Monthly Archives: July 2022

Earlier this month, a Romanian rocket startup called ARCA Space showed off one of the strangest rocket designs we've ever seen. Adding to the general sense of eccentricity hovering over the project, it says the venture will be funded by selling crypto tokens that can later be exchanged for ore that we're serious, this is the pitch it'll obtain via asteroid mining.

We should emphasize that the concept, dubbed the EcoRocket Heavy, looks extremely peculiar. It's powered by steam and stuffed to the gills with boosters, making it technically wider than it is tall,which gives the impression of a large, lumpy wedding cake, or possibly an art deco skyscraper (in ARCA's vision, an attached spacecraft dubbed the AMi Cargo will take care of the asteroid mining).

In short, it looks like something you'd see dreamed up by a teenager on Kerbal Space Program.

In the space community, the response was swift and brutal.

"This is possibly the dumbest space thing I've ever seen, and that's saying something," Ars Technica senior space editor Eric Berger tweeted.

"ARCA Space just revealed the updated concept for EcoRocket Heavy and I'll certainly be having nightmares about it for months," another user noted.

Another simply exclaimed: "wtf."

We were curious how ARCA Space founder Dumitru Popescu felt about that type of feedback. But in an interview, he remained steadfast.

"Each time you propose an innovative design, you should definitely expect people's reaction to be, let's say reserved," he told Futurism.

"I mean, if you if you see a car with five wheels, your reaction will not be necessarily positive," he added.

ARCA does have at least a little bit of experience. It's successfully launched two partially reusable and steam-powered rockets into the stratosphere so far albeit a far shot from orbit.

It's also worth noting that it was awarded a contract by the European Space Agencyto develop a parachute system for the agency's ExoMars spacecraft. The spacecraft didn't make it, however, and crashed on the Martian surface in 2016,with ARCA taking some of the heat.

The company has an extremely colorful history. In 2015, for instance, it racked up headlines for a battery-powered hoverboard that never appears to have materialized.

Other adventures have been less lighthearted. Popescu was arrested and jailed in New Mexico back in 2017 on 13 counts of fraud, five counts of embezzlement, and one count of forgery.

In a 2018 video posted to Facebook, Popescu claimed the arrest was the result of his second ex-wife and a former ARCA board director who had colluded against him. Prosecutors later dropped the charges against him although not before Popescu fired his attorney and represented himself in court.

The company even alluded to the arrest in a new white paper about the asteroid mining plans, writing that the story "sounds pretty unbelievable, but unfortunately it is true" in an eyebrow-raising footnote.

In the same footnote, Popescu went as far as to say that his time incarcerated was "one of the best things that ever happened to me," because it gave him "time to think and focus on how I'm going to restart ARCA," with "only $300."

His arrest, despite "being very difficult" for him, "was also a good experience," because it made him reevaluate his approach to rocketry, Popescu told Futurism.

As laid out in the white paper, ARCA's EcoRocket Heavy would be made up of a dizzying number of "Propulsion Modules" 540 total, spread out across several levels that, once put together, form an awkward stack that's much wider at the bottom than the top.

That means the rocket is girthy as hell, measuring some 113 feet across at the base, which is an ungainly four times the width of SpaceX's Starship.

The rationale behind this strange design? It'll save money that would otherwise be spent on a large crane.

"Of course, the taller the rocket, the larger the crane," the white paper reads. "And when we looked at Starship/Super Heavy that is using these insanely tall cranes, it was clear for us that this must be avoided by all means, because the rental or manufacturing of those cranes is seriously expensive."

"It absolutely is a unique design, which came from some constraints," Popescu told Futurism, noting that working on a single body requires "a lot of supporting equipment."

Popescu also said that "we are not actually the first to propose this idea," pointing to German rocket maker OTRAG. That company, which went defunct in 1987, similarly suggested using mass-produced units spread out across several stages to launch heavy payloads into orbit in the 1970s.

The idea was tested at several German and African test sites, with rockets reaching suborbital altitudes on at least 14 occasions before the company shut down.

Popescu also said that simulations showed the extremely wide structure of the EcoRocket Heavy had a surprisingly low drag penalty.

But as YouTuber and rocket scientist Scott Manley explained in a 2020 video about OTRAG, the German company's designs "always seemed to come out below what was required," adding that there were some substantial "technical challenges."

For instance, "clustering all these units together would be a slow task because they would have to get them perfectly aligned if there was any skew any twists they would pick up roll."

