I found an article claiming the Russians are making plans to convert or add to their modules at the ISS in the form of a space hotel

Interesting. That disagrees with their stated aims or removing their modules for their own space station. Where was that?

Why does Russia need a luxury hotel on the International Space Station?
https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/327189-russia-plans-luxury-space-hotel

Why does Russia need a luxury space hotel? Space tourism is gaining popularity as a way to generate income that can help offset the costs of an increasingly expensive space program. Another main reason, however, is that Russia is using only 30 percent of its space station segment.
"It's worth expanding the Russian segment," said Vladimir Solntsev, head of Energia, in early 2017. "Our ISS modules are 20-25 years old, and they’ve exhausted their resources. Using them for experiments and serious work is becoming less efficient. Why not transform them into a space hotel for space tourism?"Construction will take at least five years, but the expiration date for ISS is 2028 [now 2030]. Does the new Russian space hotel project mean that the space station’s life will be extended?
“The details will be announced soon,” said an official at the Russian space agency.

Do we definitely know for sure that it has changed?

No. Even the authors of the proposal admit there are a few serious problems:)

The main potential stumbling block is the technical complexity involved in building the new module, even if the engineers can take advantage of existing blueprints and some available spare parts from its government-funded sibling. In the past two decades, the efforts to restart the assembly of the Russian part of the ISS have been chronically behind schedule.
RKK Energia estimates that it would take at least five years to build the tourist module, which means that if the work began right away, it would make it to the station in 2022 or later. Hence, the project might not have those seven years required to pay off the investments. Also the project will be vulnerable to currency exchange fluctuations and cost overruns, the authors of the study said.

No Big Science project can be done without international cooperation. The most ambitious so far is ITER, the big Tokamak being built in France. The Tokamak concept is Russian in origin, and is an acronym of Toroidal Kamera Magnetika. 35 nations are contributing to ITER.Two existing Tokamaks that support ITER with their research are JET, Joint European Torus, Culham, in UK, and Garching, in Germany. Another international project, on a smaller scale, is the SESAME Synchrotron Radiation Source in Jordan, which is staffed by Arab, Israel,Italian, Iraqi , Turkish and Iranian personnel, all working together.
Tullio

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To me, commercializing the ISS is just what the doctor ordered. It would take some of the strain from the cost of operation off the various agencies that are paying the bills. If we can't keep this small station operating how in the world can it be expected to build something much larger such as the big spoked wheel in the 2001 movie.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

To me, commercializing the ISS is just what the doctor ordered. It would take some of the strain from the cost of operation off the various agencies that are paying the bills. If we can't keep this small station operating how in the world can it be expected to build something much larger such as the big spoked wheel in the 2001 movie.

When we come to the realization that will be the only home for humanity after we failed to address AGW.

AGW

I must say Gary, you are the prince of acronyms. ;~)

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

"Nature Briefings" reports that the Hubble Wide Field camera has stopped working and that the US Gov shutdown is not allowing a team to try to repair it. But this time there is no Shuttle for a recovery mission.
Tullio

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I must say Gary, you are the Prince Of Acronyms. ;~)

POA means Price on application, or the Prison Officers Association. (the more polite ones)

Missed: Power of Attorney (the most common one)

Citizen astronomers discover new planet that NASA algorithms missed

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope might not be doing much anymore, but discoveries are still being made thanks to the data it left behind. By analyzing its historical records, and crowdsourcing help from volunteer astronomers, a citizen team has discovered a new planet roughly twice the size of Earth. The planet, known as K2-288Bb, could be rocky, or gas-rich, similar to Neptune. Its discovery is particularly exciting because the planet's size (just slightly smaller than Neptune) is so rare among those beyond our solar system – known as exoplanets.

K2-288Bb is located 226 light years away, in the constellation Taurus and part of a stellar system which contains two dim stars roughly 5.1 billion miles apart. One of the stars is half as large as the sun, the other around one-third the size of the sun. The research team found that the new planet orbits the smaller star every 3.1 days. According to the discovery's supporting paper, this star is theoretically capable of sustaining biospheres with the same productivity as Earth

Elon Musk said on Friday that his company, SpaceX, had completed the installation of a Starship reusable space-rocket system launch vehicle for a suborbital test flight.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083567087983964160
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/elon-musk-says-spacex-assembled-starship-test-rocket-shiny-retro-look/
Looks like a real space-rocket:)

He is obviously not rich enough since this is of course a publicity stunt to raise investors.
The actually test of "Starship" will be like the "Grasshopper" test SpaceX did a couple of years ago:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoxiK7K28PU&feature=youtu.be
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire

I really don't know much about Elon Musk, but Richard Branson has always interested me. This is a good article about his space ambitions -

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/20/virgin-galactics-rocket-man

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I'd say that the SpaceX venture has eaten up quite a bit of Elon Musk's fortune. This latest rocket though seems a bit on the fantasy side.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I've read some things that said that China's little biolab on the far side of the moon successfully saw the sprouting of one plant, but everything died because there was no heater aboard. That's a shame.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Bummer... But it's night on the far side of the moon right now.

The plant relied on sunlight at the moon’s surface, but as night arrived at the lunar far side and temperatures plunged as low as -170C, its short life came to an end.
Prof Xie Gengxin of Chongqing University, who led the design of the experiment, said its short lifespan had been anticipated. “Life in the canister would not survive the lunar night,” Xie said.

From Cassini data the daily rotation of Saturn has been determined in 10 hours, 33 minutes and 38 seconds by Christopher Mankowich, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. He has used the movements in the Saturn rings, since Saturn has no visible feature on its surface. This was a missing datum for many years.
Tullio

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The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury is proceeding well, with the spacecraft firing all four ion thrusters which will bring it to Mercury in seven years.
Tullio

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NASA has a very funny description to the HTTP error 404.
404 The cosmic object you are looking for has disappeared beyond the event horizon.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/medium_width/public/thumbnails/image/02_m1303521387_lrmos_lander_enlarge_web.jpg?itok=fV9bgWnT

But NASA managed to spot the Chinese spacecraft Chang’e 4 on the far side of the moon though:)