An innovative new vehicle designed for venturing into unknown Antarctic wastelands has been unveiled at the renowned Royal College of Art’s final year show, opening up the possibility of a host of new research activities in the South pole and potentially Mars. Working closely with experts from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge, award-winning designer James Moon came up with a lightweight, compact eco-friendly vehicle with the unique quality of having been designed specifically for use in the Antarctic, one of the Earth’s most extreme environments. Called Ninety Degrees South, the vehicle is small enough to fit into a Twin Otter aircraft, as used by BAS and other organisations when working in remote, deep field locations.

As for-sale listings go, this one is a real fixer-upper: a 10-bedroom, five-bath glass house situated in Arizona's Sonoran Desert. The landscaping is lush, but it's a bit overgrown. There's a million-gallon pool, but the water is brackish. The utility bills are a bear - about $1 million a year. And the place is infested with five species of cockroaches and overrun with voracious ants. But if you're looking for a one-of-a-kind property set amid nearly 1,300 acres of cactus and tumbleweeds with spectacular mountain views, then the 137,000-square-foot Biosphere 2 just might be for you.

A new Tukwila company has scored $8 million in financing to turn cow manure and trash into usable energy. Prometheus Energy Co., which has kept a low profile for the past two years, is developing a new technology that transforms the methane gas produced at landfills, cow pastures and coal mines into a substitute for diesel fuel. "What we do is take pollution and turn it into energy," explained Daniel Clarkson, vice president of government and legal affairs at the startup. "We take waste gases ... and through a freezing process turn that into liquid natural gas."

"Are we there yet?" Everyone has faced this exasperating question from impatient companions on a long road trip. Imagine if the trip lasted six months. One way. It takes conventional rockets about six months just to get to Mars. Total roundtrip times can be as long as three years, because an extended stay on the Red Planet is required while the Earth and Mars progress in their orbits enough to be closely aligned again for the return trip. But an exciting NASA-funded research project could send astronauts racing to Mars up to six times faster. The solution -- proposed by Dr. Robert Winglee of the University of Washington -- sounds like science fiction. A spacecraft rides a beam of plasma, which is electrified and magnetized gas, all the way to Mars and back. The roundtrip journey could be wrapped up in about 90 days using Winglee's Magnetized Beam Plasma Propulsion system, dubbed Magbeam.

LiftPort Group, the space elevator companies, announced Monday plans for a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant, the company's first formal facility for production of the material on a commercial scale. Called LiftPort Nanotech, the new facility will also serve as the regional headquarters for the company, and represents the fruition of the company's three years of research and development efforts into carbon nanotubes, including partnering work with a variety of leading research institutions in the business and academic communities. Set to open in June of this year, LiftPort Nanotech will be located in Millville, New Jersey, a community with a history in glass and plastics production.

Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell (MFC) that does not require oxygen, Penn State environmental engineers and a scientist at Ion Power Inc. have developed the first process that enables bacteria to coax four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone. Bruce Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering and an inventor of the MFC, says, "This MFC process is not limited to using only carbohydrate-based biomass for hydrogen production like conventional fermentation processes. We can theoretically use our MFC to obtain high yields of hydrogen from any biodegradable, dissolved, organic matter -- human, agricultural or industrial wastewater, for example -- and simultaneously clean the wastewater.

A revolutionary machine which can make everything from a cup to a clarinet quickly and cheaply could be in all our homes in the next few years. Research by engineers at the University of Bath could transform the manufacture of almost all everyday household objects by allowing people to produce them in their own homes at the cost of a few pounds. The new system is based upon rapid prototype machines, which are now used to produce plastic components for industry such as vehicle parts. The method they use, in which plastic is laid down in designs produced in 3D on computers, could be adapted to make many household items.

Nomad, one of Carnegie Mellon University's most accomplished robotic rovers, is at it again. This time the rover that trekked 220 kilometers through Chile's Atacama Desert and explored Antarctica for meteorites is being groomed for a potential return to the frozen continent to search for signs of living microorganisms near the top of its icy surface. Nomad, which successfully traversed 10 kilometers through the snow and ice on Lake Mascoma in Hanover, New Hampshire , was equipped with a wind turbine for the first time, while researchers studied the possibility of powering a robotic investigation with combined wind and solar energy.

