Universe Today – Today SpaceX today released an image of the fully assembled Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket inside their facility at Cape Canaveral. This means the first test launch of a commercially built spacecraft to the International Space Station is just a bit closer. In a press conference earlier this month, NASA’s Mike …
Engineers have fired the Navy’s first industry-built electromagnetic railgun (EM Railgun) prototype launcher at a test facility, commencing an evaluation that is an important intermediate step toward a future tactical weapon for ships. The EM Railgun launcher is a long-range weapon that fires projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. Magnetic fields created by high …
There is a lengthy analysis at solar cell central of how projected costs of solar power could get to the range of costs for coal and natural gas. Two thirds of the cost of coal energy is the whatever the future cost of coal is. So future coal and fossil fuel energy prices will be …
The Asteroid 2011 AG5 is a 460 feet (140 meter) wide space rock. It may pose a hazard in 2040. Researchers are calling for deflection plan discussions. The forty-ninth session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was held from 6-17 February 2012 at the United …
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP)’s team received word February 27th that their achievement of fusion reactions from ions confined at energies equivalent to over 1.8 billion degrees C was accepted by Physics of Plasmas, “the most highly cited journal devoted fully to plasma physics.” The paper, titled “Fusion reactions from over 150 keV ions in a …
Zerohedge makes a big deal about Apple being worth more than the entire valuation of the Retail segment of the S&P index and more than the S&P Semiconductor index They claim that having only a few big products is not sustainable. Apple is in a business where they have to continue to innovate but they …
CNBC is reporting that Apple will unveil a Quad-Core iPad 3 with 4G LTE in New York next week. If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His …
Scientists at IBM Research (#ibmresearch) have achieved major advances in quantum computing device performance that may accelerate the realization of a practical, full-scale quantum computer. For specific applications, quantum computing, which exploits the underlying quantum mechanical behavior of matter, has the potential to deliver computational power that is unrivaled by any supercomputer today. Using a …
1. A record energy density of 400Wh/kg in Li-ion rechargeable batteries has been achieved by Envia. Envia has a 40 Ah pouch cell, the new system could lower Li-ion cell costs to $180/kWh, according to Sujeet Kumar, Co-founder, President & CTO, with further reductions to come. The cells feature active materials with high specific capacity: …
MIT Technology Review identifies early-stage technologies that, if employed together, could reduce the cost of making solar panels to 52 cents per watt. At 52 cents per watt, assuming similar cost reductions for installation and equipment such as inverters, solar power would cost six cents per kilowatt-hour in sunny areas of the U.S.—less than the …
Next Big Future has covered the Startram concept in detail before. The GEN 1 concept involves using long, evacuated tunnels to accelerate unmanned payloads to orbital velocity. In theory, this concept could bring launch costs to LEO down to $50 dollar per kilogram. A more ambitious GEN 1.5 system could would take longer and greater …