From astronauts being launched into space, to giant refugee puppets in Europe, to young Asian entrepreneurs fighting climate change, this is November’s edition of 5 Good News In 5 Minutes:

1. SpaceX’s historic flight

This past Wednesday at 7:30 PM, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket made history by taking four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), breaking the nine-year gap since regular crewed missions took off from NASA. In under 15 minutes, the Tesla-developed rocket reached the point in which it detached from its rocket and went on into space. 27 hours later, the mission docked at the International Space Station.

The mission is part of the first-ever commercial Crew-1 Program and included two astronauts from NASA, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, one JAXA astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, and commander Mike Hopkins aboard the “Dragon” capsule; the mission is set to last six months. National Geographic has said that this team will accomplish a series of “firsts” before their return in May 2021, being the first spacecraft developed in America to send astronauts into space in nine years, seeing as the space program had previously relied on the Russian Soyuz machinery.

Pilot Glover is also the first Black astronaut to ever go on an extended stay on the International Space Station, and engineer Shannon Walker has also become the first woman to orbit in a commercial spacecraft. Walker has said that she expects to be “the first of many,” and “looks forward to the day that we don’t have to note such events.” Glover has also said that he is honored to be in his position, and hopes to celebrate once the mission is accomplished. The research conducted on this mission will included an analysis of how astronauts’ bodies respond to the environment in space.

2. Alliance raises over $2 billion to provide poor nations with COVID shots

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has recently announced new donations for a fund with the mission to protect the world’s adults against the Coronavirus pandemic. Since 2020, Gavi has been protecting half the world’s children against deadly diseases globally. The donations come from the European Commission, France, Spain, Korea, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, totaling its fundraising revenue to $2 billion.

With this funding, Gavi COMAX AMC is now able to reserve and have access to approximately 1 billion doses of a Moderna vaccine in development for both low- and middle-income economies. This announcement comes as 94 high-income economies have officially joined the COVAX facility. The COVAX facility is a global initiative that is designed to guarantee quick and equitable access to effective vaccines against COVID-19 for vulnerable groups around the world.

“We are incredibly grateful for the support received so far. This vital funding not only helps us ensure lower-income economies aren’t left at the back of the queue when safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines become available, it will also play a vital role in ending the acute phase of this pandemic worldwide. We urgently need to raise at least an additional $5 billion by the end of 2021 to ensure equitable distribution of these vaccines to those who need them.”

Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi

3. Britain helps remote inhabited islands establish largest marine-protected area in the Atlantic

Governments and ecological organizations have worked hand in hand to create the fourth-largest marine protected area in the world, and the largest in the Atlantic Ocean, an area centered around the little archipelago of Tristan da Cunha located in the Southern Atlantic. The region spans 265,347 square miles and is almost three times as big as Great Britain and will protect millions of native and migratory birds, rare sharks, whales, seals, and undersea plants, all valued as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, from illegal extractive activities.

The territorial island is part of the United Kingdom and recently announced that the government, in close partnership with the Royal Society for the protection of Birds and National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Initiative, is now conserving surrounding oceans. The objective of this program is to help achieve a specific aspect of the Sustainable Development Goal of “securing protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.”

The community is set to form part of the United Kingdom’s Blue Belt of marine protection, which has so far protected around four million square miles of ocean habitat. National Geographic has described the area as the perfect combination between California’s Big Sur, and Edinburgh, being the home to approximately 245 people coming from Britain, Italy, Holland, and the United States. The majority of these people are villagers who make their living by sustainable lobster fishery in an area excluded from the protected zone.

4. Giant Puppet Travels Across Europe to Raise Awareness about Refugees

A giant puppet (3.5 meters tall) modeled to look like a young Syrian girl, named Little Amal, is set to travel close to 8,000 kilometers from the border between Turkey and Syria all the way to the United Kingdom in 2021 in order to raise awareness about the refugee crisis in Europe, specifically the conditions that refugee children face.

The puppet is part of a traveling art festival called “The Walk” whose main aim is to spread “an urgent message from refugees”: “Don’t forget about us.” This group will meet in refugee camps across Europe to help them share their stories with the rest of the world. The project is led by Good Chance Theatre, a British company that is known for using the arts to promote social justice, in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company. The project’s artistic director is Amir Nizar Zuabi, a Palestinian playwright and director.

Amal will be traveling through 70 cities, villages, and small towns, in countries like Greece, Germany, Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, Turkey, and France until it reunites with her “puppet mother”, returns to “puppet school”, and builds a new life in a safer country in order to model the life of actual refugee children. The project will end once Amal arrives at the Manchester International Festival set to take place in July 2021.

5. “Not All Rotten are Forgotten”: Filipino student turns rotten food into solar windows

Carvey Maigue, a student enrolled at Mapua University, has recently been nominated for the James Dyson Award 2020 after inventing AuREUS, a device that is able to convert rotten fruit into a new source of clean and renewable electricity. AuREUS is one out of 1,800 inventions from other young entrepreneurs from across 27 countries in the world, part of a competition with one criteria: “design something that solves a problem.”

Maigue’s system uses crop waste, including rotten vegetables and fruits, all designed to absorb stray rays of UV light coming from the sun and transform it into electricity. AuREUS is installed into the windows and walls of buildings, using the same technology to recreate the phenomena of the Northern lights. Luminescent particles absorb particles with high energy and then continue to re-emit them as visible lights. Particles that are also imitated by the rotten food were then suspended in a resin substrate, and when the sunlight hits, these particles emit light in the edges with the captured light turning into electricity.

“This year has brought massive challenges, and if one thing is certain, our top 20 inventors have shown that young minds and unfiltered curiosity need a seat at the table. There is always a need to solve problems, and the number and breadth of this year’s entries show that the future of invention is bright.”

Tom Crawford, James Dyson global director of sustainability

---

Sources: