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Archive for the ‘space travel’ category: Page 403

Feb 18, 2017

Next-Gen Spacesuits and the Commercial Space Industry

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, space travel

By Kelsey Tollefson | Executive Editor John Lenker

Space suits are iconic—a visual metaphor for the excitement of the original Space Race and mankind’s first forays off our planet. While many still associate space travel with the puffy white suits worn by astronauts in the 1960s, a proliferation of sci-fi movies in the intervening decades has opened our imaginations to a wider array of possibilities. Far from being fantastical, these new spacesuits reflect an evolved understanding of the considerations involved in protecting the human body from harsh environments outside Earth’s atmosphere.

Related: Under pressure: the past, present, and future spacesuit market.

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Feb 15, 2017

Trump may get Kennedy-esque with earlier return to moon

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space travel

Feb. 15 (UPI) — The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Wednesday indicated that President Donald Trump may want the United States to resurrect its pioneering spirit in outer space — much the same way another American leader did five decades ago.

Acting NASA Administrator Robert M. Lightfoot, Jr., sent a memo to employees Wednesday saying he had instructed the agency to work up a feasibility report on adding astronauts to its planned EM-1 flight late next year.

The mission, which is currently unmanned, will launch NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket with an Orion capsule. The spacecraft would orbit the moon and return to Earth. The agency’s EM-2 mission, scheduled for years later, was supposed to be the spaceflight to carry humans.

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Feb 14, 2017

The United Arab Emirates wants to build a city on Mars

Posted by in categories: government, space travel

A little more than 40 years ago, Dubai was a tiny pearl-fishing village lined with dirt roads. Now it’s the largest and most futuristic city in the world, the jewel of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). From manmade, palm tree-shaped archipelagos to jetpack-wearing firefighters and the world’s tallest building, the city has a reputation for taking on insanely ambitious projects and executing them with swiftness and expertise. Now, the UAE has a vision to build an even crazier city—on Mars.

On Tuesday, hot on the heels of the World Government Summit in Dubai, the vice president and prime minister of the UAE and Emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced the country’s goal of building a “mini-city and community on Mars” with international cooperation.

“We aspire to great things, so my brother Mohammed bin Zayed [the first president of the UAE and crown prince of Abu Dhabi] and I today decided the UAE will join the global effort to send humans to Mars,” Al Maktoum announced, as if going to Mars were as easy as deciding what to have for dinner.

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Feb 14, 2017

NASA spends $2mn on ‘advanced life support tech’ for deep space travel

Posted by in category: space travel

NASA has awarded $2 million to two companies for the development of technology that will help astronauts breathe safely in space for longer periods, potentially furthering long distance space exploration.

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Feb 14, 2017

Nuclear Reactors to Power Space Exploration

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, solar power, space travel, sustainability

For the past five decades—from the Apollo-era lunar science experiments to the Mars Curiosity and the New Horizons missions—Pu-238 Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTG) have served as a power source. While some of the NASA’s forays will continue to rely on these RTGs, others will require larger power sources to enable human space and planetary exploration and establish reliable high bandwidth deep-space communications. Solar power cannot handle this goal. A larger nuclear-based power source is required.

In a recent Washington Post article, Jeff Bezos, founder of amazon.com and creator of Blue Origin space project said, “I think NASA should work on a space-rated nuclear reactor. If you had a nuclear reactor in space—especially if you want to go anywhere beyond Mars­—you really need nuclear power. Solar power just gets progressively difficult as you get further way from the sun. And that’s a completely doable thing to have a safe, space-qualified nuclear reactor.”

Calls for space nuclear power are not new. In fact, numerous reactor concepts have been proposed in the past. Their development is often dampened by the perception that nuclear is too hard, takes too long and costs too much.

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Feb 14, 2017

EmDrive: UK scientist claims ‘new physics’ explains galaxy rotation and theoretical space propulsion

Posted by in categories: cosmology, quantum physics, space travel

Dr Mike McCulloch says his theory explains why galaxies are not ripped apart, without needing dark matter.

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Feb 13, 2017

Here’s a glimpse of China’s new Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft

Posted by in category: space travel

A state media video report offers rare footage of China’s Tianzhou-1 cargo and resupply spacecraft, which will launch in April to test refuelling technology needed for the country’s plan for a large space station.

The video shows what is China’s first such spacecraft undergoing development and testing at the AIT facility in Tianjin, North China, as well as 3D renderings of Tianzhou-1 docking with the Tiangong-2 space lab.

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Feb 13, 2017

Interstellar Travel Is a Lot More Complicated Than Rocket Science

Posted by in category: space travel

A dash of philosophy and existential crisis.

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Feb 12, 2017

Dwarf planet Pluto

Posted by in categories: innovation, space travel

A revolutionary new concept for a fusion powered rocket could not only deliver an orbiter to Pluto but a lander too!

This video represents a research study with…in the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. NIAC is a visionary and far-reaching aerospace program, one that has the potential to create breakthrough technologies for possible future space missions. However, such early stage technology development may never become actual NASA missions. For more information about NIAC, visit: www.nasa.gov/niac.

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Feb 11, 2017

Will Superhuman AGI Be Our Friend or Foe?

Posted by in categories: internet, robotics/AI, singularity, space travel, transhumanism

Let’s just go ahead and address the question on everyone’s mind: will AI kill us? What is the negative potential of transhuman superintelligence? Once its cognitive power surpasses our own, will it give us a leg-up in ‘the singularity’, or will it look at our collective track record of harming our own species, other species, the world that gave us life, etc., and exterminate us like pests? AI expert Ben Goertzel believes we’ve been at this point of uncertainty many times before in our evolution. When we stepped out of our caves, it was a risk – no one knew it would lead to cities and space flight. When we spoke the first word, took up agriculture, invented the printing press, flicked the internet on-switch – all of these things could have led to our demise, and in some sense, our eventual demise can be traced all the way back to the day that ancient human learnt how to make fire. Progress helps us, until the day it kills us. That said, fear of negative potential cannot stop us from attempting forward motion – and by now, says Goertzel, it’s too late anyway. Even if the U.S. decided to pull the plug on superhuman intelligence research, China would keep at it. Even if China pulled out, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria would march on. We know there are massive benefits – both humanitarian and corporate – and we have latched to the idea. “The way we got to this point as a species and a culture has been to keep doing amazing new things that we didn’t fully understand,” says Goertzel, and for better or worse, “that’s what we’re going to keep on doing.” Ben Goertzel’s most recent book is AGI Revolution: An Inside View of the Rise of Artificial General Intelligence.

Ben Goertzel’s most recent book is AGI Revolution: An Inside View of the Rise of Artificial General Intelligence.

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