Just as blowing up a bubble leads to a pop, so can shrinking it. Rapidly collapsing bubbles have long been known to reach astonishing temperatures. Now scientists have measured just how hot. And they're surprised. "When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot – very hot," said Ken Suslick of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The temperature we measured – about 20,000 degrees Kelvin [35,540 Fahrenheit] – is four times hotter than the surface of our Sun."

Russia has suggested a project to the international community to explore outer space using nuclear installations to send a manned expedition to Mars in 2017, a top Russian scientist said. Speaking at a Moscow international conference on nuclear power in space, the vice president of the Kurchatov Institute scientific center, Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoy, said Russia offered the participants of the Mars flight “to use Russian research and development for nuclear engines and installations.”

A renewable energy device that captures vibration to produce electricity looks set to replace or complement small conventional batteries for a range of every day applications and enable the reliable powering of new technologies. The Kinetic Energy Cell is a micro renewable energy source able to generate electricity from vibration or motion such as from cars, trucks and even people. This means that so long as there is access to movement or vibration the cell produces energy. Because the cell can replace standard and alkaline batteries in some applications, it is a non-polluting solution to small power requirements. Six billion dry cell batteries are produced annually by the world's largest manufacturer.

The small town of Galena, Alaska, is tired to pay 28 cents/kwh for its electricity, three times the national average. Today, Galena "is powered by generators burning diesel that is barged in during the Yukon River's ice-free months," according to Reuters. But Toshiba, which designs a small nuclear reactor named 4S (for "Super Safe, Small, & Simple"), is offering a free reactor to the 700-person village, reports the New York Times. Galena will only pay for operating costs, driving down the price of electricity to less than 10 cents/kwh. The 4S is a sodium-cooled fast spectrum reactor -- a low-pressure, self-cooling reactor. It will generate power for 30 years before refueling and should be installed before 2010 providing an approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Gregory Benford, professor of physics at UC Irvine (and noted science fiction author) believes that a spacecraft powered by a special kind of solar sail could reach Mars in just one month. Dr. Benford and his brother James were testing a very thin carbon-mesh sail, using microwaves as the energy source for propulsion. Unexpectedly, the sail experienced a force considerably greater than predicted. They theorized that the heat from the microwave beam was causing carbon monoxide gas to escape from the sail's surface; the recoil from the escaping molecules provided what could be a useful adjunct to the propulsive force experienced by light sails.

Biophan Technologies Inc. recently announced an agreement between its TE-Bio subsidiary and NASA for the joint development of high-density, nanoengineered thermoelectric materials for use with implantable medical devices. Currently, implantable electromedical devices have to be replaced every few years due to short battery life. Biophan’s aim is to develop a thermoelectric power system based on temperature differentials in the human body. “By deriving power from the heat produced by the body,” says Biophan CEO Michael Weiner, “we can extend the life of these devices.”

A spherical roving robot designed to detect and report intruders has been developed by a Swedish start-up company. The design was first developed with planetary exploration in mind, at the Ångström Space Technology Center, part of Uppsala University, Sweden. But Rotundus, formed in December 2004 plan to market the ball-shaped bot as an automated security guard. It is propelled by a pendulum suspended from an axis inside the casing, controlled by a motor. Moving the pendulum forwards causes the robot roll along, but the pendulum can also swing from side to side, giving the robot the ability to steer left and right.

A LICK of paint could help a spacecraft powered by a solar sail get from Earth to Mars in just one month, seven times faster than the craft that took the rovers Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet. Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, and his brother James, who runs aerospace research firm Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California, envisage beaming microwave energy up from Earth to boil off volatile molecules from a specially formulated paint applied to the sail. The recoil of the molecules as they streamed off the sail would give it a significant kick that would help the craft on its way. "It's a different way of thinking about propulsion," Gregory Benford says. "We leave the engine on the ground."

Physical Review E has announced the publication of an article by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) stating that they have replicated and extended previous experimental results that indicated the occurrence of nuclear fusion using a novel approach for plasma confinement. This approach, called bubble fusion, and the new experimental results are being published in an extensively peer-reviewed article titled “Additional Evidence of Nuclear Emissions During Acoustic Cavitation,” which is scheduled to be posted on Physical Review E’s Web site and published in its journal this month.

Scientists have invented a plastic solar cell that can turn the sun's power into electrical energy, even on a cloudy day. The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the sun's invisible, infrared rays. The breakthrough has led theorists to predict that plastic solar cells could one day become five times more efficient than current solar cell technology.

