Before I read the article, I'd have been predisposed to agree with the poster who called this "The crackpot cosmology theory Du Jour". However the article does note that not only does negative matter possibly explain the current lack of detection of gravitation waves but (presumably unlike many other phenomena) predicts that if there is negative matter, we WOULD be able to detect gravitational waves but only above a certain frequency:
"the evidence that could back it up would be the discovery of the threshold frequency above which the waves do propagate"
If anyone who can read and understand the actual paper could tell us non-cosmologists when our improving technology might be able to detect gravitational waves above the cut-off frequency I would appreciate it. I mean is it technology that is (very roughly) 10 years away, 25 years, a century or basically only when we have god-like powers. I seem to remember that NASA was going to launch a space based interferometer with "arms" (free floating platforms) in a triangle 5 million km on a side. Would that be able to detect them? The whole point now isn't just to prove the existence of gravity waves but also negative matter (and the possibility of warp drives, yay!).
Actually, since (if I am reading the article correctly) they are looking for "higher frequencies", doesn't that mean the detectors should be smaller? ("arm" length shorter?) Shouldn't they be increasing the sensitivity instead? Or is the sensitivity increased by making the detector larger? I'm so confused!
So while I'm not ready to completely discount the stories of some Swedish "focus groups" (from the article), that anecdotal evidence would be balanced (overwhelmed? flooded? washed away? submerged?) by the experiences of tens of millions of rice farmers here in S.E. Asia (Mekong delta) who are literally seeing their future disappear before their eyes.
I think the rate of inundation by the ocean here (I live in Vietnam) is getting ridiculous, I frequently read in the local papers about KILOMETERS per year of rice paddies being lost to the sea; if not by direct submergence then by saltwater infiltration. I don't think there's a shadow of a doubt to these farmers that SOMETHING very bad is happening, though honestly I'm not sure if many of them have even heard of climate change.
Now of course there are a lot of other things going on that could be contributing to this. Overuse of groundwater, damming of the Mekong, improper irrigation; I'm not a climate scientist and I haven't screened out those effects (of course climate scientists who've looked at this closely have and they say the effect is real). But neither are those Swedes climate scientists so if their unprofessional opinion is that nothing out of the ordinary is going on, well I've got ten times (a hundred times? a thousand times?) more opinions here to counter that. Then again, there just might be some biases in listening more to white europeans as opposed to brown asians so maybe their opinions don't count. (I rarely if ever see any articles in Western media about the tremendous loss to agriculture that these farmers in the Mekong are facing; the rice basket to HUNDREDS of millions of people; nor do I see articles about the gloomy forecasts made by the governments here that in 20 years or so millions of people in cities like mine, saigon, will be flooded out).
I thought they meant WIRELESS automated remote charging. Like as in a laser or microwave beam transmitting power to a drone to keep it flying indefinitely.
I was wondering how much power it would require to keep a relatively small drone (but still capable of carrying a decent camera and transmitter) aloft. Of course the drone would have to be equipped with some sort of receiver capable of converting the beamed energy (visible light? IR? microwave?) into electricity. By "power" I'm referring to the power of the beam as well as the power fed into the transmitter (more because of losses).
Would there be a 10:1 ratio of power fed into the transmitter: power converted into electricity? 2:1? 100:1? I assume the beamed power would be way beyond what is regarded as "safe", certainly for a visible light laser maybe not for microwave. (That's why I assume it would be illegal). On the other hand, I assume a reasonably simple pointing system on the ground station could illuminate the (not too big) receiving antennae on the drone and would be able to compensate for sudden gusts of wind, etc. Of course the drone would have a small reserve battery.
What would be the effective range for a (practical) system? 100m? 1km? 10km? Anyway, it could be an excellent observation/surveillance platform. Imagine having a permanent camera flying (lazy circles?) above your house. Maybe if it was robust (and safe!) enough, power could be beamed BETWEEN drones (or even from orbit) thus getting rid of any range restrictions. On the other hand, if the tracking was really good, perhaps the "ground" station could be mounted on a moving vehicle; that might make the kind of flying companion drone, as seen on the cartoon "Speed Racer" where we have a robotic bird following the car, practical.
A really sophisticated long range drone might even have power AND communications beamed on a tight microwave beam from a (BIG) antennae in geo-sync orbit. Being able to loiter at almost any altitude over any area for any length of time might make this very valuable to the military (And a big drone could, of course, carry weapons). On the other hand, if the transmitter/receiver/converter overhead wasn't too large, it could be used in the exploration of other worlds. NASA was recently talking about having a quadcopter drone combined with a balloon in Titan's atmosphere; the drone would have to periodically dock to recharge its battery from the nuclear generator on board the drone. Well, this would allow the drone to keep flying without docking.
Since we don't know what the long term effects of low-gee gravity (Mars is 1/3 that of Earth) as well as the higher level of background radiation (Mars' atmosphere is too thin to screen out a lot it), we're going to be evolving a new race of Humans! (I guess we'll call them Martians).
This is the way Nature has done it for billions of years and it's worked. It's called Evolution. Sounds fine except Evolution works through DEATH, DEATH killing off those who can't survive long enough to pass along their genes to the next generation. So we may find that the first generation of colonists on Mars are going to have an absolutely horrific death rate (in addition to all the problems they'll run into with accidents, running out of supplies, breakdowns, etc.) but the next generation will be less so and so on. This is not a pretty picture but then again Nature; "red in tooth and claw" rarely is.
The only way to make sure that there are enough Humans to evolve into Martians is to have a very high birth rate. So perhaps, as Dr. Strangelove would have it, we should have a wildly disproportionate sex ratio of females to males, in order to have the maximum population growth ("and they should be of a highly stimulating sexual nature":). So maybe there's something in it for (men) to go to Mars!
Of course we could actually avoid all this trauma (and sex?) by avoiding the natural selection process of Nature by fully understanding the problems we will face. Then we could either, pre-select the individuals who happened to be genetically endowed to survive and reproduce under those conditions or genetically engineer people who can. But that would actually require spending (comparatively little) money on such things as a centrifuge for the ISS to study mammalian reproduction under partial-gee situations. Since our species is not particularly good at planning (climate change anyone?) it appears as if we may be colonizing the old fashioned way; send a lot of people and see who lives.
I think the first polynesians to cross the pacific in their canoes, the first americans to walk across the bering strait and even the first pilgrims to land in New England (1/3 died the first winter) would sympathize.
About 5 years ago I stopped investing in Chinese companies. Why? Because I didn't want to support even indirectly a regime that, without apology, oppressed Tibet and supported the despotic regime of North Korea. I hold them largely responsible for sacrificing millions of my long-separated brothers (yes, I'm ethnic Korean) through starvation and torture simply to keep a "buffer state" in between them and the "capitalist" (ha ha, what irony) South Korea and U.S.
My stance was only hardened by their support, for purely geopolitical/economic considerations (OIL), of Syria and Iran (and, I think Libya). They and Russia have kept those regimes propped up and have made the tragedies in the Middle East even worse (of course America started it but at least we know now that most of us were idiots to be led by one). That's not to mention the authoritarian and despotic regimes that China is supporting in Africa purely for their resources.
