Lifeboat Foundation

Europa, here we come.

In the coming years, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will send two robotic missions to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

Scientists have advanced in discovering how to use ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves to peer back to the beginning of everything we know. The researchers say they can better understand the state of the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang by learning how these ripples in the fabric of the universe flow through planets and the gas between the galaxies.

“We can’t see the early universe directly, but maybe we can see it indirectly if we look at how gravitational waves from that time have affected matter and radiation that we can observe today,” said Deepen Garg, lead author of a paper reporting the results in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Garg is a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics, which is based at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

Garg and his advisor Ilya Dodin, who is affiliated with both Princeton University and PPPL, adapted this technique from their research into fusion energy, the process powering the sun and stars that scientists are developing to create electricity on Earth without emitting greenhouse gases or producing long-lived radioactive waste. Fusion scientists calculate how electromagnetic waves move through plasma, the soup of electrons and atomic nuclei that fuels fusion facilities known as tokamaks and stellarators.

Crews caught in sun-free cycles will need to get creative with energy production.

When astronauts on the Artemis mission and beyond spend long periods in Lunar Night, they’ll need innovative forms of energy to power vehicles and research instruments.

I still like Helion… but not for a power plant. Instead, this is an interesting route to a fusion drive.

This is also a very good channel. It is worth watching his other fusion videos first.

Continue reading “The problems with Helion Energy — a response to Real Engineering” »

Lasers are intense beams of colored light. Depending on their color and other properties, they can scan your groceries, cut through metal, eradicate tumors, and even trigger nuclear fusion. But not every laser color is available with the right properties for a specific job.

To fix that, scientists have found a variety of ways to convert one color of laser light into another. In a study just published in the journal Physical Review Applied, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory demonstrate a new color-shifting strategy that is simple, efficient, and highly customizable.

The new method relies on interactions between the laser and vibrational energy in the chemical bonds of materials called “ionic liquids.” These liquids are made only of positively and negatively charged ions, like ordinary table salt, but they flow like viscous fluids at room temperature. Simply shining a laser through a tube filled with a particular ionic liquid can downshift the laser’s energy and change its color while retaining other important properties of the laser beam.

OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman sat down for a wide-ranging interview with us late last week, answering questions about some of his most ambitious personal investments, as well as about the future of OpenAI.

This second clip is focused exclusively on artificial intelligence, including how much of what OpenAI is developing Altman thinks should be regulated, whether he’s worried about the commodification of AI, his thoughts about Alphabet’s reluctance to release its own powerful AI, and worst-and best-case scenarios as we move toward a future where AI is ever-more central to our lives.

Continue reading “StrictlyVC in conversation with Sam Altman, part two (OpenAI)” »

We live in an era of renewed space exploration, where multiple agencies are planning to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. This will be followed in the next decade with crewed missions to Mars by NASA and China, who may be joined by other nations before long. These and other missions that will take astronauts beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system require new technologies, ranging from life support and radiation shielding to power and propulsion. And when it comes to the latter, Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) is a top contender!

NASA and the Soviet space program spent decades researching nuclear propulsion during the Space Race. A few years ago, NASA reignited its nuclear program for the purpose of developing bimodal nuclear propulsion – a two-part system consisting of an NTP and NEP element – that could enable transits to Mars in 100 days. As part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for 2023, NASA selected a nuclear concept for Phase I development. This new class of bimodal nuclear propulsion system uses a “wave rotor topping cycle” and could reduce transit times to Mars to just 45 days.

Continue reading “New Nuclear Rocket Design to Send Missions to Mars in Just 45 Days” »

UK Atomics, a subsidiary of the company applied to the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for a GDA by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency (EA). This assessment aims to assess the safety, security, and environmental protection aspects of any nuclear power plant design that is intended to be deployed in the UK.

In May 2021, BEIS opened the GDA process to advanced nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors (SMRs). Successful completion of the GDA culminates in the issue of a Design Acceptance Confirmation from the ONR and a Statement of Design Acceptability from the EA. Rolls-Royce SMR was the first vendor to submit an application for a GDA of an SMR design. Its 470 MWe pressurised water reactor design was accepted for review in March 2022. In December, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy submitted a GDA entry application for its BWRX-300 SMR, and Holtec International has stated its intention to submit an application for its SMR-160 design.

UK Atomics molten salt reactor design uses unpressurised heavy water as a moderator, while the reactor is intended to burn nuclear waste while breeding new fuel from thorium. The company says, with an output of 100 MWt, it is small enough to allow for mass manufacturing and assembly line production.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s decades of leadership in developing high-energy lasers is being tapped to provide a key component of a major upgrade to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS).

Over the next several years, LLNL’s Advanced Photon Technologies (APT) program will design and construct one of the world’s most powerful petawatt (quadrillion-watt) laser systems for installation in an upgraded Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) experimental facility at LCLS, funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science-Fusion Energy Sciences program.

The new laser will pair with the LCLS X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) to advance the understanding of high-energy density (HED) physics, plasma physics, fusion energy, laser-plasma interactions, astrophysics, planetary science and other physical phenomena.