Lifeboat Foundation

Anyone can now test their own self-driving software.

Early probes are one thing, but can we build a continuing presence among the stars, human or robotic? An evolutionary treatment of starflight sees it growing from a steadily expanding presence right here in our Solar System, the kind of infrastructure Alex Tolley examines in the essay below. How we get to a system-wide infrastructure is the challenge, one analyzed by a paper that sees artificial intelligence and 3D printing as key drivers leading to a rapidly expanding space economy. The subject is a natural for Tolley, who is co-author (with Brian McConnell) of A Design for a Reusable Water-Based Spacecraft Known as the Spacecoach (Springer, 2016). An ingenious solution to cheap transportation among the planets, the Spacecoach could readily be part of the equation as we bring assets available off-planet into our economy and deploy them for even deeper explorations. Alex is a lecturer in biology at the University of California, and has been a Centauri Dreams regular for as long as I can remember, one whose insights are often a touchstone for my own thinking.

By Alex Tolley

The last extreme luxury frontier… Production, sale and hire.

Brogan BamBrogan has jumped back into the race to transform transportation. The engineer, who left Hyperloop One amid a wild legal battle last summer, has launched his own effort to build a network of tubes and pods to fling people about the planet at near-supersonic speeds. It’s called Arrivo (Italian for “arrived”), and it plans to put you—or at least your stuff—in a working hyperloop in just three years.

As CEO, BamBrogan (yes, that’s his legal name) says the new Los Angeles–based company has lined up funding and is in talks to produce hyperloop systems for a variety of clients. Without revealing where those projects are, he says he plans to start by moving cargo, a good way to prove the system works and iron out the kinks without killing anybody, all while bringing in some revenue.

BamBrogan is a respected engineer who spent years at SpaceX before cofounding Hyperloop One with venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar in 2014. In July, he and three coworkers sued the company, alleging shenanigans like breach of fiduciary duty, violating labor laws, wrongful termination, and infliction of emotional distress. Hyperloop One countersued, accusing BamBrogan et al. of an attempted mutiny. In November, the aggrieved parties reached a confidential settlement and dropped the suits, which involved details like an overpaid fiancée, drunken shouting, a nightclub bouncer, and … um … a noose.

Continue reading “The Hyperloop’s Best-Known Engineer—Brogan BamBrogan—Is Back in the Race With His Own Company” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pq8Rj9IrJkY

Moscow is one of five cities in the world where people have begun installing subcutaneous implants for travel on public transport. The first Russian cyborgs, however, complain about the limits of using their new devices in everyday life.

Jetpack Aviation’s David Mayman and Nelson Tyler have already brought honest-to-god jetpacks out of the pages of science fiction books and onto the market. Now, they plan to do the same with flying cars. We spoke with Mayman at length about Jetpack Aviation’s new manned VTOL multirotor project.

Ever wish you could explore the far side of the Moon? Charles Bombardier’s latest concept vehicle would allow you to do just that.

From predictive couponing to groceries delivered by robots straight to the trunk of your self-driving car, 21st-century shopping could offer serious innovations.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles released its annual autonomous vehicle disengagement report today, in which all the companies that are actively testing self-driving cars on public roads in the Golden State disclose the number of times that human drivers were forced to take control of their driverless vehicles. The biggest news to come out of this report is from Waymo, Google’s new self-driving car company, which reported a huge drop in disengagements in 2016 despite an almost equally huge increase in the number of miles driven.

In other words, Waymo’s self-driving cars are failing at a much lower rate, even as they are driving a whole lot more miles. The company says that since 2015, its rate of safety-related disengages has fallen from 0.8 per thousand miles to 0.2 per thousand miles in 2016. So while Waymo increased its driving by 50 percent in the state — racking up a total of 635,868 miles — the company’s total number of reportable disengages fell from 341 in 2015 to 124.