Look, I know the West (and especially the U.S.) have done a LOT of bad things but the Chinese don't even make a pretense of things like human rights, even in their own country. As I've said, they've been willing to sacrifice millions for a modicum of security (they could've asked the U.S. and S. Korea if, in return for not letting the Kims return to North Korea from one of their trips to China, we would promise not to put American troops north of the 38th parallel. As if S. Korea would even want American troops on the peninsula once the threat was gone). Now, living in S.E. Asia, I see firsthand how China with its growing power is throwing away treaties and agreements it has signed in order to bully the Vietnamese and Philippines with their ridiculous "cow tongue" shaped demarcation of the seas. They are returning to 19th century "gunboat" diplomacy in the 21 century world.
I fear that as China grows ever stronger, they will continue to discard previous commitments to peace and will literally force their will upon the world. Is that what you want to support? I'm a realist, and I love my gadgets and my improved standard of living brought on by the flood of low-cost Chinese products (often produced with stolen patents and technologies but that's another story) and I'm not quite ready to live without. However, when there's a choice, when you can purchase something that is identical (hopefully) in every way including price to another but one is made in China and one was made in Sweden(?), I hope you'll make the same choice I do.
If China, not the U.S. had the power the NSA has; would any of us have any protection at all? Think of what kind of world that would be to live in. (That's what 1.2 billion people ARE living in).
What level of gravity do humans need to THRIVE for long periods of time? (That is so that they do not suffer from bone density loss, cardio-muscular problems, etc.) Is it 1/6 gee (moon)? 1/3 gee (mars)? Or will humans need a full 1 gee to live and, eventually, safely REPRODUCE?
If the answer is humans need a full gee, then we might as well just resign ourselves to limiting our trips into the solar system to quick jaunts and robotic explorers. (While you *might* convince colonists to spend say an hour a day doing exercises to maintain their health, no way would you be able to make a fetus do them). We'll need to re-engineer humans before we can make a serious effort to colonize another world. (The only rocky planet with anything near our level of gravity is Venus and it is a hellhole). That's why the loss of the centrifuge planned for the ISS that would examine the effects of "partial gravity" (as opposed to the "micro-gravity" the ISS currently has or the regular gravity that we have) on biological systems was so disappointing. Literally it would have told us whether or not colonization of space was really feasible in the near future. (It probably wasn't going to be big enough to hold people but just seeing how partial gravity affected laboratory mice would go a long way to answering these questions).
Perhaps if we can dump the Ruskies, with the money saved with using Space-X's rockets we could build a decent centrifuge to make these (literally) VITAL studies. Maybe we don't even need to attach it to the ISS; just take two of Bigelow's(?) inflatable habs, add a cable and spin! (Just by changing the cable length you could alter the g-forces so no additional propulsion other than the initial thrusting would be required). But that's the deluxe model, you could just take the Dragon capsule and have a cable attached to its spent second stage and spin THAT (the center of gravity might not be in the "middle" but it should work fine). Keep it in orbit for a few generations of mice and dissect them when they return.
While we're at it, we should probably look into circadian rhythms... (but maybe mars, with it's 24-1/2 hour "day" is close enough).
That's great! (No really: I'm not being sarcastic, that gets rid of one of the two great barriers to deep space travel and living on all the planets not-as-large-as-the-earth).
The other BIG problem is: What level of gravity do humans need to THRIVE for long periods of time? (That is so that they do not suffer from bone density loss, cardio-muscular problems, etc.) Is it 1/6 gee (moon)? 1/3 gee (mars)? Or will humans need a full 1 gee to live and, eventually, safely REPRODUCE?
If the answer is humans need a full gee, then we might as well just resign ourselves to limiting our trips into the solar system to quick jaunts and robotic explorers. (While you *might* convince colonists to spend say an hour a day doing exercises to maintain their health, no way would you be able to make a fetus do them). We'll need to re-engineer humans before we can make a serious effort to colonize another world. (The only rocky planet with anything near our level of gravity is Venus and it is a hellhole). That's why the loss of the centrifuge planned for the ISS that would examine the effects of "partial gravity" (as opposed to the "micro-gravity" the ISS currently has or the regular gravity that we have) on biological systems was so disappointing. Literally it would have told us whether or not colonization of space was really feasible in the near future. (It probably wasn't going to be big enough to hold people but just seeing how partial gravity affected laboratory mice would go a long way to answering these questions).
Perhaps if we can dump the Ruskies, with the money saved with using Space-X's rockets we could build a decent centrifuge to make these (literally) VITAL studies. Maybe we don't even need to attach it to the ISS; just take two of Bigelow's(?) inflatable habs, add a cable and spin! (Just by changing the cable length you could alter the g-forces so no additional propulsion other than the initial thrusting would be required). But that's the deluxe model, you could just take the Dragon capsule and have a cable attached to its spent second stage and spin THAT (the center of gravity might not be in the "middle" but it should work fine). Keep it in orbit for a few generations of mice and dissect them when they return.
While we're at it, we should probably look into circadian rhythms... (but maybe mars, with it's 24-1/2 hour "day" is close enough).
I'm sorry if this sounds too self-centered but assuming that the vaccine has been proven to be safe (I'll take the risk that it might not be effective), I'd be happy to make a donation of a few hundred dollars to be one of the first people to receive it. (I live in a part of the world where I could get malaria). I figure that if I paid a lot more than they expect the final vaccine to cost (there's no way they'll be able to reach hundreds of millions of people in the third world if it's more than a few bucks), I would be helping to accelerate the development of said final vaccine. I think it's only reasonable that I be permitted to get it sooner!
Again, sorry for the "elitist" I want it first attitude but in this case, the early adopters like me would make it possible to save many more lives in the process. And, I don't know too much about these kickstarter campaigns but isn't that typically what donors get in return for their advance payment, to be first in line to get the finished product? Here I'd be doing the same but paying many times the (hoped for) final cost!
Ok, the U.S. (through the NSA) has been revealed (through Snowden) to be able to: 1) record and retain EVERY phone call made in an ENTIRE country (actually two, the Bahamas and Afghanistan I think) 2) hack into the e-mail of at least some world leaders (for example: Germany, not exactly weak in the technology department) 3) subvert (and exploit?) the standards for some of the world's most widely used security protocols 4) hack into the networks of Huawei to view source code (and change it?), one of the largest vendors of routers and other critical network gear 5) collect and retain for later data mining, the text and metadata for hundreds of MILLIONS (billions?) of people for YEARS 6) record conversations, videos and other intel through devices even when they appear to be OFF 7) has planted HARDWARE back doors in the equipment used worldwide for computing and communications and on and on...
