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.
May 13th, 2003
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.
May 2nd, 2003
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.
April 23rd, 2003
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.
April 17th, 2003
Teen sets sail for space travel The Huntsville Times
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.
April 17th, 2003
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.
April 15th, 2003
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.
April 14th, 2003
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.
April 7th, 2003
Andrews Space and Technology Successfully Completes Compression Experiments in World’s Largest Pulse Power Machine Business Wire
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.
April 1st, 2003
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