NASA awarded $250,000 in prize money this weekend to teams competing to build and fly a small-seat plane that could one day be a prototype for so-called air cars. And the $100,000 winner is….Pipistrel Virus, a $70,000 aircraft that can do 50 MPG and take off on short runways.

"Only 682 pounds empty weight complete–it literally carries more useful load, that is passengers, fuel, and baggage, than the aircraft weighs." said Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA.

A highly modified kit plane, a Vans RV-4, won $25,000 in the speed challenge and another $50,000 for emitting the least amount of noise on its flight. Finally, the team flying a Cessna 172, the most popular small plane in production since the 40s, won $25,000 for handling.

"The results make sense–the Cessna 172 is the most successful (and highest production volume small aircraft) precisely for the reason that the handling qualities are so good," said Mark Moore.

MIT’s Dava Newman has designed a space suit. The suit is called the Biosuit. This space was designed for Paris’ adventure into space. It’s like so hot… The suit is designed for optimum maneuvering and is fully functional…

In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility.

Traditional bulky spacesuits "do not afford the mobility and locomotion capability that astronauts need for partial gravity exploration missions. We really must design for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic capability," Newman says.

"Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm, Trotti and Associates, have been working on the project for about seven years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space travel, but demonstrate what they’re trying to achieve–a lightweight, skintight suit that will allow astronauts to become truly mobile lunar and Mars explorers. Newman anticipates that the BioSuit could be ready by the time humans are ready to launch an expedition to Mars, possibly in about 10 years. Current spacesuits could not handle the challenges of such an exploratory mission, Newman says."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit-0716.html

The suit is still in design and it is suppose to be ready for the Mars missions. Paris still wants one for the next Academy Awards.

This X-48B is Boeing’s Blended Wing Body prototype flew for the first time at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It was "remotely piloted from a ground control station in which the pilot uses conventional aircraft controls and instrumentation while looking at a monitor fed by a forward-looking camera on the aircraft."

Developed by Boeing, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, these X-Planes do not have a tail and the triangular shape creates less drag than a traditional circular fuselage. That translates into 30% less fuel consumption than a standard-design airplane.

It employs three turbojet engines that enable it to fly up to 10,000 feet and 120 knots in its low-speed configuration, and it makes less noise to make everyone happier.

Moller International, creators of that stunning red flyingcar prototype seen web-wide, has started production on the M200G, the consumer-ready derivative of the M200X volantor, and is readying the machine for the open market. Depending on engine costs, the M200G will cost between $90,000-$125,000

There’s been a leak of the new TiVo set that is rumored to come out this fall.  Priced out at around $300 it’s said to be a HD digital recorder and this photo just might be a prototype. The TiVo Light Series 3 has two CableCARD slots, one for Multi- or Single- stream slots, and it doesn’t look that bad, even if it is a cheaper version.  Remember to record the hilarious Making the Band 4 on it.