Lifeboat Foundation

How will we send humans to the moon, Mars and other destinations in space? The chances are good that electric propulsion will play a role, and a company called MSNW is at the cutting edge of that technology.

The director of propulsion research for Redmond, Wash.-based MSNW, Anthony Pancotti, will take a share of Capitol Hill’s spotlight on Thursday during a hearing organized by the House Subcommittee on Space. And he expects to learn as much from his encounter with lawmakers as they’ll learn from him.

Continue reading “MSNW’s plasma thruster just might fire up Congress at hearing on space propulsion” »

A BAE railgun system is undergoing multi-shot rep-rate operations at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, in Virginia. Railgun firing test will continue over the next three years. The railgun system has been tested at Dahlgren’s railgun advanced research facility since November. The Navy has successfully tested a next-generation 32-megajoule railgun.

The US Navy is gradually increasing the railgun firing rate and energy level.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on seapower and projection forces, said * the pulsed power units, the batteries are getting smaller and are getting more efficient * more shots are being fired without having to replace the barrel.

Continue reading “Railgun science and technology phase completing by 2019” »

Early space aliens wouldn’t need to have worried about iron-poor blood astrophysicists now report. Apparently, iron was distributed uniformly throughout the cosmos quite quickly.

The implications for #astrobiology are obvious.

Iron — a building block of everything as we know it — was ubiquitous much earlier in the cosmos than anyone could have imagined, astrophysicists now report.

Continue reading “Universe Was Rife With Iron Early On, Say Astrophysicists” »

This leg brace stores and saves your energy.

Amazon’s next warehouse could be in the skies.

Thales Alenia Space has seen massive savings in time and cost for the manufacturing of its products thanks to 3D printing, said Florent Lebrun, who heads space antenna development at the company. With this new manufacturing process, not only can Thales cut production lead time for certain components from months to weeks, it can save up to 50 percent on expenditure per part, he said.

Thales began experimenting with 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, in 2013, when it produced its first few demonstrator products. In 2015, it implemented a 3D-printed part for the first time on a telecommunications satellite — an antenna horn mounting strut for TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSat. The company also produced eight titanium antenna fittings for Arabsat 6B that year, Lebrun said.

Now, two years later, after the launch of SGDC 1, Telkom 3S and Koreasat 7, Thales has orbited around 80 3D-printed parts, with more than 120 additional parts produced this year for future applications.

Continue reading “Is 3D Printing the Future of Satellite Manufacturing?” »

Often one hears others saying they want to work to live, not live to work. Do you agree? If so, try reading this. It might give you food for thought.

There’s this thing people say about work. I’m sure you’ve heard it countless times, and maybe you’ve said it yourself. I’ve heard it a lot too, and I’ve nodded at it more than once. As an expression, it may well be old enough to qualify as common wisdom.

“I want to work to live, not live to work.”

Continue reading “Imaginary points” »

“A report outlining how blockchain technology will usher in a new era of the internet has been published by the World Economic Forum at its 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, taking place on 27–29 June in Dalian, People’s Republic of China.”

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“The point is that wearables, bionics, AI, virtual/mixed/augmented reality – all bleeding edge technologies that (literally) are reshaping how we work, interact, learn, and live – are doing so as ‘other’ to our individual, biological selves.”

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