000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGt6zr5tG0coeV2raxIttnWVeostg">The Moon Race</a> and <a href="https://www.ohb.de/en/news/ohb-group-signs-letter-of-intent-for-cooperation-with-blue-origin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://blueorigin.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dca4c14684ac1af3f1219b4382%26id%3D955fdc5596%26e%3D207cea3252&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1538671833268000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHlyBT5R5yPrpFu0DxWCNdU4O8lzQ">OHB</a> announcements for more information.<br /><br /><em>Gradatim Ferociter!</em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-blue-origin-virgin-galactic-space-tourism-2018-9">How SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic plan on taking you to space</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Jeff Bezos plans to build and launch a 'large lunar lander' as part of his quest to colonize space

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>In 2009, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7897585.stm">media was abuzz</a> that NASA and ESA were considering the very first space boat - a floating vessel that would roam the lakes of one of Saturn's moons. Unfortunately, the project lost out to a mission to Jupiter.</p>
<p>Then NASA teased us again in 2012. After considering 28 projects, the space agency settled on three finalists: a Mars probe, a comet hopper, and a space boat called <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/580675main_02_Ellen_Stofan_TiME_.pdf">Titan Marine Explorer (TiME)</a>. NASA chose the probe, crushing our dreams of extraterrestrial sailing.</p>
<p>Now NASA is again soliciting projects for their Discovery Program, but will TiME throw its name in the hat?</p>
<h2>Meet Titan</h2>
<p>In 2004, NASA's Cassini spacecraft used radar and infrared to peer through the deep orange cloud of Saturn's largest moon Titan.</p>
<p>They were amazed by what they saw - a landscape strangely resembling our own. It has river beds, rain, clouds, and lakes and seas - the first we've found beyond our own planet.</p>
<p>Unlike Earth, Titans seas are mostly made of methane and ethane. But they still begged the question: can we sail them? Some thought so.</p>
<p>Large bodies of liquid like Titan's Punga Mare lake are thought to be good starting places to look for early life, an added incentive to build a watercraft.</p>
<h2>How to explore extraterrestrial lakes</h2>
<p>In 2012, scientists again proposed TiME, a floating vessel that would explore one of Titan's largest seas, Ligeia Mare for almost 100 days, powered by plutonium. It wasn't funded that time around - the boat project lost out to the InSight Mars Lander, a mission to determine what Mars' core is made of.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>NASA</span></p><p class="caption">Titan Marine Explorer would roam the sea's of Saturn's moon.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Now NASA is again calling for projects. According to TiME lead Ralph Lorenz, the proposal was ready to go, but it may not be time for TiME.</p>
<p>"The best time to explore Titan's seas, which are near Titan's north pole, is in the early 2020s (during the end of the moon's northern summer). During that time, the lakes are in daylight and a craft in them would be able to communicate directly with Earth without needing an expensive relay spacecraft," Lorenz told Business Insider in an email.</p>
<p>The current application period would be "tight, but do-able," said Lorenz, putting the craft on Titan in mid-2020s.</p>
<p>But there's another bigger problem keeping TiME from sailing Titan's seas.</p>
<h2>The plutonium problem</h2>
<p>We're running out of the radioactive isotopes frequently used to power deep-space missions. The radioisotope power sources that TiME would use for power and warmth just aren't available.</p>
<p>"There is no alternative to radioisotope power for a mission at Titan's surface that lasts more than a few hours," said Lorenz. This isn't just impacting the TiME craft, but <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/09/plutonium-238-problem/">almost all deep-space projects.</a></p>
<p>As of last September, our stockpile of plutonium for scientific research had <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/09/plutonium-238-problem/">dwindled to around 36 pounds </a>- all of which had already been dedicated to upcoming missions.</p>
<p>TiME's next chance will be summer of 2040, when Titan's summer will come around again. Hopefully, so will our plutonium stocks.</p>
<h2>The wavy seas of Titan</h2>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/pdf/1947.pdf">Cassini/VIMS T85 </a></span></p><p class="caption">Top: The large heart shaped lake in the bottom right corner is Punga Mare.  Bottom: The blue arrows point to apparent wave patches.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Still, "there are a lot of exciting things to learn about Titan with missions that don't rely on the special geography/geometry of the seas," Lorenz said.</p>
<p>A deep-space boat isn't the only way to explore Titan - we've been studying the moon from above using satellites, which continue to yield interesting finds.</p>
<p>After years of searching scientists finally spotted what looked like tiny waves on one of Titan's lakes - another way the moon is perhaps the most Earth-like body in our solar system.</p>
<p>"If correct this discovery represents the first sea-surface waves known outside of Earth," researchers led by University of Idaho scientist Jason Barnes <a href="http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/pdf/1947.pdf" target="_blank">wrote in a paper</a> presented in March at the Lunar and Planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Conference.</p>
