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DARPA: You didn't think we could make a Mach 6 spaceplane, so let us have this MACH TEN job
In this post-Space Shuttle world, it often seems that the dream of a spacecraft which could reach orbit without expensively throwing most of itself away is receding rather than drawing closer.
Last time DARPA went for a spaceplane - the X-30 SSTO concept of 1984
Sure, there's the tiny X-37B "space warplane", carrying out …
Life … moves … in … slow … motion … for … little … critters … like … flies
The smaller the creature and the faster its metabolic rate, the slower it perceives time, say a group of researchers from Ireland and the UK.
"Animals smaller than us see the world in slo-mo," study leader Andrew Jackson from Trinity College Dublin told The Telegraph. "It seems to be almost a fact of life."
Jackson and his …
LOHAN hero playmonaut STRANDED on Spanish mountain
Pic The Special Project Bureau's mountain rescue team has been mobilised today to recover our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) playmonaut – stranded since yesterday on the side of a Spanish mountain.
What should have been a routine test flight to put our improved rocket motor igniter through its paces ended dramatically …
North American teams land in Oz to race for the sun
World Solar Challenge Canada is about to dispatch its World Solar Challenge entry on its trip to Darwin, with the Ecole de Technologie Supérieure of Montréal – ÉTS – sending its tubular Eclipse 8 on its way.
The Canadian team offers a stark contrast to the comforts of the Cruiser class, and even to most of the Challenger class cars. Its weight …
Boffins demo on-chip entanglement at macro scale
Quantum computing watchers are familiar with the idea of entanglement – the “spooky action at a distance” that gives rise to quantum teleportation. Now, a team led by the University of Queensland is claiming a different kind of first: quantum teleportation between two spots on a single chip.
Not only that: but unlike schemes …
LOHAN test flight LIVE: All the launch action
As you read this, the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team is preparing the test flight of our all-new custom rocket motor igniter.
We need to know once and for all if we can get a rocket motor to ignite at altitude, following our first pop back in July.
That ended with the igniter's E-Match going bang, but with the …
Radioaficionados españoles: Echadnos una mano
Este lunes 16 de septiembre a las 2 de la tarde el equipo LOHAN (Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator) lanzará un globo meteorológico cerca de Piedrahita (Avila).
Necesitamos la ayuda de los radioaficiondos españoles y portugueses para recibir señales de nuestros cuatro transmisores a bordo:
CHAV (434.075MHz), BUZZ (434.200MHz …
LOHAN Spanish team touches down... to prepare for lift-off
Our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team members touched down in Madrid last Thursday night, and after a few beers and some refreshing kip, were ready to pose for the camera before getting down to spaceplane business.
The LOHAN team poses with the Vulture 2
Above (from left to right) we have Rob Eastwood, Claire …
From launch to orbit: The new commercial space pioneers
Feature We all know that many 20th century prophecies of life in the new millennium never came to pass. Among them were flying cars, meals-in-a-pill and annihilation by Skynet, to name but a few. However, taking the crown of unfulfilled expectations has to be private spaceflight for business or pleasure.
With all the rapid space tech …
Bother! Breakdown busts bloke's bold boffin-blasted briny boat balloon bid
An IT bloke hoping to fly across the Atlantic in a small boat suspended Up-style beneath a cluster of multicoloured balloons has had his dream dashed, according to reports.
Jonathan Trappe lifted off in heavy fog from the US state of Maine on Thursday, hoping that the forecast winds would carry his small yellow lifeboat …
Cold-blooded, INHUMAN visitor hitches ride on NASA moon rocket
Recently released footage has revealed that an unexpected traveler hitched a ride during the launch of NASA's LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) rocket last Friday.
A dramatic photo published to the space agency's Instagram feed on Thursday depicts LADEE hurtling into the sky atop a column of flame – and …
NASA: Humanity has finally reached into INTERSTELLAR SPACE
Data beamed back from the Voyager 1 spacecraft has shown that the probe has left our Solar System and entered interstellar space, becoming the first manmade object to travel beyond mankind's home system.
At a press conference on Thursday, NASA engineers said that the probe actually made the leap last year after travelling 12 …
LOHAN doomsday box dubbed BRASTRAP
The results of our reader poll are in, and we're delighted to report that our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) doomsday box will forthwith be officially known as the Big Red Abort Switch To Release Aerial Payload, aka BRASTRAP.
Dave Akerman's emergency cut-down box
So, it's congratulations to reader Steve Davis for …
SolAce, Team Arrow inch towards Solar Challenge starting line
World Solar Challenge The University of Western Sydney will soon be heading north with its World Solar Challenge entrant, while in Queensland, Team Arrow is getting ready for a pre-race public run on the weekend of 14 September.
