Lifeboat Foundation

Following two failed landings at sea, the next Falcon 9 rocket will attempt to touch down at Cape Canaveral.

After SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket returns to flight later this month, the company will try to land the first stage booster back on solid ground, according to NASA officials. If successful, it would mark not only the first successful landing and recovery of the company’s flagship rocket, but also the first terrestrial rocket landing for SpaceX after two failed landing attempts at sea.

The launch—which could come as soon as December 15, though a flight plan has not been confirmed by the U.S. Air Force—marks a big next step for SpaceX. The mission will be the company’s first since a June launch in which an unmanned Falcon 9 bound for the International Space Station broke apart mid-flight. The landing attempt will also follow the successful launch and landing of a reusable rocket by rival spaceflight company Blue Origin last week.

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Next time a SpaceX rocket touches down, it will be on solid ground.

Florida Today broke the news today that SpaceX was hoping to land its next Falcon 9 rocket on the ground at NASA’s Cape Canaveral facility in Florida.

SpaceX has attempted to land a rocket gently before, but those attempts were made on giant floating platforms in the ocean (which just missed). Then, last week, competitor Blue Origin managed to land it’s own reusable rocket safely on the ground, amping up the public pressure on SpaceX to successfully land their own rocket.

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Only 12 people—all Americans—have put their boots on the Moon. Today, however, NASA has no plans to send humans back to our pockmarked satellite. Instead, its space pioneers will shoot straight to Mars (and wave to the Moon as they pass it by).

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Sub-orbital only, but still very nice.

A big milestone.

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A team led by MIT Professor Russ Tedrake has been selected by NASA to develop algorithms for the 6-foot-tall “Valkyrie” robot in support of future space travel to Mars and beyond.

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With its nitrogen-dominated atmosphere and water-rich icy surface, Pluto seems much more hospitable than even the most sanguine planetary scientists would have wagered a decade ago. But could it ever play host to an Antarctic-styled research station?

That is, as a base to routinely house researcher/astronauts out to give humans a foothold in the outer reaches of our solar system?

“The notion of a Pluto base figures prominently in the anime ‘Star Blazers’ from my childhood, so it’d be wonderful if there were a good reason for it,” said Gerard van Belle, a research astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Az., where Clyde Tombaugh discovered the diminutive dwarf planet some 85 years ago.

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Massachusetts-based space company Draper has trialled a gyroscopic jet-packthat could help give astronauts new freedom when working in orbit or exploring asteroids in the future.

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Yes, conceivably. And if/when we achieve the levels of technology necessary for simulation, the universe will become our playground. Eagleman’s latest book is “The Brain: The Story of You” (http://goo.gl/2IgDRb).

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Continue reading “David Eagleman: Can a Computer Simulate Consciousness?” »