The roster of skaters originally featured in Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™ 3 and Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™ 4 helped to further catapult skateboarding culture into the mainstream as big names like Bob Burnquist, Steve Caballero, Elissa Steamer, and Chad Muska joined Tony Hawk in a stacked roster of award-winning pro skaters capable of shredding in and out of the game. In this feature, following the Demo announcement and the full soundtrack reveal, we’re proud to share the full roster of returning skaters in the upcoming Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™ 3 + 4arriving on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC (Battle.net, Steam, Microsoft PC Store). Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 launches on July 11. THPS 3 + 4: Returning Skaters From gold medalists to progenitors of some of today’s most iconic skateboarding tricks, these classic skaters were instrumental in bringing skateboarding culture to a wider audience. Mixing courage, creativity, and an iron will, they’re more than ready to tackle any obstacle put before them. “Being in the original games was epic!” shares Elissa Steamer, who was the first playable female skater in the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game. “It was semi-life changing. I can’t say enough about how stoked I was – and am now! – to be in the games.” “From the moment Tony asked, it was an honor, yet I had no idea of what it would come to mean,” says Rodney Mullen, originator of the kickflip and largely considered one of the most influential skaters in the sport. “The first time I showed up on tour after the release of the game, I recall ‘em shop owners having to put me on top of the tour van roof to manage so that I could sign things in all the madness. The crowd was rocking the van back and forth! [It] blew my mind, the impact it had.” “The game attracted such a broader group of skaters, which has elevated our community in layered ways: from tricks to societal acceptance to the respect we get from people who often thought otherwise, like parents discouraging their kids who were simply outsiders looking for a place to belong,” Mullen continues. “Skating is integrated with a culture, a way of being, more than pretty much any other sport I can think of. The way Tony’s game shows that via the music, art, and vibe batted this home. It’s cool to be understood.”  When Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 launches this July, here are the returning skaters ready to hit the pavement once again, including skaters featured in the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 games plus other titles in the series. Tony Hawk San Diego, California Style: Vert / Stance: Goofy Tony Hawk made history by landing the first ever 900 at the 1999 X Games, skyrocketing the sport into the mainstream. Today he remains the sport’s most iconic figure. Bob Burnquist Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Style: Vert / Stance: Regular Bob Burnquist shocked the skateboarding world when he landed the first Fakie 900. His iconic “Dreamland” skatepark is home to a permanent Mega Ramp. Bucky Lasek Baltimore, Maryland Style: Vert / Stance: Regular Known for his vert skills, Bucky has won 10 gold medals at the X Games and is one of only two vert skateboarders to have won three gold medals consecutively. Steve Caballero San Jose, California Style: Vert / Stance: Goofy An iconic skateboarder responsible for inventing various vert tricks. He holds the record for the highest air ever achieved on a halfpipe. Kareem Campbell Harlem, New York Style: Street / Stance: Regular Called the godfather of smooth street style, Kareem left his mark by popularizing the skateboard trick, “The Ghetto Bird,” and founded City Stars Skateboards. Geoff Rowley Liverpool, England Style: Street / Stance: Regular Geoff Joseph Rowley Jr. is an English skateboarder and owner of Civilware Service Corporation. In 2000 he was crowned “Skater of the Year” by Thrasher Magazine. Andrew Reynolds North Hollywood, California Style: Street / Stance: Regular Co-founder and owner of Baker Skateboards, Andrew Reynolds turned pro in 1995 and won Thrasher Magazine’s “Skater of the Year” award just three years later. Elissa Steamer San Francisco, California Style: Street / Stance: Regular Elissa is a four-time X Games gold medalist, the first female skateboarder to go pro, and the first woman ever inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. Chad Muska Los Angeles, California Style: Street / Stance: Regular Artist, musician, and entrepreneur. Described by the Transworld Skateboarding editor-in-chief as “one of the most marketable pros skateboarding has ever seen.” Eric Koston Los Angeles, California Style: Street / Stance: Goofy Co-founder of Fourstar Clothing and the skate brand The Berrics, Eric is a master of street skateboarding and a two-time X Games gold medalist. Rodney Mullen Gainesville, Florida Style: Freestyle / Stance: Regular One of the most influential skateboarders of all time, Rodney Mullen is the progenitor of the Flatground Ollie, Kickflip, Heelflip, and dozens of other iconic tricks. Jamie Thomas Dothan, Alabama Style: Street / Stance: Regular Nicknamed “The Chief,” Jamie is the owner and founder of Zero Skateboards. He helped film 1996’s “Welcome to Hell,” one of the most iconic skate videos ever made. Rune Glifberg Copenhagen, Denmark Style: Vert / Stance: Regular Nicknamed “The Danish Destroyer,” Rune Glifberg is one of three skaters to have competed at every X Games, amassing over 12 medals at the competition. Aori Nishimura Tokyo, Japan Style: Street / Stance: Regular Born in Edogawa, Tokyo in Japan, Aori Nishimura started skateboarding at the age of 7 and went on to become the first athlete from Japan to win gold at the X Games. Leo Baker Brooklyn, New York Style: Street / Stance: Goofy Leo is the first non-binary and transgender professional skateboarder in the Pro Skater™ series and has won three gold medals, placing in over 32 competitions.  Leticia Bufoni São Paulo, Brazil Style: Street / Stance: Goofy Multiple world record holder and six-time gold medalist. Named the #1 women’s street skateboarder by World Cup of Skateboarding four years in a row. Lizzie Armanto Santa Monica, California Style: Park / Stance: Regular A member of the Birdhouse skate team, Lizzie has amassed over 30 skateboarding awards and was the first female skater to complete “The Loop,” a 360-degree ramp. Nyjah Huston Laguna Beach, California Style: Street / Stance: Goofy One of skateboarding’s biggest stars, Nyjah has earned over 12 X Games gold medals, 6 Championship titles, and a bronze medal at the 2024 Summer of Olympics. Riley Hawk San Diego, California Style: Street / Stance: Goofy Riley Hawk decided to turn pro on his 21st birthday and became Skateboarder Magazine’s 2013 Amateur of the Year later that same day. Shane O’Neill Melbourne, Australia Style: Street / Stance: Goofy Australian skateboarder who is one of only a few skateboarders to win gold in all four major skateboarding contests, including the X Games and SLS. Tyshawn Jones Bronx, New York Style: Street / Stance: Regular A New York City native and two-time Thrasher Magazine “Skate of the Year” winner, Tyshawn Jones is the youngest skateboarder to ever achieve that accolade. The above skaters are far from the only icons you’ll encounter in the game’s large roster. Keep your eyes on the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater blog found here for more info on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 as we approach its July 11 release date, including the full reveal of new skaters joining in on the fun.  Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 rebuilds the original games from the ground up with classic and new skaters, parks, tricks, tracks, and more. Skate through a robust Career mode taking on challenges across two tours, chase high scores in Single Sessions and Speedruns, or go at your own pace in Free Skate. Get original with enhanced creation tools, go big in New Game+, and skate with your friends in cross-platform online multiplayer* supporting up to eight skaters at a time. New to the series? Hit up the in-game tutorial led by Tony Hawk himself to kick off your skating journey with tips on Ollies, kick flips, vert tricks, reverts, manuals, special tricks, and more. Don’t miss the Foundry Demo, available now, featuring playable skaters, two parks, and a selection of songs from the soundtrack. Pre-order Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 on select platforms* for access to the demo and find more info here. Purchase the Digital Deluxe Edition and gain Early Access*** to play Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™ 3 + 4 three days before the official July 11 launch date. Shred the parks and spread fear as the Doom Slayer and Revenant skaters plus get extra music, skate decks, and Create-A-Skater gear: Doom Slayer: Play as Doom Slayer, featuring a Standard and Retro outfit plus two unique special tricks and the Unmaykr Hoverboard. Revenant: Get evil with the Revenant, including two unique special tricks. Additional Music: Headbang to a selection of classic and modern music tracks added to the in-game soundtrack. Skate Decks: Access additional skate decks including Doom Slayer and Revenant themed designs. Create-A-Skater Items: Kit out your skater with additional apparel items. Pre-orders are now available for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. For more information, visit tonyhawkthegame.com. * Activision account and internet required for online multiplayer and other features. Platform gaming subscription may be required for multiplayer and other features (sold separately). **Foundry demo available on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. Not available on Nintendo Switch. Foundry Demo availability and launch date(s) subject to change. Internet connection required. *** Actual play time subject to possible outages and applicable time zone differences.

Congress loves SLS Senate response to White House budget for NASA: Keep SLS, nix science Gateway is back, baby. Eric Berger – Jun 5, 2025 7:55 pm | 77 Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a hearing on Tuesday, January 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Tom Williams Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a hearing on Tuesday, January 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Tom Williams Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Negotiations over the US federal budget for fiscal year 2026 are in the beginning stages, but when it comes to space, the fault lines are already solidifying in the Senate. The Trump White House released its budget request last Friday, and this included detailed information about its plans for NASA. On Thursday, just days later, the US Senate shot back with its own budget priorities for the space agency. The US budget process is complicated and somewhat broken in recent years, as Congress has failed to pass a budget on time. So, we are probably at least several months away from seeing a final fiscal year 2026 budget from Congress. But we got our first glimpse of the Senate's thinking when the chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released his "legislative directives" for NASA on Thursday These specific directives concern "reconciliation" for the current budget year, which are supplemental appropriations for NASA and other federal agencies under the purview of Cruz's committee. And this committee does not actually write the budget; that's left to appropriations committees in the House and Senate. Senate space priorities However, Cruz is one of the most important voices in the US Senate on space policy, and the directives released Thursday indicate where he intends to line up on NASA during the upcoming budget fights. Here is how his budget ideas align with the White House priorities in three key areas: Science: The Trump White House budget sought to significantly cut the space agency's science budget, from $7.33 billion to $3.91 billion, including the cancellation of some major missions. Cruz makes no comment on most of the science budget, but in calling for a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, he is signaling support for a Mars Sample Return Mission. Lunar Gateway: The Trump administration called for the cancellation of a small space station to be built in an elongated lunar orbit. There is very uneven support for this in the space community, but it is being led at Johnson Space Center, in Cruz's home state. Cruz says Congress should "fully fund" the Gateway as "critical" infrastructure. Space Launch System and Orion: The Trump administration sought to cancel the large expensive rocket and spacecraft after Artemis III, the first lunar landing. Cruz calls for additional funding for at least Artemis IV and Artemis V. This legislation, the committee said in a messaging document, "Dedicates almost $10 billion to win the new space race with China and ensure America dominates space. Makes targeted, critical investments in Mars-forward technology, Artemis Missions and Moon to Mars program, and the International Space Station." The reality is that it signals that Republicans in the US Senate are not particularly interested in sending humans to Mars, probably are OK with the majority of cuts to science programs at NASA, and want to keep the status quo on Artemis, including the Space Launch System rocket. Where things go from here It is difficult to forecast where US space policy will go from here. The very public breakup between President Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday significantly complicates the equation. At one point, Trump and Musk were both championing sending humans to Mars, but Musk is gone from the administration, and Trump may abandon that idea due to their rift. For what it's worth, a political appointee in NASA Communications said on Thursday that the president's vision for space—Trump spoke of landing humans on Mars frequently during his campaign speeches—will continue to be implemented. "NASA will continue to execute upon the President’s vision for the future of space," NASA's press secretary, Bethany Stevens, said on X. "We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President’s objectives in space are met." Congress, it seems, may be heading in a different direction. Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 77 Comments

