ESA Spacecraft Returns to Earth, Demonstrating Antimatter Propulsion

Taking less than 10 minutes to travel between Mars and Earth, ESA's Mars Sample Return Vehicle (MSRV) has successfully demonstrated a new form of antimatter propulsion, and has docked with the International Space Station, delivering the martian rock samples from the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

In an effort to advance space research through academic and industrial collaboration, two new technology centers have opened near the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Ames Research Center in Mountain View. One of these programs, the Space Technology Center (STC), will bring students and faculty from Stanford and other local universities together to develop new innovations and research opportunities.

Four University engineering students travel to Houston today to run an experiment that could benefit future space exploration. Seniors Arianne Liepa, Travis Palmer and Christy Schroeder and junior Greg Hukill were selected by NASA to conduct experiments in its zero gravity airplane KC-135. The students believe that they have found a new source of energy to be used on Mars. Within a carbon dioxide environment similar to that of Mars, magnesium mixed with iodine may combust to produce energy. The energy would particularly help people who might be on the planet for an extended period of time.

Tumbleweed Rover Goes on a Roll at South Pole

A balloon-shaped robot explorer that one day could search for evidence that water existed on other planets has survived some of the most trying conditions on planet Earth during a 70-kilometer (40-mile), wind-driven trek across Antarctica. The tumbleweed rover, which is being developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., left the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Jan. 24, and spent the next eight days rolling across Antarctica's polar plateau.

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.

Hot trash-to-fuel technology gathering steam

Got garbage? Toxic trash? Zap it with a torch three times hotter than the sun and gather the resulting gas to fuel pollution-free cars and home power units. It may seem like an idea out of a mad scientist's notebook, but the method — known as plasma torch technology — is gaining acceptance with governments and corporations, especially those with growing waste problems.

Navy May Help NASA Build Nuclear Reactor for Jupiter Mission

NASA project to Jupiter and several of its moons may depend on the U.S. Navy to provide the nuclear know-how in building a reactor for deep space exploration. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) program is a flagship mission under NASA’s Project Prometheus – a multi-pronged effort to develop near- and long-term nuclear electric power and propulsion technologies. JIMO would be powered by a compact nuclear reactor and propelled by a set of ion engines that expel electrically charged particles to generate thrust.

The facts about fusion

If you could invest in commodity futures for lunar helium-3, you would have reaped a windfall last month in the wake of President Bush's call for America to return to the moon. Helium-3 (as opposed to the garden-variety helium-4 that fills all those balloons) is one of the rarest substances on Earth, produced primarily as the result of processing tritium for nuclear weapons. But it's known to exist naturally within lunar soil, and theoretically, it's one of the cleanest fuels around for nuclear fusion.

From Heat to Cold Power

Mercouri Kanatzidis envisions a refrigerator that not only would keep the Maytag repairman pining by a silent phone, but could put him out of business altogether. Gone would be the noisy compressors, the environmentally dubious coolants, and the dust bunnies under the cooling coils. Instead, says the chemistry professor at Michigan State University, the unit would rely on electricity flowing through specially designed semiconductors to keep the inside of the icebox chilled. Those same semiconductors also could be used to convert wasted heat in auto exhaust pipes, power-plant smokestacks, or other sources into valuable electricity.

Kansas Stores Introduce Corn Containers

The clear, ridged containers that hold potato salad and other deli items at the Wild Oats store in this Kansas City suburb look and feel like plastic. They're not. Instead, fitting in with the theme of the natural foods grocer, they're made from corn.

Scientists Develop New Hydrogen Reactor

Researchers say they have produced hydrogen from ethanol in a prototype reactor small enough and efficient enough to heat small homes and power cars. The development could help open the way for cleaner-burning technology at home and on the road.

Los Alamos Hopes To Lead New Era Of Nuclear Space Transportion With Jovian Mission

A planned U.S. mission to investigate three ice-covered moons of Jupiter will demand fast-paced research, fabrication and realistic non-nuclear testing of a prototype nuclear reactor within two years, says a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist. The roots of this build and test effort have been under way at Los Alamos since the mid-1990s, said David Poston, leader of the Space Fission Power Team in Los Alamos' Nuclear Design and Risk Analysis Group.

As President Bush calls for a long, expensive campaign to send humans on the perilous journey to Mars, the lander program is highlighting a difficult truth of space travel: Nearly three decades after the first Mars landing, scientists are still much better at observing the planet's tantalizing geological features from afar than landing anywhere near them.

How 3-D Works: Mars Revealed by Human-Like Eyes

When geologists first saw pictures of rock outcroppings at the Opportunity landing site on Mars, they thought the mini-cliff was perhaps as tall as a person. Some started calling it the "Great Wall." Then the robot's 3-D cameras, a pair of eyes standing as tall as a person, showed it was all a bluff. Seen in stereo, the stack of rocks shrunk to the height of a house cat and the public never heard the catchy nickname.

Project Prometheus, NASA’s multibillion-dollar nuclear power and propulsion initiative, has a new home inside the U.S. space agency. Begun as the Nuclear Systems Initiative in 2002, the program was given a new name in 2003, a bigger budget and its first mission: the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO). Now, with an ambitious new space exploration agenda handed down by the White House, NASA is making more changes to Project Prometheus.

What GASL does is conduct wind tunnel tests on advanced engines that would make possible the kind of high-speed flight needed for space exploration. The company has eight wind tunnels -- the largest has a test chamber that is 7 feet in diameter. The tunnels resemble barrels with portholes to make observations on objects being tested. The tunnels are fueled by hydrogen, oxygen and air and are humming much of the time.

A trip to Mars could be twice as fast using new accelerating technology, according to Australian researchers. Researchers from the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the Australian National University in Canberra have designed a new accelerating device they say could one day power spaceships deep into space. Details of their helicon double layer thruster appear in the 19 January issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters.

NASA just landed a second rover on Mars. President Bush wants to send people there, too. He's called for new technology to make space travel easier. As this ScienCentral News video reports, nanotechnology might lead the way, by making possible an elevator into space.

NASA official: Shuttle tanks may have future use

The towering fuel tanks manufactured in New Orleans for the space shuttle could have a new life as space cargo trucks once the shuttles are retired, a top NASA official says. The tanks have been manufactured since the early 1970s by Lockheed Martin Space Systems. The future of the plant and its 2,000 employees has been in question since the shuttle disaster last year.

President Bush says he wants an American to go to Mars and some East Tennessee scientists may help get them there. "Someday, someone's going to be the first person to set foot on Mars. Who's that gonna be? That's up for grabs. Who wants to go? If I wasn't so old I would compete for the job!" says ORNL Researcher Sherrell Greene. He admits, he gets a little giddy thinking about a trip to the red planet, a trip he thinks is difficult, but doable. "Dreams are dreams because you have to stretch," he says. "They're not within our grasp. Can this dream become reality? Yes, it will require persistence and dedication, we'll have to stick to it."

Nukes in space

NASA's plan to press on toward the moon, Mars and beyond is coming under fire from some quarters, not because it might end up as an incredibly expensive pipe dream, but because it might actually get somewhere. This strain of opposition represents the latest front for the astro-environmentalist movement, which could well become more vocal as NASA develops nuclear power systems for spacecraft.

Workers who have stitched together parachutes for the military for decades are deeply woven into the country's mission to Mars. It was from the work of this Marion County town that came the parachutes allowing for the safe landing of NASA's Mars Spirit rover on Jan. 3. "If the parachute doesn't work, there is no mission," said Pioneer Aerospace Mars Exploration Rover program manager Al Witkowski.

