Items tagged with space
Stratolaunch is a company founded by the late Paul G. Allen that is trying to make it easier and less costly to put satellites into orbit. Sadly the late Paul Allen didn't live to see his dream take flight, however. Unlike Elon Musk's SpaceX , the way Stratolaunch plans to put satellites into orbit has nothing to do with rockets launched from the ground; rather the company will use what it calls the "world's largest aircraft" to carry satellites as high into the atmosphere as possible, before launching them into orbit. The aircraft that will heft those satellites off the ground is called Roc, and it had its maiden flight recently. The massive aircraft sports a dual fuselage design with a large...
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Elon Musk and SpaceX have been doing some very cool things over the past decade with rockets. While the rockets SpaceX has been sending into space aren’t the sort capable of flying to the moon or Mars, they are capable of ferrying cargo safely to the ISS in Earth orbit and mostly returning to Earth in one piece. The big news this week was the unveiling of the SpaceX BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) spacecraft that can fly to the moon and beyond. During the unveiling of the rocket, Musk said that the BFR already has its first passenger booked, but during the event, no names were offered. When Musk was asked if he was going to be the first passenger to fly around the moon, he simply tweeted a Japanese...
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Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world last year with an estimated net worth of over $90 billion; his net worth is now said to be around $130 billion. Bezos has more cooking than Amazon alone and one of his cooler ventures is Blue Origin, a lesser known private space venture than SpaceX. Bezos has stated that Blue Origin will work with the ESA and NASA to create a settlement on the moon. The billionaire has stated that he will do whatever needs to be done to make the lunar base a reality. Bezos made the statement last week at an International Airspace Development Conference. The main goal of Blue Origin is to make access to space cheaper starting with the...
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 static fire test went horribly wrong earlier this week -- what was supposed to be a routine test run before today's scheduled launch ended in a massive fireball. The explosion, which occurred while fueling the liquid oxygen tanks, resulted in the destruction of Facebook's first satellite for use with its Internet.org initiative. Luckily for SpaceX, it has a lot of data to pore over this weekend. In a blog post, SpaceX says that the anomaly occurred eight minutes prior to the expected test fire at Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral. Fortunately, the launch pad was clear of all personnel, so while the craft was destroyed, there were absolutely no injuries to report....
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No Man’s Sky, the interstellar survival/exploration title from Hello Games, hit the PC and console platforms this month, roughly two years after its now infamous reveal at the 2013 VGX Awards. There it received exuberant praise and took home several awards—including a “Special Commendation for Innovation.” During that showing, what impressed industry insiders most were its seamless transitions from outer-space travel to atmospheric burn-in, to boots on the ground. No Man's Sky features a massively open environment that remains one of the cooler aspects of the game--it never seems to get old once you've had a chance to experience it. And experience it, we have. Damn you, Google Maps! While NMS...
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Tech and Space enthusiasts are often kinsmen, so we were delighted to be invited down to witness NASA's next rocket launch live and report back to you on the experience. HotHardware is going to be front and center for Tuesday night’s Orbital ATK CRS-6 mission at NASA - Cape Canaveral, Florida. CRS-6 will not only deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) for its eager crew, but it will also carry a number of research projects aboard NASA's Cygnus spacecraft, which we'd like to detail for you here as a quick teaser... The Gecko GripperFirst, there’s the Gecko Gripper, which attempts to mimic the adhesion properties of gecko feet. Through the use of nanomaterials that are much thinner...
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As if last night's occurrence of a supermoon and total lunar eclipse wasn't exciting enough, NASA has today revealed a monumental breakthrough with its exploration of the planet Mars. While it's long been suggested that water has existed on the cold, desolate planet, most likely as frozen-solid ice, NASA is now able to reveal that there is in fact flowing water to be found. This kind of discovery can't be understated. Scientists and researchers have yearned for years to get proof of water on Mars, because it's a planet that should technically be able to sustain human life at some point in the future. The discovery of this life-fueling liquid means that alien life could have existed there before,...
