Lifeboat Foundation

John Bucknell presented at the Starship Congress 2017 his Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket and applied for a single stage to orbit mission of placing a space habitat. John Bucknell worked on the SpaceX Raptor rocket as a senior engineer so he is very qualified to understand current rocket technology and rockets in general.

Nextbigfuture has noted that NASA has funded $18.8 million on advancing nuclear thermal rocket propulsion by studying low enriched uranium for the fuel. Nuclear-powered rocket concepts are not new. The United States conducted studies and significant ground tests from 1955 to 1972 to determine the viability of such systems, but ceased testing when plans for a crewed Mars mission were deferred.

The NERVA NRX (Nuclear Rocket Experimental) program started testing in September 1964. The final engine in this series was the XE, designed with flight design hardware and fired in a downward position into a low-pressure chamber to simulate a vacuum. SNPO fired NERVA NRX/XE twenty-eight times in March 1968. The series all generated 1100 MW, and many of the tests concluded only when the test-stand ran out of hydrogen propellant. NERVA NRX/XE produced the baseline 75,000 lbf (334 kN) thrust that Marshall required in Mars mission plans.

Continue reading “Constructing full earth like conditions in Space with technology proven in the sixties” »

Space exploration contains large potential for the creation of innovative applications, products and services, also benefitting Earth. With new topics and application areas arise countless possibilities for technology transfer and novel ideas for space-based technologies and their application in non-space industries, as well as new targets and opportunities for business.

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As an artist and science/tech enthusiast who has spent most of his life imagining the future of public spaces, homes, cities, and the effect of technological innovations on each, I’ve always tried to project a logical but optimistic path for human progress. Not just where we may go, but why we would go and what it would be like once we got there.

To me, space is a logical step in our collective path. Humans have always wanted to climb the next hill or sail uncharted waters to see what awaited us over the horizon. We have spread to all ‘corners’ of this earth, at times to the detriment of the life that was already there. In space, we fulfill an entirely different role. When we build a space station and bring life to it, we are actually “planting” a beautiful habitat is where once there was none. This is what inspired me to imagine these spaces.

Three scientists who have studied extinctions of thousands of species of vertebrates believe so, though others are skeptical of the doomsday-like findings.

“This is the case of a biological annihilation occurring globally, even if the species these populations belong to are still present somewhere on Earth,” Rodolfo Dirzo, the study’s co-author and a Stanford University biology professor, said in a news release.

The researchers analyzed 27,600 species of birds, amphibians, mammals and reptiles — about half of all known vertebrate species — and found that 8,851 (about 32 percent) have seen declining populations and shrinking areas of habitat. A more detailed analysis on 177 mammal species found that more than 40 percent have experienced significant drops in population. The findings, the study says, mean that billions of animal populations that once roamed the Earth are now gone.

Continue reading “Earth is on its way to the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs, scientists warn” »

Phase 1, which was the Design part of the competition, was completed back in 2015. Phase 2 is the Structural Member Competition, and the most recent level challenged competitors to 3D print a beam for bend testing. Scores were calculated based on the final material composition of the 3D printed beam and the maximum load that could be held before it failed.

Seoul-based Moon X Construction were not eligible for prize money, but $67,465 was awarded to Form Forge of Oregon State University for the second place entry. Foster and Partners with Branch Technology of Chattanooga, Tennessee came in third, earning $63,783, after getting $85,930 for getting first place in the first round of Phase 2. Fairbanks University of Alaska and CTL Group Mars of Illinois came in fourth and fifth respectively, with Singaporean team ROBOCON finishing in sixth place.

Continue reading “NASA announces winners for latest round of 3D Printed Habitat challenge, over $200k prize money awarded” »

• A group affiliated with the United Nations is launching a fake Mars and moon colony.
• Called M.A.R.S., the faux habitat is located in the remote countryside of southern Poland.
• Six volunteer astronauts will work and live inside M.A.R.S. for two weeks, starting on July 31.
• Organizers hope to use the data and lessons they learn to support real missions to the moon and Mars.

Atop a forested ridge in southern Poland, a mission on the surfaces of both Mars and the moon is about to launch.

The two-week mission is just a simulation, of course, since no entity on Earth is prepared to inhabit deep space. But the experiment — called the Poland Mars Analogue Simulation 2017 — will study a group of six volunteer “analogue” astronauts as they work through a realistic schedule of space exploration, then provide those findings to anyone who’s drawing up crewed missions beyond Earth.

Continue reading “Poland is about to launch a fake Mars colony on a hilltop” »

The Managed, Reconfigurable, In-space Nodal Assembly (MARINA), developed by MIT graduate students, recently took first place at NASA’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts-Academic Linkage Design Competition Forum. MARINA is designed as a habitable commercially owned module for use in low Earth orbit that would be extensible for future use as a Mars transit vehicle.

Image courtesy of the MARINA team.