Lifeboat Foundation

Right on schedule, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster made a beautiful soft landing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station moments ago. It’s a huge moment in the history of spaceflight, marking the first time a rocket has ascended into orbit and landed back on Earth.

The prospects for the reusable rocket system SpaceX has been chasing for over a year are that much better.

At 8:29 pm ET, SpaceX launched its upgraded, Falcon 9 rocket carrying a payload of 11 Orbcomm communication satellites into low Earth orbit from Space Launch Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Minutes later, the second stage separated from the first and continued to propel its payload into higher orbit.

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Musk opens up about autonomous vehicles, self-driving car rules, and the competition.

In Elon Musk’s world, “easy” is used to describe problems many might consider impossible—or at least very difficult to solve. Producing a fully autonomous vehicle that can operate in any condition and on any road, for example, is easy-ish. And Tesla Motors TSLA 0.91%, the all-electric automaker that Musk heads, is two years away from achieving it.

“I think we have all the pieces, and it’s just about refining those pieces, putting them in place, and making sure they work across a huge number of environments—and then we’re done,” Musk told Fortune with assuredness during his commute to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., where he is also CEO. “It’s a much easier problem than people think it is. But it’s not like George Hotz, a one-guy-and-three-months problem. You know, it’s more like, thousands of people for two years.”

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Older, but interesting idea—

Warp drive and stargate wormholes could be used for time travel to the past. That’s the surprising conclusion that controversial theoretical physicist and author Dr. Jack Sarfatti has reached from his research into dark energy and dark matter.

Hubble image of dark matter ring in galaxy cluster

Continue reading “Warp drive and wormholes could be used for time travel, says physicist” »

These upgrades certainly get Elon Musk’s seal of approval.

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“The alien landscapes of Pluto and its moons dazzled scientists and nonscientists alike this year. More than eight decades after its discovery, Pluto became much more than a nondescript point of light. It’s a dynamic, complex world unlike any other orbiting the sun.”

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One of his companies is trying to upend the auto industry. Another of his companies is trying to put people on Mars. Yet another is trying to bring electricity to everyone who needs it. Elon Musk wants to reinvent the world in a single lifetime. But is the future ready for Elon Musk?

Following the current fashion for visionary technological geniuses to be portrayed through three critical moments in their lives, * here are three from Elon Musk’s. Except, in this case, they all come from one single day—October 12, 2015, a Monday—a day that feels like it could’ve been pretty much any day in Musk’s life right now.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Is Ready to Conquer Mars” »

By Andreas M. Hein in Artificial Intelligence and Science Fiction. Beyond the Boundary: Exploring the Science and Culture of Interstellar Spaceflight.

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Following two failed landings at sea, the next Falcon 9 rocket will attempt to touch down at Cape Canaveral.

After SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket returns to flight later this month, the company will try to land the first stage booster back on solid ground, according to NASA officials. If successful, it would mark not only the first successful landing and recovery of the company’s flagship rocket, but also the first terrestrial rocket landing for SpaceX after two failed landing attempts at sea.

The launch—which could come as soon as December 15, though a flight plan has not been confirmed by the U.S. Air Force—marks a big next step for SpaceX. The mission will be the company’s first since a June launch in which an unmanned Falcon 9 bound for the International Space Station broke apart mid-flight. The landing attempt will also follow the successful launch and landing of a reusable rocket by rival spaceflight company Blue Origin last week.

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