A team of Purdue University students recently set a new Guinness World Record with their custom robot that solved a Rubik’s Cube in just 0.103 seconds. That was about a third of the time it took the previous record-setting bot. But the new record wasn’t achieved by simply building a robot that moves faster. The students used a combination of high-speed but low-res camera systems, a cube customized for improved strength, and a special solving technique popular among human speed cubers.The Rubik’s Cube-solving robot arms race kicked off in 2014, when a robot called Cubestormer 3 built with Lego Mindstorms parts and a Samsung Galaxy S4 solved the iconic puzzle in 3.253 seconds — faster than any human or robot could at the time. (The current world record for a human solving a Rubik’s Cube belongs to Xuanyi Geng, who did it in just 3.05 seconds.) Over the course of a decade, engineers managed to reduce that record to just hundreds of milliseconds.Last May, engineers at Mitsubishi Electric in Japan claimed the world record with a robot that solved a cube in 0.305 seconds. The record stood for almost a year before the team from Purdue’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering — Junpei Ota, Aden Hurd, Matthew Patrohay, and Alex Berta — shattered it. Their robot has come to be known as Purdubik’s Cube. Bringing the robot record down to less than half a second required moving away from Lego and, instead, using optimized components like industrial motors. Getting it down to just 0.103 seconds, however, required the team from Purdue to find multiple new ways to shave off milliseconds.“Each robot that previous world record-holders has done has kind of focused on one new thing,” Patrohay tells The Verge. When MIT grad students broke the record in 2018, they opted for industrial hardware that outperformed what previous record-holders had used. Mitsubishi Electric chose electric motors that were better suited for the specific task of spinning each side of the cube, instead of just hardware that moved faster.However, the first thing the Purdue students improved was actually the speed that their robot could visualize the scrambled cube. Human speed cubing competitors are allowed to study a Rubik’s Cube before their timer starts, but the robot record includes the time it takes it to determine the location of all the colored squares. The students used a pair of high-speed machine vision cameras from Flir, with a resolution of just 720x540 pixels, pointed at opposing corners of the cube. Each camera can see three sides simultaneously during exposures that lasted as little as 10 microseconds.The Purdubik’s Cube’s high-speed Flir cameras use wide-angle lenses, and the Rubik’s Cube appears in only a very small region of their field of view. The color detection system relies on low-resolution images of the puzzle, which speeds up processing times. Photo: Matthew Patrohay / Purdue UniversityAlthough it may seem instantaneous, it takes time for a camera to process the data coming from a sensor and turn it into a digital picture. The Purdubik’s Cube uses a custom image detection system that skips image processing altogether. It also only focuses on a very small area of what each camera’s sensor sees — a cropped region that’s just 128x124 pixels in size — to reduce the amount of data being moved around.Raw data from the sensors is sent straight to a high-speed color detection system that uses the RGB measurements from even smaller sample areas on each square to determine their color faster than other approaches — even AI.“It’s sometimes slightly less reliable,” Patrohay admits, “but even if it’s 90 percent consistent, that’s good enough as long as it’s fast. We really want that speed.”Despite a lot of the hardware on Purdue’s robot being custom-made, the team chose to go with existing software when it came to figuring out the fastest way to solve a scrambled cube. They used Elias Frantar’s Rob-Twophase, which is a cube-solving algorithm that takes into account the unique capabilities of robots, like being able to spin two sides of a cube simultaneously.The team also took advantage of a Rubik’s Cube-solving technique called corner cutting where you can start to turn one side of the cube before you’ve finished turning another side that’s perpendicular to it. The advantage to this technique is that you’re not waiting for one side to completely finish its rotation before starting another. For a brief moment, there’s overlap between the movements of the two sides that can result in a significant amount of time saved when you’re chasing a world record.High-speed footage of the Purdubik’s Cube reveals how it uses the corner-cutting technique to overlap movements and reduce the time it takes to solve the Rubik’s Cube. Photo: Matthew Patrohay / Purdue UniversityThe challenge with corner cutting is that if you use too much force (like a robot is capable of) and don’t time things perfectly, you can physically break or even completely destroy a Rubik’s Cube. In addition to perfecting the timing of the robot’s movements and the acceleration of its motors, the students had to customize the cube itself.Guinness World Records follows the guidelines of the World Cube Association, which has a long list of regulations that need to be followed before a record will be recognized. It allows competitors to modify their cube, so long as it twists and turns like a standard Rubik’s Cube and has nine colored squares on each of its six sides, with each side a different color. Materials other than plastic can be used, but the color parts all need to have the same texture. To improve its durability, the Purdue team upgraded the internal structure of their cubes with a custom 3D-printed version made from stronger SLS nylon plastic. The WCA also allows the use of lubricants to help make cubes spin more freely, but here it’s used for a different reason.“The cube we use for the record is tensioned incredibly tight, like almost hilariously tight,” says Patrohay. “The one that we modified is very difficult to turn. Not impossible, but you can’t turn it with your fingers. You have to really get your wrist into it.” When solving the cube at high speeds, the lubricant helps to smooth out its movements while the increased tension reduces overturns and improves control so time-saving tricks like corner cutting can be used.Each of the robot’s six servo motors connect to the Rubik’s Cube center squares using a custom-made metal shaft that spins each side. Photo: Matthew Patrohay / Purdue UniversityFaster servo motors do help to reduce solving times, but it’s not as simple as maxing out their speed and hoping for the best. The Purdubik’s Cube uses six motors attached to metal shafts that slot into the center of each side of the cube. After testing several different approaches the team settled on a trapezoidal motion profile where the servos accelerate at speeds of up to 12,000,000 degrees/s2, but decelerate much slower, closer to 3,000,000 degrees/s2, so the robot can more accurately position each side as it comes to a stop.Could the Purdubik’s Cube break the record again? Patrohay believes it’s possible, but it would need a stronger cube made out of something other than plastic. “If you were to make a completely application-specific Rubik’s Cube out of some sort of carbon fiber composite, then I could imagine you being able to survive at higher speeds, and just being able to survive at higher speeds would then allow you to bring the time down.”See More:

With yet another failed Starship test this week, in which the ambitious heavy rocket exploded once again, you might reasonably suspect that luck has finally run out for SpaceX. But this degree of failure during a development process isn’t actually unusual, according to Wendy Whitman Cobb, a space policy expert with the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, especially when you’re testing new space technology as complex as a large rocket. However, the Starship tests are meaningfully different from the slow, steady pace of development that we’ve come to expect from the space sector.“The reason a lot of people perceive this to be unusual is that this is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets,” Whitman Cobb says.Historically speaking, space agencies like NASA or legacy aerospace companies like United Launch Alliance (ULA) have taken their time with rocket development and have not tested until they were confident in a successful outcome. That’s still the case today with major NASA projects like the development of the Space Launch System (SLS), which has now dragged on for over a decade. “They will take as long as they need to to make sure that the rocket is going to work and that a launch is going to be successful,” Whitman Cobb says.“This is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets.”SpaceX has chosen a different path, in which it tests, fails, and iterates frequently. That process has been at the heart of its success, allowing the company to make developments like the reusable Falcon 9 rocket at a rapid pace. However, it also means frequent and very public failures, which have generated complaints about environmental damage in the local area around the launch site and have caused the company to butt heads with regulatory agencies. There are also significant concerns about the political ties of CEO Elon Musk to the Trump administration and his undemocratic influence over federal regulation of SpaceX’s work.Even within the context of SpaceX’s move-fast-and-break-things approach, though, the development of the Starship has appeared chaotic. Compared to the development of the Falcon 9 rocket, which had plenty of failures but a generally clear forward path from failing often to failing less and less as time went on, Starship has a much more spotty record.Previous development was more incremental, first demonstrating that the rocket was sound before moving onto more complex issues like reusability of the booster or first stage. The company didn’t even attempt to save the booster of a Falcon 9 and reuse it until several years into testing.Starship isn’t like that. “They are trying to do everything at once with Starship,” Whitman Cobb says, as the company is trying to debut an entirely new rocket with new engines and make it reusable all at once. “It really is a very difficult engineering challenge.”“They are trying to do everything at once with Starship.”The Raptor engines that power the Starship are a particularly tough engineering nut to crack, as there are a lot of them — 33 per Starship, all clustered together — and they need to be able to perform the tricky feat of reigniting in space. The relighting of engines has been successful on some of the previous Starship test flights, but it has also been a point of failure.Why, then, is SpaceX pushing for so much, so fast? It’s because Musk is laser-focused on getting to Mars. And while it would theoretically be possible to send a mission to Mars using existing rockets like the Falcon 9, the sheer volume of equipment, supplies, and people needed for a Mars mission has a very large mass. To make Mars missions even remotely affordable, you need to be able to move a lot of mass in one launch — hence the need for a much larger rocket like the Starship or NASA’s SLS.NASA has previously been hedging its bets by developing its own heavy launch rocket as well as supporting the development of Starship. But with recent funding cuts, it’s looking more and more likely that the SLS will get axed — leaving SpaceX as the only player in town to facilitate NASA’s Mars plans. But there’s still an awful lot of work to do to get Starship to a place where serious plans for crewed missions can even be made. “There’s no way that they’re putting people on that right now.”Will a Starship test to Mars happen by 2026, with a crewed test to follow as soon as 2028, as Musk said this week he’s aiming for? “I think it’s completely delusional,” Whitman Cobb says, pointing out that SpaceX has not appeared to be seriously considering issues like adding life support to the Starship or making concrete plans for Mars habitats, launch and landing pads, or infrastructure. “I don’t see SpaceX as putting its money where its mouth is,” Whitman Cobb says. “If they do make the launch window next year, it’s going to be uncrewed. There’s no way that they’re putting people on that right now. And I seriously doubt whether they will make it.”That doesn’t mean Starship will never make it to Mars, of course. “I believe SpaceX will engineer their way out of it. I believe their engineering is good enough that they will make Starship work,” Whitman Cobb says. But getting an uncrewed rocket to Mars within the next decade is a lot more realistic than next year. Putting people on the rocket, though, is another matter entirely. “If they’re looking to build a large-scale human settlement? That’s decades,” Whitman Cobb says. “I don’t know that I will live to see that.”See More:

At its Build developer conference this week, Microsoft announced that Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is now open source. Developers can download the code, contribute bug fixes and new features, and participate in its development. “We’ve seen how much the community has contributed to WSL without access to the source code, and we can’t wait to see how WSL will evolve now that the community can make direct code contributions to the project,” said Pierre Boulay of Microsoft in a comment on the Windows Developer Blog. Windows Subsystem for Linux allows users to run Linux distributions in Windows. Thanks to WSL, it is possible to switch seamlessly between Linux and Windows programs. The first version of WSL was launched back in August 2016, but the big boost came three years later with the release of WSL 2, which swapped an emulator for a Linux kernel. According to Bleeping Computer, Microsoft also open-sourced the command line tools wsl.exe and wslg.exe this week, as well as the background service wslservice.exe, all components of WSL. It didn’t, however, make Lxcore.sys, P9rdr.sys, or p9np.dll open source, as they are part of Windows. If you want to download the source code for version 2.5.7, GitHub is the place to go.

