Aerospace

Our teeth can withstand an enormous amount of pressure over a period of decades but tooth enamel is only about as strong as glass. The mystery of teeth may become a solution to future aircraft design concerns, according to a a new study by Prof. Herzl Chai of Tel Aviv University's School of Mechanical Engineering and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and George Washington University. The automotive and aviation industries already use sophisticated materials to prevent break-up on impact. For example, airplane bodies are made from composite materials ― layers…

Ptolemy's 20 century-old constellation, Cepheus, seems to have been reserved for long hours of star gazing by astronomers with all levels of experience - especially after it was declared the best yet model for studying the star formation process. Its close, its exciting, its inspiring, and its forming (the last one's most important: a star is forming). The Cepheus B region, lying in the Cepheus constellation in the Cave Nebula (aka Caldwell 9) near the M52 galaxy, has apparently begun a star-formation process owing to - much to the schock of many astronomers - a radiation nudge (if I may…

Finally, for its any-time-after-October-31st launch, NASA has completed building the Ares I-X launch rocket. The Ares I-X is the first test-flight rocket built under NASA's Ares I developement programme aimed at building a launch system for human space flights in the future, after the space shuttle retires.    The test flight is scheduled to take place from the Kennedy LC-39B launch pad on the 31st of October (which is the expected date, but the test flight will definitely not take place before). The whole flight is expected to last for a mere two minutes.  The Ares I…

One of the more exciting aspects of going 4-wheeling in the wilderness is the potential for getting stuck in the mud or hung up on a rock. It’s not so exciting if the 4-wheeler is a robot on Mars (actually, a 6-wheeler). There are websites that tell you how to free your vehicle on Earth (such as http://4wheeldrive.about.com/cs/offroadingtips/a/aa020401a_5.htm). For the Mars rover Spirit, her drivers have to test out options in a simulated Martian landscape. Spirit has had a tough time on Mars. Back in 2006, one of her wheels stopped working, and hasn’t worked since. Dragging this wheel along…

What would you do with 3/4 of a kilogram of gear in space? For the price of a Harley-Davidson Sportster 883, you can now go to space. InterOrbital Systems (IOS) has announced their TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit. This is 'complete', giving you the basic interface bus for your payload and including the launch costs. If I were a salesman, I'd point out that launches alone typically cost five times that price! The previous low-access route to space was the CubeSat, which is still an active and viable program. TubeSat just adds competition, which can only be good. IOS even mentions "the new IOS…

It's the typical husband/sports fan stereotype - he uses the wedding video tape accidentally to tape some classic football game, the wife finds out years later, sleeping on couch ensues. But this time it's a government program - NASA - and footage of history in the making that nobody else at the party could have shot. Is there a collective doghouse for NASA? NPR reports that an "exhaustive, three-year search for some tapes that contained the original footage of the Apollo 11 moonwalk has concluded that they were probably destroyed during a period when NASA was erasing old magnetic…

Based on a number of queries on basic structure design, settlement protection, and settlement operations. Firstly, the entire colony does not need to be entirely of domes. Domes can be used for the living habitat for settlers, the forest, and for agriculture, where there needs to be an element of 'openness' and efficient supply of sun light. For industrial and storage units, simple match-box like structures with slanting sides can be used to save on material and simplify structure assembly -- any automatic, non-labor intensive units don't even need to covered with glass atall! You can give it…

I was having a confusion in deciding how many layers of each material is to be used and the thickness of each layer. Well you need the materials - whatever they are - to perform two functions:a. Be tough to withstand colliding debris.b. Block out harmful rays. From the materials you have researched, select a material that can serve both the purposes, so that you can employ mass production techniques and get economies of scale. Now, the total thickness of a particular 'glass' will depend on two things:1. Its impedance.2. Its absorption factor. Simple concepts see A Level Physics application…

To make sense, please read the Introduction entry first.Secondly, how do quantum computers work?Well, quantum computing is largely theoretical today. Although efforts have been made to make quantum computer and have been successful, a quantum computer of the sort that can completely outdo classical computer and be available in stores is not even on the drawing board! A quantum computer is basically a computer that uses qubits instead of classical bits. A bit can have two spin states, 1 or 0. A qubit however, can have both of them simultaneously. This allows a few number of particles to carry…

Recently, I was asked to help around a group that was designing a settlement on the moon. As I worked with them, I found the work increasingly absorbing and I soon started researching some questions that sprang up from my though process, not necessarily related to the designing. In this series of blogs, I have presented some of the proposals I gave to solve the group's problems, as well as the extra diverse questions and ideas that popped up in my mind. The purpose of this activity to document how ideas evolve and how they can be synthesized to develop technology. The other main reason is to…