Category: Technology

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Technology

Joinable – Disrupting Homelessness

Created in just 24 hours over the weekend at TechCrunch Disrupt, Joinable provides free voicemail, email and text messaging to the in-need populations served by non-profits and state agencies.

By providing the homeless and jobless with permanent and secure access to communication, joinable.org aims to disrupt social problems.

Joinable was built by Ben Nadel, Aaron Foss and Mark Webster using Twilio’s web-service API for building communication apps. Although there are fees for using Twilio’s platform, the cost is low enough that it should be possible for non-profits and agencies to provide the service at no-cost to users.

via TechCrunch and the Twilio Blog

Categories
Technology

First Feathered Flight

One step closer to commercial spaceflight!

Today we received confirmation that the basic design of the spaceship is solid.

Reaching a “really major milestone for the test flight program”, Virgin Galatic’s commercial spaceship, SpaceShipTwo, completed its first feathered flight from 51,500 feet above Mojave, CA.

SpaceShipTwo reentering from 51,500 feet. (Photo credit: virgingalactic.com)

For decades reentry into the atmosphere has been one of the biggest challenges of spaceflight, that’s been one of the more dangerous parts of spaceflight. And the big innovation that Scaled [Composites] and Burt Rutan came up with was this idea to feather the aircraft into the atmosphere so that the pilot could literally take his hands off the controls and it would stably enter because of the aerodynamic forces on the vehicle.

Some more information about the science and inspiration behind “feathered” flight can be found in this video: