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Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 304

Oct 5, 2017

New space race to Mars pits NASA vs. SpaceX

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, policy, space, space travel

Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s announcement last week accelerating plans for manned flights to Mars ratchets up political and public relations pressure on NASA’s efforts to reach the same goal.

With Musk publicly laying out a much faster schedule than NASA — while contending his vision is less expensive and could be financed primarily with private funds — a debate unlike any before is shaping up over the direction of U.S. space policy.

Read: Before Elon Musk can get SpaceX to Mars, he must overcome these nontechnical hurdles.

Continue reading “New space race to Mars pits NASA vs. SpaceX” »

Sep 30, 2017

Australia Is Establishing a National Space Agency After Years of Pressure

Posted by in categories: government, space

The nation’s space industry has been active for decades, yet a government space agency is only now taking form.

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Sep 30, 2017

Former Google Employee Engineering His Own A.I. Religion

Posted by in categories: engineering, robotics/AI, space, transhumanism, transportation

More on this #transhumanism AI religion story, w/ some of my quotes in it. This article has 5500 comments on it!


Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski is emerging from the shadow of a self-driving lawsuit to create a robot god.

The present continues to take inspiration from science-fiction author Isaac Asimov’s visions of the future. In “The Last Question,” Asimov conceived of an artificial intelligence project known as Multivac. Its purpose was to solve for the inevitable heat death of the universe, but in the end, it becomes that answer.

Continue reading “Former Google Employee Engineering His Own A.I. Religion” »

Sep 28, 2017

Pluto’s Gargantuan Glacial “Skyscrapers” Reveal Their Secrets

Posted by in categories: climatology, space

The jagged geological ridges, found at the highest elevations located close to Pluto’s equator, soar hundreds of feet into the sky and are as high as some of the tallest skyscrapers on Earth.

According to an article in the latest issue of planetary science journal, Icarus, the colossal “ice-scrapers” observed on Pluto’s surface are vestiges from the last Ice Age that occurred on the dwarf planet millions of years ago.

Scientists believe that the “ice blades” are the result of solid methane evaporation that formed the towers of ice on the mountain peaks along Chile’s Chajnantor plain.

Continue reading “Pluto’s Gargantuan Glacial ‘Skyscrapers’ Reveal Their Secrets” »

Sep 25, 2017

Humans could soon live on the moon and Mars in LAVA tunnels

Posted by in categories: habitats, space

Two separate teams of researchers have been working on ways to exploit these lava tubes.

They are found in many volcanic areas on Earth, including Lanzarote, Hawaii, Iceland, North Queensland in Australia, Sicily and the Galapagos islands.

Continue reading “Humans could soon live on the moon and Mars in LAVA tunnels” »

Sep 21, 2017

ARCA’s revolutionary aerospike engine completed and ready for testing

Posted by in categories: energy, space

ARCA Space Corporation has announced its linear aerospike engine is ready to start ground tests as the company moves towards installing the engine in its Demonstrator 3 rocket. Designed to power the world’s first operational Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) satellite launcher, the engine took only 60 days to complete from when fabrication began.

Over the past 60 years, space launches have become pretty routine. The first stage ignites, the rocket lifts slowly and majestically from the launch pad before picking up speed and vanishing into the blue. Minutes later, the first stage shuts down and separates from the upper stages, which ignite and burn in turn until the payload is delivered into orbit.

Continue reading “ARCA’s revolutionary aerospike engine completed and ready for testing” »

Sep 17, 2017

Lunar Regolilth

Posted by in categories: materials, space

The Global Space Organization plans to utilize lunar regolith as a construction material when we build our GSO Lunar Station One, but lunar regolith also contains many elements that can be utilized to sustain life and human habitation on the lunar surface.

Averages of these elements found:
• Oxygen % 60.9
• Silicon % 16.4
• Aluminum % 9.4
• Calcium % 5.8
• Magnesium % 4.2
• Iron % 2.3
• Sodium % 0.4
• Titanium % 0.3

There are many traces elements found as well that could be used to refine plastics, produce sugars, vitamins and harness gasses such as neon and helium.

Continue reading “Lunar Regolilth” »

Sep 15, 2017

5 Things You Should Know About Asteroid Mining

Posted by in category: space

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Sep 15, 2017

The Universe is Flat – Here’s How Astrophysicists Know and Why They Care

Posted by in category: space

Our universe is flat, geometrically. But what exactly does “flat” mean?

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Sep 15, 2017

NASA tells SSL and Tethers Unlimited to move forward on orbital assembly system

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space

California-based SSL, formerly known as Space Systems Loral, says it’ll receive continued funding from NASA for an on-orbit satellite assembly program known as Dragonfly. SSL and its partners, including Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited, recently completed a successful ground demonstration of the Dragonfly system, which is designed to assemble pieces of space hardware in orbit robotically. The next step is to move forward with a detailed design for a semi-autonomous assembly system that could be sent into space sometime in the 2020s. Check out this 11-second video clip about the Dragonfly’s ground test:

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