Lifeboat Foundation

On August 8 2021, an experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ). This advancement puts researchers at the threshold of fusion ignition, an important goal of the NIF, and opens access to a new experimental regime.

The experiment was enabled by focusing laser light from NIF — the size of three football fields — onto a target the size of a BB that produces a hot-spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for 100 trillionths of a second.

“These extraordinary results from NIF advance the science that NNSA depends on to modernize our nuclear weapons and production as well as open new avenues of research,” said Jill Hruby, DOE under secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA administrator.

South Korean researchers have created a new material that instantly reacts to match the colour of its surroundings. This has been demonstrated on the skin of a soft robot – and could one day have military or other uses.

Program aims to provide physical systems with ability to adapt to unexpected events in real-time and effectively communicate system changes to human and AI operators.

Many complex, cyber-physical military systems are designed to last for decades but their expected functionality and capabilities will likely evolve over time, prompting a need for modifications and adaptation. High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV), for example, had a design life of 15 years, but are now undergoing modernization to extend the average age of the fleet to 37+ years. At design time, these systems are built to handle a range of expected operating environments and parameters. Adapting them is currently done in an improvisational manner – often involving custom-tailored aftermarket remedies, which are not always commonly available, require a skilled technician to install, and can take months or even years to procure. Further, as they evolve and are placed outside of their original design envelop these systems can fail unexpectedly or become unintentionally dangerous.

“Today, we start with exquisitely built control systems but then someone needs to add something or make a modification – all of which results in changes to the safe operating limits,” said DARPA program manager John-Francis Mergen. “These changes are done in a way that wasn’t anticipated – or more likely couldn’t have been anticipated – by the original designers. Knowing that military systems will undoubtedly need to be altered, we need greater adaptability.”

Continue reading “Enabling Military Systems to Adapt to the Unexpected” »

FENCE program selects researchers to develop low-power, low-latency neuromorphic camera technologies to enable future military applications.

DARPA today announced that three teams of researchers led by Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman have been selected to develop event-based infrared (IR) camera technologies under the Fast Event-based Neuromorphic Camera and Electronics (FENCE) program. Event-based – or neuromorphic – cameras are an emerging class of sensors with demonstrated advantages relative to traditional imagers. These advanced models operate asynchronously and only transmit information about pixels that have changed. This means they produce significantly less data and operate with much lower latency and power.

“Neuromorphic refers to silicon circuits that mimic brain operation; they offer sparse output, low latency, and high energy efficiency,” said Dr. Whitney Mason, the program manager leading the FENCE program. “Event-based cameras operate under these same principles when dealing with sparse scenes, but currently lack advanced ‘intelligence’ to perform more difficult perception and control tasks.”

Continue reading “DARPA Announces Research Teams to Develop Intelligent Event-Based Imagers” »

The US Army is seeking to develop a high-altitude warfare sensor that can fly over enemy territories, transmit data, and potentially even work as a jammer to disrupt an adversary’s communications system.

The project is called High-Altitude Extended-Range Long Endurance Intelligence Observation System, or HELEIOS.

Army capability manager for electronic warfare, Col. Daniel Holland, provided some key details about the device during a military forum on August 17 Army Times reported. HELEIOS will see a sensor attached to a solar glide device or an observation balloon, Holland explained.

This #COVID19 is quite weird it just keeps evolving. In a weird way it is pushing evolution through our immune system. The only thing I know that is similar is like the flu or a bigger organism like cancer. Based on this information the virus just keeps evolving not dying off. Among the weird stuff it doesn’t effect cats or most animals or plants. Basically we either need a universal vaccine which is still being developed or we may need quantum radar to kill off the virus in our bodies when it comes out either that or foglet armor to not breathe it in like Ironman. I find it is just an odd virus as essentially it evolves so fast past even human beings abilities to fend it off even with suits it seems to spread so fast that it cannot be completely contained. From dogs that sniff it out it seems sorta everywhere. I know minor things like high dosages of vitamin c work with zinc and probiotics which was the first way to battle it when it didn’t become this whole pandemic because oddly enough it wasn’t a big deal in previous years because the 19th version of the virus. I know some things that kill it off are ultra violet and lysol as well as bleach. So it makes me think it is more a bioweapon where the universal vaccine would work. But oddly enough I am uncertain if it really dies off especially if it is airborne. If we can destroy the virus by reprogramming it to be sterile or innert or even for it to just kill itself off with crispr like we have done with mosquitoes to stop malaria. We can easily make new vaccines which is good but nearly every year or so there is an entirely new version. This isn’t new but it sorta is like the flu. But there are some theories that I sorta have where it seems to be near heat sources where it grows. Like my uncle who had the virus which we had him turn off electricity and also do vitamin c probiotics and zinc which did work. He ended up getting an antibody naturally this way. I personally got the vaccine and found that it does work but when the new delta version came out it did the same as the last one it sorta just randomly evolves for some reason even smells similar but oddly enough it still remains even after all the lysol. So to me it seems like a bioweapon that is self evolving which is we could use the mechanism to essentially evolve ourselves taking the components of it. If this was a nanobot swarm I would say it spreads from radio waves or something but this virus keeps spreading in odd ways like even from the sky. Which sorta makes me believe that it is sorta being manipulated maybe by a signal perhaps or it has its own program inside it. It reminds me of a Grey goo nanobot swarm that keeps evolving but the biological virus version. I mean it could actually be an exterrestial virus there was a meteorite that came around then and odd things that followed from the meteorite like dogs attacking people and cats attacking people even huge mountain lions. Which makes me think of a sorta an invasion of something. We need to maybe get the viruses input and output to find what it is going to do next. All and all seems odd because even other viruses don’t evolve or like fly or spread that fast. Ideally we should have cyborg nanobots running through Ironman in avengers endgame but so far our best better is treating it like the flu pumping out a new vaccine each year till we know a universal vaccine like using henreitta lacks immortal unlimited cell division cells like they did with polio. But till then we need to keep watching the virus as seems sorta more than it appears based on its original version.

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Over the last few decades, various forms of solar power stations have been proposed from around the world but they remained theoretical because of major technical challenges.

At Bishan, Chinese researchers would first need to prove that wireless power transfer worked over a long distance.

Civilian and military researchers will look at applications for the technology amid concerns about radiation and the potential for beams misfired from space.

Continue reading “China to harvest sun’s energy in space and beam it to Earth for power by 2030” »

An increase in counterspace weapons is challenging the military’s approach of placing all of its billion-dollar eggs (exquisite satellites) in one basket (far-out geosynchronous orbit).

FORT SILL, Okla., Aug. 17 2021 — The U.S. Army has completed a directed-energy maneuver short-range air defense (DE M-SHORAD) “combat shoot-off” — its first development and demonstration of a high-power laser weapon. As part of the DE M-SHORAD combat shoot-off, the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), alongside Air and Missile Defense Cross Functional Team, Fires Center of Excellence, and the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, took a laser-equipped Stryker vehicle to Fort Sill, Okla. At the combat shoot-off, the Stryker faced a number of realistic scenarios designed to establish, for the first time in the Army, the desired characteristics for future DE M-SHORAD systems.