Seeing earth from outer space not many people have had the experience. What is alexander gets to is just started his Second Mission to the International Space station. Each of these images during his first run. And soon will be seeing. Germanys very own super star astro alex. Hes been doing the rounds of the t. V. Talk shows. And he has lots of fans in high places too. That he can define yes of course we should be following the news about astro alex very closely myself included for. Alexander guest is the first german astronaut to win a large fan base for himself and space travel. Guys astronaut alexander gets here from baikonur hes a cool dude and also down to earth he talks to his fans on twitter where his handle is astro alex he has more than a million followers theyre excited about the Horizons Mission on the International Space station. Its gas second time up there but his first as commander. Very humbled by the trust that people have in me to actually come on this. Fantastic space station but of course its comes with a big responsibility also already in training. Gastons crew spent two years training for the mission. It involved complex medical tests and experiments. The fans were kept informed. Even when he tried space food which he says text better than it looks. These many to trigger. You know i can make choices based on i remember. A few new ones in between to sort of get. On the menu in the heavens is comfort food from guests home region the swabian equivalent of macaroni and cheese. The crew wont just be feasting but also working hard. Best. To conduct almost seventy scientific experiments. More than half of them work for top in Germany Research institutes across the country a thousand experts in fields ranging from botany to robotics will be helping with the science. Assistant is even going along for the ride an ai based digital assistant named simon. Schoolchildren have contributed to a special guest on board. The time capsule containing among other things wishes for the future of eight thousand kids. Its meant to be opened in fifteen years time. But fans of space travel and astro alex wont have to wait that long for news hes planning a press conference from the i says on the twelfth of june. Shortly before blastoff as to alex waved goodbye to his fans. As he had a how to tell message for his mother some of our views of the good wishes to determine asteroids. Aswell legs astro alec space sounds really intense and crazy but you handle it with no problem cool and easy easy step by time in the center of your beautiful pictures back to earth you will never get to see the real thing. The end of us is the end of the all the best for your journey on how the safe return comes i wish you a very pleasant trip i am very jealous of you. You have a very nice to say it might. Take lots of pictures and i hope the food is tasty and. Tough to release its head and enjoy your time in zero gravity which sounds really cool youll be a great commander and i know youll do us proud oh its wanted to experience weightless. Yes i have an awesome time alex eventually after you have got the final joy the experience and when you get that feel proud of what youve accomplished and have dispersed bialek stare at lives have a good trip its going to be great bike always a few. Bike when youre in kazakhstan home of the Worlds Largest space launch facility not much has changed since yreka guarin lifted off here in the one nine hundred sixty one. Every lowers follows the same rituals and traditions for example on the eve of the launch the crew get a haircut and watch the same soviet era. Our Accorsi Uribe says he was on hand for the sendoff. That. Its not long until takeoff astro alex and two fellow astronauts are about to be blasted into space in a capsule mounted on a russian soyuz rocket. Our d. W. Team arrived two days earlier so we could watch the preparations. By mean by cool new or at the Worlds Largest space power to cause more drama as its called here in the middle of the kazakhstan. Its the busiest spaceport in the world and nine hundred sixty one yuri gagarin set off from here on the first trip by a human into outer space in preparation for takeoff the rocket is brought to the launch pad by rail there is lots of security personnel the reason i am told is the risk of espionage. And here comes the iraq. The long shot at seven oclock in the morning. But the launch vehicle will burn up when it falls back to earth only the small capsule with the crew inside will speed on to dock with the i assess. It only takes a few minutes until the spacecraft is going to come technicians and engineers check every detail up until the last moment everything has to work perfectly Thomas Reiter is a retired astronaut who has come to watch obviously the launch as one of the more risky phases but its also something the crew is really looking forward to to experience these incredible forces that push the humans from the surface of this planet into orbit its remarkable that. Its pretty quick less than nine minutes from lift off until you reach the weightlessness and you are traveling with almost twenty eight thousand Kilometers Per Hour its something to look forward to. The final finishing touches everybody here is a true professional. Now we have some time left to look around at the city of baikonur just twenty kilometers from the spaceport. This is where the staff of the carts were drawn that just like in soviet times behind defense then and now. Literally outsiders may only enter the challenge with a special permit. Back to the cosmic drone for a press conference the crew are behind glass screen to keep away from germs and infection is the last thing they need in space. The Mission Commander is like sand against the other two are Sergei Prokofiev from russia and serena