WB-8 Contract Progress from Classical Values: The US Navy has just published a Justification and Award for EMC2’s Polywell Fusion Reactor experiment. The highlights: * The award is for $10 million* WB-8.0 report to be delivered 30 March 2010* WB-8.1 report to be delivered 30 March 2012 The WB-8.1 effort is contingent on success with …
As noted at the Speculist and at Accelerating Future, the New Atlantis is anti-transhumanist. This bias only occasionally is apparent in their live blogging of the Singularity Summit. Peter Thiel on the Singularity and Economics from the New Atlantis. Thiel says that, although it is rarely talked about, perhaps the most dangerous scenario is that …
This site has previewed the schedule and several key talks that will be presented at the Singularity Summit in New York Michael Annisimov, Accelerating Future, is at the Singularity Summit and indicates that there are over 800 attendees. Popular Science magazine has live blogging of the Singularity Summit Sentient Developments has Benjamin Peterson liveblogging. Lisa …
The world has an opportunity to develop new more productive and efficient cities that are built entirely new because of the billions moving to cities. The current move from rural to urban is increasing per capita GDP by four to eight times in places like China. The productivity gains could be even greater if a …
This is an update of the late 2007 article about using hyperion power generation uranium hydride reactors with VASIMR plasma rockets. Hyperion Power Generation is moving ahead with the preparations for three factories for its roughly 7 ton 27 MWe nuclear reactors. One to two hundred reactors could be built and deployed from 2014-2019. VASIMR …
Hyperion Power Generation plans to build a small reactor manufacturing plant in the United Kingdom within the next two years. The firm says it plans to use the existing UK supply chain to build its 70MWt (27MWe), self-regulating reactor and that the UK will be its ‘launch pad’ for the European market. H/T AtomicInsights “We …
In an Interview in Seed Magazine, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz discusses the future of the VASIMR plasma rocket. Once we’ve demonstrated a 200-kilowatt prototype engine operating at full power on the ground, the next step is testing an identical version in space. We’re already testing the prototype unit in our vacuum chamber here in Houston, and …
Biological parts: Ginkgo BioWorks, a synthetic-biology startup, is automating the process of building biological machines. Shown here is a liquid-handling robot that can prepare hundreds of reactions. Credit: Ginkgo BioWorks MIT Technology Review reports that startup Ginkgo BioWorks aims to push synthetic biology to the factory level. Ginkgo BioWorks, a new synthetic-biology startup that aims …
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has helped to establish that femtosecond comb lasers can provide accurate measurement of absolute distance in formation flying space missions. Formation flying missions involve multiple spacecraft flying between tens and hundreds of metres apart, which autonomously control their position relative to each other. The benefit of such missions is they …
Winterberg’s design to obtain a high thrust with a high specific impulse, uses propulsion by deuterium micro-bombs, and it is shown that the ignition of deuterium micro-bombs is possible by intense GeV proton beams, generated in space by using the entire spacecraft as a magnetically insulated billion volt capacitor. The design could have exhaust that …
Winterberg’s design to obtain a high thrust with a high specific impulse, uses propulsion by deuterium micro-bombs, and it is shown that the ignition of deuterium micro-bombs is possible by intense GeV proton beams, generated in space by using the entire spacecraft as a magnetically insulated billion volt capacitor. The design could have exhaust that …