Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Starlab By Nanoracks, A Commercial Space Station
An exciting commercial space prospect - a free-flying space station for research!
Let us introduce #Starlab. The first-ever continuously crewed, free-flying commercial #space station. Driven by customers, powered by innovation. This is a huge milestone for both the Nanoracks team and the future #LEO economy. @LockheedMartin, @VoyagerSH…let’s get to work! pic.twitter.com/417AdlTVl4
— Nanoracks (@Nanoracks) October 21, 2021
Nanoracks, in collaboration with Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT], has formed a team to develop the first-ever free flying commercial space station. The space station, known as Starlab, will be a continuously crewed commercial platform, dedicated to conducting critical research, fostering industrial activity, and ensuring continued U.S. presence and leadership in low-Earth orbit. Starlab is expected to achieve initial operational capability by 2027.The basic elements of the Starlab space station include a large inflatable habitat, designed and built by Lockheed Martin, a metallic docking node, a power and propulsion element, a large robotic arm for servicing cargo and payloads, and a state-of-the-art laboratory system to host a comprehensive research, science, and manufacturing capability. Starlab will be able to continuously host up to four astronauts for conducting critical science and research.
(Via Nanoracks.)
Science fiction writers have dreamed of laboratories in space, none better than the space laboratory from Crystallized Thought, a 1937 tale by Golden Age great Nat Schachner:
Webb Foster had built his space laboratory. It took five years and the unremitting labor of a thousand men. But when it was finished, the planets marveled, and his fellow scientists ached with possessive longing.It was a great crystal sphere, a thousand feet in diameter...
(Space Laboratory from 'Crystallized Thought' by Nat Schachner)Within the vast concavity Webb Foster set up his laboratory. All the normal apparatus was there: huge dynamos powered by solar radiation, giant electrostatic balls, flaring electron tubes high as a building, mass spectrographs, a powerful photo-electric mosaic telescope, delicate immersion baths.
But besides this regular equipment were machines that Webb himself had fashioned: infinitely sensitive wave traps that tapped subspace itself, positron segregators, where those flash-vanishing ephemera of nature could be held indefinitely; strange spiral whirligigs in whose light-approaching speeds time itself seemed to have lost its forward march--and a myriad other complexes of ultra-science.
See also my previous article from 2017 - NanoRacks Space Station Module Concept Validated.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/5/2021)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...' - Clifford Simak,
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.' - Iain Banks, 1987.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
'The remains of the lace took on the rough shape of a brain...'
Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'
China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
