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NASA’s Eagleworks laboratories has recently released the results of their latest, upgraded experiments designed to evaluate a controversial propulsion device, one that does not use physical propellant to produce thrust, as traditional rockets use. Their verdict: the EmDrive appears to work. As this drive would provide continuous acceleration, it would make space travel much faster. A trip to Mars, for example, could be cut from months to just a few weeks. The drives being tested now provide very little thrust, but much more powerful engines can be built.



The EmDrive, short for Electromagnetic Drive, was first proposed and built by British engineer Roger Shawyer in 2001.read more

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The UK–not the US–is the headquarters of Virgin Galactic, which Richard Branson hopes will create an entirely new tourism market–in space. Are private companies taking over this task because there are secrets NASA doesn’t want us to know? (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show).

In the Guardian, Robin McKie quotes commercial director Stephen Attenborough as saying, "Things are going incredibly well. (On the office walls) are computer graphics images, but next year we hope to replace them with photographs of the real thing: our first commercial flights into outer space."
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Long-duration spaceflight may have a long-term negative impact on bone health. Exposure to weightlessness during spaceflight results in rapid bone loss. Researchers recently set out to determine the impact of long-duration space missions on long-term bone health by assessing the bone mineral density of astronauts. The researchers studied 28 US crew members (24 men and four women with a pre-flight age range of 36 to 53 years) whose missions in space ranged from 95 to 215 days. All 28 crew members had their bone density measured both before and soon after their spaceflight, while 24 had this measured again between six and 18 months following their return from space.read more