Lifeboat Foundation

If you really want to explore the unknown, it’s necessary to put every effort possible into this venture. According to NASA, that’s exactly what they had in mind when their plans to fund some supporting institutes were announced.

The ultimate goal, of course, is not only to boldly go out there, but to extent humanity’s reach in our solar system.

The so-called Space Technology Research Institutes, or STRIs, will each receive the handsome amount of $15 million in order to develop groundbreaking technology in biomaterials and biomanufacturing.

Continue reading “NASA announces 2 new institutes helping humanity to colonize the solar system” »

“VR was everywhere at the Austin festival.”

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Longevity news from Sweden.

More pressure to include aging as a disease from a number of important scientists. This time Sweden is the focus for the push to have aging included in their disease classification.

If you’re frustrated with slow wi-fi, you might be one of the many people eagerly awaiting the commercialisation of li-fi (or light-based wi-fi), which promises to be up to 100 times faster than the connections we use today.

Most li-fi systems rely on transmitting data via LED bulbs, which means there are some limitations to how easily the technology could be applied to systems outside the lab. But researchers have come up with a new type of li-fi that uses infrared light instead, and it’s reportedly already cracked 40 gigabits per second (gbps) in early testing.

For those who missed the li-fi hype, the communications system was first invented in 2011, based on the idea of transmitting data via the imperceptible flickering of LED light — think morse code happening so fast, it’s invisible to the human eye.

Continue reading “A New Type of Li-Fi Has Reportedly Cracked 40 Gbps, 100 Times Faster Than the Best Wi-Fi” »

Estonia will receive a 100th birthday gift next year that will be truly out of this world – as part of the country’s centenary celebrations in 2018, ESTCube will unveil its second satellite while its team embarks on a mission across Estonia to educate young people about opportunities within the space industry.

ESTCube-2 will be three times larger and far more complex than its predecessor, ESTCube-1, which turned Estonia into an unlikely space nation when it entered orbit in 2013.

ESTCube-2 is planned to blast off in 2019 and will operate at approximately 680 kilometres (423 miles) above Earth, which is almost twice as high as the International Space Station. However, the satellite is being designed to boldly go much further.

Continue reading “Estonia’s mission to the moon could revolutionise space travel” »

Cosmic radiation poses one of the biggest health risks for astronauts on long space missions, but clay extracted from space rocks could protect them.

More applications are requiring ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 functional safety certification—such as ADAS and self-driving cars—and software tools are following suit.

Ultimately, Hawking has long been an advocate of commercial spaceflight, and to this end, he notes that he greatly admires Virgin Galactic’s role in democratizing space, specifically, he clarified his “respect for enabling more of humanity to experience the true wonder of space.”

I have said in the past ‘Look up at the stars and not down at your feet’, but I believe that ‘looking up’ will no longer be a requirement to see the universe in all its glory.