DARPA Implant Will Reduce Jet Lag and Control the Body

DARPA’s new ADvanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness (ADAPTER) program aims to develop a travel adapter for the human body, an implantable or ingestible bioelectronic carrier that can provide warfighters control over their own physiology. The implant will improve sleep and possibly eliminate bacteria that cause diarrhea and food poisoning. The integrated system …

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DARPA Looks for Tunneling Breakthroughs

DARPA is funding breakthroughs in tunneling. The Underminer project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of rapidly constructing tactical tunnel networks to provide secure logistics infrastructure to pre-position supplies or resupply troops as they move through an area. General Electric Research Center and Colorado School of Mines will focus on development of an integrated solution for …

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Lightweight Exploration of Venus and Other Harsh Environments

A new design could enable affordable exploration of Venus and other harsh environments. The Venus surface temperatures near 460°C and pressures of 93 bar have made long-duration surface missions infeasible. The atmosphere is also caustic and has a dense cloud layer resulting in poor topography mapping, requiring either hazard tolerant landing systems with significant mass …

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Making Lunar Water Mining 1000 Times More Efficient

Florida researchers propose a new method, called Aqua Factorem, to extract lunar water. It will drastically reduce energy and complexity of lunar mining operations helping to establish this industry. Other methods to extract water from the regolith are based on phase change, pumping energy into the regolith to sublimate the ice into vapor, then capturing …

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Feasible and Affordable Missions for Exoplanet Imaging

The solar gravitational lens (SGL) is characterized by remarkable properties: it offers brightness amplification of up to a factor of ~1e11 [100 billion amplification] (at 1 um) and extreme angular resolution (~1e-10 arcsec). As such, it allows for extraordinary observational capabilities for direct high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets. Above – Artist’s depiction of …

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Instant Lunar Landing Pads

Giant lunar landers like the SpaceX Starship pose a range of risks, from high-velocity ejecta abrasion damaging the lander to ejecta damaging other lunar landers or orbital assets, or even creating a crater under the lander as deep as the columnated engine plume. Masten proposes putting alumina particles in the fuel so that a landing …

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Elon Says Starlink Private Beta in 3 Months and Public in 6 Months

Elon Musk says Starlink will offer a private beta for a global internet service in about three months and start offering a public beta service in 6 months. Private beta begins in ~3 months, public beta in ~6 months, starting with high latitudes — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2020 The SpaceX Starlink system will …

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PsiQuantum Targets Million Silicon Photonic Qubits by 2025

Psiquantum has raised $215 million to develop what they claim will be the first useful general purpose quantum computer. They plan to make a million qubit quantum computer with error correction. Error correction is at the center of everything they do. They plan to reach the million error-corrected qubit level within 5 years. A million …

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Positron Dynamics Installed Antimatter Propulsion Related Gear

In March 2020, Positron Dynamics completed a new source installation at Berkeley. They continue to make progress on experiments and designs. Positron Dynamics designs avoid huge show-stopper problems with using antimatter. We cannot store useful amounts of antimatter. We can only generate tiny amounts of antimatter. Antimatter particles that are created need to be slowed …

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