Russia Today — May 11, 2013

The Chinese military is making preparations for the inaugural flight test of its newly designed unmanned combat vehicle, bringing the Asian powerhouse into the stealth technology race, Chinese media report.

China’s first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), known as the Lijian (‘sharp sword‘), is designed jointly by the Hongdu Aviation Industry Group and Shenyang Aviation Corporation. The project was launched in 2009 and the drone’s first ground test was conducted on December 13 last year.

The Lijian, which makes China the third country to possess stealth drone capabilities, is now ready for flight testing, China Aviation News reported on Friday.

The Chinese UAV is designed for use by the PLA Air Force and Navy Air Force for combat missions, China Aviation News reported. It may also be used for tracking and reconnaissance along China’s lengthy and occasionally contentious border.

Beijing’s ambitious efforts at developing its drone capabilities have not escaped the attention of Taiwan, which has quarreled with Beijing in the past over questions of sovereignty and national identity.

“Taiwan should be concerned about China’s development of large numbers of sophisticated military UAVs,” Ian Easton, a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, told the Taipei Times.

China’s stealth drone is third such unmanned combat vehicle in existence, after the X-47 designed by the United States, and the nEUROn, a collaborative effort of various EU companies.

The nEUROn was launched in 2005 following an order by the French Defense Procurement Agency. The program is a collaborative effort between French, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek and Swiss defense companies.

The US Pentagon’s X-47 stealth drone, designed by Northrop Grumman, began as part of DARPA’s J-UCAS program, and is now part of the US Navy’s UCAS-D (Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration) program. The X-47 is still undergoing flight testing.

The unveiling of the prototype places the People’s Republic of China ahead of several nations in the development of stealth drone technology.

India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Russia also have their own stealth UAV programs

Source

Russia Today — April 24, 2013

A new forward-looking campaign is hoping to shape public perception in a bid to make sure that the concept of armed drones that attack targets without human input never become a reality.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has announced the creation of an international coalition, which it hopes can push for a global treaty for a pre-emptive ban on artificially intelligent weapons before they can be fielded in battle.

These “killer robots,” as the group calls them, are not yet being operated by any army in the world, though the pace at which drone technology and robotics are advancing has led to speculation that they could be developed within the next few decades.

According to Humans Right Watch, which cites a report it co-authored with Harvard Law School in November of 2012, a fully autonomous machine that could select and fire upon a target selected of its own volition could be available within 20 years, if not sooner.

That report, entitled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots,” outlines the legal, ethical and policy concerns surrounding the development of self-directed weaponry. While in certain contexts advanced weaponry already possesses some semblance of “intelligence,” such as guided missiles or drones capable of adapting to battlefield conditions, present technology still requires human input, and in that sense involves basic humanitarian law.

Leading the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is Jody William, a Nobel Peace laureate for her efforts to enact a ban on anti-personnel landmines. She believes that exposure of the issue will bring about public opposition.

“As people learn about our campaign, they will flock to it. The public conscience is horrified to learn about this possible advance in weapons systems. People don’t want killer robots out there,” William said in comments to the BBC.

“Normal human beings find it repulsive,” she added.

Already the use of semi-autonomous weapons, such as aerial drones, has led to mounting criticism over the legal processes behind both the selection of foreign targets, and also their unilateral use on foreign soil. More recently in the US, there’s been a heated debate over whether they should be used on American citizens at all.

Current semi-autonomous technology at least requires a human operator, and in theory does not kill without proper authorization. As Human Rights Watch points out, the development of artificial intelligence-equipped machines presents a number of issues circumventing conventional law, and might even lead to an international arms race not unlike the one currently happening within the field of drone tech.

For its part, a directive issued by the US Department of Defense in 2012 and quoted by the BBC has stated that weapons with a degree of autonomy “shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.”

While in March of 2012, Lord Astor of Hever – the UK’s parliamentary undersecretary of state for defense – stated that the Ministry of Defence “currently has no intention of developing systems that operate without human intervention.”

According to a report produced by the Teal Group, in 2011 its market study estimated that in the coming decade worldwide spending on drones will reach $94 billion, with countries such as China looking to quickly close the gap with US technology.

Source

The Navy is going to sea for the first time with a laser attack weapon that has been shown in tests to disable patrol boats and blind or destroy surveillance drones.

A prototype shipboard laser will be deployed on a converted amphibious transport and docking ship in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships and where the government in Tehran is building remotely piloted aircraft carrying surveillance pods and, someday potentially, rockets.

The laser will not be operational until next year, but the announcement on Monday by Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, seemed meant as a warning to Iran not to step up activity in the gulf in the next few months if tensions increase because of sanctions and the impasse in negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. The Navy released video and still images of the laser weapon burning through a drone during a test firing.

The laser is designed to carry out a graduated scale of missions, from burning through a fast-attack boat or a drone to producing a nonlethal burst to “dazzle” an adversary’s sensors and render them useless without causing any other physical damage.

The Pentagon has a long history of grossly inflating claims for its experimental weapons, but a nonpartisan study for Congress said the weapon offered the Navy historic opportunities.

“Equipping Navy surface ships with lasers could lead to changes in naval tactics, ship design and procurement plans for ship-based weapons, bringing about a technological shift for the Navy — a ‘game changer’ — comparable to the advent of shipboard missiles in the 1950s,” said the assessment, by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress.

The study found that the new high-energy laser “could provide Navy surface ships with a more cost-effective means of countering certain surface, air and ballistic missile targets.”

Among the limitations, according to the research service, is that lasers are not effective in bad weather because the beam can be disturbed or scattered by water vapor, as well as by smoke, sand and dust. It is also a “line of sight” weapon, meaning that the target has to be visible, so it cannot handle threats over the horizon. And enemies can take countermeasures like coating vessels and drones with reflective surfaces.

Navy officials acknowledge that the first prototype weapon to be deployed is not powerful enough to take on jet fighters or missiles on their approach. That capability is a goal of researchers.

Among the advantages cited in the study for Congress was the low cost — less than $1 per sustained pulse — of using a high-energy laser against certain targets. By comparison, current short-range air-defense interceptor missiles cost up to $1.4 million each.

The laser weapon also has a limitless supply of ammunition — pulses of high energy — so long as the ship can generate electricity. The beam can reach its target at the speed of light and can track fast-moving targets.

Rear Adm. Matthew L. Klunder, the chief of naval research, said the high-energy laser system was developed as part of the Navy’s search for “new, innovative, disruptive technologies.” In essence, the Navy is trying to harness technological advances in battling adversaries that are thinking of inventive ways to counter American power.

Admiral Klunder said the weapon had destroyed targets in all 12 of its field tests.

The laser prototype cost just under $32 million, officials said. But if the weapon proves itself during its sea trials, and the order is given to buy the laser system for service across the fleet, the price per unit is expected to drop.

