HackingTheUniverse

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It is possible that one of the largest asteroid impacts in the history of the Earth has been located in Antarctica. A land mass concentration detected by satellite mapping of the gravitational field suggests a crater that is around 500 km in diameter (300 miles) and was probably created about 250 million years ago. [...]

The cradle is a modular “body support” system that is a hybrid of ideas found in the designs of an acceleration couch, exoskeleton frameworks, and nanotechnology spacesuits.

Acceleration couch - a couch designed to absorb acceleration forces and protect the human reclining in the couch. The most advanced forms use liquid gel nano-foams [...]

It is possible (but not yet confirmed) that astronomers have observed a collision in the asteroid belt for the first time.
Mystery Object Behaves Both Like a Comet and Asteroid - [discovery.com]
Something awfully curious is happening 250 million miles away in the asteroid belt.
Astronomers think they may be witnessing a never-before-seen collision between two asteroids.
The puzzle [...]

Hyabusa (Falcon), the little engine that could in space, is on the way back from the asteroid belt.
Nov 3, 2005
Japan’s Hayabusa Closes in on Asteroid Landing Site - [space.com]
Stunning imagery is being returned by Japan’s Hayabusa space probe as it draws closer to its celestial target: asteroid Itokawa.
Now just a few miles distant from the [...]

Ceres is the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt and was the first asteroid ever discovered, in 1802. Recent data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the outer mantle of Ceres is frozen liquid containing ammonia and water. There is evidence that Ceres may be as much as 20% water. [...]

It has long been known that water exists in comets, asteroids, on Mars and on the Moon, but the key question has always been, “how much is there?” Shadows in craters at the Moon’s poles have been suspected to hold some ice, but there was little hope of finding enough moisture across the rest [...]

We know that it is possible to transmit and receive energy via electromagnetic radiation with no wires. The problem is refining the technique to make it safe and make it work beyond short distances. It should be possible with current technology to make charging points in a working (or living) environment that allow [...]

Voyager1 is currently the most distant human made object from the Earth, somewhere beyond 10 billion miles from the Sun. When we launched Voyager1 in 1977, a “golden record” was included with it, in the hopes that it would be able to communicate something about life on Earth to any intelligent beings that found [...]

Before attempting to predict how commerce will occur in space or how government will be designed to regulate it, it is important to understand how the basic economic factors will be changed.

Comparison of Economic Elements

On Earth
ELEMENT
In Space

free
AIR
expensive

cheap
WATER
expensive

moderate
FOOD
moderate

expensive
ENERGY
cheap

expensive
TERRITORY
free

expensive
BUILDING MATERIAL
cheap

expensive
SHELTER
cheap

expensive
TRANSPORT
cheap

local-fast
COMMUNICATIONS
nonlocal-slow

Even though air and water may be available in abundant supply (in the asteroids and on moons) it [...]

In the main asteroid belt, there are groups of asteroids that form clusters in similar orbits. Within the groups are smaller groups known as families who show orbital characteristics that are so similar that it has led to to theories that these families were formed by larger rocks being broken up by collisions. [...]