Lifeboat Foundation

In 2020, Houston-based company Axiom Space got a NASA contract of its own, worth up to $140 million, to deliver at least one habitable private module to the ISS. Axiom plans to launch its first element to the orbiting lab in late 2024, then send several more up over the next few years. Eventually, the connected Axiom modules will detach from the ISS, leaving their natal nest like a bird that has learned how to fly.

Axiom has other irons in the spaceflight fire as well. For instance, the company has booked four commercial crewed flights to the ISS with SpaceX, the first of which is scheduled to launch in February.

NASA is getting out LEO — and letting private companies take its place.

NASA recently announced conctracts for three new space stations, all of them designed and built by private space companies. NASA is getting out LEO.

Circa 2014

An artificial leaf converts water and light to oxygen, and that’s good news for road-tripping to places beyond Earth.

Extracting oxygen from regolith would also require substantial industrial equipment. We’d need to first convert solid metal oxide into liquid form, either by applying heat, or heat combined with solvents or electrolytes. We have the technology to do this on Earth, but moving this apparatus to the Moon – and generating enough energy to run it – will be a mighty challenge.

Earlier this year, Belgium-based startup Space Applications Services announced it was building three experimental reactors to improve the process of making oxygen via electrolysis. They expect to send the technology to the Moon by 2025 as part of the European Space Agency’s in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) mission.

SpaceX aims to launch the first orbital test of a full-stack Starship as soon as January. But instead of the Texas “Starbase” facility where prototypes of Starship’s upper stage have been made and tested, the orbital flight will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, CEO Elon Musk said Friday.

“Construction of Starship orbital launch pad at the Cape has begun,” Musk tweeted. In later comments he confirmed that the launch pad is located at the historic Launch Complex 39A, the same pad used for SpaceX commercial crew flights to the International Space Station for NASA.

“39A is hallowed spaceflight ground—no place more deserving of a Starship launch pad!” Musk explained in a separate tweet. “Will have similar, but improved, ground systems and tower to Starbase.”

Space news, Elon Musk, spaceX, Perseverance rover, mars, space.

Warp drive pioneer Dr. Harold G “Sonny” White has reported the successful manifestation of an actual, real-world “Warp Bubble.”

Warp drive pioneer and former NASA warp drive specialist Dr. Harold G “Sonny” White has reported the successful manifestation of an actual, real-world “Warp Bubble.” And, according to White, this first of its kind breakthrough by his Limitless Space Institute (LSI) team sets a new starting point for those trying to manufacture a full-sized, warp-capable spacecraft.

“To be clear, our finding is not a warp bubble analog, it is a real, albeit humble and tiny, warp bubble,” White told The Debrief, quickly dispensing with the notion that this is anything other than the creation of an actual, real-world warp bubble. “Hence the significance.”

Continue reading “DARPA Funded Researchers Accidentally Create The World’s First Warp Bubble” »

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk launched his red Tesla Roadster electric car on a tour of the Solar System. But did it really orbit Mars?

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is just going to get busier shuttling astronauts in the coming years.

NASA announced it intends to issue a sole-source modification to SpaceX’s long-term contract to send astronauts to the International Space Station. This follows an agency call for proposals back in October for more flight options to send people to space.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which is the other major system, is not quite yet ready for humans following a difficult uncrewed test flight in 2019 that never saw the spacecraft reach the ISS. Starliner has spent some time fixing computer glitches and other issues (including a valve problem that delayed an expected 2021 launch) and is now expecting a second uncrewed test flight by 2022.

Continue reading “SpaceX Tapped For 3 More Possible Commercial Crew Flights To Space” »