Will Tourists Beat the Government Back to the Moon?
For $100 million, a U.S. company promises you the vacation of a lifetime: a week in lunar orbit. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin stepped onto the Sea of Tranquility, becoming the first humans to grace the moon. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets, plagued by system failures of their Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, abandoned all hope of doing the same. Now the Russians may get to the moon after all...
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Wanted: Inventors to Build Space Elevator
Space travel is relatively cheap compared with the cost of leaving Earth. The space shuttle, for instance, burns more than half a million gallons of fuel blasting into orbit, making every pound of payload cost $10,000. Now the nonprofit Spaceward Foundation, with a $400,000 grant from NASA, hopes to fast-track the technology to reach space on the cheap, without rockets...
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The World's Fastest Bike
Eat your heart out, Lance. This amateur-built recumbent may soon break its own record by hitting 82 mph. In October 2005, a dozen or so bicyclists will haul butt down a flat two-lane state highway near Battle Mountain, Nevada, reaching speeds of more than 60 mph. That's no typo. It's par for the five-mile course at the sixth annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge...
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Mow-by-Wire
Adding computer brains to power-equipment brawn. Car engines have been governed by computers for years, but Honda’s iGX440 (honda.com) is the first power-equipment engine with a microchip. The electronically regulated iGX440—which will show up in lawn mowers, water pumps and pressure washers later this year—runs at a constant engine speed even under changing loads. Thick grass usually causes mower engines to....
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Need for Speed
A new microchip architecture promises unmatched processing power. Videogames have never looked more hauntingly realistic, yet many don’t seem to have the artificial-intelligence oomph to act realistic. (You can practically smell the city burning in Half-Life 2, but shouldn’t the guards flinch when you blow the head off one of their squad mates?) Now a powerful new chip...
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