Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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NASA recently provided $10 million in funding to Ad Astra Rocket Company of Texas for further development of its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), an electromagnetic thruster capable of propelling a spaceship to Mars in just 39 days. NASA’s funding was part of the “12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership.” Ad Astra’s rocket will travel ten times faster than today’s chemical rockets while using one-tenth the amount of fuel.

The VASIMR system would cut the trip to Mars by months according to Franklin Chang Diaz, a former MIT student, NASA astronaut, and now CEO of Ad Astra.

According to Diaz, “this is like no other rocket that you may have seen in the past. It is a plasma rocket. The VASIMR Rocket is not used for launching things; it is used for things already in orbit. This is called “in-space propulsion.”

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If you thought the Kepler spacecraft’s glory days were over, think again. Today at the 227th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, astronomers announced a whopping 234 new exoplanet candidates discovered by Kepler in 2014. The best part? All of them are just tens of light years away.

The deluge of planetary candidates are distributed among 208 star systems, which means we have the honor of welcoming many new multi-planet systems to our cosmic neighborhood. While these candidates aren’t confirmed yet, there’s a good chance most of them will be, according to Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, who presented the findings today. All 234 were found during the first year of the K2 mission, which is scanning stars across the plane of our solar system, moving from one field of view to the next.

Add these K2 planets to the 4,600+ candidate worlds (1,918 confirmed planets) discovered during Kepler’s original mission, and it’s fair to say this little telescope has become one hell of a planet hunter.

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Walls and floors can seriously limit the range of your wireless network, but the WiFi Alliance thinks they’ve come up with a fix. Their new 802.11ah standard aims to deliver superior penetration and power savings to boot.

How will 802.11ah do that? By operating in the unlicensed 900MHz spectrum. Today’s WiFi gear operates at either 2.4GHz or 5GHz. Their higher frequencies make it harder for the signals to maintain their strength as they pass through obstructions. That’s one reason Google wants you to pretty up your OnHub router: so that you stick it somewhere out in the open where walls won’t get in the way.

Way down at 900MHz, though, things like walls, floors, and doors won’t be as much of a problem. According to the WiFi Alliance, 802.11ah will also achieve nearly double the range of current standards. There’s another bonus, too. Because the signal doesn’t degrade as much when it passes through objects, devices don’t consume as much power while sending and receiving data.

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title_01_hrl3D printed ceramics are still something of a rarity, compared to other materials. The material has several limitations; it’s generally printed by sintering powder materials that result in porous, relatively weak end products with low heat resistance. This greatly limits the size and shape of objects that can be printed; 3D printed ceramic objects have thus far been pretty much limited to relatively small decorative items or tableware. But that’s all about to change, thanks to a new material developed by research and development company HRL Laboratories, LLC.

kilnHRL, which is owned by Boeing and General Motors, has developed a ceramic resin that can be printed through stereolithography. The company actually calls it a “pre-ceramic” resin that prints like a typical plastic resin, and is then fired in a high temperature kiln, which turns it into a dense ceramic. The resulting objects are about ten times stronger than other 3D printed ceramics, have virtually no porosity, and can withstand temperatures higher than 1700°C.

“With our new 3D printing process we can take full advantage of the many desirable properties of this silicon oxycarbide ceramic, including high hardness, strength and temperature capability as well as resistance to abrasion and corrosion,” said program manager Dr. Tobias Schaedler.

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Intel’s collaboration with eyewear maker Luxottica will launch its first product later this year, with the release of special smart glasses designed for athletes.

Intel showed off the technology, which it called Radar Pace, on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. The wearable tech will apparently be available in sunglasses made by the Luxottica-owned Oakley brand.

During a video and on-stage demo, Intel showed how the Oakley glasses, equipped with special earpieces on either side, allowed an athlete to quickly track workout information like the speed and distance travelled while running. The tech is entirely voice-activated. Unlike Google Glass, which requires that users swipe the side of the headset to do certain things, the Radar Pace technology lets the wearer do everything just by talking.

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Moximed, a firm with offices in Hayward, California and Zurich, Switzerland, recently won the European CE Mark to introduce its Atlas Knee System. We just got hold of photos of the Atlas and more information on how it works. The device is a knee joint unloader designed to reduce the pressure applied to the joint and to push off the eventual need for a knee replacement. The device works like the shock absorbers in your car, but instead for the knee. It results in less damage to the cartilage within the knee, letting it last longer than it would naturally without the support of the Atlas.

The company hopes the device will allow patients to maintain an active lifestyle they’re used to while improving satisfaction, reducing repeat surgeries, and lowering pain.

From the announcement:

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