Lifeboat Foundation

Humans may need to genetically engineer themselves to withstand the harsh and unpredictable environments encountered during long-term space travel, one researcher says.

When Khoshnevis imagines the future of colonies on Mars, he imagines very tall buildings, with a lot of protection from the elements.

“Gravity is one third of Earth’s, and therefore with less construction material we can build stronger structures out there, therefore we can build much taller,” he says. “The cost of energy for elevators and all that will be much less. Theoretically everything could be three times as high as here with the same consumption of energy,” he says.

Continue reading “Meet Behrokh Khoshnevis, the Man Designing Robots to Build Colonies on Mars” »

Got a grand burning a hole in your pocket? You could get a new laptop — or you could send this tiny, palm-sized satellite to space. That’s what a team of engineers at Arizona State hope, anyway: their “FemtoSats” are meant to be as cheap a space-bound platform as has ever been devised.

At just 3cm per side and 35 grams (that’s about 1.2 inches and 0.077 pounds, dogs of the Imperial system), the SunCube 1F is the prototype FemtoSat. It’s powered by a salvaged scrap of solar panel (they don’t make them small enough off the shelf), the tiny unit includes propulsion, imaging, communication, and data collection.

Continue reading “Student-designed ‘FemtoSats’ aim to bring cost of satellite deployment below $1,000” »

The European Space Agency wants to build an international moon village. This is what it would look like.

Could benefit China and their own efforts in 2017.

Deltion Innovations aims to design a drill that would prospect for water, ice and resources on the moon and beyond.

We have China in 2017 wanting to mine the dark side of the moon hoping to find Gold. We have others wanting to mine Mars. With the mining lessons over the centuries and the damage it has created over time; is anyone else concern how mining the moon could impact our planet and space itself?

Engineers say Brazilian disaster shows world-wide danger from Hoover Dam-size earthen structures holding ‘tailings’ waste
By.
Paul Kiernan.

MARIANA, Brazil—Half an hour’s drive from this colonial town in southeast Brazil, trees suddenly give way to what looks like a desert salt flat. It is a 2-mile-wide valley filled with mine waste.

Continue reading “Mining Dams Grow to Colossal Heights, and So Do the Risks” »

The United States is transitioning from a primary reliance on fossil fuels to greater use of sustainable natural and nuclear energy sources. There are two reasons for this transition. The first reason is that the abnormally high and increasing level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has created scientific uncertainty and concern as to the detrimental impact this may have on the environment and, consequentially, human civilization. Almost certainly, this abnormal level is due to anthropogenic causes linked to the tremendous expansion in the human population since the early 1700s, the growth of human civilization (e.g., agriculture and industrialization), and the increasing use of fossil fuels. Although fossil fuels have enabled worldwide progress in elevating the standard of living, most of the world’s nations have reached the conclusion that the world should transition entirely to sustainable energy by 2100 (see “The Paris climate agreement and space solar power”, The Space Review, February 29, 2016). It is, however, very important to manage this transition carefully to avoid economic hardship or energy deprivation.

While the United States has large remaining fossil fuel resources, only some are technically recoverable with current safe, legal, and profitable extraction methods. The remaining known and yet-to-be-discovered domestic technically recoverable fossil fuels are inadequate to sustain US fossil fuel energy needs to the end of this century, especially given likely continued immigration-driven US population growth (see “US fossil fuel energy insecurity and space solar power”, The Space Review, March 7, 2016). While the United States has an ethical environmental obligation to end its use of fossil fuels by the end of the century, the reality of having inadequate oil and natural gas resources makes the urgency of transitioning successfully to new sustainable energy sources a clear matter of national energy security. This warrants federal government leadership and strong American private sector engagement.

Unfortunately, due to its large and growing population and per capita energy needs, the United States lacks sufficient suitable land to utilize terrestrial renewable energy to replace fossil fuels. (see “US terrestrial non-fossil fuel energy vs. space solar power”, The Space Review, March 14, 2016). While the United States will utilize terrestrial domestic renewable energy to the extent it is politically acceptable, many factors will likely limit their scale-up. The expansion of nuclear fission energy is also not a satisfactory approach, given the large number of reactors needed. These factors lead to the conclusion that only space-based sustainable energy, such as space solar power, will enable the United States to practically transition away from fossil fuels.

A new satellite mission has observed electron acceleration by electric field waves moving along the magnetic boundary between the Earth and the solar wind.

You may think I’m biased when I say investments in innovation across the space industry are growing, but the proof is all around us.

Growing by nearly 10 percent in just one year, the global space economy has reached a total of $330 billion worldwide, according to a 2015 Space Foundation report. Specifically, commercial space activities grew by 9.7 percent in 2014, while government investments in space saw a combined growth of 7.3 percent. And the part of space that’s most visible to us — rocket launch attempts — also increased from 81 attempts in 2013 to 92 in 2014.

These are promising statistics, and we’re seeing this growth in investment firsthand as we’ve witnessed some pretty incredible accomplishments throughout the industry over the past year.

Continue reading “Why the Future of Space is Brighter than Ever” »