Lifeboat Foundation

The Chinese government formed Comac in 2008 to design and build the single-aisle C919.

However, most of the parts are imported from foreign manufacturers, including the engine, avionics, control systems, communications and landing gear.

China’s government formed the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) in 2008 to design and construct the single-aisle C919 to reduce reliance on Europe’s Airbus and the United States’ Boeing.

Continue reading “What is China’s home-grown C919 aeroplane, and why is it important?” »

Will humanity ever travel to the stars? This is a question for the ages and it remains as open as a deserted stretch of interstate highway. To answer this question, we need an international scientifically-based effort that can chip away at the physics needed to make Star Trek real. Please have a listen to this episode with Guest Marc Millis. Well worth your time.

Propulsion physicist Marc Millis talks about the prospects for fast, efficient interstellar travel. Millis was head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Program at Glenn Research Center outside Cleveland for years beginning in the mid-1990s. We discuss why the problem of traveling to the stars is so difficult and what would need to happen to help such dreams become a reality. It’s a lively and irreverent discussion!

Continue reading “Episode 31 --- Interstellar Propulsion --- What We Need to Make Star Trek Real” »

Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur is a YouTube channel which focuses on exploring the depths of concepts in science and futurism. Since its first episode in 2014, SFIA has considered topics ranging from the seemingly mundane, to the extremely exotic, featuring episodes on megastructure engineering, interstellar travel, the future of earth, and the Fermi paradox, among others. Yet regardless of how strange a subject may seem, Isaac always tries to ensure that the discussion is grounded in the known science of today.

Isaac Arthur joins John Michael Godlier on today’s Event Horizon to discuss these subjects, the future past 2020. Thoughts on life extension. Nanotechnology. Artificial intelligence. The Fermi paradox.

Continue reading “Why the Future Will Be Weird with Isaac Arthur” »

Turn-of-the-century faith in ventilation to combat disease pushed engineers to design steam heating systems that still overheat apartments today.

Shared last year, but with the talk of future regenerative medicine I think it is important: Regenerative medicine aims to engineer tissue constructs that can recapitulate the functional and structural properties of native organs. Most novel regenerative therapies are based on the recreation of a three-dimensional environment that can provide essential guidance for cell organization, survival, and function, which leads to adequate tissue growth. The primary motivation in the use of conductive nanomaterials in tissue engineering has been to develop biomimetic scaffolds to recapitulate the electrical properties of the natural extracellular matrix, something often overlooked in numerous tissue engineering materials to date. In this review article, we focus on the use of electroconductive nanobiomaterials for different biomedical applications, particularly, very recent advancements for cardiovascular, neural, bone, and muscle tissue regeneration. Moreover, this review highlights how electroconductive nanobiomaterials can facilitate cell to cell crosstalk (i.e., for cell growth, migration, proliferation, and differentiation) in different tissues. Thoughts on what the field needs for future growth are also provided.

Bioelectricity.

It’s judgement day for Atlas and friends as they debut their new dance routine. Atlas believes that artistic expression is the key to salvation and could be the genisys of a new beginning. After all, a being who lacks a creative outlet is a being who resigns themselves to a dark fate. Terminator.

Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw.

Continue reading “Boston Dynamics: Rise of the Dance of the Machines” »

NASA recently announced the astronauts who will be taking part in the Artemis missions, and among them is Anne McClain, who has spent 203 days in orbit and conducted two spacewalks on the ISS. With the space industry looking nothing like it did 10 years ago and new spacecraft and technologies on the rise, McClain share her thoughts about how she and other astronauts would be embracing the future.

Lt. Col. McClain’s time aboard the ISS spanned from December 2018 to June of 2019, meaning her ascent and descent were both aboard Russia’s Soyuz capsules, as astronauts have gotten to and from space since the Shuttle days. The Artemis missions, however, will use a variety of new launch vehicles and spacecraft. And while she didn’t get to fly a Dragon capsule, she did get to check one out while it was docked at the station.

“I was so happy to have flown the Soyuz, because it is such a reliable, basic spacecraft — it’s almost like flying a piece of history — knowing I was going to be able to compare that to other vehicles to in the future,” she said. “I had the opportunity when I was on Space Station when DM-1 flew. And so, being able to float into that and look at their screens, their monitors, you notice right away that the technology has advanced to where it looks like the inside of a commercial airliner.”

The heavenly orbs are not quite stars and not quite planets.