Both OTRAG and ARCA Space aimed to greatly reduce the amount of money it cost to launch payloads into orbit. But ARCA took the idea even further, focusing its efforts on using water a resource that's orders of magnitude cheaper than liquid or solid rocket propellants as a way to get its giant rocket off the ground.

To that end, the EcoRocket's name suggests that it was designed with the environment in mind,but Popescu said that wasn't the original intent.

"Actually, I need to admit that the first drive for us to build the EcoRocket was not actually the pursuit of the ecological aspect," Popescu told Futurism, adding that it was actually "cost reduction."

The EcoRocket Heavy's first two stages use steam from heated water to create thrust which has turned out to be a bit of a headache for ARCA.

The team quickly noticed that steam performed significantly worse than other "polluting or toxic propellants," according to Popescu.

Launching heavy payloads using steam alone clearly wasn't going to work.

"And at some point, honestly, we were thinking, 'Okay, this is not going anywhere,'" he said. "'This is a dumb idea.'"

That's when the team decided to have only the upper stages use polluting fuels a hydrogen peroxide mix that includes kerosene to give payloads the extra lift they need to enter orbit once past the atmosphere.

Besides, in Popescu's thinking, once the rocket blasts past the stratosphere, who cares about expelling pollutants into outer space?

In short, the EcoRocket is a gargantuan construction made up of hundreds of hot water tanks a comparison Popescu agreed was accurate enough with a couple of traditional rocket stages mixed in.

"We traded basically the performance for cost reduction and environment protection," Popescu told Futurism, something the company sees as "a fair trade."

Tradeoffs aside, does ARCA's vision actually amount to a rocket that can perform in the real world, nevermind reach a distant asteroid?

ARCA is betting big, promising that its EcoRocket Heavy will be "the heaviest and has the highest thrust compared to any other vehicle ever built," according to the company's website. "It also promises the lowest cost/kg ever recorded."

Of course, that all relies on the company managing to raise a planned $73 million by selling crypto investors on the idea of mining asteroids for resources.

ARCA is planning to kick off its token sale in August, which in the year 2022 should give anybody pause following an endless list of scams luring victims into first buying tokens, promising various benefits or returns, and then pulling the rug from underneath them.

Popescu insists that the math checks out, though. He says thatlaunching an asteroid mining mission will cost "in the range of $100 million"in a "very high risk, but also high reward initiative," which is something that would scare away "classic investors."

That's why ARCA Space turned to crowdfunding, he said, since individual investors wouldn't be asked to contribute "big amounts of money."

To succeed, the company would have to generate immense interest, raise a ton of money, launch a massive rocket for pennies on the dollar, find a resource-rich asteroid, extract its precious resources, and safely bring back the spoils.

And that's not even mentioning the intricacies of international space law, which could undermine such pursuits before they even get off the ground.

"Good luck, I guess?" Berger offered in a recent Ars post about the venture and, indeed, they'll certainly need it.

More on super heavy rockets: SpaceX Finally Lifts Super Heavy Booster Using Giant Robot Arms

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This Might Be the Weirdest-Looking Rocket We've Ever Seen - Futurism

After claiming to have successfully launched no less than a digital revolution in neighbouring Coventry and Derby, Gigabit Networks is bringing its ultra-high speed 930Mbps broadband service to Wolverhampton, claiming a marked improvement on the citys current average speeds of 87Mbps.

Based in the city of Leicester, the regional provider has a mission to empower the Midlands with faster, future-proofed, ultra-reliable internet connectivity, and wants to bring more opportunities for growth, business, community and investment to the region. It argues that its service area has not yet experienced the endless possibilities that come with gigabit-capable PureFibre broadband as the cabling and infrastructure simply hasnt existed.

Theregional providersaid that partnering with carrier-neutral wholesale full-fibre provider CityFibre has allowed it to improve local infrastructure and bridge the UKs digital divide by giving the people of the Midlands the internet speeds and reliability they deserve.

The company also said that by rolling out near-gigabit broadband services it is satisfying demand. It cited recent research, which suggested that by 2023, the average UK household will have 50 smart devices online and competing for bandwidth, putting a strain on household broadband.

It added that in March 2021, the median average download speed of UK home broadband connections was a mere 50.4 Mbps, and that the roll-out will see residents and businesses in nine postcode areas in Wolverhampton making the most of this ultrafast technology to seamlessly stream HD TV, download large files, and participate in video calls more quickly and reliably than ever before.

The turbulent nature of the past two years has proven the need for reliable internet connection and speed we continue to seek entertainment, social connection and education online, saidGigabit Networks co-founder David Yates.