When working in Data Science, it is not uncommon to encounter problems with competing objectives. Whether designing products, tuning algorithms or optimizing portfolios, we often need to balance several metrics to get the best possible outcome. Sometimes, maximizing one metrics comes at the expense of another, making it hard to have an overall optimized solution. While several solutions exist to solve multi-objective Optimization problems, I found desirability function to be both elegant and easy to explain to non-technical audience. Which makes them an interesting option to consider. Desirability functions will combine several metrics into a standardized score, allowing for a holistic optimization. In this article, we’ll explore: The mathematical foundation of desirability functions How to implement these functions in Python How to optimize a multi-objective problem with desirability functions Visualization for interpretation and explanation of the results To ground these concepts in a real example, we’ll apply desirability functions to optimize a bread baking: a toy problem with a few, interconnected parameters and competing quality objectives that will allow us to explore several optimization choices. By the end of this article, you’ll have a powerful new tool in your data science toolkit for tackling multi-objective optimization problems across numerous domains, as well as a fully functional code available here on GitHub. What are Desirability Functions? Desirability functions were first formalized by Harrington (1965) and later extended by Derringer and Suich (1980). The idea is to: Transform each response into a performance score between 0 (absolutely unacceptable) and 1 (the ideal value) Combine all scores into a single metric to maximize Let’s explore the types of desirability functions and then how we can combine all the scores. The different types of desirability functions There are three different desirability functions, that would allow to handle many situations. Smaller-is-better: Used when minimizing a response is desirable def desirability_smaller_is_better(x: float, x_min: float, x_max: float) -> float: """Calculate desirability function value where smaller values are better. Args: x: Input parameter value x_min: Minimum acceptable value x_max: Maximum acceptable value Returns: Desirability score between 0 and 1 """ if x <= x_min: return 1.0 elif x >= x_max: return 0.0 else: return (x_max - x) / (x_max - x_min) Larger-is-better: Used when maximizing a response is desirable def desirability_larger_is_better(x: float, x_min: float, x_max: float) -> float: """Calculate desirability function value where larger values are better. Args: x: Input parameter value x_min: Minimum acceptable value x_max: Maximum acceptable value Returns: Desirability score between 0 and 1 """ if x <= x_min: return 0.0 elif x >= x_max: return 1.0 else: return (x - x_min) / (x_max - x_min) Target-is-best: Used when a specific target value is optimal def desirability_target_is_best(x: float, x_min: float, x_target: float, x_max: float) -> float: """Calculate two-sided desirability function value with target value. Args: x: Input parameter value x_min: Minimum acceptable value x_target: Target (optimal) value x_max: Maximum acceptable value Returns: Desirability score between 0 and 1 """ if x_min <= x <= x_target: return (x - x_min) / (x_target - x_min) elif x_target < x <= x_max: return (x_max - x) / (x_max - x_target) else: return 0.0 Every input parameter can be parameterized with one of these three desirability functions, before combining them into a single desirability score. Combining Desirability Scores Once individual metrics are transformed into desirability scores, they need to be combined into an overall desirability. The most common approach is the geometric mean: Where di are individual desirability values and wi are weights reflecting the relative importance of each metric. The geometric mean has an important property: if any single desirability is 0 (i.e. completely unacceptable), the overall desirability is also 0, regardless of other values. This enforces that all requirements must be met to some extent. def overall_desirability(desirabilities, weights=None): """Compute overall desirability using geometric mean Parameters: ----------- desirabilities : list Individual desirability scores weights : list Weights for each desirability Returns: -------- float Overall desirability score """ if weights is None: weights = [1] * len(desirabilities) # Convert to numpy arrays d = np.array(desirabilities) w = np.array(weights) # Calculate geometric mean return np.prod(d ** w) ** (1 / np.sum(w)) The weights are hyperparameters that give leverage on the final outcome and give room for customization. A Practical Optimization Example: Bread Baking To demonstrate desirability functions in action, let’s apply them to a toy problem: a bread baking optimization problem. The Parameters and Quality Metrics Let’s play with the following parameters: Fermentation Time (30–180 minutes) Fermentation Temperature (20–30°C) Hydration Level (60–85%) Kneading Time (0–20 minutes) Baking Temperature (180–250°C) And let’s try to optimize these metrics: Texture Quality: The texture of the bread Flavor Profile: The flavor of the bread Practicality: The practicality of the whole process Of course, each of these metrics depends on more than one parameter. So here comes one of the most critical steps: mapping parameters to quality metrics.  