Lifeboat Foundation

Aboard the International Space Station, NASA Expedition 66 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Kayla Barron of NASA answered pre-recorded questions about life and work as astronauts on the orbital laboratory during an in-flight event Jan. 24 with students attending the Center for Early Childhood Education in Hollywood, California. Vande Hei and Barron are in the midst of long duration missions living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.

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Dr Jim Green, NASA Office of the Chief Scientist, looks at the science behind the blockbuster movie: The Martian.

The bestselling book about an astronaut stranded on Mars was brought to life in Ridley Scott’s film, The Martian. Before production started, Ridley called NASA to obtain information about NASA’s plans for human exploration of Mars as well as the science of Mars that would contribute to a realistic look and feel of the film in keeping with the approach laid out in Andy Weir’s book.

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In October 2017, the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua passed through our solar system, leaving many questions in its wake. Not only was it the first object of its kind ever observed, but the limited data astronomers obtained as it shot out of our solar system left them all scratching their heads. Even today, almost five years after this interstellar visitor made its flyby, scientists are still uncertain about its true nature and origins. In the end, the only way to get real answers from ‘Oumuamua is to catch up with it.

Interestingly enough, there are many proposals on the table for missions that could do just that. Consider Project Lyra, a proposal by the Institute for Interstellar Studies (i4is), which would rely on advanced propulsions technology to rendezvous with interstellar objects (ISOs) and study them. According to their latest study, if their mission concept launched in 2028 and performed a complex Jupiter Oberth maneuver (JOM), it would be able to catch up to ‘Oumuamua in 26 years.

Continue reading “If launched by 2028, a spacecraft could catch up with ‘Oumuamua in 26 years” »

Ekto VR’s new ‘moon boots’ could solve the ‘infinite walking’ problem of Virtual Reality via an array of motorized wheels.

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Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Co-Founder of Singularity University, discusses the best way to predict the future, and shares his personal philosophies on innovation and the commercial space industry. Flimed at Singularity University’s Executive Program, March 2010.

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NEA Scout will visit an asteroid estimated to be smaller than a school bus – the smallest asteroid ever to be studied by a spacecraft.

Launching with the Artemis I uncrewed test flight, NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It’s vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”

The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe.

One of Webb’s key science goals is to study the nearby cosmos: uncovering hidden parts of our Solar System, peering inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming, and revealing the composition of exoplanets in more detail.

It got weird, fast.

And what about Wolszczan’s pulsar detection method? As precise as it is, shouldn’t it have revealed many such pulsar planets by now?

That’s the thing, according to Wolszczan. “I’ve been engaged with a number of long-term surveys, which were to search for millisecond pulsars and then look for planets around them,” he says, and while they’ve found a few objects around neutrons stars, they’ve found nothing like the PSR B1257+12 system. “That is the disappointing part of the whole story.”

Continue reading “30 Years Ago, Astronomers Discovered The First Exoplanet — And It’s Still Totally Bizarre” »