As scientists mull President George W. Bush's bold new space proposal, nuclear power stands out as one of NASA's best understood and most controversial options for powering the next generation of spacecraft. Included in Bush's space initiative, still vague in the details, is a call for "new power generation (and) propulsion" systems for a ship the President has called the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Navy Enlists Microbes To Cut Costs

Microbes have been exploited for thousands of years to help us make bread and alcohol, and more recently, to make antibiotics and clean up toxic spills. Now the Office of Naval Research is hoping the one-celled organisms will reduce the costs of producing a missile propellant, and in the process, lead to a new age of "bioproduction."

While NASA and White House policy-makers have been kicking around space destinations and science goals, engineers at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville have been working on making rocket fuel from space rocks, using a planet's atmosphere to slow a spaceship and developing better engines to cut trip times. "The technology for space is there; it's been worked on for years," said Charles Vick, an aerospace expert formerly with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville and now a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

Digital Secrets: How Spirit Makes Great Photos

NASA's Spirit Rover is providing a lesson to aspiring digital photographers: Spend your money on the lens, not the pixels. Anyone who has ever agonized over whether to buy a 3-megapixel or 4-megapixel digital camera might be surprised to learn that Spirit's stunningly detailed images of Mars are made with a 1-megapixel model, a palm-sized 9-ounce marvel that would be coveted in any geek's shirt pocket. Spirit's images are IMAX quality, mission managers say.

Nukes may launch NASA on long-range missions

Nuclear power may give NASA's long-range missions the speed and range that combustion engines cannot, but research is sputtering for lack of funds. NASA's head of the Prometheus program, Al Newhouse, said the agency has $US3 billion for the next five years. "Beyond that, we know we need more money," Mr Newhouse told AFP. "We are at a very early stage of this program. It has been in existence for slightly under a year."

Ion Engine Design Passes Key Test

A team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif, successfully tested a new ion propulsion engine design, one of several candidate propulsion technologies under study by NASA's Project Prometheus. The event marked the first performance test of the Nuclear Electric Xenon Ion System (NEXIS) engine at the high- efficiency, high-power, and high-thrust operating conditions needed for use in large-scale nuclear electric propulsion applications.

The most-traveled product ever to leave New Hampshire has, scientists hope, completed a second trip from New Ipswich to Mars, and a couple more will be on the way early next year. The product is a fabric of high-strength Vectran fibers in an incredibly tight weave used by NASA to create giant airbags to protect three craft as they bounce onto the Red Planet, just as the airbags protected the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. It was made by Warwick Mills.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has extended a contract to a Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] team to study development of a deep space exploration vehicle for the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than 2011. The Boeing Phantom Works-led engineering team that includes Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and BWX Technologies Inc., is studying technology options for the reactor, power conversion, electric propulsion and other subsystems of the JIMO spacecraft meant to explore the Jovian moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. NASA plans to select an industry prime contractor in fall 2004 to work with JPL to develop, launch and operate the spacecraft.

New Composite Hydrogen Fuel Tank For RLVs Successfully Tested

A team of engineers from Northrop Grumman and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Have demonstrated that a new, specially designed fuel tank made from composite materials can safely hold and contain liquid hydrogen under simulated launch conditions.

Whatever Happened to Mars Polar Lander? U.S. Spy Agencies Might Know

On January 3, 1999, NASA's Mars Polar Lander roared away from Earth on a bold mission to explore a unique region of the red planet. The spacecraft was to gently set itself down near the border of Mars' southern polar cap, the first ever spacecraft to study the distant world's polar environment. After months of crossing interplanetary space, Mars Polar Lander was in the final minutes of slowing itself down, ready to make a self-controlled touch down. It was never heard from again. Nobody knows for sure exactly what occurred at journey's end.

Details of a proposed mission to Jupiter and its moons to search for hints of life have been announced by NASA scientists. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) will be the first spacecraft to be powered by a uranium nuclear reactor. NASA plans to launch the vessel after 2011 to sniff out life or its potential toeholds on Jupiter and three of its moons. JIMO will also be the largest spacecraft ever sent to the outer Solar System, and the first in a series of nuclear-powered spacecraft that form "Project Prometheus," a programme NASA initiated earlier in 2003.

Nuclear probe to watch Jovian moons

NASA plans to dispatch a hulking nuclear-powered spacecraft to determine whether three of Jupiter’s icy, planet-sized moons have the potential to harbor life. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, or JIMO, would spend monthlong stints circling the moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, which are believed to have vast oceans tucked beneath thick covers of ice.

Nuclear-powered spacecraft to explore Jupiter's moons

NASA plans to dispatch a hulking nuclear-powered spacecraft to determine whether three of Jupiter's icy, planet-sized moons have the potential to harbor life. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, or Jimo, would spend monthlong stints circling the moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, which are believed to have vast oceans tucked beneath thick covers of ice.

Two out of three missions to the red planet have failed. One reason there have been so many losses is that there have been so many attempts. "Mars is a favorite target," says Dr. Firouz Naderi, manager of the Mars Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We -- the United States and former USSR -- have been going to Mars for 40 years. The first time we flew by a planet, it was Mars. The first time we orbited a planet, it was Mars. The first time we landed on a planet it was Mars, and the first time we roved around the surface of a planet, it was Mars. We go there often." Another reason is that getting to Mars is hard.

Membranes on Mars

The ideal technology for space travel would be simple, robust, reliable, lightweight, and volumetrically efficient. It would have no moving parts, which would make it less likely to break. It would be a passive technology, not requiring any energy from the outside. It would be small. It would be light. An ideal technology for space, says chemical engineer Doug Way, is the membrane. Well, OK, membranes can't do everything. Membranes won't boost us into space. And they won't carry us to Mars. But membranes could solve some of the problems of traveling there. And once we arrive, they could help us get back.

Sooner or later, the United States will want to travel to Mars, if only because it’s there. The trip is about 150 million miles, assuming Earth and Mars are in optimal positions. Using normal chemical rockets, the trip would take about six months one way. Not only is that a fairly long time to stay cooped up in a minimally sized spacecraft, the amount of fuel necessary for a round trip would be enormous.

Prometheus Nuclear Program Achieves Milestone

NASA's Project Prometheus received a gentle nudge toward reality, courtesy of the first successful test of a High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) ion engine. The event marked the first in a series of performance tests to demonstrate new high-velocity and high-power thrust needed for use in nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) spacecraft.

While it may be tough to teach an old dog new tricks, NASA scientists and engineers are finding it’s even harder to teach a new robot old tricks — primitive human skills like moving toward a rock and avoiding others along the way; the skills a robot needs to scour the surface of other planets for signs of past life.

Russia plans Mars nuclear station

They say that all the necessary technical drawings have now been completed, and - after a few minor niggles have been ironed out - all will be ready for the construction work to begin. The power plant should be up and running by 2030.

NASA Testing K9 Rover In Granite Quarry For Future Missions

NASA scientists and engineers are testing new technologies using the K9 rover in a granite quarry near Watsonville, Calif., in preparation for future missions to Mars. The demonstration will be conducted at Graniterock's A.R. Wilson Quarry Site in Aromas, Calif. Scientists chose the quarry site for the field experiment and to test its autonomous operational capabilities in a remote, non-vegetated location.

NASA has landed, right here. A team of scientists from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field is conducting a two-week "shake and bake" test on its K-9 Rover Robot at Graniterock's Wilson Quarry in Aromas. "We are pretending it's a real mission," said associate and principal investigator Liam Pedersen. "We want to shake down the rover to see if everything is working."

Invisible satellite dishes to preserve Athens skyline

Rooftop satellite receivers can look out of place with the historic surroundings of ancient cities. In the first-time participation with ESA, a Greek company is working to solve this. The project is to develop a kind of satellite receiver known as a planar array. Unlike more commonly seen parabola-shaped dishes, planar arrays pick up less interference from other satellites. Another feature is their square, flat shape.

Powering small devices with water

Canadian scientists have developed a method of generating electricity from water for use in small devices, which could pave the way for products such as liquid-powered calculators and mobile phones.

Can you teach a robot to lean into a curve? Can a speedy robotic vehicle sense when it is about to spin out? And in a race between robots, how does one know when to pass the other? No one, or at least a select few, had contemplated such questions as of a year ago. But with the start of a $1 million, winner-take-all race across the California-Nevada desert less than 150 days away, these suddenly are questions that not only are being asked but answered.

The first solar sail, called Cosmos 1, will go for its test flight in early 2004. The demonstration of a revolutionary way to travel to the planets and maybe even to the stars would seem to be a natural activity for NASA, which spends several million dollars every year researching advanced propulsion systems. Yet in this case, the space agency has chosen to be a bystander.

Space Transportation with a Twist

Today's scientists are already hard at work on new ideas for spaceflight in the future. New technology is being developed to help propel spacecraft into Earth orbit -- and beyond. NASA researchers are studying ways to create more powerful and more efficient rockets. Engineers are considering things such as energy beamed from the ground, ions, and plasma as possible concepts for next-generation engines. Next to all of these super-high-tech ideas, one spaceflight possibility sounds remarkably simple -- string.

While electronic circuits and nanomachines grow ever smaller, batteries to power them remain huge by comparison, as well as short-lived. But now Cornell University researchers have built a microscopic device that could supply power for decades to remote sensors or implantable medical devices by drawing energy from a radioactive isotope. The device converts the energy stored in the radioactive material directly into motion. It could directly move the parts of a tiny machine or could generate electricity in a form more useful for many circuits than has been possible with earlier devices. This new approach creates a high-impedance source (the factor that determines the amplitude of the current) better suited to power many types of circuits, says Amit Lal, Cornell assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

New Facility Will Help Protect Space Crews From Radiation

Imagine a human spacecraft crew voyaging through space. A satellite sends a warning; energetic particles are being accelerated from the sun's corona, sending dangerous radiation toward their spacecraft, but the crew isn't worried. Long before their journey, researchers on Earth conducted experiments to accurately measure the hazards of space radiation and developed new materials and countermeasures to protect them.

Ion drive versus chemical rocket

This is a simple comparison to show the difference in fuel efficiency and performance between conventional chemical rocket thrusters and ion thrusters.

Forget about the noisy, showy rocket-to-the-moon events in the 1960s and '70s. A small band of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists thinks the next giant leap for mankind is to build an elevator that reaches 62,000 miles into the sky. "The first country that owns the space elevator will own space," said Bryan Laubscher, a lab scientist. "I believe that, and I think Los Alamos should be involved in making that happen."

MTI and Harris Further Develop Micro Fuel Cells for Military

MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc., a subsidiary of Mechanical Technology Inc. and Harris Corporation announced Friday an agreement that builds on work completed under an earlier project and advances their joint development of micro fuel cell systems for portable military communications equipment.

Since the dawn of the Space Age, people and hardware have thundered into orbit, shoved skyward by barely controlled explosions. Now, a loosely connected group of scientists and engineers hopes to make a launch as easy - and nearly as gentle - as pushing the "penthouse" button on an elevator. To proponents, space elevators promise to slash the cost of sending cargo and people into space. And, they say, elevators would eliminate the costly need to overengineer satellites and other payloads to survive the rigors of a launch.

Boeing has selected Dr. Joe Mills to lead the company’s effort on the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) program, part of a NASA initiative to develop nuclear power and electric propulsion technologies to revolutionize space exploration. Mills and his team will explore technology options for building the first spacecraft that would use nuclear electric propulsion. Boeing is one of three companies exploring technology options (called a Phase A study contract) for JIMO.

Webcasts To Feature Scientists On A 'Mars Mission'

NASA and Spanish scientists, who are developing ways to drill into Mars in search of underground life, will take part in eight worldwide, educational webcasts from their project site near Spain's Rio Tinto River from Sept. 29 to Oct. 15. NASA Ames Research Center scientist Carol Stoker will kick off the webcast series on Sept. 29 at 10 a.m. EDT with a talk about the Mars Analog Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE). According to Stoker, mineral deposits like the ones the MARTE project is drilling into may also be found in the Martian subsurface.

Research And Development Sources Sought For Potential Development Of A Drilling System For A Mars Mission

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) is hereby soliciting information from industry to determine the existence of sources with the capability to develop a working prototype of a drilling system for a Mars mission that would be ready for integrated field testing at a field site in Oklahoma for 14 days in March 2005, and at a field site in southwestern Spain for 30 days in June of 2005. Participation of the source in weekly team meetings and project reviews, to be held approximately semi-annually, would also be required. This prototype drilling system would be used in a NASA field experiment in a Mars analog environment to demonstrate technology for drilling on Mars.

Seeing the Earth as a blue and white ball hanging in the velvet black of space sounds like fun. What a pity getting out there is so dangerous. Space-shuttle astronauts are riding a 3000-tonne bomb undergoing a controlled explosion. The loss of the Challenger crew in 1986, and the Columbia accident early this year confirmed how risky that can be. How much more pleasant to step inside a lift and rise gently into space. Reaching orbit would be no more frightening than riding to the top of a city building. A "space elevator" is exactly what American researchers say we could be using in 15 years.

Magnets are beginning to gain the attention of home-electronics manufacturers and government agencies as an alternative to Bluetooth and other short-range wireless techniques. This week, Troy, Mich.-based manufacturer Fonegear began selling cordless cell phone headsets that use the properties of a magnetic field. The headsets, which cost between $60 and $80 each, are the first wave of mass-market electronic devices that use a new generation of magnet-powered wireless technology.

Space Elevator: High Hopes, Lofty Goals

No matter how you view it, a space elevator is a stretch … not only of vision, but also of far-out materials and cutting-edge technology. Putting in place a space elevator is complicated: Extend a super-strong ribbon from an Earth-situated platform at the equator out beyond geosynchronous orbit. Once in position, electric lifts clamped to the ribbon would truck spacecraft, science gear, as well as passenger-carrying modules into space.

Going where no man has gone before is not as much of a fantasy as you may think. Technology is advancing at the speed of light, with rocket breakthroughs right on the horizon. "In the case of the plasma rocket, we're talking about millions of degrees, and what that means is that the hotter the plasma, the faster the particles move within it," said NASA astronaut Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz.

A character in Arthur C. Clarke's novel Fountains of Paradise remarked that the first space elevator would be built about 50 years after everybody stopped laughing at the idea. Twenty years after writing those words, the British author and scientist has revised his forecast to account for advances in technology. Speaking via satellite to an audience of scientists on the first day of the second annual Space Elevator Conference in Santa Fe on Saturday, Clarke said the elevator might be built just 10 years after people stop laughing. "I'm 86 now, so in 20 years I'll be only 106," he said. "So I may live to see it."