Rear Adm. Thomas J. Eccles, the deputy commander for naval systems engineering, said the first laser device would be deployed on the Ponce, which serves as a floating base for military operations and humanitarian assistance in the waters of the Middle East and southwestern Asia.

Iran has two navies: a traditional force of large older ships and a rival one run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that consists of fast-attack speedboats with high-powered machine guns and crews that employ guerrilla tactics, including swarming perilously close to American warships.

A significant confrontation between the United States and the Revolutionary Guards occurred in 2008, when five of Iran’s armed speedboats made aggressive maneuvers as they approached three American warships in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz. Pentagon officials said the commander of a Navy destroyer was on the verge of issuing an order to fire when the speedboats pulled away; no shots were fired.

Source

The new incarnation of Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN robot, being developed for DARPA with Department of Defense funding, not only looks human but it also sweats to regulate body temperature.

A new video showing PETMAN in action depicts the robot dressed up in a post-apocalyptic chem-bio suit with sensors embedded to detect hazardous chemicals.

“Decked out in chem-resistant camo and a dystopic gas mask, this robot couldn’t look more human,” writes Jason Dorrier.

When the clothing is removed, the robot looks something like Sonny from the movie I, Robot. PETMAN is self-balancing and can also do push-ups, walk, stretch, and squat.

As you can see from the previous incarnations of PETMAN in the videos below, as the robot’s capabilities increase, so does its resemblance to a human being.

That will only serve to increase concerns expressed by numerous robotic experts, that the Pentagon’s fleet of cyborgs is being developed with one primary goal in mind – to pursue “suspects” and kill large numbers of people on the future battlefield.

Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, has repeatedly warned that the robots currently being developed under the auspices of DARPA will eventually be used to kill.

“Of course if it’s used for combat, it would be killing civilians as well as it’s not going to be able to discriminate between civilians and soldiers,” said Sharkey.

Last month, award-winning military writer and former intelligence officer Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer also wrote an essay warning of the threat posed by remorseless “killer robots” that will be used to stalk and slaughter human targets in the near future.

In a 50-page report published last year, Human Rights Watch also warned that artificially intelligent robots let loose on the battlefield would inevitably commit war crimes.

Last year, experts at the prestigious University of Cambridge announced a project to conduct research into the “extinction-level risks” posed to humanity by artificially intelligent robots.

Flying drones that communicate with each other are also being developed for “hunting terrorists” and other “homeland security” purposes, as well as UAVs that could one day snatch humans off the street.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

Source

These are the first pictures inside the cockpit of the new U.S. military-funded airship that is set to revolutionise long-haul flying.

The massive blimp-like aircraft made its first successful test flight after hovering a dozen feet off the floor of the former military hangar during flight testing south of Los Angeles.

The fact that the hulking Aeroscraft could fly for just a few minutes represents a step forward in aviation, according to the engineers who developed it.

Sitting in the high-tech cockpit, flight control engineer Munir Jojo-Verge told of his pride at being involved in the groundbreaking project.

‘I realised that I put a little dot in the line of aviation history. A little dot for something that has never been demonstrated before, now it’s feasible,’ he told the Associated Press.

The high-tech Aeroscraft blimp is now  nearly ready for flight testing in the open, having completed its ‘first float’ manoeuvres inside its colossal hangar in Orange County, California.

The biggest challenge for engineers is making sure the airship will be able to withstand high winds and other extreme weather conditions, Mr Jojo-Verge said.

The Department of Defense and NASA have invested $35 million in project because of its potential to one day carry more cargo than any other aircraft to disaster zones and forward military bases.

Built around a rigid frame of aluminium and carbon fibre, the huge 230ft prototype, built by U.S. aviation firm Worldwide Aeros, is nevertheless only half the size of its conceived finished version.

Earlier pictures of the bulbous blimp, with its silver skin reflecting green lights shining within the hangar, invited comparisons with Thunderbird 2, the rescue craft from Gerry Anderson’s puppet adventure series Thunderbirds.

The airship has been undergoing testing this month in a 17-storey tall, Second World War-era blimp hangar at the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. It must go through several more rounds of flight tests before it could be used in a disaster zone or anywhere else.

But if and when it finally goes into service, the Aeroscraft airship will carry three times as much as the biggest military cargo planes, use a third of the fuel – and it won’t even need a landing strip.

It could revolutionise haulage, and almost everything now laboriously transported across the planet’s surface by boat, train and lorry could within years be carried through the skies, its makers claim.

Aeros said it also must secure more funding for the next round of flight testing, but is hopeful the Defense Department and others will step in again as investors.

It says the cargo airship’s potential to carry more cargo more efficiently than ever before would provide the  military with an advantage on the battlefield and greater capacity to save more lives during natural disasters.

Aeros CEO and Founder Igor Pasternak recently confirmed the vehicle had completed a series of successful ‘first float’ manoeuvres inside its immense engineering hangar.

Mr Pasternak, who is also the chief engineer of the Aeroscraft, explained that the tests had proven its unique lightweight rigid structure conception and vertical take off and landing systems.

‘The first float of the vehicle was a controlled exercise during which all flight systems were operating. The procedure was completed successfully,’ he said.

Aircraft experts are betting that the Aeroscraft vehicle with its advanced technology capabilities will transform the transportation of large and heavy cargoes.

It has the potential to support any number of the world’s equipment-dependent mega-projects and the industries that manage them – including wind energy, aerospace, fossil fuel extraction, highway construction, engineering and telecommunications.

The airship functions like a submarine, releasing air to rise and taking in air to descend, said Aeros mechanical engineer Tim Kenny.

It can take off vertically, like a helicopter, then change its buoyancy to become heavier than air for landing and unloading.

‘It allows the vehicle to set down on the ground. And then when we want to become lighter than air, we release that air and then the vehicle floats and we can allow it to take off,’ Mr Kenny said.

The project has set abuzz the old hangars at the Marine Corps Air Station.

The structures were built to hold blimps during the War. Now workers zip around in cherry-pickers, and the airship’s silvery surface shines against the warm tones of the aging wood of the walls.

‘You could take this vehicle and go to destinations that have been destroyed, where there’s no ports, no runways, stuff like that,’ said Mr Kenny

‘This vehicle could go in there, offload the cargo even if there’s no infrastructure, no landing site for it to land on, this vehicle can unload its whole payload. ‘

The finished version of the Aeroscraft – expected to be ready in three years – will be 450ft long and carry a payload of 66 tons at a speed of 120 knots, up to 18,000ft with a range of 3000 nautical miles.

That could revolutionise air transport, opening up remote areas where there is practically no other means of access.

It could carry relief supplies for victims in disaster areas, heavy oil-extraction equipment to northern Canada’s tar sands, huge turbines to remote wind farms and, of course, heavy military equipment to battlefields worldwide.

