Lifeboat Foundation

Segway’s S-Pod makes WALL-E’s hoverchair a reality.

Credit: Segway

Chrysler Aerospace was already contracted for the Saturn 1 and 1B First Stage so in 1971
they proposed an alternate shuttle program, the SERV and MURP
SERV: the Single-stage Earth-orbital Reusable Vehicle had a 53 metric ton payload in a 7m x 18m payload bay
12 LH2/LOX aerospike engines were arranged around the rim of the base, covered by movable metal shields
Jet Engines, which were fired just prior to touchdown in order to slow the descent.

MURP, the Manned Upper-stage Reusable Payload
The MURP was based on the HL-10 lifting body (Six Million Dollar Man test Vehicle) and a Larger Versionone larger (the D-34) could carry up to ten passengers.

Extensive travel required! Applications are open for #Artemis explorers who will be journeying to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Our latest astronaut class shares their journey to #BeAnAstronaut. Are you next? https://youtu.be/q5T9iYjt6Lk

From robots that flip burgers in California to ones that serve up bratwursts in Berlin, we are starting to see how machines can play sous-chef in kitchens around the world. But scientists at the University of Cambridge have been exploring how these culinary robots might not only do some of the heavy lifting but actually elevate the dining experience for the humans they serve, demonstrating some early success in a robot trained to cook omelettes.

The research project is a collaboration between the University of Cambridge researchers and domestic appliance company Beko, with the scientists setting out to take robotic cooking into new territory. Where robot chefs have been developed to prepare pizzas, pancakes and other items, the team was interested in how it might be possible to optimize the robot’s approach and produce a tastier meal based on human feedback.

Continue reading “Robot chef uses machine learning to perfect its omelette-making skills” »

The SpaceX CEO has a bold target to start his Mars settlement plans, and he’s not backing down.

#Tesla #AI

Featured image: Tesla

Tesla has managed to attract the best artificial intelligence specialists to its Autopilot team who are committed to developing software that makes full self-driving possible. The company recently published two patents that relate to improvements in this area.

Continue reading “Tesla Filed Patent ‘Machine learning models operating at different frequencies for autonomous vehicles’” »

While scanning the skies, humanity has identified thousands of exoplanets orbiting distant stars. However, very few of them are at all similar to Earth. Now, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen reports a newly discovered exoplanet could be a “mirror image” of our own.

We currently lack the technology to directly image exoplanets, so we can only infer their presence via two methods. Astronomers either look for small wobbles in a star’s rotation caused by the gravity of planets or drops in brightness from our perspective on Earth, which indicates a planet has transited the star. Kepler used the latter method to identify more than 2,600 exoplanets, and that number will probably continue to rise. Teams like the one from the Max Planck Institute are still combing through the luminance data gathered by Kepler to uncover new exoplanets. That’s how they found the very Earth-like candidate exoplanet KOI-456.04.

If it exists, KOI-456.04 orbits a sun-like star called Kepler-160 about 3,000 light-years away from Earth. Previous analysis of Kepler-160 revealed two large exoplanets — these gas giants are much easier to spot in the background noise, so many of the worlds we’ve discovered are very unlike Earth. One of those planets, Kepler-160c, showed small perturbations in its orbit that could indicate another planet, so the Max Planck Institute set out to find it.

New research using ancient DNA is rewriting prehistory in India — and shows that its civilisation is the result of multiple ancient migrations, writes Tony Joseph.

Who are the Indians? And where did they come from?

Amateur astronauts, private space stations, flying factories, out-of-this-world movie sets — this is the future the space agency is striving to shape as it eases out of low-Earth orbit and aims for the moon and Mars.

It doesn’t quite reach the fantasized heights of George Jetson and Iron Man, but still promises plenty of thrills.

“I’m still waiting for my personal jetpack. But the future is incredibly exciting,” NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren said the day before SpaceX’s historic liftoff.