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Posts Tagged ‘spaceship’

Highlights of the $3.73 Trillion Budget Request for 2012

February 15, 2011 Comments off

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama released a $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal-year 2012 Monday where he sought to balance two competing and conflicting agendas: dramatic cuts to federal spending while also investing in programs to improve U.S. competitiveness.

A look at what President Barack Obama has requested in his $3.73 trillion budget for the 2012 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Summary: Homeland Security gets $44 Billion with a priority on naked body scanners.  The Transportation Department gets over a half Trillion dollars for new highway and rail construction, including $53 billion for high-speed trains.  $500 million will go to the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Enforcement (See my article on LOST.) and NIST, the group that dropped the ball on the Sept. 11th investigation will be getting $764 million, roughly a 17% increase from last year.

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Agency: NASA

Spending: $18.7 billion

Percentage Change from 2011: 0.9 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $18.7 billion

Highlights: Obama’s space budget is about the same as the previous year, avoiding the major proposed cuts other agencies are facing, partly because of the long planned Read more…

Categories: Budget, GOVERNMENT, United States Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Spacecraft to be controlled by artificial intelligence

February 14, 2011 Comments off

It is a concept that had fatal consequences for the astronauts in the science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey after their spaceship’s artificially intelligent computer reasoned it had to kill them in order to continue the mission.

Yet despite this warning from Arthur C Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick, The European Space Agency now hopes to use real-life artificial intelligence to control future spacecraft.

British engineers, supported by ESA, are developing control systems that can be used in satellites, robotic exploration vehicles and spacecraft capable of controlling themselves.

The space vehicles will be able to learn, identify problems, adapt during missions, carry out repairs and take their own decisions about how best to carry out a task.

Details of the research have emerged as ESA prepares to launch the second of its Read more…

Categories: Europe, Space, Technology Tags: , , , , , ,