Passaportless Connect

You don’t need a passport to connect people from over 140 countries. http://invent.ge/13ysQas

Coffee Style Aircraft Engine

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GE9X Received 3.8 Billion Dollar

Third quarter earnings results for GE were fueled by strong orders growth, a few of which include the new GE9X engine. Set to enter service in 2020, the GE9X received its first orders valued at $3.8 billion. Like the LEAP, it will have advanced composites and 3D-printed parts. Read more about what's coming up next: http://invent.ge/1DiiuhR

The future of GE

"The future of GE and future of industry is bringing hi-tech, deep science, and domain expertise together to do the impossible." See what's on  Next List. http://invent.ge/1riSOj3

GE Concept Design

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Double Digit Increase by GE

GE reported a double-digit increase in industrial profits for the first half of 2014 today. Find out how R&D spending in advanced technologies is delivering returns.

360 Degree

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Life on the galactic frontier

I’d like to die on Mars

By GE Look aheadPosted May 18, 2014

A year ago, one of Silicon Valley’s most noted executives, Elon Musk, made headlines with a simple proclamation: “I’d like to die on Mars.” The billionaire founder and CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla Motors isn’t the only one looking at the red planet as a future destination for human civilisation. In 2012, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the 100 Year Starship, a joint initiative with NASA, tasked with achieving interstellar travel within 100 years, with the hope of getting humans to Mars by 2030. Earlier this year, President Obama extended funding for the International Space Station (ISS) for at least another decade, and space agencies from countries including the US, India, China, Russia and Japan committed to collaborating on space exploration. The enthusiasm for Mars is not limited to billionaire entrepreneurs and governments. In 2013, Mars One, a private space organisation in the Netherlands, received more than 200,000 applications to be part of a four-person team to go on a one-way mission to colonise Mars in 2024.

Currently, manned flight within our solar system does not fully leverage the advances in rocket propulsion and gyroscopic capabilities that have made unmanned voyages into deep space possible. Former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz plans to change that with the ambitious goal of bringing astronauts to Mars in as little as 39 days. Diaz’s Houston-based company, Ad Astra, is working with NASA to build the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR VX200), which employs electromagnetism to accelerate and fine-tune spacecraft propulsion outside of orbit. The first rocket test launch is scheduled for 2015 and aims to make a marked improvement on the nearly nine-month journey currently projected by NASA.

Colonisation, however, presents a host of challenges beyond landing on the surface of Mars. We first need better understanding of the elements that support synthesis and sustenance of life in environments both unfamiliar and inhospitable to humans. In preparation for survival outside our planet, NASA exobiologists are already examining the chemical composition of Martian terrain and incorporating their analysis into the agency’s future mission to Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon. American biologist Craig Venter, famed for his early sequencing of the human genome, has proposed equipping future unmanned rover missions with next-generation DNA sequencers to scan and analyse the genetic sequence of extraterrestrial compounds and then radio the sequence to Earth for synthesis and further testing. In 2016, the German Aerospace Center will send a satellite mission into low-Earth orbit to study regenerative food production, making it the first synthetic biology experiment to occur outside of Earth’s atmosphere.

To pay for these efforts, space agencies around the world are turning to both governments and private funders. SpaceX, for example, has received more than $240m in capital financing and multi-billion-dollar contracts from an international consortium of public organisations to bring supplies to the ISS. However, decreased political will and dwindling public budgets are creating funding uncertainty for such projects. But scientific investments, similar to those in GPS and MRI scanners, can bring widespread benefits that extend beyond their initial research objectives. Despite the inevitable challenges ahead, humanity’s Promethean reach for the stars can yet again bring fire to the Earth below.

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