Lifeboat Foundation

To develop the hypersonic vehicles of the future, we need to properly understand how to predict boundary layer transition on realistic vehicle shapes and what the minute effects of turbulent flow on hypersonic vehicles are. Data from the BOLT II flight experiment will help do just that.

Both the BOLT and BOLT II vehicles have a complex, swept geometry with a concave surface to represent a real hypersonic vehicle. The aim is to produce complex, real-world data that engineers and scientists can use to improve their models for predicting transition on hypersonic vehicles.

A separate experiment is run on each side of the vehicle, with one “smooth” side and one “rough” side. The flow running length along the vehicle is 1 meter, slightly larger than the original BOLT vehicle.

Continue reading “This Wild Rocket Could Help Make Hypersonic Travel a Reality” »

Statement from members of the earth and space science international community.

We are Earth and space scientists, science communicators, and educators dedicated to the discovery of and solutions to societal challenges. We issue this joint statement to call on world governments and global leaders to do everything possible to expedite the end to the brutal Russian assault on Ukraine. We welcome other professional scientific communities to join our appeal.

1. The Earth and Space Community is an ecosystem of researchers working together and supporting each other. At this moment, our colleagues in Ukraine are being shelled with missiles and many have been forced to escape with their families from the war zone. We salute “Science for Ukraine” grassroots efforts and urge world governments to support Ukrainian students and science professionals.

Regardless of Pandemics, Wars, Supply chain shocks…the Planets digital brain capacity continues its near exponential growth.

When added to the 728 hyperscale datacentres that were in operation at the end of 2021 and factoring in [the] many new datacentre plans that will be announced over the next two to three years, we forecast that by the end of 2026 there will be an installed base of nearly 1,200 hyperscale datacentres around the world.

“Almost 40% of the world’s operational hyperscale datacentres are located in the US, and the bulk of the developments in the pipeline will also be US-based, with China and Ireland name-checked as the second and third countries with the most new builds planned.” The future looks bright for hyperscale operators, with double-digit annual growth in total revenues supported in large part by cloud revenues that will be growing in the 20–30% per year range,”

Continue reading “More than 300 new hyperscale datacentres in development globally” »

“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe,” observes physicist Michio Kaku. The neocortex, observed Carl Sagan is where “matter is transformed into consciousness.” Located deep in the brain’s center, the subcortex, the most evolutionarily ancient part of our brain, processes everything from our basic senses to long-term memories.

“Most Perfectly Organized Part”

Noble Prize laureate Roger Penrose suggest that the human brain and its cerebral cortex, the folded gray matter that covers the first couple of millimeters of the outer brain like wrapping paper, is more complex than our Milky Way Galaxy. “If you look at the entire physical cosmos,” Penrose says, our brains are a tiny, tiny part of it. But they’re the most perfectly organized part.”

Odd radio circles, or ORCs, are so massive that they measure about a million light-years across — 16 times bigger than our Milky Way galaxy. Now, astronomers have captured the best image yet of these strange celestial objects.

Other than Earth, no planet in our solar system has been so thoroughly or long examined as Mars. For decades, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has continuously explored the Red Planet with an array of orbiters, landers, and rovers.

What laid the groundwork for this unparallel record of exploration? This 90-minute documentary describes the challenges of JPL’s first attempts to send spacecraft to the Red Planet.

Continue reading “JPL and the Space Age: The Changing Face of Mars” »

How to robotically build a human habitat in space…

Happening now.

Accelerate the accessibility and commercialization of cislunar space through cost-effective, habitable, scalable Infrastructure.

Continue reading “ThinkOrbital — orbital assembly, servicing and manufacturing techologies” »

UNLV researchers have discovered a new form of ice, redefining the properties of water at high pressures.

Solid water, or ice, is like many other materials in that it can form different solid materials based on variable temperature and pressure conditions, like carbon forming diamond or graphite. However, water is exceptional in this aspect as there are at least 20 solid forms of ice known to us.

A team of scientists working in UNLV’s Nevada Extreme Conditions Lab pioneered a new method for measuring the properties of water under high pressure. The water sample was first squeezed between the tips of two opposite-facing diamonds—freezing into several jumbled ice crystals. The ice was then subjected to a laser-heating technique that temporarily melted it before it quickly re-formed into a powder-like collection of tiny crystals.