So why can't they tell China to STOP HACKING our networks for business advantage or ELSE 1) release the e-mails and other documents showing the favors given to the families of the top Chinese officials 2) publish the electronic money trail where the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars worth of bribes have gone (at that scale you don't use scraps of paper) - this includes MONEY and other assets like property illegally squirreled ABROAD, which may be an offense (under Chinese law) punishable by DEATH 3) publish information regarding kept mistresses of the marriage officials of the elite, their names, dates of assignation, children born out of wedlock, assets - throw in pictures (videos?) and every tabloid would have a field day 4) detail the political "assassinations" (sometimes literal!) and other dirty deals the elite have done to get into and remain in power
It appears that as a byproduct of their goal(?) of ferreting out security threats to the U.S. (or just plain building their capabilities) the NSA has a treasure trove of information that could topple MANY corrupt, authoritarian governments. Of course the U.S. is not immune to corruption but (I read) the (illegal) corruption in the U.S. is measured in the millions not billions of dollars. That's to be distinguished from the legal forms of corruption, lobbying, that plagues the U.S.:(
The NSA, starting from WWII, has had many decades (and a budget in the tens of billions A YEAR) to build up their technological supremacy (as well as being the single largest employer of mathematicians on the planet. Think of what THAT means). That is not an insignificant amount of money, it DWARFS most countries entire defense budgets! Also remember that the U.S. (and to a lessor extent Britain) are the CREATOR of the Internet as well as the modern computer; remember that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Cisco, Intel, IBM, AMD, ARM, Nvidia are all Anglo-American companies. Think of all the "backdoor" connections that have been made over the past half-century at informal (high school/college buddies), formal (legal demands for information) and top secret levels (matter of national security or else go to prison). It's at the point where, to a foreign government, every CPU made or designed in America (basically all of them) and every packet (sent from America) must be suspect.
So the Chinese have MUCH much more to fear from the U.S. If they don't want a "digital Pearl Harbor" they would be wise to play by (America's) rules.
You may very well be right, I mean I saw this article when I was just a kid which puts it way way back (cuban missile crisis anyone?:) There was no laser ring gyroscopes back then (I remember when they were invented), there was barely electricity! (just kidding).
And how does one keep a superfluid liquid in a sealed container (let alone one that is in a hopefully low maintenance solid fueled rocket in a nuclear missile submarine that is then subjected to the forces of an undersea launch and boost phase)? My skepticism meter wasn't nearly as sensitive back then but now I wonder. Can a superfluid liquid even STAY in a sealed container for long if it wants to get out? (I remember that superfluid liquid helium can climb the walls of its vessel as well as squeeze through microscopic pores).
Oh well, the picture was cool looking, like something out of "Akira".
He's right! I'm sorry, I don't know which is wrong, if the isotope of Helium that is used for superfluidity is Helium 3 or something or if it is not so scarce.
A long time ago I saw something that (according to the caption on the photo) was an inertial guidance unit for SLBMs. It was an instrumented(?) sphere that floated in liquid helium 4 which, at that temperature, was a superfluid (which I guess is a kind of quantum effect). This was to compensate for the motion of the submarine AND the flight of the SLBM because in a nuclear war I guess you can't count on any external sensors like a star tracker working. Since this sphere was suspended in a frictionless fluid presumably any frictional losses would be zero (and I guess very precise accelerometers could do the rest).
Now that I think of it, this might have been B.S. (how does one keep liquid helium 4 a liquid in a device, a solid fueled rocket, that you don't want to have to keep constantly maintained?). Still, "maybe" it actually worked, in which case why don't they just use this system in the sub? Are the running out of helium-4? (I think it's a rare isotope of a scarce gas).
That's what I meant in my original post by having a (very) corrugated sphere. But maybe a "prickly pear" or "cactus" or "sea urchin" shape would be better.
Anyway, the diffraction questions are way beyond my (non-existent) knowledge of optics. Anyone care to chime in? How about using a coating of the new "magic" meta-materials? (Not that I have any idea of that could solve anything).
What I mean is, instead of a shade that looks like a "flower" with "petals" can they make something that looks more like a (very) corrugated sphere?
That way if the spacecraft maneuvers to a new position relative to it, it won't have have to rotate (making it much less complex with no active mechanisms required). Also, multiple telescopes could simultaneously use it from different angles.
It could be a simple inflating balloon (perhaps with a fast setting foam) or something more complex like a "hoberman sphere"(?).
If they put it in geo- sync orbit and made it the appropriate size could multiple ground telescopes use it? With good adaptive optics of course, perhaps firing a laser at it (using it as a reference target) at a different wavelength of course for atmospheric aberration correction.
but at least these mice weren't genetically engineered to only live a week to begin with so this result may have a (lot) more relevance.
Fortunately despite the worries of the (first!) poster, hopefully we won't descend into a civilization where the old literally becomes a vampiritic parasite on the young. They've already identified, isolated and synthetically produced (the?) protein which causes this effect so we'll be able to get the benefits without bloodletting. Still makes (made?) a great premise for science fiction/vampire movies.
As an aside, I'm impressed by how Harvard, a decade or two ago, seemed to make the decision not to go into (what I thought) was the trendy/hot science of genetic engineering but instead has invested hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into becoming the(?) center for stem cell research. Meanwhile, genetic engineering seemed to have been sidetracked by "junk DNA" and epigenetics and in general the overwhelming complexity of the human genome (although the invention of CRISPR is a major major advance). Was it obvious to biologists that this was the right decision? Go Crimson!
I'm not British so I don't know the correct way to spell that cheer.
Still, I just want to say, good article or bad (according to Ecuador 740021), it opened up my eyes to a remarkable individual. Especially illuminating was the photographs of the Andromeda Galaxy which shows how much his techniques improved astronomy.
Enough with the jokes. I wish to praise him, not pun-ish him. (no, really). Maybe in his case instead of "Here, here!" we should say "See, see!".
I'm afraid that even if Space X comes to the rescue and gives us a 2-order magnitude (factor of 100) reduction in launch costs it still doesn't make economic sense. As other posters have mentioned, why not just put it on earth? The relative lack of efficiency is more than made up for by not having to pay $$$ per kg to get it into geo-sync orbit. (However a great many cool, exciting and useful things like semi-affordable trips to space for the semi-rich and really good planetary exploration will become possible with a 2-order magnitude reduction in launch costs so let's hope that Space X can give us fully reusable launch systems!).
No, the only way this makes economic sense is if we have a space elevator (or cheap, lightweight nuclear fusion engines*, or anti-gravity, or giant swans pulling us in winged chariots to the heavens). Now there may be other applications (military? propulsion system for interstellar vehicles?) for having a large power station in geo-sync orbit but many of them don't make sense either (a simple bucket of sand at orbital velocities could do major damage to it).
*but if we have nuclear fusion, why would we need solar?
Since he had to go to some length describing the troubles he had because the low pressure formed bubbles due to cavitation, etc. (remember he could not perform this at zero atmospheric pressure because the water would boil), why use water?
Why not use a liquid that will not boil in a vacuum, like (I think) mercury? That would very easily prove that atmospheric pressure is not required to make a siphon work (because there's no atmosphere!).
Take a flexible tube and dunk it in a bucket filled with mercury letting it fill up. Now, sealing the ends, keep one end in the bucket while lowering the other end to another bucket positioned substantially below the first. Pump all the air out of the chamber and unseal the ends. If the siphon works, it is definitely solely due to gravity (remember there's no air!).