The UWS team, SolAce, under construction since 2011, had its public launch on August 29 at the university's Parramatta …
Cavemen innocent in MAMMOTH MURDER case: DNA evidence
Boffins have claimed that the demise of the woolly mammoth was caused by climate change, offering up an alternate theory to the premise that its spot on the human menu was to blame for the species' extinction.
British and Swedish researchers examined 300 mammoth carcasses from around the world and found that populations tumbled …
Here at last, our 3D beauty: Vulture 2 spaceplane flies in
Cue the traditional portentous drumroll, fanfare of trumpets and roar of the crowd as we announce that yesterday evening, a bloke in a white van rolled up to the door of the SPB's mountaintop headquarters bearing a big box...
The unopened box containing our Vulture 2 spaceplane
....containing the components of the Low Orbit …
First rigid airship since the Hindenburg cleared for outdoor flight trials
Good news for airship fanciers this week, as it appears that the world's first rigid airship since the 1930s will soon take to the skies for flight trials: and better still, this ship has a new piece of technology which could actually change the existing landscape and permit the leviathans of the skies to return.
Rigid ships set …
In pictures: El Reg hooks up with rain-lashed Spanish rocketeers
Take one muddy airfield, persistent rain and a cluster of brave souls huddled under pop-up gazebos and you've got the perfect recipe for a rocketry shindig.
"You've brought the weather from your country, then," quipped one member of the Spanish tentacle of the Tripoli Rocketry Association as I rolled up on Sunday morning to a …
David Attenborough warns that humans have stopped evolving
Britain's most popular naturalist has warned in an interview that humans have become the first species to effectively halt the influence of natural selection. He also says, however, that it's not the end of the world, thanks to modern technology.
"I think that we've stopped evolving. Because if natural selection, as proposed by …
Swiss space plane to launch robotic orbital debris destroyer
Video Switzerland, a nation renowned for its fondness for tidiness and order, could become a key force in cleaning up the potentially deadly problem of space junk in Earth's orbit.
Last year, the Swiss Space Center at the University of Lausanne announced the planned launch of CleanSpace One, a robotic satellite designed to grab onto …
Kamikaze Moon mission on track as NASA grips its tumbling LADEE
Video NASA has confirmed that its LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) probe is back on track for lunar orbit after being temporarily left tumbling by a power surge which occurred shortly after its launch.
LADEE took off atop a US Air Force Minotaur V rocket on 11:27pm EDT on Friday from NASA's Wallops Flight …
Ultralight party balloons in WEEK-LONG marathon flight
A couple of ultralight balloon payloads have for the past week traced suggestive paths over Europe, and continue to transmit from the skies over Belarus and Bulgaria (click pic for a bigger version):
The rather phallic tracks of the balloons seen on spacenear.us
Leo Bodnar's B-11 and B-12 missions were launched from Blighty's …
Vulture 2 autopilot reports for duty
As you can imagine, it's all go here at the Special Projects Bureau's mountaintop headquarters ahead of the imminent arrival of the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team.
Click here for a bigger version of the LOHAN graphic Blokes in white vans have been bowling up to the door for the past month, their couriers' …
Scientists demo light-controlled semiconductor
US boffins have documented a transition from metal to semiconductor that can be controlled by exposure to light.
The researchers, from Washington University in St Louis, created a thin film of gold nanorods coated with zinc oxide. The result: with no illumination, the gold/zinc oxide mix conducted electricity as a metal, but …
Virgin Galactic spaceship goes supersonic in second test flight
Virgin Galactic has moved one step closer to actual spaceflight with its second supersonic flight of its passenger carrying SpaceShipTwo.
The test flight was a key milestone in the firm's attempt to become the world's first commercial space liner, flying (wealthy) tourists for brief journeys into suborbital space.
The company …
Vote NOW to name LOHAN doomsday box
Poll Right, you lovely people, the time has come to name our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) doomsday box – the device which will, if required, command the mission's onboard Iridium-Arduino sandwich to release the mighty helium-filled orb carrying our Vulture 2 spaceplane aloft in case of emergency.
Dave Akerman's …
Storm slings water to Saturn's surface
Water has been spotted on Saturn for the first time.
Astroboffins believe that gas giants comprise layers of different substances, including water, but lacked substantial evidence to support that theory.
A colossal storm that hit Saturn's northern hemisphere back in 2010 has helped them out, because the Cassini probe was close …
The Solar System's second-largest volcano found hiding on Earth
Earth's largest volcano – and possibly the second largest volcano in the Solar System – has been discovered hiding deep beneath the waves about 1,000 miles east of Japan.