A new software system designed by a UB aerospace engineer will help NASA detect and find air leaks in the International Space Station. The software will be installed in NASA's mission control when the manned space station is expanded from its current eight-module configuration to its final 15-module configuration, according to John L. Crassidis, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Bacteria-powered battery runs on a sweet tooth

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst have developed a battery that uses iron-breathing bacteria to eat the sugars in carbohydrates and turn them into electricity.

From Bombers to Mars: Rover Batteries Based on Air Force Research

In space, there is no place for a spacecraft to plug in its power cord. Not even with an adapter. Instead, space probes have to take their power with them and NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) are no exception. The rovers, dubbed Spirit and Opportunity, are dependent on solar panels for power, as well as new rechargeable batteries that were developed using technology created at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The rechargeable batteries are based on lithium-ion technology, instead of the more traditional nickel-cadmium or nickel-hydrogen varieties in use today, and resulted from a collaborative effort by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Glenn Research Center and the AFRL.

John L. Crassidis once was a research fellow at NASA Goddard. Now he is a University at Buffalo professor trying to help prevent future catastrophes in space. The research that Crassidis, and his Ph.D. student Jong-Woo Kim are now wrapping up is headed to the NASA Johnson Space Center by the end of August.

Harvesting Mars

A NASA-supported scientist is learning how to use carbon dioxide--the main gas in Mars' atmosphere--to harvest rocket fuel and water from the red planet. When astronauts first go to Mars, it'll be difficult for them to bring everything they need to survive. Even the first tentative explorations could last as long as two years--but spaceships can only carry a limited amount. "We might have to do what explorers have done for ages: live off the land," says chemical engineer Ken Debelak of Vanderbilt University.

Riding the Sun: Maiden Flight Looms for Solar Sail Satellite

Before the year's end, a team of civilians united by a passion for space travel will launch a spacecraft into orbit to test a new space-traveling technology. The mission, which will use a solar sail to carry a spacecraft ever farther from Earth, is the first use of a propulsion technology that may pave the way for interstellar flights. "Our job is just to prove this technology," project director Louis Friedman told SPACE.com. "If our craft goes just 10 kilometers on the solar sail, then it's a success." Friedman is also executive director of the Pasadena-based Planetary Society.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has awarded a contract to a Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] team to study deep space propulsion systems for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than 2011. JIMO would be the first space science mission in NASA's Project Prometheus, a part of the space agency’s initiative to develop space nuclear power and electric propulsion technologies to revolutionize space exploration.

The king's blacksmith used goat's urine. These days Washington University's Ken Kelton uses an electrostatic levitator. In both cases, the two were trying to control a process called crystallization, to make a better product. The smithies wanted to make better swords. Kelton's research could have an impact on matters as diverse as energy consumption and the manufacture of artificial joints. It's featured on the cover of the July issue of Physics Today and was highlighted in a recent issue of Science magazine.

Prometheus: The Paradigm Buster

NASA has embarked on a challenging quest to build a powerful nuclear reactor for long-duration deep space excursions. As part of the multi-pronged Prometheus Project, engineers and scientists are now tackling plans for the nuclear-powered Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO). This flagship mission using electric propulsion powered by a nuclear fission reactor would showcase a slate of key technologies. It also promises to usher in a new era of solar system exploration. The amount of power available to JIMO from a nuclear reactor would be hundreds of times greater than on current interplanetary spacecraft.

The next generation of spacecraft propulsion systems could be dead in the water before they are even launched. A physicist is claiming that solar sailing- the idea of using sunlight to blow spacecraft across the solar system- is at odds with the laws of thermal physics.

Boeing has been named by the Department of Energy (DOE) to lead in the creation of a next-generation power system for future Mars surface missions and the exploration of deep space. Boeing Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power in Canoga Park, Calif., is teamed with Teledyne Energy Systems, Inc. to develop, qualify, and deliver electrical power generation systems for interplanetary missions and probes. The new compact power system, a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG), will provide unique in-space and planetary surface power capability.

Tether Technology: A New Spin on Space Propulsion

In the near future, revolutionary space hardware could put an exciting spin on spaceflight. NASA is putting money into Momentum-eXchange/Electrodynamic Reboost tether technology -- MXER for short -- an innovative concept that if implemented would station miles and miles of cart-wheeling cable in orbit around the Earth. Then, rotating like a giant sling, the cable would swoop down and pick up spacecraft in low orbits, then hurl them to higher orbits or even lob them onward to other planets.

Ball To Develop Aerocapture Under NASA Propulsion Study

NASA recently selected Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. to pursue advances in ballute aerocapture, an in-space propulsion innovation. Ball Aerospace was one of 15 organizations chosen to pursue 22 propulsion technology research proposals totaling $20 million that NASA says could revolutionize exploration and scientific study of the solar system.

NASA needs to harness the promise of nuclear technology if it hopes to do meaningful work in the solar system, the agency's top space-science official said Tuesday. Edward Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science, told lawmakers that the space program's ambitious plan -- called Project Prometheus -- will enable the agency to do more than has ever been possible. "If we're going to have a future in the outer solar system, nuclear power is a must," Weiler told a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Super-Hero Tech

Real-life crimefighters could soon be getting high-tech, military-style outfits that would rival anything the caped crusader had in his fabled Bat suit and utility belt. The new gear, dubbed LECTUS for Law Enforcement/Corrections Tactical Uniform System, comes courtesy of researchers at the U.S. Army's National Protection Center at the Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., where they have been working for years to modify some of the latest military innovations for use by police on the home front.

Dupont Joins Effort To Use Nanotech To Enhance Safety Of Soldiers

DuPont will be serving as a founding partner of the new Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, which today officially opened its 28,000-square foot research and development facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The U.S. Army Research Office and MIT recently initiated the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) -- a $50 million and 150-person initiative that will serve as the Army's center of expertise in the application of nanotechnology.

A concept vehicle designed to move across the surface of Mars just crossed a hazardous section of frozen Arctic sea on its way to a scientific base station dubbed "Mars on Earth." The MARS-1 Humvee Rover -- an early prototype of a vehicle that could be used if, and when, manned missions make it to the Red Planet -- successfully trundled across 23 miles of frozen ice pack in Canada's high Arctic on May 11.

Flying On Solar Power

United Solar Systems Corp based in Auburn Hills Mich has been awarded an $11,503,782 cost plus fixed fee contract for their program designed to advance the state-of-the-art of ultra lightweight, high efficiency, and flexible thin film solar cell technology for the emerging space and airship markets.

Tumbling Across Distant Worlds

Students from North Carolina State University (NCSU) are helping NASA expand the exploration of the surface of Mars. The team of students and researchers has designed a wind-powered rover that can be blown, like tumbleweed, across the surface of the Red Planet collecting atmospheric and geological samples at multiple locations.

Small NASA division tries to make sci-fi dreams come true

Scientist Bradley Carl Edwards envisions an elevator that could carry people and cargo from a platform in the Pacific Ocean 62,000 miles up to a satellite in outer space. The idea may be science fiction today, but a small branch of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration located in downtown Atlanta thinks it might work - just give it a few decades. "This is a little out there," Edwards admits. "NASA usually likes to fund things that are already developed." The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts picks the top research ideas that simply aren't possible with today's technology - and it tries to do them anyway.

A new way to explore the surface of Mars

Students from North Carolina State University (NCSU) are helping NASA expand the exploration of the surface of Mars. The team of students and researchers has designed a wind-powered rover that can be blown, like tumbleweed, across the surface of the Red Planet collecting atmospheric and geological samples at multiple locations.

