Lifeboat Foundation

Suddenly, a billion miles doesn’t seem so far.

Experts say the right kind of propulsion system could carry spacecraft to Saturn in just two years. The direct fusion drive (DFD), a concept being developed by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, would make extremely fast work of the nearly billion miles between Earth and Saturn.

Continue reading “The Direct Fusion Drive That Could Get Us to Saturn in Just 2 Years” »

Elon Musk wants a self sufficient city on Mars.

SpaceX boss says civilisation on Earth is ‘looking a little rickety right now’.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The president of Virgin Galactic gave state lawmakers an update Monday on the company’s progress toward commercial spaceflight.

Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses said the first test space flight from Spaceport America will happen sometime this fall, which is the final step before taking paying customers into space.

Step One: Harness nuclear fusion. Step Two: Go fast. Very, very fast.

Let’s get this over with once and for all: We are going to Mars. The only questions are: When? Who? How? Which way? And, of course, why?

Why?

Continue reading “How to Go to Mars – To Stay” »

Two massive clouds of dust in orbit around the Earth have been discussed for years and finally proven to exist.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants to build a city on Mars, but there’s one crucial test that will determine whether his plan is a success.

On this day in 1899, Robert Goddard first considered the concept of space flight, which his work would later help make a reality.

On this particular fall afternoon at age 17, he was sent to prune a cherry tree in his backyard. While he worked, he found himself imagining, as he later wrote in his diary, “how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet.”

It was at that moment that Robert Goddard dedicated himself to making space flight a reality. As he was to recall later, “I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last seemed very purposive.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is “80%-90% confident” that the company’s massive new Starship rocket will reach orbit next year and said there’s a chance it will be ready for an uncrewed cargo mission to Mars in 2024.

The initial test flights will be difficult and carry a high risk of failure, Musk said Friday at a virtual session of the Mars Society’s 2020 conference. “We’ll probably lose a few ships before we get the atmospheric return and landing right,” he said.