The key breakthrough has been the development of an internal system for managing ballast.

Previous airships have been held back by the need to weigh them down or tie them up while cargo is unloaded, lest they are suddenly carried away on the breeze.

But the Aeroscraft’s internal ballast management system gives its operators the ability to control the aircraft’s buoyancy by compressing the helium inside its tanks and replacing it with normal air to bring down to the ground.

Once cargo has been loaded, the airship can rise by re-releasing the compressed helium into its containment tanks, making it again lighter than air, then using turbo-prop engines to control its direction.

Because of this revolutionary system, Aeroscraft needs no airfield to operate, only a cleared area large enough for it to vertically take off and land, and enough labour on hand to unload the cargo.

Mr Pasternak, 48, told Gizmag: ‘The advantage is you don’t need ground infrastructure. You can fly anywhere, you can land anywhere, you don’t need any ballast, you don’t need any ground crew.’

The airship has long been a ‘dream machine’ for visionary inventors.

Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin built the first airship in 1900 as a weapon for Germany. The ‘Graf Zeppelin’ was developed by Dr Hugo Eckener, who flew it around the world in 21 days in 1929.

This powerful symbol of German might was adopted by the Nazis, who funded the creation of the largest airship yet, the Hindenburg.

However, on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg burst into flames on a trip to the US, having been filled with patriotic German hydrogen instead of American helium.

But Ukrainian-born Mr Pasternak says that his design for a rigid airship is miles apart from the disastrous versions of the early 20th Century.

He told Gizmag: ‘From the structure stand point, all of us are familiar with the Hindenburg and Zeppelin designs.

‘This is different. We built a space frame that sits inside of the vehicle and around the frame we built a rigid cell. The function of the rigid cell is to have it work with the aerodynamic laws. It’s a very simple approach.

‘It also allows us to build vehicles very rapidly. When you’re talking about the production of vehicles, you need the ability to build number of them in a short term and with the frames you can do this.’

Source

Nasa’s Curiosity rover has discovered a mysterious metal object emerging from rock on the surface of Mars.

These images were captured by a camera on Curiosity, and reveal the bizarre finger-like structure protruding from the Martian surface and casting a shadow on to the rock below.

Science buffs have suggested the small, shiny-looking object, which makes for an incongruous sight amid the rocks, could be composed of material less susceptible to erosion than its surroundings.

A report on Universe Today said the structure was likely to measure just 0.5cm or less.

It was spotted in the picture beamed back from Mars, which was taken on January 30.

Pictures of the mysterious object emerged after Curiosity drilled its first hole in the surface of Mars, to generate dust it can analyse to detect any traces of life which may once have existed on the planet.

Pictures beamed back from the Martian surface showed a small hole surrounded by a pile of pulverised rock dust, which Nasa hopes to use in sample-collection tests.

In a statement the space agency said Curiosity used both percussion and rotation to bore about 0.8in into the Mars rock as a test in advance of a later full drilling to collect samples.

Completion of this ‘mini drill’ test was confirmed in data from Mars received late Wednesday at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Mission scientists will now assess the drill cuttings around the fresh half-inch diameter hole to determine whether they are suitable for processing by the rover’s on-board lab.

If they pass muster, the rover team plans to proceed with commanding the first full drilling in the coming days, Nasa said.

The test was performed on a patch of flat, vein-bearing rock called ‘John Klein’, which observations suggested had once been weathered by water erosion.

‘Pre-drilling observations of this rock yielded indications of one or more episodes of wet environmental conditions,’ Nasa said.

‘The team plans to use Curiosity’s laboratory instruments to analyse sample powder from inside the rock to learn more about the site’s environmental history.’

The drill is just one of 10 scientific instruments on-board Curiosity which Nasa scientists hope to use to analyse the surface of Mars more closely than they have ever been able to before.

The one-ton rover has been studying the area around the Gale Crater on Mars to see whether it could have ever been habitable by microbial life.

The drilling comes after scientists last month said they believe the discovery of minerals below the Red Planet’s surface is the ‘strongest evidence yet’ it may have supported life.

A new study led by the Natural History Museum, with the University of Aberdeen, found that all the ingredients for life were present just below the planet’s surface for much of its history.

When meteorites strike the surface of Mars, they act like natural probes, bringing up rocks from far beneath the crust.

Looking at data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and ESA’s Mars Express spacecrafts, they analysed rocks and found they contain clays and minerals whose chemical make-up has been altered by water.

With up to half of life on Earth consisting of simple microorganisms that live in below the surface, scientists have suggested that the same may have been true for Mars.

Dr Joseph Michalski, lead author and planetary geologist at the Natural History Museum said: ‘All the ingredients were there for life, but only small single-cell organisms could have survived in those conditions.

‘But I would now be more surprised if there was never any life on Mars, than I would be if we did one day discover that simple life lived in that environment.

‘And if life existed then, there is a chance it could still exist now.’

Source

Iran has unveiled a new domestically-designed and developed fighter jet, which is said to be similar to a US-made warplane.

Qaher-313 (Conqueror-313) advanced military aircraft was put on display during a ceremony on Saturday in the presence of Commander of Iran’s Army Major General Ataollah Salehi, Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi and Commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi on the occasion of the Ten-Day Dawn celebrations commemorating the victory of 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who addressed the unveiling ceremony, reiterated that Iran’s defense might did not serve purposes of “expansionism and aggression against other countries” and it was “deterrent” by nature.

Ahmadinejad also stated that the fighter jet had been completely designed and manufactured by Iranian experts.

Qaher-313 is said to be similar to the US-built F/A-18, although its appearance is similar to F-5E/F Tiger II.

The new single-seat bomber has been manufactured based on state-of-the-art technologies and modern defense achievements.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in the defense sector and gained self-sufficiency in essential military hardware and defense systems.

Azarakhsh (Lightning) is Iran’s first domestically-manufactured combat jet.

Saeqeh (Thunderbolt) fighter jet is a follow-up aircraft, derived from Azarakhsh. Iran unveiled its first squadron of Saeqeh fighter bombers in an air show in September 2010.

Tehran has repeatedly assured other nations, especially regional neighbors, that its military might poses no threat to other countries, stating that its defense doctrine is merely based on deterrence.

SF/HSN/MA

Source

It is named after the Celtic god of thunder, can fly faster than the speed of sound and evades enemy radar with its single-wing stealth design.

This is Taranis, Britain’s latest pilotless combat aircraft, which is even capable of selecting its own targets.

The revolutionary superdrone is due to make its maiden flight in the next few weeks and could spearhead the fight against  terrorism in Africa.

Military chiefs believe Taranis’s ground-breaking technology will allow a powerful new generation of drones equipped with deadly payloads to fly from British bases to attack targets worldwide.

But the new developments in pilotless aircraft are controversial as they allow the possibility of autonomous computers  targeting and killing enemy combatants outside human control.