Tank-inspired robot set to hunt microbes on Mars

Scientists in Britain have designed a tank-inspired robot set to hunt microbes on Mars and and establish whether human colonies could survive in the hostile environment of the Red Planet. Researchers say they turned to military-inspired caterpillar tracks which change shape as they roll over obstacles.

Prometheus: Lighting NASA's Nuclear Fire

NASA has begun shaping Project Prometheus -- harnessing nuclear energy to usher in a new era of Solar System exploration. Government agencies are powering up to support the effort. U.S. aerospace firms have started assessing how to build nuclear-powered probes. And scientists are sketching out an unprecedented "power-rich" research agenda using potent suites of space science instruments. Yet Prometheus is not without its detractors. Opponents see the program as dangerous and risky, dismissing it as a front for military star warriors.

Ulyana Horodyskyj calmly gave a 25-minute talk about space travel to a room full of rocket scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville on Wednesday. What's so special about that? Dozens of speakers talked about space this week at the Advanced Space Propulsion Workshop at UAH, a semiannual event that brings the nation's top rocket scientists to Huntsville. What's special about Horodyskyj is she's a 17-year-old high school student from Ohio.

Surrey Wins Two Key Engine Contracts

SSTL has won a contract with QinetiQ and ESA's Aurora programme to research in-situ resource utilisation methods for future Mars exploration. The work will take place over the next six months and cover the system level design of an In-situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) chemical factory for the production of, for example, rocket propellant and life support consumables in future robotic and manned Mars missions.

Boeing Wins Contracts For Advanced Electric Propulsion Technology

Boeing has been awarded three new contracts under NASA's In-Space Propulsion Technologies program for the development of advanced xenon ion propulsion technologies.

Sunproofing Solar Cells

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University's Microelectronics Research Center may have solved a mystery that has plagued the research community for more than 20 years: Why do solar cells degrade in sunlight? Finding the answer to that question is essential to the advancement of solar cell research and the ability to produce lower-cost electricity from sunlight.

Andrews Space & Technology (AS&T) successfully demonstrated the fundamental operating principles of a propulsion system that could dramatically affect interplanetary space travel, shortening round trips to Mars from two years to six months and making future trips to Jupiter and back a two-year affair. AS&T tested the Company's Mini-Mag Orion propulsion concept by completing two magnetic compression technology experiments in the world's largest pulse power machine under a NASA Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract. In cooperation with Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Washington's Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, AS&T successfully verified the process of compressing solid matter to high densities in an electromagnetic field. A space propulsion system using the same processes would have the same thrust as the Space Shuttle Main Engine, but be fifty (50) times more efficient.

NASA and Carnegie Mellon University to Test Robot in Chile

A team of NASA and Carnegie Mellon University scientists will travel to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile April 1 to conduct research that will help them develop and deploy a robot and instruments that may someday enable other robots to find life on Mars. The researchers will be using the Atacama, described as one of the most arid regions on Earth, as a martian analog. NASA Ames Research Center is providing the autonomy technology for the research, which is part of NASA’s Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring the Planets (ASTEP) project.

Whether you find yourself in the icy wastes of Antarctica or caught in the midst of a scorching hot fire, you could stay safe and comfortable in either extreme – provided you are dressed in the right clothes. Technologies first developed to protect astronauts and satellites against the extreme conditions found in space are increasingly of use in the design and manufacture of everyday clothing. Textile spin-offs from the space industry will be highlighted by the ESA Technology Transfer Programme (TTP) at this year's Techtextil international trade fair to be held in Frankfurt from 8 to 10 April.

Space scientists looking for new ways to cool spacecraft on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere are turning to one of the world's oldest coolants: water. Existing heat-shield technology leaves a lot to be desired. In the 1960s Apollo rockets used a heat shield that burnt off slowly - but this is no good for reusable spacecraft like NASA's fleet of space shuttles. And the silica tiles the shuttle uses are fragile and prone to damage.

An enzyme-catalysed battery has been created that could one day run cell phones and laptop computers on shots of vodka. The key to the device is a new polymer that protects the fragile enzymes used to break down the ethanol fuel, scientists told the American Chemical Society's annual meeting in New Orleans on Monday. Enzyme-based batteries have the potential to be cheaper than fuel cells that rely on expensive platinum or ruthenium catalysts. "It sounds great," says Bob Hockaday, founder of the company Energy Related Devices and designer of a methanol-powered battery. "Enzymes are inexpensive and catalytically very active."

The news that the Columbia space shuttle broke apart during its descent last month came as a painful loss to Bremerton businessman Michael Laine. Through his NASA-sponsored work to research an elevator into space, he had met the seven astronauts -- personal heroes, he said -- as they trained in Houston. But the disaster was also a shot in the arm for the fledgling businesses he helped create. "It was like a heart transplant. All of a sudden we're much stronger, but at a very high price," said Laine, president of HighLift Systems and newly created LiftPort Inc.

The president and co-founder of HighLift Systems, the Seattle-based company that received funds from NASA to research building an elevator to space, today announced the formation of a new company dedicated to the commercial development of a thoroughfare to space. LiftPort Inc., established by Michael Laine, will focus on the construction phase of the space elevator, as well as the creation of commerce in space. Laine will serve as president of the new company, which he is starting as a direct result of the completion of the NASA funds. "Now that the NASA grant is ending, it's important to take the space elevator concept from research to commercial development," said Laine. "Through companies such as HighLift Systems and Eureka Scientific, the initial Phase I and Phase II research reports have been completed. Now it's time to actively take the research and turn this into commercial development."

The United States and Russian space flight nuclear engineers will witness greater cooperation throughout the balance of the decade to ensure the plutonium-238 for five years as the necessary fuel for the nuclear rocket program named "Project Prometheus. The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry has announced a $32-million dollar deal with the U.S. Department of Energy that sends nuclear fuel to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through 2009, according to Russian scientist Nikolai Ponomaryov-Stepnoi. Nuclear plutonium-238 is needed by NASA after President George W. Bush announced a radically new program to push faster and further unmanned probes into the solar system and setting-up the initial needed technologies to put humans on Mars in the next decade or so.

Microscale devices are considered a promising field of research that will someday lead to advanced medical technologies, but they are still limited by their need for power. Narrower than a human hair, such devices could perform a range of vital functions—from drug delivery to monitoring vital signs. However, no existing battery can provide long-lasting power and fit inside these devices. Researchers at UCLA believe that a novel design for a lightweight, rechargeable battery, which is based on three-dimensional geometry, will provide power to devices that are too small to be powered by traditional batteries. "Our team of engineers and chemists are establishing the enabling science for a new battery that represents a real paradigm shift," says Bruce Dunn, a materials science professor in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. For example, 3-D battery technology could be used to power implantable devices that deliver drugs or protect transplanted cells. Other devices could be used to automate blood, tissue, and cellular analyses at much lower costs than conventional techniques, the group speculates.

Buildings of the future could be "clothed" in a flexible, power-generating material that looks like denim. The Canadian company developing the material says it can be draped over just about any shape - greatly expanding the number of places where solar power can be generated. The inventors hope their power-generating material will enable architects to design complex, curvy buildings that can nevertheless carry solar cells. One day, consumer products such as personal stereos and cellphones might also harness "denim-power" to charge their batteries.

NASA’S Nuclear Prometheus Project Viewed as Major Paradigm Shift

Enthusiasm towards Project Prometheus, a major new initiative to reactivate nuclear space power and propulsion work under NASA, has been muted due to the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. NASA is undertaking Prometheus in partnership with the Department of Energy. At stake is moving forward nuclear technology in the hope of enabling an unprecedented science data return from future robotic missions, making use of high-power science instruments and advanced communications technology.

