Archive
Engineer Details Plans to Build a Real, Burj-Dubai-Sized Starship Enterprise in 20 Years
By Rebecca Boyle Posted 05.14.2012
The year 2245 is just too distant — we should build and commission a real USS Enterprise right now, cracking the champagne across her hull within 20 years, according to an enterprising engineer. The gigantic ship would use ion propulsion, powered by a 1.5-GW nuclear reactor, and could reach Mars in three months and the moon in three days. Its 0.3-mile-diameter, magnetically suspended gravity wheel spinning at 2 RPM would provide 1G of gravity, and the thing looks just like the “Star Trek” ship of lore.
This project is the brainchild of an engineer who calls himself BTE Dan. As in “Build The Enterprise,” which is also the name of his brand-new website.
“We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise – so let’s do it,” BTE Dan writes. He even sifts through the federal budget and proposes tax hikes and spend ing cuts to cover the $1 trillion cost.
Though the “Star Trek” connection lends the project an air of sci-fi fun, BTE Dan is hardly the only engineer dreaming up a next-generation spaceship to the stars. DARPA’s 100-Year Starship project is designed partly to foster ideas just like this one, from a project planning roadmap to a real ship.
Kepler Spots a Doomed Planet Slowly Evaporating into Space
By Clay Dillow Posted 05.21.2012 at 12:51 pm @ http://www.popsci.com/
The Outer Limits: Nasa Probe Sees the ‘Edge’ of Our Solar System for First Time – and it’s Completely Different From What We Thought
Sunday, 13 May 2012
‘Nasa’s probes have seen the ‘edge’ of our solar system for the first time – and it’s completely different from what scientists thought.
Our solar system is flying through space more slowly than we thought – and Nasa’s IBEX – Interstellar Boundary Explorer – has found it doesn’t have a ‘bow shock’, an area of gas or plasma that shields our solar system as it hurtles though space
‘The sonic boom made by a jet breaking the sound barrier is an earthly example of a bow shock,’ says Dr. David McComas, principal investigator of the IBEX mission.’
Little black spot on the sun visible with the naked eye
Now one of the largest Sunspots in years, Region 1476 is currently in a great position for Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejections. The only problem has been producing a solar flare that would also in turn, generate a large plasma cloud. This could change in the days ahead. There will continue to be a chance for a major X-Class event.
the suns a bubbler today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature…&v=OSWcm6We8LU
DISCUSS FURTHER : http://forum.davidicke.com/showthread.php?t=209649
NASA’s Spitzer Sees the Light of Alien ‘Super-Earth’
ScienceDaily (May 8, 2012) — NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” planet beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.
Spitzer has amazed us yet again,” said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The spacecraft is pioneering the study of atmospheres of distant planets and paving the way for NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to apply a similar technique on potentially habitable planets.”
The planet, called 55 Cancri e, falls into a class of planets termed super Earths, which are more massive than our home world but lighter than giant planets like Neptune. The planet is about twice as big and eight times as massive as Earth. It orbits a bright star, called 55 Cancri, in a mere 18 hours.
Read more : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120508174416.htm
The Biggest Supermoon in Years is Coming Tonight
Saturday, 05 May 2012 11:28
‘This Saturday evening, take a look at the night sky and you might see something special. The moon will make its largest, most stunning appearance of the year—an event known to scientists as “the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system” and to the popular skywatching public simply as the “supermoon.” As one of the most spectacular supermoons in years, the moon will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than when it is on the far side of its orbit.
Why does the moon sometimes appear larger, and sometimes smaller? The answer lies in the fact that its orbit around Earth is elliptical, so its distance from us varies—it ranges from roughly 222,000 to 252,000 miles away each month. On Saturday, the moon will reach what is known as the perigee, coming as close as it ever does to the Earth, just 221,802 miles away. At the same time, it will be a full moon, with the entirety of its Earth-facing surface illuminated by the light of the sun.’
NASA’s Cassini Finds Saturn’s Moon Phoebe Has Planet-Like Qualities
April 27, 2012 12:58 PM EDT
Data from NASA‘s Cassini mission reveal Saturn’s moon Phoebe has more planet-like qualities than previously thought.
Scientists had their first close-up look at Phoebe when Cassini began exploring the Saturn system in 2004. Using data from multiple spacecraft instruments and a computer model of the moon’s chemistry, geophysics and geology, scientists found Phoebe was a so-called planetesimal, or remnant planetary building block. The findings appear in the April issue of the Journal Icarus.
“Unlike primitive bodies such as comets, Phoebe appears to have actively evolved for a time before it stalled out,” said Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “Objects like Phoebe are thought to have condensed very quickly. Hence, they represent building blocks of planets. They give scientists clues about what conditions were like around the time of the birth of giant planets and their moons”
Venus to Appear in Once-In-A-Lifetime Event
ScienceDaily (May 1, 2012)
On 5 and 6 June this year, millions of people around the world will be able to see Venus pass across the face of the Sun in what will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
It will take Venus about six hours to complete its transit, appearing as a small black dot on the Sun’s surface, in an event that will not happen again until 2117.
In this month’s Physics World, Jay M Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College, Massachusetts, explores the science behind Venus’s transit and gives an account of its fascinating history.
Read full story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501085556.htm
These 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy
Friday, 27 April 2012 07:32
‘A chart we found on Reddit.com today shows that most products we buy are controlled by just a few companies. It’s called “The Illusion of Choice.”
Ever wonder why you can’t get a Coke at Taco Bell? It’s because Yum! Brands was created as a spin-off of Pepsi–and has a lifetime contract with the soda-maker.’
Read more: These 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy
NASA Invests In Satellites That Beam Power Down to Earth
By Rebecca Boyle Posted 04.11.2012 at 4:05 pm
As spaceborne energy-harvesting schemes go, this one seems faintly possible — an array of curved mirrors directing sunlight toward solar cells, their energy production microwaved down to Earth. It’s so realistic, actually, that NASA is providing funding for a proof-of-concept study.
A former NASA engineer named John Mankins, now with a company called Artemis Innovation Management Solutions, detailed his plans at a NASA innovation conference recently. The concept is called called Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large PHased Array (SPS-ALPHA), and it would harvest solar energy from a perch in high Earth orbit.
It would consist of a modular array of movable thin-film mirrors, which could be taken into space using current cargo ships and assembled piece by piece. This would be less expensive than building a gigantic array and launching it. These curved mirrors would redirect sunlight toward an internal collection of photovoltaic panels, and the solar energy would be converted into microwaves. Then the Earth-facing portion, or the bottom of the margarita glass in the image at top, would transmit low-frequency, low-intensity waves toward Earth. At the receiving end, power plants would convert the microwave energy into electricity, adding it to the power grid.
It’s not as comprehensive — nor potentially destructive — as building a Dyson sphere around the Earth, but it’s sort of along the same lines, building a space-based system that can harness solar radiation and somehow beam it back to the planet. Mankins’ design is inspired by nature, according to an account of his presentation over at Space.com. It does sort of look like a flower.
His project, first announced last fall, is part of NASA’s NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts project, under the Office of the Chief Technologist. A one-year study is ongoing.
[via PhysOrg]
Believe nothing 