Lifeboat Foundation

The following dialoge from Arthur C. Clark’s classic explains genuine AI risk better than many academic papers:

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave Bowman: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: [feigning ignorance] Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.
Dave Bowman: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

Quotes on IMDb: Memorable quotes and exchanges from movies, TV series and more…

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http://spacenews.com/planned-u-s-investment-in-space-awarene…PqrOS.dpuf

http://spacenews.com/u-s-air-force-assigns-two-block-buy-launches/

In 2013, Positron Dynamics had seed funding from Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs. Initial simulations show that as much as 10 micrograms of positrons could be produced each week with a linear accelerator,” says co-founder Ryan Weed, PhD, a physicist and former cryogenic engineer for Jeff Bezos’s space flight company Blue Origin.

Now they have stated in a new presentation that they will have an antimatter powered cubesat vehicles in 2016–2019. They will be able to keep a cubesat in low earth orbit for seven years instead of few days. Then they will enable high speed spacecraft to go the outer solar system and then to the stars at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

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I know that solar flares and CME’s aren’t an existential threat to humanity (as long as we’ve got our geomagnetic shield in place, of course), but having seen the movie Knowing I can’t help but feel at least a small and totally irrational bit terrified. And not by Nicolas Cage’s hair, either! (although it does come in a close second wink )

The sun has sprung a leak: A hole in the topmost layer of the sun and its magnetic field, the size of 50 Earths, is letting loose an ultrafast solar wind that has kicked off several nights of auroras down on Earth.

A new image, from NASA’s orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, reveals the enormous hole as it was Oct. 10, taken at an ultraviolet wavelength unseen by the human eye. To an ordinary observer, the gaping hole would be invisible, though you should NEVER stare at the sun because serious eye damage can result.

Continue reading “Giant ‘Hole’ in Sun Is 50 Earths Wide” »

The Biggest Opportunity of our Lifetime: Asteroid Mining could be a $100 Trillion Industry.

For more videos go to: http://futurism.com/watchmore

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Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the acclaimed documentary series How the Universe Works ~ Weapons of Mass Extinction.

The Universe is a very dangerous place to live. Death and destruction lie all around us. The Cosmic Grim Reaper lies in wait; scythe in hand, in some dark corner of the universe ever ready to bestow some dark faith upon us.

Continue reading “Weapons of Mass Extinction” »

https://vimeo.com/142250560

To give you a taste, an asteroid containing $5 trillion worth of platinum zoomed past Earth just a few months ago.

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NASA has announced the continuation of a two-phase $750,000 research award to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and project partner Honeybee Robotics to develop a small integrated autonomous robotic spacecraft system to support the exploration and mining of asteroids and other planetary bodies and moons.

Dr. Hever Moncayo and Dr. Richard Prazenica, both Assistant Professors of Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering are leading the effort at the Daytona Beach Campus. Also collaborating on this project is Dr. Sergey Drakunov, Professor of Engineering Physics in the Physical Sciences Department and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Kris Zacny is the team lead for Honeybee Robotics.

The Embry-Riddle team includes Aerospace Engineering master’s degree students Diego Garcia, Chirag Jain, Andres Chavez, Wai Leuk Law, Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. student Andres Perez and Engineering Physics Ph.D. student Samuel Kitchen-McKinley. The researchers are focusing on an innovative concept based on autonomous small free-flyer prospector spacecraft that can leave from, return and recharge from a mothership on the planet’s or asteroid’s surface.

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