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another one on SPS

environmentally friendly!

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Very Low mass PPT system

opening of another commerical space activitiy area? ... probably not ...

in addition, the fact that Gates remains Defence Secretary might give some continuity to the Pentagon activities, -LS

"And according to his calculations, improvements in short-pulse laser systems could make this form of thruster more than 40 times as efficient as even the best of today's ionic propulsion systems that push spacecraft around. "

Dejan please have a look at this also ...

while the nuclear reaction seems to be sound at first view, I am not so sure how this would work: "Electromagnetic forces push the target and the alpha particles in the opposite directions, and the particles exit the spacecraft through a nozzle, providing the vehicle's thrust. "

in french - though language not important ... letters visible from space during concert ... 

I am quite amazed that they apparently still use the capsules to return the pictures??? Hard to believe .... "Kobalt spacecraft reportedly carry canisters to return film to Earth during the satellite's mission, which will last at least several months."

nice overview of the 3 main space related projects attempting to bring internet access to the world, namely SpaceX+Google micro-satellites network, OneWeb+Virgin Galactic OneWeb and Project Loon by Google. not a lot of technical details though...

NASA and ESA spacecraft have gathered new information about the basic properties of the comet's nucleus (not 67p) and directly detected the effects on the Martian atmosphere. Dust from the comet impacted Mars and was vaporized high in the atmosphere, producing what was likely an impressive meteor shower. Eight different types of metal ions have been detected, including sodium, magnesium and iron. The satellites will now continue to look for long-term perturbations to Mars' atmosphere.

is this the breaktrough that we were waiting for?

That depends on what application you are thinking of. For circuit board electronics this will allow integration of micro sized supercapacitors to provide operational power. They will have to be fed by external batteries still, but the close proximity allows for better tailored power demands. They also propose tapping into thermal/mechanical energy to charge the supercaps. In the end, they can provide significant specific power (W/kg) but you still need to upscale the production to cover large areas to also gain high specific energy (Wh/kg). This breakthough is for micro sized applications, not for replacement of large scale energy storage (electric vehicles, satellites) going up to kWh. That said, I know of several studies in supercaps at ESA, but they are still qualifying current relatively old commercial solutions.

The party is over.

Couldn't find more details on this but sounds interesting.

interesting indeed as a concept and to explore how far one can go to overcome some of the natural deficiencies of wood. regarding the main purpose of debris avoidance, it's typically not the structure that survives re-entry and one would have to see the environmental effect of what would be released in the atmosphere when burning.