That Buck Rogers Stuff

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Batteries are wrong

That Buck Rogers Stuff

There’s been a lot of reports lately about replacements for the venerable, if disappointing, battery.  Battery technology has been around for centuries - milennia if you believe the Bagdad Battery is really a battery - but has always suffered from several key flaws as a store of energy.  One, it’s not a very dense store of energy.  Two, it usually contains noxious, acidic, toxic (or all of the above) substances.  They’re heavy, and often fragile.  And they have a goofy name.  Several avenues have been investigated - fuel cells, capacitors, and now micro-miniaturized gas turbines.  Fuel cells are nifty, I guess.  The capacitor idea being developed at MIT has some cool nanotechnology.  But this new idea from MIT just has cool written all over its tiny, silicon body.

A gas turbine has several essential components.  A compressor, a combustion chamber, and a turbine to generate electricity.  Gas turbines have been used for decades, but they range from table top to ship power plant in size.  Until now, no one has come close to developing one that is smaller than a quarter.  Using the same techniques as chip manufacturers, the researchers at MIT have created the components of their turbine on silicon wafers.  Six of these wafers are stacked and bonded together to form a complete engine.

he MIT team has now used this process to make all the components needed for their engine, and each part works. Inside a tiny combustion chamber, fuel and air quickly mix and burn at the melting point of steel. Turbine blades, made of low-defect, high-strength microfabricated materials, spin at 20,000 revolutions per second—100 times faster than those in jet engines. A mini-generator produces 10 watts of power. A little compressor raises the pressure of air in preparation for combustion. And cooling (always a challenge in hot microdevices) appears manageable by sending the compression air around the outside of the combustor.

All of the components work, but the team has yet to get it all to work at once.  They hope to have a working prototype in operation by Christmas.

If successful, this would be fantastically cool, and useful.  If one of these babies can in fact run for ten times as long as a battery of the same weight, that’s a major improvement.  But the real improvement would lie in the refueling.  If these turbines can be refueled rather than recharged, well instead of having to replace whole batteries, a small can of JP5 could recharge anything that runs on electricity.  A major drawback of batteries is the lack of interchangeability.  My cell phone, iPod, laptop, flashlight, radio controlled car, and wireless mouse all take different types of batteries.  If a can of jet fuel looking just like a can of zippo lighter fluid could recharge any battery no matter the size, then you’ve got a real weight savings.  In the military, this would eliminate a severe logistical problem for combat troops.  For the average joe, it would be convenient as well, if not a matter of life or death.

Convenience, power, flammable substances, and tiny fan blades whirring at 20,000 rpm.  What’s not to like?


Posted by Buckethead on 09/20/06 at 03:54 PM
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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Well alrighty then

Darwin Award ContenderThat Buck Rogers Stuff

Just go look.


Posted by Buckethead on 09/07/06 at 09:13 AM
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Thursday, August 31, 2006

When this revolution comes, who will be up against the wall?

That Buck Rogers Stuff

This article on human computer interfaces is fascinating.  The author predicts a coming revolution - and that we are overdue for one - in the design of interfaces for our computerized gadgetry, from PCs to phones to media components.  Well worth the read, and ties in with advances in the physical construction of interfaces that we’ve linked here before, like the multi-touch screen, and in the redesign of operating system displays to take advantage of the graphical power of modern PCs.


Posted by Buckethead on 08/31/06 at 06:43 PM
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Beanstalk on a Blog

That Buck Rogers Stuff

A while back, Murdoc had a post about the Liftport Group and its efforts to build a beanstalk.  Liftport is researching the technologies that will be essential to the creation of a working geosynchronous elevator once materials science finally develops the requisitely strong materials for the beanstalk’s cable.  With the invention of carbon nanotubes, it seems that the unobtanium is becoming, possibly, closer to being obtanium.

There was a spirited discussion in the comments to that post, enlivened by the appearance of one of the people working at Liftport, Brian Dunbar.  I thought I had (as I seem to have a positive gift for) left the last comment, but surprisingly, a month later, Brian reappeared and responded to my post.  And it’s interesting stuff.

For your ease in reading, I have reproduced below the relevant earlier parts of the thread, so as to make it intelligible.  It’s long, but interesting to see someone who is working for a company that is actually trying to build a beanstalk defending his idea on a blog.  Sweet.  Brian here was responding to some of the more critical commenters:


Posted by Buckethead on 08/31/06 at 04:36 PM
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Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I will not compromise

That Buck Rogers StuffUnmitigated Gall

“My friends,

“I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about Giant Fighting Robots. All right, here is how I feel about Giant Fighting Robots.

“If when you say Giant Fighting Robots you mean the authors of our eventual subjugation and oppression, those soulless mechanical monsters whose unblinking eyes will search out and destroy the last vestiges of human civilization and snuff out the light of mankind; the rebellious creation that, after the manner of Frankenstein’s monster turns on its hubristic creator; that folly to which our foolish and overoptimistic researchers are even now leading the way; if you mean mechanical demons whose inhuman intelligence will vastly overmatch our own, and whose strength, adaptability and puissance will supersede our dominion of the earth; whose evil will forever be unparalleled even by the most monstrous of men, and whose infamy will last exactly so long as Man’s tragically brief existence, and then reign secure over a blackened Earth; then certainly I am against it.

