Lifeboat Foundation

Back in October, the announcement that the first interstellar asteroid triggered a flurry of excitement. Since that time, astronomers have conducted follow-up observations of the object known as 1I/2017 U1 (aka. ‘Oumuamua) and noted some rather interesting things about it. For example, from rapid changes in its brightness, it has been determined that the asteroid is rocky and metallic, and rather oddly-shaped.

Observations of the asteroid’s orbit have also revealed that it made its closest pass to our Sun back in September of 2017, and it is currently on its way back to interstellar space. Because of the mysteries this body holds, there are those who are advocating that it be intercepted and explored. One such group is Project Lyra, which recently released a study detailing the challenges and benefits such a mission would present.

Continue reading “Project Lyra, a mission to chase down that interstellar asteroid” »

“UNISPACE+50 will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It will also be an opportunity for the international community to gather and consider the future course of global space cooperation for the benefit of humankind.

From 20 to 21 June 2018 the international community will gather in Vienna for UNISPACE+50, a special segment of the 61 st session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).”

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For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. Observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. It appears to be a dark, reddish, highly-elongated rocky or high-metal-content object. The new results appear in the journal Nature on 20 November 2017.

On 19 October 2017, the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawai‘i picked up a faint point of light moving across the sky. It initially looked like a typical fast-moving small asteroid, but additional observations over the next couple of days allowed its orbit to be computed fairly accurately. The orbit calculations revealed beyond any doubt that this body did not originate from inside the Solar System, like all other asteroids or comets ever observed, but instead had come from interstellar space. Although originally classified as a comet, observations from ESO and elsewhere revealed no signs of cometary activity after it passed closest to the Sun in September 2017. The object was reclassified as an interstellar asteroid and named 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) [1].

“We had to act quickly,” explains team member Olivier Hainaut from ESO in Garching, Germany. “‘Oumuamua had already passed its closest point to the Sun and was heading back into interstellar space.”

Revolutionizing technology and spaceflight.

‘It’s the first-ever sample of metallic hydrogen on Earth, so when you’re looking at it, you’re looking at something that’s never existed before’

For nearly 100 years, scientists have dreamed of turning the lightest of all the elements, hydrogen, into a metal.

Continue reading “Hydrogen turned into metal in stunning act of alchemy that could revolutionize technology and spaceflight” »

Russia is building a £30million space ship to explore the moon as part of its ambitious plan to become a superpower in space.

The Luna-25 will explore its south pole and collect soil samples to be sent back to earth for analysis.

No astronauts will travel in the lunar orbiter, which comes 40 years since Moscow’s last mission to the moon in the Luna-24.

Continue reading “Russia to go to the moon in new £30m spaceship” »

The MX-1E spacecraft is slated to fly before the end of the year aboard a Rocket Lab Electron booster, which launches from New Zealand and will attempt to win the $20M Google Lunar XPRIZE

The firm is is developing a fleet of low-cost robotic spacecraft that can be assembled like Legos to handle increasingly complex missions.

Continue reading “Hopping ‘R2D2’ bot to blast off to the lunar surface in 2019” »

State media publishes Chinese scientists’ ambitious plans to revolutionise space travel and exploration in coming decades.

With China taking a strong lead in the militarization of the Final Frontier, the Air Force has announced it’s time for the US to catch up. Air Force Lieutenant General and President of Air University Steve Kwast says we need to change the way we look at space operations.

“Failure is not an option” is probably the most famous slogan to come out of NASA (apart from the closely related “Houston, we have a problem”). Those were the 1970s, though—this is a new age, with new rules. And according to Kwast, one of those rules should be “fail-first, fail-forward.” Even with rockets.

It’s all part of a new proposal Kwast is pushing called “Fast Space: Leveraging Ultra Low-Cost Space Access for 21st Century Challenges.”

Have you ever lifted half a ton? With the Guardian GT, a set of robotic arms, you could do so with as little as two kilogram (five pounds) of force, allowing you to have superhuman strength.

Elon Musk recently made headlines asserting that, in order for us to both progress and survive as a species, we must merge with machines and become cyborgs. And, as climate change rages onwards and the biological difficulties of completing a human mission to Mars become ever more apparent, many are beginning to agree.