Lifeboat Foundation

Philip lubin, university of california, santa barbara, directed energy for interstellar study.

Starting at 26 minutes of this video.

They are making progress with laser locking over kilometer distances. They are making 2 gram starchip prototypes. they are looking at making ultrathin starchips that would be a meter across but very lightweight.

Continue reading “Directed Energy Propulsion has made a lot of experimental progress” »

A 100 meter to 150 meter solar array that is attuned to the lithium ion will be about 70% efficient.

JPL is working on the gridded lithium ion arrays to achieve 60,000 ISP.

There is work on 60 meter deployable solar arrays.

Continue reading “Beaming laser power to ion drive is 300-400 times more thrust than just laser photonic sail” »

A thruster that’s being developed for a future NASA mission to Mars broke several records during recent tests, suggesting that the technology is on track to take humans to the Red Planet within the next 20 years, project team members said.

The X3 thruster, which was designed by researchers at the University of Michigan in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Air Force, is a Hall thruster — a system that propels spacecraft by accelerating a stream of electrically charged atoms, known as ions. In the recent demonstration conducted at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio, the X3 broke records for the maximum power output, thrust and operating current achieved by a Hall thruster to date, according to the research team at the University of Michigan and representatives from NASA.

“We have shown that X3 can operate at over 100 kW of power,” said Alec Gallimore, who is leading the project, in an interview with Space.com. “It operated at a huge range of power from 5 kW to 102 kW, with electrical current of up to 260 amperes. It generated 5.4 Newtons of thrust, which is the highest level of thrust achieved by any plasma thruster to date,” added Gallimore, who is dean of engineering at the University of Michigan. The previous record was 3.3 Newtons, according to the school.

Continue reading “Ion Thruster Prototype Breaks Records in Tests, Could Send Humans to Mars” »

As the U.S. government continues to pursue plans for a crewed mission to Mars, NASA has contracted with BWXT Nuclear Energy Inc. of Lynchburg, Virginia, to advance concepts in Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP), which could drastically reduce travel times to Mars.

This is part of NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, which takes ideas from academia and industry as well as NASA and other government programs, to advance new approaches to space technologies to accommodate the changing needs of U.S. space efforts.

NTP is not a new concept, but it was abandoned in 1972 when plans for a Mars mission were shelved. NASA conducted ground tests since 1955 to determine the viability of NTP and has occasionally been revisited as a conceptual part of Mars mission feasibility studies.

Continue reading “NASA contracts energy firm to refine nuclear thermal propulsion concepts” »

NASA’s acting chief technologist, Dr Douglas Terrier, made the comments ahead of an appearance at the Codex innovation summit, held in London.

One of the techniques currently under development that it is following is NMN, a compound expected to enter clinical trials after it was shown to rejuvenate elderly mice in laboratory tests.

Continue reading “NASA may alter the DNA of astronauts who journey to Mars” »

Ever since the EM drive first made headlines, science lovers have puzzled over how the propulsion system seems to produce thrust, despite the fact it’s ‘impossible’ according to one of the most fundamental laws of physics — Newton’s third law of motion.

Now a team of physicists have put forward an alternative explanation — it turns out the EM drive could actually work without breaking any scientific laws, if we factor in a weird and often overlooked idea in quantum physics — pilot wave theory.

For those who need a refresher, the crux of the problem here is that the EM, or electromagnetic, drive appears to produce thrust without any fuel or propellant.

Continue reading “This Overlooked Theory Could Be The Missing Piece That Explains How The EM Drive Works” »

Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s announcement last week accelerating plans for manned flights to Mars ratchets up political and public relations pressure on NASA’s efforts to reach the same goal.

With Musk publicly laying out a much faster schedule than NASA — while contending his vision is less expensive and could be financed primarily with private funds — a debate unlike any before is shaping up over the direction of U.S. space policy.

Read: Before Elon Musk can get SpaceX to Mars, he must overcome these nontechnical hurdles.

Continue reading “New space race to Mars pits NASA vs. SpaceX” »

With the best theme song in TV history.

Musk said he’s “confident” the plan will be under way within five years.

“I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars,” Musk said, adding that he thinks SpaceX has figured out a way to make it affordable by using revenues from the company’s satellite launches, service missions to the International Space Station and by making smaller, more efficient rockets that are mostly reusable.

Nine years after SpaceX’s first successful launch — its fourth ever — Musk said his engineers are now perfecting propulsive landing. He believes the BFR rocket can carry out missions to the moon and back without producing propellant, enabling the establishment of a lunar space station.

Continue reading “Elon Musk: SpaceX Is Coming for Mars in 2022” »