<p>Using satellite images from 2012, the researchers found what appeared to be "wavy seas reflecting the Sun," on Punga Mare lake, <a href="http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flybys/titan20120724/">the third largest</a> liquid body on Titan. If the waves are real, scientists suggested they would be around 2 centimeters in height and whipped up by winds of 1.7 miles per hour.</p>
<p>In their paper, the researchers said they could "not rule out mud?ats covered in a liquid layer" as the source of the ripples.</p>
<p>But if these signatures are caused by waves, it would be a significant finding that "would confirm that the lakes actually are deep reservoirs of methane and ethane, the dominant forms of liquid on that moon," Clara Moskowitz writes at <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/saturns-largest-moon-has-waves-waves-on-titan-indicate-methane-seas-that-may-be-home-to-life/" target="_blank">Scientific American</a>.</p>
<h2>With wind comes waves</h2>
<p>We probably won't know for sure whether or not these are waves until 2017, when wind should pick up on the moon's northern regions, which would make more waves.</p>
<p>Until 2009, Titan's northern "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pj4G101o-M">lake country</a>" had been in a near-windless winter since NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived in the area in 2004. It wasn't until 2009 that the sun crossed Titan's equator bringing spring, and with it, wind.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute </span></p><p class="caption">Titan's north is "lake country."</p></div><p></p></div></div>2017 will bring winds, and with them, hopefully answers.</p>
<p>When those winds come again in Titan's 2040 summer, hopefully TiME will be there to ride them.</p>
<p>Until then, enjoy the footage below showing the closest view of Titan ever. It was captured in 2007 when Cassini dropped a European Space Agency probe named Huygens onto the moon.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>European Space Agency</span></p><p class="caption">Huygens probe drops in on Titan.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>

Whatever Happened To NASA's Space Boat?

<p>Some incredible things happened in the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/2014s-most-important-discoveries-2015-1">science world in 2014</a>, but one of the best things about <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> is that we learn more and make progress every year.</p>
<p>We take new steps that we couldn't imagine decades ago. And if we look at the rate of change over time, it's astounding.</p>
<p>As retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-chris-hadfield-inspiration-video-2014-12">recently said</a>, "In 100 years we've gone from filming the Wright brothers to landing a camera on Titan, a moon 800 million miles away." That's pretty incredible.</p>
<p>So let's look ahead.</p>
<p>Here are a few potential world changers that we're looking for over the next year:</p>
<h2>1. Reusable rockets being tested by SpaceX could transform the future of space travel.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>If we're ever going to set up a colony on Mars, we're going to need to be able to land rockets there that can be re-used for a journey back to Earth. Not only that, but this reuseable rocket technology will make all space travel much cheaper.</p>
<p>And while a first-stage rocket - the bottom or largest rocket in certain launches - has never been recovered for re-use before, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-ocean-landing-january-6-2015-1">Elon Musk and SpaceX want to change that</a> this year.</p>
<p>On Jan. 10, SpaceX succesfully directed a rocket from approximately 50 miles <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-reusability-test-livestream-2015-1">up back to a landing platform</a> in the ocean, but it came down so hard that it won't be reusable. Still, that indicates good potential for future success, and Musk has said they plan on attempting about a dozen launches and subsequent landings on ocean platforms throughout the year.&#xa0;</p>
<p>In other SpaceX news, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/">Musk recently added</a> that SpaceX is hoping to announce the plans for their Mars transport system, which will be completely different from the Falcon and Dragon systems they've been using so far.</p>
<h2>2. The first version of C-3PO is going on sale in February, and its name is Pepper.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper">Japanes</a><a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper">e company Softbank will begin selling a humanoid robot</a> produced by the French company Aldebaran Robotics. Pepper has an "emotion engine" that uses artificial intelligence to help it learn your mood from face cues and learn from past experiences, and it's fluent in Japanese, English, Spanish, and French - not quite 6 million forms of communication, but a start.</p>
<p>And while this robot is designed to be more of a companion than a helper (better at reading you a recipe than manipulating the tools to cook food, <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper">according to IEEE Spectrum</a>), it should become more and more capable over time as new applications and capabilities are programmed in.</p>
<h2>3. We could learn that there's an invisible universe that mirrors our own.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The Large Hadron Collider is going to <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/what-to-expect-in-2015-1.16626">power back on in March</a> after a two year hiatus and it will be crashing particles together at twice the power it had before. No one knows exactly what we'll learn from this, but possibilities include particles associated with dark matter.</p>
