Centauri Dreams covered the Charles Quarra Light Bridge (laser stairway) which was presented at the 2013 Starship Congress (48 pages). Preprints of the paper is here The ‘laser starway’ concept Charles Quarra present is a natural evolution of the work of both Robert Forward and Geoffrey Landis in extending the reach of beamed power into …
Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft was into the final leg of berthing with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday morning, prior to a discrepancy relating to the way the ISS and Cygnus determine GPS data. The fascinating issue can be fixed via an update to Cygnus’ software, allowing for a second rendezvous and berthing attempt no …
Stigo is the world’s fastest-folding electric scooter that can be taken along wherever one wishes to go – a restaurant, apartment, on public transportation or a small elevator. This novel, max 25 km/h electric scooter weighs only 17 kg and its footprint is mere 45×40 cm when folded. The Stigo is priced at €2,370 (about …
1. Chandra X-ray space telescope blog reports a team of astronomers has discovered enormous arms of hot gas in the Coma cluster of galaxies by using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. These features, which span at least half a million light years, provide insight into how the Coma cluster has grown through mergers …
Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station. After a flawless launch from the Wallops Island Flight Facility on the Virginia Coast on Tuesday, the spacecraft has performed two of the demonstrations NASA is requiring. Cygnus will continue to close in on the ISS, performing the final eight maneuvers on …
A new approach to growing high-density carbon nanotube forests on conductors can potentially replace and outperform the current copper-based interconnects in a future generation of devices. In the future, more robust carbon nanotube forests may also help improve thermal interface materials, battery electrodes, and supercapacitors. The work was published in Applied Physics Letters. Researchers are …
Thorium molten salt(Gen‐IV)reactor technology overcomes the severe problems of conventional uranium PWR plants. Materials development in molten salt neutronic effects enable high ramp‐rate load following that complements solar PV renewable production. Enable solar and wind to be considered into a reliable energy source. Solar that gets block by clouds or wind variability messes up the …
LEADIR-PS100 was presented by Ralph Hart at TEAC5 (Thorium Energy Alliance Conference) in May, 2013. Ralph Hart is Northern Nuclear chief engineer. LEAD‐cooled Integral Reactor ‐ Passively Safe is being developed for the Canadian oilsand market. LEADIR‐PS100 has an output of 100 MWth • Initial market focus is the Canadian Arctic and Western Canadian Oilsands. • …
Superconductors.ORG (Joe Eck) reports the 38 C superconductor discovered in July 2013 has been reformulated to produce a Meissner transition near 42 Celsius (107F, 315K). This was accomplished by substituting tin (Sn) into the lead (Pb) atomic sites of the D212 structure (shown below left), changing the formula to Tl5Sn2Ba2SiCu8O16+. Multiple magnetization plots clearly show …
Setting up a lunar base could be made much simpler by using a 3D printer to build it from local materials. Industrial partners including renowned architects Foster + Partners have joined with ESA to test the feasibility of 3D printing using lunar soil. This is a case where 3d printing would win out over regular …
Google is using Solve for X and major projects like self driving cars and Google Glass to attempt to leapfrog the competition to achieve radical improvement. Google’s latest effort is to legitimize efforts to achieve radical life extension with their new company Calico. This will force more aggressive target setting from biotech companies. Elon Musk …