Lifeboat Foundation

I’ve always liked living spaceships, but it seems to me that the animal kingdom would make far inferior spaceships to the plant kingdom. With that in mind, what does this tree-ship have to be made from to:

Illustrations by Jason Schneider

“In terms of strength, wood is pretty good,” says Mike Gruntman, professor of astronautics at the University of Southern California. Early airplanes were built with wood, all the way into the early 1930s. (There were also wooden submarines.) Gruntman thinks it may be possible to build a wooden spacecraft that could survive the stress of a rocket launch.

Once your timber ship made it into space, however, you’d have a lot of problems. For starters, the organic matter would contain a fair amount of water. In a vacuum, that water would leak out and evaporate, which could affect the structure—especially in places where screws and brackets were attached. Even if this process unfolded over many weeks or months, the integrity of the spacecraft might be compromised.

Continue reading “Ask Anything: Could You Build A Spaceship Out Of Wood?” »

As Northrop Grumman’s NG-11 Cygnus spacecraft flew high above in low Earth orbit, NASA astronauts at the Johnson Space Center recently completed testing and evaluation of the company’s Earth-based full-scale cislunar habitat mockup.

Designed to test the ergonomics, feature layout and functional compatibility with basic “day-in-the-life” astronaut tasks for potential long-term use as a part of the future Lunar Gateway in cislunar space, the habitat mockup necessarily incorporated all core elements that would eventually be needed by a four-person Orion crew: sleep stations, a galley, crew exercise equipment and of course accommodations for science, a robotics workstations and life support systems.

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But neither SpaceX nor Musk have announced plans to do so.

When designing the Tesla Model S, Elon Musk wanted an electric motor that had the same horsepower as the most powerful internal combustion engine but with nearly-instantaneous torque. And he wanted it to be the size of a watermelon. Engine manufacturers told him this couldn’t be done. So the Tesla CEO decided to build his own motor. The earlier versions of this had a hand-wound stator which increased winding density to help eliminate resistance and increase peak torque. Later versions of the stators were built by robots.

Musk made the same decision with practically every other component of the Tesla — including the power electronics and other elements of the drivetrain. For him, there could be no compromises in design and functionality. That is why almost every component of the Tesla Model S is produced at its factory in Fremont, Calif.

When you drive a Model S, you can see the results. The car literally seems to fly. It picks up acceleration like a spaceship shifting into warp speed. The car is eerily quiet, comfortable, and elegant. It is a completely different driving experience than the cars we are used to. There is no engine to start, gears to shift, or oil to replace. The brakes don’t wear out because you hardly use them. The Tesla regenerative-braking system charges the car as it slows.

Continue reading “Tesla will have a $35K car that can go 1,000 miles on a single charge by 2020” »

I’m at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington D.C. sharing about NASA’s plans to use the Moon as a proving ground for our ultimate goal of sending humans to Mars. Watch:

The billionaire owner of Blue Origin outlines plans for mining, manufacturing, and colonies in space.

[Photo: Flickr user NASA Goddard Space Flight CenterFollow;courtesy of BlueOrigin].

Planes, Drones, and AI Machines

But going from Mach 2 to Mach 5 is not an easy undertaking. Hermeus is hoping to pull from existing technologies to make its insanely fast passenger plane a reality, including titanium materials and cutting edge rocketry.

It’s impossible to tell what the future of air travel will look like. If supersonic airplanes aren’t it, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has pushed for the idea that we’ll go between Earthly destinations in rockets that can technically take us to Mars.

Continue reading “Blazing Supersonic Plane Could Zoom From NY to Paris in 90 Min” »

Jeff Bezos is adding another title to his credit: space postmaster.

The Amazon CEO and founder of Blue Origin on Thursday (May 9) announced that his private spaceflight company has created a new program to inspire today’s youth to think about their future in space. To get them started, Bezos plans to launch and return 10,000 stamped postcards with students’ visions for humanity beyond Earth.

“One of the things we have to do is inspire the future generations,” said Bezos during a press event where he also unveiled his own far-reaching vision for space settlement, including Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander. “So today, I am announcing that Blue Origin is founding the Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire young people to build the future of life in space.”

Continue reading “Blue Origin kicks off kids’ space club with offer to launch postcards” »