As SpaceX says it intends to send a mission to Mars by 2018, does space travel now belong to the private sector? April 29, 2016 Dan Lewis, senior infrastructure policy adviser at the Institute of Directors, says Yes. Gone are the days when space was the playground of the Cold War superpowers. As launch costs tumble, it is increasingly a market democracy. Twice as many people have bought tickets for Virgin Galactic and Xcor as have been put in space by [...]
Paypal founder Peter Thiel on why almost all the trends you’re excited about are overrated – and why being involved in the US election would make him blow his brains out April 12, 2016 “If you hear about a trend, it’s already passed. It means it’s a consensus thing,” says Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and venture capitalist. Speaking at LendIt USA, the largest online lending conference in the world, Thiel says he dislikes being asked what trends he’s excited about because he “isn’t a prophet” and “almost all [...]
Hyperloop is coming to Europe as Slovakia plans to reduce travel from Bratislava to Vienna and Budapest to less than 10 minutes March 10, 2016 The most exciting transport innovation in the world right now – Elon Musk's ambitious Hyperloop – is coming to Europe and could create the fastest ever cross-border travel. A Hyperloop company has inked a deal with the government of Slovakia to explore bringing the super-fast transport to this side of the pond, potentially connecting Bratislava with Vienna in Austria and Budapest in Hungary [...]
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos wants to blast you into space as soon as 2018 as he reveals plans for his secretive space tourism company Blue Origin March 9, 2016 Amazon's Jeff Bezos has opened up about his ambitious plans to blast people into space on commercial flights above earth within the next two years. Blue Origin, the Amazon founder's commercial space flight company which is a rival to the likes of Elon Musk's Space X and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, will conduct its first test [...]
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo is set for test relaunch after crash in 2014 February 19, 2016 Virgin Galactic is set for a relaunch after a devastating setback in 2014 where one pilot was killed and another injured after a test flight crashed. Richard Branson's project to send passengers into space has been revamped, with a new version ready for launch after months of preparation in the Mojave desert in California. The unveiling [...]
Elon Musk’s “next great idea” is to develop a vertical takeoff and landing electric plane after Tesla, SpaceX and Hyperloop February 5, 2016 Elon Musk has new big plans: After out-there projects like SpaceX’s reusable rocket and Hyperloop, the billionaire tech titan wants to turn his attention to electric aeroplanes. The technology is basically non-existent commercially today, but that could all be about to change. Speaking at a Hyperloop event in Texas, the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur was [...]
Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk win 2015 Luddite Award for their “alarmist” warnings about artificial intelligence January 20, 2016 Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have just “won” the 2015 Luddite Award for their warnings about artificial intelligence. A world-renowned physicist and the entrepreneur behind ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, neither of the two are exactly what you might call afraid of technology. But the worries the two have expressed on the future of AI [...]
SpaceX won’t be using its reusable rocket again – here’s why December 22, 2015 Early this morning, SpaceX managed to re-land a rocket for the first time ever, paving the way for a new generation of reusable rockets. The Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Cape Carnaveral in Florida, and after shooting up into the sky to deliver a series of commercial satellites to the International Space Station, it [...]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully returns its Falcon 9 rocket after sending it to space in breakthrough for reusable rockets December 22, 2015 Activist billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent its Falcon 9 rocket into space and back again – an important breakthrough for reusable rockets in space exploration. The first stage of the Falcon 9 gently touched down at Cape Canaveral 10 minutes after lift-off, to employees’ cheers. This was SpaceX’s first flight since June, when one of its rockets exploded [...]
SpaceX is about to launch its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket – but will it be successful this time? December 21, 2015 Elon Musk's SpaceX is getting ready to launch its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station, after a series of delays. It's the first time the rocket is being used in a mission, and will be a crucial test for SpaceX – when it launched the older version of the Falcon 9 in [...]