For everything from family to computers…
Just minutes ago, via the NASA TV stream, we learned that the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has successfully been attached to the International Space Station–the very first private spacecraft to do so. (Read more about its launch earlier this week here.) NASA is still broadcasting footage of the attachment, but everything looks smooth so far. Watch it live here.
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
What the… really?! Â How do we let this happen?!
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Counterfeit electronics and military hardware risks American lives
Over the weekend a do-it-yourself space program called Copenhagen Suborbitals successfully test-fired the largest amateur-built bi-liquid rocket engine in the world. Co-founder and Rocket Shop blogger Kristian von Bengtson reports.
from Wired Top Stories
The Synergy aircraft, propelled by a fan in back and buoyed by a boxy tail, promises to be cheaper, safer, quieter, and vastly more efficient than a jet airplane. The hitch is that it doesn’t quite exist yet, but it’s nearly halfway to its goal on Kickstarter, so now is your chance to invest.
The shape is not unlike the jets of the future we looked at in our May issue, but the technology is very different. A quarter-scale flying prototype was unveiled a year ago, demonstrating the unique “induced drag reduction” method developed by inventor John McGinnis.
I’m very curious to see the full-size prototype in action.
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
Marvel’s web-slinger is able to scale tall buildings thanks to a set of spiny hairs on his fingers. And NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory thinks the same approach could make it easy for spacecraft to latch onto asteroids, comets, and other irregularly-shaped rocks. More »
from Gizmodo
A perpetual weakness of MAVs (micro air vehicles) is their frequent need for hand-holding in anything other than a wide-open or very controlled space. If they’re not using GPS or motion sensors to find their locations, they can’t turn on a dime the way a human pilot would. Adam Bry, Abraham Bachrash and Nicholas Roy from MIT’s CSAIL group haven’t overcome every problem just yet, but they may have taken combat drones and other pilotless aircraft a big step forward by giving them the tools needed to fly quickly when positioning isn’t an option. Uniting a laser rangefinder with an existing 3D map of the environment — still ‘cheating,’ but less dependent — lets the prototype flyer find the distance to nearby obstacles and steer clear even at speeds that would scare any mere mortal MAV. Ideally, future designs that can create their own maps will be completely independent of humans, making us think that MIT’s references to “aggressive” autonomous flight are really cues to start hiding under the bed.
from Engadget
Latest simulation shows that the magnetic nozzles required for antimatter propulsion could be vastly more efficient than previously thought–and built with today’s technologies
Smash a lump of matter into antimatter and it will release a thousand times more energy than the same mass of fuel in a nuclear fission reactor and some 2 billion times more than burning the equivalent in hydrocarbons.