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Stratolaunch lays out roadmap for hypersonic planes

Stratolaunch hypersonic testbed
Stratolaunch’s swept-wing hypersonic testbed would be propelled by a rocket engine. (Stratolaunch Illustration)

Stratolaunch Systems, the aerospace company created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, says it’s exploring the development of a series of rocket planes that would serve as a testbed for hypersonic flight.

Stephen Corda, Stratolaunch’s senior technical fellow for hypersonics, presented the concept this week at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies conference in Orlando, Fla.

If Stratolaunch follows through on the concept, the company could use the world’s largest airplane as a launch platform for an uncrewed aerospace plane that travels at more than 10 times the speed of sound, or Mach 10.

Hypersonic vehicles rank among the top technological frontiers for Pentagon officials, who have sounded the alarm about hypersonic weapon development programs in Russia and China. But it’s not yet clear whether Stratolaunch will join the hypersonic aerospace race.

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Amazon aims to patent warehouses on rails

Containerized fulfillment center
A diagram shows a rail-borne shipping container that serves as a mobile fulfillment center, with the capability to dispatch drones for package deliveries. (Amazon Illustration via USPTO)

If Amazon follows through on a pair of patent applications, future fulfillment centers could be transported on their rounds by trains, ships or trucks and deliver their goods with autonomous drones flying out from the tops of shipping containers.

The on-demand system for package delivery is covered in two applications that were filed a year and a half ago but published just today. The inventors are principal software engineer Brian Beckman and intermodal program manager Nicholas Bjone.

Their concept calls for putting all the hardware for a fulfillment center, including a robotic arm and a squadron of drones, inside shipping containers (also known as intermodal vehicles). The standard-size containers are designed to be easily transferred from ships to trains to tractor-trailer trucks.

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Court filings link observatory shutdown to porn

Sunspot Solar Observatory
The Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope is the centerpiece of the Sunspot Solar Observatory on Sacramento Peak in New Mexico. (National Science Foundation Photo)

A federal search warrant indicates that the Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico and surrounding homes were evacuated this month not because of alien visitation, but because of a child pornography investigation.

The warrant and an accompanying affidavit lays out the details of an FBI investigation that came to focus on a janitor who worked at the observatory atop Sacramento Peak, which serves as America’s national center for ground-based solar physics.

The details make for a story that has more in common with the police blotter than with the UFO tales and solar doomsday warnings that were spawned by the observatory’s previously puzzling 10-day closure.

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High-flying management tips from Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference. (DVIDS / DOD)

When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke today at the Air Force Association’s 2018 Air, Space and Cyber Conference, his head wasn’t just up in the clouds.

To be sure, he devoted a lot of attention to his Blue Origin space venture and what it could offer for U.S. space dominance. But Bezos also talked about two-way vs. one-way doors in decision making; experimentation vs. operational excellence, and other strategies from Amazon’s management playbook. There were even references to Amazon’s HQ2 search, and the value of putting square pegs in round holes.

Check out the transcript of Bezos’ 50-minute talk with retired Gen. Larry Spencer at the conference in National Harbor, Md.

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Jeff Bezos sells Air Force on rockets and the cloud

Jeff Bezos and Larry Spencer
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, chats with retired Air Force Gen. Larry Spencer at the Air Force Association’s annual conference at National Harbor, Md.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos made a subtle sales pitch for Amazon Web Services as well as the New Glenn rockets being built by his Blue Origin space venture today during a wide-ranging fireside chat at the Air Force Association’s annual conference.

But he stayed mum when it came to the first question asked by his partner on stage, retired Air Force Gen. Larry Spencer: Where will Amazon put its second headquarters, better known as HQ2?

“We’ll make a decision before the end of the year,” Bezos said good-naturedly at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Md. “That’s all I can say on that topic. We’re excited to make that decision.”

The world’s richest person was far more voluble about his philosophy on management, and how that applies to the things that the Air Force cares about. Speaking to an audience flush with military uniforms, Bezos said it’s critical for the United States to maintain its dominance in the space domain.

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DNA evidence zeroes in on 3 African ivory cartels

Elephant tusks
Elephant tusks from an ivory seizure in 2015 are laid out in Singapore after they have been sorted into pairs. (Center for Conservation Biology / University of Washington)

DNA evidence and lots of detective work have revealed the networks behind illegal trade in African elephant ivory, centering on three smuggling cartels in Kenya, Uganda and Togo.

