Lifeboat Foundation

China launched a satellite this month that may be the key to a successful manned Mars mission and eventual colonization of the red planet beating out a similar NASA system scheduled to launch next year.

The world’s first X-ray navigation satellite acts like a GPS guidance system for spacecraft traveling beyond low Earth orbit and is intended to help China put rovers on the moon and Mars.

The X-ray Pulsar Navigation 1 (XPNAV) satellite measures radiation emitted by pulsars to pinpoint the exact location of a spacecraft, John Pye, manager of the Space Research Centre at the University of Leicester, told VICE News.

Continue reading “China Invents Space GPS For Mars Expedition And Interplanetary Travel” »

We have slim chance, suggests the British physicist Stephen Wolfram, of distinguishing an extraterrestrial artifact from a natural celestial object.

It’s been a long time since Australia was a player in space exploration. One man wants to change that – with the help of a plane that travels five times the speed of sound.

How, exactly, the laws of physics will crumble if NASA’s impossible space engine turns out to really work.

Knowing that most subject matter about space’ Is for the most part from humans point of view’ is vastly unknown, Most subject matter can and should be disc.

Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company, announced today that it has finalized a 25 million euro agreement that includes direct capital investment of 12 million euros and grants of 13 million euros from the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the banking institution Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement (SNCI). The funding will accelerate the company’s technical advancements with the aim of launching the first commercial asteroid prospecting mission by 2020.

Planetary Resources’ Arkyd 6 is equipped with the first commercially licensed mid-wave infrared imager, an essential tool for detecting water on asteroids. Two spacecraft are completed and will test this technology on orbit. Planetary Resources’ President & CEO Chris Lewicki and Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister Etienne Schneider pictured with the Arkyd 6 in Planetary Resources’ clean room facility in Redmond, Washington.

Continue reading “Planetary Resources And The Government Of Luxembourg Announce €25 Million Investment and target 2020 asteroid mining mission” »

Let’s be honest, we have our fair share of problems on planet Earth: war, floods, disease, poverty, environmental destruction, Justin Bieber (the list goes on and on, really). But we also have a lot of things going for us: the Alcubierre Warp Drive, invisibility cloaks, the Mars rover missions, the discovery of the Higgs (the list goes on and on, really).

How can we weigh all the exciting and inspiring scientific discoveries against all the destruction and chaos? We have an ever expanding list of catastrophes that is coupled with (indeed, that parallels) our unrelenting march towards technological perfection. With such a coupling of unimaginable horrors and magnificent advancements, how can we possibly measure our status as a civilization?

One of the easiest ways to answer this question is to form a scale that will allow us to scientifically measure our technological *abilities* against the technological *possibilities.* Or in layman’s terms, something that will allow us to measure our awesomeness against the total possible awesomeness. Fortunately, there are several ways of conducting such measurements.

A lot of people are excited about the prospects for supersonic travel and I’m no exception. I’m delighted to share that Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing team, The Spaceship Company, has partnered with Denver-based Boom Supersonic to work on just that.

Earlier this month Hacked reported that a draft version of the much expected EmDrive paper by the NASA Eagleworks team, had been leaked. Now, the final version of the paper has been published.

The NASA Eagleworks paper, titled “Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum,” has been published online as an open access “article in advance” in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)’s Journal of Propulsion and Power, a prestigious peer-reviewed journal. The paper will appear in the December print issue of the journal.

The final version of the paper is very similar to the leaked draft. In particular, the NASA scientists confirm the promising experimental results:

Continue reading “Final NASA Eagleworks Paper Confirms Promising EmDrive Results, Proposes Theoretical Model” »