Month: June 2016

Vladimir Putin, center, and Dmitry Rogozin, far right, tour Russia's new Vostochny Cosmodrome in October, 2015. (credit: Kremlin)

Back in 2014, as tensions between the United States and Russia rose to a crescendo, that country's chief space minister mocked NASA and the US government for its reliance on Russia to get US astronauts to the International Space Station. If the US didn't like Russia's policies and was going to persist in economic sanctions, deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted, perhaps they would like to use a trampoline to get to space?

Publicly, neither NASA nor the US government responded. They continued working with Russia which, despite some of the more heated rhetoric, has remained a steady partner with the International Space Station. In response, NASA and Congress also stepped up funding for commercial crew efforts in the United States, which should allow Boeing and SpaceX to begin carrying astronauts into space from US soil by late 2017 or 2018.

But beyond astronaut transport, the US government is reliant upon Russia in another way in space—until last year the primary means by which national security payloads were launched into space was via the Atlas V rocket. This reliable launch vehicle is powered by RD-180 engines that United Launch Alliance purchases from Russia, and after that country's actions in Ukraine, Congress called upon the American company to end its reliance upon the Russian engine by 2022. This charge has been led by US Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

(credit: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)

Anton Yelchin, the Russian-American actor most famous for his portrayal of Pavel Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek movies, has been killed in an accident with his own car.

According to reports, the 27-year-old was found dead on Sunday morning, seemingly crushed between his Jeep Cherokee and a security fence at the bottom of his Los Angeles home's steep driveway.

Yelchin was born in St Petersburg to professional figure-skaters who moved to the US soon after his birth. He played Chekov in 2009's Star Trek and 2013's Star Trek: Return to Darkness, and is due to appear in the third, Star Trek Beyond, next month.

Elon Musk has confirmed that the Tesla Model S floats well enough to turn into a boat "for short periods of time," with "thrust via wheel rotation."

Musk's comments were in reaction to a video shared over the weekend (embedded above), which appears to show a man driving a Tesla Model S through a flooded tunnel in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Model S seems to be unfazed by the metre-deep water: it simply starts floating, then powers past some flooded internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, the water gracefully lapping against the car's bonnet.

While it might seem a little incongruous for an electric car become a boat, it makes some sense if you think about it. Most conventional ICE cars have an exhaust pipe that's low to the ground and quickly becomes flooded if you drive through deep water. Battery-powered vehicles, on the other hand, don't have an exhaust pipe. (I wonder if fuel-cell vehicles, which do have an exhaust, can be used as a boat.)

Ars Technica's six best games of E3 2016. (video link)

Another E3 is in the books, and it's nearly impossible to distill the dozens and dozens of games on display into a few titles to keep an eye out for—but that won't stop us from trying. These 10 games in particular stood out from the crowded E3 show floor, and each has us excited to try out the full versions after a short taste this past week.

Abzu

Developer: Giant Squid
Publisher: 505 Games
Platforms: PS4, Windows
Expected Release Date: August 4, 2016