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http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006 Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government. The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine. The theoretical engine works by...

  Do We Finally Get To Kill Somebody?November 10, 2005 With real threats to our national security in full bloom, and traitors in need of immediate lethal injection, why is the Beltway obsessed with much ado about a paper-pushing blond and her self-admitted psychedelic husband?  Maybe the rest of liberal America, along with Joe Wilson, have had “too many wives and taken too many drugs”. Or, in Bill Bennett’s words is it just a case of Overt Inconsistency?  As Bennett rhetorically notes about the liberals, and the MSM Fifth Column, their “support for the CIA, and...for secrecy in war and intelligence, lasted...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An engineer and Chinese television director are among four people indicted on charges of stealing secret documents on Navy warships and trying to smuggle them to China, prosecutors said Friday. Chi Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China who lives in Los Angeles County, was arrested Oct. 28. He allegedly took computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a research project involving warship propulsion systems, according to an FBI affidavit. He also allegedly e-mailed photos and reports about the project to his home computer. Authorities say Chi Mak and...

SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Aerojet, a GenCorp Inc. (NYSE: GY) company, has received a two-phase contract from NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate to design, build, test and deliver a sub-scale electric propulsion direct drive system. The direct drive system will validate the technology for future full-scale use on Moon and Mars cargo transport vehicles. The two-phase, $12.3 million contract (including all options) was awarded by NASA's Glenn Research Center. Aerojet's direct drive system will deliver high-voltage power directly from space vehicle solar panels, to electric propulsion Hall thrusters. This will eliminate costly and heavy primary power converters and...

SANDUSKY, Ohio - Scientists working with a synthetic material 100-times thinner than a piece of paper are testing their theory that the sun can power interplanetary spacecraft. They believe that streams of solar energy particles called photons can push a giant, reflecting sail through space the way wind pushes sailboats across water.

A giant asteroid the size of three football pitches will make the closest flyby of Earth in recorded history for an object of its size, scientists said. It will pass between the Earth and the Moon and will even come closer than the orbit of many telecommunications satellites, although astronomers insisted that there is little chance of a collision with the massive rock. Anxious Earthlings need not worry too much for another 24 years, however, because asteroid 2004 MN4 is not due to make its closest approach to Earth until approximately 10pm London time on Friday 13th April 2029. The...

  POSTAL STS - Solar Thruster Sailor RSS - Ring Segment System LTH - Launcher Transport Head EFO - Experimental Flying Object RSC - Rotational Slingshot Catapult L I N K S ENGLISH Search - Solar Sailing - Propulsion Systems - Thruster - Lifters - Magnetism, Diamagnetism - Gravity, Antigravity, Gyroscope, Rotation - Space Tethers and Catapults - Space - UFO - Materials - Space Settlement - Space Mining - Space Tugboats - deflection - Sun - micro-/ nano spacecraft - Billboards, Message Lists - News - Newsgroups - Search - Solar Sailing Sites www.solarsails.info Benjamin Diedrichs NEW (July...

A new means of propelling spacecraft being developed at the University of Washington could dramatically cut the time needed for astronauts to travel to and from Mars and could make humans a permanent fixture in space. In fact, with magnetized-beam plasma propulsion, or mag-beam, quick trips to distant parts of the solar system could become routine, said Robert Winglee, a UW Earth and space sciences professor who is leading the project. Currently, using conventional technology and adjusting for the orbits of both the Earth and Mars around the sun, it would take astronauts about 2.5 years to travel to Mars,...

JPL Open House Jet Propulsion Laboratory News Release NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will hold an open house on Sat. and Sun., May 15 and 16, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., taking visitors on a virtual ride through the solar system with this year's theme, "The Spirit of Exploration." This fun-filled, family event has a little of everything for space enthusiasts and non-space buffs. You can explore the planets as you walk through a model of the solar system, build your own spacecraft, and have your picture taken in infrared light. Visitors will have the opportunity to...

NASA Successfully Tests Ion Engine NASA's Project Prometheus recently reached an important milestone with the first successful test of an engine that could lead to revolutionary propulsion capabilities for space exploration missions throughout the solar system and beyond. The test involved 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) applications. "The initial test went extremely well," said Dr. John Foster, the primary investigator of the HiPEP ion engine at NASA's Glenn Research...

