by Michael Belfiore | Dec 24, 2012 | Blog
Grasshopper is SpaceX’s reusable rocket. In a test flight last week at the company’s McGregor, TX proving grounds, the 10-story machine reached the height of a 12-story building before settling back to the launch pad on a jet of flame. As science fiction...
by Michael Belfiore | Dec 18, 2012 | Articles, Blog
It’s a good thing I took a wrong turn on the way to Albany International Airport a few weeks back. Turning off the highway prematurely, I came face to face with the NanoTech Complex at the State University of New York. I was amazed at how big this facility is:...
by Michael Belfiore | Nov 6, 2012 | Blog
If space flight is ever to become affordable enough to be a mainstream business, two things have to happen. Actually getting to space has to be come an order or two of magnitude cheaper, and satellites and spaceships have to get a whole lot cheaper. SpaceX is working...
by Michael Belfiore | Oct 30, 2012 | Articles, Blog
The phrase “keeping a match lit in a hurricane” acquired new meaning to me over the last 24 hours as Hurricane Sandy whipped through Woodstock, where I live and work. The phrase is also a metaphor for the extreme challenge presented by hypersonic...
by Michael Belfiore | Oct 27, 2012 | Articles, Blog
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has opened a competition to build humanoid robots to aid in disaster recovery efforts. My Popular Mechanics story on the DARPA Robotics Challenge, posted on Thursday, gives the particulars of the two year race,...
by Michael Belfiore | Oct 3, 2012 | Blog
The Pentagon’s mad scientist arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is launching a competition to design a new amphibious infantry fighting vehicle for the Marine Corps. It’s also to be a test of DARPA’s Adaptive Vehicle Make...