<p>Further, the presence or absence of certain particles could prove or disprove the supersymmetry theory, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cern-march-2015-protons-higher-speeds-20141215-story.html">which holds that there is a mirror universe</a> to our own made of invisible particles that have mass and correspond to what we can see.</p>
<h2>4. Parts of Einstein's theory of relativity could be proven - or disproven - depending on whether or not we find gravitational waves.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>If physics works as Einstein thought, there should be gravitational waves rippling through space-time. Two experiments this year give us our greatest shot at detecting those waves ever.</p>
<p>In July, the <a href="http://www.popsci.com/node/223160">LISA Pathfinder will launch to test technology</a> for a space-based gravitational wave observatory.</p>
<p>On Earth, the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors we've ever built, the <a href="https://www.advancedligo.mit.edu/summary.html">Advanced LIGO detectors</a>, will be turned on.</p>
<h2>5. We're getting our closest look ever at Pluto. (And we're visiting Ceres, another dwarf planet.)</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-horizons-pluto-watching-probe-2014-11">New Horizons mission</a>, which launched Jan. 19, 2006, back when Pluto still had eight months left of being called a planet, will arrive at its closest point to the dwarf planet after a 5 billion kilometer journey on July 14.</p>
<p>It'll snap some photos that will show us Pluto's surface and Charon, its largest moon, before heading on to explore the Kuiper Belt.</p>
<p>In April, NASA's Dawn probe will reach Ceres, the largest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, and <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-expect-scientists-to-do-in-2015/?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter">one that's believed</a> to have water ice beneath its crust.</p>
<h2>6. The world's worst Ebola epidemic ever will hopefully be stopped.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The Ebola epidemic is <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/">far from over</a> in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Drug tests are underway and vaccine trials are <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-expect-scientists-to-do-in-2015/">scheduled to begin</a> soon. Hopefully these, combined with improved public health measures, make a crucial difference toward stopping the worst outbreak of Ebola we've ever seen.</p>
<h2>7. The FAA is supposed to come up with airspace regulations for drones.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>Congress has mandated that by September, the FAA has to come up with a way for drones to be integrated into US airspace, making those Amazon drone-delivered packages a possibility, but also with various uses for scientists, including watching wildlife, creating maps, and monitoring wilderness areas - but <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/1/5862158/faa-will-likely-miss-september-2015-drone-integration-deadline-report">there are indications</a> that despite the legal regulation, they won't hit that deadline.</p>
<h2>8. The world will most likely strike a new deal to limit the effects of climate change.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The groundwork has already been laid for an international agreement at UN meetings in Paris in December to try and limit future greenhouse gas emissions, starting in 2020.</p>
<p>The world's two largest CO2 emitters, the US and China, have <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-agrees-co2-peak-by-2030-us-to-cut-emissions-by-quarter-2014-11">already made a deal</a> which should make agreement much easier. The question is, with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-atmospheric-carbon-swirl-the-globe-2014-11">atmospheric CO2 already topping 400 ppm</a> in much of the Northern Hemisphere during parts of the year (significantly above the "safe" level of 350 ppm), <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lima-un-climate-meeting-disappointment-2014-12">will whatever action</a> they take be enough?</p>
<h2>9. We'll analyze the full genome of a 400,000 year old human and learn more about how ancient human species interbred.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span><a href="http://www.nature.com/news/what-to-expect-in-2015-1.16626">Palaeogeneticists are trying to sequence</a> the entire genome from the remains of a Sima de Los Huesos human, which were found in a cave in northern Spain.</p>
<p>It'll be tough and we don't know if it's possible (analyzing the mitochondrial DNA last year was hard enough), but this should teach us more about how ancient hominid species were interrelated - and how our species emerged as the only surviving one.</p>
<h2>10. We'll get closer to stopping HIV.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>AIDS is still the <a href="http://www.who.int/hiv/en/">world's leading infectious killer</a>, but important steps in diagnosis and treatment mean that scientists have reason to think we could be at a turning point in the fight against the virus.</p>
<p><a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/diagnostics/bringing-hiv-labs-by-backpack-to-rural-africa">Backpack-sized diagnostic labs</a> are expected to arrive in Africa, and new drugs like Truvada can actually prevent people from catching HIV in the first place.</p>
