Lifeboat Foundation

John Bucknell created the pre-conceptual design for the SpaceX Raptor engine. It will be the advanced full-flow staged combustion rocket engine for the SpaceX BFR. He designed and built the subscale Raptor rocket for proof of concept testing able to test eighty-one configurations of main injector.

John Bucknell says the nuclear turbo rocket technology and his designs are ready for development. The air-breathing nuclear thermal rocket will enable 7 times more payload fraction to be delivered to low-earth orbit and it will have 6 times the ISP (rocket fuel efficiency) as chemical rockets. The rocket will have two to three times the speed and performance of chemical rockets for missions outside of the atmosphere.

The fully reusable nuclear rocket will be a single stage to orbit system which will be able to make space-based solar power several times cheaper than coal power. Using the 11-meter diameter version of this rocket to build space-based solar power will enable solar power at less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Continue reading “X-SpaceX Raptor designer has ready for development designs for nuclear rocket that will be up to 7 times better than BFR” »

Preparations are underway for first-ever trip to the Sun, a new resupply mission arrives at the International Space Station, and our Dawn spacecraft captures close-up photos of dwarf planet Ceres — these a few of the stories to tell you about This Week at NASA!

As commercial space travel gets closer to becoming a reality, here are some things to watch for in the coming years.

Charania told GeekWire that the first Blue Moon landing could take place even before 2023.

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, is laying out a plan to support the creation of permanent settlements on the moon, starting with a lunar landing mission within the next five years.

Continue reading “Blue Origin targets moon landing by 2023 as an early step toward lunar settlement” »

The next phase of a NASA sponsored mission to 3D print human organs and tissues in space will launch in February 2019. A 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) developed by nScrypt and Techshot and destined for the International Space Station (ISS) will form part of the cargo of SpaceX CRS-17.

3D printing in zero gravity

Continue reading “SpaceX mission will bring 3D bioprinter to ISS, plans to 3D print cardiac patches for damaged hearts” »

The disk of our home galaxy – the Milky Way – is bigger than we previously thought. A new study shows it would take 200,000 years for a spaceship traveling at the speed of light to go across the entire galaxy.

Researchers made the find after analyzing the abundances of metals (heavy elements) in stars, also known as their metallicities. When looking beyond the previously assumed boundary of the Milky Way’s disk, scientists were surprised to see stars with compositions resembling those of disk stars. [Amazing Photos of Our Milky Way Galaxy]

“We have shown that there is an appreciable fraction of stars with higher metallicity, characteristic of disc stars, further out than the previously assumed limit on the radius of the galaxy disc,” study co-author Carlos Allende, a researcher at Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, said in a statement.

Continue reading “It Would Take 200,000 Years at Light Speed to Cross the Milky Way” »

The new AI droid just sent to space by Elon Musk’s SpaceX can assist astronauts in many tasks.

TOKYO, Japan — A rocket developed by a Japanese startup company burst into flames seconds after a failed liftoff Saturday in northern Japan.

The MOMO-2 rocket, developed by Interstellar Technologies, was launched in Taiki town on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island. It was supposed to reach as high as 100 kilometers (62 miles) into space.

Television footage showed that the 10-meter (33-foot) pencil rocket lifted only slightly from its launch pad before dropping to the ground, disappearing in a fireball. Footage on NHK public television showed a charred rocket lying on the ground.

Continue reading “Rocket developed by Japan startup in flames after liftoff” »

President Trump meets with the National Space Council at the White House. It is expected that the council will discuss the role of private organizations in space travel and exploration.