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At a Royal Aeronautical Society lecture in London, Airbus revealed more details about its ambitious plans for Urban Air Mobility. Are we on the cusp of a revolution in air transport? TIM ROBINSON reports.

In 2025, could your Airbus A350-1000 long-haul business flight to Heathrow end with you stepping off the aircraft, going through passport control and instead of getting stuck in road works, underground strikes or overcrowded trains, see you hop inside a comfortable, quiet, electric-powered VTOL aerial taxi which would whisk you in under 20 minutes to a helipad the other side of London? Science fiction right?

What sounds like Blade Runner or even the Jetsons, is only five to seven years away from being a practical reality, according to Mark Cousin, SVP Head of Flight Demonstrators, Airbus CTO at a recent Rotorcraft Group lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society. “We believe that these vehicles will be technically feasible well before 2025,” he said.

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The UK government has revealed how investing in the space industry will form a key part of its strategy for boosting economic growth.

At the heart of the government’s strategy is a pledge to invest £99 million to create a National Satellite Testing Facility (NSTF) and another £4 million investment for a new National Space Propulsion Facility (NSPF).

The UK government hopeS the significant funding boost will enable the space industry to competitively bid for more national and international contracts and ensure it remains a world-leader for space technologies for decades to come.

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Royal College of Art graduate Brian Black has designed a concept rover and virtual-reality interface that would allow anyone on earth to contribute to space exploration missions.

Black’s vision would see participants driving the rovers over real planets and moons, and collecting samples for analysis, all via a virtual-reality (VR) headset.

Installed in galleries, universities or other public places, the VR experience would function as an engagement mechanism during future interplanetary missions by NASA and other space agencies.

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John Bucknell was Senior Propulsion Engineer for the Raptor full-flow staged combustion methalox rocket at SpaceX and is currently the Senior Propulsion Scientist for Divergent3D in Torrance, CA developing additively manufactured vehicle technologies.

In 2015, Bucknell presented the Nuclear Thermal Turbo rocket which added air-breathing to a nuclear thermal rocket.

Specific impulse (usually abbreviated Isp) is a measure of the efficiency of rocket and jet engines. By definition, it is the total impulse (or change in momentum) delivered per unit of propellant consumed and is dimensionally equivalent to the generated thrust divided by the propellant mass or weight flow rate. You can think of it like miles per gallon for cars. Higher ISP is better.

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– Tri Alpha Energy (TAE), the world’s largest private fusion company ($500 million in funding), has achieved first plasma on its newest generator, Norman, formerly known as C-2W and now named after the company’s late co-founder, Dr. Norman Rostoker.

The $100 million plasma generator, the fifth in a series of devices built over the last 20 years, will continue validation of the company’s underlying technology and enable commercialization efforts toward delivering utility-scale fusion energy. With Norman now operational, the company will continue to move quickly down its developmental path, expanding temperature ranges and sustaining plasma for longer periods towards perfecting the essential operating characteristics required to sustain fusion reactions. Over the coming months, the company will be accelerating Norman’s levels of performance to further validate the fundamental confinement requirements that will ultimately be necessary for commercial operations.

Like previous iterations of the device, Norman uses an advanced field-reverse configuration (FRC) combined with intense neutral beam injection to create and confine plasma. onstruction on this fifth-generation machine began in June of 2016, and it sits in a newly designed headquarters facility and control room in Foothill Ranch, CA. It takes the place of the company’s previous plasma generator, C-2U, which was able to successfully achieve its critical milestones including at-will plasma sustainment in June of 2015. Norman expands upon these milestones with the opportunity to bring forward new understandings in plasmas dominated by highly energetic particles.

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According to the report, the US Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy and other special forces are looking to improve troops’ performance by looking at their bodies at a genetic level (stock)

Earlier this year the AirForce successfully tested a helmet that can monitor brain activity and tell if the pilot is feeling stressed or panicked.

One research project is using a laptop-camera lens to find out if a person’s haemoglobin is oxygenated. This can then be used to work out a person’s heart rate.

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ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — Thanks to a new “suit” being developed by the DOD-funded Warrior Web program, future Soldiers will be able to march longer, carry heavier gear and improve mental sharpness.

The suit has pulleys and gears designed to prevent and reduce musculoskeletal injuries caused by the dynamic events typically experienced in the Warfighter’s environment.

Scientists and engineers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory have been testing variations of the suit for more than three years at the Soldier Performance and Equipment Advanced Research, or SPEAR, facility at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

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Previously he said 10 years and that was 2016 where he said 2 years until phase 1 human trials.

Is it an impossible dream to find Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth? No! I’ve just attended my 67th reunion at The Harvard Medical School (HMS) and, while interviewing Dr. George Church, I discovered it is no longer science fiction.

Dr. Church, Professor of Genetics at HMS, one of the world’s great scientists, predicts we are about to end the aging process. In the next five years no less! That’s why I say — damn it! I was born too soon.

Is Church too optimistic? Maybe, but when you see his 6-foot 5 inch body towering over you, with his white beard, it’s like talking to Charles Darwin or even Jesus Christ.

Continue reading “Does the Fountain of Youth really exist?” | >