Today at the North American International Auto Show, Michelin showcased a potentially disruptive technology with significant ramifications for the future for mobility: an airless, integrated tyre and wheel combination dubbed the TWEEL (i.e. Tyre/WhEEL) . The Tweel promises performance levels beyond those possible with conventional pneumatic technology. The first commercial applications of the Tweel will be in lower-speed, lower-weight vehicles such as the iBOT mobility device and Segway's Concept Centaur.

Each year, billions of tons of concrete become the stuff of buildings, highways, dams, sidewalks, and even artworks. The list goes on. Not only is the material ubiquitous, it has a long history. The Romans invented cement-based concrete more than 2,000 years ago and used the material to build architectural masterpieces such as the Pantheon. To Christian Meyer, a structural engineer at Columbia University, there's just no question about it: "Concrete is the world's most important material." And it's one of the simplest. A typical mix of concrete consists of 60 to 75 percent sand and gravel or crushed stone, 15 to 20 percent water, and 10 to 15 percent cement, which is prepared by roasting limestone, clay, and other ingredients. The cement is the paste that binds the components into concrete.

The intriguing kinda fun looking vehicle is going on sale in 2005. There are 19 photos in our Gadget Gallery of the still nameless driving machine. Some of the photos show the six balloon wheel sporting all-terrain or cross-country vehicle driving through water and through ice.

NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate is on the lookout for new concepts for its Vision for Space Exploration -- the White House-backed Moon, Mars and beyond agenda. And on November 16th, NASA selected a concept from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation for inflatable thin-film ballutes for return from the Moon. Not only Moon-to-Earth traffic could benefit by using the ballute/aerocapture technique. So too could missions to Mars, as well as future probes to Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and other distant destinations.

Researchers at the DOE’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and Ceramatec, Inc have successfully shown that they can produce hydrogen at temperatures and pressures suitable for a future Generation IV nuclear reactor via High-Temperature Electrolysis (HTE). This marks a milestone along the research path laid out some three years ago on exploring different mechanisms for hydrogen production via nuclear energy.

When the history of this lame duck Congress is written, historians may make little notes about the dustup over intelligence reform. However, their long memories are likely to record that, by funding the President's space initiative, this was a lame duck that soared. The $16.2 billion that Congress authorized for NASA, a five percent increase in its budget, made it official that mankind is headed outwards again -- to the moon, to Mars, and beyond. The House also passed a revised commercial space bill, which just a short time ago, was pronounced deader than Tom Daschle's political career.

Ray Bucklin can remember when "Mars jars" were sprouting up in laboratories around the country. In the years after the Viking probes landed on the surface of Mars, many scientists spent their spare time building bottle-like devices that replicated the thin air or the surface of the Red Planet — and using them to see whether plants could survive under Martian conditions. Now Bucklin and his graduate students at the UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (UF/IFAS) have put together a Mars jar to beat them all — a room-sized chamber in which the researchers can test models of greenhouses that could one day be built on the Red Planet.

NASA's Spirit Rover has just completed a long hard slog across difficult Martian terrain to reach the Columbia hills. The short journey of just a couple of kilometres has taken Spirit months. Imagine if it could thoroughly analyze an area and then just pick up and fly somewhere new? NASA is considering a proposal from Pioneer Astronautics, which envisions a vehicle that could land on Mars, refuel with local materials, and then fly hundreds of kilometres to explore; repeating this process over and over again - the Martian Gashopper Aircraft.

It’s the year 2027 and NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration is progressing right on schedule. The first interplanetary spacecraft with humans aboard is on course for Mars. However, halfway into the trip, a gigantic solar flare erupts, spewing lethal radioactive protons directly at the spacecraft. But, not to worry. Research by former astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman and a group of MIT colleagues back in the year 2004 ensured that this vehicle has a state-of-the-art superconducting magnetic shielding system that protects the human occupants from any deadly solar emissions.

Applying the most efficient solar technology available, researchers are building a new power plant that utilizes the heat from sunlight to generate electric power. The solar dish, as it’s known, is a joint project between Stirling Energy Systems, Inc. (SES) and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories. Based in New Mexico, the prototype contains 82 mirrors that focus the Sun’s rays, transmitting the heat energy to an engine filled with hydrogen. As the gas expands and contracts from heating and cooling, this motion drives pistons which power a generator that creates electricity.