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Since it unveiled HoloLens in January, Microsoft has wanted us all to believe that its AR product can deliver an out-of-this-world experience. Now, it's proven that it's willing to go to great lengths to prove it. In a partnership with NASA for a project called Sidekick, Microsoft is going to be sending two HoloLens units up to the International Space Station, with transit provided by SpaceX, during its seventh resupply mission to the station. With astronauts equipped with HoloLens, NASA hopes that it will help both improve the work they're able to do, as well as make things easier for the engineers back on Earth. "The goal of Sidekick is to enable station crews with assistance when and where...
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You have to hand it to Tony Stark, err, I mean Elon Musk. The man helped to co-found PayPal and he’s the CEO of Tesla Motors, which has brought us wonderful electric vehicles like the Roadster and the outrageous Model S P85D. Musk also helms SpaceX, which just recently made its fifth successful trip the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver supplies via the Dragon capsule. The secondary mission of the latest ISS launch resulted in the “successful failure” of the Falcon 9 rocket, which Musk described as a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) event. And let’s not forget that Musk is also the chairman of SolarCity, which produces commercial- and consumer-grade solar panels. You would think...
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Following a day of delays that temporarily grounded the project, NASA this morning launched its Orion spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida this morning. This is a test run for the crewless spacecraft, which lifted off the ground without issue and is now "flying comfortably through space," according to NASA's blog. Orion is now orbiting above Earth at a low altitude before the United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket sends the spacecraft higher into space. If all goes to plan, Orion will fly 3,600 miles high before returning to Earth -- it's scheduled to splash down into the Pacific Ocean at around 11:29 AM EST. Liftoff didn't come easy. Orion was originally scheduled to conduct its first...
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NASA is working hard to launch its [currently] unmanned Orion spacecraft this morning, though multiple issues have kept it grounded so far. It was initially supposed to blast off at 7:05 AM ET before being put on hold because a boat came too close, followed by another delay due to a gust of wind, and most recently because a fill and drain valve on the rocket did not function correctly. If NASA isn't able to launch Orion by 9:44 AM ET, it will have to wait until another day. That scenario becomes increasingly likely with each passing moment, especially since mission managers made the decision to cycle the fill and drain valves on Orion's three core boosters to see if that solves the problem. Nevertheless,...
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Without any formal government regulation, Bitcoin prices have been surging and falling, and surging and falling. It's a roller coaster ride that only the bold can stomach, but those who are willing to invest in something like a new digital currency already have some wild stories to tell. Earlier this month, a university in Cyprus announced that tuition could be paid in Bitcoins, and a number of online e-tailers are accepting the currency as well. A currency really only takes shape once it's accepted "everywhere," or close to everywhere. But here's something that few currencies can say: Bitcoins are now accepted in space. Virgin Galactic, which is just years away from taking civilians to space,...
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Google and NASA have a lot in common, really. Both companies have made marks for themselves by defying logic, and in some ways, making the (seemingly) impossible... possible. Of course, Google has done most of its work on Planet Earth, while NASA has a thing for the outer reaches of space, but that's not stopping the two from working together. Google has just produced and published a video outlining the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab -- a facility built for the advancement of quantum computing. The lab is in its earliest days at the moment, but the potential here is huge. The video does a solid job of explaining quantum computing and its benefits over traditional physical computing and then...
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At 83-years-old, Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men ever to set foot on the moon (second behind only Neil Armstrong), hasn't lost a step, nor has his passion for space exploration wavered in the years since that day in 1969. Just the opposite, the retired United States Air Force pilot and famous astronaut thinks its high time mankind pulls up its britches and sets out to colonize Mars. Ask him why he thinks we should send astronauts to the red planet, as BBC News reporter Theo Leggett did, and he'll tell you, "Why did the pilgrims on the Mayflower set out to open up the New World? Because it's in human nature to explore, to find a location to begin a settlement. And it is in reach." All valid...
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