Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX is going to launch a payload for client Nanoracks aboard one of its new rideshare missions, currently targeting late 2020, that will demonstrate a very ambitious piece of tech from the commercial space station company. Nanoracks is sending up a payload platform that will show off how it can use a robot to cut material very similar to the upper stages used in orbital spacecraft — something Nanoracks wants to eventually due to help convert these spent and discarded stages (sometimes called “space tugs” because they generally move payloads from one area of orbit to another) into orbital research stations, habitats and more.

The demonstration mission is part of Nanoracks’ “Space Outpost Program,” which aims to address the future need for in-space orbital commercial platforms by also simultaneously making use of existing vehicles and materials designed specifically for space. Through use of the upper stages of spacecraft left behind in orbit, the company hopes to show how it one day might be able to greatly reduce the costs of setting up in-space stations and habitats, broadening the potential access of these kinds of facilities for commercial space companies.

This will be the first-ever demonstration of structural metal cutting in space, provided the demo goes as planned, and it could be a key technology not just for establishing more permanent research families in Earth’s orbit, but also for setting up infrastructure to help us get to, and stay at, other interstellar destinations like the Moon and Mars.

ESA is getting serious about how hibernation could be used on long-duration space flights.

SOME Geneticists scare the hell out of me??? AEWR.

Will we one day combine tardigrade DNA with our cells to go to Mars?

Chris Mason, a geneticist and associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell University in New York, has investigated the genetic effects of spaceflight and how humans might overcome these challenges to expand our species farther into the solar system. One of the (strangest) ways that we might protect future astronauts on missions to places like Mars, Mason said, might involve the DNA of tardigrades, tiny micro-animals that can survive the most extreme conditions, even the vacuum of space!

A new report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General finds that regular commercial crew flights by private companies SpaceX and Boeing likely won’t begin until summer 2020, despite NASA’s push for spring 2020 targets.

We stand at the dawn of the space age, a time when we can see the very, very beginning of exploring the vastness of the unknown.

The live-streamed launch of a space rocket is the new entertainment for the revolutionary generation, the millennials who think they can really change the world.

Empowered by the digital revolution and even the crypto revolution, astute many of them and some of them actual geniuses, a new era is at inception where kids play almost at the same level as vast governments.

NASA launched the Juno mission to Jupiter on August 5, 2011. After a five-year flight, the spacecraft entered orbit on July 4, 2016.

Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, with an equatorial diameter of 142,984 kilometers. It is so large that it could contain all of the other planets within its volume. Since Jupiter rotates in a mere 9.925 hours, its equatorial diameter is more than 9275 kilometers greater than the distance between its poles.

Continue reading “King of the Gods” »

Researchers are designing a stingray-shaped spacecraft to explore the dark side of Venus.

(Image: © CRASH Lab, University at Buffalo)

Could a stingray-shaped spacecraft get to the dark side of Venus by flapping its wings?

Continue reading “This Stingray-Shaped Spacecraft Could Be Perfect For Exploring Venus’ Dark Side” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VKEY8ZKIw2E

Gateway Foundation is working on creating orbital assembly line and block construction systems. They would want to create a 244 meter long and 71 meter wide Mars Colonial Transport.

Elon Musk has revealed the official launch date for Tesla’s “Cyberpunk” Pickup Truck. According to the CEO, the upcoming vehicle would be released on November 21, 2019 at the SpaceX rocket factory in Hawthorne, CA.

Musk’s update formally ends a period of speculations that have long swept the electric car community with regards to the unveiling of the Tesla Pickup Truck. The CEO, after all, has praised the vehicle as one of his personal favorites. Yet, despite this, Tesla has been able to keep details of the Cybertruck secret, with zero sightings or spy shots of the vehicle to date.