Improved Block V Virginia Class Submarines could defer development of SSN(X)

The U.S. Navy might defer developing a new, next-generation nuclear attack submarine — or SSN(X) — unless such a design holds the potential to provide a revolutionary leap over a modernized variant of the current Virginia-class attack submarine. Over the years, the Virginia-class has proven to be an adaptable and versatile design with plenty of room for growth. Indeed, …

Read more

Direct brain-sensing technology allows typing at a rate of 12 words per minute

Technology for reading signals directly from the brain developed by Stanford Bio-X scientists could provide a way for people with movement disorders to communicate The system directly reads brain signals to drive a cursor moving over a keyboard. In a pilot experiment conducted with monkeys, the animals were able to transcribe passages from the New …

Read more

Saturn’s Moon Dione has a 40 mile thick Ocean under 60 miles of Ice

A subsurface ocean lies deep within Saturn’s moon Dione, according to new data from the Cassini mission to Saturn. Two other moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, are already known to hide global oceans beneath their icy crusts, but a new study suggests an ocean exists on Dione as well. In this study, researchers of …

Read more

There is liquid water in the rest of the solar system that is 50 times Earth’s volume of water on 8-17 moons and asteroids

As of December 2015, the confirmed liquid water in the Solar System outside Earth is 25-50 times the volume of Earth’s water (1.3 billion cubic kilometers). The locations of subsurface oceans are on Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede, Titan, the asteroid Ceres, Callisto, Dione and Pluto. There also could be subsurface oceans at Rhea, Titania, Oberon, Triton, …

Read more

Driverless cars, drones, robotic warehouses and factories can transform the supply chain and radically boost Global GDP in the 2020s

A few million self driving cars and trucks should be on the road by 2022. Afterwards a few million per year will be added with self driving car conversion kits and new cars and trucks. Tesla Motors and other companies will deploy millions of self driving cars. This can lower the cost of car per …

Read more

Air Force Special Forces Request budget to modify AC-130W with a combat laser for 2018

US Special Operations Command has requested funding from the Defense Department for fiscal year 2018 budget to begin modifying an AC-130 gunship for a high energy laser capability. If approved for the budget, Air Force Special Operations Command anticipates the service could begin the modifications as early as Fiscal 2020 on an AC-130W currently used …

Read more

A Century of US wars and military actions

A Century of War and Gray Zone Challenges” has a September 2015 briefing slide produced by the Intelligence Directorate of U.S. Special Operations Command. The slide analyzes US military actions and wars and rates them as wins, losses or draws. SOCOM Intelligence Directorate’s assessment of the last century of American war — 12 and nine with a mind-boggling …

Read more

Production of Long March 5 rocket is underway

Batch production of Long March 5 has begun, said Meng Fanxin, manager of the industrialized base for the carrier rocket in Tianjin. Known as the Long March 5, China’s most powerful heavy-lift launch vehicle is expected to make its first test flight from Hainan’s Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in November. In the meantime, its manufacturing …

Read more

Nanocrystalline alloys could be up to eight orders of magnitude lower creep rate at high temperature which could revolutionize jet engines

Researchers stabilized a copper alloy microstructure and found it to be strong at very high temperatures. This could lead to many new materials applications, including inside turbine engines, where temperatures can soar to more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The team hopes to recreate the combination of properties within other types of materials like nickel, cobalt …

Read more