Experts even warned last night that the new technology raised the nightmare spectre of out-of-control robots waging war on humans – and called for a global ban on autonomous technology.

Britain’s armed drones are currently piloted remotely by aircrews on the ground. But Taranis will follow a set flightpath using on-board computers to perform manoeuvres, avoid threats and identify targets. Only when it needs to attack a target will it seek authorisation from a human controller.

Professor Noel Sharkey, a robotics engineer specialising in autonomous military systems at Sheffield University, said last night:  ‘This is a very dangerous move. Once it has been developed, who knows what new governments who inherit the technology will do with it.’

Last week, Prime Minister David Cameron warned that the fight against terrorism in North Africa could last decades, meaning futuristic drones could dominate counter-terrorism strategy in the region.

The controversy surrounding their use was highlighted last week when the United Nations launched an investigation into the deaths caused by conventional drone attacks.

British Forces currently operate armed drones only in Afghanistan, where they target Taliban insurgents. However, a proliferation in mainly US military technology has sparked a drone arms race. To compete, the UK Government has committed itself to a new generation of pilotless aircraft which can fly distances of more than  2,000 miles.

A defence source said that Taranis’s long-anticipated maiden test flight has been delayed by technological setbacks as well as UK aviation safety laws which restrict the flight of drones in this country.

But the source added that the aircraft, which weighs eight tons and is about the size of an RAF Hawk jet, will make its first flight in Australia in the next few weeks, where its progress will be closely monitored by  Ministry of Defence chiefs.

Prof Sharkey said: ‘Taranis is a concept prototype – so it is really the beta version of an intercontinental attack plane. With the proliferation of pilotless combat aircraft that is certainly going to happen, it wasn’t going to be long before the person was taken out of the loop.

‘It would be very difficult for a human to keep control of teams of these moving at such speed. It could put ours at a disadvantage to others that did not have a human supervisor. This is why we need a global ban on autonomous drones before proliferation begins in earnest.’

But the MoD says the programme is designed so that a human will make the final decision on the firing of weapons and that as a ‘demonstrator’ it was far too early to say what role Taranis would have in future combat missions.

The superdrone, manufactured by BAE, is the product of a 2006 MoD decision to develop and fly an uncrewed aircraft that goes one better than current US systems by using a customised Rolls-Royce jet engine rather than a propeller.

When its sleek design was first unveiled in 2010 at an  airfield in Warton, Lancashire, it was accompanied by boasts from its designers that Taranis could strike at the heart of  Britain’s enemies without risking British lives.

BAE chiefs said Taranis would be an ‘autonomous stealthy Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle [UCAV] ultimately capable of precisely striking targets at long range, even in another continent’.

An MoD spokesman said: ‘Taranis is a trailblazing project that reflects the very best of our nation’s advanced design and technology skills and is  a leading programme on the global stage.

‘Unmanned Air Vehicles play an important role in operations, helping reduce the risks faced by military personnel on the front line.

‘Forthcoming Taranis trials will provide further information about the potential capabilities of Unmanned Combat Air Systems.’

A spokesman for BAE said: ‘Taranis is a joint BAE-MoD programme and we are not at liberty to confirm any details of the forthcoming flight, including the location, timing or who may be present.’

Source

Asteroids could be mined for useful ores and minerals as they hurtle past the Earth under plans by a U.S. company to launch its first rock-prospecting spacecraft by 2015.

Deep Space Industries announced today that it intends to launch a fleet of unmanned ships to intercept small asteroids as they speed past our own planet, possibly finding metals such as platinum.

The company joins a host of other start-up firms which hope to soon exploit the untapped resources of near-Earth objects to help fuel our civilisation’s next phase of technological development.

‘Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of our space program with the innovation of today’s young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago,’ said chairman Rick Tumlinson.

DSI hope to launch their first prospecting spacecraft, which they dub Firefly, in just two years time for missions lasting between two to six months.

The unmanned 55lb (25kg) craft will be built using low-cost cubesat components and make it into orbit by piggybacking on the launch of larger communications satellites.

Mr Tumlinson said the rapid development of computer technology had made it possible for scores of the tiny Fireflies to be easily built and launched for whenever they are needed.

‘We can make amazing machines smaller, cheaper, and faster than ever before,’ he said. ‘Imagine a production line of FireFlies, cocked and loaded and ready to fly out to examine any object that gets near the Earth.’

DSI is only the latest firm set up to take on the challenge of mining extraterrestrial objects.

Avatar director James Cameron and Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt have publicly backed another venture called Planetary Resources which also aims to harvest asteroids for their wealth.

The potential profits are immense. Last spring it was estimated that one single asteroid in our solar system – 241 Germania – has $95.8trillion of mineral wealth inside it.

That’s nearly as much as the annual GDP of the entire world.

However, it’s not yet clear who owns the asteroids spinning around near-Earth space, which is, according to the 1967 Global Space Treaty, ‘a global commons’.

Nevertheless, DSI, which will hold its official launch event later today at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, California, has plunged into the private enterprise space race with enthusiasm.

In a release, the company claims it will begin launching its second phase of satellites as soon as 2016, which it hopes will be able to carry out round-trip missions to collect samples for analysis back on Earth.

In keeping with the ambitions of other space-mining companies, DSI claims that harvesting asteroids for their resources could also help with an eventual manned mission to mars.

Chief executive David Gump, who produced the first ever TV commercial shot on the International Space Station, said: ‘Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development.

‘More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century – a key resource located near where it was needed.

‘In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy.’

The only potential problem that DSI faces is funding. While Planetary Resources boasts the backing of tycoons like Cameron, Schmidt and Page, DSI are hoping to fund their operation from commercial sponsorship.

‘The Google Lunar X Prize, Unilever, and Red Bull each are spending tens of millions of dollars on space sponsorships, so the opportunity to sponsor a FireFly expedition into deep space will be enticing,’ said Mr Gump.

A similar funding plan was suggested to Congress for future Nasa missions by influential lobbyist Robert Walker last month, who said the next Mars rover could be sponsored by Go Daddy.

DSI’s release says the company is now looking for customers and sponsors prepared to take ‘the long view’ who want to be part of creating the ‘new space economy’.

Nevertheless, the company claims it will be ready to harvest asteroids for metals and other building materials for use in space within a decade.

Source

New German laser. Although currently housed in test modules plans are to unveil systems optimised for combat. Click to enlarge

One of the most powerful laser weapons ever fired has successfully shot drones out of the sky from two miles away.

The groundbreaking weapon uses a high powered 50kW laser, and is powerful enough to cut through a steel girder from 1km away, yet accurate enough to hit a target the size of a mortar round.

Rheinmetall Defence, the firm who developed it, say it could eventually become commonplace on the battlefield, and are developing a smaller version that could be taken to the front line to protect troops.

