Tiltrotor drone is in development and the target is 2023 for production

Bell Helicopter is designing a new tiltrotor drone about the size of the Air Force’s armed MQ-9 Reaper, with similar capabilities, that it hopes the Marines will buy. They call it the V-247 Vigilant, so named because Bell promises that two of the sea-based drones could provide Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) over a given …

Read more

Pokemon Ad from 2015 and the recent Central Park Pokemon Go crowd

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 …

Read more

Spacex has third successful droneship rocket landing

SpaceX on Friday landed its third consecutive rocket on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, during a mission that successfully launched a commercial communications satellite to orbit. “Falcon 9 has landed,” a member of SpaceX’s launch team confirmed about 10 minutes after a 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket’s 5:39 p.m. blastoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force …

Read more

US Navy increasing combat lasers power to 500 kilowatt level by 2020 to counter ballistic missiles

In 2012, the US Navy initiated the SSL Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) program, in which industry teams led by BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, among others, competed to develop a shipboard laser with a beam power of 100 kW to 150 kW by 2016. Boosting beam power further—to something like 200 kW or 300 kW—could …

Read more

BAE Systems and Reaction Engines to develop SABRE hypersonic engine

AE Systems plc and Reaction Engines Limited (‘Reaction Engines’) announced a strategic investment by BAE Systems and a working collaboration to accelerate Reaction Engines’ development of SABRETM – a new aerospace engine class that combines both jet and rocket technologies with the potential to revolutionise hypersonic flight and the economics of space access. The transaction …

Read more

Geopolitics of Long-Range Hypersonic High-Precision Weapons

Unlike nuclear weapons, which are “tools of extreme impact,” Long-Range Hypersonic High-Precision Weapons (or Advanced Hypersonic Weapons – AHW in US terminology) are ready for use in any scenario, including as part of counter-terror operations. AHW do not cause unnecessary civilian casualties and do not inflict significant material damage to civil transportation systems, power plants, …

Read more

Flying Cars and Hoverboards exist with limitations and DARPA 2045 predictions

Back to the Future Part II.” The film got some things right about 2015, including in-home videoconferencing and devices that recognize people by their voices and fingerprints. But it also predicted trunk-sized fusion reactors, hoverboards and flying cars—game-changing technologies that are not. NBF – There are prototype flying cars (roadable planes) which do exist but …

Read more

Currently Quantum computers might be where Rockets were at the time of Robert Goddard

There have been comparisons of current quantum computers to classical computers to the Wright Brothers flyer against lighter than air vehicles. The Wright brothers flyers had inferior performance and capabilities to the Zeppelins but would eventual later versions would prove more useful and more capable. I think it might be better to look for an …

Read more

Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator from Boeing

The Army, supported by NASA and the Navy, is combining its areas of technical expertise to accomplish the aggressive scientific and engineering goals necessary to develop a new fleet of joint aircraft, said Ned Chase, deputy program director of science and technology for the Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator/Future Vertical Lift, also known as JMR TD. …

Read more

Space Coaches – Reusable Refuelable Interplanetary Spacecraft made mostly of water at one hundredth the cost of conventional chemical rockets

A website, spacecoach.org, expands on a 2010 paper which describes a design for a reusable interplanetary spacecraft made mostly out of water or pykrete (ice frozen with fiber material). The proposed design “burns” water in microwave electrothermal engines, a type of electric propulsion system that has been tested with water as propellant, and proven to …

Read more

Congressional report expects China Navy Shipbuilding Technical Proficiency to catch up to Russia by 2020 and the USA by 2030

A 2014 US Congressional report on China’s military capability and production capability provides the following assessment. China’s acquisition of platforms, weapons, and systems has emphasized qualitative improvements, not quantitative growth, and centered on improving its ability to strike opposing ships at sea and operate at greater distances from the Chinese mainland. China’s power projection capability …

Read more