Now, the cost-of-living crisis is showing that people need more room to innovate and generate multiple streams of income the best way to do this is through the internet. Wolverhampton is now in an exciting position where it can leverage these exclusive speeds to generate more opportunities for the city.

Adding further context to what the roll-out could achieve, the company offered the example of local resident Shiv Passap, who was one of the first to have the new service live in his home. I recently had GigaFast Pro installed into my home in Wolverhampton, he said.

Since being connected, I have experienced exceptional performance in speed and reliability. As a homeworker, it is paramount that I can access data instantly, make landline calls away from home and stream effortlessly throughout the day all of which is now possible and more with the help of Gigabit Networks.

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Gigabit Networks brings futuristic broadband to Wolverhampton - ComputerWeekly.com

A NASA-funded project aims to use the Sun as a gigantic lens to peer into the far reaches of the cosmos and search them for extraterrestrial biosignatures.

The project, led by Slava Turyshev at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, received $2 million in funding from the space agency's Institute for Advanced Concepts back in 2020, an initiative that has supported plenty of other outlandish Moonshot projects over the years.

In a recent yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper spotted by Universe Today, Turyshev teamed up with the Aerospace Corporation, a California-based nonprofit that operates federally funded research, to explore the feasibility of the idea.

Here's what they propose: the mission would involve several small satellites that self-assemble at the solar gravitational lens (SGL) point, an epic journey that could take up to 25 years.

The SGL marks the spot where the assembled satellites, the Sun and a distant exoplanet target would form a straight line. The Sun's gravitational field would then greatly magnify light from the exoplanet as it passes by, allowing the satellites to peer far beyond what has been possible so far.

That point also happens to be around 1,000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, which is several times the total distance NASA's Voyager 1 probe has traveled over its 44 year journey, as Universe Today points out.

To cover the distance, the mission would take advantage of a solar sail, which are only starting to be tested by scientists.

In simple terms, a solar sail takes advantage of the tiny amounts of radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large "sails" or mirrors, to slowly accelerate to high velocities.

Early experiments have shown promise, but the tech has never been tested over any great distance.

If such a mission were to ever become a reality an astronomical if at this point in time we could potentially peer into a different star system altogether without having to go there ourselves, Turyshev and his colleagues argue in their paper.

And that's a tantalizing prospect the researchers argue is worth the time and effort.

"It is our only means, in the foreseeable future, to learn details about exosolar sister planets like our home world," the team concludes.

READ MORE: A Mission to Reach the Solar Gravitational Lens in 30 Years [Universe Today]

More on gravitational lensing: NASA Releases Hubble Image of Most Distant Star Ever Seen

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Researchers Want to Use the Sun As a Giant Telescope to Look for Aliens - Futurism

Back in May, the FBI took EminiFX founder Eddy Alexandre into custody after accusing him of fraud.

In June, the Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused his cryptocurrency company EminiFX of being a Ponzi scheme,arguing that it had cheated $59 million out of thousands of investors.

And now, according to a preliminary report, it sounds like the company made out with far more money than initially thought, collecting a staggering $250 million from around 62,000 user accounts between September 2021 and May 2022, The Washington Post reports.

It's a high-profile example of a crypto venture seemingly being exposed for what it truly is: a scam. It certainly wouldn't be the first.Still, if the allegations are true, it does stand out for its mendacity.

"This is like no other case I've followed," wrote WaPo columnist Michelle Singletary.

EminiFX promised investors returns of at least five percent a week, which should already raise innumerable red flags, using what it claimed to be a proprietary trading system that it claimed invested money on foreign exchange markets.

But investigators soon caught on to the ruse, discovering that it was most likely using funds from investors to pay other investors, a hallmark sign of a Ponzi scheme.

There was even a "multilevel marketing aspect" to EminiFX's operations, according to Singletary, rewarding those who recruit others with bonuses.

While returns remained positive every week, "I havent found any investing activity to support those returns," David Castleman, a lawyer from Raines Feldman LLP, who filed the preliminary report, told WaPo.

This is where the story gets even wilder. Many of the investors or victims are from Haiti, and are standing behind Alexandre, who was born there. A petition on Change.org has already been signed by almost 14,000 EminiFX investors.

The users saw the returns, but never opted to cash out so they could reinvest the amount for future returns, which is exactly what allows a Ponzi scheme to operate.

"Many users appear to never have withdrawn or redeemed funds," Castleman noted in a report, as quoted by WaPo.

Worse yet, Castleman found that there was no evidence that the propriety investment system even existed.

