Lifeboat Foundation

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) September 27, 2018

The Arch Mission Foundation today announced the creation of an archive of knowledge encoded into synthetic DNA by Microsoft, Twist Bioscience Corporation, and the University of Washington to be included in the Lunar Library™. The DNA Archive will feature 10,000 crowdsourced images and the full text of 20 important books, among other items. The data is encoded into billions of synthetic DNA molecules and encapsulated for long-term preservation. Collectively this data will represent the first Special Collection of the Lunar Library, which the Arch Mission Foundation announced last spring.

The Arch Mission Foundation sought partners that could help curate these materials and assist in achieving a remarkable collection that reflects both the best of human knowledge, as well as the most ambitious technical abilities in the emerging new field of molecular data storage. Molecular data storage is a new technology for storing and retrieving data from molecules of synthetic, non-living DNA.

Continue reading “The Arch Mission Foundation Announces Digital Data Stored in DNA Added to Lunar Library™, Creating Groundbreaking Archive of Knowledge on the Moon” »

Payback time.

DART is a test of the kinetic impactor technique, a potential method to deflect an asteroid on course to impact the Earth. Kinetic impactors are one of only a small number of approaches we think are mature enough to deploy in the near future if they are needed (though we hope they won’t be). The most powerful asteroid-deflection technique is the use of a nuclear device. While such a device makes for good (and bad) sci-fi movies, there is widespread desire to develop alternate techniques.

The kinetic impactor concept is rather straightforward: ram the threatening object with a spacecraft and change its orbit so that it misses our planet. In theory, we could heave ever-larger masses at ever-faster speeds to deflect ever-larger objects. However, we think there is a practical limit — we don’t want to break up an incoming object into several pieces, lest we replace one big impact with multiple, only-slightly-smaller impacts. Exactly where that tradeoff lies is still uncertain, but we believe we can keep an object intact if we change its speed by less than the object’s own escape speed. In other words, since we think a lot of these objects are loose aggregates of gravel held together by gravity, we don’t want to shove so hard that we accidentally overcome that weak gravity and disperse the gravel.

Continue reading “Asteroids have been hitting the Earth for billions of years. In 2022, we hit back” »

Astronomers found something not predicted by current theory when they took a closer look at the emissions from a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field.

The thought of colonizing Mars has science fiction aficionados, scientists, and billionaire entrepreneurs staring up at the night sky with renewed wonder and inspiration. But the key to achieving the lofty goal of colonizing and building extensively on a new planet may not exist out among the stars, but under our feet right here on Earth.

Christopher Maurer, an architect and Founder of Cleveland-based Redhouse Studio, and Lynn Rothschild, a NASA Ames researcher, believe algae and mycelium (the vegetative part of a fungus that consists of a network of fine white filaments) may make the perfect building material on Mars.

Popping champagne in outer space is now possible, thanks to a new kind of bottle created by Maison Mumm. The champagne company made the product specifically so that space tourists can share bubbly in zero gravity (astronauts aren’t allowed to drink liquor on the job—sorry, NASA).

The Japanese space agency just launched a prototype space elevator to the International Space Station to test motion along a taut cable in space.

AN ASTEROID the size of a 44-tonne lorry will zip past the planet tonight, astronomers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have warned.

Japan’s space agency just made history by landing robots on an asteroid.

Stephen and Neil deGrasse Tyson take NASA’s Mars Rover for a ride around Midtown Manhattan.