Lifeboat Foundation

Dust is a common fact of life, and it’s more than just a daily nuisance—it can get into machinery and equipment, causing loss of efficiency or breakdowns.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin partnered with North Carolina-based company Smart Material Solutions Inc. to develop a new method to keep dust from sticking to surfaces. The result is the ability to make many types of materials dust resistant, from spacecraft to solar panels to household windows.

The research is published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

BepiColombo will be only the second mission in history to orbit Mercury, the scorched rocky planet close to the sun.

The high profile race to enhance their search products has underscored the importance of artificial intelligence to Google and Microsoft – and the rest of the economy, too. Two of the world’s largest tech companies announced plans for AI-enhanced search this month, ratcheting up a tussle for supremacy in the artificial intelligence space. However, the debut of Google’s new chatbot, Bard, was scuppered when an error appeared, knocking $163bn (£137bn) off the parent company Alphabet’s share price. The stock’s plunge showed how crucial investors think AI could be to Google’s future.

However, the increasing prominence of AI has implications for every corner of the economy. From retail to transport, here’s how AI promises to usher in a wave of change across industries.

NASA’s mission has always been dedicated to promoting science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to improve education, economic vitality, environmental stewardship, innovation, and most importantly knowledge.

For the past week, the space agency has achieved a lot in exploring outer space and shared important insights for further research. From naming a mountain on the Moon, watching and helping from space, and gathering rock samples, here are a few stories that made it to the list:

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Continue reading “Ion Thrusters Are the Future. How Far Away Are They?” »

The concept could one day capture incredibly detailed images of distant alien worlds.

NASA is betting on nuclear propulsion technologies. The space agency’s Institute of Advanced Concepts (NIAC) awarded a grant to a company called Positron Dynamics for the development of a novel type of nuclear fission fragment rocket engine (FFRE).

The lightweight nuclear fission engine concept could outperform traditional chemical rocket engines while also allowing for long-lasting, deep space missions.

Continue reading “Fission rocket concept could reach Solar Gravitation Lens in 15 years” »

Research Engineer Ryan McClelland pioneered the design of one-off spacecraft and mission elements for NASA using commercially available AI software.

We don’t mean new alternatives to Cheetos, Funyuns, or some other processed snack. We’re talking about developing truly revolutionary, nutritional, and tasty foods that require minimal resources and minimal space, and still fulfill the dietary needs of space travelers or Earth-bound people suffering from famine or nutritional deficiencies.

NASA has announced 11 finalists in Phase 2 of the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition to find unique ways to feed astronauts on extended space missions, such as voyages to Mars and beyond. The Challenge, which is co-sponsored by Methuselah Foundation, invited innovators to design, build, and test new ways to sustain astronauts during months-or years-long space missions.

“As we prepare for long-duration human spaceflight, food is essential not only for nutrition, but also familiarity and comfort on long voyages and in isolated environments,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in an agency statement. “The creativity of innovators is allowing us to tackle this important yet complex challenge in new and interesting ways.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space firm, Blue Origin, announced it has developed a method for producing solar cells and transmission wire using only lunar regolith.

Blue Origin famously filed a legal complaint against NASA after it snubbed its lunar lander design in favor of awarding SpaceX a contract for a modified Starship lander.