The latest test was conducted at Rheinmetall’s Ochsenboden Proving Groud (EZO) in Switzerland, in snowy conditions and blinding sunlight, and engineers are already drawing up plans to double the power of the laser before its next test.

‘The demonstration delivered compelling evidence for the 50kW weapon technology,’ a spokesman said.

‘A massive, 15mm-thick steel girder was cut through at a distance of 1,000 metres, and the successful shooting down of several nose-diving target drones at a range of two kilometres formed the second major highlight.’

The team were also able to use the system to track and blow up a ball bearing the size of a mortar round.

‘A steel ball measuring 82 mm in diameter and travelling at approximately 50 m/sec, the target replicated a mortar round, the firm said.

‘The Skyguard fire control unit immediately detected the target, followed by mechanical tracking with the 30kW laser weapon station.

‘At this point, the BFU of the laser weapon module took over, optically tracking the target, which was then engaged and destroyed in flight, leaving no doubt as to the tactical viability of using laser weapons.’

In the most impressive test, the German defence firm used the high-energy laser equipment to shoot fast-moving drones at a distance.

The system, which uses two laser weapons combined to form a single beam, was also used to cut through a steel girder a kilometre away.

The system used a radar to detect the drones.

‘Though they were flying at over 50 metres a second, the Skyguard radar had no trouble detecting the incoming unmanned aerial vehicles at a distance of three kilometres

‘Then the 30kW weapon station used the Skyguard data to carry out rough tracking mechanically.’

The optical tracking system in the Beam Forming Units (BFUs) in the individual laser weapon modules performed fine tracking of the UAVs.

After reaching the programmed fire sector the laser weapon modules engaged the UAVs immediately and destroyed the incoming UAVs within a few seconds.

The third highlight: detection, pursuit and successful engagement of an extremely small ballistic target’

Source

A radical new kind of airship funded by the US military is about to make its first test flight – and it looks uncannily like the Thunderbird 2 craft from the classic TV show.

The Aeroscraft airship will carry three times as much as the biggest military cargo planes over thousands of miles, use a third of the fuel, and it doesn’t even need a landing strip.

It could also have major implications for cargo haulage, and almost everything now laboriously transported across the planet’s surface by boat, train and lorry could within years be carried through the skies, its makers claim.

California-based aviation firm Aeros, with heavy backing from the U.S. military, has been developing their revolutionary Aeroscraft for several years, and they say the airship is now in its final stages.

They have built a prototype which they hope will finally prove the concept works in practice and allow them to fine tune their systems.

At 77m (250ft) in length, it is just half the size of the final model, but has been built with the same rigid structure, flight control systems and landing gear.

Now all that needs to be done is for it to demonstrate the vertical take-off and landing that will make possible the point-to-point delivery features that will make it perfect for the commercial market.

The finished version of the Aeroscraft – expected to be ready in three years – will carry a payload of 66 tons at a speed of 120 knots, upto 18,000ft with a range of 3000 nautical miles.

That could revolutionise air transport, opening up remote areas where there is practically no other means of access.

It could carry relief supplies for victims in disaster areas, heavy oil-extraction equipment to northern Canada’s tar sands, huge turbines to remote wind farms and, of course, heavy military equipment to battlefields worldwide.

The key breakthrough has been the development of an internal system for managing ballast.

Previous airships have been held back by the need to weigh them down or tie them up while cargo is unloaded, lest they are suddenly carried away on the breeze.

But the Aeroscraft’s internal ballast management system gives its operators the ability to control the aircraft’s buoyancy by compressing the helium inside its tanks to make it heavier than air and bring down to the ground.

Once cargo has been loaded, the airship can rise by re-releasing the compressed helium into its containment tanks, making it again lighter than air, then using turbo-prop engines to control its diretion.

Because of this revolutionary system, Aeroscraft needs no airfield to operate, only a cleared area large enough for it to vertically take off and land, and enough labour on hand to unload the cargo.

Aeros’s founder and CEO Igor Pasternak, 48, told Gizmag: ‘The advantage is you don’t need ground infrastructure. You can fly anywhere, you can land anywhere, you don’t need any ballast, you don’t need any ground crew.’

The airship has long been known as a ‘dream machine’ for visionary inventors.

Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin built the first airship in 1900 as a weapon for Germany. The ‘Graf Zeppelin’ was developed by Dr Hugo Eckener, who flew it around the world in 21 days in 1929.

This powerful symbol of German might was adopted by the Nazis, who funded the creation of the largest airship yet, the Hindenburg.

However, on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg burst into flames on a trip to the US, having been filled with patriotic German hydrogen instead of American helium.

But Ukrainian-born Mr Pasternak says that his design for a rigid airship is miles apart from the disastrous versions of the early 20th Century.

He told Gizmag: ‘From the structure stand point, all of us are familiar with the Hindenburg and Zeppelin designs.

‘This is different. We built a space frame that sits inside of the vehicle and around the frame we built a rigid cell. The function of the rigid cell is to have it work with the aerodynamic laws. It’s a very simple approach.

‘It also allows us to build vehicles very rapidly. When you’re talking about the production of vehicles, you need the ability to build number of them in a short term and with the frames you can do this.’

The U.S. military has been a key player in the development of the Aeroscraft, with the Pentagon and Nasa giving Aeros a total of $36million towards its research.

‘Without the initial funding of the Ministry of Defence it would not be possible to bring such a project to roll,’ Mr Pasternak told FT Deutschland.

Accordingly, the first operational versions have already been earmarked for ‘intra-theatre airlift’, Defense Transportation Journal reports, with each carrying the payload of three C-130 transport planes, but with the fuel cost of just one.

Source

SpaceX’s prototype Grasshopper reusable rocket took a giant leap for commercial space flight last week when it rose 131ft and landed safely back on Earth.

The latest launch by the private space travel company, which has already run resupply missions to the International Space Station, is a major step in their ambition to produce a reusable space vehicle.

In its previous two flights the Grasshopper has managed to hover at six feet and 17ft before settling back down.

California-based SpaceX documented last week’s successful test launch at their test pad in McGregor, Texas, in a YouTube video published last night.

It was accompanied by a series of humorous tweets from the pioneering company’s eccentric billionaire founder Elon Musk.

‘To provide a little perspective on the size of Grasshopper, we added a 6ft cowboy to the rocket,’ he wrote.

Powered by a Falcon 9 rocket and Merlin 1D engine, the 10-storey-tall Grasshopper rocket is designed to take off and land vertically – part of SpaceX’s plant to develop a rocket that can return to a launch pad for rapid reuse.

It has four steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers and a steel support structure to keep it intact when it settles back down to terra firma.

Vertical-takeoff space vehicles developed thus far rely on disposable lower stages, which adds millions of dollars to the cost of launching spacecraft into orbit.

A new generation of reusable rockets that can launch, fly and land would dramatically slash the cost of travelling into space.

