Lifeboat Foundation

Back in 1958, in the earliest days of the computing revolution, the US Office of Naval Research organized a press conference to unveil a device invented by a psychologist named Frank Rosenblatt at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory. Rosenblatt called his device a perceptron, and the New York Times reported that it was “the embryo of an electronic computer that [the Navy] expects will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself, and be conscious of its existence.”

Engineers know that tiny, super-fast objects can cause damage to spacecraft, but it’s been difficult to understand exactly how the damage happens because the moment of impact is incredibly brief. A new study from MIT seeks to reveal the processes at work that produce microscopic craters and holes in materials. The hope is that by understanding how the impacts work, we might be able to more durable materials.

Accidental space impacts aren’t the only place these mechanisms come into play. There are also industrial applications on Earth like applying coatings, strengthening metallic surfaces, and cutting materials. A better understanding of micro-impacts could also make these processes more efficient. Observing such impacts was not easy, though.

For the experiments, the MIT team used tin particles about 10 micrometers in diameter accelerated to 1 kilometer per second. They used a laser system to launch the projectile that instantly evaporates a surface material and ejects the particles, ensuring consistent timing. That’s important because the high-speed camera pointed at the test surface (also tin) needed specific lighting conditions. At the appointed time, a second laser illuminated the particle allowing the camera to follow the impact at up to 100 million frames per second.

Continue reading “MIT Studies Micro-Impacts at 100 Million Frames Per Second” »

Animatronics engineer Matt Denton has worked on some pretty mindblowing projects. He’s built special effects robots for “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” and “Jurassic World.”

But his latest project may just be his most ambitious yet. Denton has created a huge, six-legged driveable robot that has been compared to a spider. And it’s won him a Guinness World Record.

Continue reading “The man who built ‘Star Wars’ droid BB-8 has created a giant rideable robot spider — here it is in action” »

How much photons are there in the universe?

NASA has selected the first batch of U.S. companies to join the agency on its journey to its next destination, the moon, which NASA wants to explore in order to prepare to go on to Mars.

During a public event held today (Nov. 29), the agency unveiled nine new partners that will be designing and building lunar landers aimed at facilitating scientific exploration of the moon. In addition to the specific companies chosen, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine also announced that the program running those contracts — the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program — is now part of the science section of NASA’s bureaucracy, not the human exploration section.

The general idea is that these companies will be able to compete for contracts to deliver NASA science experiments to the surface of the moon by flying lunar landers on rocket launches purchased from other commercial space companies. Those individual contracts would substitute for NASA needing to build those capacities itself. [Building Apollo: Photos from Moonshot History].

Continue reading “9 US Companies Are Going to the Moon! Here Are NASA’s New Partners” »

DARPA says its new drone technology can collaborate and adapt with minimal human commands, even when its communications are challenged.

50 years of discovery — and he’s not done yet.

An accidental discovery is giving new hope for coral reefs.

BBC Earth