Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX and NASA are planning a triumphant return to American human spaceflight on May 27, with the SpaceX Demo-2 mission for its Crew Dragon spacecraft. This is the final step required for Crew Dragon to become certified for human flight, after which it’ll enter into regular operational service ferrying people (and some cargo) to the International Space Station on behalf of the U.S. and some of its allies.

The animation above shows how SpaceX and NASA envision the mission going, from the astronauts stepping out of their ride to the launch pad (a Tesla Model X badged with NASA logos past and present), their trip across the bridge linking the launch tower to the Falcon 9 that will take them up and their spacecraft’s separation from the rocket and subsequent docking procedure with the ISS.

SpaceX and NASA have done plenty of preparation to get to this point, including running a full uncrewed original demo mission that more or less followed this exact flow, just without any actual astronauts on board. That mission also included the undocking of the Crew Dragon capsule, and its return to Earth, with a parachute-assisted splashdown in the ocean.

An internal attainability report proposes the organization maybe, or possibly that going through collapsed space is a piece of the NASA interstellar spaceflight menu.

In the report, propelled impetus physicist Harold “Sonny” White clarifies the thoughts of a hypothetical physicist (and companion) Miguel Alcubierre. He at that point portrays an “oddity” in Alcubierre’s work, and how that Catch 22 may be set out to make a working model.

The conversational term “twist drive” has originated from sci-fi, and it alludes to sub-luminal (not exactly the speed of light) head out that complies with Einstein’s hypothesis of general relativity yet at the same time pushes speed to total most extreme that is hypothetically conceivable. In the Star Trek canon, dynamic structures come consistently nearer to a theoretical obstruction—the manner in which genuine researchers keep on slashing ever nearer to supreme zero. In actuality, light speed is the hindrance.

Got a bran new warp drive update, and there is a pdf that gives parameters:

. Consider the following to help illustrate the point – assume the spacecraft heads out towards Alpha Centauri and has a conventional propulsion system capable of reaching 0.1c. The spacecraft initiates a boost field with a value of 100 which acts on the initial velocity resulting in an apparent speed of 10c. The spacecraft will make it to Alpha Centauri in 0.43 years as measured by an earth observer and an observer in the flat space-time volume encapsulated by the warp bubble.

So, with a few slower than light models, like using antimatter, allowing half the speed of light, that would mean 50c.

Continue reading “Is NASA Actually Working On a Warp Drive?” »

For fun, Apple software developer, Forrest Heller, pits a USB-C charger chip against the computer that landed astronauts on the moon. Here’s what he found.

(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is seeking almost $656,000 in new funding from California in the midst of the billionaire’s battle over whether Tesla Inc. should be reopening its plant in the state.

SpaceX’s request for funds to train existing workers and hire new ones will go before the state’s Employment Training Panel on May 15, one week after the county that’s home to Tesla’s factory sought to block the facility from resuming operations. The company sued the next day, and its chief executive officer threatened to move Tesla’s headquarters, future programs and potentially its manufacturing out of the state.

Musk, 48, appears to be prevailing in the stand-off. He tweeted Monday that Tesla was restarting production in spite of Alameda County’s order and said that if anyone is arrested, he wanted to be the only one.

On May 12th, SpaceX released an online simulator that allows internet users to try to dock the company’s newly developed Crew Dragon with the International Space Station.

Starlink’s transceiver gets pictured and Starship passes a key test. Tom Cruise in space? How can readers volunteer with the space community? It’s Musk Reads: SpaceX Edition #167.

A version of this article appeared in the “Musk Reads” newsletter. Sign up for free here.

Star Trek fans get hyped as scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center have just unveiled a design for a warp drive ship. NASA scientist and Advanced Propulsion Team Lead Harold White revealed that he was investigating if a warp drive ship could travel faster than light and if so, how can we build one.

[Image Source: Mark Rademaker]

Continue reading “NASA releases design for a warp drive ship” »

Sometime in the next few hours, the body of a spent Chinese rocket will become the largest piece of space junk in decades to fall, uncontrolled, back towards Earth.

On May 5, a Long March 5B rocket launched a prototype crew capsule resembling a SpaceX Crew Dragon to orbit for a test. Now, after almost a week orbiting the Earth, the core stage of the large rocket is on a collision course with the upper atmosphere and whatever doesn’t burn up during its descent will impact the planet.

“It is the most massive object to make an uncontrolled reentry since the 39-tonne Salyut-7 in 1991,” wrote Jonathan McDowell, a prominent Harvard astrophysicist who tracks objects in orbit, on Twitter.