For each quality metric, we need to define how parameters influence it: def compute_flavor_profile(params: List[float]) -> float: """Compute flavor profile score based on input parameters. Args: params: List of parameter values [fermentation_time, ferment_temp, hydration, kneading_time, baking_temp] Returns: Weighted flavor profile score between 0 and 1 """ # Flavor mainly affected by fermentation parameters fermentation_d = desirability_larger_is_better(params[0], 30, 180) ferment_temp_d = desirability_target_is_best(params[1], 20, 24, 28) hydration_d = desirability_target_is_best(params[2], 65, 75, 85) # Baking temperature has minimal effect on flavor weights = [0.5, 0.3, 0.2] return np.average([fermentation_d, ferment_temp_d, hydration_d], weights=weights) Here for example, the flavor is influenced by the following: The fermentation time, with a minimum desirability below 30 minutes and a maximum desirability above 180 minutes The fermentation temperature, with a maximum desirability peaking at 24 degrees Celsius The hydration, with a maximum desirability peaking at 75% humidity These computed parameters are then weighted averaged to return the flavor desirability. Similar computations and made for the texture quality and practicality. The Objective Function Following the desirability function approach, we’ll use the overall desirability as our objective function. The goal is to maximize this overall score, which means finding parameters that best satisfy all our three requirements simultaneously: def objective_function(params: List[float], weights: List[float]) -> float: """Compute overall desirability score based on individual quality metrics. Args: params: List of parameter values weights: Weights for texture, flavor and practicality scores Returns: Negative overall desirability score (for minimization) """ # Compute individual desirability scores texture = compute_texture_quality(params) flavor = compute_flavor_profile(params) practicality = compute_practicality(params) # Ensure weights sum up to one weights = np.array(weights) / np.sum(weights) # Calculate overall desirability using geometric mean overall_d = overall_desirability([texture, flavor, practicality], weights) # Return negative value since we want to maximize desirability # but optimization functions typically minimize return -overall_d After computing the individual desirabilities for texture, flavor and practicality; the overall desirability is simply computed with a weighted geometric mean. It finally returns the negative overall desirability, so that it can be minimized. Optimization with SciPy We finally use SciPy’s minimize function to find optimal parameters. Since we returned the negative overall desirability as the objective function, minimizing it would maximize the overall desirability: def optimize(weights: list[float]) -> list[float]: # Define parameter bounds bounds = { 'fermentation_time': (1, 24), 'fermentation_temp': (20, 30), 'hydration_level': (60, 85), 'kneading_time': (0, 20), 'baking_temp': (180, 250) } # Initial guess (middle of bounds) x0 = [(b[0] + b[1]) / 2 for b in bounds.values()] # Run optimization result = minimize( objective_function, x0, args=(weights,), bounds=list(bounds.values()), method='SLSQP' ) return result.x In this function, after defining the bounds for each parameter, the initial guess is computed as the middle of bounds, and then given as input to the minimize function of SciPy. The result is finally returned.  The weights are given as input to the optimizer too, and are a good way to customize the output. For example, with a larger weight on practicality, the optimized solution will focus on practicality over flavor and texture. Let’s now visualize the results for a few sets of weights. Visualization of Results Let’s see how the optimizer handles different preference profiles, demonstrating the flexibility of desirability functions, given various input weights. Let’s have a look at the results in case of weights favoring practicality: Optimized parameters with weights favoring practicality. Image by author. With weights largely in favor of practicality, the achieved overall desirability is 0.69, with a short kneading time of 5 minutes, since a high value impacts negatively the practicality. Now, if we optimize with an emphasis on texture, we have slightly different results: Optimized parameters with weights favoring texture. Image by author. In this case, the achieved overall desirability is 0.85, significantly higher. The kneading time is this time 12 minutes, as a higher value impacts positively the texture and is not penalized so much because of practicality.  Conclusion: Practical Applications of Desirability Functions While we focused on bread baking as our example, the same approach can be applied to various domains, such as product formulation in cosmetics or resource allocation in portfolio optimization. Desirability functions provide a powerful mathematical framework for tackling multi-objective optimization problems across numerous data science applications. By transforming raw metrics into standardized desirability scores, we can effectively combine and optimize disparate objectives. The key advantages of this approach include: Standardized scales that make different metrics comparable and easy to combine into a single target Flexibility to handle different types of objectives: minimize, maximize, target Clear communication of preferences through mathematical functions The code presented here provides a starting point for your own experimentation. Whether you’re optimizing industrial processes, machine learning models, or product formulations, hopefully desirability functions offer a systematic approach to finding the best compromise among competing objectives. The post Optimizing Multi-Objective Problems with Desirability Functions appeared first on Towards Data Science.