In the 29-second test flight conducted December 17, the Grasshopper rocket rose to a height of 131ft – around ten storeys – and hovered before landing safely on its launch pad using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control.

Mr Musk declared the launch a success, writing on Twitter: ‘No problemo.’

As well as the Grasshopper project, SpaceX has already achieved the accolade of becoming the first private company to launch a successful mission to the International Space Station.

It’s first launch of its unmanned Dragon capsule was in May, with a follow up mission to the ISS completed successfully in October.

But Mr Musk’s even more ambitious long-term goal is to establish a colony on Mars, and he has said that reusable rockets like the Grasshopper are ‘the pivotal step’ in achieving that.

Source

A planet just 12 light years away from Earth orbitting a star similiar to our sun could be a suitable environment to sustain the right conditions for life, according to scientists.

 Scientists have discovered a planet that could support life – orbiting a twin neighbour of the sun that is visible to the naked eye.

The planet is one of five thought to be circling a star that is just 12 light years away from Earth called Tau Ceti, which is near identical to the sun.

Astronomers have estimated the planet to be two to six times bigger than Earth and five times its mass, lying in the star’s habitable zone, the orbital region that is neither too hot nor too cold to allow liquid surface water and the formation of life.

The planet is thought to be close enough for humans to eventually travel there. Details of the discovery appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Dr James Jenkins, a member of the international team from the University of Hertfordshire, said: “Tau Ceti is one of our nearest cosmic neighbours and so bright that we may be able to study the atmospheres of these planets in the not-too-distant future.

The difficulties involved in detecting extra-solar planets mean that most discovered so far have had high masses but the Tau Ceti planets are thought to be the lowest mass solar system ever detected.

Scientists used a highly sensitive technique combining data from more than 6,000 observations from three different telescopes along with a radial velocity method, looking for “wobble” in a star’s movement caused by the gravitational tug of planets.

“Planetary systems found around nearby stars close to our sun indicate that these systems are common in our Milky Way galaxy.”

More than 800 planets have been discovered orbiting stars beyond the sun since the 1990s and those found around the nearest sun-like stars are the most interesting to astronomers.

Professor Steve Vogt, team member from the University of California at Santa Cruz, said: “This discovery is in-keeping with our emerging view that virtually every star has planets, and that the galaxy must have many such potentially habitable Earth-sized planets. They are everywhere, even right next door.”

In 2010 scientists discovered a planet 22 light years away that has temperature ranging from -24 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, although its orbit is fixed so one side always faces the sun and the other side is permanently cold.

Scientists believe that these finds suggest that in future intelligent life could be found.

Source

Pilotless planes have taken one step closer to reality after BAE systems revealed it will test a new fighter jet next year.

The company is set to win two contracts including one for the Mantis, which can fly on its own for 24 hours with no cockpit and no human on board.

If all goes as planned the artificial intelligence could mean the end of fighter pilots in the UK and bring down the curtain on conventional aircraft like the F-35.

And come 2013 the Mantis will be making its first flight over Britain as it is tested to see if it works.

BAE even claims that the technology could one day be used to pilot commercial jets in a similar way to driverless trains now.

According to The Times, the BAE deal is a joint project between the Ministry of Defence in the UK and the French government and is worth around £40 million.

British taxpayers will effectively be contributing for the project, which also aims to develop drones for reconnaissance and information gathering.

It is the Mantis however that will get most of the attention.
BAE has said it is perfect for ‘dull, dirty or dangerous’ missions, such as bombing runs on suspected Al Qaeda targets.

It is not a drone as such, but rather a robotic plane which has a far wider range of equipment and capabilities.

The Mantis can do the surveillance work of four helicopters, find its own targets and deliver deadly missiles, all without the aid of a crew on board.

Flights will cover 750 miles and it will travel up to 15,000ft above the Irish sea during tests.

According to BAE systems it will have an ‘electronic eye’, or cockpit mounted camera, so that a flight test observer and a supervisor can watch what is happening on the ground on computers

They will remotely control the takeoff and landing but once in the air the craft flies itself, although the Mantis does have an infra-red camera so that it can land itself in an emergency.

Next year there are expected to be 20 test flights, each lasting around three hours.

One fully operational it will be able to reach 60,000ft and carries surveillance equipment so advanced it can decrypt and listen to mobile phone messages instantly in mid-air.

It had been feared that cuts the Ministry of Defence could shelve Mantis, but the project now appears to be going ahead.

Chris Boardman, BAE’s head of military aircraft, told The Times: ‘There is a good likelihood that we will move ahead on what might be financially modest but strategically very important contracts.

‘It will take a decade to mature for production and operation the next generation of technology. We understand the constraints of the current financial climate but we need to start doing what we need to do.’

Source

Meet Robocod, the latest weapon in Homeland Security’s increasingly high-tech underwater arsenal, a robotic fish designed to safeguard the coastline of America and bring justice to the deep.

Well almost.

The new robot, named BioSwimmer, is actually based not on a cod but a tuna which is said to have the ideal natural shape for an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).

Its ultra-flexible body coupled with mechanical fins and tail allow it to dart around the water just like a real fish even in the harshest of environments.

And while it does have a number of security applications, this high maneuverability makes it perfectly suited for accessing hard-to-reach places such as flooded areas of ships, sea chests and parts of oil tankers.

Other potential missions include inspecting and protecting harbors and piers, performing area searches and military applications.

BioSwimmer uses the latest battery technology for long-duration operation and boasts an array of navigation, sensor processing, and communications equipment designed for constricted spaces.

It is being developed by Boston Engineering Corporation’s Advanced Systems Group (ASG) basesd in Waltham, Massachusetts.

David Taylor, program manager for the project at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Fox News: ‘It’s all about distilling the science. It’s called ‘biomimetics.

‘We’re using nature as a basis for design and engineering a system that works exceedingly well.

‘Tuna have had millions of years to develop their ability to move in the water with astounding efficiency. Hopefully we won’t take that long.’

BioSwimmer is also capable of operating in high viscocity fluids such as crude oil, which could make it a valuable tool for off-shore drilling operations.

It can be controlled by an operator using a laptop computer but is also being designed to function autonomously.

AGS Director Mike Rufo added: ‘It’s designed to support a variety of tactical missions and with its interchangeable sensor payloads and reconfigurable Operator Controls, and can be optimized on a per-mission basis.’

Source

Down the years and across the universe, the heroes of science-fiction classics from Dan Dare to Star Wars and The Matrix have fought intergalactic battles with weapons that wipe out enemy electronics at the touch of a button.

Now scientists have turned fantasy into reality by developing a missile that targets buildings with microwaves that disable computers but don’t harm people.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing successfully tested the weapon on a one-hour flight during which  it knocked out the computers of an entire military compound in the Utah desert.

