As nations around the world launch more and more satellites into geosynchronous orbit above the Earth, the danger of them accidentally colliding and creating a Gravity-esque cascade of destruction increases exponentially. To keep tabs on everything zooming around 22,000 miles above the surface, DARPA’s developed this keen-eyed space surveillance telescope.
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Delivering a nuclear strike is only the first phase of a mission. Next comes the most important part: hightailing it out of there before the entire area turns to glass. And for crews aboard America’s first supersonic bomber, getting the heck out of Dodge was done at twice the speed of sound.
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For all the futuristic advancements packed into modern space-based telescopes, they all still rely on the same bulky, heavy glass optics that Galileo used centuries ago. But thanks to this DARPA project, future telescopes could eventually use optics as thin as saran wrap to peer into deep space.
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The Emma Maersk was dethroned as the world’s largest seafaring vessel this morning when this ship, longer than the Empire State Building, left its dry dock in South Korea for the first time. But this town-sized ship isn’t so much built for sailing as it is for pumping gas.
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After the Fukushima boondoggle back in 2011, Japan has wholeheartedly embraced solar power as its alternative energy of choice. So much so, that one Japanese construction firm is campaigning to power the whole Earth with solar energy—that they will beam down from the moon.
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Just a decade after entering the space race, China is headed to the moon. With the successful launch of a Long March rocket carrying the Chang’e 3 lunar lander earlier this morning, China is attempting to become the third nation in history to land (rather than crash) a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
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Fish tends to spoil fast, even when kept on ice. So to ensure that farm-raised salmon remain at peak of their freshness (read: still swimming) for whole trip to back to shore for processing, Rolls-Royce is building the world’s largest mobile aquarium/meat wagon.
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Getting around in a wheelchair is difficult enough, even when one still has use of their upper extremities. Quadriplegics face an exponentially more difficult challenge: controlling the wheelchair by sucking or blowing air through a straw. But this new powered wheelchair from the Georgia Institute of Technology will respond to a flick of the user’s tongue.
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Cold fusion is the Holy Grail of energy production. The technology could theoretically produce virtually unlimited energy for next to nothing except that nobody’s been able actually get the system to work despite decades of worldwide research. However one Italian scientist claims to have finally gotten the cold fusion right, you’ll just have to shell out $1.5 million to see if he’s telling the truth.
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Because they only have their main engines for propulsion, today’s massive modern jet liners can burn hundreds of pounds of fuel just taxiing from the boarding gate to the runway. That translates to multiple tons of wasted fuel every year and more than $1.1 billion in added operating expenses . But with this new electrical wheel drive, airliners will finally only need their engines for flying, not driving.
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