Category Archives: Space Systems

Eric Davis, warp drive, wormholes and all that

Physicist Eric Davis talks about the possibilities of realistic warp drive and wormholes for space travel:  Why Warp Drives Aren’t Just Science Fiction – TechNewsDaily.com.

Here’s an earlier article: Warp Speed, Scotty? Star Trek’s FTL Drive May Actually Work – TechNewsDaily.com

And here is an interview with Davis and two other scientists looking into such possibilities: Dr. Eric W. Davis, Dr. Richard Obousy, Dr. Harold Sonny White – The Space Show with Dr. David Livingston

Server Sky – proposed constellation of chipsats

An announcement for space fans in the local Washington D. C. area:
DC-L5 Meeting
Sunday June 30, 2013
2:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.Meeting Room
Tysons-Pimmit Library
7584 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA.

Program
Keith Lofstrom  presenting  “Server Sky.com – Internet and Computation in Orbit”
Keith gave this presentation at ISDC2013 in San Diego, CA
Keith will start his presentation at 3 p.m.  It will end at around 4 p.m. and then he will take questions.
Server sky is a proposal to build large arrays of 5 gram paper-thin solar-powered computer satellites in 6400km earth orbit. Arrays act as large parallel computers and phased array antennas, transmitting thousands of communication beams simultaneously to low cost ground receivers and other arrays in space.
U.S. data centers consume 10GW of electricity to produce microwatt signals delivered to customers. Converting space solar power into computation and sending the only results eliminates most of the cost and mass of SBSP, as well as the expense and inefficiencies of data centers and fiber optic infrastructure. Server sky can provide high reliability broadband internet to developing nations with much lower economic and environmental cost.

Video: Morpheus tethered test firings

Here is a video of two tethered flight tests carried out today of the Project Morpheus VTVL rocket vehicle. From the caption:

This is the 24th tether test of the Morpheus Vehicle. This test was performed with the “Bravo” version of the vehicle and tested some of the new backup systems. There are two firings in this test, the first firing was soft aborted. This was caused by an imbalance in the fuel load which caused the vehicle to exceed it’s tight safety zone. The 2nd firing was a complete success.

Update: An article about the Morpheus project: NASA Prototype Planetary Lander Making Comeback – Aviation Week