Group items tagged

Drones for microgravity.

Combination of the radio occultation method plus change in the orbital plan in order to observe new target (the volcanic outgassing from Io satellite) by passing though the magnetosphere of Jupiter. It poses a challenge in the sensitivity of the electronics. Maybe it is accepted if the risk is low. Idea for the next GTOC challenge maybe? Optimising the cost on the electronics vs the frequency of passages?

All Prior Art is a project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the antiquated patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database of US issued and published (un-approved) patents and creating prior art from the patent language. While most inventions generated will be nonsensical, the cost to computationally create and publish millions of ideas is nearly zero - which allows for a higher probability of possible valid prior art.

Rocket entrepreneur Elon Musk believes he can get the cost of a round trip to Mars down to about half a million dollars.

and in the headlines again ...

"That's why silicon chips operate at temperatures hot enough to fry eggs." I stopped reading after this sentence... is the remaining part of the article equally scientifically (in)accurate?

interesting initiative with already some high profile names from space sector such as Martin Rees, Baumjohann, two guys from NASA ...

Thijs interested? quinones are my field

I think the major benefit of this system is the low cost of the products involved compared to standard flow batteries. However, two issues still remain, corrosion and size. I think these things need to be big right due to the volumetric storage using quinones? Nevertheless, it is interesting to see where this development will lead to. "The system is far from perfect, however: bromine and hydrobromic acid are corrosive, and could cause serious pollution if they leaked. "The bromine is, right now, the Achilles heel of this particular battery," Aziz says. The answer could be to go completely organic, he adds: "We are working on replacing the bromine with a different quinone." Are there quinones which would not be corrosive but retain good volumetric performance?

Mantis shrimp seem to have 12 types of photo-receptive sensors - but this does not really improve their ability to discriminate between colors. Speculation is that they serve as a form of pre-processing for visual information: the brain does not need to decode full color information from just a few channels which would would allow for a smaller brain. I guess technologically the two extremes of light detection would be RGB cameras which are like our eyes and offer good spatial resolution, and spectrometers which have a large amount of color channels but at the cost of spatial resolution. It seems the mantis shrimp uses something that is somewhere between RGB cameras and spectrometers. Could there be a use for this in space?

> RGB cameras which are like our eyes ...apart from the fact that the spectral response of the eyes is completely different from "RGB" cameras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cones_SMJ2_E.svg) ... and that the eyes have 4 types of light-sensitive cells, not three (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cone-response.svg) ... and that, unlike cameras, human eye is precise only in a very narrow centre region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fovea) ...hmm, apart from relying on tri-stimulus colour perception it seems human eyes are in fact completely different from "RGB cameras" :-) OK sorry for picking on this - that's just the colour science geek in me :-) Now seriously, on one hand the article abstract sounds very interesting, but on the other the statement "Why use 12 color channels when three or four are sufficient for fine color discrimination?" reveals so much ignorance to the very basics of colour science that I'm completely puzzled - in the end, it's a Science article so it should be reasonably scientifically sound, right? Pity I can't access full text... the interesting thing is that more channels mean more information and therefore should require *more* power to process - which is exactly opposite to their theory (as far as I can tell it from the abstract...). So the key is to understand *what* information about light these mantises are collecting and why - definitely it's not "colour" in the sense of human perceptual experience. But in any case - yes, spectrometry has its uses in space :-)

With extreme precision, the possibility of getting information from the perturbations gives nice side effects

They say it will not replace current wind speed dropsondes which have a ten times better wind speed accuracy, but they could definitely provide a much more extensive view of cyclone wind speeds - at a very low cost!

It could be interesting to compare the accuracy and spatial resolution of the GPS method compared to what can be achieved using L-Band SAR data (e.g. SMOS mission)...

The work is based on the use of a "continuous flow" microreactor to produce nanoparticle inks that make solar cells by printing. In this process, simulated sunlight is focused on the solar microreactor to rapidly heat it, while allowing precise control of temperature to aid the quality of the finished product. The light in these experiments was produced artificially, but the process could be done with direct sunlight, and at a fraction of the cost of current approaches.

anybody interested in having a closer look at this?

At the link below you find additional information about the projects: Education: Ten weeks to save the world http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100915/full/467266a.html

well, most good ideas probably take only a second to be formulated, it's the details that take years :-)

I do not think the point of the SU is to formulate new ideas (infact there is nothing new in the projects chosen). Their mission is to build and maintain a network of contacts among who they believe will be the 'future leaders' of space ... very similar to our beloved ISU.

A team of researchers at Colorado based Escape Dynamics is reporting that initial tests indicate that it might really be possible to launch space-planes into space using microwaves sent from the ground, to allow for a single stage spacecraft. If the idea pans out, the cost savings for sending satellites (or perhaps humans) into orbit could be considerable.

Not very new, but a very slick video nonetheless! Will it work? I am not so sure whether "just engineering" applies in this case. The array of antenna's required is quite significant to compensate for beam losses. Wall plug efficiency is not that high therefore, then again.. solar energy is for free almost in the future so who cares.. let's go for it! :)

Elon Musk is moving forward with space based internet service...

Facebook announced they are ready to test of of their High Altitude Platform element, a drone of the size of a Boeing 737. See the new here http://phys.org/news/2015-07-facebook-ready-giant-drone-internet.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=ctgr-item&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter. It seemed interesting for me that they are developing also a reliable optical communication between this element and scattered ground stations.

Nice link, that thing is huge and I would love to see a drone that size fly. Also, Facebook's Aerospace Team? :)

"V3Solar has developed a cone-shaped solar energy harvester that is claimed to generate over 20 times more electricity than a flat panel thanks to a combination of concentrating lenses, dynamic spin, conical shape, and advanced electronics."

Hmm.. that seems counter intuitive... how would it ever be that much better than a flat panel? Rotating the PV will only make sure only parts are illuminated. Operating temperature is a better argument, but that comes at the cost of exposure. Came across this little gem of a webpage, maybe we should outsource our impossibility EM drive work next time? :) https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-v3solars-spinning-solar-panel-cone-spin-cell-coolspin.t1166/

they presented it briefly at the 4S symposium (unfortunately really briefly..) FF is though only one of their tech demos on PRISMA

It will be interesting to see how this will develop.

"Nature will find a way", I guess

what a ACT's exercise should look like...

Maybe, you should propose this exercise to the team. You'll see there is not much imagination, unless, you consider imagination equals craziness (bullshit things ... and the too common blah blah in the act). I think this concept is an imaginative credible concept. "anything we might ever see" explains it well.

well, the article is not very detailed so it can be only "du vent" ! did they actually try if such an airplane can fly ??? what about the engine ??? i find the solar impulse (see post below) much more eco-friendly !!! I agree with Leopold that it's quite boring and stays in the mainstream of the production. I'm sure we can do much better !!! What about some really useful things like pills against the flight sickness, and some really good food in the plane ? haha not soon to happen with all the cost reduction. The future of air transport will be a plane without seats, stewards and perhaps even without pilot !!!

"Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds," Worden said. this sounds to me a bit too much like Pete Worden :-) but I really like this one :-) One of those billionaires might be Google's Larry Page, who is keenly interested in space travel and NASA Ames's research. "Larry asked me a couple weeks ago how much it would cost to send people one way to Mars and I told him $10 billion, and his response was, 'Can you get it down to 1 or 2 billion?,'" Worden told the Long Now audience. "So now we're starting to get a little argument over the price."