Oh, crap. The stars are right, I guess…

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, Hmm..., news, reshaping the world, ಠ_ಠ  3 Responses »
Sep 242013
 

I thought the bombing of the Christian church in Pakistan a few days back was just another Random Act Of Religion Of Peace. But it may have turned out to have been a sacrificial offering by a Cthulhu cult. And, sadly, a successful one:

Pakistan quake kills 46; island appears

The quake was strong enough to cause a mass 20 to 30 feet high to emerge from the ocean like a small mountain island off the coast of Gwadar… The island is about 100 feet in diameter and about one mile off the coast, GEO TV reported.

o_rlyeh_2

Other news sources suggest a far bigger island:

Earthquake in Balochistan: Death toll touches 150

The newly appearing island is said to have a mountainous terrain rising up to a hundred feet.

ya_rlyeh

I would imagine the smaller estimate is more accurate, but still… I’d be on the lookout for any cyclopean stone structures featuring non-Euclidean geometry. And stand by with the nukes.

 

 Posted by at 2:15 pm

NASA confirms: humanity is now an interstellar species

 awesomeness, blather, history, news, reshaping the world, rockets, science, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Sep 122013
 

Voyager 1, which has been noted for a few years seemed to be passing through the heliosphere and about to pass into interstellar space (mentioned on this blog in 2012 and 2010), has now been confirmed to have passed the heliopause about August 25, 2012. It’s now out there. We (humanity, Americans, aerospace engineers, etc.) can now say with honesty and hopefully some pride “We built a starship.”

It’s Official! Voyager 1 Spacecraft Has Left Solar System

NASA confirms Voyager 1 has left the solar system

Should we add August 25 to a list of modern holidays?

April 12: Yuri’s Night.

July 20: Apollo 11 (landed on the moon)

August 25: Mankind goes interstellar (“Voyager Day?”)

 Posted by at 1:08 pm

“Return of the zeppelins”

 aircraft, blather, history, Hmm..., reshaping the world  3 Responses »
Sep 112013
 

It seems like every ten years or so there is a flurry of activity aimed at returning large dirigibles to the air, with promises of cheap air transport of cargo and a return to the glory days of lighter-than-air travel, before the Hindenburg screwed everything up. The last go-around was with DARPA’s “WALRUS” program to develop a strategic airlift dirigible capable of carrying 1000 tons of cargo; the program started a decade or so ago, and was cancelled in 2010. When WALRUS went away, a lot of the press behind new zeppelins also went away.

One effort that still seems to be chugging along, though, is Aeroscraft, which is building a large dirigible of somewhat unconventional shape. Instead of the traditional cigar-shaped vehicle with a circular cross-section, the Aeroscraft has a flattened underside. By flattening the underside, the vehicle can hug the ground. This allows the landing gear – four largish “pads” – to contact the ground. These appear to be air cushion landing pads… which can not only provide a soft landing without a ground crew, but can also “suck” the vehicle to the ground. This means that an airship could land on a flat but otherwise unimproved spot of land and stick itself to the ground without needing to be tied down. Together with a built-in means of compressing the helium lift gas, an Aeroscraft zeppelin could land and offload cargo without suddenly floating away at the sudden weight loss.

A few recent news articles with lots of photos of their test vehicle:

Thundebird 2 is go! California firm unveils gigantic amphibious airship which could revolutionize air travel as we know it

 Posted by at 7:08 am

1000 Megawatt Fusion Powerplant

 art, drawings, history, nukes, projects, reshaping the world, science, science fiction  15 Responses »
Sep 042013
 

Fusion power has been about 10 years away for the last 50 years or so. Still, experts in the field have from time to time gone ahead and designed operational reactors based on then-current assumptions. One such design study was done in 1972 by staff at the Oak Ridge National Lab, reported on in early 1973. This was a 1000 megawatt commercial fusion powerplant based on the Tokamak torus-type reactor. The work was sponsored by the US Atomic Energy Commission.

A 30,000 gauss superconducting toroidal electromagnet would serve as the deuterium and tritium containment and compression field, driving up pressure and temperature to fusion levels. Neutrons spit out by the reaction would be absorbed by a thick blanket of liquid lithium; absorption of the neutrons would cause the lithium to fission and create tritium at a rate higher than tritium is consumed in fusion, thus making the system self sustaining as far as tritium. While a reactor like this, if made workable, would not have the sort of safety issues associated with fission reactors (see: Chernobyl, Fukushima), there would still be the potential issue of many tons of molten lithium. At the best of time lithium and the oxygen in air do not get along well; melt the lithium and expose it to oxygen – say, via a split weld or a broken pipe – and you’d have one spectacular magnesium-like fire that would probably reduce the entire plant (including the concrete structure) to smoldering ash.

Needless to say, no commercial powerplant like this has been built. One like it is… at least 10 years away.

 Posted by at 5:57 am

Cosmos (again)

 art, awesomeness, blather, history, reshaping the world, science, science fiction, youtube  6 Responses »
Jul 242013
 

I do my Web surfing via a dinky little netbook (all my *real* work is done on computers that *never* touch the internet). Generally adequate, but sometimes something a little more is needed. I downloaded the Cosmos trailer I linked to yesterday, and played it on my much bigger laptop.

Holy crap!