It is thought the missile could  penetrate the bunkers and caves believed to be hiding Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities. But experts have warned that, in the wrong hands, the technology could be used to bring Western cities such as London to their knees.

During Boeing’s experiment, the missile flew low over the Utah Test and Training Range, discharging  electromagnetic pulses on to seven targets, permanently shutting down their electronics.

Boeing said that the test was so successful even the camera recording it was disabled.

Codenamed the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), it is the first time a missile with electromagnetic pulse capability has been tested.

For security reasons, Boeing declined to release film of the test, but instead issued an artist’s impression of it on video. In the clip, a stealth aircraft deploys a missile that emits radio waves from its undercarriage which knock out the computer systems inside the buildings below.

The company did release real film showing a row of computers that can be seen shutting down when the electromagnetic pulse is switched on. 

Although the project is shrouded in secrecy, experts believe the missile is equipped with an electromagnetic pulse cannon. This uses a super-powerful microwave oven to generate a concentrated beam of energy which causes voltage surges in electronic equipment, rendering them useless before surge protectors have the chance to react.

Keith Coleman, CHAMP programme manager for Boeing’s  prototype arm Phantom Works, said the technology marked ‘a new era in modern warfare’.

He added: ‘In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data  systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive. 

‘We hit every target we wanted and made science fiction into science fact. When the computers went out, it actually took out the cameras as well. It was fantastic.’

The project has cost £24 million and has been developed on behalf of the US Air Force Research Laboratory following a request from the Pentagon four years ago.

Lead test engineer Peter Finlay said: ‘We’re not quite at the place where the Star Trek and Star Wars movies are but this is definitely  an advancement in technology  able to give us an opportunity to  do things we could not do before.’ James Dodd, vice-president of Advanced Boeing Military Aircraft, said there was a real need for  a weapon that could knock out a  target but not cause harm to people and structures.

He said: ‘We know this has capabilities and impact. We’re trying to see if we can get it implemented sooner rather than later.’

However, experts fear that  the project could create an arms race, with countries scrambling to build their own electromagnetic pulse weapons.

Professor Trevor Taylor, Professorial Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the Western world would be much more vulnerable to such an attack because of our increased reliance on electronics. He added: ‘This is a challenging area in political and military terms. Ideally there would have been an arms-control agreement to cover this field, because once technology is actually developed, control becomes harder.

‘The historical record shows  that important technologies developed in one country are developed elsewhere within a relatively short period – look what happened with regard to the USSR and  nuclear weapons. 

‘Should the US be known to have developed such a technology to the production stage, it would drive  others to try to act similarly.

‘Western countries are more dependent on electronics-based IT than others and would be vulnerable to extensive disruption.’

Source

Some dolphins used by the US Navy to track down mines will soon lose their jobs to robots – but they will be reassigned, not retired.

Starting in 2017, 24 of the Navy’s 80 military-trained dolphins will be replaced by a 12ft unmanned torpedo-shaped vehicle, according to the newspaper U-T San Diego.

The military said the machines can do some of the same mine-hunting duties as the dolphins. And they can be manufactured quickly, in contrast to the seven years it takes to train a dolphin.

But the dolphins will not be relieved of all duties. They will be used along with sea lions for port security and retrieving objects from the sea floor, the newspaper reported.

The Navy’s $28m marine-mammal programme has been in operation since the late 1950s and once included killer whales and sharks. Based in San Diego, it currently uses 80 bottle-nosed dolphins and 40 California sea lions.

In recent years, dolphins have been deployed to Iraq and Bahrain to patrol for enemy divers and mark the locations of mines. Using their innate sonar, the dolphins find and mark mines in shallow water, in deep water when tethers are used, and on the bottom where sediment cover and plant growth can hide the devices.

AP

Source

The discovery of huge amounts of water ice and possible organic compounds on the heat-blasted planet Mercury suggests that the raw materials necessary for life as we know it may be common throughout the solar system, researchers say.

Mercury likely harbors between 100 billion and 1 trillion metric tons of water ice in permanently shadowed areas near its poles, scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft announced Thursday (Nov. 29).

Life on sun-scorched Mercury remains an extreme longshot, the researchers stressed, but the new results should still put a spring in the step of astrobiologists around the world.

“The more we examine the solar system, the more we realize it’s a soggy place,” Jim Green, the director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said during a press conference today.

“And that’s really quite exciting, because that means the amount of water that we have here on Earth — that was not only inherent when it was originally formed but probably brought here — that water and other volatiles were brought to many other places in the solar system,” Green added. “So it really bodes well for us to continue on the exploration, following the water and its signs throughout the solar system.” [Latest Mercury Photos from Messenger]

Organics, too?

The observations by Messenger, which has been orbiting Mercury since March 2011, provide compelling evidence that reflective patches first spotted near the planet’s poles by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico two decades ago are indeed water ice, researchers said.

In the coldest parts of Mercury — permanently shadowed regions where temperatures drop to perhaps minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit — this ice can lie bare and exposed. But Messenger’s data also show that much more frozen water is found in slightly warmer areas, buried beneath a strange dark material that acts as an insulator.

This dark stuff is likely a mixture of complex organic compounds, the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it, researchers said during Thursday’s news conference.

“This organic material may be the same type of organic material that ultimately gave rise to life on Earth,” said Messenger participating scientist David Paige of UCLA.

Helping scientists read the book of life

Mercury probably acquired much of its water and organic material the same way Earth did, researchers said — via comet impacts and asteroid strikes. Ice and organics are common on the frigid bodies in the solar system’s outer reaches.

“There’s a lot of water out there, as there is a lot of water around other stars, but at substantial distance,” said Messenger principal investigator Sean Solomon, of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

With its ultra-thin atmosphere and proximity to the sun, Mercury is probably not a good bet to host life as we know it. But finding ice and organics there should still inform the hunt for organisms beyond Earth and aid scientists’ quest to learn more about how life took root on our planet.

“The history of life begins with the delivery to some home object of water and of the building blocks, the organic building blocks, that must undergo some kind of chemistry, which we still don’t understand on our own planet,” Solomon said.

“And so Mercury is becoming an object of astrobiological interest, where it wasn’t much of one before,” Solomon added. “That’s not say to say that we expect to find any lifeforms — I don’t think anybody on this table does — but in terms of the book of life, there are some early chapters, and Mercury may indeed inform us about what’s in those chapters.”

Source

An “historic” discovery made by NASA’s Mars rover was teased by the space agency, but just when space enthusiasts were getting excited, NASA backpedaled, saying that the discovery won’t be earthshaking, but it will be interesting. It may be a case of once bitten twice shy as NASA has been through this sort of “big discovery” before.

 When a NASA official said last week data from an instrument on the Mars Curiosity rover suggested something “for the history books,” many people thought an announcement was imminent of the possible discovery of life on the Red Planet – until the space agency began to seriously backpedal on the story.

