Lifeboat Foundation

The “outside the universe” question gets tricky right off the bat, because first you have to define the universe. One common answer is called the observable universe, and it’s defined by the speed of light. Since we can only see things when the light they emit or reflect reaches us, we can never see farther than the farthest distance light can travel in the time the universe has existed. That means the observable universe keeps getting bigger, but it is finite – the amount is sometimes referred to as the Hubble Volume, after the telescope that has given us our most distant views of the universe. We’ll never be able to see beyond that boundary, so for all intents and purposes, it’s the only universe we’ll ever interact with.

Conceptual artist Efflam Mercier, who has previously created images of an AI interstellar probe has now created images of ChipSats, a new class of space system that has the size of a fingernail and a mass of less than 10g (atto-sat class). i4is has started developing a ChipSat in the context of Project Glowworm.

https://i4is.org/what-we-do/technical/project-glowworm/

“Over the last few months, Thomas Pesquet has been able to bring Space into thousands of households, especially their younger members.”

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3D printing is inspiring new materials at JPL.

Some think the only way for humans to survive in space is to genetically modify them.

If President Trump wants to truly lead the United States and world into the exploration and settlement of the solar system, he needs to do something different and game-changing.

By Bob Zimmerman

Last October we started recruiting regional coordinators. These are individuals, organisations and groups of people who coordinate Asteroid Day activities in their own regions. As of today (April 16, 2017) we have over 187 coordinators across 114 countries. That is a fantastic achievement and I am very proud of the work these coordinators do every day. We have a dedicated email group and we meet once a week via teleconference to keep each other updated.

There are still quite a few regions where we need coordinators. Below is a list. If you are interested in this position or know someone who would be perfect for this role then please send an email to [email protected].

HERE is our Coordinator Guide which details the work our coordinators do.

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Apr16.

Phase 1 work demonstrated Optical Mining in the laboratory and performed mission and systems analysis of the application of Optical Mining to human exploration missions. Their mission analysis showed that the most accessible Near Earth Objects (NEOs) can be used to provide NASA with mission consumables for human exploration in deep space with the potential of saving up to $10 billion per year or $150 billion over the 15 year operational life cycle of a human exploration program. This savings alone would be enough to transform NASA’s vision of human exploration from being unaffordable to being affordable within budgets that Congress can approve. Phase 1 technical work included a full scale (8 kW) Optical Mining demonstration using a high fidelity CI-type asteroid simulant in vacuum using sunlight from a 10 meter diameter solar concentrator without mechanical contact or downforce. This work confirmed our physics based mathematical model of the excavation and volatile extraction process and scalability of results from 36 prior, small scale (≈ 1 cm diameter) demonstrations and tests.

Phase 2 work will complete mission and system analysis of the application of Optical Mining to an exciting program of human exploration and we will mature the technology of Optical Mining to the point at which NASA can baseline this approach for an affordable program of human exploration. Our mission studies will address the production via Optical Mining missions to extract and retrieve resources, consumable processing, storage, and application of consumables to human exploration mission in cislunar, NEO and Martian space. The mission studies will be tightly coupled with our laboratory work. Laboratory work will include the development and integration of a 30 kW Optical Mining test apparatus in our laboratory and integration with our high quality vacuum chamber for a test program involving Optical Mining.