Lifeboat Foundation

A new video spotlights Positron Dynamics, a research startup investigating how to use antimatter to explore beyond the solar system.

Transistor-design would help chip ship survive radiation of 20-year trip to Alpha Centauri.

Continue reading “Space Warp Dynamics: The startup that's working on sending humans to Proxima Centauri” »

PD Aerospace, a Japanese company that’s similar to Virgin Galactic in its commercial spaceflight aspirations, has picked up two high-profile investors: ANA Holdings and the H.I.S. travel agency.

In a joint statement issued Thursday, the three Japanese companies said that they agreed in October to work together on space commercialization efforts, including space travel.

“The two options looked like going to work at NASA or going to work with a large corporation that was fulfilling space contracts with the government — a Boeing, a Lockheed or Northrup,” said the partner at San Francisco-based Founders Fund.

Then Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — SpaceX — and Nolan became its first intern in 2003. The internship turned into a full-time gig developing reusable Dragon capsules at SpaceX and working on rocket propulsion, giving Nolan — who now invests in space startups — a front-row seat for the “New Space” race.

Musk’s Southern California company, which raised $1 billion early this year from Google and others at a $10 billion valuation, dramatically cut the cost of launching a space mission from $1 billion down to tens of millions.

Continue reading “Silicon Valley Startups Enter the Space Race” »

Audi are joining the electric car market with the Quattro e-tron, expected in 2018, but in the meantime, they have revealed they expect SpaceX to ferry a special vehicle to the moon for them.

Also Check: Jaguar join the electric car market.

Continue reading “SpaceX Set To ship Audi To The Moon” »

There has been a lot of digital ink spilled over the recent paper on the reactionless thrust device known as the EMDrive. While it’s clear that a working EM Drive would violate well established scientific theories, what isn’t clear is how such a violation might be resolved. Some have argued that the thrust could be an effect of Unruh radiation, but the authors of the new paper argue instead for a variation on quantum theory known as the pilot wave model.

One of the central features of quantum theory is its counter-intuitive behavior often called particle-wave duality. Depending on the situation, quantum objects can have characteristics of a wave or characteristics of a particle. This is due to the inherent limitations on what we can know about quanta. In the usual Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, an object is defined by its wavefunction. The wavefunction describes the probability of finding a particle in a particular location. The object is in an indefinite, probabilistic state described by the wavefunction until it is observed. When it is observed, the wavefunction collapses, and the object becomes a definite particle with a definite location.

While the Copenhagen interpretation is not the best way to visualize quantum objects it captures the basic idea that quanta are local, but can be in an indefinite state. This differs from the classical objects (such as Newtonian theory) where things are both local and definite. We can know, for example, where a baseball is and what it is doing at any given time.

Continue reading “NASA’s EMDrive And The Quantum Theory Of Pilot Waves” »

China launched a satellite this month that may be the key to a successful manned Mars mission and eventual colonization of the red planet beating out a similar NASA system scheduled to launch next year.

The world’s first X-ray navigation satellite acts like a GPS guidance system for spacecraft traveling beyond low Earth orbit and is intended to help China put rovers on the moon and Mars.

The X-ray Pulsar Navigation 1 (XPNAV) satellite measures radiation emitted by pulsars to pinpoint the exact location of a spacecraft, John Pye, manager of the Space Research Centre at the University of Leicester, told VICE News.

Continue reading “China Invents Space GPS For Mars Expedition And Interplanetary Travel” »

We have slim chance, suggests the British physicist Stephen Wolfram, of distinguishing an extraterrestrial artifact from a natural celestial object.