A NASA NIAC phase 1 grant has been given to Geoffrey Landis to develop innovative concepts for a sample return from the surface of Venus. The project description is vague. At 450°C and 92 atmosphere pressure, the surface of Venus is the most hostile environment to explore in the solar system. This project will pioneer …
Where in the solar system do we have Earth-like gravity, atmospheric pressure, density and radiation protection? The place that is most like the Earth is Venus 50,000 meters. This means that we can blimps and build cloud cities for colonization on Venus. NASA had designed a blimp mission to explore the upper atmosphere of Venus. …
DARPA today released Breakthrough Technologies for National Security DARPA described how they are expanding the technological frontier. DARPA’s core work has involved overcoming seemingly insurmountable physics and engineering barriers and, once showing those daunting problems to be tractable after all, applying new capabilities made possible by these breakthroughs directly to national security needs. That tradition …
A feasibility study for a next-gen Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) has won funding from the Technology Strategy Board, the UK government’s strategic innovation agency. The bid was led by the indefatigable Jasper Tomlinson and Professor Trevor Griffiths. In a first for the UK, the project will produce a rigorous desk- and computer-based study of the …
This week’s MMWR, Estimating the Future Number of Cases in the Ebola Epidemic—Liberia and Sierra Leone, 2014–2015, estimates the future number of cases if current trends continue. The MMWR also adjusts the number of cases based on estimated underreported cases. By September 30, 2014, CDC estimates that there will be approximately 8,000 cases, or as …
Carbon dioxide emissions, the main contributor to global warming, are set to rise 2.5% in 2014 – reaching a record high of 40 billion tonnes. Key facts and figures: * CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel are projected to rise by 2.5 per cent in 2014 – 65 per cent above 1990 levels, the reference …