Actually, not knowing what the intermolecular bonds are like between mercury molecules, will the siphon still work? If mercury molecules have little or no attraction between them (unlike water which has very strong intermolecular bonds as seen with its high surface tension and high boiling point), perhaps it would behave like discrete particles and there would not be any siphon effect. For example, imagine the bucket and tube to be filled with sand. Would there be a siphon effect? I don't think so because the grains of sand wouldn't "pull" on each other so the sand in the tube would just run out in both directions from the high point in the tube.
Another way to think of the intermolecular bonds is to think of a coiled chain which is held aloft. If a part of it is pulled over a pulley and a substantial length is allowed to dangle down the other side, the rest will be pulled up to the pulley and then down. Of course if all the links in the chain are broken (no intermolecular bonds) then the chain will simply fall away from the pulley on both sides.
The landing of the first stage in the Atlantic (a process that required decelerating it and bringing it to a hover just above the surface of the ocean before letting it fall in), is part of the resupply mission to the ISS. That is, once the first stage boosted its cargo towards the ISS, it then performed this test.
Too bad that they didn't try to return the first stage to land and then try to land it there but I understand their desire to do things one step at a time (it's safer this way also). I'm curious to know if this first stage had landing gear attached (maybe not because of the additional weight, drag). Also, in the future when they DO try to land it on land, where will they be aiming? If the flight profile of the first stage is mostly vertical then, without much fuel I guess they could return to Florida, otherwise would they be going for a Caribbean island? The Azores or Canary Islands? Africa? I'm sure they've got this figured out, I'm just curious.
Anyway, if they manage to recover the first stage by soft landing it without dunking it in salt water, it could REALLY drop the costs of space flight, even if they don't manage to reuse the 2nd stage (which they plan to do also). I remember reading that of the $20 million cost of a launch only about $500,000 was due to fuel, so this is a complete game changer. Even if the stage can only be reused a few times it'll make access to low earth orbit (the expensive part of space travel) much cheaper!
I only hope and pray that it works reliably and that the weight penalty is not too great! I thought they would have to use a lot more fuel to slow down and turn around but I guess they're using air resistance for the braking and the (now almost empty) booster is very light. Pretty unbelievable when you see a 10 story tall rocket turn around and land on a pillar of fire.
The article (and video) doesn't make clear how large the "heads up display" is but considering that they say it is along the lower portion of the windshield that implies it must be pretty big (to cover the area of the "hood").
The range rover isn't a military aircraft where the H.U.D. is going to be relatively near the pilot's face and directly in front of the pilot. For the range rover it wouldn't be safe or convenient to hang a piece of glass so near an ordinary automobile driver. The H.U.D.'s purpose in this case is to "mask" or overlay the hood which subtends a large part of the driver's viewing angle. Since it is placed far away (at the lower part of the windshield) it must be large. Hence it will also occupy a large portion of the (front seat) passenger's viewpoint and thus will project a distorted view unless corrected as I described above.
Well this will work (well?) for one point of view, the driver presumably. The passenger will see a distorted view unless they use some sort of system that can show two different images for two (or more) different viewpoints. They could use the "micro louvers" screen filters (patented by 3M I think) or some more sophisticated system that are used on some large screen LCD TVs that provide multiple points of view (or 3D images) without glasses. It's the same problem basically.
Why stop with just the hood? Why not make the door panels, the dash, even the roof and supports transparent? This would require displays that can be placed on curved surfaces but with OLEDs that is hardly a show-stopper. The big advantage to this, as opposed to most applications, is that the position of the driver (and passenger's) head and eyes are pretty well defined so the system wouldn't have to be calibrated to work with a lot of extreme cases (say with the driver's head down around the feet).
I think it might be one of Orson Scott Card's books, either "Capitol" or something related to his "Worthing" saga. I did a (very) quick google search and found this review:
"enjoyed this series of short stories dealing with Capitol, and the drug Somec, which is given only to Capitol's elites, and allows them to extend their normal life spans over hundreds of years by sleeping a good part of the time. How Somec was developed, how Capitol was constructed, the used and abuses of the immortality drug in a strange society, are described in these interconnecting glimpses into fascinating characters. "The Worthing Saga" is the novel connected to these ideas, but I preferred the format of this book, rather than the drawn out plot of the novel. "
The real(?) key to long-term suspended animation (months, years) would probably involve cooling the body to sub-freezing temperatures.
At that point, you need something to keep the ice-crystals from rupturing cells. In certain antarctic fish they have glycoproteins that do this (I think other hibernating animals use glycol or glycogen).
Until we get nuclear fusion(?) it's clear that spaceflight even just within our solar system is going to require some pretty lengthy journeys. On the other hand, if safe long-term suspended animation is attained, there might be a whole bunch of "future" travelers who might decide to jump (one way of course) years, decades, centuries into the future.
I think there was a science fiction book which talked about the (disastrous) effects such a technology had on society.
If we are getting decent images from 353 million miles away how about when we take pictures from 84,000 miles? I mean we (the U.S.) will have 3 orbiters around Mars including MAVEN as well as two working landers. The Europeans have one or two and I think India has one on the way.
Of course the Hubble is a really good telescope but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a camera that can see meter wide objects from orbit (it can see the landers, supposedly it has the best telescope ever sent to another world) so that's not too bad (and it will be a thousand times closer!). Perhaps we can send one of the older orbiters on a "suicide" mission to get really close! (fuel providing).
On the other hand, I wonder what plans are being made to protect these assets from the "blizzard" of particles surrounding the comet? If the visible coma is 12,000 miles across even now, how large will the accompanying and expanding cloud of particles from the comet be? If it's on its outward trajectory from the sun, it might be pretty big since it will have had a lot more material being blown off of it. Will the space agencies try to arrange it so that their spacecraft are on the other side of the planet when it blows through? (If they had a lot of delta-V, I'd suggest they hide out behind one of the moons but I'm afraid that's science fiction for now). Will it go through the Mars system quickly enough to make this feasible?
I'm sure this is all being worked out by people who are much smarter (and better trained) than I so I think we can look forward to a real scientific windfall (cometfall?) in October!:) It's really going to be something!
Shit, I just lost my comments I was typing up so I'll just summarize what I was writing. If you do a little research (KE=1/2mv2, escape velocity = 25,000mph) you'll see that the energy dropped by a boulder from the moon still doesn't compare to that of an equivalent mass of nuclear weapons by about 1-2 orders of magnitude (I looked up the Trident missile warheads as a reference). (Also hardened warheads are much better at getting through the atmosphere intact than rocks: see Chelyabinsk which was a 50 ton? meteor that only broke windows). So until the Chinese build a really cheap way of launching things off the lunar surface (electromagnetic launchers?) launching nukes are still the way to go even if it means bringing them from earth to do so.
I'm not doubting that someday someone may have electromagnetic launchers on the moon but if the Chinese have the money and resources to build such a system in the near future, the U.S. will have a lot more to worry about than being bombed by rocks from space.
