The Navy—solid state lasers (SSLs), the electromagnetic railgun (EMRG), and the gun-launched guided projectile (GLGP) [aka hypervelocity projectile (HVP)] for about a decade. The US Navy’s proposed FY2022 budget requests research and development funding for continued work on lasers but wants to suspend further work on the EMRG and GLGP programs and requests no research …
Inspiration 4 has successfully launched world’s first all-civilian human spaceflight to orbit. It launched from Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Approximately three days after liftoff, Dragon and the Inspiration4 crew will return to Earth and splash down at one of several possible landing sites off the Florida coast. SOURCES – SpaceXCentric …
Inspiration4, the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit, is targeted to launch no earlier than 8:02 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, September 15, 2021. The crew discuss their mission from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will be commanded by Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old founder and Chief Executive Officer …
Colossal has $15 million in funding and has started a de-extinction project to resurrect the Woolly Mammoth – or more specifically a cold-resistant elephant with all of the core biological traits of the Woolly Mammoth. It will walk like a Woolly Mammoth, look like one, sound like one, but most importantly it will be able …
By early 2022, Redwood Materials will announce a site for a North American battery materials manufacturing facility, aiming to produce 100 GWh/year of cathode active materials and anode foil for one million electric vehicles by 2025. By 2030, we expect our production output to scale to 500 GWh/year of materials which would enable enough batteries …
President Biden has claimed that the pullout from Afghanistan is part of a pivot to China. China has been increasing its threats of an invasion of Taiwan. In July 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to complete “reunification” with self-ruled Taiwan and vowed to “smash” any attempts at formal independence. Taiwan could have a $17.7 …
Taiwan is considering a 5.6% military budget increase over the 2021 allocation and come to the usual 2.3% of gross domestic product. The new budget is in response to a surge in Chinese activity in or near the Taiwanese air defense identification zone since mid-2020. World War 2 might have been avoided if there was …
If self-driving cars can become ten times safer than human-driven cars and became standard for the world then 1.1 million of the over 1.2 million global traffic deaths would be prevented each year. Self-driving cars would also enable old people and children to get around safely and conveniently with more independence. Tesla cars are already …
The first of the two high-temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactors of China’s HTR-PM reactor reached criticality. Two small reactors that will drive a single 210 MWe turbine. This uses nuclear fuel with twice the efficiency. The design burn-up will be 90GWd/tU, while the maximum fuel burn-up will not be in excess of 100GWd/tU. Normal new …
Tesla released the version 10 beta of its full self-driving system just after midnight on Friday. Testers mostly agree that version 10 was a substantial improvement over version 9.2. Tesla is making and selling about 80,000 cars each month. They produced 44,200 cars in China in August and average about 35,000-40,000 cars from Fremont each …
U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 will stand up on Thursday and be the second testing outfit for the Navy’s unmanned ships following Surface Development Squadron One (SURFDEVRON) establishment in 2019. They will expand the operational use of unmanned platforms in the region and experiment with their concept of operations. This will not just be …