It's a devastating story that appears toillustrate an age-old lesson: if it sounds too good to be true especiallyin the chaotic world of crypto it's probably a scam.

The fact that Alexandre still has substantial support from his victims only adds to the heartbreak.

READ MORE: The FBI says it busted a big crypto Ponzi scam. It just got bigger.

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Shockingly, Crypto Project That Promised 5% Returns Per Week Turned Out to Be a Ponzi Scheme - Futurism

Is this a good idea?Good Yarn

It's hard to imagine a single author churning out a full-length novel every nine weeks, but that's exactly what writer Jennifer Lepp told the Verge she does constantly. To keep up with demand and make a decent living, indie novelists are cranking out books more quickly than ever before.

Lepp, whose pen name is Leanne Leeds, told the pub that she's even started using an artificial intelligence program to assist with her writing, and that it's made her faster. Now, she can fine tune sections of copy or find inspiration for a passage instead of relying on a precise spreadsheet with daily word counts goals in order to meet her impossible deadlines.

"Its just words," Lepp told the Verge. "Its my story, my characters, my world. I came up with it. So what if a computer wrote them?"

The program Lepp uses is called Sudowrite, which is built on OpenAI's GPT-3 machine learning model and which writers can try before purchasing. Like many AIs designed to create artwork in various mediums based on prompts, it takes practice and skill to get usable chunks of text users have to learn to communicate ideas with the AI, making the process something akin to a machine-human collaboration.

AI writing is controversial. One professor and writer the Verge interviewed even left social media for periods of time because of pushback against her acceptance of AI writing.

How many writers will take up AI and how it could affect book sales in the future is an unanswered question, but one thing's for sure AI storytelling is here, regardless of how we feel about it.

More on missed opportunities to adapt: NFT Guy Accidentally Spent $150K On Stupid Joke He Tried To Make

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Authors Are Starting to Use AI to Quickly Churn Out Novels - Futurism

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Colorado's Jason Crow, US House Democrat and member of the House Intelligence Committee, really wants you to steer clear of DNA testing platforms.

Axios reports that the lawmaker made his feelings clear during an appearance at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, where he urgently warned that DNA-based bioweapons, created to "target specific people" on a battlefield, are on the horizon and that private DNA-testing companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe may make them possible by selling genetic data about users.

"People will very rapidly spit into a cup and send it to 23andMe and get really interesting data about their background and guess what? Their DNA is now owned by a private company," the lawmaker reportedly claimed. "It can be sold off... with very little intellectual property protection or privacy protection, and we don't have legal and regulatory regimes that deal with that."

The ethics of genetic data have had a long and muddy past, and as the lawmaker hints, the modern legal system has struggled to keep up with rapidly evolving biotech.

And while Crow didn't appear offer much in the way of evidence for his statements, genetic profilers like the ones he called out have made headlines for alleged data abuses in the past. Like Facebook's many data controversies, several of these organizations exploded in popularity before any legal precedent or even social norm for the use of such data were established, and some extremely questionable behavior followed suit.

It's also worth noting that given the popularity of these platforms, it's quite difficult to opt out even if you don't choose to partake, your relatives might, which can have some pretty revealing consequences for just about anyone in the family tree.

Still, whether these terrifying weapons are genuinely in development, the lawmaker's claims are cause to more deeply examine our relationship to our most personal data which, as Crow additionally warned, are already perhaps too lax.

"You can't have a discussion about this without talking about privacy and the protection of commercial data because expectations of privacy have degraded over the last 20 years," said the rep, according to Fox News. "Young folks actually have very little expectation of privacy, that's what the polling and the data show."

Crow's comments are certainly unsettling. In truth, there's only so much we can do, but it's true that data protection especially when it comes to information so incredibly personal is always something that deserves our attention. It's easy to get jaded, but we implore you: read the fine print.

READ MORE: Biological weapons could target DNA, food supply, two U.S. lawmakers say [Axios]

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House Rep Worried 23andMe Will Lead to Bioweapons That Kill Specific People Based on DNA - Futurism

Russian space corporation Roscosmos has finally formally announced that it's abandoning the International Space Station but it's keeping details extraordinarily vague, simply saying it'll leave at some point "after 2024."

That's at least in part because Russia is planning to build its own space station. The country's invasion of Ukraine has also only served to accelerate the severing of its ties with the international space community.

The news also comes just two weeks after former deputy prime minister Yuri Borisov took over as the head of Roscosmos, replacing embattled and outspoken warmonger Dmitri Rogozin.

