…from the trapped Chilean miners. My thoughts over at Popular Mechanics.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Pedagogy
An amusing XKCD.
That was the question I always had when people explained how wings worked and the Bernoulli Effect. The answer, of course, is that there are lots of ways to get lift, but that this is the most efficient one with the least drag. You can get lift from a barn door. Stick your hand out the window in a fast car, and you can get lift by just increasing the angle of attack, but the L/D is terrible. So when aerobatic planes are upside down, they have to keep nose up (down, from the pilot’s perspective) and up the thrust quite a bit to maintain altitude.
The Future Of Human Evolution
What will it look like when we can really take control?
I have no profound thoughts, except that I suspect that we’ll be surprised.
Cure Alzheimers
…and solve the social security problem. Thoughts from Jim Pinkerton.
If You Do This In An Email
[Via Geekpress]
No Rockets?
No problem. My survey of nonconventional launch technologies is up at Popular Mechanics.
Rare Earth
…on the moon.
It doesn’t make much sense to even speculate on the economic potential until we solve the launch-cost problem, though, and there is little in current space policy that even attempts it.
Unconventional Space Access
I’m doing a piece for Popular Mechanics on alternatives to rockets, and I was going to cover rail guns, gas guns, space elevators, sky hooks, and perhaps the launch loop. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
[Update a while later]
Folks, when I say alternatives to rockets, I am including all vehicles that employ chemical rocket engines, including airbreathers. As I said, unconventional.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, I’m thinking of three categories: cannons (whether EM, chemical, whatever), external energy (laser, Orion), and momentum exchange (tethers, space elevators, compression towers). I know the latter isn’t really momentum exchange, but it fits sort of. The former don’t work well for passengers, but are well suited to bulk delivery of low-cost stuff (e.g., propellants), and the latter require very high up-front capital costs, in general. With a lot of tech risk.
Better Living Through Aerodynamics
Congratulations to Barnaby Wainfan (who I’ve known for over three decades, having gone to school with the woman who later became his wife), on the win in the Automotive X-Prize. Also on his becoming an adjunct professor at Michigan. One thing that the article doesn’t note, but I will, is that he also played a significant role in the design of XCOR’s Lynx.
The Ten Best Jobs
…of the future. Three of them are space related. Actually, one of them I sort of do now. But it doesn’t pay very well…