<p>And even though we've tried to develop a vaccine that can stop this deadly virus unsuccessfully for years, scientists say that <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-hiv-spike-20141009-story.html">new insights into the structure of certain HIV proteins</a> put them closer than ever towards actually developing a vaccine.</p>
<h2>11. A Dengue vaccine could be available.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>Though Dengue isn't always fatal, it's a terribly painful disease that half the world's population is at risk of catching. Plus, it <a href="http://www.who.int/topics/dengue/en/">kills 20,000 a year and is the leading</a> cause of death for children in certain countries. But a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-will-medicine-change-in-2015-2014-11">vaccine has been developed</a> that protects against 60% of regular Dengue cases and is 95.5% protective against the severe, potentially fatal form of the disease.</p>
<p>That vaccine could be available in the second half of the year.</p>
<h2>12. Major research projects studying artificial intelligence will take their first steps.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>Once we develop human-level AI, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-kurzweil-thinks-well-have-human-level-ai-by-2029-2014-12">world will never be the same</a> - and some scientists think that time is coming sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>In Seattle, Paul Allen's <a href="http://allenai.org/semantic-scholar.html">Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence</a> will launch one of their three pilot AI programs, Semantic Scholar, designed to help researchers deal with the flood of new research that's continuously published in the academic world.</p>
<p>Additionally, a new 100-year study examining AI will release its first report late in the year.</p>
<p>In late 2014, Eric Horvitz began a <a href="https://stanford.app.box.com/s/266hrhww2l3gjoy9euar">100-year-long study at Stanford</a> examining the future effects of AI. They will release their first analysis of the current state and future of AI near the end of 2015.</p>
<h2>13. Institutions and projects dealing with world-changing research take their first steps.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>In the US, the $100-million <a href="http://alleninstitutecellscience.org/">Allen Institute for Cell Science</a> will take some of its first looks into the basic building block of life.</p>
<p>In the UK, the <a href="http://www.materials.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/cross-cutting-research/uom/national-graphene-institute/">National Graphene Institute</a> will open, where they'll study the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/graphene-applications-2014-6">wonder-material graphene</a>, which could eventually transform everything from fuel cell technology to battery and computing power and more.</p>
<p>And in France, teams will <a href="http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-ITER-receives-first-plant-components-0509201401.html">begin to assemble</a> the components to <a href="http://www.popsci.com/year-ideas-2015">construct Iter, a fusion energy project</a> that'll be the largest thermonuclear reactor ever built.</p>
<h2>Bonus: We have the greatest chance yet of discovering signs of extraterrestrial life.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>We're counting this as a bonus because it's incredibly unlikely, but there's still a greater chance that we'll find traces of extraterrestrial life on Mars in 2015 than ever before.</p>
<p>This is largely due to the Curiosity Rover's detection of a spike in atmospheric methane. But tracing this gas to actual existing or extinct life is still difficult and far from certain.</p>
<p>Still, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/when-will-we-find-et-aliens-2014-12">it's a slim chance</a>, but between this and our current and future plans to explore other bodies that may have water (or had water in the past), the possibility that we find some form of life continues to grow.</p>

13 Scientific Predictions For 2015

<p>Some incredible things happened in the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/2014s-most-important-discoveries-2015-1">science world in 2014</a>, but one of the best things about <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> is that we learn more and make progress every year.</p>
<p>We take new steps that we couldn't imagine decades ago. And if we look at the rate of change over time, it's astounding.</p>
<p>As retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-chris-hadfield-inspiration-video-2014-12">recently said</a>, "In 100 years we've gone from filming the Wright brothers to landing a camera on Titan, a moon 800 million miles away." That's pretty incredible.</p>
<p>So let's look ahead.</p>
<p>Here are a few potential world changers that we're looking for over the next year:</p>
<h2>1. Reusable rockets being tested by SpaceX could transform the future of space travel.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>If we're ever going to set up a colony on Mars, we're going to need to be able to land rockets there that can be re-used for a journey back to Earth. Not only that, but this reuseable rocket technology will make all space travel much cheaper.</p>
<p>And while a first-stage rocket - the bottom or largest rocket in certain launches - has never been recovered for re-use before, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-ocean-landing-january-6-2015-1">Elon Musk and SpaceX want to change that</a> this year. They plan on attempting about a dozen launches and subsequent landings on ocean platforms throughout the year. The first one is scheduled for Jan. 9.</p>
