From news that Germany met half the country's energy needs with solar power to an Egyptian teenager who built a new quantum space propulsion system, 2012 was a big year for clean tech.
Listeners will need to employ a bit of imagination to match Johannsson's composition to the title "Melodia (Guidelines for a Space Propulsion Device Based on Heim's Quantum Theory), " but it's hard to deny the propulsion at work here.
Export controls also prompted the European Space Agency to pay to develop a European supplier of solenoid valves, so that European space-propulsion systems do not depend on this American part.
One thing we love about scientist-types is their nerdy humor, so when researchers launch a trio of satellites next month to test the feasibility of space tether propulsion, the 'gadget' tasked with 'inspecting' the line will obviously be referred to as bumbling cartoon detective Inspector Gadget.
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The UK Space Agency engaged propulsion experts at the European Space Agency (Esa) to run the rule over the company's engine design.
Even the US space shuttle discards propulsion elements as it climbs into the sky.
"We effectively use it to rinse our mouth three times and then spit out, " explained Daniel Limonadi, the Curiosity surface sampling phase lead at the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The UK Space Agency initiated a review of Skylon and as part of that assessment it asked propulsion engineering experts at the European Space Agency to run the rule over the spaceplane and, in particular, its breakthrough Sabre engine design.
The key to future space travel lies in biotechnology, not propulsion technology, say experts who have suggested GM trees could grow their own greenhouses on Mars.
What are the main propulsion systems for spacecraft in space?
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But this capsule will need a propulsion unit to guide its path across space.
Across the table was a scientist working on rocket propulsion at (I believe) Marshall Space Center.
Steady electronic "heartbeat" tones relayed from Curiosity across space to Earth indicated a successful landing to the control room at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
After her stint with Aldebaran in Paris she went back to MIT to get a master's degree, then worked for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. (which makes space probes), and Syyn Labs, a robotics art collective.
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"We are very pleased that the engine started and continued to thrust, " said Marc Rayman, Deep Space 1's chief mission engineer and deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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