Lifeboat Foundation

But, using an assumption that a wormhole can be found at the middle of a black hole, a group of Portugese researchers modelled how objects like a chair, a scientist and a spacecraft would be able to withstand the journey through it.

‘What we did was to reconsider a fundamental question on the relation between the gravity and the underlying structure of space-time,’ Diego Rubiera-Garcia, lead author from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, said.

Continue reading “Tunnels in spacetime could someday take us to another universe, claims radical theory” »

An accurate method for spacecraft navigation takes a leap forward today as the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Leicester publish a paper that reveals a spacecraft’s position in space in the direction of a particular pulsar can be calculated autonomously, using a small X-ray telescope on board the craft, to an accuracy of 2km. The method uses X-rays emitted from pulsars, which can be used to work out the position of a craft in space in 3D to an accuracy of 30 km at the distance of Neptune.

Pulsars are dead stars that emit radiation in the form of X-rays and other electromagnetic waves. For a certain type of pulsar, called ‘millisecond pulsars’, the pulses of radiation occur with the regularity and precision of an atomic clock and could be used much like GPS in space.

The paper, published in Experimental Astronomy, details simulations undertaken using data, such as the pulsar positions and a craft’s distance from the Sun, for a European Space Agency feasibility study of the concept. The simulations took these data and tested the concept of triangulation by pulsars with current technology (an X-ray telescope designed and developed by the University of Leicester) and position, velocity and timing analysis undertaken by NPL. This generated a list of usable pulsars and measurements of how accurately a small telescope can lock onto these pulsars and calculate a location.

Continue reading “Navigating in deep space: The recipe to make Interstellar travel a reality” »

Not so long ago we had to assume that we’ll never be able to travel faster than light. This was based on scientists’ sensible belief that we can travel through space but cannot change the nature of space itself. Then the idea of ‘Warp Drive’ came along to challenge and seemingly change all of the barriers that Einstein’s theory identified. Warp Drive is all about squashing and stretching space — a pretty ambitious task to begin with. So maybe it’s time again to have a look at how far we’ve already come or how close we are to seeing a real warp drive built by humans.

In May 1994, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre finally presented his proposal of “The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity” in a scientific journal called Classical and Quantum Gravity.

He indeed was inspired by Star Trek and its creator Gene Roddenberry, who famously coined the expression “Warp Drive” to explain the inexplicable propulsion of the Starship Enterprise as prodigious speed was just necessary to enable his fictional space travelers to leap from star to star on their trek.

The VASIMR engine being developed by Costa Rican physicist Franklin Chang Díaz is one step closer to proving itself the best technology for propelling the next generation of spacecraft.

Sure its only to place a flag on the moon. I am sure that the opportunity around rare materials mining, etc. is also enticing to N Korea.

Totally for peaceful purposes, the country says.

Imagine a future where there is no need to cut down a tree and and reshape that raw material into a chair or table. Instead, we could grow our furniture by custom-engineering moss or mushrooms. Perhaps glowing bacteria will light our cities, and we’ll be able to bring back extinct species, or wipe out Lyme disease—or maybe even terraform Mars. Synthetic biology could help us accomplish all that, and more.

That’s the message of the latest video in a new mini-documentary Web series called Explorations, focusing on potentially transformative areas of scientific research: genomics, artificial intelligence, neurobiology, transportation, space exploration, and synthetic biology. It’s a passion project of entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, founder of OS Fund and the payments processing company Braintree.

Continue reading “How Scientists Plan to Grow Cities Out of Living Organisms” »

If human beings are ever to colonise other planets – which might become necessary for the survival of the species, given how far we have degraded this one – they will almost certainly have to use generation ships: spaceships that will support not just those who set out on them, but also their descendants. The vast distances between Earth and the nearest habitable planets, combined with the fact that we are unlikely ever to invent a way of travelling that exceeds the speed of light, ensures that many generations will be born, raised and die on board such a ship before it arrives at its destination.

A generation ship would have to be a whole society in microcosm, with hospitals and schools, living quarters and perhaps entertainment districts, a security force, maybe even a judiciary. It would need to be able to provide food for its crew, and that might require agriculture or aquaculture, perhaps even domestic animals (which might also be needed for the colonisation effort). Its design therefore presents a major challenge: not just to engineers but also to social scientists. How should the crew be selected and the environment structured to minimise interpersonal conflict? What size of population is optimal for it to remain committed to the single overarching project of colonising a new planet without too much of a risk of self-destructive boredom or excessive narrowing of the gene pool? Does mental health require that a quasi-natural environment be recreated within the ship (with trees, grass and perhaps undomesticated birds and small animals)?

As well as the technological and social challenges confronting the designers of such ships, there are fascinating philosophical and ethical issues that arise. The issue I want to focus on concerns the ethics of a project that locks the next generation into a form of living, the inauguration of which they had no say over, and that ensures their options are extremely limited.

Continue reading “Would it be immoral to send out a generation starship?” »

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning on going to Mars. NASA estimates that the cost will only be around $300 million.

Ever since Musk founded SpaceX is 2002, with the intention of eventually colonizing Mars, every move he has made has been the subject of attention. And for the past two years, a great deal of this attention has been focused specifically on the development of the Falcon Heavy rocket and the Dragon 2 capsule – the components with which Musk hopes to mount a lander mission to Mars in 2018.

Among other things, there is much speculation about how much this is going to cost. Given that one of SpaceX’s guiding principles is making space exploration cost-effective, just how much money is Musk hoping to spend on this important step towards a crewed mission? As it turns out, NASA produced some estimates at a recent meeting, which indicated that SpaceX is spending over $300 million on its proposed Mars mission.

Continue reading “NASA Estimates SpaceX 2018 Mars Mission Will Cost Only $300 Million” »

Thinking about Eugen Sänger’s photon rocket concept inevitably calls to mind his Silbervogel design. The ‘Silverbird’ had nothing to do with antimatter but was a demonstration of the immense imaginative power of this man, who envisioned a bomber that would be launched by a rocket-powered sled into a sub-orbital trajectory. There it would skip off the upper atmosphere enroute to its target. The Silbervogel project was cancelled by the German government in 1942, but if you want to see a vividly realized alternate world where it flew, have a look at Allen Steele’s 2014 novel V-S Day, a page-turner if there ever was one.

I almost said that it was a shame we don’t have a fictionalized version of the photon rocket, but as we saw yesterday, there were powerful reasons why the design wouldn’t work, even if we could somehow ramp up antimatter production to fantastic levels (by today’s standards) and store and manipulate it efficiently. Energetic gamma rays could not be directed into an exhaust stream by the kind of ‘electron gas mirror’ that Sänger envisioned, although antimatter itself maintained its hold on generations of science fiction writers and scientists alike.

Enter the Antiproton

Continue reading “The Evolution of Antimatter Propulsion” »