Lifeboat Foundation

A California-based startup called JetZero has a different idea: changing the shape of commercial planes and the material they’re made of. The company unveiled its designs for the midsize commercial and military tanker-transport markets this spring, and has big plans to upend the way air travel looks and feels—as well as how much it costs and how much carbon it emits. Tony Fadell, founder of venture capital firm Build Collective and a JetZero investor and strategic advisor, thinks the company could be the “SpaceX of aviation” due to its potential to disrupt the existing business model.

JetZero’s planes, which are still in the concept/prototype phase, have a blended wing body design. That means the wings merge with the main body of the aircraft, rather than being attached to a hollow tube like the planes we travel in today. Picture the body of a manta ray: wide and flat, it tapers off to a narrower fin at each side, with a head and a tail. A blended wing body aircraft isn’t terribly different, though on JetZero’s models the body isn’t quite as wide.

Besides providing a lot more space, this design is more aerodynamic than tube-and-wing planes. JetZero plans to fly its planes at higher altitudes than today’s norm (40 to 45,000 feet rather than 30 to 35,000), and says its airframe will cut fuel burn and emissions in half. It plans to make its planes out of carbon fiber and kevlar (a strong lightweight fiber used for things like body armor, bulletproof vests, car brakes, boats, and aircraft). The company says its planes’ lighter weight and improved aerodynamics would be able to fly at the same speed and range as existing midbody jetliners, but burn half as much fuel in the process.

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Is a research organization and non-profit that supports the beneficial development of high-impact technologies. Since our founding in 1987 on a vision of guiding powerful technologies, we have continued to evolve into a many-armed organization that focuses on several fields of science and technology that are too ambitious for legacy institutions to support.

From molecular nanotechnology, to brain-computer interfaces, space exploration, cryptocommerce, and AI, Foresight gathers leading minds to advance research and accelerate progress toward flourishing futures.

A new kind of starship.

The huge distances between Earth and the nearest star make it necessary for us to conceive of extremely high-velocity starships if interstellar travel is to be possible with durations less than a human lifetime. In practise this means accelerating the starship to some percent of lightspeed. The problem with doing this, of course, is that truly phenomenal amounts of power are required to boost a ship to such velocities.[1]

Various propulsion schemes have been proposed, from nuclear fusion to antimatter to laser sails. Until recently, laser sailing seemed like the most economical and easiest way, even though it still requires that we build lasers that draw more power than all of human civilization is now capable of producing. [Author’s note: since I first wrote this a method has been proposed that could amplify a laser launcher’s power by factors of tens of thousands. So I guess laser launch is back on the table.].

You’re invited to #SendYourName to Jupiter’s moon Europa by signing a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón that will travel aboard NASA’s @EuropaClipper spacecraft.

Yup that’s right a Tesla Affordable Home.

Known for turning a sofa in the Boca Chica SpaceX office into his bed, Elon Musk, The World’s Richest Man, took it to another level when he announced Tesla’s $10,000 sustainable unboxable moveable home. If you are remotely familiar with the Tesla CEO, you wouldn’t be surprised that he is building a sustainable home. So, how did Elon go from overhauling the tech space to completely disrupting the real estate industry?Well, it all started with this tweet from 2020. At the height of the pandemic, Elon Musk made this insane announcement.

Those watching SpaceX’s latest mission on Sunday were treated to a clearer-than-usual view of the first-stage booster’s spectacular landing on a barge.

This is a “key moment in a long journey for Dream Chaser,” which could fly to orbit for the first time this year.

Sierra Space successfully carried out a key test on its Dream Chaser spaceplane, which is designed to lift passengers to the International Space Station (ISS) and Orbital Reef, the private orbital station it’s developing alongside Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Colorado-based Sierra Space announced in a press statement that it has successfully powered up its spaceplane for the first time. The new milestone means Dream Chaser isn’t too far away from performing its first orbital flight test, currently scheduled for this year.

Updated on June 3: SpaceX has delayed the launch of its CRS-28 cargo mission to no earlier than Sunday, June 4, at 12:12 p.m. EDT (1612 GMT) due to bad weather and vehicle checks.

SpaceX will launch its 28th cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA Sunday (June 4) after a one-day weather delay and you can watch the action live.

This episode begins a three-part series focusing more on the specifics of colonization including the human aspect of it. We lay the groundwork by looking at colonies just in our solar system before moving off in episodes two and three to look at life on colony ships and then on interstellar colonies.

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