<p>Even if this attempt doesn't succeed, SpaceX will refine their techniques and technology over the course of the year.</p>
<p>In other SpaceX news, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/">Musk recently added</a> that SpaceX is hoping to announce the plans for their Mars transport system, which will be completely different from the Falcon and Dragon systems they've been using so far.</p>
<h2>2. The first version of C-3PO is going on sale in February, and its name is Pepper.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper">Japanes</a><a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper">e company Softbank will begin selling a humanoid robot</a> produced by the French company Aldebaran Robotics. Pepper has an "emotion engine" that uses artificial intelligence to help it learn your mood from face cues and learn from past experiences, and it's fluent in Japanese, English, Spanish, and French - not quite 6 million forms of communication, but a start.</p>
<p>And while this robot is designed to be more of a companion than a helper (better at reading you a recipe than manipulating the tools to cook food, <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/how-aldebaran-robotics-built-its-friendly-humanoid-robot-pepper">according to IEEE Spectrum</a>), it should become more and more capable over time as new applications and capabilities are programmed in.</p>
<h2>3. We could learn that there's an invisible universe that mirrors our own.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The Large Hadron Collider is going to <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/what-to-expect-in-2015-1.16626">power back on in March</a> after a two year hiatus and it will be crashing particles together at twice the power it had before. No one knows exactly what we'll learn from this, but possibilities include particles associated with dark matter.</p>
<p>Further, the presence or absence of certain particles could prove or disprove the supersymmetry theory, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cern-march-2015-protons-higher-speeds-20141215-story.html">which holds that there is a mirror universe</a> to our own made of invisible particles that have mass and correspond to what we can see.</p>
<h2>4. Parts of Einstein's theory of relativity could be proven - or disproven - depending on whether or not we find gravitational waves.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>If physics works as Einstein thought, there should be gravitational waves rippling through space-time. Two experiments this year give us our greatest shot at detecting those waves ever.</p>
<p>In July, the <a href="http://www.popsci.com/node/223160">LISA Pathfinder will launch to test technology</a> for a space-based gravitational wave observatory.</p>
<p>On Earth, the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors we've ever built, the <a href="https://www.advancedligo.mit.edu/summary.html">Advanced LIGO detectors</a>, will be turned on.</p>
<h2>5. We're getting our closest look ever at Pluto. (And we're visiting Ceres, another dwarf planet.)</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-horizons-pluto-watching-probe-2014-11">New Horizons mission</a>, which launched Jan. 19, 2006, back when Pluto still had eight months left of being called a planet, will arrive at its closest point to the dwarf planet after a 5 billion kilometer journey on July 14.</p>
<p>It'll snap some photos that will show us Pluto's surface and Charon, its largest moon, before heading on to explore the Kuiper Belt.</p>
<p>In April, NASA's Dawn probe will reach Ceres, the largest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, and <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-expect-scientists-to-do-in-2015/?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter">one that's believed</a> to have water ice beneath its crust.</p>
<h2>6. The world's worst Ebola epidemic ever will hopefully be stopped.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The Ebola epidemic is <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/">far from over</a> in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Drug tests are underway and vaccine trials are <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-to-expect-scientists-to-do-in-2015/">scheduled to begin</a> soon. Hopefully these, combined with improved public health measures, make a crucial difference toward stopping the worst outbreak of Ebola we've ever seen.</p>
<h2>7. The FAA is supposed to come up with airspace regulations for drones.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>Congress has mandated that by September, the FAA has to come up with a way for drones to be integrated into US airspace, making those Amazon drone-delivered packages a possibility, but also with various uses for scientists, including watching wildlife, creating maps, and monitoring wilderness areas - but <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/1/5862158/faa-will-likely-miss-september-2015-drone-integration-deadline-report">there are indications</a> that despite the legal regulation, they won't hit that deadline.</p>
<h2>8. The world will most likely strike a new deal to limit the effects of climate change.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>The groundwork has already been laid for an international agreement at UN meetings in Paris in December to try and limit future greenhouse gas emissions, starting in 2020.</p>
<p>The world's two largest CO2 emitters, the US and China, have <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-agrees-co2-peak-by-2030-us-to-cut-emissions-by-quarter-2014-11">already made a deal</a> which should make agreement much easier. The question is, with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-atmospheric-carbon-swirl-the-globe-2014-11">atmospheric CO2 already topping 400 ppm</a> in much of the Northern Hemisphere during parts of the year (significantly above the "safe" level of 350 ppm), <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lima-un-climate-meeting-disappointment-2014-12">will whatever action</a> they take be enough?</p>
