How do we extract energy from space around a spacecraft? If there are differences in the speed of the solar wind or differences in flows of particles around a spacecraft or where a spacecraft is passing then highly efficient extraction of power can enable great capabilities. On earth, we had sailing ships millennia before turbines …
Philip Lubin and his team are continuing to make progress toward laser pushed sails. This is a way to achieve significant fractions of the speed of light for interstellar missions and a way to beam power for movement within the solar system at high speeds. One of the key aspects to this work is phase …
Philip Lubin, University of California, Santa Barbara, Directed Energy for Interstellar Study Starting at 26 minutes of this video. They are making progress with laser locking over kilometer distances. They are making 2 gram starchip prototypes. they are looking at making ultrathin starchips that would be a meter across but very lightweight. Arxiv – A …
Proposals using large light sails like the Starshot Breakthrough, require mirrors with lateral sizes of 4 × 4 m2, thicknesses of 0.05 lambda, reflectivities of 90 %, ppm level optical absorption and a total mass of only 1 gram. Photonics Crystal are designed with a lattice of holes which remove about 30 % of the …
Breakthrough Starshot plans to launch a fleet of tiny interstellar chipsize probes to Proxima Centauri in 30 or 40 years. Small chip probes have been launched into low Earth orbit on June 23. Sprites are ‘satellites on a chip,’. Research performed by Mason Peck and his team at Cornell University included Breakthrough Starshot’s Zac Manchester …
Stable flight of a laser sail is an essential requirement of beam-driven propulsion. Centauri Dreams talked to James Benford about work towards stable beam flight. It places considerable demand upon the shape of the sail and beam. James Benford takes a hard look at where we are now in the matter of sail stability. He …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy blogs has changed its name to Nuclear Energy News Weekly. 1. Neutron Bytes – Dan Yurman – An Up and Down Week for Developers of Advanced Reactors In Washington, DC, the Third Way, a think tank, hosted a meeting of some of the country’s best thinkers, leaders, funders, and doers …
Northrop Grumman will help the U.S. Air Force mature its plans to use directed energy systems for self-protection on current and future aircraft under a contract awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory. The laser weapon will be housed in a pod attached to a fighter-sized aircraft. The system will be tested on a tactical …
A Pokemon Go ad from 2015 shows a crowd gathering in Time’s square to battle for a Myutwo. In real life hundreds (perhaps a thousand) gathered when a Vaporeon spawned in Central Park. Life imitating a commercial. Other real life Pokemon Go crowds. 500 people gathered in downtown Bellevue. People spread out all around the …
A child exoskeleton frame helps children to walk and aims to prevent the setting in of sclorosis which results from a loss of agility. The technology has been jointly patented and licensed by CSIC and its spin-off, Marsi Bionics Furthermore, it will also be used in physiotherapy in hospitals to prevent the secondary effects associated …
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works delivered the first Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer to the Navy on Friday, Naval Sea Systems Command announced. The delivery of the 16,000-ton Zumwalt (DDG-1000) optimized for stealth and operations close to shore follows last month’s successful acceptance trials of the ship overseen by the service’s Board of Inspection and Survey …
