Lifeboat Foundation

Our interstellar challenge is, how do we as a planet confined humans, become an interstellar species? This encompasses all human endeavors, and is vitally dependent upon interstellar propulsion physics to realize our coming of age as an interstellar species.

There are so many competing ideas on how to realize interstellar propulsion. These include chemical rockets, ion propulsion, nuclear engines, solar sails, atomic bomb pulse detonation, antimatter drives, small black holes, warp drives and much more.

How do we sift through all these competing ideas?

For his objectivity and courage in stating that mathematics has become so sophisticated that it can now be used to prove anything, I have named the approach to solving this interstellar challenge the Kline Directive, in honor of the late Prof. Morris Kline.

Continue reading “Becoming an Interstellar Species” »

Ten years after the project was conceived, the German Aerospace Centre’s SpaceLiner could soon enter a new design phase with a “mission definition review” planned for 2016.

The idea is to produce a two-stage, reusable hypersonic space vehicle that could transport 50 passengers from Europe to Australia in 90 minutes.

Leonid Bussler of the German Aerospace Centre’s Space Launch Systems Analysis (SART) group says the project is currently in “Phase Zero,” where the range of vehicle concepts are narrowed down to a single, baseline configuration through wind tunnel testing and performance trade-offs.

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Agreeing to state-of-the art theory, a warp drive might cut the travel time between stars from tens of thousands of years to only weeks or months. Harold G. White, a physicist and innovative propulsion engineer at NASA and other NASA engineers are working to regulate whether faster-than-light travel — warp drive — might soon be possible. The group is trying to some extent warp the course of a photon, altering the distance it travels in a definite area, and then detecting the change with a device called an interferometer.

In 1994, a Mexican physicist, Miguel Alcubierre, speculated that faster-than-light speeds were conceivable in a technique that did not deny Einstein by binding the growth and reduction of space itself. Under Dr. Alcubierre’s theory, a ship still couldn’t surpass light speed in a native region of space. But a theoretical thrust system he sketched out operated space-time by producing a so-called “warp bubble” that would inflate space on one side of a spacecraft and contract it on another.

Image source: With thanks to Shutterstock.com.

Continue reading “Physics-Astronomy: NASA's Warp-Drive Solution for Faster-Than-Light Space Travel” »

“It has sold millions of copies, is perhaps the greatest novel in the science-fiction canon and Star Wars wouldn’t have existed without it. Frank Herbert’s Dune should endure as a politically relevant fantasy from the Age of Aquarius.”

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Can we bend space-time and travel at many times the speed of light?

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Over half a century after the dawn of the space age, getting to space remains an epic challenge. Twice this year, the first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket met a fiery end on the Atlantic Ocean—both attempts to recover and reuse rockets to reduce launch costs. A third rocket never made orbit, exploding on ascent.

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In aviation circles, the talk of the future involves phrases like “space planes” and “hypersonic atmospheric flight vehicles.” A group presently in the spotlight is from Germany; they are carrying a roadmap for low-cost space access which involves calling upon the air passenger market for fast-travel flights.

Welcome to the world of SpaceLiner, which, when fully developed, could have dramatic impact in global aerospace. The DLR Institute of Space Systems said this suborbital, hypersonic, winged passenger transport idea is under investigation at DLR-SART. (DLR is a German aerospace research agency and it evaluates complex systems of space flight. SART is Space Launcher Systems Analysis.)

SpaceLiner is a rocket-propelled intercontinental passenger transport, described by the institute as a two-stage vehicle powered by rocket propulsion.

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Theatrical Trailer for The Martian. During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

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If you’ve ever watched someone experience virtual reality for the first time, you know it can involve screaming, flapping arms, and occasional falls.

On one level people know their bodies are safe on the stable chair, but as their minds are catapulted through outer space on a spaceship to Mars or beamed into a refugee camp in Syria —they can’t help but lose their grip on reality and go along for the ride.

In fact, our brains don’t even require photorealism for suspension of disbelief in VR. A choppy CGI rendition will cause our heart rates to increase and our palms to get sweaty when we’re riding a virtual roller coaster or standing on the edge of a virtual building looking at the ground 30 stories below.

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