on your own chancellor from the u. S. You know this imagine you know this you guys is its always been in place three which is really our families do it in the world. In time to the point with all of the media in the interest of the browns most know. Me from cleveland is a no these guys are fantastic in order to come in the. Nothing were. Told before every launch a Russian Orthodox priest comes to bless the rock. Its a tradition that goes back more than twenty years. The. Two hours before takeoff the three saunter calmly down cause minots alley to the coach that will take them to the launch pad. An old song about cosmonauts by a soviet rock band players out a trip to the pioneers. A very little piece of what was the very last of old before the blast of a very emotional. In that three say goodbye to their colleagues and loved ones alexander gas jet caper coffee have been serina on your own chancellor will be out of this world until december. Is also enlisted good slim name of science many states migrate when and where is in the team is. The species travel tens of thousands of kilometers but many only thought of just believe that Climate Change is affecting these migration patterns now theyll be investigating that question from outer space. Birds are too small to be seen from space but the International Space stations Icarus Technology should allow scientists to monitor birds and other small animals from high above the earth researchers hope to gain new insight into the animals and how their. I gratian patterns are affected by extreme weather and Climate Change. The data could also help predict the spread of diseases such as bird flu. Sixteen years of work have gone into the Research Project the lab was transported by rocket to the space station. Purpose built antennas equipped with the technology will be mounted in august back on earth researchers have fitted thousands of birds with sensors similar to tiny backpacks these will send data on their movements temperature moisture and the effect of Magnetic Fields up into space the birds will act as environmental monitors the scientists are also planning to attract insects swarms and shoals of fish all from outer space. Did you know that time can take different depending on your speed of motion if one twin were to go on the space flights shed be younger than her expensively on return at least according to the theory of relativity. Higher of ten wanted to know more. Why is einsteins theory of relativity so famous. Relativity together with quantum theory form the basis of modern physics. Theory of relativity describes the composition of the universe and how it developed and its not much like oh every day experience of the world time is relative and light doesnt travel in Straight Lines and only appears to fall from a tree. The theory says that gravity is the force of attraction but objects exert upon each other and that massive objects distort time and space and that was very new. Einstein came up with the famous formula equals Mc Squared Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. It says that mass of energy are two forms of the same thing. That helps us understand how the sun works Nuclear Fusion causes the release of energy. Im steins theory explains the release of energy in an atomic bomb which makes use of Nuclear Fission thermonuclear bombs also involved Nuclear Fusion. Scientists dream of harnessing that for peaceful purposes to develop power plants that release energy the way the sun does. G. P. S. Only works because relativity has been factored in to correct for time flowing faster for the satellites in orbit. Otherwise the whole cost saturn up would fail so relativity is not just an abstract theory it plays a very real road in our modern high tech lives. If outlet is right why object latin even if they. Do you have a question then just ask him and tell him he will send you a small surprise send us your question like it is a text message over or smell we have to hear from you. Find us at d. F. W. Dot com slash science or drop us a nine eleven here under schools site tech. Facebook d. W. Science. Theoretical physics is a complex subject that makes it all the more amusing that one of its heroes has become such a cultural icon Albert Einstein. Animates his a new tricks book germany has brought the scientific genius back to life. An elderly gentleman is exasperated with modern technology. Someone certainly never had a smartphone. If god has created to go in stramonium very. Own making understanding easy for us. Albert einstein resurrected in digital form ponders the mysteries of the universe. Its part of a project launched by the Animation Institute at the film academy button button back theyre trying to overcome one of the major hurdles in animation creating a natural and convincing human face. In digital animation one of the trickiest aspects is that the more human an animated figure appears the more difficult it is to create authentic looking facial expressions and emotions for us because were all experts in interpret in facial expressions so we notice right away when something looks right all seems off. To create an authentic looking digital image the researchers first analyzed many pictures of Albert Einstein. These two dimensional photographs were then used to create a three d. Model. The next hurdle is taking the digital image and breathing life into it. Not capturing einstein spirit at least somewhat its really tricky we did tons of research and tried to model our character on images that were more than just the Mad Professor with crazy hair. We wanted to create a realistic character like something out of a documentary. Next they made busts of Albert Einstein without the trademark moustache to analyze the areas around the eyes and mouth that are most important in