It may be a case of once bitten twice shy as NASA has been through this before – a hotly anticipated and heavily hyped bit of news that only disappoints in the end.

The current excitement began when Curiosity mission lead scientist John Grotzninger started receiving data on his computer from the rover’s on-board chemistry lab while in the presence of a reporter from National Public Radio.

The instrument known as Sam, sample analysis at Mars, has been analyzing a Martian soil sample.

“This data is going to be one for the history books. It’s looking really good,” Grotzinger told NPR.

Grotzinger would not reveal anything more, saying it could be several more weeks while NASA scientists went over the data to make sure it wasn’t a glitch or something from earth contaminating the instrument sample.

Still, a lot of people thought “one for the history books” could only mean SAM had found something suggesting evidence of life on Mars at some point.

SAM is in fact designed to look for organic molecules and while organic molecules would be important, it is not the same thing as “life on Mars.” NASA quickly began downplaying talk of a major discovery.

“It won’t be earthshaking but it will be interesting,” said spokesperson Guy Webster of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA’s caution is understandable; it has been through this before.

In 2010 researchers led by then NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon said they had discovered a form of “alien life” right here on Earth, bacteria found in a California lake whose DNA they claimed contained arsenic – highly poisonous – rather than phosphorus.

Announced with much publicity and fanfare at a NASA news conference, the finding intrigued astrobiologists, who’d previously speculated extraterrestrial life might survive in unexpected and extreme environments if it were based on something other than phosphorus or carbon – something like arsenic.

But the finding was controversial, and soon other researchers said they were unable to duplicate the results Wolfe-Simon said she had discovered at California’s Mono Lake.

Many scientists responded by saying the data made no sense, were inconsistent with well-established chemical principles and did not support the interpretation and conclusions in the study published in Science.

There was general disagreement with the original authors’ contention that arsenic was incorporated into the DNA. The bacteria were highly resistant to arsenate, other researchers said, but they were still a phosphorus-based and thus a terrestrial life form.

The studies left astrobiologists disappointed and left NASA with a bit of egg on its face for having made initial “alien life” comments in its run-up to the very public introduction of Wolfe-Simon’s original research. A suggestion by one of the coauthors of the Science article of a “shadow bioshpere” based on chemistry other than that found in life on earth has failed to gain any traction with biologists.

The “arsenic” episode is likely one reason NASA has in speculation about the Mars Curiosity discovery, to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment.

NASA now says it will be repeating tests to conclusively confirm its still-secret findings – whatever they are – and will not officially release them until December, at the next meeting of the American Geophysical Union, set for Dec. 3-7 in San Francisco.

Not “earthshaking,” NASA reminds us – just “interesting.”

Source

A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology.

Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on Earth to no more than four hours away.

That ambition was given a boost on Wednesday by ESA, which has acted as an independent auditor on the Sabre test programme.

“ESA are satisfied that the tests demonstrate the technology required for the Sabre engine development,” the agency’s head of propulsion engineering Mark Ford told a news conference.

“One of the major obstacles to a re-usable vehicle has been removed,” he said. “The gateway is now open to move beyond the jet age.”

The space plane, dubbed Skylon, only exists on paper. What the company has right now is a remarkable heat exchanger that is able to cool air sucked into the engine at high speed from 1,000 degrees Celsius to minus 150 degrees in one hundredth of a second.

This core piece of technology solves one of the constraints that limit jet engines to a top speed of about 2.5 times the speed of sound, which Reaction Engines believes it could double.

SHROUDED IN SECRECY

With the Sabre engine in jet mode, the air has to be compressed before being injected into the engine’s combustion chambers. Without pre-cooling, the heat generated by compression would make the air hot enough to melt the engine.

The challenge for the engineers was to find a way to cool the air quickly without frost forming on the heat exchanger, which would clog it up and stop it working.

Using a nest of fine pipes that resemble a large wire coil, the engineers have managed to get round this fatal problem that would normally follow from such rapid cooling of the moisture in atmospheric air.

They are tight-lipped on exactly how they managed to do it.

“We are not going to tell you how this works,” said the company’s chief designer Richard Varvill, who started his career at the military engine division of Rolls-Royce. “It is our most closely guarded secret.”

The company has deliberately avoided filing patents on its heat exchanger technology to avoid details of how it works – particularly the method for preventing the build-up of frost – becoming public.

The Sabre engine could take a plane to five times the speed of sound and an altitude of 25 km, about 20 percent of the speed and altitude needed to reach orbit. For space access, the engines would then switch to rocket mode to do the remaining 80 percent.

IT COULD EVEN MAKE THE TEA

Reaction Engines believes Sabre is the only engine of its kind in development and the company now needs to raise about 250 million pounds ($400 million) to fund the next three-year development phase in which it plans to build a small-scale version of the complete engine.

Chief executive Tim Hayter believes the company could have an operational engine ready for sale within 10 years if it can raise the development funding.

The company reckons the engine technology could win a healthy chunk of four key markets together worth $112 billion (69 billion pounds) a year, including space access, hypersonic air travel, and modified jet engines that use the heat exchanger to save fuel.

The fourth market is unrelated to aerospace. Reaction Engines believes the technology could also be used to raise the efficiency of so-called multistage flash desalination plants by 15 percent. These plants, largely in the Middle East, use heat exchangers to distil water by flash heating sea water into steam in multiple stages.

The firm has so far received 90 percent of its funding from private sources, mainly rich individuals including chairman Nigel McNair Scott, the former mining industry executive who also chairs property developer Helical Bar.

Chief executive Tim Hayter told Reuters he would welcome government investment in the company, mainly because of the credibility that would add to the project.

But the focus will be on raising the majority of the 250 million pounds it needs now from a mix of institutional investors, high net worth individuals and possibly potential partners in the aerospace industry.

STANDING START

Sabre produces thrust by burning hydrogen and oxygen, but inside the atmosphere it would take that oxygen from the air, reducing the amount it would have to carry in fuel tanks for rocket mode, cutting weight and allowing Skylon to go into orbit in one stage.

Scramjets on test vehicles like the U.S. Air Force Waverider also use atmospheric air to create thrust but they have to be accelerated to their operating speed by normal jet engines or rockets before they kick in. The Sabre engine can operate from a standing start.

If the developers are successful, Sabre would be the first engine in history to send a vehicle into space without using disposable, multi-stage rockets.

Skylon is years away, but in the meantime the technology is attracting interest from the global aerospace industry and governments because it effectively doubles the technical limits of current jet engines and could cut the cost of space access.

The heat exchanger technology could also be incorporated into a new jet engine design that could cut 5 to 10 percent – or $10 (6.25 pounds)-20 billion – off airline fuel bills.

That would be significant in an industry where incremental efficiency gains of one percent or so, from improvements in wing design for instance, are big news.

Source