Lifeboat Foundation

By Bill D’Zio, Originally posted on www.westeastspace.com March 28, 2020

NASA may have sidelined the Lunar Gateway for a return mission to the Moon, but it is not stopping the momentum. NASA has awarded several contracts for the Lunar Gateway including the most recent one to SpaceX. This demonstrates the growing capabilities of New Space companies to capture contracts and complete missions.

“This contract award is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably. The Gateway is the cornerstone of the long-term Artemis architecture and this deep space commercial cargo capability integrates yet another American industry partner into our plans for human exploration at the Moon in preparation for a future mission to Mars.”NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a press release statement about the award to SpaceX.

NASA Awarded SpaceX the first Artemis Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract. The award for resupply services to the Gateway will require delivery of goods to a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). Not sure what a NRHO orbit is? A NRHO is a highly elliptical orbit that takes about 7 days for each orbit. Want some more details, just click here: Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). There are a few options for NRHO orbits, but NASA is leaning towards the L2 9:2 lunar synodic resonant southerly Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) which would be the likely location of the lunar Gateway. A simplification of the orbit is shown below.

Continue reading “SpaceX going to the Moon with NASA” »

The latest test version of the Mars-colonizing Starship spacecraft, called the SN3, has been stacked at SpaceX’s South Texas facilities, new photos tweeted out by company founder and CEO Elon Musk show.

Because running Tesla and SpaceX and building a new Starship every 72 hours so he can colonize Mars isn’t enough, now Elon Musk would really love to build an efficient and quiet HVAC system for home use, according to Inverse. It could even piggyback the existing work Tesla has done to make heaters for its newest vehicle, the Model Y.

The first few Tesla vehicles used an electric cabin heater to replace a traditional fuel vehicle’s reliance on internal combustion engine heat. Trying to find the right kind of heater has been challenging at times for Tesla, which was faced with reinventing the wheel, so to speak. Before now, engines made the heat as a secondary effect of combustion.

Elon Musk praised Tesla’s team for the Model Y’s heat pump — a feature that could make the electric SUV much more efficient in colder climates.

Last week, Tesla started deliveries of the Model Y, its fourth vehicle in the current lineup and fifth model ever.

Continue reading “Elon Musk: Tesla Model Y heat pump is some of the best engineering I’ve seen in a while” »

No Autonomous Trucks? Wait, What? ‘…it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception — there was no driver’s cabin.’ — Philip K. Dick, 1955.

Elon Musk’s Traffic Tunnel Challenge Is Boring ‘The car vibrated… threading the maze of local tubes.’ — Jack Vance, 1954.

Continue reading “No Autonomous Trucks? Wait, What?: Science Fiction in the News” »

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an American oncologist and bioethicist who is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress as well as Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, said on MSNBC on Friday, March 20, that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told him it would probably take 8–10 weeks to get ventilator production started at his factories (he’s working on this at Tesla and SpaceX).

Continue reading “Elon Musk: Should Have 1000 Ventilators Next Week, + 250,000 N95 Masks For Hospitals Tomorrow Exclusive” »

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says humanity needs a “whole new architecture” to fly in space beyond low Earth orbit.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk explains why we need a ‘whole new architecture’ for space travel :

Those calling for a government-funded universal basic income are acting as though it’s a hot new idea. It’s not. It’s been tried before—and it didn’t work.

In essence, universal basic income—also known as guaranteed minimum income—provides cash payments to all citizens, regardless of need.

Advocates range from tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to libertarian scholar Charles Murray.

More than two years after winning an electricity bet, Elon Musk’s resulting Australian solar and wind farm is an almost total success. The facility powers rural South Australia, whose population density falls between Wyoming and Alaska, the two least dense U.S. states.