Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: military – Page 158

The Army is developing a system to allow autonomous ground robots to communicate with soldiers through natural conversations — and, in time, learn to respond to soldier instructions no matter how informal or potentially crass they may be.

Researchers from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, working in collaboration with the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, have developed a new capability that allows conversational dialogue between soldiers and autonomous systems.

Read more | >

SpaceX is launching South Korea’s first dedicated military communications satellite on Monday, with a target liftoff time of 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT). The launch window spans nearly four hours, ending at 8:55 PM EDT (5:55 PM PDT), so SpaceX has considerable flexibility in terms of when the launch could actually take place.

The Falcon 9 rocket being used for this mission includes a first-stage booster that flew previously on SpaceX and NASA’s Demo-2 mission — the historic mission that carried astronauts on board a SpaceX rocket for the first time. That launch, which took place on May 30, saw astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley successfully delivered to the International Space Station — where they’re currently preparing to depart on Demo-2’s concluding trip home on August 1.

This mission will include a recovery attempt for the first stage, using SpaceX’s “Just Read the Instructions” drone landing ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Read more | >

In December 2019, Donald Trump signed the U.S. Space Force Act, peeling off an orbit-and-beyond branch of the military, much as the Air Force grew out of the Army in the 1940s.

For now, the Space Force still resides within the Air Force, but nearly 90 of this year’s approximately 1000 Air Force Academy graduates became the first officers commissioned straight into the new organization. Some of those graduates were members of an academy group called the Institute for Applied Space Policy and Strategy (IASPS). Featuring weekly speakers and formalized research projects the students hope to turn into peer-reviewed papers, the group aims to game out the policies and philosophies that could guide military space activity when they are old enough to be in charge. In particular, these young cadets are interested in whether the Space Force might someday have a military presence on the Moon, and how it might work with civilians.

That activity could put the Space Force in conflict with scientists, who typically view the cosmos as a peaceful place for inquiry. But part of the club’s mission is speculating about that interplay—between the military and civilian scientists, civil space agencies, and private companies. Cadet J. P. Byrne, who will graduate in 2021, is the group’s current president. He chatted with ScienceInsider about the institute’s work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What does IASPS hope to accomplish?

A: Our main goal is to develop space-minded cadets not just for the Air Force, but also for the Space Force. It’s really important to know how space works, and we like to think we drive the conversation for space information in an unclassified setting.

Continue reading “U.S. Air Force cadets study idea of Space Force bases on the Moon” | >

One idea, which has been in gestation for some years, could be about to have its break-out moment. A new agreement, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), is expected to become international law next year — and scientists have a chance to play a part in helping it to succeed.

Seventy-five years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a new treaty offers renewed hope for a nuclear-free world.

Read more | >

Just recycle the hydrogen and bring to another layer in the sun :3.

Remember the movie Sunshine, where astronomers learn that the Sun is dying? So a plucky team of astronauts take a nuclear bomb to the Sun, and try to jump-start it with a massive explosion. Yeah, there’s so much wrong in that movie that I don’t know where to start. So I just won’t.

Seriously, a nuclear bomb to cure a dying Sun?

Continue reading “How Can We Save The Sun?” | >

Over the past five years factories, universities, and national laboratories all over the world have been working to build the components for the plant, some of which weigh several hundred tons, including a magnet powerful enough to lift an aircraft carrier. It will take another five years to piece all the parts together and get the reactor ready for its first test run.

“Constructing the machine piece by piece will be like assembling a three-dimensional puzzle on an intricate timeline,” director-general of ITER Bernard Bigot said in a press release. “Every aspect of project management, systems engineering, risk management, and logistics of the machine assembly must perform together with the precision of a Swiss watch.”

The hope is that by 2025 the plant will be able to produce “first plasma,” a test designed to make sure the reactor works; the test will produce roughly 500 megawatts of thermal power. It will be another decade until the plant is expected to produce enough energy to be commercially viable, though. That will involve building an even larger plasma chamber to provide 10–15 times more electrical power.

Read more | >