Lifeboat Foundation

The tradition of road rage on earth does not apply to space where someone can yell at you to move. There has to be a channel of communication form the earth’s control centres and even then, those emails can be missed. Well, this may have almost caused two assets to run into each other about 350 km above Earth last weekend. This involved a Starlink satellite belonging to SpaceX and the European Space Agency’s Aeolus satellite.

The incident actually started on Wednesday when the US Air Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron issued a risk warning to both organisations. The unit that monitors space vessels and debris warned that the collision might happen around September 2nd at 7 am ET, with a 0.1% probability.

Continue reading “A European Spacecraft Almost Collided With A SpaceX Satellite” »

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army successfully tested its ability to redirect munitions in flight Aug. 28 in an experiment over the Mohave Desert involving an unmanned aircraft, smart sensors and artificial intelligence.

It was the “signature experiment for FY19” said Brig. Gen. Walter T. Rugen, director of the Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, speaking Thursday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s “Hot Topic” forum on aviation.

The experiment at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, tested a capability developed by his CFT called A3I, standing for Architecture, Automation, Autonomy and Interfaces.

A new opportunity would fund development of an AI framework to coordinate actions between a mix of machines on the battlefield.

This is the first Russian x-risks newsletter, which will present news about Russia and global catastrophic risks from the last 3 months.

Given the combination of high technological capabilities, poor management, high risk tolerance and attempts to catch up with West and China in the military sphere, Russia is prone to technological catastrophes. It has a 10 times higher level of aviation catastrophes and car accidents than developed countries.

Thus it seems possible that a future global catastrophe may be somehow connected with Russia. However, most of the work in global catastrophic and existential risk (x-risks) prevention and policy efforts are happening in the West, especially in US, UK and Sweden. Even the best policies adopted by the governments of these countries may not help if a catastrophe occurs in another country or countries.

T HE CONTEST between China and America, the world’s two superpowers, has many dimensions, from skirmishes over steel quotas to squabbles over student visas. One of the most alarming and least understood is the race towards artificial-intelligence-enabled warfare. Both countries are investing large sums in militarised artificial intelligence (AI), from autonomous robots to software that gives generals rapid tactical advice in the heat of battle. China frets that America has an edge thanks to the breakthroughs of Western companies, such as their successes in sophisticated strategy games. America fears that China’s autocrats have free access to copious data and can enlist local tech firms on national service. Neither side wants to fall behind.

When the secretive military technology agency asked for help finding an underground tunnel system for “experimentation,” Twitter went wild.

According to media reports, SpaceX refused to move its satellite even after it was alerted by the US military, which monitors space traffic.

Editor’s Note: This article by Matthew Cox originally appeared on Military.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.

Marine infantrymen may soon be able to see through the floor of an MV-22 Osprey and track terrain features as they approach their attack objective.

It sounds like science fiction, but Marine Lt. Col. Rory Quinn of the Pentagon’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force says it could become reality if the Marine Corps decides to field the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a sophisticated Microsoft technology that the Army is developing to give soldiers a new level of situational awareness in combat.

Tomorrow’s wars will be faster, more high-tech, and less human than ever before. Welcome to a new era of machine-driven warfare.

W allops Island —a remote, marshy spit of land along the eastern shore of Virginia, near a famed national refuge for horses—is mostly known as a launch site for government and private rockets. But it also makes for a perfect, quiet spot to test a revolutionary weapons technology.

If a fishing vessel had steamed past the area last October, the crew might have glimpsed half a dozen or so 35-foot-long inflatable boats darting through the shallows, and thought little of it. But if crew members had looked closer, they would have seen that no one was aboard: The engine throttle levers were shifting up and down as if controlled by ghosts. The boats were using high-tech gear to sense their surroundings, communicate with one another, and automatically position themselves so, in theory, .50-caliber machine guns that can be strapped to their bows could fire a steady stream of bullets to protect troops landing on a beach.