Warp drive looks more promising than ever in recent NASA studies "Interstellar travel may still be in its infancy, but adulthood is fast approaching, and our descendants will someday see childhood's end." The Starflight Handbook The first steps towards interstellar travel have been taken, but the stars are very far away. Voyager 1 is about 17 light-hours distant from Earth and is traveling with a velocity of 0.006 percent of light speed, meaning it will take about 17,000 years to travel one light-year. The warp drive broke away from being a wholly fictional concept in 1994, when physicist Miguel Alcubierre suggested that faster-than-light (FTL) travel was possible if you remained still on a flat piece of spacetime inside a warp bubble that was made to move at superluminal velocity. An Alcubierre warp drive bubble, showing spatial compression ahead of the bubble, and spatial expansion behind (Image: NASA) The warp effect uses gravitational effects to compress the spacetime in front of a spacecraft, then expand the spacetime behind it.
Hovercraft Coming To Market in 2017 No matter what anyone tells you, it is never too early to make your Christmas list for 2017. California-based tech company Aerofex has developed the Aero-X hovercraft that is slated to undergo flight tests in 2016 and—assuming no setbacks—they will hit the market in the US in 2017. They are expected to go for about $85,000. If you would like to be one of the first to get your hands on the Aero-X (or if you would like to sponsor a certain IFLScience writer…) you can reserve yours now for only $5,000 down. The Aero-X hovercraft rides like a motorcycle and allows two riders with a combined weight of 140 kgs (310 lbs) to ride in tandem. Safety is an obvious concern with this vehicle and Aerofex has covered all the bases. The Aero-X will not require a pilot’s license, though individual states may require certification, similar to the process required for boats and other off-highway vehicles like quads, dune buggies, or snowmobiles. Check out these videos of the Aero-X in action.
Turing Test breakthrough as super-computer becomes first to convince us it's human - Gadgets and Tech - Life & Style Computing pioneer Alan Turing said that a computer could be understood to be thinking if it passed the test, which requires that a computer dupes 30 per cent of human interrogators in five-minute text conversations. Eugene Goostman, a computer programme made by a team based in Russia, succeeded in a test conducted at the Royal Society in London. It convinced 33 per cent of the judges that it was human, said academics at the University of Reading, which organised the test. It is thought to be the first computer to pass the iconic test. A version of the computer programme, which was created in 2001, is hosted online for anyone talk to. The computer programme claims to be a 13-year-old boy from Odessa in Ukraine. "Our main idea was that he can claim that he knows anything, but his age also makes it perfectly reasonable that he doesn't know everything," said Vladimir Veselov, one of the creators of the programme. Loading gallery In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history 1 of 7
'Impossible' Space Engine May Actually Work, NASA Test Suggests It's really starting to look as if an "impossible" space propulsion technology actually works. Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have found that a microwave thruster system that requires no propellant does indeed generate a small amount of thrust, Wired UK reported Thursday (July 31). If the technology pans out, it could make spaceflight far cheaper and speedier, potentially opening up much of the cosmos to exploration, advocates say. "Test results indicate that the RF [radio frequency] resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and, therefore, is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma," the NASA team wrote in their study, which they presented Wednesday (July 30) at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland. [Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)]
Wearable submarine to hunt for 2000-year-old computer - tech - 04 June 2014 Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 Like an underwater Iron Man, a diver will fly around the wreck of an ancient Greek ship later this year, looking to shed light on the Antikythera mechanism THE world's most advanced robotic diving suit is getting ready to help search for one of the world's oldest computers. Called Exosuit, the suit has a rigid metal humanoid form with Iron Man-like thrusters that enable divers to operate safely down to depths of 300 metres (see photo). Though designed for diving in the bowels of New York City's water treatment plants, earlier this month it underwent its first trials in seawater at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. – from the wreck. Marine archaeologists normally wear scuba gear to explore underwater sites in person, but the time that divers can spend at depth is limited by the dangers of decompression sickness, or the bends. The $1.5 million Exosuit falls somewhere in between. New Scientist Not just a website!
17 GIFs To Prove Technology Has Gone Too Far | The Wondrous Magazine 1. This zipper design that won’t let you down I didn’t think that science and technology have gone so far. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 3D metal printing via buzzfeed gifbin and tumblr. Comments comments New Propulsion System could Revolutionize Space Travel NASA has announced that an experimental propulsion system that needs only energy from sunlight appears to produce sufficient thrust to power spacecraft. This means that, once a spacecraft is in orbit, it will be able to accelerate away from the earth to the edges of the solar system, without fuel. This means that travel throughout the solar system is going to become much more possible and far cheaper. Researchers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston have determined that a microwave thruster system that requires no propellant generates a small but useful amount of thrust. The engine has been named the ‘Cannae Drive’ by engineer Guido Fetta. This is not the only such engine. So it appears that the laws of physics are being demonstrably violated--which means only one thing: they aren't complete.
untitled Anti-Gravity Ball Opens New Dimensions - Awescience.com MIT media lab created a metal ball which is capable of doing some extraordinary feats while being in anti gravity mode. This round shiny metal ball has been named as ZeroN and it has indeed put a great significance in manipulating technologies in a more advanced way. The ball can be controlled via computer and by hands as well, to be more precise it lets you control the communication between computer and human via physical interference. The strong magnetic field controlled by the computer along with optical tracking system and a projector are used to make the ball move around. More to see this thing in action, watch the video below [RealityPod]
NASA gives the go-ahead to the world's most powerful rocket It's not a Saturn V but it will make a big noise and be a cool sight to see. It will make a bigger noise because it's more powerful than a Saturn V. The Block I crew carrier they are launching first has 4 main engines and is just a little bit smaller but the Block II has 5 engines and is the real beast that beats it. That one will be well worth the trip to see it
untitled 'Cyborg' fears of bionic man team The two experts behind a new Channel 4 show about a 'bionic' man admit they were spooked by some of what they saw - including cyborgs made by the U.S. Army. One presenter was perturbed by experiments where chips were inserted in the brains of living rats, to 'enhance' their memory. The U.S. military's hi-tech research wing DARPA is developing humanoid robots which 'look like The Terminator', says the programme's robot expert. Both experts say that a future where living flesh and computer chips become one will arrive "sooner" than we expect. Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist from Switzerland - who himself has a bionic left hand - and robotics expert Rich Walker can be seen on How To Make A Bionic Man on Thursday night at 9pm. The expert duo both believe the billions spent researching and developing bionic technology is a force for good - but the technology have negative outcomes if created for the wrong reasons. However, the 'man' can't walk by itself.
NASA Is Developing A Faster-Than-Light Warp Drive RT| This is where science-fiction meets modern physics. Researchers at NASA’s Texas-based Johnson Space Center are trying to travel faster than the speed of light, and hope to one day build an engine that resembles the fictional Starship Enterprise. In fact, it’s even named Enterprise. Star-Trek may not be so sci-fi after all.. Einstein showed us that space and time are part of the same fabric, and if you can bend space (by gravity, for example), you are also literally bending time. NASA physicist and engineer Dr. White’s research is based on the theories of Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, who in 1994 theorized that exceeding Einstein’s galactic speed limit was possible if scientists discovered a way to harness the expansion and contraction of space. By creating a “warp bubble” that expands space on one side of a spaceship and contracts it on the other,“the spaceship will be pushed away from the Earth and pulled towards a distant star by space-time itself,”Dr. Dr. Dr. Although Dr.