Work is underway to establish the first interplanetary laser communication link. The $300 million NASA experiment, if successful, will connect robotic spacecraft at Mars with scientists back on Earth via a beam of light traveling some 300 million kilometers. For scientists eager to download bandwidth-intensive imagery and other data collected by planetary orbiters, probes and landers, the laser communications would offer a dramatic breakthrough in the amounts of information spacecraft can reliably transmit back to Earth.

Students and faculty are working at the Earth and space sciences (ESS) lab are working on projects that will lead to an upcoming project to cut the costs and time of space travel. A combination of two current projects, the Magnetized Beamed Plasma Propulsion project, or "MagBeam" concept could greatly increase speeds of space travel by revolutionizing fuel efficiency for spacecrafts. According to project lead Robert Winglee, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences; the goal of the team is to make a spacecraft that can make a round trip to Mars in 90 days.

Louis Friedman imagines the day when people rocketed into weightlessness will unfurl lightweight, football field-sized sheets from their spacecraft and set sail for Mars. "It's a realistic prospect," said Friedman, head of the Planetary Society, a Pasadena, Calif.-based organization that was co-founded in 1980 by space visionary Carl Sagan. "I can imagine it working well for cargoes on long trips." Friedman's group plans to perform the first-ever orbital test of a solar sail this coming January with the help of another Sagan-affiliated group, Cosmos Studios, based in Los Angeles, and Russia's Babakin Space Center in Moscow.

When Michigan Technological University's Jiann-Yang (Jim) Hwang (pronounced "wong") wanted to try out a new idea for making steel, the first place he went was Wal-Mart. Hwang, an associate professor of materials science and engineering and director of MTU's Institute of Materials Processing, picked up six microwave ovens at the local discount store and brought them back to his lab. With IMP's research scientist Xiaodi Huang, they took them apart, wired the magnetrons together into one super-heavy-duty microwave, and added an electric arc furnace. Then he zapped a mixture of iron oxide and coal. When he was done, he had a nugget of pure steel.

Almost since the day they were invented, microprocessor systems have been driven by a system clock, a regular “tick” that tells every part of the system when to act. The problem with system clocks, however, is that generating and distributing them consumes significant amounts of power, more than some embedded systems can afford. A contact-less smartcard, for example, has to operate from the microwatts of power it can pick up from a local RF field via its induction loop antenna. To get the maximum performance per microwatt out of such systems, Philips Research has invented a clockless “handshake” technology that dramatically reduces power consumption, while also reducing the RF noise that digital systems generate.

UC Irvine today announced that a researcher within The Henry Samueli School of Engineering has been awarded a contract with NASA, through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to develop guidance algorithms aimed at pinpointing future Mars landers within 100 meters of the desired site. The total contract value is $679,000. Kenneth Mease, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, is the principal investigator for the three year project, a collaborative effort involving his research group and researchers at JPL.

A new feature on NASA's Web site uses 3-D software that lets scientists take virtual trips on Mars. The software — called Viz — produces 3-D views of Mars from two-dimensional stereo images sent to Earth by the two Mars exploration rovers. Scientists wear stereo glasses that display 3-D images of the planet and plan paths for the vehicles by virtually placing them on Mars.

Batteries are heavy and inconvenient. Their successors could be tiny jet engines that provide more than enough power for cell phones and PDAs.

'Crazy' projects look decades into the future. When a presidential commission analyzed NASA's goals for space exploration, it said the space agency should create an "incubator for cutting-edge technologies and concepts," playing a role similar to that of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Fortunately, space planners already have the nucleus for such an effort, known as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, or NIAC. Lunar researcher Paul Spudis, a member of the presidential commission, made sure he got in a plug for the little-known organization.

Advocates of a propulsion idea for spacecraft claim that it would enable a 90-day round trip to Mars. Using current technology, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars, conduct their mission and return to Earth, US scientists estimate. It would use a space station to fire a beam of magnetised particles at a solar sail mounted on a spacecraft.

During visit to Baikonur of NASA Deputy Administrator Frederick D.Gregory, the Russian side proposed the United States' participation in the unique project Spaceport (Kosmoport), which intends the launch of superheavy carrier rockets.

A new means of propelling spacecraft being developed at the University of Washington could dramatically cut the time needed for astronauts to travel to and from Mars and could make humans a permanent fixture in space. In fact, with magnetized-beam plasma propulsion, or mag-beam, quick trips to distant parts of the solar system could become routine, said Robert Winglee, a UW Earth and space sciences professor who is leading the project.

