Lifeboat Foundation

Will your next camper van be an EV? Thor industries think so and their latest all-electric camper van could show us the very future of EV travel. Welcome to the Thor Vision Vehicle, an electric camper van ready to take your entire family on a camping adventure without the use of any fossil fuels. Does this EV concept have what it takes to beat out its gas-powered competition?

Much like the car and truck market, the camper van space is seeing a large shift towards electric power. Last week Winnebago unveiled their electric RV concept, and Airstream recently revealed their eStream electric trailer at the Tampa RV Show. Thor Industries is the parent company of Airstream further showing the brand’s commitment to the electric vehicle space. Based on what we know so far, the new Thor Vision Vehicle may be the best of the breed.

Could one of Earth’s most intelligent species be an alien, ‘seeded’ on the planet by an interstellar genetic code? Scientists speculate that the clue might be found in the ancient precursor to life: RNA. Image top of page: Shutterstock License Related Articles Octopus & the Origin of Consciousness (Planet Earth Report) Unfathomable […].

If all goes well, the telescope will remain in that six-month orbit for the rest of its operational life, firing its thruster periodically to remain on station.

Getting ready to capture “‘wow’ images”

Continue reading “Webb space telescope nears its destination almost a million miles from Earth, ready for critical mirror alignment” »

A Washington-state based aerospace company has exited stealth mode by announcing plans to develop one of the holy grails of spaceflight—a single-stage-to-orbit space plane. Radian Aerospace said it is deep into the design of an airplane-like vehicle that could take off from a runway, ignite its rocket engines, spend time in orbit, and then return to Earth and land on a runway.

“We all understand how difficult this is,” said Livingston Holder, Radian’s co-founder, chief technology officer, and former head of the Future Space Transportation and X-33 program at Boeing.

On Wednesday, Radian announced that it had recently closed a $27.5 million round of seed funding, led by Fine Structure Ventures. To date, Radian has raised about $32 million and has 18 full-time employees at its Renton, Washington, headquarters.

Science fiction literature is filled with strange ideas about how to travel to space and in it. We’ve got anything from hyperloops to wormholes and space elevators, strings, FTL-capable ships, and even the crown jewel of instant transport, teleportation. I know this because I really, really enjoy sci-fi.

Goodyear’s airless tires are now being used by a fleet of Starship’s autonomous delivery robots on a college campus in the U.S.

The request: Starship recently asked Goodyear if it could design a smaller version of its airless tires for the company’s delivery robots, and the tire giant has now delivered.

Continue reading “Goodyear puts airless tires on Starship delivery robots” »

In another example of space technology coming down to Earth.

One of the big arguments in favor of investing in space technologies is that the same technology is often used to benefit citizens down here on Earth.

In a new example of an Earth-focused application of space technology, SpaceX has won a U.S. Air Force contract worth over $102 million to help deliver humanitarian aid using heavy rockets, according to a report from SpaceNews.

Continue reading “SpaceX Won a $102 Million Contract to Deliver Aid and Military Cargo” »

At this rate the CCP will be launching everyday by the end of the decade. Wow.

China became the country that has carried out the most space launch missions in the world over the past year.

The combination of the Shenzhou-13 manned spaceship and a Long March-2F carrier rocket is transferred to the launching area of Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Oct. 7, 2021. (People’s Daily Online/Liu Huaiyu)

Continue reading “China makes world’s most space launches in 2021” »

SpaceX has won a potential five-year, $102 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to demonstrate technologies under a program that seeks to determine the viability of using large rockets to support the Department of Defense’s global logistics missions, SpaceNews reported Wednesday.

Under the Rocket Cargo program, the Air Force Research Laboratory will gather data on performance and environments signatures by having access to SpaceX’s orbital launches and booster landings.

The company will present cargo bay designs that are compatible with intermodal containers of U.S. Transportation Command under the contract, which includes an option for SpaceX to conduct a full-up demonstration of capabilities for heavy cargo transport and landing operations.