US to Join Negotiations on Major International Fusion Project

President Bush has decided that the U.S. will join the negotiations for the construction and operation of a major international magnetic fusion research project, U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today. Known as ITER, the project's mission is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy. "This international fusion project is a major step towards a fusion demonstration power plant that could usher in commercial fusion energy," Secretary Abraham said.

Space Nuclear Power Viewed as 'Must Have' Technology

While saddened by the loss of Columbia and its crew, engineers, scientists, and technologists are committed to regrouping and moving forward on new approaches that could revolutionize robotic exploration and allow astronauts to reach destinations beyond Earth orbit, anywhere, anytime.

Saturday's space shuttle disaster has stirred grassroots opposition to the Bush administration's recently announced plan to develop nuclear-powered space rockets. "If there had been a nuclear reactor on board (the Columbia space shuttle), this debris field they're warning people not to come too close to would be a considerably bigger mess," said physicist Edward Lyman, head of the private Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, D.C. But many space enthusiasts say nuclear-powered spaceships offer the only way to penetrate the deepest, darkest corners of the solar system. Out there, billions of miles from Earth, sunlight is too weak to energize existing forms of solar-electric cells.

Visionary Goals Energized by Nuclear Power at Space Tech Gathering

Stunned by the ill-fated flight of space plane Columbia, scientists and engineers from government, industry, and academia have gathered here at the Space Technology & Applications International Forum (STAIF-2003), being held February 2-5. High hopes remain for the future of space exploration. That's what the optimism fuel gauge still reads as experts discuss everything from nuclear reactor-fed rocketry, microgravity science to next generation boosters and space colonization.

The Martian surface is a forbidding landscape of dry riverbeds, craters, and extinct volcanoes. Those geologic features could be found in dozens of places on Earth, but probably not all in one easily accessible location. That's why Mars has been re-created on a tiny scale by NASA scientists as a test bed for the new Mars rover that will head to the red planet in 2009. "We've had a group of geologists and astrobiologists spend time playing God, wondering how things really should be on Mars," says Liam Pedersen, the project's principle investigator.

In a remote, hostile, totally alien environment, every life-sustaining resource is precious — especially water. Improving the careful use of that critical resource is the goal of the Vapor Compression Distillation Flight Experiment, now undergoing tests during Space Shuttle mission STS-107. The experiment, managed by the Marshall Center, is being developed to convert crewmember urine and wastewater into clean water for future use aboard the International Space Station.

Space is certainly a cold place, but spacecraft have to face extremely high temperatures when they are exposed to the Sun's radiation. However, there are other extreme situations in which spacecraft are subject to tremendous heat. ESA's spacecraft must endure temperatures from hell...

Flexible displays are on the way. Wristwatches using flexible, unbreakable, plastic LCDs could be on the market by late summer this year, according to David Freeman, chief operating officer and co-founder of Viztec, Inc., Twinsburg, Ohio. And cell phone applications could soon follow. Freeman adds that, while monochrome versions of the displays will become available first, color versions are in the works and could become available by year's end.

Spider-bot Joins NASA's Robotic Menagerie

Engineer Robert Hogg’s spider sense is tingling, but he’s no superhero. His spider sense comes from an insect-like robot with a leg up on its wheeled counterparts because it walks instead of rolls. The spider-bot, developed by Hogg and his team of researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is the latest affordable addition to the agency’s robot family. Its legs step over obstacles, clamber up rocks and reach areas of interest that would normally be inaccessible to wheeled rovers that run on flatter paths.

Marshall Space Flight Center will play a key role in NASA's plan to develop and build nuclear-powered spacecraft, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said during a visit to Huntsville Friday. Dubbed Project Prometheus - after the Greek god who gave humans fire - the space agency plans to develop nuclear-power technologies that will advance exploration of space. O'Keefe, in a speech to Marshall employees, said nuclear power will extend man's reach beyond where chemical rockets and solar arrays can take spacecraft today. "There is a need . . . to concentrate on how to do things in the future that we can't do today," O'Keefe said.

Nasa to go nuclear

President Bush is set to endorse using nuclear power to explore Mars and open up the outer Solar System. He is expected to back the US space agency's recent nuclear propulsion initiative, Project Prometheus, either in his State of the Union speech, due on 28 January, or later this year when he submits his 2004 budget to Congress.

The journey time from Earth orbit to Mars could be slashed from six months to less than six weeks if NASA's idea for a nuclear fusion-powered engine takes off. The space-flight engine is being developed by a team led by Bill Emrich, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He predicts his fusion drive would be able to generate 300 times the thrust of any chemical rocket engine and use only a fraction of its fuel mass. That means interplanetary missions would no longer need to wait for a "shortest journey" launch window. "You can launch when you want," Emrich says.

White House Go-Ahead On NASA Nuclear Prometheus Project

NASA's 2004 budget request, officially embargoed until U.S. President George W. Bush presents his spending plan to Congress in February, contains significantly increased funding for a revamped nuclear propulsion research effort the U.S. space agency is now calling Project Prometheus. A source familiar with the NASA budget request for 2004 told Space News that the amount of money the White House is requesting strongly suggests an expansion of the program. "There is significant money in the budget for Prometheus," the source said. "More than I expected to see."

NASA Testing K9 Rover in New "Marscape" for Future Missions

ASA scientists and engineers are testing new technologies using a K9 rover in a newly built ‘Marscape’ test facility in preparation for future missions to Mars. Testing is being conducted at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in a 3/4-acre ‘Marscape’ that has been designed to resemble the terrain on Mars. Constructed at a cost of about $74,000, the test facility incorporates the environmental and geological features of Mars that hold the greatest scientific interest. The Marscape features a dry lakebed and outflow channel, a meteorite impact crater, a volcanic zone containing a dry hydrothermal spring and an area that scientists describe as “chaotic terrain.”

Solar panels are still a rarity in most communities in the United States. You might ask, why are there so few? But given the true economics of solar power today, it makes more sense to ask, why are there so many? These economics might be changing. While traditional solar technology keeps getting more efficient, the cost of the silicon semiconductor technology that underpins traditional systems keeps costs high. But silicon is not the only semiconductor that can transform sunshine into electric current. A startup, Konarka, uses titanium dioxide powder (more commonly used as white pigment) instead. TiO2 is photovoltaic -- it turns photons (light) into electrons (electricity). Konarka dyes the TiO2 dark, so it will absorb more light, and melds the powder into a uniform substance that conducts electricity. (The powder by itself does not.)

Space Elevator Upstarts Settle Down To Business

Constructing a vertical railroad stretching into space is no longer wistful fantasy carried in science fiction novels. Just ask the folks at HighLift Systems in Seattle, Washington. Selling the idea of a space elevator, however, takes a lot of ground floor shoe leather and handshakes. For the last few months, officials at HighLift Systems have been talking it up with an alphabet soup of government agencies, like NASA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as well as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Meanwhile, testing of prototype space elevator equipment is near at hand. And by far the strongest link that keeps the concept on the straight and narrow is worldwide work now underway by the carbon nanotube research community. Overall, progress is being made in attaining the lofty goal of operating a 21st century elevator to space.

