SpaceX's Historic Mission 🚀
Crime is down, Uber India layoffs, and Osaka becomes highest paid female athlete.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
Filter Coffee is a newsletter that hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day. Sign up below for free 👇
Let’s go ahead and get started:
Stock market summary: 😍
US - S&P 500 up 1.23% 🔼
India - Sensex down 0.21% 🔽
SpaceX prepares for historic mission 🚀
SpaceX, the space exploration company founded by Elon Musk, will launch its first manned mission, putting a crew of 2 NASA astronauts in space. 👨🚀
This will be nearly the first time in a decade that people will be launched into space from American soil, and the first time ever that a private company puts men into space. This flight is really a test of the progress we have made in space on many levels. 👏👏
The launch is part of NASA’s broad initiative to prepare the space for commercial missions - called the Commercial Crew Program. For the launch, Space X’s contribution is the capsule called the Dragon Crew, which will house the crew for the launch.
It took SpaceX nearly 6 years to get the project ready. The company had been thoroughly redesigning and testing the capsule over and over again. Many times, the results hadn’t been very promising. Incidents have included fires, rocket failures, and even an explosion last year.
But things seem to have improved and yesterday’s tests have again shown great results. The vehicle’s first two passengers are experienced NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will be making the mission tomorrow. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will take off with the astronauts from the company’s launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida tomorrow.
The entire world is wishing the astronauts a safe flight, success of which will turn a historic page in man’s quest to explore space. Read more about the mission here.
Wall Street to get back to business🕴️
The New York Stock Exchange is all set to open its trading floors after a two month hiatus. The number of traders on the floor however will be less this time around, just 25% of full capacity. The exchange floor was closed for brokers when the pandemic struck.
According to The Wall Street Journal, new and better safety measure will be in place to ensure that there is no further spread of the virus within the staff, as that could lead to mass panic in the markets. Traders will be required to wear masks at all times and avoid public transport to limit their exposure to the virus. Screening and temperature checks will be mandatory each day.
The NYSE had shifted to electronic trading earlier this year, closing its floors for the first time in history when 2 people had tested positive for COVID-19. 😷
Highest paid female athlete🎾
Naomi Osaka, 22, the Japanese tennis star has surpassed Serena Williams to become the highest paid woman athlete in history, raking a whopping $34 million in 2019. She earned the income through game wins, brand endorsements and apparel deals.
While that may be something worth celebrating for the player, critics have been using the moment to draw attention to a different topic by highlighting tennis superstar Roger Federer’s $95 million in earnings in 2019, almost 3 times more than Osaka.
The issue of gender based pay disparity has been a hotly contested topic world wide and women champions now have a new data point to prove their point.
On similar lines, the US Women Soccer team in March last year had filed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation accusing them of institutionalized gender discrimination, including pay disparity. Despite winning many World Cups, they earned only 40% compared to the mens team.
Anyway, Naomi stood at Number 29 on the Forbes Top 100 highest paid athletes list. Regardless of the comparisons, her successes are nothing short of what her men equivalents achieve in the sport, and comes as a huge victory to women in professional sports. The fight for equal pay however has a long way to go.🙌
Saving an entire species🦏
Corona continues to take a toll on our nature. Now the efforts to save the nearly extinct Northern White Rhinoceros have been put on hold due to the virus.
Due to ban in travel, scientists are unable to carry out an in-vitro fertilization to save the Northern White Rhinos. The last 2 Rhinos left are females, and the task of inseminating their eggs using the frozen sperm from dead Northern male Rhinos, and then transferring the embryo to the Southern female Rhinos who is the surrogate mother has been pending due to travel bans.
The embryos tend to be time sensitive and the scientists seem to be on the clock here as the embryo loses its viability once the female becomes too old.
The last Northern male Rhino was a 45 year old named Sudan who had to be euthanized due to age related illnesses. The eggs from the Northern female Rhinos are limited. Without the intervention of science., there is no hope for these Rhinos to reproduce naturally.
Scientists hope that the news of the hardships in allowing for nature’s cycle to continue will at the least help in drawing peoples attention towards extinction of Rhinos due to hunting and poaching. 🤞
Crime seems to have gone down📉
With millions of people off the streets and cities devoid of tourists, crime against people in various cities seems to have dropped manifold.
Cities in America are relishing the moment. Nightclubs and bars are usually the locus of assaults and crimes in Las Vegas for example, but major crime fell almost 22% during the first two months of the lockdown. Crime in New York City dropped 21% as compared to last year.
But most of the criminal activities are now happening in residential areas, since that’s where majority of the population is sheltered. Also, as foot traffic is falling, burglars are taking advantage of the closed shops and unattended cars. For example in New York, although crime against human beings is down, car burglaries and thefts have jumped by at least 68%. 💀
The people are safe, but the unattended goods not so much.
HCQ research halted🚫
Due to safety concerns surrounding the usage of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the World Health Organization has halted all research related to HCQ usage. HCQ which is originally a drug used to treat Malaria, was given to COVID-19 patients as a temporary treatment.
The decision of halting all research came after studies showed how HCQ aggravated the health conditions of the COVID-19 patients with some of them developing severe heart problems. Also the drug itself has been put under a review to evaluate the potential benefits and harms.
The move came a few days after President Trump said he was taking the drug as a preventative medicine. Positive comments about the drug from the President have caused a surge in the sales of the drug. 💊
HCQ is generally a safe medicine to treat autoimmune diseases and malaria but recently had sparked interest when it showed a slight ray of hope in treating the Coronavirus.
What else are we Snackin’🍿
🤒 Wuhan tests 6.68 million people amidst fears of a second wave of infections
🚕 Uber India announces mass layoffs
📈 COVID-19 cases spike in Brazil
✈️ LATNAM airlines files for chapter 11 bankruptcy
↘️ India’s fatality rate stands at 2.87 making it one of worlds lowest
Tweet of the day -
Be it everyday folks, casual hobbyists or space nerds, everyone is excited about tomorrow’s Space X launch. Its going to be a beautiful summer day, with a shimmering red sky. The tests have been successful and the crew is exited. We encourage you to watch the launch as well, at 2AM India-time on 28th May 2020.
You can stream it on SpaceX’s webpage here.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
If you like it, show us some love by clicking the heart icon below. And don’t forget to invite your friends.