Toggle light / dark theme

Starship is getting very close to becoming real. Starship just did a 14 engine static fire which is nearly as powerful as the Saturn V that landed people on the moon. A 33 engine static fire should happen within a month.

In addition, NASA just signed up Starship for a third trip to the moon. They have now signed up for one cargo and two crew missions to the moon for a total of over $4 billion. Other customers have signed up with Starship as well.


KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA has awarded SpaceX a $1.15 billion contract to develop an upgraded version of its Starship lunar lander and fly a second crewed mission.

NASA announced Nov. 15 it completed a contract modification for what is formally known as Option B of its Human Landing System (HLS) contract with SpaceX. Option B covers upgrades to the Starship lander originally selected for HLS by NASA in April 2021 for $2.9 billion. The option also includes a second crewed demonstration landing mission.

From wearable gadgets to battery separators, the future of sustainable tech is starting to look like a mushroom. A team of researchers from the Institute of Experimental Physics in Linz have completed a proof-of-concept study, testing whether mycelium skin could substitute plastic in the production of soft electronics. The scientists used processed skin from the mushroom Ganoderma Lucidum – a saprophytic fungus native to some parts of Europe and China that grows naturally on dead hardwood.

This works by laying electronic components on the fungal skin through a process called physical vapor deposition, used to produce thin materials. The resulting electronic circuit has high thermal stability and can withstand thousands of bending cycles. The researchers say that combining conventional electronics with the biodegradable material could help reduce waste in the production of wearable electronics and sustainable battery separators, among other uses.

Mashable is your source for the latest in tech, culture, and entertainment.

Follow us:

Things can always get smaller.

That might also be true for one of our much-debated energy sources. Even though experts claim that nuclear energy is a reliable and sustainable energy source, the nuclear energy debate continues, with small-scale nuclear reactors being developed around the world. They are said to be a safer and less expensive form of nuclear power. On the other hand, full-scale nuclear reactors are large, expensive, and take a long time to build, and making them smaller, portable, cheaper, and safer could ensure that solar, wind, and hydro are not getting all the attention.

In this video from the YouTube channel Undecided with Matt Ferrell, you can delve into the world of tiny modular reactors, which are gaining popularity as the first versions come up in China and new facilities open in Canada. The YouTuber even refers to former SpaceX engineers who have scaled things down to the level of a microreactor, and ask whether this could be the future of nuclear energy. If you want to learn more, make sure you watch the video above, and as always, enjoy!

It will be used to power oil and gas production.

Hywind Tampen, the world’s largest floating wind farm, located off the coast of Norway, has become operational, a company press release said. Of the 11 turbines involved in the project, the first turbine began power production on November 13, with another six scheduled to go online this year.

With the impending doom of climate change and the recent upshoot of fuel prices, countries around the world are looking to switch aggressively to renewable energy. While those in the tropics are looking at solar power, others that can access winds over the seas are looking to build offshore wind farms.

Although increasing the size of wind turbines is a straightforward way to increase the energy output of these facilities, it also comes with increased costs for constructing these structures. Floating wind farms are being looked at as a possible solution to this problem, and Hywind Tampen is the first real-world test of this kind.

A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory has developed a new characterization tool that allowed them to gain unique insight into a possible alternative material for solar cells. Under the leadership of Jigang Wang, senior scientist from Ames Lab, the team developed a microscope that uses terahertz waves to collect data on material samples. The team then used their microscope to explore methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite, a material that could potentially replace silicon in solar cells.

Richard Kim, a scientist from Ames Lab, explained the two features that make the new scanning probe microscope unique. First, the microscope uses the terahertz range of electromagnetic frequencies to collect data on materials. This range is far below the , falling between the infrared and microwave frequencies. Secondly, the terahertz light is shined through a sharp metallic tip that enhances the microscope’s capabilities toward nanometer length scales.

“Normally if you have a light wave, you cannot see things smaller than the wavelength of the light you’re using. And for this terahertz light, the wavelength is about a millimeter, so it’s quite large,” explained Kim. “But here we used this sharp metallic tip with an apex that is sharpened to a 20-nanometer radius curvature, and this acts as our antenna to see things smaller than the that we were using.”

It is the first coal carrier to be powered by hard sail wind power propulsion technology.

The world’s first partly wind-powered bulk carrier ship sailed to the Port of Newcastle on its maiden voyage this week.

The Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL), which delivered the 100,422 dwt (dead-weight tonnage) bulker on October 7, 2022, sailed to Newcastle on Monday, reported *Offshore Energy*.

But do they really have the necessary skillset?The new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, has authorized 50 employees from his other companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company, to help him handle matters at the social media company, according to a report by CNBC.


Musk has billed himself as a free speech absolutist, but he has to balance those wishes with laws and business realities. He said in an open letter to advertisers last week as he was taking over the company: “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

It is not immediately clear how Tesla employees are expected to split their schedules between the automaker and Twitter.

Typically, when Tesla employees work for other Elon Musk ventures, usually SpaceX or the Boring Company, they can get paid by the other venture as a consultant. Some of Musk’s employees have full-time roles at more than one of his businesses. For example, Tesla Vice President of Materials Charlie Kuehmann, is concurrently a vice president at SpaceX.