The case is laid out in a paper written by a team led by Samuel Wasser, head of the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology, and published today in the open-access journal Science Advances.

Wasser said the findings could figure in a complex case centering on Feisal Mohamed Ali, a reputed ivory kingpin based in Mombasa, Kenya. Feisal was convicted on trafficking charges in 2016 but was set free last month on appeal, due to problems with the evidence that was at hand for the trial.

“Our hope is that the data presented in this paper, and discovered by others, can help strengthen the case against this cartel, and tie Feisal and his co-conspirators to multiple large ivory seizures,” he said.

In addition to the Mombasa cartel, the DNA evidence points to Entebbe in Uganda and Lome in Togo as centers of the illegal African ivory trade.

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BluHaptics rebrands itself as Olis Robotics

Olis Robotics control system
Olis Robotics’ operating system is designed to provide added safety, efficiency and semi-autonomous smarts for remotely operated robots. (Olis Robotics Photo)

For five years, a University of Washington spin-out called BluHaptics has been building up a business focusing on robotic control software for underwater robots — and now the Seattle startup is stepping things up a notch under a new name: Olis Robotics.

Olis is also acquiring another Seattle startup, White Marsh Forests, which is expected add new machine learning capabilities to the company’s control system for remotely operated robots undersea, out in space and in other challenging environments.

“With the acquisition of leading-edge machine learning technology, we seized the opportunity to sharpen our vision of disrupting the emerging robotics operating system lindustry,” Olis CEO Don Pickering said today in a news release.

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Scientists spot planet orbiting Spock’s home star

Planet at HD 26965
An artist’s conception shows a super-Earth in orbit around HD 26965, which is Mr. Spock’s home star in “Star Trek” lore. (University of Florida Illustration)

Has the planet Vulcan been found? Vulcan’s most famous fictional inhabitant, Mr. Spock of “Star Trek” fame, would certainly raise an eyebrow if he heard that astronomers have detected a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting the star that’s associated with him.

The world orbits a sunlike star that’s a mere 16 light-years away, known as HD 26965 or 40 Eridani A, according to the team behind the Dharma Planet Survey.

In the current Star Trek canon, 40 Eridani A is the star that harbors Spock’s home planet. Some early references pointed to a different star, known as Epsilon Eridani(which is also thought to host at least one exoplanet). But in a 1991 essay, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and a group of astronomers argued that 40 Eridani A, the brightest star in a triple-star system, was a better fit because its 4 billion years of existence provided a wider window for pointy-eared intelligent life to evolve.

The latest findings suggest Roddenberry made the right choice: The planet found at 40 Eridani A is roughly twice Earth’s size, completes an orbit around its parent star every 42 Earth days, and lies just inside the star’s optimal habitable zone, said University of Florida astronomer Jian Ge.

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Stratolaunch puts its brand on world’s biggest plane

Stratolaunch plane
Stratolaunch Systems’ giant plane now sports the company’s name. (Stratolaunch Photo via Twitter)

The mammoth plane that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems is testing at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port now bears the name of the billionaire and his air-launch venture.

In photos tweeted this week, Stratolaunch showed off the plane’s new livery — including a legend reading “Stratolaunch: A Paul G. Allen Company” on the side of one of the twin fuselages, and the logo of plane builder Scaled Composites on the tail.

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Artists vie for a free trip around the moon

Violinist in zero-G
An artist’s conception shows a violinist in zero-G on SpaceX’s BFR spaceship. (SpaceX via Twitter)

It’s been only a day since SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled the plan to send Yusaku Maezawa and roughly half a dozen artists around the moon, but folks are already nominating themselves (and others) for a free trip.

Maezawa is paying an undisclosed but reportedly substantial amount for the journey on SpaceX’s yet-to-be-built BFR spaceship, and there are scads of details to be worked out before the launch date, which is currently set for 2023.

In a series of tweets today, Musk promised that the mission would be live-streamed in high-definition virtual reality, with the broadcast potentially facilitated by SpaceX’s yet-to-be-deployed Starlink satellite internet constellation. There could also be an onboard watering hole called the “Space Bar,” and the artists on the flight would be permitted (but not obliged) to perform in zero-G.

Musk promised to take questions during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” chat that’s yet to be scheduled. “Love Reddit,” he said in a tweet.

One of the more interesting questions has to do with who will be selected for Maezawa’s Willy Wonka-style golden tickets.

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