This week's Question: Driven by a $30 million prize put up by Google, more  than two dozen teams have signed up for a competition to become the first  private venture to land on the Moon. That means spacecrafts could be heading out within a few years, and many entrepreneurs are developing possible ideas that could...

While Congress failed to repeal light bulb efficiency standards last week, many had been debating the importance of LED bulbs and compact fluorescents. Supporters of incandescents say that the light source is cheap compared to alternatives, and its quality is fairly good. Others argue that the...

Last week, Toshiba unveiled a glasses-free 3D laptop, the Qosmio F750. The screen displays 2D and 3D simultaneously in separate windows. The display uses a lenticular lens sheet, capable of sending slightly different images to the left and right eye separately, thus giving the user a sense of image depth. The computer has...

A contact force model was developed for use in touch and go (TAG) surface sampling simulations on small celestial bodies such as comets and asteroids. In TAG scenarios, a spacecraft descending toward the surface of a small body comes into contact with the surface for a short duration of time, collects...

A document describes the development and demonstration of an apparatus, called a “dust mitigation vehicle,” for reducing the amount of free dust on the surface of the Moon. The dust mitigation vehicle would be used to pave surfaces on the Moon to prevent the dust from levitating or adhering to surfaces.