Archive for the ‘space travel’ category: Page 427
Dec 22, 2017
First Image of Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster getting ready to go to Mars on a SpaceX rocket
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: Elon Musk, space travel, sustainability
Dec 18, 2017
The Origin of Our First Interstellar Visitor
Posted by Aleksandar Vukovic in categories: quantum physics, space travel
We were recently visited by a traveler from outside our solar system. This is the first time we’ve ever seen an object that came to us from interstellar space. It’s name is ‘Oumuamua. Check out http://curiositystream.com/spacetime
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Dec 18, 2017
New issue of free Principium interstellar magazine is out!
Posted by Andreas M. Hein in category: space travel
Dec 18, 2017
Canadian QEYSSat Quantum Satellite Program Gets Next Round of Funding
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: economics, encryption, government, quantum physics, space travel
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded $1.85M contract to the University of Waterloo for the Quantum Encryption and Science Satellite (QEYSSat) mission.
The QEYSSat mission was one of two projects cited in the 2017 budget when it was unveiled in March of this year. In April, the government sent Innovation Science and Economic Development (ISED) Minister Navdeep Bains to the CSA’s headquarters to formally announce the funding for the QEYSSat mission along with funding for a radar instrument that will be developed for a future orbiter mission to Mars and to announce the Canadian CubeSat Project. The $80.9M of funding would be over five years.
A short history of the QEYSSat mission.
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Dec 13, 2017
In-Space Manufacturing Is About to Get a Big Test
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: 3D printing, space travel
A bold plan to rev up off-Earth manufacturing is about to get a big test.
A small, privately built machine designed to make optical fiber is launching toward the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule tomorrow (Dec. 12).
If all goes according to plan, this little factory — which is owned by California-based startup Made In Space — will churn out stuff that’s good enough to sell here on Earth, opening up space to greater commercial use. [3D Printing: 10 Ways It Could Transform Space Travel].
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Dec 12, 2017
Jeff Bezos says Blue Origin gives test dummy ‘a great ride’ on New Shepard suborbital spaceship
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in category: space travel
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his space venture, Blue Origin, launched the latest version of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship today for the company’s first test flight in 14 months, with an instrumented test dummy seated aboard.
“He had a great ride,” Bezos said tonight in a tweet.
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Dec 12, 2017
AI is now so complex its creators can’t trust why it makes decisions
Posted by John Gallagher in categories: robotics/AI, space travel
Artificial intelligence is seeping into every nook and cranny of modern life. AI might tag your friends in photos on Facebook or choose what you see on Instagram, but materials scientists and NASA researchers are also beginning to use the technology for scientific discovery and space exploration.
But there’s a core problem with this technology, whether it’s being used in social media or for the Mars rover: The programmers that built it don’t know why AI makes one decision over another.
Modern artificial intelligence is still new. Big tech companies have only ramped up investment and research in the last five years, after a decades-old theory was shown to finally work in 2012. Inspired by the human brain, an artificial neural network relied on layers of thousands to millions of tiny connections between “neurons” or little clusters of mathematic computation, like the connections of neurons in the brain. But that software architecture came with a trade-off: Since the changes throughout those millions of connections were so complex and minute, researchers aren’t able to exactly determine what is happening. They just get an output that works.
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Dec 2, 2017
NASA wakes up Voyager’s slumbering thrusters 37 years later
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: space travel
Nov 30, 2017
Why human race is 20 years away from guaranteeing its immortality – physicist Brian Cox on space colonies and mining asteroids
Posted by Derick Lee in categories: futurism, space travel
“We’re at a stage now where the next 10 or 20 years are the time we become a spacefaring civilisation,” he says. “From then on, our future is guaranteed as a civilisation. The moment we get to the moon and Mars and start to exploit the resources in the solar system is the moment we become essentially immortal as a civilisation. Because we won’t just be confined to one planet that we can damage any more. Now is the time we do that.”
Professor believes we will become a spacefaring civilisation in the next 10 or 20 years, and thereby guarantee our future forever, as long as we don’t do anything stupid like ‘having a war in the Pacific’.
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