communicating emotion. They also documented the effects of light and shadow. These methods they mapped out einstein space even more precisely than they could on a computer. Before. Then came another tricky process we had to find an actor whose appearance harmonized well with all digital figure. When we insert our digital face over the actors we wanted to be the best possible match. And that proved to be quite challenging. For certain physical features of the act so we worked with was slightly different from the material we did most as a reference point. The next step was the most important one creating an authentic looking digital faith. For a viewer even a tiny unnatural looking movement can appear disconcerting or creepy. The research has developed Animation Software to help until recently digitally generated movements were always linear. But now muscle groups can be animated using complex nonLinear Motion which looks much more natural. So the motion of the lips is no longer linear like on the left instead like on the right it can follow a curve more like a human face. When the human actor and the digital the generated face are finally merged result looks astonishingly real and. Find me. She would be. And. So to any attachment and the nation all national and but so. Often we get volume we did a careful evaluation of user groups and surveys and found out that our approach to generating facial movement did far better. The Standard Approach with Linear Motion did was about two thirds of respondents said our face looked more lifelike and real. Pentagon released. Inspired by photographs of Albert Einstein taken in the one nine hundred fifty s. Their researchers have succeeded in creating a digital work of art. The animated Albert Einstein is a mostly convincing this new animation technique offers all sorts of possibilities for example in documentary films. Our einstein could be used in the future to for example in a recent t. V. Documentary about einstein he was portrayed by a real actor but of course the actor didnt look exactly like him so you could imagine taking our einstein face and projecting it out to the actor and those least exist im steins of course. The researchers produced a three part many Series Starring their Albert Einstein the famous physicist ponders the nature of humanity chats about relativity and tries to get the hang of a smartphone. Hes not just visually realistic he captures einstein spirit just as theyd hoped. Hed done this in fifteen or three films are a tribute to Albert Einstein to him as a person and to his lifes work. We also wanted to show whats technologically feasible biased. I have revised theories the real Albert Einstein would surely have approved close to his digital double and that deriving a formula that gives the answer to lifes most important question is surprisingly simple. All you need is al. Unclothed ciro time. Square root. All. And thats all you need. A good meal also will miss the high even in outer space. On the other uses theyve already carried out experiments in growing their own vegetables maybe one day on longer missions theyll be able to enjoy the fresh produce. That this new forms of listening taste even in new york city where land is at a premium. New york is a vertical City Real Estate prices are soaring to new heights and its among the worlds most expensive cities so space here would appear far too expensive to grow vegetables. But the solution lie underground in this manhattan basement a start up is growing produce for high end restaurants doctrinaires believe that indoor farming could be the first step to selfsufficiency for the metropolis the heart your product farm measures just fifty square meters the plants grow on shelves which more than doubles the growing area. So this is a bomb growing close to two hundred different. Edible flowers a microgram and so on every shelf of every part of this room thats something different. Thanks to Energy Efficient l. E. D. Lights the indoor farm is environmentally friendly the plants need just five percent as much water as in conventional farming and they are subject to weather conditions for growing seasons the system that farm one is based on just in time production are harvested so theyre delivered on the exact dates chosen by clients evidently growers to order so the chef has told us i want some. Thing on a particular day and we grow it specially for that so we know exactly how long it takes all crops to grow so that we can determine when she weighs plants and what we should plant. The Company Founder is originally from australia farm one is not his first startup blank spent seven years in tokyo where he started a Software Company but his true passion is food he launched farm one with his savings and crowdfunding two years ago this is called a problem. This is a salad and you might use this any time you might use lemon juice or then again its that. Farm one attaches great importance to purity it grows without pesticides or genetically modified seeds. Ladybugs are used to keep pests in check. So we use old plant based bio digestive nutrients and some fish waste and some bad waste so its called an organic nutrient solution its not a mixture of chemical fertilizers its something that a plant can really salt and enjoy. Nearly six hundred different edible plants have been grown at the indoor farm the start up likes to experiment the sort of being grown here will be ready for harvest in three weeks. So is it possible to provide the city of new york with vegetables grown exclusively with indoor farming. Its probably not possible to all of the food needs of this kind of city with indoor farming but i think that we can make a big difference and i think that we can stop so much importation of products from california by growing a lot more things locally