An Unexpected Discovery Could Yield A Full Spectrum Solar Cell

Researchers in the Materials Sciences Division (MSD) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with crystal-growing teams at Cornell University and Japan's Ritsumeikan University, have learned that the band gap of the semiconductor indium nitride is not 2 electron volts (2 eV) as previously thought, but instead is a much lower 0.7 eV. The serendipitous discovery means that a single system of alloys incorporating indium, gallium, and nitrogen can convert virtually the full spectrum of sunlight -- from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet -- to electrical current.

Some day soon, members of the American armed forces who have to fight in a sweltering desert climate may wear suits fitted with tiny, lightweight heat pumps to keep them cool. In the future, microreactors the size of a cigarette lighter might run a laptop computer for weeks, instead of using batteries that die in hours. Minuscule medical devices would manufacture chemicals such as insulin right inside the human body. And humans may travel to Mars.

New fabric touted as radiation-proof

Scientists have created what is claimed to be the world's first radiation-proof fabric which provides as much protection as a lead vest but at a fraction of the weight. Instead of heavy metals to block radiation and X-rays, the new fabric called Demron is non toxic, lead-free and fused between two layers of woven fabric.

DARE for Planetary Exploration

Balloons outfitted with innovative steering devices and robot probes could be the future of planetary exploration. Dr. Alexey Pankine, a fellow at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), presented an analysis of balloon applications for planetary science at the World Space Congress in Houston, Texas last month. His study, entitled Directed Aerial Robot Explorers or DARE, is funded by NIAC.

The Chameleon Spacesuit: Light-weight Life-saver

When astronauts have to step outside for a space walk or a stroll across the Moon, they must first face a daunting challenge that would overwhelm an ordinary person: getting dressed. The heavy and complex suits currently in use are hardly the sort of outfit you can just throw on. And even in the microgravity of orbit, moving and working while wearing the massive contraptions during an extravehicular activity (EVA) can quickly exhaust an astronaut. So Ed Hodgson of Hamilton Sundstrand, a NASA contractor, has developed a scheme for building suits that will feel more like a set of coveralls and less like a suit of medieval armor.

Satellite To Be 'Boosted' By Microwave Beam Proposed

Plans to make the first known attempt to "push" a spacecraft in Earth orbit using energy beamed up from the ground will be announced next week at the First International Symposium on Beamed-Energy Propulsion at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Scientists from the University of California at Irvine and Microwave Sciences, Inc., will discuss the Planetary Society's plans to launch its Cosmos Sail mission next year using a Russian launch vehicle.

Evgeny Podkletnov's antigravity technology may sound far-fetched, but it's attracting serious interest from the likes of NASA and Boeing. Russian scientist Evgeny Podkletnov is challenging one of the most sacred tenets of physics -- the law of gravity. Podkletnov claims that when objects are placed above a high-temperature, superconducting ceramic disk rotating within an electromagnetic field, the objects lose as much as 2 percent of their original weight. He calls the effect "gravity shielding," and when word of his research reached the public in 1996, a brief media circus ensued. Many in the physics community dismissed his effort as wishful thinking.

After some grandiose plans and a few small-scale experiments in the 1950s and 1960s, work on nuclear-propelled rockets stalled in the United States and elsewhere. Now, Sean O'Keefe (Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and veteran space expert Robert Zubrin (President of the Mars Society) call for a thoroughly rejuvenated program of nuclear space propulsion. In the November issue of IEEE Spectrum, they argue nuclear power is essential if significant human and robotic missions are to be mounted to Mars and beyond.

Radiation levels on the International Space Station are as high as they were on the antiquated Russian space station Mir, in spite of NASA's attempts to clad the ISS with better shielding. If NASA can't protect astronauts, its vision of sending a crew into deep space may come to nothing. Data collected by NASA and a Russian-Austrian collaboration show that astronauts on the ISS are subjected to about 1 millisievert of radiation per day, about the same as someone would get from natural sources on Earth in a whole year. Spending three months in these conditions translates into about one-tenth the long-term cancer risk incurred by regular smokers.

Yielding More Photons In Deep Space

A solar energy technology team led by ENTECH, Inc., has been awarded a $195,000 contract from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop advanced concepts for generating electrical power in space. The team will also develop a roadmap for completing the development of these unique concepts, which are known as solar concentrator arrays. The solar concentrator array concepts use flexible, ultra-light lenses to focus sunlight onto high-efficiency solar cells, achieving unprecedented performance.

A space elevator would transform the economics of space travel, making ventures ranging from space spas to exotic scientific exploration more possible. Even a decade ago, an elevator to the heavens seemed like sheer fantasy, akin to the beanstalk Jack climbed in the fairy tale. There was no material strong enough to make the cables. But an advance in one of the tiniest of technologies—carbon nanotubes—has given a boost to this most lofty of schemes. The space elevator "is no longer science fiction," says David Smitherman of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

A team of government, industry and academia, under the leadership of The Boeing Company, has been awarded a NASA contract to meet the challenge of developing nuclear electric power for deep space exploration. Responding to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's call to move forward with a "nuclear propulsion initiative," Boeing and a team consisting of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Glenn Research Center, Honeywell, Swales Aerospace, Auburn University and Texas A&M will develop power conversion technologies that enable future reactor electric propulsion missions. "Our team's proposal was designed to meet the challenge NASA has made to further our exploration of the planets and deep space," said Terry Murphy, division director for Boeing Energy Systems at Boeing's Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power unit. "This reactor technology would give us a 100-fold increase in power and a 30-fold increase in propulsion efficiency compared to conventional, storable rocket propellants. This means that a mission would take a fraction of the travel time and provide years of scientific discovery."

Cockroaches are hardy earthlings and the perfect creatures to explore the surface of Mars. Duncan Steel explains why.

Exploring Our Solar System Will Require A New Breed Of SmartBots

During the next decade, says NASA Ames roboticist Liam Pedersen, "there's not likely to be a human presence much beyond Earth orbit. So if we wish to explore places like Mars, we'll have to send robots. No robots, no exploration. Period." "Transmitting detailed instructions to essentially dumb robots is grossly inefficient and expensive--especially when there's lots to do," he adds. For example: Robots scouting Mars, perhaps in advance of human explorers, will reconnoiter vast areas. They'll sample hundreds of rocks, drill holes in search of frozen water, and take thousands of pictures. "If each of these operations takes several days and a standing army of mission controllers ... well, you can see how the cost increases."

A British Columbia robotics firm is to design a laser-guided landing system for a NASA mission to Mars, under a $400,000 contract with Industry Canada announced yesterday. The contract also involves developing a high-tech drill to collect rock samples for NASA's Mobile Science Laboratory, on a mission of unprecedented scale to explore and study the Red Planet in 2009.

Allan Rock, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for the Canadian Space Agency, announced today the awarding of a $400,000 contract to MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) of Richmond, B.C., to support the Canadian Space Agency in defining Canada's contribution to European missions to Mars, and the NASA-led Mars Science Laboratory mission. Landing safely on the Red Planet is a critical element of any Mars mission. The study to be undertaken by MDA will include an assessment of the design, development and use of laser-based sensor technology to land spacecraft on the surface of Mars. As a world leader in robotic technologies, Canada will also be considering its role in the development of a robotic mining device that will extract samples of the planet's subsurface and prepare them for scientific study.

Heat-To-Electricity Device Could Help Third World

Scientists looking for a way to provide cheap electricity for people in some of the poorest parts of the world have found a way of running a light bulb off a wood-burning stove. Working with Rida Nuwayhid at the American University in Beirut, Mike Rowe and Gao Min at Cardiff University in Wales have developed a thermocouple device that converts some of the otherwise wasted heat from the stove into a weak electric current.

