A video of last week’s successful X-51 scramjet test flight: The X-51A soars to new heights – Boeing
Update: More about the flight from Michael Belfiore : X-51A Screams to Hypersonic Success: A nine-year development effort has finally paid off to create air-breathing planes that can hit Mach 5 and above. PM gets an update from program officials about what this means to the future of flight – Popular Mechanics – May.9.13.
The Space Studies Institute, whose mission is “to complete the missing technological links to make possible the productive use of the abundant resources in space”. SSI just announced that it is starting a new project with Prof. Jim Woodward of California State University Fullerton: Exotic Propulsion Initiative – Space Studies Institute.
SSI has always prided itself on focusing our resources on projects that work to provide technologies that further the cause of space settlement and permanent life off Earth. We’ve announced two efforts, the G-Lab and the E-Lab, to provide technologies required for understanding the amount of gravitational force and practical closed life-support systems required for long-term or permanent human habitation in space.
To these projects we have added the Exotic Propulsion Initiative, to explore exotic propulsion opportunities at the very borderlands of physics.
Much public and press excitement has been generated by the DARPA-funded “100 Year Starship” effort, and work on warp drive theory and concepts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
An intriguing and thoughtful recent book by Professor Jim Woodward, Making Starships and Stargates: The Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly Benign Wormholes
, has further heightened interest in “exotic” physics propulsion concepts.
While no one can predict if or when these technologies might become practical, we can say for certain that not funding basic research will consign any breakthroughs to the realm of science fiction forever.
Accordingly, SSI has established our Exotic Propulsion Initiative to take bold new risks that are unlikely to find conventional funding. Donations to the project will be first used to extend and replicate Professor Woodward’s provocative research findings at his lab at CalState Fullerton, and as resources permit, to open new avenues of exploration into advanced propulsion with other scientists.
Professor Woodward has donated major royalties from his book to SSI in order to jump-start this project’s funding. We are grateful for his donation and are very pleased to be able to offer an opportunity to all interested parties to extend and increase his gift.
Here are reports on two potential big improvements in solar power collection.
Nanometer sized antennas could convert a much wider range of the solar spectrum into useful electric power than conventional solar cells (via CitizensInSpace.org):
And a new paper in Science reports on a technique to hurdle over a fundamental barrier to the efficiency of photons creating free electrons in solar cells: New solar cell coating could boost efficiency – R&D Magazine.
In a promotion of Will Smith’s new movie After Earth, Smith participated in a Google+ Hangout moderated by Google’s Ray Kurzweil, and included guests Elon Musk, Alexandra Cousteau, and NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams: SpaceX’s Elon Musk and friends look to the far future: Engage warp drive! – Cosmic Log
In this video Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on the ISS performs
a simple science experiment designed by grade 10 Lockview High School students Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner. The students from Fall River, Nova Scotia won a national science contest held by the Canadian Space Agency with their experiment on surface tension in space using a wet washcloth.