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Engineering From Science Fiction
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's long planning horizon today details a history of science facts and their sci-fi roots. The study is based on a collaborative European Space Agency project, 'Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications.' More than 200 technical dossiers are described--from holodecks to terraforming comets--but one of the fundamental questions posed is: what is the best communication device to scale-up expert opinion itself? Other than some future, expert version of the internet itself, is that a a collaborative Matrix? Other such interesting collections are from: MIT Media Lab's ThinkCycle, Da Vinci Institute, and the unpretentious HalfBakery of ideas."
Which gadgets can unlock the next technological revolutions? What is the next big thing?
To propose answers to this question, the sixteen nations of the European Space Agency commissioned a project called "Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications" (ITSF). Their results were co-published with two supervisory foundations, the Swiss museum Maison d'Ailleurs and the astronautical society, or OURS Foundation. One aim was to discover what their study called the facts of 'hard science-fiction': literature that uses either established or carefully extrapolated science as its backbone.
As Caltech physicist, author and visiting scholar for NASA's Exobiology Center, David Brin, described in his PBS interview for the special, Closer To Truth: "perhaps an alternative name could have been 'speculative history' because [hard science-fiction authors] deal in different pasts, alternate presents, extension of the human drama into the future...Einstein used the word gedanken experiment and he coined it, he said that just sitting on a streetcar in Bern, leaving the clock tower and imagining he was riding on a beam of light, was 50% of the work [of relativity].
Augmented Science: Galileo's Ship
The history of drawing inspiration from speculative literature is deep with success stories.
As early as 1632, to advocate for his classical principle of relativity, Galileo used a fictional character called Salviati who while locked in a closed room below a ship deck, observes a small fish tank which remains quiescent and undisturbed unless the ship accelerates. In dialogue format, he answers all the common scientific arguments against the idea that the earth moves.
Predating lunar travel classics by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne were Cyrano de Bergerac's Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1656), space travel in Voltaire's Micromégas (1752), and alien cultures in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). Even as the liquid-propelled rockets were first being tested by Robert Goddard in the 1920's, technical proposals had already appeared for planetary landers (1928) and aerodynamically-stabilized rocket fins (1929).
Perhaps the most detailed and famous publication was Sir Arthur C. Clarke's 1945 paper, "Can Rocket Stations Give World-wide Radio Coverage?", that laid down the principles of modern satellite communications and geostationary orbits [Wireless World, October 1945].
A half-century later, even a few hours of interruption in this global network today would seem catastrophic: crippled health care delivery, financial disruption including failed automated teller machines and credit card validations, grounded travellers for lack of airline weather tracking, and global TV blackouts. But in 1945, the idea of geostationary satellites had a different kind of reception, as Clarke wrote: "Many may consider the solution proposed [for extra-terrestrial relay services] too far-fetched to be taken seriously. Such an attitude is unreasonable, as everything envisaged here is a logical extension of developments in the last ten years..."
The rocks inside a crater on the Asteroid Eros. Numerous small impacts on the asteroid show brown boulders visible interior to the less exposed (white) lip of the crater. False-color for emphasis. Credit: NEAR Project, JHU APL, NASA
The European space study, appropriately timed for Clarke's "Space Odyssey" series, completed its first project phase in 2001. Altogether fifty fact sheets and technical dossiers were published to catalog the inventions that should be made real. In addition, more than two hundred technologies were outlined and graded for future feasibility studies. Ranging from astrobiology to propulsion, their complete 'what-if' list is available in broad categories online.
Examples Pushing the Envelope
One mission that has been described in the ESA study is soon to become closer to fact: a fantastic mission to a comet. Seventeen years ago, astrobiologist David Brin's "Heart of the Comet" [1
Who modded this interesting? It's a troll.
Francium is heavyer than aluminium, it is extreamly reactive with water (as in selfignition reactive), and it is extreamly reactive with air. To add to the point, its melting temp is 27.2C, so it is definatly not a building material...
In short, nice one P.E...
The oxide of aluminium that forms when it oxidises in air is the same size as the aluminium metal and so forms a protective layer. So Aluminium doesn't exactly rust like iron alloys. See here for more details...
I'd guess that it's Francium's very light weight to strength ratio that you're talking about, but I don't think it is light, according to this:
Francium does not have any stable isotopes. There is at most one ounce of francium in the whole earth at any given time as a result of the decay of other radioactive elements. It is the most unstable of the first 103 elements in the periodic table. Its longest lived isotope has a half life of 22 minutes.
Despite its radioactive complications, francium is the heaviest simple atom.
And on the Ford website a result for searching from Francium:
Search Results
Results for: francium
Sorry no matches were found.
Was this a joke, or can you provide us with more information on how Ford used the most unstable and heavy element in some magical light (or strong) alloy?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Books in a similar vein which tend to be better-respected by engineers are Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization and The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. He's also the founder, IIRC, of The Mars Society.
The patent for waterbeds was turned down because of one of his books.
I have heard anecdotally that when someone tried to patent the waterbed, they were refused because it had been fully described by Robert Heinlein in "Stranger In a Strange Land".
Arthur Clarke has also been quoted as saying he wished he had patented his geosynchronous orbit idea.
Cheers!
I suggest reading the book Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams. Full of nanotech and all that, but one of the big technologies in his world is a fairly perfected virtual world.
The word Ansible was invented by U.K. LeGuin, and the word has been used by countless science fiction writers ever since.
from here
Dog Bell
A boon for dog owners everywhere. Put your dog out in the garden to do whatever... then let him press his own bell to be let in.
So thought Paul Usher, a design consultant of Harpenden, Herts. He designed a small (12" x 8") scratch pad that was fitted to the back door. This was connected to an electrical circuit and when the pet dog wanted to come back inside he scratched the pad which would ring a bell. Mr Usher was looking forward to selling these to all respected pet accessory stores and outlets. Before doing so he applied for a patent to protect his invention.
The Inspector at the (UK) Patent Office wrote to him to advise that such a device was already in the public domain. In the Beano comic of February 28 1981 Dennis the Menace's pet dog Gnasher was illustrated scratching a similar pad at Dennis' back door.
Mr Usher's application Patent number GB2117179 is still pending but now we know what periodicals the Patent office have delivered.
One more comment:
Francium is so reactive and rare, that no one has even taken a photo of the element.
I believe that the accepted theory is that there may be about 35 GRAMS of the material in the entire earth's crust.
Francium does react extremely violently with water, so I think even the 35 grams is optimistic at best.