Lifeboat Foundation

“TECLA (an acronym which stands for “Technology and Clay”) is a habitat consisting of two interconnected housing units, each covered by a semi-spherical dome. The units have been built using multiple Crane Wasp printing units operating simultaneously. Crane WASP is defined by the manufacturer as “a collaborative 3D printing system capable of printing houses” and can print various materials — such as earth-based materials, concrete mortar, and geopolymers — with a maximum speed of 300 mm/s and a maximum printing area of 50 sqm per unit. The design of the habitat features two or more “cocoon-like” housing units, whose shape vaguely resembles that of a sea urchin, in which structure, insulation, and finishes coincide. The thick raw earth walls of the units have a hollow structure consisting of several clay “waves”, which makes them at the same time relatively lightweight, resistant, and highly insulating. About 200 printing hours are required to build each unit, which consists of 350 clay layers, each 12 mm thick.”

Designed by Mario Cucinella and build by WASP, TECLA is a prototype house near Ravenna, Italy, made by 3D-printing a material based on locally-sourced clay.

It’s not a perfect solution.

Rather than releasing any new cameras for CES 2021, Canon is doing something different: Letting you take pictures from space. The company has unveiled an [interactive site](https://redefinethelimits.us/space/cornerstone/experience) that allows you to use its CE-SAT-1 satellite, equipped with a lightly modified 5D Mark III DSLR, to grab simulated photos of locations including New York City, the Bahamas and Dubai.

Canon launched the wine barrel-sized microsatellite back in June of 2017. It holds an EOS 5D Mark III camera that’s fitted with a 40 cm Cassegrain-type (mirror) 3720mm telescope. Orbiting at a 600 km orbit (375 miles), it provides about a 36-inch ground resolution within a 3×2 mile frame, Canon claims. (By contrast, the world’s highest-resolution satellite, [WorldView-4](https://apollomapping.com/worldview-4-satellite-imagery?gcli…rT_D_BwE), can resolve down to 12 inches.) It also houses a PowerShot S110 for wider images.

Take ‘photos’ of Earth from space with Canon’s 5D Mark III camera.

Continue reading “Canon made a site that lets you ‘take photos’ from a real satellite” »

This eco village is 100% self-sufficient and zero waste, offering warmth, shelter and even food! The community of 23 houses was built using recycled, repurposed and locally sourced materials in the Netherlands. These houses produce around 75% of their own electricity and 100% of their heat with the…

Sierra Nevada, the spaceship’s maker, is also building the LIFE space habitat.

Delays, many related to COVID, have pushed the first flight of the Dream Chaser space plane to 2022.

This robot will vacuum and serve you a martini all with one hand…ignore the dust in your glass please.

Two of the new robots are more futuristic, but one of Samsung’s new Bots will be available in the US this year — a robot vacuum that doubles as a home monitoring device.

The cable, called hollow-core fiber, is a next-generation version of the fiber-optic cable used to deliver broadband internet to homes and businesses. Made of glass, such cables carry data encoded as beams of light. But instead of being solid, hollow-core fiber is empty inside, with dozens of parallel, air-filled channels narrower than a human hair.

Because light travels nearly 50% faster through air than glass, it takes about one-third less time to send data through hollow-core fiber than through the same length of standard fiber.

The difference is often just a minuscule fraction of a second. But in high-frequency trading, that can make the difference between profits and losses. HFT firms use sophisticated algorithms and ultrafast data networks to execute rapid-fire trades in stocks, options and futures. Many are secretive about their trading strategies and technology.

Circa 2020

“Seasteader” housing built on platforms would rise and fall with the tides, but practical challenges are huge.

Would you like to live on a space station? 😃

If that sounds familiar to fans of the popular sci-fi book and TV series “The Expanse,” that’s because in that fictional universe, Ceres Station plays a pivotal role as one of humanity’s first human off-world colonies. In the series, however, the space rock itself was spun up to create a crewed habitat on its surface with artificial gravity.

In a paper uploaded to the prewrite repository arXiv this week, the team argues that Ceres would be prime real estate because it has nitrogen, which could enable the creation of an Earth-like atmosphere.

Continue reading “Scientists Propose Permanent Human Habitat Built Orbiting Ceres” »