Lifeboat Foundation

The previous Tesla Roadster Battery range of 1000 km was a conservative estimate. It is the range which users will get if they drive like a maniac. Who can blame them, when the car does 0–100 km/h in under 2 seconds.

Furthermore, Tesla fans also remember that a founders edition with cold gas thrusters is also coming in very limited numbers for hardcore electric car enthusiasts.

It is 2019 and the numbers provided by electric cars have already begun to eclipse the likes of Lamborghini Aventador and Bugatti Veyron. Lamborghini Aventador currently gives 10 MPG (Miles per gallon) or 4.25 km/l in the city, while the Bugatti Veyron delivers an embarrassingly low 7 MPG or 2.97 km/l.

Continue reading “Tesla Roadster Battery Range To Eclipse 1000 Kilometer Mark: Elon Musk” »

China plans to build a scientific research station on the moon in “about 10 years,” according to the state news agency Xinhua.

The China National Space Administration (CSNA) intends to build the research station in the region of the moon’s south pole, Zhang Kejian, head of CSNA, said in a public statement, Xinhua reported. That’s a bit of a departure from the six successful NASA Apollo moon landings, which took place closer to the moon’s equator between 1969 and 1972.

Details of China’s long-term lunar plans are still sketchy, but CSNA has made significant steps toward lunar exploration. Earlier this year, the Chinese successfully landed the uncrewed Chang’e-4 on the far side of the moon, and have also placed astronauts aboard two temporary space stations, Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2. Their space agency also plans to put a larger, more permanent station into orbit in the coming years.

Continue reading “China Plans to Build a Base near the Moon’s South Pole” »

Jeff Bezos and his rocket company have an odd way of building anticipation.

After decades of research and development, fusion may be poised for its “SpaceX moment.”

A visualization of SPARC, a compact, experimental fusion facility now under construction on MIT’s campus. Ken Filar / PSFC Research Affiliate.

Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos, shared a cryptic photo of famed explorer Ernest Shackleton’s expedition in a tweet on Friday.

But, with only the date of May 9 in the photo’s caption, the company left the context for the post unexplained. One likely meaning is the possible connection between Shackleton’s expedition and Blue Origin’s bid to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon.

Find out in this 1:30 min video from one of #Luxembourg’s prominent space #startups.

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Jeff Bezos is hot on Elon Musk’s heels.

Beijing plans to send a manned mission to the moon and to build a research station there within the next decade, state media reported Wednesday, citing a top space official.

China aims to achieve space superpower status and took a major step towards that goal when it became the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the moon in January.

It now plans to build a scientific research station on the moon’s south pole within the next 10 years, China National Space Administration head Zhang Kejian said during a speech marking “Space Day”, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Continue reading “China to build moon station in ‘about 10 years’” »

To a non-physicist, an “atomic beam collimator” may sound like a phaser firing mystical particles. That might not be the worst metaphor to introduce a technology that researchers have now miniaturized, making it more likely to someday land in handheld devices.

Today, atomic beam collimators are mostly found in physics labs, where they shoot out atoms in a beam that produces exotic quantum phenomena and which has properties that may be useful in precision technologies. By shrinking collimators from the size of a small appliance to fit on a fingertip, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology want to make the technology available to engineers advancing devices like atomic clocks or accelerometers, a component found in smartphones.

“A typical device you might make out of this is a next-generation gyroscope for a precision navigation system that is independent of GPS and can be used when you’re out of satellite range in a remote region or traveling in space,” said Chandra Raman, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics and a co-principal investigator on the study.

Continue reading “Atomic beams shoot straighter via cascading silicon peashooters” »