How large is "largest"? According to a paper published in Nature Geoscience, the "immense shield volcano" spans about 120,000 square miles, making it equal in …
Autogyro legend Ken Wallis hangs up wings at 97
Wing Commander Ken Wallis, who soared to international fame at the controls of James Bond's Little Nellie, has died at the age of 97.
The former RAF Wellington bomber pilot passed away at his home in Norfolk on Sunday, the end of an illustrious career which saw him set the 3km speed record for autogyros (207.7km/h), and - most …
LOHAN cops a faceful of smutronyms
There's nothing quite like a Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) backronym challenge to bring out the sniggering schoolboy in our beloved spaceplane fans.
Click here for a bigger version of the LOHAN graphic Earlier this week, we challenged you lot to come up with a snappy name for our mission abort box - in the best …
Hypersonic 'scramjet' aims for Mach 8 test flight
Queensland's SCRAMSPACE research scramjet has arrived in Norway for a test launch to be scheduled somewhere between September 15 and September 21.
Given that the project has gone from origins in the “back of a truck” (in leader Russell Boyce's earliest HyShot experiments) to a research effort worth $AU14 million, the researchers …
Forget Mars: Let's get someone on the Moon – NASA veteran
The retired NASA chief who sent the first American astronaut into space has said the agency should give up on Mars and focus on putting another astronaut on the Moon.
Chris Kraft, who was NASA's first ever flight director before becoming a senior manager on the Apollo programme – the US project dedicated to "landing a man on the …
LOHAN slowly strips lens caps off hi-def imaging arsenal
It's all go at the Special Projects Bureau's mountaintop headquarters as we await the imminent delivery of our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) Vulture 2 spaceplane, currently being hewn from the living nylon down at 3T RPD Ltd.
We've got plenty to be getting on with while we wait for the bloke in the big white …
NASA releases first NuStar X-ray data burst
NASA has taken the wraps off its first NuStar data releases, releasing data collected by the X-ray observatory in July and August 2012.
The data release includes black holes – naturally enough, since that's one of the main aims of the NuStar mission – as well as X-ray binaries, supernovas, and blazars (active, supermassive black …
Canadian comet impact fingered for triggering prehistoric climate shift
Scientists have discovered new evidence that an extraplanetary body came down over Canada around 12,900 years ago, possibly triggering the death of the giant animals then roaming the North American continent, and starting a cooling spell that helped drive mankind towards agriculture and civilization.
During the Younger Dryas …
You must be croaking! Boffins reveal SOUND-GOBBLING frog's secret
Pic Bioboffins have figured out how one of the world's smallest amphibians, the centimetre-long Gardiner's frog, can hear other frogs croak despite not having any ears.
Gardiner's frog Toad you so ... A Gardiner's frog. Credit: R. Boistel/CNRS
Using X-rays, an international team of scientists have discovered that the frog listens …
WIN a RockBLOCK Iridium satellite comms module
Competition As followers of our epic Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) project will know, we recently laid our grubby mitts on a RockBLOCK Iridium satellite comms unit, courtesy of Rock Seven, and we're now giving one linguistically deft reader the chance to do the same.
Top and bottom views of the RockBLOCK
In fact, this is …
Baffled boffins 'closer' to finding origins of extragalactic COSMIC RAYS
Scientists at the South Pole have moved a step closer to figuring out the origin point of the cosmic rays which can damage electronics on Earth and zap astronauts in space.
IceCube Lab by moonlight
The origin of the high-energy particles has been baffling boffins for decades, but the latest study, which uses data from the …
Boffins confirm quantum crypto can keep a secret
Over recent years, the gap between theoretical security of quantum crytography and practical implementation has provided plenty of fun for super-geniuses the world over.
Yes, quantum cryptography is supposed to be unbreakable. After all, if anybody even observes the state of a qubit that Alice has prepared, entangled with …
China confirms plans for first Moon visit later this year
China has confirmed it is on track to land a rover on the Moon later this year to scoot across the surface analyzing dust and rock samples.
"Chang'e-3 has officially entered its launch stage, following its research and manufacture period," reports the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The Chang'e-3 probe, first revealed last …
Revealed: HUNGRY frosty Arctic cleft that could eat 2 Grand Canyons
A huge mega-canyon, nearly double the length of America's Grand Canyon, has been discovered beneath a mile of ice in Greenland.
The canyon in a 3-D visualisation of the Greenland bedrock for the northern half of the island, looking north
The canyon looks like a winding river channel and is at least 750km (466 miles) long, …
Vulture 2 spaceplane rises from the powdered nylon
There's mounting excitement here at the Special Project Bureau's mountaintop headquarters as we prepare to receive the parts of our Vulture 2 spaceplane.
Our chums down at 3D printers 3T RPD Ltd have just dusted off the outer wings and wingtip rudder assemblies, seen here in these rough CAD views. The top couple of images show …
