Lifeboat Foundation

The remains of a giant segment of a Chinese rocket crash-landed in the Atlantic Ocean this week, representing the most significant uncontrolled descent of a piece of human-made space debris in decades.

The core stage of a Chinese Long March 5B (CZ–5B) rocket, which was successfully launched on May 5, spent several days in orbit as part of its mission, before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and falling to Earth, splashing down in ocean waters off the west coast of Mauritania in northwest Africa.

The descent, which was eventually confirmed by the 18th Space Control Squadron, a unit of the US Air Force, was notable not just for its huge mass, but also for the extent of the window of uncontrolled descent, which had space-object trackers guessing just where and when the out-of-control rocket would eventually land.

Circa 2015 what about a supercavatating supercarrier :3.

A boat is copying the tech behind a super-fast Russian torpedo by riding a foam tunnel through the water.

Quantum radar can find them.

The United States military takes extreme caution and protocol when transporting nuclear weapons, but that doesn’t mean accidents haven’t happened in the past. And a nuclear accident sounds like the worst accident of all time. Watch today’s new video where we dive into the mistakes of the military and uncover a story about a live nuke, still lost in an American swamp!

Continue reading “Live Nuke Still Missing In American Swamp” »

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced on Sunday that the tanks of a rocket that launched a scientific satellite back in 2011 have disintegrated in Earth’s orbit above the Indian Ocean.

The 18th Space Control Squadron of the US Air Force said on Saturday that it is now tracking 65 separate pieces associated with the rocket’s upper stage. “No indication caused by collision,” the squadron wrote in a May 9 tweet confirming the news.

“Currently we are working to collect data to confirm the quantity and orbit parameters of the fragments,” Russia’s space agency said in a statement, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.

Scientists uncover how oral secretions of the cotton leaf worm trigger defense responses in a plant.

In nature, every species must be equipped with a strategy to be able to survive in response to danger. Plants, too, have innate systems that are triggered in response to a particular threat, such as insects feeding on them.

For example, some plants sense “herbivore-derived danger signals” (HDS), which are specific chemicals in oral secretions of insects. This activates a cascade of events in the plant’s defense machinery, which leads to the plant developing “resistance” to (or “immunity” against) the predator. But despite decades of research, exactly how plants recognize these signals has remained a bit of a mystery.

Details have emerged about a new class of amphibious warships that Navy and Marine Corps leaders say will be essential to competing with near-peer adversaries at sea.

The Navy has released details on a proposed new class of light amphibious warships. The ships will be necessary as the sea services rise to meet growing challenges at sea, according to slides from a recent Navy-led industry day during which leaders met with two dozen companies to discuss the idea.

The lighter ships, according to the slides, will help the Navy and Marine Corps “meet new challenges,” including sea-control-and-denial operations. The light amphibious warships, the slides add, will serve as “maneuver and sustainment vessels to confront the changing character of warfare.”

The U.S. Navy is teaming up with DARPA to develop autonomous, robotic ships that are completely human free. The NOMARS (No Mariners Required Ship) concept, if successful, would be a huge leap over current unmanned surface vessel development efforts. The result could be a warship able to do the tedious, dangerous, and dirty jobs all by itself, keeping human-crewed ships safe from harm—and boredom.

The Navy, struggling to grow the fleet on a flat defense budget, is making a big push into unmanned surface vessels, or USVs. The Navy plans to build ten Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle ships, 200 to 300 foot long vessels displacing 2,000 tons, in five years. LUSV would act as a scout, sailing ahead of the fleet to detect threats early, or floating magazine, carrying a large load of missiles. LUSV would ideally be autonomous, or optionally manned with a small crew.

“You want to engage as many targets as you can at longer range so what you get at short range is a few leakers, not the whole swarm,” says McGovern.

Coyote 2 has entered service with the U.S. military and Raytheon are now offering it to international customers. The attack on Abqaiq, and mass drone assaults on the Russian airbase at Khmeimim in Syria, show how easily swarms of drones can be deployed even by non-state actors. Such attacks can rapidly deplete stocks of expensive missiles, or overwhelm them. Any drones that get through can attack with lethal effects.

In future conflicts, drone swarm versus interceptors is likely to become an increasingly key battle. Whoever has the fastest, most agile, and most numerous drones is likely to come out the winner. Coyote 2 may help defenders stay ahead of the threat.

Crispr could lead to skin that color changes for humans in the military.

The masters of marine masquerade can morph from rough to smooth in less than a second.