Lifeboat Foundation

Love this.

If it’s a successful kick start campaign, regardless of whether or not it actually gets built, it could go a long way towards showing the powers that be that this is truly mankind’s desire. and it’s ultimate manifest destiny. (I know the problem some people have with using that phrase, “manifest destiny”, but it fits this issue in a way that’s totally unrelated to the horrors we inflicted on native americans during our relentless push westward.)

It’s not a warp drive, but it could get us to the nearest star in two decades. If it works.

Continue reading “An Interstellar Antimatter Engine Is on Kickstarter” »

“The goal of the yearlong expedition is to better understand how the human body reacts to microgravity for long durations. Researchers say they hope the data acquired in this mission will help them figure out how to send humans on even longer missions, like one to Mars, which would take two-and-a-half years, roundtrip.”

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Within the next year, the U.S. Air Force plans to unveil novel spacecraft concepts that would be powered by a potentially revolutionary reusable engine designed for a private space plane.

Since January 2014, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has been developing hypersonic vehicle concepts that use the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which was invented by England-based Reaction Engines Ltd. and would propel the company’s Skylon space plane.

In April 2015, Reaction Engines announced that an AFRL study had concluded that SABRE is feasible. And AFRL is bullish on the technology; the lab will reveal two-stage-to-orbit SABRE-based concepts either this September, at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AIAA) SPACE 2016 conference in Long Beach, California, or in March 2017, at the 21st AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Conference in China, said AFRL Aerospace Systems Directorate Aerospace Engineer Barry Hellman. [The Skylon Space Plane in Pictures].

Continue reading “US Military Set to Unveil Concepts Based on Skylon Space Plane Tech” »

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Gerald Jackson and his partner are starting a Kickstarter to raise funds.

NASA is hard at work developing Solar Electric Propulsion engines for future space missions to Mars and beyond.

“Vulcan Inc. today announced a new exhibition of nearly 60 objects related to science fiction and the history of space exploration – Imagined Futures: Science Fiction, Art, and Artifacts from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection – that will be on view at its 3,000-square-foot flexible concept space, Pivot Art + Culture beginning April 7, 2016. The exhibition, curated by Ben Heywood, runs through July 10, 2016.”

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With the recent milestone achieved by the New Horizons mission, many are contemplating what our next space exploration goal should be.

If the human race is to survive in the long-run, we will probably have to colonise other planets. Whether we make the Earth uninhabitable ourselves or it simply reaches the natural end of its ability to support life, one day we will have to look for a new home.

Hollywood films such as The Martian and Interstellar give us a glimpse of what may be in store for us. Mars is certainly the most habitable destination in our solar system, but there are thousands of exoplanets orbiting other stars that could be a replacement for our Earth. So what technology will we need to make this possible?

Continue reading “Here’s how we could build a colony on an alien world” »