<h2>9. We'll analyze the full genome of a 400,000 year old human and learn more about how ancient human species interbred.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span><a href="http://www.nature.com/news/what-to-expect-in-2015-1.16626">Palaeogeneticists are trying to sequence</a> the entire genome from the remains of a Sima de Los Huesos human, which were found in a cave in northern Spain.</p>
<p>It'll be tough and we don't know if it's possible (analyzing the mitochondrial DNA last year was hard enough), but this should teach us more about how ancient hominid species were interrelated - and how our species emerged as the only surviving one.</p>
<h2>10. We'll get closer to stopping HIV.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>AIDS is still the <a href="http://www.who.int/hiv/en/">world's leading infectious killer</a>, but important steps in diagnosis and treatment mean that scientists have reason to think we could be at a turning point in the fight against the virus.</p>
<p><a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/diagnostics/bringing-hiv-labs-by-backpack-to-rural-africa">Backpack-sized diagnostic labs</a> are expected to arrive in Africa, and new drugs like Truvada can actually prevent people from catching HIV in the first place.</p>
<p>And even though we've tried to develop a vaccine that can stop this deadly virus unsuccessfully for years, scientists say that <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-hiv-spike-20141009-story.html">new insights into the structure of certain HIV proteins</a> put them closer than ever towards actually developing a vaccine.</p>
<h2>11. A Dengue vaccine could be available.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>Though Dengue isn't always fatal, it's a terribly painful disease that half the world's population is at risk of catching. Plus, it <a href="http://www.who.int/topics/dengue/en/">kills 20,000 a year and is the leading</a> cause of death for children in certain countries. But a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-will-medicine-change-in-2015-2014-11">vaccine has been developed</a> that protects against 60% of regular Dengue cases and is 95.5% protective against the severe, potentially fatal form of the disease.</p>
<p>That vaccine could be available in the second half of the year.</p>
<h2>12. Major research projects studying artificial intelligence will take their first steps.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>Once we develop human-level AI, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-kurzweil-thinks-well-have-human-level-ai-by-2029-2014-12">world will never be the same</a> - and some scientists think that time is coming sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>In Seattle, Paul Allen's <a href="http://allenai.org/semantic-scholar.html">Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence</a> will launch one of their three pilot AI programs, Semantic Scholar, designed to help researchers deal with the flood of new research that's continuously published in the academic world.</p>
<p>Additionally, a new 100-year study examining AI will release its first report late in the year.</p>
<p>In late 2014, Eric Horvitz began a <a href="https://stanford.app.box.com/s/266hrhww2l3gjoy9euar">100-year-long study at Stanford</a> examining the future effects of AI. They will release their first analysis of the current state and future of AI near the end of 2015.</p>
<h2>13. Institutions and projects dealing with world-changing research take their first steps.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>In the US, the $100-million <a href="http://alleninstitutecellscience.org/">Allen Institute for Cell Science</a> will take some of its first looks into the basic building block of life.</p>
<p>In the UK, the <a href="http://www.materials.manchester.ac.uk/our-research/cross-cutting-research/uom/national-graphene-institute/">National Graphene Institute</a> will open, where they'll study the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/graphene-applications-2014-6">wonder-material graphene</a>, which could eventually transform everything from fuel cell technology to battery and computing power and more.</p>
<p>And in France, teams will <a href="http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-ITER-receives-first-plant-components-0509201401.html">begin to assemble</a> the components to <a href="http://www.popsci.com/year-ideas-2015">construct Iter, a fusion energy project</a> that'll be the largest thermonuclear reactor ever built.</p>
<h2>Bonus: We have the greatest chance yet of discovering signs of extraterrestrial life.</h2>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span>We're counting this as a bonus because it's incredibly unlikely, but there's still a greater chance that we'll find traces of extraterrestrial life on Mars in 2015 than ever before.</p>
<p>This is largely due to the Curiosity Rover's detection of a spike in atmospheric methane. But tracing this gas to actual existing or extinct life is still difficult and far from certain.</p>
<p>Still, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/when-will-we-find-et-aliens-2014-12">it's a slim chance</a>, but between this and our current and future plans to explore other bodies that may have water (or had water in the past), the possibility that we find some form of life continues to grow.</p>

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