Some amazing gears.
[Via Geek Press]
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Space Colonies
A gallery.
Was Moore’s Law Inevitable?
Whoever wrote this post doesn’t understand why we got to the moon thirty years ahead of schedule. The key to understanding that is the fact that we haven’t been back in almost forty years. If it was on a similar curve to the other examples, we’d have colonies on Mars by now.
What NASA Can Learn
…from the trapped Chilean miners. My thoughts over at Popular Mechanics.
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.