Ron Bailey has more from the end-of-the-world conference, on the risks of asteroids, comets, and gamma-ray bursters. As he notes, comets are the biggest problem, because we might not see them until it’s too late. That’s why we have to have an infrastructure in space that can rapidly respond.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Constructing Sovereignty
…on the high seas. Though he doesn’t discuss it explicitly, Chris Borgen makes another case for why we need to get off the planet.
The End Of The World
Ron Bailey reports.
Well, OK, it’s just a conference on the subject. Which isn’t as interesting, but a lot less scary.
[Saturday morning update]
We have met the enemy, and he is us:
“All of the biggest risks, the existential risks are seen to be anthropogenic, that is, they originate from human beings.”
All the more reason to get some eggs into baskets other than this one. Also, the rise (again) of the neo-Malthusians. It’s hard to keep them down for long, even though so far, they’ve predicted about five out of the last zero world overpopulation crises.
A New Toy For Rich People
A submersible speedboat that can dive to twelve hundred feet. If there’s a market for this, at a few million a pop, I’ll bet that XCOR will be able so sell a few Lynx’s to private owners.
The Science Of Batman
How plausible is he? Alan Boyle has done some research.
I agree that the getting-knocked-out-all-the-time thing is a problem. But no more so for Bruce Wayne than almost every teevee detective I watched when I was young. It seems like Mannix or Jim Rockford should have been sitting around drooling with all of the concussions they took almost every episode.
Empirical Evidence At The Nanoscale
This is pretty damned cool:
Chan said the experiment shows that it is not possible to simply add the force on the constituent solid parts of the plate — in this case, the tines — to arrive at the total force. Rather, he said, “the force actually depends on the geometry of the object.”
“Until now, no significant or nontrivial corrections to the Casimir force due to boundary conditions have been observed experimentally,” wrote Lamoreaux, now at Yale University, in a commentary accompanying publication of the paper.
I don’t know what it means for the singularity, but molecular manufacturing seems to be moving along nicely. Tony Snow’s death was sobering for me, because we were very close to the same age. Fortunately, I don’t have the genetic time bomb that he did, though my family’s heart history is worrisome. All I can do is do what I can do, and hope that things will come along.
Energy Versus Space?
Jeff Foust wonders if new government energy initiatives will crowd out space budgets.
Maybe. His piece reminds me of an idea I’ve had for an essay on why energy independence isn’t like landing a man on the moon.
In fact, I had a related comment over at Space Politics this morning, in response to a comment from someone named…Someone…that cost-plus contracts are a proven means of success in space:
I know alt.spacers see cost-plus as some sort of ultimate evil. But recognize its been successful in the past, from the Saturn V to the Pegasus. And the X-33 would likely have been finished and test flown if NASA had used its traditional cost-plus approach instead of the fixed price model they used. If NASA had funded the X-33/VentureStar under the same procurement model as the Shuttle it would be flying today.
To which I responded:
But recognize its been successful in the past, from the Saturn V to the Pegasus.
Only if by “successful,” you mean it eventually results in very expensive working hardware. Not to mention that Pegasus was not developed on a cost-plus contract.
And the X-33 would likely have been finished and test flown if NASA had used its traditional cost-plus approach instead of the fixed price model they used.
Perhaps. At a cost to the taxpayer of billions. And probably a radically different vehicle than the one originally proposed.
If NASA had funded the X-33/VentureStar under the same procurement model as the Shuttle it would be flying today.
Perhaps. And likely just as big an economic disaster (and perhaps safety one as well) as the Shuttle.
We don’t like that form of procurement because historically, in terms of affordable access to space, it has repeatedly been proven not to work.
Anyway, I do need to write that essay. We’re not going to get energy independence from government crash programs (though prizes may be useful).
Roomba Hacking
We haven’t been using the Roomba
I put it back on the charger, and it charged quickly. Too quickly, I fear. I think that the batteries have seen their last.
I was looking on line to see how much replacements are, and found a site that describes how to replace the Roomba batteries with standard sub-C NiMH batteries, with much more capacity than the factory original (four hours on a charge). I may give it a try.
Now This Has Potential
We can capture a powerful greenhouse gas and store energy at the same time. Just imagine pastures full of this.
It has squirrel undies beat hands down. Errr…so to speak.
Space Power Relay
Clark Lindsey has some space-related thoughts in response to T. Boone Pickens’ solar energy proposal:
…one major hurdle, among several, with the plan would be the need to build more long distance electric power transmission lines to reach the more populated and more industrialized areas. This will be difficult since people all along the routes will fight having the lines and towers in their backyards.
Occasionally in discussions of Space Based Solar Power, the topic of microwave relay satellites comes up as a way to move power around. For example, in this paper, Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite (2004) Geoffrey Landis talks about using relay sats for distributing power to different parts of the globe from a single Solarsat. So it should be similarly possible for relay satellites to move power from the Midwest to where it’s needed.
Yes, this is one of the “tiers” that Peter Glaser proposed in the development of powersats when he first came up with the idea forty (geez, has it really been that long?) years ago. He envisioned that before energy was produced in space, it might be relayed from energy-rich areas that didn’t have local demand (such as a large dam in Venezuela or Brazil). He envisioned such relays as passive microwave reflectors, which are currently a major structural challenge in terms of keeping the surface the right shape within a fraction of a wavelength. But at least at GEO, they wouldn’t have to move much.
Rather than giant relay sats in GEO, it might be preferable to place a constellation of relatively small ones in LEO since this would allow the beams to be much more narrow. Perhaps the switching techniques developed for Iridium/Globalstar could be built upon. Smaller beams might also lessen NIMBY resistance to transmitter/receiving sites.
Perhaps, but now you have high slew rates on the reflectors, which makes for even more of a challenge. An active phased array system can be steered electronically as it switches from rectenna to rectenna as it orbits. A reflector has to rapidly move the entire structure while maintaining its shape. The higher the orbit the better in this regard, because it won’t have to slew as fast. Also, it would make LEO pretty crowded. A medium orbit (a couple kilocklicks) would probably be better, both because it would require slower motion, and would allow more ground rectennas to be seen at a time, while not cluttering up LEO. The slewing problem could be ameliorated by going to an active system, but that means that the satellite must now not only receive and convert the power, but reconvert and rebeam it to the ground, with all the attendant efficiency issues.
Anyway, I suspect that, regardless of size, NIMBY resistance to rectennas will dwarf that of resistance to transmission lines and towers, given that it’s a devil they don’t know.