Month: May 2022

Add the Defense Innovation Unit to a growing list of U.S. government organizations furthering their work in nuclear power in pace. The organization, which seeks to get the military ready to use emergent commercial products, announced two prototype contracts on May 17 “to demonstrate the next generation of nuclear propulsion and power capability for spacecraft.” The ultimate aim is an orbital flight demonstration in 2027, DIU officials said in a statement (opens in new tab).  The contracts went to two companies, Ultra Safe Nuclear and Avalanche Energy,  to demonstrate nuclear…

Whether your memories of futuristic robot boxing come from the classic “Twilight Zone” episode, “Steel” or director Sean Levy’s entertaining 2007 sci-fi flick, “”Real Steel,” there no denying that watching androids slugging it out with other fighting machines or brave humans is a rousing spectacle few can resist. Tapping into our natural gladiatorial urges is a new five-issue comic book miniseries from Image/Top Cow that puts agile robotic athletes into the ring with enhanced Homo sapiens brawlers to determine the ultimate champion. “Metal Society (opens in new tab)” is written…

The Artemis lunar landing program is moving ahead with SpaceX, Blue Origin, Dynetics, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin all vying to bring astronauts to the moon. On this episode of This Week in Space (opens in new tab), Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik look at NASA’s plans to use new commercial vehicles to land astronauts on the moon, what lessons we learned from the Apollo-era Lunar Module and what the future may bring.  They’re joined by  Jared Head of TMRO, who joins the discussion to describe the history of the Inspiration…

The May 2022 Super Flower Blood Moon lunar eclipse shines with the aurora above the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica on May 15, 2022 in this photo by astronomer Aman Chokshi. (Image credit: Aman Chokshi) This stunning time-lapse photograph shows the May 15 total lunar eclipse above an astronomical observatory at the South Pole on the backdrop of magnificent auroras and the star-studded polar sky. The lunar eclipse picture was taken by Aman Chokshi, a PhD astronomy student at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who is currently spending a year…

What if we thought of our ancestors as a form of alien life? Such an exercise might be one of the ways that we can test our assumptions about how habitable conditions arise and are sustained, and perhaps even about how life evolved from simple microbes into something more complex, reporters heard during an online presentation May 18 held by the American Geophysical Union as part of its astrobiology-focused AbSciCon conference. “The ancient Earth is kind of an exoplanet,” said Aaron Goldman, a biology professor at Oberlin College who studies…