Slashdot Mirror
Before I read the article, I'd have been predisposed to agree with the poster who called this "The crackpot cosmology theory Du Jour". However the article does note that not only does negative matter possibly explain the current lack of detection of gravitation waves but (presumably unlike many other phenomena) predicts that if there is negative matter, we WOULD be able to detect gravitational waves but only above a certain frequency:
"the evidence that could back it up would be the discovery of the threshold frequency above which the waves do propagate"
If anyone who can read and understand the actual paper could tell us non-cosmologists when our improving technology might be able to detect gravitational waves above the cut-off frequency I would appreciate it. I mean is it technology that is (very roughly) 10 years away, 25 years, a century or basically only when we have god-like powers. I seem to remember that NASA was going to launch a space based interferometer with "arms" (free floating platforms) in a triangle 5 million km on a side. Would that be able to detect them? The whole point now isn't just to prove the existence of gravity waves but also negative matter (and the possibility of warp drives, yay!).
Actually, since (if I am reading the article correctly) they are looking for "higher frequencies", doesn't that mean the detectors should be smaller? ("arm" length shorter?) Shouldn't they be increasing the sensitivity instead? Or is the sensitivity increased by making the detector larger? I'm so confused!
So while I'm not ready to completely discount the stories of some Swedish "focus groups" (from the article), that anecdotal evidence would be balanced (overwhelmed? flooded? washed away? submerged?) by the experiences of tens of millions of rice farmers here in S.E. Asia (Mekong delta) who are literally seeing their future disappear before their eyes.
I think the rate of inundation by the ocean here (I live in Vietnam) is getting ridiculous, I frequently read in the local papers about KILOMETERS per year of rice paddies being lost to the sea; if not by direct submergence then by saltwater infiltration. I don't think there's a shadow of a doubt to these farmers that SOMETHING very bad is happening, though honestly I'm not sure if many of them have even heard of climate change.
Now of course there are a lot of other things going on that could be contributing to this. Overuse of groundwater, damming of the Mekong, improper irrigation; I'm not a climate scientist and I haven't screened out those effects (of course climate scientists who've looked at this closely have and they say the effect is real). But neither are those Swedes climate scientists so if their unprofessional opinion is that nothing out of the ordinary is going on, well I've got ten times (a hundred times? a thousand times?) more opinions here to counter that. Then again, there just might be some biases in listening more to white europeans as opposed to brown asians so maybe their opinions don't count. (I rarely if ever see any articles in Western media about the tremendous loss to agriculture that these farmers in the Mekong are facing; the rice basket to HUNDREDS of millions of people; nor do I see articles about the gloomy forecasts made by the governments here that in 20 years or so millions of people in cities like mine, saigon, will be flooded out).
I thought they meant WIRELESS automated remote charging. Like as in a laser or microwave beam transmitting power to a drone to keep it flying indefinitely.
I was wondering how much power it would require to keep a relatively small drone (but still capable of carrying a decent camera and transmitter) aloft. Of course the drone would have to be equipped with some sort of receiver capable of converting the beamed energy (visible light? IR? microwave?) into electricity. By "power" I'm referring to the power of the beam as well as the power fed into the transmitter (more because of losses).
Would there be a 10:1 ratio of power fed into the transmitter: power converted into electricity? 2:1? 100:1? I assume the beamed power would be way beyond what is regarded as "safe", certainly for a visible light laser maybe not for microwave. (That's why I assume it would be illegal). On the other hand, I assume a reasonably simple pointing system on the ground station could illuminate the (not too big) receiving antennae on the drone and would be able to compensate for sudden gusts of wind, etc. Of course the drone would have a small reserve battery.
What would be the effective range for a (practical) system? 100m? 1km? 10km? Anyway, it could be an excellent observation/surveillance platform. Imagine having a permanent camera flying (lazy circles?) above your house. Maybe if it was robust (and safe!) enough, power could be beamed BETWEEN drones (or even from orbit) thus getting rid of any range restrictions. On the other hand, if the tracking was really good, perhaps the "ground" station could be mounted on a moving vehicle; that might make the kind of flying companion drone, as seen on the cartoon "Speed Racer" where we have a robotic bird following the car, practical.
A really sophisticated long range drone might even have power AND communications beamed on a tight microwave beam from a (BIG) antennae in geo-sync orbit. Being able to loiter at almost any altitude over any area for any length of time might make this very valuable to the military (And a big drone could, of course, carry weapons). On the other hand, if the transmitter/receiver/converter overhead wasn't too large, it could be used in the exploration of other worlds. NASA was recently talking about having a quadcopter drone combined with a balloon in Titan's atmosphere; the drone would have to periodically dock to recharge its battery from the nuclear generator on board the drone. Well, this would allow the drone to keep flying without docking.
Since we don't know what the long term effects of low-gee gravity (Mars is 1/3 that of Earth) as well as the higher level of background radiation (Mars' atmosphere is too thin to screen out a lot it), we're going to be evolving a new race of Humans! (I guess we'll call them Martians).
This is the way Nature has done it for billions of years and it's worked. It's called Evolution. Sounds fine except Evolution works through DEATH, DEATH killing off those who can't survive long enough to pass along their genes to the next generation. So we may find that the first generation of colonists on Mars are going to have an absolutely horrific death rate (in addition to all the problems they'll run into with accidents, running out of supplies, breakdowns, etc.) but the next generation will be less so and so on. This is not a pretty picture but then again Nature; "red in tooth and claw" rarely is.
The only way to make sure that there are enough Humans to evolve into Martians is to have a very high birth rate. So perhaps, as Dr. Strangelove would have it, we should have a wildly disproportionate sex ratio of females to males, in order to have the maximum population growth ("and they should be of a highly stimulating sexual nature" :). So maybe there's something in it for (men) to go to Mars!
Of course we could actually avoid all this trauma (and sex?) by avoiding the natural selection process of Nature by fully understanding the problems we will face. Then we could either, pre-select the individuals who happened to be genetically endowed to survive and reproduce under those conditions or genetically engineer people who can. But that would actually require spending (comparatively little) money on such things as a centrifuge for the ISS to study mammalian reproduction under partial-gee situations. Since our species is not particularly good at planning (climate change anyone?) it appears as if we may be colonizing the old fashioned way; send a lot of people and see who lives.
I think the first polynesians to cross the pacific in their canoes, the first americans to walk across the bering strait and even the first pilgrims to land in New England (1/3 died the first winter) would sympathize.
About 5 years ago I stopped investing in Chinese companies. Why? Because I didn't want to support even indirectly a regime that, without apology, oppressed Tibet and supported the despotic regime of North Korea. I hold them largely responsible for sacrificing millions of my long-separated brothers (yes, I'm ethnic Korean) through starvation and torture simply to keep a "buffer state" in between them and the "capitalist" (ha ha, what irony) South Korea and U.S.
My stance was only hardened by their support, for purely geopolitical/economic considerations (OIL), of Syria and Iran (and, I think Libya). They and Russia have kept those regimes propped up and have made the tragedies in the Middle East even worse (of course America started it but at least we know now that most of us were idiots to be led by one). That's not to mention the authoritarian and despotic regimes that China is supporting in Africa purely for their resources.
