Would you rather travel in a submarine or travel in space? And can you believe that there is one occupation that may not have heard about the coronavirus yet?
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The Year in Space Travel - WSJ
We don't have to remind readers of the ways that 2020 has been dispiriting, but there's been some good news. The Covid vaccine rollout is a tribute to American ingenuity, and then there's the remarkable success of the SpaceX rocket launches.
The latter have become so routine that they barely make the news. On Saturday the company lit the fuse on one of its 229-foot Falcon 9 rockets, which put into orbit a U.S. spy satellite. It was SpaceX's 26th launch of 2020.
New Policy Sets in Motion Nuclear Space Travel and Colonization
Scott Pace of the National Space Council, commented "Space nuclear power and propulsion is a fundamentally enabling technology for American deep-space missions to Mars and beyond. The United States intends to remain the leader among spacefaring nations, applying nuclear power technology safely, securely, and sustainably in space." The key factor for enabling space travel are the new nuclear powered propulsion systems, as traditional chemical powered rocket fuels are hopelessly weak.
Princeton Plasma Physics Lab is in the process of developing a fusion powered spacecraft called the Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) which can produce thrust directly from fusion, while US Nuclear and MIFTI are just a few years away from producing the world's first working fusion power generator.
Preparing for "Earth to Earth" space travel and a competition with supersonic airliners
Commercial spaceflight companies are preparing to enter a new market: suborbital flights from one place to another on Earth. Aiming for fast transportation for passengers and cargo, these systems are being developed by a combination of established companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, and new ones like Astra.
Technical and business challenges lie ahead for this new frontier, and an important piece is the coming wave of supersonic aircraft which could offer safer but slower alternatives to spaceflight. These two different approaches could face off in the 2020s to be the future of transportation on Earth.
Not to change the topic here:
Category: How could humans travel in space? - Sciworthy
Five Books Featuring Space Travel Powered by Atomic Bombs | Tor.com
Nuclear explosives can be used to address many urgent issues: a shortage of mildly radioactive harbours, for example, or the problem of having too many wealthy, industrialized nations not populated by survivors who envy the dead. The most pressing issue—the need for a fast, affordable space drive—wasn't solved until the late 1950s. Theodore B. Taylor and others proposed that the Bomb could be used to facilitate rapid space travel across the Solar System. Thus, Project Orion was born.
UK scientists plan to supercharge space travel using nuclear power - CGTN
A rocket lifts off at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, sending a Mars rover to the Red Planet in July 2020. Future journeys to Mars could be halved. /John Raoux/AP
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UK researchers want to use nuclear power to turbo-boost space travel and drastically cut the radiation experienced by astronauts.
The UK Space Agency and Rolls-Royce say their study could revolutionize space travel, as planetary scientists explore the potential of nuclear power as a more plentiful source of energy. Journey times to Mars could potentially be halved to three months.
Scientists Have Been Aging Wine in Space — and 12 Bottles Are Back on Earth and Ready to Drink |
A dozen bottles of French Bordeaux wine returned to Earth this week after spending over a year aging in space.
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In November 2019, SpaceX launched the bottles of wine along with 320 merlot and cabernet sauvignon vine snippets into space for an experiment by the start-up Space Cargo Unlimited. The bottles and snippets spent about a year at the ISS orbiting the Earth while they aged.
"Our goal is to tackle the solution of how we're going to have an agriculture tomorrow that is both organic and healthy and able to feed humanity, and we think space has the key," Nicolas Gaume, CEO and co-founder of Space Cargo Unlimited, told The Associated Press .
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