Two Mars Exploration Rovers are currently giving the public a taste of the information that can be sent back from the surface of Mars. Future expeditions to Mars are expected to gather even more information -- and require more sophisticated technology to send this information back to Earth. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from New Mexico State University is helping NASA study the best ways of transmitting information back from Mars.

Researchers from the University of Washington have been funded by NASA to develop a magnetized-beam plasma propulsion system (or mag-beam). Selected as part of NASA's recent Advanced Concepts study, the system would involve a space-based satellite that would fire a stream of magnetized ions at a spacecraft equipped with a magnetic sail. The researchers think they could get a spacecraft going fast enough that it could make a round trip to Mars in 90 days, as long as there was another station at Mars that could slow the spacecraft down again.

Innovative uses for plastics, rubber and their derivatives will be on display next week in Düsseldorf, at the world's leading trade fair for plastics and rubber, K2004. A team from ESA will be present to show visitors how these commonplace materials can be used in space – and how this can lead to new technology for use on Earth.

In an effort to understand animal movement, researchers are building a maneuverable robot which may one day also aid firefighters and doctors. The new model is based on an existing cockroach-like robot named Rhex. Robert Full, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and head of the research team, helped to create RHex by researching the movement of cockroaches for the model’s makers.

Canada's first astronaut in space says he's convinced there was once life on Mars and Canadians are uniquely placed to figure out if there still is. Garneau said he's convinced there once was life, but he's doubts there still is, although it could exist in a kind of dormant state under the planet's surface. "We need to find it," he said. Canadian companies could be at the forefront of finding it. It requires mining.

The U.S. Air Force is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use a radical power source -- antimatter, the eerie "mirror" of ordinary matter -- in future weapons. The most powerful potential energy source presently thought to be available to humanity, antimatter is a term normally heard in science-fiction films and TV shows. But antimatter itself isn't fiction; it actually exists and has been intensively studied by physicists since the 1930s. In a sense, matter and antimatter are the yin and yang of reality: Every type of subatomic particle has its antimatter counterpart. But when matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other in an immense burst of energy.

By 6:45 on a chilly desert evening, a deep indigo sky has squeezed what remains of the day into thin lines of pink and turquoise twilight along the horizon. Satisfied with nightfall's progress, NASA engineer Joe Kosmo gives the word, and his crew begins to pressurize a spacesuit glistening under a floodlit canopy. Tonight's objective: to test new helmet lights to see how effectively they might illuminate an astronaut's path. If you've ever wondered how exploration equipment makes its way into space, welcome to the rolling flanks of Arizona's famed meteor crater. For two weeks a year, this stark landscape becomes a surrogate planet - a place where a small team of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration drive a futuristic electric tractor, guide small robotic "scouts," and test an array of other gear astronauts may need in their cosmic garages for future explorations of the moon and Mars.

The futuristic drilling rig under development at Johnson Space Center (JSC) is designed to be used on the Moon or on Mars. Its first target will be knowledge -- geology and perhaps biology -- of planetary bodies gathered from cores it will deliver. The resources it eventually will seek sound mundane, but will be vitally important. Water from beneath the surface of Mars is a possible example.

While a team of aerospace engineers takes aim this week on the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition for privately developed suborbital spaceflight, a Nevada millionaire is planning an even loftier contest. Robert Bigelow, chief of Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, is apparently setting higher goals for private spaceflight endeavors with America's Space Prize, a $50 million race to build an orbital vehicle capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to an orbital outpost by the end of the decade, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology. Bigelow told Aviation Week that not only would Space Prize winners secure the $50 million purse, half of which he's putting up himself, but also snag options to service inflatable space habitats under development by Bigelow Aerospace.

The Bigelow Aerospace project to privately develop inflatable Earth-orbit space modules is beginning to integrate diverse U.S. and European technologies into subscale and full-scale inflatable test modules and subsystems at the company's heavily guarded facilities here. While much public attention is focused on the massive International Space Station (ISS), Bigelow has quietly become a mini-Skunk Works for the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). Ongoing technical assistance to Bigelow from JSC is focused on helping the company spawn development of orbiting commercial inflatable modules by the end of the decade, with the possibility of JSC later using the Bigelow technology for inflatable modules on the Moon or Mars.