Look, I know the West (and especially the U.S.) have done a LOT of bad things but the Chinese don't even make a pretense of things like human rights, even in their own country. As I've said, they've been willing to sacrifice millions for a modicum of security (they could've asked the U.S. and S. Korea if, in return for not letting the Kims return to North Korea from one of their trips to China, we would promise not to put American troops north of the 38th parallel. As if S. Korea would even want American troops on the peninsula once the threat was gone). Now, living in S.E. Asia, I see firsthand how China with its growing power is throwing away treaties and agreements it has signed in order to bully the Vietnamese and Philippines with their ridiculous "cow tongue" shaped demarcation of the seas. They are returning to 19th century "gunboat" diplomacy in the 21 century world.
I fear that as China grows ever stronger, they will continue to discard previous commitments to peace and will literally force their will upon the world. Is that what you want to support? I'm a realist, and I love my gadgets and my improved standard of living brought on by the flood of low-cost Chinese products (often produced with stolen patents and technologies but that's another story) and I'm not quite ready to live without. However, when there's a choice, when you can purchase something that is identical (hopefully) in every way including price to another but one is made in China and one was made in Sweden(?), I hope you'll make the same choice I do.
If China, not the U.S. had the power the NSA has; would any of us have any protection at all? Think of what kind of world that would be to live in. (That's what 1.2 billion people ARE living in).
What level of gravity do humans need to THRIVE for long periods of time? (That is so that they do not suffer from bone density loss, cardio-muscular problems, etc.) Is it 1/6 gee (moon)? 1/3 gee (mars)? Or will humans need a full 1 gee to live and, eventually, safely REPRODUCE?
If the answer is humans need a full gee, then we might as well just resign ourselves to limiting our trips into the solar system to quick jaunts and robotic explorers. (While you *might* convince colonists to spend say an hour a day doing exercises to maintain their health, no way would you be able to make a fetus do them). We'll need to re-engineer humans before we can make a serious effort to colonize another world. (The only rocky planet with anything near our level of gravity is Venus and it is a hellhole). That's why the loss of the centrifuge planned for the ISS that would examine the effects of "partial gravity" (as opposed to the "micro-gravity" the ISS currently has or the regular gravity that we have) on biological systems was so disappointing. Literally it would have told us whether or not colonization of space was really feasible in the near future. (It probably wasn't going to be big enough to hold people but just seeing how partial gravity affected laboratory mice would go a long way to answering these questions).
Perhaps if we can dump the Ruskies, with the money saved with using Space-X's rockets we could build a decent centrifuge to make these (literally) VITAL studies. Maybe we don't even need to attach it to the ISS; just take two of Bigelow's(?) inflatable habs, add a cable and spin! (Just by changing the cable length you could alter the g-forces so no additional propulsion other than the initial thrusting would be required). But that's the deluxe model, you could just take the Dragon capsule and have a cable attached to its spent second stage and spin THAT (the center of gravity might not be in the "middle" but it should work fine). Keep it in orbit for a few generations of mice and dissect them when they return.
While we're at it, we should probably look into circadian rhythms... (but maybe mars, with it's 24-1/2 hour "day" is close enough).
That's great! (No really: I'm not being sarcastic, that gets rid of one of the two great barriers to deep space travel and living on all the planets not-as-large-as-the-earth).
The other BIG problem is: What level of gravity do humans need to THRIVE for long periods of time? (That is so that they do not suffer from bone density loss, cardio-muscular problems, etc.) Is it 1/6 gee (moon)? 1/3 gee (mars)? Or will humans need a full 1 gee to live and, eventually, safely REPRODUCE?
If the answer is humans need a full gee, then we might as well just resign ourselves to limiting our trips into the solar system to quick jaunts and robotic explorers. (While you *might* convince colonists to spend say an hour a day doing exercises to maintain their health, no way would you be able to make a fetus do them). We'll need to re-engineer humans before we can make a serious effort to colonize another world. (The only rocky planet with anything near our level of gravity is Venus and it is a hellhole). That's why the loss of the centrifuge planned for the ISS that would examine the effects of "partial gravity" (as opposed to the "micro-gravity" the ISS currently has or the regular gravity that we have) on biological systems was so disappointing. Literally it would have told us whether or not colonization of space was really feasible in the near future. (It probably wasn't going to be big enough to hold people but just seeing how partial gravity affected laboratory mice would go a long way to answering these questions).
Perhaps if we can dump the Ruskies, with the money saved with using Space-X's rockets we could build a decent centrifuge to make these (literally) VITAL studies. Maybe we don't even need to attach it to the ISS; just take two of Bigelow's(?) inflatable habs, add a cable and spin! (Just by changing the cable length you could alter the g-forces so no additional propulsion other than the initial thrusting would be required). But that's the deluxe model, you could just take the Dragon capsule and have a cable attached to its spent second stage and spin THAT (the center of gravity might not be in the "middle" but it should work fine). Keep it in orbit for a few generations of mice and dissect them when they return.
While we're at it, we should probably look into circadian rhythms... (but maybe mars, with it's 24-1/2 hour "day" is close enough).
... I could be a part of the next clinical trial!
I'm sorry if this sounds too self-centered but assuming that the vaccine has been proven to be safe (I'll take the risk that it might not be effective), I'd be happy to make a donation of a few hundred dollars to be one of the first people to receive it. (I live in a part of the world where I could get malaria). I figure that if I paid a lot more than they expect the final vaccine to cost (there's no way they'll be able to reach hundreds of millions of people in the third world if it's more than a few bucks), I would be helping to accelerate the development of said final vaccine. I think it's only reasonable that I be permitted to get it sooner!
Again, sorry for the "elitist" I want it first attitude but in this case, the early adopters like me would make it possible to save many more lives in the process. And, I don't know too much about these kickstarter campaigns but isn't that typically what donors get in return for their advance payment, to be first in line to get the finished product? Here I'd be doing the same but paying many times the (hoped for) final cost!
Ok, the U.S. (through the NSA) has been revealed (through Snowden) to be able to:
1) record and retain EVERY phone call made in an ENTIRE country (actually two, the Bahamas and Afghanistan I think)
2) hack into the e-mail of at least some world leaders (for example: Germany, not exactly weak in the technology department)
3) subvert (and exploit?) the standards for some of the world's most widely used security protocols
4) hack into the networks of Huawei to view source code (and change it?), one of the largest vendors of routers and other critical network gear
5) collect and retain for later data mining, the text and metadata for hundreds of MILLIONS (billions?) of people for YEARS
6) record conversations, videos and other intel through devices even when they appear to be OFF
7) has planted HARDWARE back doors in the equipment used worldwide for computing and communications
and on and on...
