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interesting collaboration ... unfortunately no prices yet available

Apparently this cart settled some longstanding physics dispute... Would there be a way to think of something similar using solar wind? *no clue*

the counterintuitive aspect in my view is not the travelling against he wind but the faster than wind travelling with the wind, where the simple trick of having the wheels power the propeller flips the mind to understand it easily ... (http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/downwind-faster-than-the-wind/)

But from that point of view it should also be counter-intuitive that it travels against the wind at twice the speed of the wind...

Recharge in seconds and efficiently store power for weeks between charges. Added bonus is the cheap and abundant components needed. One of the applications they foresee is to attach such a super-capacitor to the back of solar panels to store the power and discharge this during the night

very nice indeed - is this already at a stage where we should have a closer look at it? what you think? With experience in growing carbon nanostructures, Pint's group decided to try to coat the porous silicon surface with carbon. "We had no idea what would happen," said Pint. "Typically, researchers grow graphene from silicon-carbide materials at temperatures in excess of 1400 degrees Celsius. But at lower temperatures - 600 to 700 degrees Celsius - we certainly didn't expect graphene-like material growth." When the researchers pulled the porous silicon out of the furnace, they found that it had turned from orange to purple or black. When they inspected it under a powerful scanning electron microscope they found that it looked nearly identical to the original material but it was coated by a layer of graphene a few nanometers thick. When the researchers tested the coated material they found that it had chemically stabilized the silicon surface. When they used it to make supercapacitors, they found that the graphene coating improved energy densities by over two orders of magnitude compared to those made from uncoated porous silicon and significantly better than commercial supercapacitors. Transmission electron microscope image of the surface of porous silicon coated with graphene. The coating consists of a thin layer of 5-10 layers of graphene which filled pores with diameters less than 2-3 nanometers and so did not alter the nanoscale architecture of the underlying silicon. (Cary Pint / Vanderbilt) The graphene layer acts as an atomically thin protective coating. Pint and his group argue that this approach isn't limited to graphene. "The ability to engineer surfaces with atomically thin layers of materials combined with the control achieved in designing porous materials opens opportunities for a number of different applications beyond energy storage," he said.

A team of researchers at Colorado based Escape Dynamics is reporting that initial tests indicate that it might really be possible to launch space-planes into space using microwaves sent from the ground, to allow for a single stage spacecraft. If the idea pans out, the cost savings for sending satellites (or perhaps humans) into orbit could be considerable.

Not very new, but a very slick video nonetheless! Will it work? I am not so sure whether "just engineering" applies in this case. The array of antenna's required is quite significant to compensate for beam losses. Wall plug efficiency is not that high therefore, then again.. solar energy is for free almost in the future so who cares.. let's go for it! :)

Elon Musk is moving forward with space based internet service...

Facebook announced they are ready to test of of their High Altitude Platform element, a drone of the size of a Boeing 737. See the new here http://phys.org/news/2015-07-facebook-ready-giant-drone-internet.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ctgr-item&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter. It seemed interesting for me that they are developing also a reliable optical communication between this element and scattered ground stations.

Nice link, that thing is huge and I would love to see a drone that size fly. Also, Facebook's Aerospace Team? :)

Humanity's Public Library #ImagineIf censorship did not exist information was free for everyone, education was truly universal, every home had a library, disasters could be anticipated. Get your Lantern Portable, solar-powered, multi-frequency Outernet receiver. Maybe we should get/build one of those receivers for the ACT just because it's geeky:)

The unique structure and properties of graphene and the morphology of the bulk graphene material make it capable of not only absorbing light at various wavelengths but also emitting energetic electrons efficiently enough to drive the bulk material following Newtonian mechanics.

Hard to believe this should actually work, but would be quite a breakthrough indeed. I wonder, since the material should build up a significant electric potential over time, thus, pulling back the ejected electrons. Well, the paper apparently is not peer-reviewed, and I found some rather critical comments in some forums. Let's see if the experiment will be verified by another research team in due course.

antihydrogen propulsion...?

didn't roger write an assessment of antimatter propulsion when he was in the ACT?

yeah the problem is the amount of antimatter you can get and more specifically how to trap it. I found that you would need around one gram to go to the outer Solar System. So we are far from that, but finding an efficient way to trap it, with an electromagnetic trap rather than solid walls is a first step !

Luzi: no critical comment on this? would love to hear your opinion ...

what a ACT's exercise should look like...

Maybe, you should propose this exercise to the team. You'll see there is not much imagination, unless, you consider imagination equals craziness (bullshit things ... and the too common blah blah in the act). I think this concept is an imaginative credible concept. "anything we might ever see" explains it well.

well, the article is not very detailed so it can be only "du vent" ! did they actually try if such an airplane can fly ??? what about the engine ??? i find the solar impulse (see post below) much more eco-friendly !!! I agree with Leopold that it's quite boring and stays in the mainstream of the production. I'm sure we can do much better !!! What about some really useful things like pills against the flight sickness, and some really good food in the plane ? haha not soon to happen with all the cost reduction. The future of air transport will be a plane without seats, stewards and perhaps even without pilot !!!

Do you know this one ? (no time to go through the bookmarks...)

They just got 1.7 million euros from the EU "to build the laboratory prototypes of the key components of the electric sail": http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/press-release/121643

very interesting info indeed!!

"Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds," Worden said. this sounds to me a bit too much like Pete Worden :-) but I really like this one :-) One of those billionaires might be Google's Larry Page, who is keenly interested in space travel and NASA Ames's research. "Larry asked me a couple weeks ago how much it would cost to send people one way to Mars and I told him $10 billion, and his response was, 'Can you get it down to 1 or 2 billion?,'" Worden told the Long Now audience. "So now we're starting to get a little argument over the price."

Is it really true?

Article 1011.6263 doesn't exist

ha it's back! Yes they are talking about GAP since some time in France, and lobbying to put it on a planetary mission.

Apparently there is a project going on in ESA on this topic led by TEC-EP, the contact person is Evelyne Simon. I really would like to do some research on these topics to see if we can find something interesting that would not have been considered in this study.

sounds a bit optimistic to me but interesting ...