Last weekend, at 5:07 pm on December 10, 2023, China's SQX-2Y commercial reusable rocket completed its second test flight at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, marking the first reuse of a rocket story in China.
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[..] Speaking of the potential of BRICS countries, the space aspect is often overlooked. In total, there are around 80 space agencies in the world, including all BRICS countries. However, only nine agencies are capable of producing space launchers, including Russia, India, and China. Only three states in the world have conducted human spaceflights: Russia, China, and the United States. Furthermore, these countries have or have had their own orbital stations.
As we can see, BRICS brings together not only members with high potential in the space industry but also space leaders.
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[..] SpaceX's Starship spacecraft atop Super Heavy first stage booster is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever flown, with twice the thrust of the American-developed Saturn V launch vehicle in the 1960s, and even more powerful than the N1 /L3 conceived by the Soviets in the same period, whose first stage was the most powerful stage of a rocket ever flown for over 50 years, generating 45.4 MN of thrust. By comparison, SpaceX's Starship generated 75.9 MN thrust. Curiously, each of the four attempts to launch an N1 failed, with the second attempt resulting in the vehicle crashing onto the launch pad shortly after liftoff. Considering how SpaceX is considering a hole in its launch pad and not the entire destruction of its spaceport helps put into perspective the engineering difficulty of launching an integrated rocket of that size, and the success of having lifted off and flown a vehicle that reached an altitude that in fifty years no one had ever tried to pass or even reach.
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It might seem exaggerated, even reverent at times, but considering the significant role that Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier has played in the musical education of keyboard instrumentalists. The preludes and fugues of the "Well-Tempered Clavier" encompass an entire cosmos of compositional elements and musical themes, representing an excellent metaphor for what unity in diversity signifies.
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[..] Putting in space the *James Webb Space Telescope* will represent a huge paradigm shift for humanity, a great moment of introspection.
As the most widespread, anomalous, powerful, and formidable animal species the Earth has ever produced, we face enormous challenges, such as our relationship with Earth and contradictions. We look out into the cosmos with curiosity, hoping that other intelligent life forms exist.
However, on Earth, we have not always been alone.
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[..] The first major mass extinction occurred 2.5 billion years ago. At the time, the Earth was a wasteland devoid of oxygen. The oceans were rich in dissolved iron, and anaerobic microorganisms (which evolved to resist and thrive in an oxygen-free environment) dominated the young Earth. We do not know exactly when the cyanobacteria arrived on the scene; however, cyanobacteria weren't that different from anaerobic microrganisms: they too produced energy from sunlight. Except that in the process of extracting energy, they released a waste gas: oxygen.
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[..] The little girl called him "padroncino" (read, little master) because he had imposed his dominion over her identity and body. She used to striptease and dance naked in the bedroom of the man who combined in his sick person the role of the father, husband and lover—a story indeed of perversion and dehumanisation. When Oreste was close to death, Micia (aged 14) even thought of taking her own life. This story dates back to the early 1990s and it tells us how some stories and past sufferings can go on for a long time.
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