 

cosmos12

The original Cosmos had some fairly decent special effect for a TV show of its day. But it is clear that Fox/National Geographic have *lavished* the new Cosmos with not only the budget for good modern effects, but also the talent to do it right, and the art to do it spectacularly. I really hope that the show lives up to this. Giggity!

cosmos11 cosmos10  cosmos8 cosmos7 cosmos6 cosmos5 cosmos4 cosmos3 cosmos2 cosmos1

I’ve had this dream…

cosmos9

 Posted by at 10:56 pm

Riseof the Machines: Illegal Alien Edition

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., news, politics, reshaping the world, science, science fiction  7 Responses »
Jul 142013
 

As spiffy as a drone landing itself on an aircraft carrier was, I think this might be more important:

Robots to revolutionize farming, ease labor woes

It’s an AP article, so no quoting without the lawyerbeasts taking an interest. But the basic point is this: Lettuce Bot. A robot is being tested by Blue River Technology, and apparently at least more or less works, that “thins” a field of lettuce, doing the work of 20 humans – who would probably be illegal aliens. Several other such robots are discussed, including a strawberry picker.

The article discusses how this could make farming more efficient. What it doesn’t mention is how this could make farmers no longer dependent upon low-skilled illegal aliens… which would negate a good chunk of the need for them. No longer would “they’re doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do” be a valid argument. Instead, “robots are doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do, and Americans are being employed to make the robots” will become a valid argument.  supporting illegal immigration in the face of these new developments is in fact a slap in the face of American technological development. Other countries will develop these robots, even if the US doesn’t.

If you have a Senator or Congressman who’s squishy on whether or n0t to pass yet another round of amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, make sure to pass this info along to them. In a few years, the role of millions of illegals could be filled by honest, legal, American-made robots.  Any legislator who, upon learning this, still opts for amnesty, can be safely assumed to be working not in the best interests of America, but instead is simply pandering to generate votes and should be replaced with a new legislator who actually wants what’s best for the American farmer and the American economy.

Imagine it: in a decade or so, instead of importing millions of low-skilled workers who bring nothing to the economy or the culture and who are  a massive burden to the legal and health care systems, the US could be exporting millions of robots around the world to work fields. Instead of spending billions to support millions of people who are minimally useful to the US, we could be making billions across the world.

 Posted by at 9:29 am

Possible cometary impact in 2014

 awesomeness, blather, history, Hmm..., news, reshaping the world, rockets, science, science fiction, spacecraft  24 Responses »
Feb 262013
 

C/2013 A1 was discovered January 3, so it has not been observed for terribly long. However, current orbital projections for October 19, 2014, has it passing within 0.0007 AU (63,000 miles). But due to uncertainties, it could pass as far away as 0.008 AU… or it could impact. If it does, it’ll hit at an impressive 35 miles per second.

And in this case, I really, *really* hope that it hits. Because it’ll hit *Mars,* not Earth.

If it hits, the impact will be a hell of a thing to watch (and very likely the *last* thing the Mars rovers and flotilla of Mars orbiters will ever observe. If it misses, the spacecraft might still get an impressive show, depending on whether the comet has started to substantially outgas (not at all certain). The size and mass of the comet are still unknown. But if it hits *and* if it’s a large enough comet, we just might maybe possibly see major changes to the climate of Mars. A substantial influx of water vapor, coupled with a vast amount of liberated subsoil water vapor and carbon dioxide, just might serve as enough of a “greenhouse” to raise planetary temperatures. This won’t be enough to terraform Mars… Mars has been whacked often enough that if a single comet strike were going to do so, it would have done so. But it might give Mars a temporary flicker of warmth. Would it last months? Years? Decades? Centuries? Dunno. My guess would be months to maybe years. But if it lasts decades, that’s long enough for humanity to get off its ass and do something with it. A warmer, thicker atmosphere would make landing on Mars easier; the asteroid mining companies could do their thing to lob *more* rocks and iceballs at Mars to keep the warming and wettening process going.

The comet will almost certainly miss. But a man can dream.

 

UPDATE: Possible size of the comet from HERE:

With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter up to 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10¹º megatonnes! This kind of event can leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep.

Yow!

An impact like this would not be a once-in-a-lifetime event. it would not be a once-in-a-millenium event. It’d be a once in… what? Ten million year event, for something this big to whack one of the terrestrial planets?

 Posted by at 12:15 pm

Supercapacitor

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., reshaping the world, science  12 Responses »
Feb 232013
 

A brief video describing recent work on graphene-based supercapacitors. The end result might be metal-free capacitors that can store as much energy as modern batteries, but would be able to charge up a hundred or a thousand times faster. A cell phone that charges in 2 seconds; an electric car that charges in a minute, rather than the multiple-hours currently required.

As well as getting rid of the toxic and expensive metals current batteries require, the graphene batteries could, it seems, be produced by virtually anyone: their prototypes were made by coating blank DVDs with graphite oxide and zapping it with the standard DVD-burner laser. If this can be made truly functional and distributable to the public, imagine the possibilities: anyone with a DVD burner could just crank out thin sheets of supercapacitor, and these could be use to built up capacitors or perhaps arbitrary size and storage capacity, and perhaps of arbitrary shape. Batteries of large storage and vast power that can be shaped to fit within – oh, let’s say a Gauss gun the design of which is simply downloaded off the web, and printed on your home 3D printer.

Heck: make long, thin graphene capacitors in the shape of RC helicopter blades, then mount them to RC helicopters.  Given the strength of graphene, this would seem a  good structural choice. Replace other structures with graphene-capacitor structures, and you might be able to produce an RC helicopter with, effectively, *no* weight penalty for the battery. Automobile skin panels. Aircraft skin panels. Aircraft spars. Flexible sheets that form portions of clothes; integrate them with some sort of piezo electric cloth that charges up the capacitor cloth from motions such as walking. Integrate the graphene capacitor directly with photovoltaic cells, then mount directly to your roof.

 

 Posted by at 3:37 pm
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