Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University, Dayton Air Force Research Laboratory and China have developed a new dry adhesive that bonds in extreme temperatures—a quality that could make the product ideal for space exploration and beyond.

The gecko-inspired adhesive loses no traction in temperatures as cold as liquid nitrogen or as hot as molten silver, and actually gets stickier as heat increases, the researchers report.

The research, which builds on earlier development of a single-sided dry adhesive tape based on vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, is published in the journal Nature Communications (“Carbon nanotube dry adhesives with temperature-enhanced adhesion over a large temperature range”). As far as the researchers know, no other dry adhesive is capable of working at such temperature extremes.

Bigelow Aerospace and Axiom Space — plan to launch habitat modules to orbit in 2020, with the aim of making some money off Earth. If all goes according to plan, private space stations will eventually form the backbone of commercial facilities that replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is currently funded through 2024.

“Hopefully, if we’re successful in the private-sector community, NASA’s going to save a boatload of money, on multiple locations [in orbit] — not just one — with more volume than they’ve ever had before,” Bigelow founder and CEO Robert Bigelow said here Wednesday (Oct. 12) at the 2016 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS). “So, whether it’s Axiom or us or other people, that is the future.”

A new company, named Axiom Space LLC, was incorporated in January, 2016 in Delaware but is based in Houston. Mike Suffredini (former NASA manager of the International Space Station) serves as its president and Kam Ghaffarian, the president and chief executive of SGT, is the chief executive.

Continue reading “Private Space Stations could start launching in 2020 and large multi-module stations able to hold 100 or more people by 2030” »

“Finding the first planet like Earth beyond our solar system would transform how we think about our place in the universe.”

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To get to Mars faster, humans might have to slow themselves down grizzly-style.

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Representatives of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab demonstrated the capability of Microsoft’s HoloLens headset for space exploration and research at New York University Nov. 7.

Great news if it turns out to be true!

Though scientists are still trying to figure out how it doesn’t violate the laws of physics.

US and Chinese governments are already testing out their own EmDrive devices on spacecraft, sources say.

NASA tests the engine for the most powerful rocket ever built, designed for deep-space missions.