So why can't they tell China to STOP HACKING our networks for business advantage or ELSE
1) release the e-mails and other documents showing the favors given to the families of the top Chinese officials
2) publish the electronic money trail where the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars worth of bribes have gone (at that scale you don't use scraps of paper)
- this includes MONEY and other assets like property illegally squirreled ABROAD, which may be an offense (under Chinese law) punishable by DEATH
3) publish information regarding kept mistresses of the marriage officials of the elite, their names, dates of assignation, children born out of wedlock, assets
- throw in pictures (videos?) and every tabloid would have a field day
4) detail the political "assassinations" (sometimes literal!) and other dirty deals the elite have done to get into and remain in power
It appears that as a byproduct of their goal(?) of ferreting out security threats to the U.S. (or just plain building their capabilities) the NSA has a treasure trove of information that could topple MANY corrupt, authoritarian governments. Of course the U.S. is not immune to corruption but (I read) the (illegal) corruption in the U.S. is measured in the millions not billions of dollars. That's to be distinguished from the legal forms of corruption, lobbying, that plagues the U.S. :(
The NSA, starting from WWII, has had many decades (and a budget in the tens of billions A YEAR) to build up their technological supremacy (as well as being the single largest employer of mathematicians on the planet. Think of what THAT means). That is not an insignificant amount of money, it DWARFS most countries entire defense budgets! Also remember that the U.S. (and to a lessor extent Britain) are the CREATOR of the Internet as well as the modern computer; remember that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Cisco, Intel, IBM, AMD, ARM, Nvidia are all Anglo-American companies. Think of all the "backdoor" connections that have been made over the past half-century at informal (high school/college buddies), formal (legal demands for information) and top secret levels (matter of national security or else go to prison). It's at the point where, to a foreign government, every CPU made or designed in America (basically all of them) and every packet (sent from America) must be suspect.
So the Chinese have MUCH much more to fear from the U.S. If they don't want a "digital Pearl Harbor" they would be wise to play by (America's) rules.
You may very well be right, I mean I saw this article when I was just a kid which puts it way way back (cuban missile crisis anyone? :) There was no laser ring gyroscopes back then (I remember when they were invented), there was barely electricity! (just kidding).
And how does one keep a superfluid liquid in a sealed container (let alone one that is in a hopefully low maintenance solid fueled rocket in a nuclear missile submarine that is then subjected to the forces of an undersea launch and boost phase)? My skepticism meter wasn't nearly as sensitive back then but now I wonder. Can a superfluid liquid even STAY in a sealed container for long if it wants to get out? (I remember that superfluid liquid helium can climb the walls of its vessel as well as squeeze through microscopic pores).
Oh well, the picture was cool looking, like something out of "Akira".
He's right! I'm sorry, I don't know which is wrong, if the isotope of Helium that is used for superfluidity is Helium 3 or something or if it is not so scarce.
My bad.
A long time ago I saw something that (according to the caption on the photo) was an inertial guidance unit for SLBMs. It was an instrumented(?) sphere that floated in liquid helium 4 which, at that temperature, was a superfluid (which I guess is a kind of quantum effect). This was to compensate for the motion of the submarine AND the flight of the SLBM because in a nuclear war I guess you can't count on any external sensors like a star tracker working. Since this sphere was suspended in a frictionless fluid presumably any frictional losses would be zero (and I guess very precise accelerometers could do the rest).
Now that I think of it, this might have been B.S. (how does one keep liquid helium 4 a liquid in a device, a solid fueled rocket, that you don't want to have to keep constantly maintained?). Still, "maybe" it actually worked, in which case why don't they just use this system in the sub? Are the running out of helium-4? (I think it's a rare isotope of a scarce gas).
That's what I meant in my original post by having a (very) corrugated sphere. But maybe a "prickly pear" or "cactus" or "sea urchin" shape would be better.
Anyway, the diffraction questions are way beyond my (non-existent) knowledge of optics. Anyone care to chime in? How about using a coating of the new "magic" meta-materials? (Not that I have any idea of that could solve anything).
Just trying to think outside the box.
What I mean is, instead of a shade that looks like a "flower" with "petals" can they make something that looks more like a (very) corrugated sphere?
That way if the spacecraft maneuvers to a new position relative to it, it won't have have to rotate (making it much less complex with no active mechanisms required). Also, multiple telescopes could simultaneously use it from different angles.
It could be a simple inflating balloon (perhaps with a fast setting foam) or something more complex like a "hoberman sphere"(?).
If they put it in geo- sync orbit and made it the appropriate size could multiple ground telescopes use it? With good adaptive optics of course, perhaps firing a laser at it (using it as a reference target) at a different wavelength of course for atmospheric aberration correction.
... that they got from another study: http://www.grg.org/SMelov.htm
but at least these mice weren't genetically engineered to only live a week to begin with so this result may have a (lot) more relevance.
Fortunately despite the worries of the (first!) poster, hopefully we won't descend into a civilization where the old literally becomes a vampiritic parasite on the young. They've already identified, isolated and synthetically produced (the?) protein which causes this effect so we'll be able to get the benefits without bloodletting. Still makes (made?) a great premise for science fiction/vampire movies.
As an aside, I'm impressed by how Harvard, a decade or two ago, seemed to make the decision not to go into (what I thought) was the trendy/hot science of genetic engineering but instead has invested hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into becoming the(?) center for stem cell research. Meanwhile, genetic engineering seemed to have been sidetracked by "junk DNA" and epigenetics and in general the overwhelming complexity of the human genome (although the invention of CRISPR is a major major advance). Was it obvious to biologists that this was the right decision? Go Crimson!
I'm not British so I don't know the correct way to spell that cheer.
Still, I just want to say, good article or bad (according to Ecuador 740021), it opened up my eyes to a remarkable individual. Especially illuminating was the photographs of the Andromeda Galaxy which shows how much his techniques improved astronomy.
Enough with the jokes. I wish to praise him, not pun-ish him. (no, really). Maybe in his case instead of "Here, here!" we should say "See, see!".
I'm afraid that even if Space X comes to the rescue and gives us a 2-order magnitude (factor of 100) reduction in launch costs it still doesn't make economic sense. As other posters have mentioned, why not just put it on earth? The relative lack of efficiency is more than made up for by not having to pay $$$ per kg to get it into geo-sync orbit. (However a great many cool, exciting and useful things like semi-affordable trips to space for the semi-rich and really good planetary exploration will become possible with a 2-order magnitude reduction in launch costs so let's hope that Space X can give us fully reusable launch systems!).
No, the only way this makes economic sense is if we have a space elevator (or cheap, lightweight nuclear fusion engines*, or anti-gravity, or giant swans pulling us in winged chariots to the heavens). Now there may be other applications (military? propulsion system for interstellar vehicles?) for having a large power station in geo-sync orbit but many of them don't make sense either (a simple bucket of sand at orbital velocities could do major damage to it).
*but if we have nuclear fusion, why would we need solar?
Since he had to go to some length describing the troubles he had because the low pressure formed bubbles due to cavitation, etc. (remember he could not perform this at zero atmospheric pressure because the water would boil), why use water?
Why not use a liquid that will not boil in a vacuum, like (I think) mercury? That would very easily prove that atmospheric pressure is not required to make a siphon work (because there's no atmosphere!).
Take a flexible tube and dunk it in a bucket filled with mercury letting it fill up. Now, sealing the ends, keep one end in the bucket while lowering the other end to another bucket positioned substantially below the first. Pump all the air out of the chamber and unseal the ends. If the siphon works, it is definitely solely due to gravity (remember there's no air!).
