Lifeboat Foundation

Elon Musk spent two hours detailing his plan to bring humanity to Mars. We cut it down to less than 90 seconds. You’re welcome.

“It’s driven by infinite improbability.”

The exploration of Europa begins under the ice in Antarctica.

That’s where a team of researchers, led by the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), has been testing a variety of robotic subs in recent years to learn about what technologies will work best when NASA eventually launches a mission to Jupiter’s icy moon.

Continue reading “If There’s Life on Europa, Robots Like These Will Find It” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is convinced that we must colonise Mars with a million people if the humanity is to survive long-term. To that effect in 2008, he almost went broke funding SpaceX – his then-new aerospace company – to keep developing next-generation rockets.

And on Tuesday, at a challenging moment in the 14-year-old company’s history, Musk plans to unveil his grand vision: to turn Mars into a “backup drive” and save humanity.

Continue reading “Elon Musk just unveiled a critical piece of his plan to save humanity” »

Researchers led by NASA’s former chief technologist are hoping to launch a satellite carrying water as the source of its fuel.

The team from Cornell University, guided by Mason Peck, want their device to become the first shoebox-sized ‘CubeSat’ to orbit the Moon, while demonstrating the potential of water as a source of spacecraft fuel.

It’s a safe, stable substance that’s relatively common even in space, but could also find greater use here on Earth as we search for alternatives to fossil fuels.

Continue reading “Making rocket fuel from water could drive a power revolution on Earth” »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFA6DLT1jBA

Elon Musk unveils SpaceX’s future Mars vehicle and discusses the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. The presentation focuses on potential architectures for sustaining humans on the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead.

Overview:
00:00. Why Mars and become a multi-planetary civilisation.

Continue reading “Elon Musk unveils plan to colonise Mars (2016.9.27)” »

Robert Zubrin is best known for his advocacy of the manned exploration of Mars.

Zubrin also had a design for interplanetary propulsion called the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket.

A nuclear salt-water rocket (NSWR) is a theoretical type of nuclear thermal rocket. A conservative design for the rocket would be fueled by salts of 20 percent enriched uranium or plutonium. The solution would be contained in a bundle of pipes coated in boron carbide (for its properties of neutron absorption). Through a combination of the coating and space between the pipes, the contents would not reach critical mass until the solution is pumped into a reaction chamber, thus reaching a critical mass, and being expelled through a nozzle to generate thrust.

Continue reading “Robert Zubrin’s Nuclear Salt Water Rocket Design” »

What would happen in the world if we could find renegade thinkers, give them the right dose of inspiration, and reinforce the audacity, passion and perseverance needed to pursue their biggest ideas?

How to Make a Spaceship is exactly the inspiration the next generation of audacious thinkers needs. (For more on the book, click through these tabs!)

As author Julian Guthrie said, “I hope this story is an inspiration. I hope that when you get to the end of this story, you set down the book and feel like you can go out and do something impossible in your own life.”

Continue reading “Challenge Accept Peter” »