Lifeboat Foundation

On October 1 2021, the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its first flyby of the solar system’s innermost planet, Mercury. The flyby is the first in a set of six such events BepiColombo will complete before entering orbit around Mercury in late 2025.

Following the flyby, initial science returns from different instruments onboard BepiColombo revealed interesting details about the environment surrounding Mercury, as well as details on the planet itself.

Scientists have long known the fate of our solar system – and likely the fate of Earth itself. Our Sun will eventually become a red giant and swallow Earth.

Like the Stanford Torus, the O’Neill Cylinder, and the Generation Ship, the Space Elevator is one of those ideas that keep popping up! Just when you think scientists and engineers have given up on it, there’s a new round of theoretical studies that assert how it could be done. You might say that the Space Elevator is an idea that’s too good to let go of.

Considering the benefits involved, this should come as no surprise. Granted, the cost in terms of money, resources, and time would be considerable, as are the engineering and logistical challenges involved. But for the one-time price of creating this megastructure, we would be able to realize space-based solar power, habitats in orbit, cities on the Moon and Mars, and more!

Continue reading “The Technologies That Could Finally Make Space Elevators a Reality” »

With NASA’s powerful new 322-foot-tall moon rocket fully stacked at Kennedy Space Center, managers said Friday that Feb. 12 is the soonest the unpiloted Artemis 1 mission could blast off toward lunar orbit, a date that hinges on the outcome of a critical fueling test on the launch pad in January.

Scientists ask the public for help in figuring out which signals are real.

A University of Toronto astronomer’s research suggests the solar system is surrounded by a magnetic tunnel that can be seen in radio waves.

Jennifer West, a research associate at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, is making a scientific case that two bright structures seen on opposite sides of the sky – previously considered to be separate – are actually connected and are made of rope-like filaments. The connection forms what looks like a tunnel around our solar system.

The data results of West’s research have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Researchers working with the 500-Meter FAST telescope in China reported 1,652 fast radio bursts in 47 days coming from a single source.

The energetic phenomena known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the greatest cosmic mysteries today. These mysterious flashes of light are visible in the radio wave part of the spectrum and usually last only a few milliseconds before fading away forever. Since the first FRB was observed in 2,007 astronomers have looked forward to the day when instruments of sufficient sensitivity would be able to detect them regularly.

Continue reading “Something Really Wants our Attention. One Object Released 1,652 Fast Radio Bursts in 47 Days” »

Scientists at the University of Chicago say that they’ve successfully created a “strange” new state of matter in the laboratory called “superionic ice” — and that the stuff might already exist inside planets in our solar system.

“It was a surprise — everyone thought this phase wouldn’t appear until you are at much higher pressures than where we first find it,” co-author and University of Chicago researcher Vitali Prakapenka said in a press blurb. “But we were able to very accurately map the properties of this new ice, which constitutes a new phase of matter, thanks to several powerful tools.”

Prakapenka’s team used a particle acclerator to fire electons between two pieces of diamond, creating unfathomable pressures of 20 gigapascals in a sample of water and causing it to form an entirely new structure that reverted when they relieved the pressure.

Title: A data analysis of the first hermetic seal of SAM–a hi-fidelity, hybrid physicochemical and bioregenerative human habitat analog at the Biosphere 2

Track Code: AM-8

Continue reading “First Seal of Historic SAM Analog at Biosphere 2 — Kai Staats — 2021 Mars Society Virtual Convention” »