Actually, not knowing what the intermolecular bonds are like between mercury molecules, will the siphon still work? If mercury molecules have little or no attraction between them (unlike water which has very strong intermolecular bonds as seen with its high surface tension and high boiling point), perhaps it would behave like discrete particles and there would not be any siphon effect. For example, imagine the bucket and tube to be filled with sand. Would there be a siphon effect? I don't think so because the grains of sand wouldn't "pull" on each other so the sand in the tube would just run out in both directions from the high point in the tube.
Another way to think of the intermolecular bonds is to think of a coiled chain which is held aloft. If a part of it is pulled over a pulley and a substantial length is allowed to dangle down the other side, the rest will be pulled up to the pulley and then down. Of course if all the links in the chain are broken (no intermolecular bonds) then the chain will simply fall away from the pulley on both sides.
The landing of the first stage in the Atlantic (a process that required decelerating it and bringing it to a hover just above the surface of the ocean before letting it fall in), is part of the resupply mission to the ISS. That is, once the first stage boosted its cargo towards the ISS, it then performed this test.
Too bad that they didn't try to return the first stage to land and then try to land it there but I understand their desire to do things one step at a time (it's safer this way also). I'm curious to know if this first stage had landing gear attached (maybe not because of the additional weight, drag). Also, in the future when they DO try to land it on land, where will they be aiming? If the flight profile of the first stage is mostly vertical then, without much fuel I guess they could return to Florida, otherwise would they be going for a Caribbean island? The Azores or Canary Islands? Africa? I'm sure they've got this figured out, I'm just curious.
Anyway, if they manage to recover the first stage by soft landing it without dunking it in salt water, it could REALLY drop the costs of space flight, even if they don't manage to reuse the 2nd stage (which they plan to do also). I remember reading that of the $20 million cost of a launch only about $500,000 was due to fuel, so this is a complete game changer. Even if the stage can only be reused a few times it'll make access to low earth orbit (the expensive part of space travel) much cheaper!
I only hope and pray that it works reliably and that the weight penalty is not too great! I thought they would have to use a lot more fuel to slow down and turn around but I guess they're using air resistance for the braking and the (now almost empty) booster is very light. Pretty unbelievable when you see a 10 story tall rocket turn around and land on a pillar of fire.
The article (and video) doesn't make clear how large the "heads up display" is but considering that they say it is along the lower portion of the windshield that implies it must be pretty big (to cover the area of the "hood").
The range rover isn't a military aircraft where the H.U.D. is going to be relatively near the pilot's face and directly in front of the pilot. For the range rover it wouldn't be safe or convenient to hang a piece of glass so near an ordinary automobile driver. The H.U.D.'s purpose in this case is to "mask" or overlay the hood which subtends a large part of the driver's viewing angle. Since it is placed far away (at the lower part of the windshield) it must be large. Hence it will also occupy a large portion of the (front seat) passenger's viewpoint and thus will project a distorted view unless corrected as I described above.
Well this will work (well?) for one point of view, the driver presumably. The passenger will see a distorted view unless they use some sort of system that can show two different images for two (or more) different viewpoints. They could use the "micro louvers" screen filters (patented by 3M I think) or some more sophisticated system that are used on some large screen LCD TVs that provide multiple points of view (or 3D images) without glasses. It's the same problem basically.
Why stop with just the hood? Why not make the door panels, the dash, even the roof and supports transparent? This would require displays that can be placed on curved surfaces but with OLEDs that is hardly a show-stopper. The big advantage to this, as opposed to most applications, is that the position of the driver (and passenger's) head and eyes are pretty well defined so the system wouldn't have to be calibrated to work with a lot of extreme cases (say with the driver's head down around the feet).
I think it might be one of Orson Scott Card's books, either "Capitol" or something related to his "Worthing" saga. I did a (very) quick google search and found this review:
"enjoyed this series of short stories dealing with Capitol, and the drug Somec, which is given only to Capitol's elites, and allows them to extend their normal life spans over hundreds of years by sleeping a good part of the time. How Somec was developed, how Capitol was constructed, the used and abuses of the immortality drug in a strange society, are described in these interconnecting glimpses into fascinating characters. "The Worthing Saga" is the novel connected to these ideas, but I preferred the format of this book, rather than the drawn out plot of the novel. "
The real(?) key to long-term suspended animation (months, years) would probably involve cooling the body to sub-freezing temperatures.
At that point, you need something to keep the ice-crystals from rupturing cells. In certain antarctic fish they have glycoproteins that do this (I think other hibernating animals use glycol or glycogen).
Until we get nuclear fusion(?) it's clear that spaceflight even just within our solar system is going to require some pretty lengthy journeys. On the other hand, if safe long-term suspended animation is attained, there might be a whole bunch of "future" travelers who might decide to jump (one way of course) years, decades, centuries into the future.
I think there was a science fiction book which talked about the (disastrous) effects such a technology had on society.
If we are getting decent images from 353 million miles away how about when we take pictures from 84,000 miles? I mean we (the U.S.) will have 3 orbiters around Mars including MAVEN as well as two working landers. The Europeans have one or two and I think India has one on the way.
Of course the Hubble is a really good telescope but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a camera that can see meter wide objects from orbit (it can see the landers, supposedly it has the best telescope ever sent to another world) so that's not too bad (and it will be a thousand times closer!). Perhaps we can send one of the older orbiters on a "suicide" mission to get really close! (fuel providing).
On the other hand, I wonder what plans are being made to protect these assets from the "blizzard" of particles surrounding the comet? If the visible coma is 12,000 miles across even now, how large will the accompanying and expanding cloud of particles from the comet be? If it's on its outward trajectory from the sun, it might be pretty big since it will have had a lot more material being blown off of it. Will the space agencies try to arrange it so that their spacecraft are on the other side of the planet when it blows through? (If they had a lot of delta-V, I'd suggest they hide out behind one of the moons but I'm afraid that's science fiction for now). Will it go through the Mars system quickly enough to make this feasible?
I'm sure this is all being worked out by people who are much smarter (and better trained) than I so I think we can look forward to a real scientific windfall (cometfall?) in October! :) It's really going to be something!
Shit, I just lost my comments I was typing up so I'll just summarize what I was writing. If you do a little research (KE=1/2mv2, escape velocity = 25,000mph) you'll see that the energy dropped by a boulder from the moon still doesn't compare to that of an equivalent mass of nuclear weapons by about 1-2 orders of magnitude (I looked up the Trident missile warheads as a reference). (Also hardened warheads are much better at getting through the atmosphere intact than rocks: see Chelyabinsk which was a 50 ton? meteor that only broke windows). So until the Chinese build a really cheap way of launching things off the lunar surface (electromagnetic launchers?) launching nukes are still the way to go even if it means bringing them from earth to do so.
I'm not doubting that someday someone may have electromagnetic launchers on the moon but if the Chinese have the money and resources to build such a system in the near future, the U.S. will have a lot more to worry about than being bombed by rocks from space.
By the way, what's Sherlock?