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COTS is back on the menu If Congress actually cancels the SLS rocket, what happens next? Here's what NASA's exploration plans would actually look like if the White House got its way. Eric Berger – May 13, 2025 3:49 pm | 9 A technician works on the Orion spacecraft, atop the SLS rocket, in January 2022. Credit: NASA A technician works on the Orion spacecraft, atop the SLS rocket, in January 2022. Credit: NASA Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The White House Office of Management and Budget dropped its "skinny" budget proposal for the federal government earlier this month, and the headline news for the US space program was the cancellation of three major programs: the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and Lunar Gateway. Opinions across the space community vary widely about the utility of these programs—one friend in the industry predicted a future without them to be so dire that Artemis III would be the last US human spaceflight of our lifetimes. But there can be no question that if such changes are made they would mark the most radical remaking of NASA in two decades. This report, based on interviews with multiple sources inside and out of the Trump administration, seeks to explain what the White House is trying to do with Moon and Mars exploration, what this means for NASA and US spaceflight, and whether it could succeed. Will it actually happen? The first question is whether these changes proposed by the White House will be accepted by the US Congress. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have backed Orion for two decades, the SLS rocket for 15 years, and the Gateway for 10 years. Will they finally give up programs that have been such a reliable source of good-paying jobs for so long? In general, the answer appears to be yes. We saw the outlines of a deal during the confirmation hearing for private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator in April. He was asked repeatedly whether he intended to use the SLS rocket and Orion for Artemis II (a lunar fly around) and Artemis III (lunar landing). Isaacman said he did. However nothing was said about using this (very costly) space hardware for Artemis IV and beyond. Congress did not ask, presumably because it knows the answer. And that answer, as we saw in the president's skinny budget, is that the rocket and spacecraft will be killed after Artemis III. This is a pragmatic time to do it, as canceling the programs after Artemis III saves NASA billions of dollars in upgrading the rocket for a singular purpose: assembling a Lunar Gateway of questionable use. But this will not be a normal budget process. The full budget request from the White House is unlikely to come out before June, and it will probably be bogged down in Congress. One of the few levers that Democrats in Congress presently have is the requirement of 60 Senators to pass appropriations bills. So compromise is necessary, and a final budget may very well not pass by the October 1 start of the next fiscal year. Then, should Congress not acquiesce to the budget request, there is the added threat of the White House Office of Management and Budget to use "impoundment" to withhold funding and implement its budget priorities. This process would very quickly get bogged down in the courts, and no one really knows how the Supreme Court would rule. Leadership alignment To date, the budget process for NASA has not been led by space policy officials. Rather, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and its leader, Russell Vought, have set priorities and funding. This has led to "budget driven" policy that has resulted in steep cuts to science that often don't make much sense (i.e. ending funding for the completed Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope). However there soon will be some important voices to implement a more sound space policy and speak for NASA's priorities, rather than those of budget cutters. One of these is President Trump's nominee to lead NASA, Jared Isaacman. He is awaiting floor time in the US Senate for a final vote. That could happen during the next week or two, allowing Isaacman to become the space agency's administrator and begin to play an important role in decision-making. But Isaacman will need allies in the White House itself to carry out sweeping space policy changes. To that end, the report in Politico last week—which Ars has confirmed—that there will be a National Space Council established in the coming months is important. Led by Vice President JD Vance, the space council will provide a counterweight to Vought's budget-driven process. Thus, by this summer, there should be key leadership in place to set space policy that advances the country's exploration goals. But what are those goals? What happens to Artemis After the Artemis III mission the natural question is, what would come next if the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are canceled? The most likely answer is that NASA turns to an old but successful playbook: COTS. This stands for Commercial Orbital Transportation System and was created by NASA two decades ago to develop cargo transport systems (eventually this became SpaceX's Dragon and Northrop's Cygnus spacecraft) for the International Space Station. Since then NASA has adopted this same model for crew services as well as other commercial programs. Under the COTS model, NASA provides funding and guidance to private companies to develop their own spacecraft, rockets, and services, and then buys those at a "market" rate. The idea of a Lunar COTS program is not new. NASA employees explored the concept in a research paper a decade ago, finding that "a future (Lunar) COTS program has the great potential of enabling development of cost-effective, commercial capabilities and establishing a thriving cislunar economy which will lead the way to an economical and sustainable approach for future human missions to Mars." Sources indicate NASA would go to industry and seek an "end-to-end" solution for lunar missions. That is, an integrated plan to launch astronauts from Earth, land them on the Moon, and return them to Earth. One of the bidders would certainly be SpaceX, with its Starship vehicle already having been validated during the Artemis III mission. Crews could launch from Earth either in Dragon or Starship. Blue Origin is the other obvious bidder. The company might partner with Lockheed Martin to commercialize the Orion spacecraft or use the crew vehicle it is developing internally. Other companies could also participate. The point is that NASA would seek to buy astronaut transportation to the Moon, just as it already is doing with cargo and science experiments through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The extent of an Artemis lunar surface presence would be determined by several factors, including the cost and safety of this transportation program and whether there are meaningful things for astronauts to do on the Moon. What about Mars? The skinny budget contained some intriguing language about Mars exploration: "By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient." This was, in fact, the only budget increase proposed by the Trump White House. So what does it mean? No one is saying for sure, but this funding would probably offer a starting point for a robust Mars COTS program. This would begin with cargo missions to Mars. But eventually it would expand to include crewed missions, thus fulfilling Trump's promise to land humans on the red planet. Is this a gift to Elon Musk? Critics will certainly cast it as such, and that is understandable. But the plan would be open to any interested companies, and there are several. Rocket Lab, for example, has already expressed its interest in sending cargo missions to Mars. Impulse Space, too, has said it is building a spacecraft to ferry cargo to Mars and land there. The Trump budget proposal also kills a key element of NASA's Mars exploration plans, the robotic Mars Sample Return mission to bring rocks and soil from the red planet to Earth in the 2030s. However, this program was already frozen by the Biden administration because of delays and cost overruns. Sources said the goal of this budget cut, rather than having a single $8 billion Mars Sample Return mission, is to create an ecosystem in which such missions are frequent. The benefit of opening a pathway to Mars with commercial companies is that it would allow for not just a single Mars Sample Return mission, but multiple efforts at a lower cost. "The fact is we want to land large things, including crew cabins, on the Moon and Mars and bring them back to Earth," one Republican space policy consultant said. "Instead of building a series of expensive bespoke robotic landers to do science, let's develop cost-effective reusable landers that can, with minimal changes, support both cargo and crew missions to the Moon and Mars." Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 9 Comments

