Lifeboat Foundation

The big kahuna of American rocket companies is the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that until this year held a monopoly on the lucrative business of launching rockets for the US Air Force.

But that monopoly is no more. The company faces a new era of competition as Elon Musk’s maturing SpaceX aims to fly more space missions in one year than ULA does, and as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin breaks ground on a new factory for orbital rockets.

ULA, for its part, isn’t sitting still. “I came here to transform the company, position it in this new competitive marketplace with all these different players,” says Tony Bruno, who took the CEO job at ULA in August 2014 after a three-decade career in Lockheed’s missile-defense business. In his first full year in charge, ULA returned more than $400 million in operating profits to its two owners, but the company must prepare for when its final no-bid launch contract expires in 2019.

Continue reading “SpaceX’s biggest rival is developing ‘space trucks’ to ferry cargo in an orbital economy” »

I can see ads now with Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” playing in the background.

There’s no doubt India needs faster trains. The NDA government has set the ball rolling by launching the Gatimaan Express. Trials are on with the Spanish Talgo trains on the Delhi-Mumbai route and Japan has agreed to provide soft loans for the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train. But, for achieving a one-time quantum jump in technology, the possibility of introducing the Hyperloop—Tesla’s Elon Musk’s concept of moving people and goods at high speeds in capsules within tubes using powerful magnets—could be a game-changer. Going by current speeds, Hyperloop can crunch a one-way Delhi-Mumbai trip to just one hour. The advantages are numerous—much faster travel, limited land acquisition and lower building cost that could lead to cheaper travel.

It is still early days as far as Hyperloop is concerned. Two companies, Hyperloop Technologies and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, are in talks with 10 countries including China and India for introduction.

Continue reading “Indian Railways eyeing speed with Gatimaan Express, Talgo trains, but Tesla chief Elon Musk’s Hyperloop is a game changer” »

You might have heard the news: Our world could be a clever computer simulation that creates the impression of living in a real world. Elon Musk brought up this topic a few weeks ago. Truth be told — he is probably right. However, there is a very important point missing in this whole “real vs. fake” discussion: It actually makes no difference. But first…why might our world be a simulation?

Musk is nowhere near the first one to suggest our world might be fake. The idea reaches back to the ancient Greeks, though what we call a computer simulation, the ancient Greeks called a dream.

Continue reading “We Might Live in a Virtual Universe — But It Doesn’t Really Matter” »

The Elon Musk-backed OpenAI project became Nvidia’s first ever customer to buy a DGX-1 “AI supercomputer in a box.” The system can deliver up to 170 teraflops of performance, which should enable the OpenAI team to significantly improve their AI research.

Carbon colonial transporter —

He must be serious about Mars: Elon Musk invests $2 billion in carbon fibers.

The lightweight materials will increase the amount of payload a rocket can carry.

Continue reading “He must be serious about Mars: Elon Musk invests $2 billion in carbon fibers” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ndpxuf-uJHE

Commercial space travel is about to become a reality brought about by many private companies bent on taking their earthbound successes into space. The FAA is now open to granting permits to private companies to travel into space. It is hoped that this activity will lead to the colonization of Mars.

Elon Musk of SpaceX has the goal of beginning the colonization of Mars in the next decade. He plans to make commercial space travel and colonization a reality in his lifetime, according to The Washington Post. Mr. Musk is the mastermind behind both Tesla and SpaceX. He is one of the most brilliant minds of our time. An innovator and businessman, Elon has a track record of making dreams a reality and turning his plans into tangible results. Comparing his project to the colonization of America, Mr. Musk explains why he thinks people will agree to move to mars.

Continue reading “Commercial Space Travel And Colonization: SpaceX, NASA, And NextSTEP Make Preparations For Lift Off” »

“It’s not a thing on the roof, it’s the roof,” says Musk.

OpenAI is teaching warehouse robots to do your household chores.

Tesla buys SolarCity.

(Reuters) — SolarCity Corp agreed to be acquired by sister company Tesla Motors Inc in a deal worth $200 million less than the initial offer, sending shares of both companies down in early trading on Monday.

Electric vehicle maker Tesla expects to achieve “significant” cost savings and “dramatic improvements” in manufacturing efficiency as a result of the acquisition of solar panel installer SolarCity, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Monday.

Continue reading “Tesla acquires sister firm SolarCity for $2.6 billion” »