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Category: space travel – Page 496

NASA contractor Techshot have become the first to 3D print a heart structure in zero gravity using human stem cells. Together with 3D bioprinter developers nScrypt and bio-ink specialists Bioficial Organs they have successfully printed cardiac and vascular structures, and believe this could further 3D bioprinting efforts on solid ground.

Techshot have been developing technologies for NASA, SpaceX and other partners for more than 25 years. They have tech aboard the International Space Station among other places, and are also known for combining their aerospace specialism with the medical sector, having built the Bone Densitometer zero-gravity X ray machine.

NScrypt are responsible for building the world’s first 3D bioprinter back in 2003, and have been working on micro-dispensing and 3D printing systems for years. Also in the team was Bioficial Organs, which has grown out of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute in Louisville, Kentucky, and specializes in organ 3D printing innovations.

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Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has always had the dream of sending the human race to Mars. Now, thanks to SpaceX’s advancements, that dream is not far off. In an interview with The Washington Post, Musk divulges some new details on his plan to get to Mars.

The first step in his plan is to send an uncrewed spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018. These missions will continue every two years when Earth and Mars are at closest approach supplying rovers and science experiments to the Red Planet, and testing pertinent systems of the spacecrafts.

“Essentially what we’re saying is we’re establishing a cargo route to Mars,” Musk told The Post. “It’s a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It’s going happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station.”

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China is in talks with the Ukraine to finish a half built second copy of the Antonov cargo plane. It would likely cost about $300 million to complete the plane.

The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that was designed by the Soviet Union’s Antonov Design Bureau in the 1980s. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes (710 short tons). The Antonov An-225, initially developed for the task of transporting the Buran spaceplane, was an enlargement of the successful Antonov An-124. The first and only An-225 was completed in 1988.

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China has signed an agreement with the United Nations to open its future space station to spacecraft, science experiments and even astronauts from countries around the world.

The agreement was laid out by Ms Wu Ping, Deputy of China’s Manned Space Agency (CMSA), in a presentation at the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) annual session in Vienna on Tuesday.

The move is aimed at boosting international cooperation in space and spreading the benefits of on-orbit research and opportunities provided by the Chinese Space Station, the core module of which will launch in 2018.

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Physicists have just published new calculations that suggest the controversial EM drive — or electromagnetic drive — could actually work, and doesn’t defy Newton’s third law after all.

In case you’ve missed the hype, here’s a quick catch-up: a lot of space lovers are freaking out about the EM drive because of claims it could get humans to Mars in just 10 weeks, but just as many are sick of hearing about it, because, on paper at least, it doesn’t work within the laws of physics.

Despite that not-insignificant setback, the EM drive shows no signs of quitting, and test after test — including trials by NASA scientists at the Eagleworks lab, and an independent researcher in Germany — has conceded that the propulsion system, somehow, does produce thrust.

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This needs to be on the commercial carriers especially for those 4+ hour flights.

An Austin, Texas company, whose founders were commissioned by NASA to develop palatable foods for astronauts’ deep space mission to Mars, has built a device that can 3D-print pizza.

The company –known as BeeHex — boasts that its machine is efficient, clean, and capable of churning out a delicious pizza in less than half the time it takes a typical human chef. The tech is being developed for astronauts, but since NASA’s manned mission to the Red Planet isn’t planned until the 2030s, us Earthbound eaters may be able to enjoy a 3D-printed pizza at theme parks, shopping malls, or concert halls by early 2017.

Related: MIT student designs gardening robots that could grow produce for astronauts on Mars.

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