Lifeboat Foundation

We’ve had starchitects. Now we’ve got space architects. Oliver Wainwright meets the people measuring up the red planet for inflatable homes and farms made of moondust concrete.

US social networking giant Facebook announced on Thursday a successful test of its solar-powered Aquila drone, which will beam Internet to people in remote areas.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Facebook has been working on Aquila Project with leading experts in aerospace and communication technologies, from NASA’s jet propulsion lab to a small UK firm that created one of the world’s longest flying solar-powered drones.

I wonder, if NASA and/or SpaceX goes to Mars in the 2030’s as planned, by the time the 2050’s roll around a manned attempt to Ceres or Jupiter trojans might be attempted or perhaps an unmanned vehicle made on Mars beats this sail.

Japan’s space agency has its sights on unexplored asteroids as far away as Jupiter, a project that at one level draws on centuries of sail science.

Continue reading “Huge sail will power JAXA mission to Trojan asteroids and back” »

Tech now really moving into the clouds.

Although the world is increasingly connected through the internet, there are still four billion people or 60% of the world’s population who do not have such access. 1.6 billion of those people live in remote locations and do not have access to mobile broadband networks. Facebook Connectivity Lab just announced the first full-scale test flight of Aquila, a solar-powered airplane that can be used to bring affordable internet to isolated areas.

Aquila is a high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned solar-powered airplane. It has a wingspan bigger than a Boeing 737 airplane but weighs hundreds of times less due to its carbon fiber frame. Many of the team members who contributed to the craft had previous experience at at NASA, Boeing, DARPA, Northrop Grumman, and the British Royal Air Force.

Continue reading “Facebook Heads For The Clouds With Its Internet-Streaming, Solar-Powered Aquila Drone” »

Facebook plans to use solar-powered drones to extend internet access to remote parts of the planet.

Read the latest on these ambitious plans: http://bbc.in/29WgEvF

So far the system can be used to receive signals carrying data at rates of up to 2.1 gigabits per second, though the team claims it could go faster if it were built to absorb infrared, rather than blue, light.

It’s worth pointing out that this isn’t the first piece of hardware to emerge from the Connectivity Lab. Famously, it’s been working on a solar-powered drone to deliver Internet access. That particular project is progressing slowly, though, so despite the fact that the team behind the new laser device plans to test it in a real-world setting, there’s likely still much development ahead before it’s used widely.

The social network is, however, busy pursuing plenty of other projects to take data to the sticks. Most notably, its Telecom Infra Project will use open-source cellular networks to achieve similar results. That way, you see, anyone will be able to sign up on Facebook.

Continue reading “Facebook plans to beam fast Internet to remote areas using lasers” »

A new paper asserts that a physical body might be able to pass through a wormhole in spite of the extreme tidal forces that are at play.

A physical object, such as a person or a spacecraft, could theoretically make it through a wormhole in the centre of a black hole, and maybe even access another universe on the other side, physicists have suggested.

Continue reading “Physicists Say They’ve Figured out How Spacecraft Could Make It Through a Wormhole” »

Silver, silica and titania nanocomposite converts seawater into pure drinking water and hydrogen gas.

Definitely need this for the farm.

This robot cowboy not only herds cattle, soon it will also monitor the herd’s health and alert ranchers to any injuries or illness to livestock.