Lifeboat Foundation

After evaluating more than 12,000 applications, we’ll introduce our 2021 astronaut candidates live at a ceremony at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

After completing training, these women and men could be eligible for a variety of flight assignments including missions on and around the Moon under Artemis.

Continue reading “NASA Announces 2021 Class of Astronaut Candidates” »

The idea of Web 3.0 has been disappointing for Elon Musk and he has referred to it as BS. The reasons are unclear but might be soon unveiled.

TL;DR Breakdown.

Web 2.0 has ensured that the informational needs are fulfilled and has also opened ways for education, finance, banking, health, and other domains. As all these are integrated into a new space, we have the opportunity to see the evolution of the web.

The red planet’s mysteries are being unraveled. Here are five of the biggest discoveries in recent times.

In a new paper published in Space: Science & Technology, a team of researchers have created a new lightweight robotic arm with precision controls.

As missions in space increase in scope and variety, so to will the tools necessary to accomplish them. Robots are already used throughout space, but robotic arms used on Earth do not translate well to space. A flat plane relative to the ground enables Earth-bound robotic arms to articulate freely in a three-dimensional coordinate grid with relatively simple programming. However, with constantly changing environments in space, a robotic arm would struggle to orient itself correctly.

Machine learning could help humanity discover more than ever.

Looking to the future, astronomers are excited to see how machine learning will enhance surveys.

Graphene consists of a planar structure, with carbon atoms connected in a hexagonal shape that resembles a beehive. When graphene is reduced to several nanometers (nm) in size, it becomes a graphene quantum dot that exhibits fluorescent and semiconductor properties. Graphene quantum dots can be used in various applications as a novel material, including display screens, solar cells, secondary batteries, bioimaging, lighting, photocatalysis, and sensors. Interest in graphene quantum dots is growing, because recent research has demonstrated that controlling the proportion of heteroatoms (such as nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous) within the carbon structures of certain materials enhances their optical, electrical, and catalytic properties.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok-Jin Yoon) reported that the research team led by Dr. Byung-Joon Moon and Dr. Sukang Bae of the Functional Composite Materials Research Center have developed a technique to precisely control the bonding structure of single heteroatoms in the graphene quantum dot, which is a zero-dimensional carbon nanomaterial, through simple chemical reaction control; and that they identified the relevant reaction mechanisms.

With the aim of controlling heteroatom incorporation within the graphene quantum dot, researchers have previously investigated using additives that introduce the heteroatom into the dot after the dot itself has already been synthesized. The dot then had to be purified further, so this method added several steps to the overall fabrication process. Another method that was studied involved the simultaneous use of multiple organic precursors (which are the main ingredients for dot synthesis), along with the additives that contain the heteroatom. However, these methods had significant disadvantages, including reduced crystallinity in the final product and lower overall reaction yield, since several additional purification steps had to be implemented. Furthermore, in order to obtain quantum dots with the chemical compositions desired by manufacturers, various reaction conditions, such as the proportion of additives, would have to be optimized.

Yutu-2 snapped a fuzzy view of something interesting on the horizon.

Turns out, the launch is the easy part.

It’s taken decades to prepare the James Webb telescope for it’s December launch. But that’s really just the end of the easy part of the space telescope.

This crystal of iron pyrite, just four hundredths of a millimeter in size, could function as the light absorbing layer of a tiny solar cell – potentially a promising future source of power on the Moon.

Working with Estonia’s Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), ESA has studied the production of sandpaper-like rolls of such microcrystals as the basis of monograin-layer solar cells.

“We’re looking at these microcrystals in the context of future lunar settlement,” explains ESA advanced manufacturing engineer Advenit Makaya. “Future Moon bases will need to ‘live off the land’ in order to be sustainable, and the iron and sulfur needed to produce pyrite could be retrieved from the lunar surface.”