As much as bullets or body armor, rations or radios, an army needs water to survive -- especially when it's fighting in the blistering heat of an Iraqi summer. But hauling a soldier's daily requirement of three to four gallons of water has become a gargantuan burden to U.S. armed forces. So Darpa, the Pentagon's mad science division, has come up with a plan for thirsty GIs: Cut the amount of the water they're carrying in half, and pluck the rest from out of thin air.

While most of us tend to think of motion control as a very down-to-earth topic, designers of space apparatus and undersea equipment have a very different view of the technology. As a matter of fact, these types of out-of-this-world applications usually demand extraordinarily precise and highly specialized motion control products, which mandate close collaboration between the makers of the motion control devices and designers of specialty equipment in order to meet these special needs. It was this type of close collaboration that landed a customized linear actuator on a concept apparatus that may help determine whether life exists on Mars. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, designed the concept apparatus as a model of a device that may one day be built and sent along on a future space mission to determine whether amino acids are present in the Martian soil. This very important test could determine whether life exists on the Red Planet because amino acids are considered a signature of life.

Anyone who has cursed when their flashlight goes dead may have something new to beam about — a flashlight that accepts batteries of different sizes. Energizer argues that its Quick Switch flashlight is a shining example of utility, with users able to raid batteries from such things as remote controls, toys or wall clocks and plunk them into the flashlight. The Quick Switch takes two C, D or AA batteries and works by merely adjusting a switch to the proper cell size, automatically locking the batteries into place.

In the basement of the energy wing of the Engineering Quad, past a long, white tunnel, down two flights of stairs and through a set of double doors, is a postcard with the message, "Greetings from Mars." The postcard hangs on the wall of a lab — the Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Lab (EPPDyL) — in which research is conducted that may help put a man on Mars. And a grant from NASA just moved that research one step closer to completion.

Explosive growth has made the People's Republic of China the most power-hungry nation on earth. Get ready for the mass-produced, meltdown-proof future of nuclear energy.

It's a frustrated commuter's escapist fantasy: literally lifting your car out of a clogged highway and soaring through the skies, landing just in time to motor into your driveway. Researchers stress that the ultimate dream — an affordable, easy-to-use vehicle that could allow regular people to fly 200 miles to a meeting and also drive 15 miles to the mall — is still probably decades away.

Australian scientists predict that a revolutionary new way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a reality within seven years. Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.

Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

Boeing has won a $1.5 million, three-year NASA Mars Technology Development contract to develop guidance parachute technology for future Mars missions. The contract award, which will be managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, supports NASA's Mars Exploration Program, an initiative to utilize cost effective innovations for precision entry, descent and landing. NASA's proposed robotic Mars missions, using this parachute guidance technology, would be capable of landing on the surface of the planet within four kilometers (2.5 miles) of the target area. The technologies could also have applications for future manned Mars missions.

I'm reading the last few chapters (the technical appendices, really) of To the End of the Solar System, James A. Dewar's political and technical history of the nuclear-thermal rocket programs of the 1950s-1970s. The primary focus of the book is on the political maneuverings which brought the projects (Rover, NERVA, etc.) into being, sustained them against political opposition from various quarters, and finally killed them off even though they had achieved successes beyond even the most optimistic predictions. The book is worth reading as a parallel history to the continuing story of the ISS and Shuttle programs, as well as for insights into the political origins of the failures of other Big Science projects over the years. Chapter 16, however, deserves special attention for what it says about the unintended consequences of the NTR projects, and what they suggest may come of the Vision for Space Exploration should it actually bear fruit.

While the exploration of the Moon and other planets in our solar system is exciting, the first task for astronauts and robots alike is to actually get to those destinations. To facilitate inter-solar system travel, NASA has committed itself to the study of a number of far-out propulsion methods. Researchers are hoping the space agency's new Propulsion Research Center will help scientists move at least some of those new methods from the theoretical to reality.

Thermite powder yields pure, white-hot iron when lit. Don't try this one at home.

Two future soldier combat uniform concepts were demonstrated to members of the US congress recently - a vision of what the American soldier will be wearing in 2010 and ten years hence in 2020. Both systems look straight out of a science fiction movie, with the 2020 concept bearing more than a passing resemblance to Star War's Darth Vader. The two new uniform systems are being developed under the Future Combat System Program and include a weapon, head-to-toe individual protection, onboard computer network, soldier-worn power sources, and enhanced human performance.