Lifeboat Foundation

As commercial space exploration accelerates, companies are perfecting the space suits of tomorrow. What do our space suit designs say about the past and future of the American dream?

Author: Alissa GreenbergPublish date:

Israel’s ‘Genesis’ will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US, this Friday.

Elon Musk believes there is a path for the SpaceX Super Heavy Starship (SHS) to be built for less than a Falcon 9. Currently, a single use SpaceX Falcon 9 can be purchased for about $62 million. The estimates for the cost of the SpaceX Super Heavy Starship (SHS) are about $250 to 400 million.

The current design of the SpaceX SHS has 38 Raptor engines. There are 31 Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster and seven in the Starship upper stage. There are 9 Merlin engines in the SpaceX Falcon 9.

This will sound implausible, but I think there’s a path to build Starship / Super Heavy for less than Falcon 9

Continue reading “Elon Musk Believes Super Heavy Starship Will Eventually Be Built for Less than Falcon 9” »

SpaceX is developing stronger steel superalloys. SpaceX is making improved versions of Inconel alloys.

SpaceX metallurgy team developed SX500 superalloy for 12000 psi, hot oxygen-rich gas. It was hard. Almost any metal turns into a flare in those conditions.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 23, 2018

Continue reading “SpaceX Casting Raptor Engine Parts from Supersteel Alloys” »

RAMAT GAN, Israel (AP) — A nonprofit Israeli consortium said Monday that it hopes to make history this week by launching the first private aircraft to land on the moon.

SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries told a news conference that the landing craft — dubbed “Beresheet,” or Genesis — will take off from Florida, propelled by a SpaceX Falcon rocket on its weekslong voyage to the moon.

The launch is scheduled late Thursday in the United States, early Friday in Israel. It had been originally slated for last December.

A spaceplane shaped telecommunications satellite could use aerodynamics to stay in orbit at 150 kilometres altitude.

Begak told Sputnik news agency the first flights could begin as soon as 2024 and tickets can be purchased for approximately $200,000 to $300,000 a person.

As per Begak, several private companies are presently working on the uncrewed spacecraft known as Selena Space Yacht. The work is being performed with help from the National Technology Initiative (NTI) AeroNet and SpaceNet working groups.

Begak added that the craft lands like a regular aeroplane giving them a chance to land on any airfield. So now they are calculating the best time for space travel and which flight paths would be most comfortable since it’s known that people shouldn’t be in zero-gravity condition for more than 10 minutes. They began working on Selena Space Yacht in 2017.

Continue reading “Russia’s Private Space Tourism Industry Could Take Off in Five Years” »

SpaceX is building a steel launch system called Starship for the moon and Mars, but some aerospace experts say Elon Musk’s new design won’t be easy.

The company claimed it was going to send hundreds of people to live on Mars.

What a shocker.