Register for Robotics Series

How often can you rub virtual shoulders with NASA top robotics experts? If you sign up NOW for a series of interactive robotics webcasts, you will learn about a humanoid robot called Robonaut, discuss how a free-flying AERCam (Autonomous Extravehicular Activity Robotic Camera) can perform routine tasks on the International Space Station, explore the results of a Sojourner Rover experiment on the Mars Pathfinder Mission, and much, MUCH more! High school juniors and seniors can even earn college credit.

NASA Tests Advanced Spacesuit, Robot Helper At Meteor Crater

Scientists will trek into the Arizona desert near Flagstaff this month to study how robots and humans can best interact using spoken language, and to gather data for comparing human and robotic performance. Humans wearing an advanced Mark III spacesuit working alongside an Extra Vehicular Activity Robotic Assistant (ERA) rover will perform tasks representative of future exploration at two sites in the Arizona desert during the first two weeks of September. Exploration tasks will include geophone instrument deployment and field mapping. These tests are a part of NASA strategy to apply advanced technology and cooperative information to improve scientific productivity at a variety of potential locations.

With a manned Mars voyage suggested for next decade and space probes going ever farther from Earth, conventional propulsion systems are proving way too inefficient and NASA has gone looking for more exotic ways to fly.

Space Coast could be hub of research for next launch technology: magnetic levitation

The Space Coast holds the key to what may be the future of launch technology, as researchers collaborate to perfect magnetic levitation. Hector Gutierrez of Florida Tech sends a magnetic levitation car zooming down a laboratory track. It sounds like science fiction: Using magnetic forces, a spacecraft hovers above a miles-long track as it slams forward at astounding speeds before shooting off into space.

William L. Brown Sr. of Bethel Park was a clothes presser at a Mount Washington cleaners who later became an engineer at Westinghouse's nuclear division. Although Mr. Brown had no degree, he won an entry-level job at Westinghouse because of natural talent and know-how, said his son William L. Jr. of Ross. He was the oldest of six children, who grew up in Mt. Lebanon. He started sweeping the floor at Phillips' Cleaners in Mount Washington, a shop frequented by local politicians and broadcasters. The owner taught him how to press clothes, and he continued working at the cleaners and at Westinghouse for many years. He was eventually promoted to engineer at Westinghouse, and at one point was involved in developing a small-scale nuclear reactor to be used for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission to Mars, which never occurred.

Space Power

Scientists ponder the question, "What advances in power technology are required to send human and robotic explorers throughout the solar system?" Human missions beyond Earth's neighborhood will require power not only for onboard systems, but also for propulsion and for systems to support humans when they arrive wherever they're going. "To pursue ambitious human missions across the solar system, perhaps returning to the Moon, perhaps going on to Mars, will require hundreds to a thousand kilowatts on the surface and hundreds to thousands of kilowatts for transportation systems," says John Mankins, chief technologist for the Advance Systems Program at NASA headquarters. You can't just plug into the nearest electrical outlet, he added. You have to bring your own power source. Ideally, you'd like to find something that could provide power for both propulsion and operations.

Smart fabrics that play music, sniff out chemicals, and send data about your location and well-being are slowly weaving their way into daily life. Dr. Maggie Orth's new technology is part of an emerging wave: weaving all sorts of intelligence into textiles, including the ability to detect dangerous chemicals, sanitize themselves, and serve as communication networks. Applications run the gamut, from health and sporting goods to sophisticated combat uniforms. It's a field – variously known as smart fabrics, e-textiles, wearable computers, or intelligent textiles – that many anticipate will become one of the next hot drivers of the American economy. Advocates also expect it to propel technology forward in general, because its applications are so diverse.

First the Canadarm, now the CanaDrill. Canada's newest role in space is taking shape in Sudbury, where a bunch of mining experts began asking: "Since Canadians are so good at drilling for gold and nickel, why not go and drill on Mars?" This is a serious proposal, worth $625,000 so far to the Canadian Space Agency. The CanaDrill is conceived as a robotic drill, battery powered and diamond tipped, that would fly to Mars on an unmanned NASA lander similar to the wildly successful Mars Pathfinder of 1997.

Going Up? Private Group Begins Work on Space Elevator

The world's space programs are vertically challenged. What's needed is a revolutionary low-cost way to move payloads and people into Earth orbit and then outward to the asteroids, Mars and beyond. Now an upstart company of enterprising engineers and investment strategists want to tackle the ultimate high-rise project for the 21st century: the space elevator. They are on the ground floor of putting calculations to paper and wrestling with the toughest challenges. The message from the First International Space Elevator Conference, held here August 12-13, is that the concept is an idea whose time has come…well almost. World-class specialists in diverse fields -- from materials science, bridge building, and aerospace technology to law, business, and financing -- contend the project is on the up-and-up.

Superfast VASIMR Rocket in Funding Limbo

Trimming travel time between Earth and various space targets is crucial to keeping human and robotic surveys of the solar system prospering into the 21st Century. Faster rockets cut back on an astronaut's radiation intake. Being a space speedster may also reduce loss of bone and muscle mass, as well as limit circulatory changes due to prolonged microgravity exposure. One approach to express lane rocketry is tagged the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR). With VASIMR's oomph, a 10-month one-way trek to Mars -- the standard assumed for today's chemical rockets -- would be reduced to just four months. Research on this high-tech propulsion method has turned controversial, however. VASIMR supporters see dream machinery in the making. Other propulsion experts claim the engine delivers more hype than hypervelocity.

Boeing Admits To Propellentless Propulsion Research

A reported published July 29 by Jane's Defense Weekly says Boeing has acknowledged it is conducting a variety of anti-gravity experiments that could rewrite the economics of conventional aviation technologies. According to Jane's Defense Weekly (JDW) the research is being done at Boeing's famous Phantom Works facility in Seattle where Boeing is working to gain the services of the Russian scientist Dr Evgeny Podkletnov who claims he has developed anti-gravity devices in Russia and Finland.

Anti-gravity, the taboo of the science and aerospace communities, takes a step into the limelight of respectability this week with news that Boeing, the world's biggest aircraft-maker, is exploring concepts that could one day - perhaps even soon - overturn a century of propulsion technology. Boeing's interest in anti-gravity is encapsulated in a company project known as Grasp - Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion. A Grasp document, obtained by Jane's Defence Weekly, the defence industry magazine, spells out what Boeing believes to be at stake if it can succeed in engineering real hardware. "If gravity modification is real," it says, "it will alter the entire aerospace business."

Boeing tries to defy gravity

Researchers at the world's largest aircraft maker, Boeing, are using the work of a controversial Russian scientist to try to create a device that will defy gravity. The company is examining an experiment by Yevgeny Podkletnov, who claims to have developed a device which can shield objects from the Earth's pull.

Solar cells could get an efficiency boost of 30% using a device proposed by physicists in Australia and Germany. Martin Green of the Centre for Third Generation Photovoltaics at the University of New South Wales and colleagues say that 'down-converters' could be connected to existing solar cells to double the number of 'useful' photons they capture (T Trupke et al 2002 J. Appl. Phys. 92 1668).

NASA Developing Hypersonic Tech; Flight Vehicles Only Decades Away

Imagine taking off from any U.S. airport and landing on any other runway in the world in less than two hours. Or making a quick hop from that same airport to the International Space Station and back -- a trip that normally takes days or weeks -- to drop off science experiments, provisions and new equipment. Sound Far-Fetched? Not anymore. Technology now being developed by NA