Lifeboat Foundation

Blue Origin’s announcement of next weeks’ New Sheppard 23 sub-orbital flight, which will feature a NASA-funded Tipping Point hydrogen fuel cell experiment designed and manufactured by Infinity Fuel Cell and Hydrogen, Inc. It will be the first fuel cell to fly into space since the space shuttle was retired ten years ago this summer, and the first ever to fly into space on a commercial flight.

On August 31, New Shepard’s 23rd mission, a dedicated payloads flight, will fly 36 payloads from academia, research institutions, and students across the globe. The launch window opens at 8:30 AM CDT / 13:30 UTC from Launch Site One in West Texas.

Since we began space exploration in the mid-20th century, space agencies have relied on sending humans and robots into space. But should we leave space exploration entirely to robots?

Or should we consider sending humans to explore a new space world instead of robots? You are about to find satisfying answers to these curious questions.

Unlike traveling from one destination to another on Earth, exploring space comes with greater responsibilities. Space agencies hoping to explore a new space world must make a lot of planning to guarantee their success.

The journey of half a million miles – the first flight of the Artemis Generation – is about to begin. The uncrewed Artemis I mission will jump-start humanity’s return to the Moon with the thunderous liftoff of NASA’s powerful new Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. This critical flight test will send Orion farther than any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown, putting new systems and processes to the test and lighting the way for the crew missions to come. Artemis I is ready for departure – and, together with our partners around the world, we are ready to return to the Moon, with our sights on Mars and beyond.

Producer: lisa allen, barbara zelon, alysia lee. writer & director: paul wizikowski

“If we could solve the problems of poverty by not pushing the button to launch men to the Moon tomorrow, then we would not push that button.”

NASA is prepping to send humans back to the Moon as soon as 2026. But Americans remain deeply divided on whether the agency would be better using its money on other endeavors.

NASA is about to perform the first-ever launch of its next-generation rocket and spacecraft in a highly anticipated lunar mission, and you can watch the entire event online.

The Artemis I mission, which is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, August 29, will usher in a new era of space exploration as NASA eyes lengthy crewed stays on the moon and the first astronaut voyage to Mars.

Continue reading “How to watch NASA launch its mega moon rocket on Monday” »

The stunning observation of the Cartwheel galaxy by JWST has revealed the exceptional ability that the latest space observatory has. The birthplace of new stars, the hot gas, and the activity of the supermassive black hole are all shining in this incredible photograph. But there’s more. Now you can sit back, relax, and fly towards that galaxy like a starship captain thanks to a video reconstruction that takes you from here to there.

It is located 500 million light-years away and you’ll start by passing a lot of nearby stars and the odd galaxy until the cartwheel galaxy and some near and far galaxies come into view and get closer and closer. The released image itself was incredible but seeing in the video how a little speck of darkness becomes a galaxy 145,000 light-years across is absolutely mind-blowing.

The Cartwheel is a galaxy merger. It underwent a bullseye-style collision with a smaller companion within the last one billion years, causing the spiral arms that would be expected for such a galaxy to disappear into two expanding circles. And the “spokes” are the galaxy slowly trying to reform its normal spiral shape. This is a process that will last for millions of years so we can continue to enjoy the incredible object for a long time yet.

A nano-scale sensor technology records precise signatures of light striking a surface.

With the launch of NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon just days away, Emma the Space Gardener has put together a guide covering the highlights of the mission for space gardeners. Learn about the space biology experiments on their way to their Moon, the seeds stashed away in the Orion capsule, and more!

Most materials—from rubber bands to steel beams—thin out as they are stretched, but engineers can use origami’s interlocking ridges and precise folds to reverse this tendency and build devices that grow wider as they are pulled apart.

Researchers increasingly use this kind of technique, drawn from the ancient art of origami, to design spacecraft components, medical robots and antenna arrays. However, much of the work has progressed via instinct and trial and error. Now, researchers from Princeton Engineering and Georgia Tech have developed a general formula that analyzes how structures can be configured to thin, remain unaffected, or thicken as they are stretched, pushed or bent.

Continue reading “Researchers unfold elegant equations to explain the enigma of expanding origami” »