Lifeboat Foundation

Fuel is heavy. And when launching a satellite into space, the amount of fuel you give it determines how long it can stay operational. That is, unless you can refuel at a space gas station.

The news: Startup Orbit Fab is scheduled to launch an experiment to the International Space Station on board a SpaceX Dragon cargo mission tomorrow at 1:38pm EST. Its goal is to test the company’s method of fluid transfer in space. It’ll be launched alongside other scientific experiments to be performed by astronauts on board the station in collaboration with the ISS US National Lab.

The challenge: Refueling and repairing satellites in space requires some expert wrangling, as well as well as the launch of large quantities and types of fuel into orbit. Also, pumping new fuel into a satellite doesn’t work in microgravity the way it does on Earth. Fluids are harder to measure and float around their tanks unpredictably.

Continue reading “A startup is about to test a ‘gas station in space’ that could one day refuel satellites” »

U.K. researchers say a new exhaust system brings practical fusion power one step closer.

(CNN) — More than 1,000 aftershocks of magnitude 1.5 or greater have shaken Alaska since Friday’s big quake knocked out power, ripped open roads and splintered buildings in Anchorage, US Geological Survey geophysicist Randy Baldwin said Sunday.

The majority were of a magnitude of 2.5 or weaker, meaning they weren’t likely felt. But more than 350 of the aftershocks were higher than 2.5, according to USGS data.

Continue reading “Alaska hit by more than 230 small earthquakes since Friday” »

The technology needed for mining water ice on the moon and converting it into fuel is pretty straight forward. Various groups are already making the actual needed hardware. Paragon Space Development and Giner are already making key pieces of what is needed. If we are making large amounts of fuel on the moon then we are massively lowering the cost of all missions in space. The cost of anything from higher earth orbit and beyond becomes several times cheaper.

After the D-day invasion, the Allies made a temporary port. We need to move beyond thinking science missions to working on logistics and supply chains.

If classic monster movies and old science experiments are to be believed, life begins with a spark.

Not everybody is convinced by this kind of origin story, so the search continues for sources of energy capable of transforming a prebiotic soup into a life-generating dish. Maybe the secret ingredient isn’t anything more shocking than a pinch of salt.

A new study led by researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan has turned their attention to common old sodium chloride as a potential conduit for the chemical energy required for early biochemistry.

Continue reading “Life on Earth Could Have Started Thanks to a Simple Ingredient We Use Every Day” »

QUT chemistry researchers have discovered cheaper and more efficient materials for producing hydrogen for the storage of renewable energy that could replace current water-splitting catalysts.

Professor Anthony O’Mullane said the potential for the chemical storage of renewable energy in the form of hydrogen was being investigated around the world.

Continue reading “New catalyst material produces abundant cheap hydrogen” »

The emancipation of women is generally considered a modern phenomenon, but a new burial site in Lincolnshire has shown that females were already enjoying high social status, wealth and power in their own right during the Dark Ages.

Archaeologists at the University of Sheffield discovered 20 burials at a cemetery in Scremby, on the southern edge of the Lincolnshire wolds, dating back to the late fifth to mid sixth centuries AD. Around half the graves were females, who were found to be richly dressed and surrounded by riches including amber necklaces, hundreds of glass beads, silver buckles and ivory clasps.

Dr Hugh Willmott, Senior Lecturer in European Historical Archaeology from the https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/

Continue reading “Anglo-Saxon burial site shines a light on the high worth of women in the Dark Ages” »

A team of scientists has discovered a single-site, visible-light-activated catalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO₂) into “building block” molecules that could be used for creating useful chemicals. The discovery opens the possibility of using sunlight to turn a greenhouse gas into hydrocarbon fuels.

Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. It’s perhaps the best known law of physics, and Guido Fetta thinks he’s found a way around it.

According to classical physics, in order for something—like a spaceship—to move, conservation of momentum requires that it has to exert a force on something else. A person in roller skates, for example, pushes off against a wall; a rocket accelerates upward by propelling high-velocity combusted fuel downward. In practice, this means that space vessels like satellites and space stations have to carry up to half their weight in propellant just to stay in orbit. That bulks up their cost and reduces their useful lifetime.