"Of course, we will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision about withdrawing from the station after 2024 has been made," Borisov said during a meeting with president Vladimir Putin, as quoted by Reuters. "I think that by that time we will start forming a Russian orbiting station."

Putin reportedly responded with "good."

"Asked for clarification on Russia's space station plans," Reuters space reporter Joey Roulette tweeted, "a Roscosmos spokeswoman referred Reuters to Borisov's remarks without saying whether it represented the agency's official position."

One valid reading is that Russia's latest edict is intentionally vague.In many ways, we still have no idea when the country will leave the station as "after 2024" leaves open plenty of other interpretations.

Meanwhile, NASA is still planning on keeping ISS operations running with its international partners until at least 2030.

"The withdrawal will take some time," Russian military and space analyst Pavel Luzin told The New York Times. "Most likely, we need to interpret this as Russias refusal to extend the stations operation up until 2030."

What makes matters even more awkward is that NASA director for the ISS Robyn Gates confirmed to Reuters that she had yet to hear from her Russian counterparts.

"Nothing official yet," Gatens told Reuters. "We literally just saw that as well. We haven't gotten anything official."

In fact, Borisov's comments come at the same time that NASA's space partners are convening at this week's International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC).

It's not the first time Roscosmos has threatened the future of the ISS. Last year, Roscosmos sources confirmed that it had started the long process of disengaging from the orbital outpost.

But this time the tone is at least somewhat different, according to experts.

"This is more official than previous statements," Ars Technica senior space editor Eric Berger tweeted. "It also provides time to NASA and its international and commercial partners to prepare the US side to fly on its own."

Right now, Russia "provides all of the propulsion for International Space Station used for station reboost, attitude control, debris avoidance maneuvers and eventual de-orbit operations," according to a March FAQ on NASA's website.

Meanwhile, the US provides power via the station's solar arrays and some of the life support systems.

That means that if Russia goes through with the pullout, NASA will have the daunting task of devising ways of keeping the aging station in orbit on its own without Russian boosters.

At least the space agency has a way to shuttle astronauts to and from the station without relying on Russian spacecraft, thanks to SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

Industry players are certainly paying attention. During a panel at the ISSRDC, Mike Gold, executive vice president of US aerospace corporation Redwire, argued this morning that NASA should use the opportunity to increase commercial activities on board the aging outpost.

All told, the future of the ISS is as uncertain as ever. While NASA has pledged to keep operations going for the next eight years, its biggest partner is ready to call it quits much sooner than that.

READ MORE: Russia has not signaled space station withdrawal to NASA, U.S. official says [Reuters]

More on the ISS: NASA Seeks Funding to Send Scientists to Space Station

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Russia Says It's Definitely Quitting the ISS But Doesn't Say When Exactly - Futurism

The black-hulled XV Patrick Blackett sailed into the citys harbour this afternoon, ahead of a formal naming ceremony at Portsmouth Naval Base on Friday.

The vessel will join the Senior Services NavyX team, which aims fast-track the development of cutting-edge tech from the laboratory and into the hands of sailors.

Not much is known about exactly how the vessel will be used. However, she has been designated as a dedicated experimentation ship and is expected to make her seafaring debut in autumn.

The ship is named after a renowned British experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers and cosmic rays, winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948.

Patrick Blackett was also a veteran of the Royal Navy, serving in the First World War. During the Second World War he a scientific adviser to Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Pile, commander in chief of anti-aircraft command.

He then became the director of operation research with the admiralty, from 1942 to 1945, with his research helping to directly improve the survival odds of convoys and bombers.

Taking to Twitter, Rear Admiral James Parkin said: Having fought in World War 1 as a naval officer, in World War 2 he was critical to the UKs war efforts as an eminent scientific advisor, developing ideas on subjects as diverse as convoy protection, anti-aircraft defences, and the futility of strategic bombing.

Although not a household name today, Patrick Blackett has a crater on the moon named after him, as well as a lecture theatre and hall at @ManchesterUniv and a laboratory at @imperialcollege, and a Blue Plaque was unveiled at his house in 2016.

However, the @RoyalNavy has not, until now, found an appropriate way to honour a man who did so much for his nation, and the world. Which is why Im thrilled the Experimental Vessel (XV) Patrick Blackett will arrive into @HMNBPortsmouth.

XV Patrick Blackett will be formally named on Friday, after which a process will take place to train her new crew, transfer her on to the Defence Shipping Register, etc. Then, in the autumn, the ship will go to sea as the @RNNavyX dedicated experimentation ship.

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The Royal Navy's new dedicated experimentation ship has arrived in Portsmouth for the first time - Portsmouth News