Ad Astra is working to boost the endurance of the Vasimr plasma rocket to 100 hours of continuous firing at a power level of 100 kilowatts, by 2018. Ad Astra Rocket Company has successfully completed all contract milestones and deliverables for the second of its three-year Next Space Technology Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) contract with NASA. …
Roger Shawyer is the original inventor of the Emdrive. He claims to have a new generation EmDrive and has filed for a patent in the UK. The Emdrive is super-controversial propellantless space drive. Many argue that there are problems with the physics of EmDrive claims. Here is part of Shawyers most recent presentation and his …
After conducting a cosmic inventory of sorts to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes, astronomers from the University of California, Irvine have concluded that there are probably tens of millions of the enigmatic, dark objects in the Milky Way – far more than expected. “We think we’ve shown that there are as many as 100 …
John Bucknell presented at the Starship Congress 2017 his Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket and applied for a single stage to orbit mission of placing a space habitat. John Bucknell worked on the Spacex Raptor rocket as a senior engineer so he is very qualified to understand current rocket technology and rockets in general. Nextbigfuture has …
NASA is currently looking for a Planetary Protection Officer. This person will have secret security clearance to ensure alien life, or “organic-constituent and biological contamination” does npt make it’s way back in a space ship. This person will be responsible for the leadership of NASA’s planetary protection capability, maintenance of planetary protection policies, and oversight …
NASA scientists are excited about the upcoming close flyby of a small asteroid and plan to use its upcoming October close approach to Earth as an opportunity not only for science, but to test NASA’s network of observatories and scientists who work with planetary defense. The target of all this attention is asteroid 2012 TC4 …
The high-profile quest to spot moons orbiting distant planets has been a series of let-downs, with each hint of an ‘exomoon’ fading under closer inspection. So astronomer David Kipping, at Columbia University in New York City, didn’t want to reveal his team’s detection of another possible exomoon, until they could confirm it using the Hubble …
Breakthrough Starshot brings the Silicon Valley approach to space travel, capitalizing on exponential advances in key areas of technology since the beginning of the 21st century. The nanocraft concept, combining light beamer, lightsail and StarChip, is by far the most plausible system for launching a realistic mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation. The key …
There is a CBS TV show called Salvation about a 7000 meter wide asteroid that will hit the Earth within 6 months. The show chooses to try to use an EMdrive, a propellantless propulsion system to deliver a gravity deflection mission to divert the asteroid. EMdrive is under some experimental study and there is some …
The US Air Force will award an engineering, manufacturing and development contract in early fiscal year 2018 to either Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK or Raytheon. Only those companies could produce the weapon within the USAF’s timeframe, according to a 21 July notice of contract action on the US Federal Business Opportunities website. …
Disneyland is planning two main Star Wars attractions, including one that will let guests pilot the famed Millennium Falcon, Disney Imagineers described the area as one that will essentially be large-scale immersive theater. The Millennium Falcon attraction will feature a lifesize re-creation of the ship. It appears to be nestled in a corner closer to …