Researchers from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and multiple collaborating institutions are advancing the use of additive manufacturing (AM) to produce zinc-based biomaterials for biodegradable medical implants. Motivated by the need for temporary implants that naturally degrade in the body, thereby eliminating risks associated with long-term metal retention, the team investigated selective laser melting (SLM) and binder jetting as methods to process zinc and zinc oxide powders into patient-specific scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration. Their findings, published in Acta Biomaterialia, demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating porous zinc structures with tailored degradation rates and mechanical properties. The study addresses key challenges in fabricating zinc structures via AM, including the metal’s low boiling point, high reflectivity, and tendency to oxidize. These properties have historically complicated laser-based processing, limiting zinc’s use in load-bearing biomedical applications despite its attractive profile as a biodegradable, bioactive material. Zinc as a next-generation biodegradable metal for AM Zinc’s corrosion rate is slower than that of magnesium but significantly faster than iron, placing it in an ideal range for bioresorption over a clinically relevant time frame. It also exhibits inherent antibacterial properties and plays a role in osteogenesis. However, traditional manufacturing routes have struggled to produce complex, porous zinc scaffolds suitable for bone in-growth. Additive manufacturing enables the fabrication of patient-specific, lattice-based implants with fine control over pore geometry, strut thickness, and internal architecture. In this study, SLM was used to process zinc powder into porous structures, while inkjet printing of zinc oxide was followed by a post-processing step that included sintering and reduction to metallic zinc. Both methods demonstrated potential to overcome the design limitations of conventional manufacturing, with implications for orthopedic and craniofacial implant design.(i) Schematic of a typical Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) machine, illustrating the inert atmosphere within the construction chamber and the direction of gas movement indicated by blue arrows. (ii) (a) Typical Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process; (b) SLM process schematic showing the processing chamber and gas circulation system; (c) Parameters for processing. (iii) Setup for the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process. (iv) (a) Schematic of an Electron Beam Melting (EBM) machine. (v) Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process. (vi) (a) Diagram of laser powder Directed Energy Deposition (DED) systems; (b) Schematic of Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) equipment based on plasma arc welding. (vii) Schematics for the Binder Jetting (BJ) process. Image via Journal of Materials Research and Technology. Optimizing AM parameters for zinc processing SLM processing required fine-tuning to mitigate evaporation and reduce porosity caused by keyhole formation. The authors suggest that alloying zinc with elements such as magnesium, calcium, or silver may improve printability, mechanical performance, and degradation behavior. With optimized parameters, the team achieved scaffolds with compressive strengths in the range of cancellous bone and interconnected pores that facilitate vascularization and cell migration. Inkjet-based AM offered an alternative pathway, especially for producing lower-density structures with finer feature resolution. However, it introduced challenges related to shrinkage and sintering-induced defects. Despite these issues, both AM approaches enabled the fabrication of cytocompatible scaffolds that supported cell attachment and proliferation in vitro, meeting preliminary benchmarks for biocompatibility. In vitro antibacterial activity: Bacterial morphology on the surface of samples after co-culture with (a) S. aureus and (b) E. coli (arrows tips indicated dead bacteria with broken and incomplete bacterial cell walls); (c) Images of S. aureus and E. coli on TSA after co-cultured with samples; (d) Antibacterial rates calculated by colony counting method; (e) Antibacterial abilities of the samples after incubation with PBS for 3, 7 days. Image via Journal of Materials Research and Technology. Toward clinical translation and customized implants The paper positions AM zinc devices as candidates for temporary bone fixation, load-sharing scaffolds, and biodegradable stents. Unlike permanent metallic implants, these devices gradually degrade in the body, reducing long-term complication risks and eliminating the need for surgical removal. Additive manufacturing’s digital design flexibility further supports the integration of patient-specific anatomical data, potentially reducing recovery times and improving treatment outcomes. Looking ahead, the authors emphasize the need for further in vivo testing and alloy development to tune degradation rates and biofunctionality. Hybrid AM strategies, such as combining inkjet-printed sacrificial templates with SLM overlays, may allow for functionally graded materials and composite structures. Advancements in biodegradable implants Recent advancements in 3D printing of zinc-based biomaterials for biodegradable medical implants highlight the growing interest in utilizing AM to create patient-specific, bioresorbable metal implants. This trend is part of a broader movement in the field of AM of bioresorbable metals, where researchers are exploring materials like magnesium, iron, and zinc to develop implants that safely degrade within the body over time. One pertinent example is the work by engineers at Delft University of Technology, who have utilized extrusion-based 3D printing to fabricate biodegradable bone implants made of porous iron. Similar to zinc, porous iron is biodegradable and has potential as a temporary bone substitute that degrades as new bone regrows, thereby reducing the risk of long-term inflammation associated with permanent metal implants. The Delft team developed a purpose-built extrusion-based setup to overcome challenges related to the low biodegradation rate of bulk iron, achieving porous structures with enhanced biodegradability and mechanical properties suitable for bone healing. Another notable development is the research conducted by RWTH Aachen University, where scientists have been working on lattice structures manufactured from a zinc-magnesium (ZnMg) alloy using Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB). These structures are designed to be patient-friendly and promote bone healing, with the ZnMg alloy offering a balance between mechanical strength and biodegradability. The researchers aim to develop bone-mimicking structures while gradually degrading in the body, eliminating the need for secondary surgeries to remove implants.As additive manufacturing continues to mature, zinc-based bioresorbable devices may offer a crucial link between materials science, digital fabrication, and personalized medicine.What 3D printing trends should you watch out for in 2025? How is the future of 3D printing shaping up? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news.You can also follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content. Feature image shows a scanning electron microscope scan of a single laser scan cross-section of a tested nickel and zinc alloy structure. Image via Texas A&M University.