Austrian Verbund AG is acquiring the Illora photovoltaic project in southern Spain from BayWa r.e. The solar park, with a planned total capacity of 147.6 MW, is scheduled to go into operation in the first quarter of 2022.
Chinese scientists are celebrating the success of a new hypersonic engine, according to reports. The past few months have been important for China in terms of the success of its hypersonic technologies.
Not only did the country get a new wind tunnel ready for tests of hypersonic weapons but it is also developing a hypersonic passenger plane. The fact that the country is in possession of a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon system that is orbital in nature was also revealed less than a month ago.
Now, the successful testing of this engine will pave way for more advanced developments in components used for hypersonic flight, SCMP reported.
The COVID-19 pandemic – unexpectedly – has shown humanity a new way to reduce climate change: scrap in-person meetings and conventions.
Moonshot I will soon pass the 80-knot mark (over 92 mph) in the next year.
French startup Syroco hopes its boat Moonshot I will soon pass the 80-knot mark (over 92 mph) in the next year, according to the Robb Report. To do this the firm is targeting some pretty ambitious achievements.
Keeping true to Syroco’s pioneering spirit and thirst for discovery, research has already made it possible to question fundamental paradigms in naval architecture. For only research, coupled … See more.
Updating the goal of Chang’e 8 mission.
Chinese space authorities told state media South China Morning Post (SCMP) that the unmanned lunar station, jointly built with Russia, will be completed around 2027.
The new plan, which is eight years earlier than previously scheduled, will help China get ahead of the U.S. in the space race.
China’s Chang’e 8 moon landing mission was originally aimed to carry out scientific studies like 3D-printing lunar dust, but the Deputy Director of China National Space Administration (CNSA) Wu Yanhua announced that the new target of the administration is putting an unmanned research station on the lunar surface, which was previously scheduled for 2035.
Wu, while not disclosing the details behind the decision, underlined that the mission was to “build a solid foundation for the peaceful use of lunar resources”.
Few individuals write about issues that impact human survival. Fewer still win multiple literary awards for writing science fiction novels. Hardly anyone joins a major corporation as chief futurist. Neal Stephenson can be credited for doing all three.
Writer, academician, video game designer and technology consultant are just some of the things Neal is famous for. He has authored historical epic novels ‘Cryptonomicon’ and ‘The Baroque Cycle;’ science fiction novels ‘The Diamond Age’ and ‘Anathem;’ contemporary thrillers ‘Zodiac’ and ‘REAMDE;’ and science fiction epic ‘Seveneves,’ among others.
His “Snow Crash” published in 1992 preceded ” The Matrix” series and introduced the concept of “The Metaverse”. Yes, Neal Stephenson coined the term. And his 1994 “Interface” preceded NeuraLink by over 20 years!
In his latest science fiction book “Termination Shock,” Neal lays out a scenario where an individual takes technological steps to intervene in climate change in order to ensure human survival. Let’s hope that this book does is not as prophetic as some of the others.
His imagination, unique sense of technology trends, immersive literary style, and attention to detail set a very high bar for the other science fiction authors. In the past, when people asked me what I would do when aging is defeated, I usually answered that I would catch up on Neal Stephenson’s novels as well as movies and video games based on his work.
What does NASA have planned for 2021 other than the commissioning of the Webb telescope? What about SpaceX and Blue Origin? With the landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars, the launch of the Lucy and DART missions, and the Juno probe’s continuing incredible work at Jupiter, 2021 was a spectacular success. Expect the same, but different in the next 12 months, with a bigger focus on our nearest neighbor—the Moon.
Here’s everything you need to know about space exploration, NASA missions, and space tourism in 2022:
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While rotating at up to 10 degrees per second!
The technological competition between the United States and China is growing at breakneck speeds.
A small and relatively low-cost satellite by China can allegedly take high-resolution images of cities in mere seconds, The South China Morning Post first reported. The images are allegedly so detailed that they can be used to identify specific military vehicles and weapons.
An impressive act proving this statement was performed by Beijing-3, a small commercial satellite launched by China in June. Beijing-3 conducted an in-depth scan of the San Francisco Bay, which corresponds to roughly 1,470 sq mi (3,800 sq km), within 42 seconds, according to scientists involved in the satellite project who published the results this month in the Chinese peer-reviewed journal Spacecraft Engineering.
Could water-recycling suits help future astronauts survive on Mars?
It’s one of the most well-known pieces of speculative technology in science fiction: the Stillsuit.
As an essential feature of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Stillsuit is the body-fluid recycling full-body suit worn by the Fremen of Arrakis, a technological adaptation to a desert world with almost no water but home to an extremely valuable resource that leads to human colonization of the barren planet.
While there isn’t any of the spice melange on Mars (at least none that we know of), Dune’s Arrakis has some very strong parallels to the red planet just down the way from us, and some important lessons to teach about survival in such an unforgiving environment.
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More headroom, more legroom, more room in general.
A new design for an autonomous taxi without a steering wheel or pedals has been unveiled by Waymo. The company, which has partnered with the Chinese automaker Geely, announced this week its intention to build a Zeekr minivan filled with passenger seats and little much else.
The minivan will be all-electric and self-driving as in being designed and developed in Gothenburg, Sweden. According to the US-based Waymo, the robot minivan will be added to its existing fleet “in the years to come.”
The announcement came via a blog post where Waymo gave a hint as to some of Zeekr’s planned features. According to Waymo, the Zeekr will have “a flat floor for more accessible entry, easy ingress, and egress thanks to a B-pillarless design, low step-in height, generous head and legroom, and fully adjustable seats.”
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