3 June 2003: Space Propulsion, Hearing before the Senate Science, Technology, and Space (SpaceRef) Subcommittee "This hearing will examine the research being done by NASA and the private sector to develop new in-space propulsion technologies. Senator Brownback will preside." ================================================ Pratt & Whitney Testimony of Larry Knauer, Pratt & Whitney, Given at a Senate Science, Technology, and Space Hearing on Space Propulsion Mr. Chairman, Senator Breaux and other members of the Subcommittee, I am Larry Knauer, President of Pratt & Whitney's Space Propulsion and Russian Operations in West Palm Beach, Florida. I want to thank you for the opportunity to...

NASA Researchers Put New Spin On Einstein's Relativity Theory Albert Einstein might be astonished to learn that NASA physicists have applied his relativity theory to a concept he introduced but later disliked namely that two particles that interact could maintain a connection even if separated by a vast distance. Researchers often refer to this connection as "entanglement." Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have discovered that this entanglement is relative, depending on how fast an observer moves with respect to the particles, and that entanglement can be created or destroyed just by relative motion. This might change...

Compression Experiments In World's Largest Pulse Power Machine The Mini-Mag Orion system, short for Miniature Magnetic Orion, is a scaled down but more efficient version of the 1958 Orion interplanetary propulsion concept. The original Orion concept proposed the use of nuclear explosives ejected behind a spacecraft to propel it to other planets. Seattle - Apr 08, 2003 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...

Efforts by Stanford University and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory to buy an unusual, bismuth-fueled electric propulsion system from Russia have hit a snag at NASA headquarters, where managers have concerns about the legality of the proposed deal, NASA officials said. American scientists hope to test the thruster inside a vacuum tank at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and then design their own version. The scientists want to learn whether a thruster fueled by bismuth, a metallic element that is fairly plentiful, has the durability to propel an unmanned probe on long voyages to the outer planets. The bismuth...

When NASA rolls out its FY 2004 budget on Monday a large new planetary exploration mission will be revealed. The Bush Adminstration has signed off on a multi-billion-dollar-class mission dubbed "Jupiter Tour' - a mission which embodies a radical departure from the past four decades of planetary exploration. Jupiter Tour would utilize a sophisticated spacecraft capable of multiple jumps from an orbit around one jovian moon to an orbit around another. Such a capability will allow close, detailed, and long-term studies to be made of many of the members of Jupiter's retinue of 40 (or more) moons. The mission is...

NASA Chief Outlines New Nuclear, Space Plane Efforts By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 06:40 pm ET24 January 2003 NASA chief, Sean O'Keefe confirmed today White House support for the space agency to accelerate work on space nuclear power and propulsion, as well as grapple with the challenges of extended long-duration human spaceflight. O'Keefe discussed a speed up in several space research areas over NASA Television from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He said that President Bush's release on February 3 of the space agency's Fiscal Year 2004 budget will carry "a number of very...

Hoping to pave the way for the human exploration of Mars within the next decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is expected to announce that developing a nuclear-powered rocket is its top research priority. The space agency is expected to request "significant resources and funding" to design a nuclear-powered propulsion system to triple the speed of current space travel, theoretically making it possible for humans to reach Mars in a two-month voyage. Excerpt; rest of article here: Agency expected to seek funding to develop way to travel 3 times

NASA wants space flights to be nuclear Fission would be used to produce electricity Agency says safety top priority in 2-pronged project GWYNETH SHAW SPECIAL TO THE STAR WASHINGTON—There's a fact that NASA chief administrator Sean O'Keefe has become fond of sharing during his first year in office: Today's spaceships travel at the same speed as the Friendship 7 when John Glenn rode it to fame with his 1962 orbit of the Earth. O'Keefe's point: There have been few advances in space propulsion in the last 40 years. If the chief has his way, however, that will change. Last year,...

Superfast VASIMR Rocket in Funding Limbo By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 07 August 2002 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...

Glenn Powers Ahead With Ion Engine Robert Jankovsky, NASA Glenn's Hall Thruster team lead, displays a model of the new NASA-457M Hall thruster, the largest ever built and tested. Cleveland - Jul 11, 2002 A giant leap toward enabling high power electric propulsion was recently demonstrated. With power levels up to 72 kW and nearly 3 Newtons of thrust, NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, has designed, built and successfully tested a 50 kW-class Hall thruster. Designated the NASA-457M, this new Hall thruster has shown more than a factor of ten increase in the power and thrust levels over state-of-the-art Hall...