NASA has announced that it has finished construction of the first Orion spacecraft. Orion, which is scheduled to take its first test flight aboard a Delta IV rocket on December 4, will be the first spacecraft to have the capability to take humans into deep space beyond the Moon, to land on asteroids, Mars, and who knows what else.
On July 2, 1937, American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart was attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a modified twin-engine Lockheed Electra 10E when she — and her navigator, Fred Noonan — mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the Pacific, near Howland Island. Now, at long last, it seems that dogged investigation and advanced technology may have finally solved the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart.
Lockheed Martin, the US government’s largest contractor, says it has made a technological breakthrough in nuclear fusion power. The breakthrough will apparently allow Lockheed to build a 100-megawatt ‘compact fusion reactor’ (CFR) that can fit on the back of a truck within 10 years. If Lockheed really has cracked fusion power generation, then almost every aspect of modern life could be in for a dramatic revolution.
Lockheed Martin has developed a human exoskeleton that can hold 36 pounds all on its own without the need for power. The machine could make workers more than 20 times as productive and reduce on the job injuries.
Two of Europe’s largest companies, Airbus and Safran, are joining forces to fight SpaceX’s attempts to steal away their majority share of the lucrative commercial space launch business. This is one of the first times that one of the larger, entrenched, government-backed aerospace consortia has deigned to raise a quizzical eyebrow in acknowledgement at the presence of SpaceX — but it certainly won’t be the last.