Lifeboat Foundation

After 28 years in space, the Hubble Space Telescope is sending back some of its most beautiful and revealing images from across the vast universe.

The fastest-spinning manmade object has been created in a lab at Purdue University. This microscopic rotor is made up of two silica nanoparticles stuck together to form a “dumbbell,” and by hitting it with laser light the team has sent it spinning at a blistering 60 billion rpm.

Earlier this month, DARPA announced it is launching a new SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms (SHRIMP) program. SHRIMP will develop and demonstrate micro-to-milli robotic platforms for scenarios brought on by natural and critical disasters.

As IEEE Spectrum put it, it’s a program to develop “insect-scale robots” for disaster recovery and high-risk environments. The topic is simple enough to understand and it also is obvious that the means of accomplishing these platforms is tough.

DARPA, said its announcement, will be facing the challenge of “creating extremely SWaP-constrained microrobotics.” SWaP refers to size, weight and power.

Continue reading “DARPA has competition plans for insect-scale robots” »

Mind reading technology is here.

Scientists have developed a program that can read your brainwaves and produce an image based on what you’re thinking about.

It’s one of the most common tropes in science fiction. But which movies actually get the science right?

Boeing confirms that it experienced an anomaly last month during tests of the engines that would be used on its CST-100 Starliner space taxi in the event of a launch emergency.

The anomaly resulted in an unwanted leak of propellant, and although no hardware was destroyed, the issue is likely to contribute to further delays for NASA’s plan to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station on the Starliner.

Continue reading “Engine test anomaly deals setback to Boeing’s plans for Starliner space taxi” »

Sau Lan Wu spent decades working to establish the Standard Model of particle physics. Now she’s searching for what lies beyond it.

New technology could mean passengers would no longer need to remove items from hand luggage for screening.

Nazia Parveen

Space is brutally inhospitable to human life, so it’s a small wonder that out of the 561 people who have ventured beyond the safety of Earth, only three have died there. Many more have perished due to crashes or explosions when rocketing away from our planet or re-entering its atmosphere.

The three brave spacefarers who lost their lives in space were cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev. All three died on the Soyuz 11 mission of Jun 1971.

Continue reading “Only Three Humans Have Died in Space: The Story of Soyuz 11” »