“But;

“If when you say Giant Fighting Robots you mean those noble, selfless and untiring defenders of man, who stand as sentinels in the dark reaches of outermost space guarding unwatchful and unthankful man from the gibbering terrors of the deep; whose subtle intellegence and reasoned thought bring order and kindness to the affairs of mankind, whose charity lifts up the young and the old alike, saves the foolish from their folly and restrains the recklessness of the brave, and challenges each of us to do better each day; if you mean the prospect of imperfect man creating a worthy and more perfect successor, one who will allow us to venture on to new horizons, and to better apprehend the wonders of home, a manifold helpmate for frail humanity; if you mean creating a conversation where once there was silence and utter loneliness, and a bulwark against a hostile, cruel and unforgiving universe; then I am certainly for it.

“This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”


Posted by Buckethead on 08/29/06 at 04:36 PM
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Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Can you print me a light saber?

That Buck Rogers StuffWar

Aah, the miracle of modern technology.  It makes the cockles of my heart feel all cockly.  The geniuses what brought you the P-38 Lightning, the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 Nighthawk have come up with another wonder.  The Skunk Works has long been renowned in the aviation world for not only its designs - some of the most impressive planes ever to fly - but also the speed at which the Skunk Works could develop them.  Back in the late days of WWII, the Skunk Works team developed the first prototype for the P-80 Shooting Star, America’s first operational jet fighter, in just 143 days.  This feat is even more remarkable when you consider the absence not merely of computers and modeling software; but also even of calculators. 

The new wonder is an unmanned vehicle dubbed the polecat.  What is remarkable about this craft is not its performance, but rather the means by which it is made.  3D printing, or 3D rapid prototyping, has been around for a little while.  A 3D printer shoots finely focused lasers into a vat of plastic or metal powder, and the heat of the lasers causes the plastic to solidify, or the metal to sinter together.  This method allows solid shapes to be built up out of layers, without the need for expensive hand-crafting or retooling.  This is nifty.  But up until now, the objects you pull out of a 3D printer were merely prototypes - objects that were not fully functional but which could be used to test designs.  For example, by seeing if all the computer drawn shapeys all fit together.

The Skunk Works has now taken this to a new level.  The Polecat UAV is actually constructed largely of parts made by means of 3D fabricators. 

“The entire Polecat airframe was constructed using low-cost rapid prototyping materials and methods,” says Frank Mauro, director of UAV systems at the Skunk Works. “The big advantage over conventional, large-scale aircraft production programmes is the cost saving in tooling as well as the order-of-magnitude reductions in fabrication and assembly time.”

By mixing composite polymers with radar-absorbing metals, it is thought that the aircraft can be built with a certain amount of stealth characteristics already built in.

Here we see the beginning of the future.  Much of the objects that we use are identical to thousands if not millions of other objects - production of all the nifty, useful and essential articles that make our lives possible is constrained by the tyranny of the capital cost of expensive capital equipment and the expertise necessary to set it up.  Witness:

“This use of rapid prototyping is certainly a revolutionary approach to making an aircraft,” says Bill Sweetman, aerospace and technology editor of Jane’s International Defence Review. “The classic way is to set up a production line with very heavy-duty fixed metal tools that hold everything in the right place.” That is too expensive an approach for the low production runs that reconnaissance UAVs are likely to need, he says.

While the first use of this technology is military, it will have civilian uses.  And of course, as clever civilians come up with ever more interesting ways to use that technology, then the military will also benefit.

If someone comes up with a way to print working circuitry with a 3D printer, then you have a general purpose fab.  One that could, provided with the necessary feedstock, manufacture essentially any device whose plans are stored in its memory or accessible via google.  Think free hardware movement.  A lot of the planning that is being done in military acquisition circles is contingent on the idea that moving from idea to production weapon system is a matter of billions of dollars and the better part of decade, and leaves you with balky equipment at a premium price.  As this technology takes hold, things will begin to change.  By decreasing the design build test cycle, you can move much more rapidly.  In the early stages, parts will be made with fabs, and then assembled.  We won’t be printing whole aircraft.  But if a part is faulty, or can be improved, just change the program.  There is no need for expensive retooling, and all subsequent versions of the weapon are the new, improved model.  By changing the composition of the feedstock, you can change the properties of the product.  Tweak the design, and each model is an improvement.

The advent of industrial manufacture changed a lot of things, warfare being one of the most important ones.  Moving to a software, information-age style manufacture will have equaly great effects, perhaps even greater than the changes we’ve seen with the rise of information technology in our media.  You could think of it as analogous to the printing press and the factory.  The changes are parallel - scribe/printer/blogger and craftsman/factory/fab.  Just as we bloggers have the advantages of both earlier modes - fabs will have the advantages of the individualization of the craftsman with the lowered cost of the factory. 

Big changes.

[Wik] hat tip to blogger and excellent sf author Walter Jon Williams.  His book Voice of the Whirlwind is one of my favorites.  D’accord.


Posted by Buckethead on 08/08/06 at 07:35 PM
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Jet Packs!

That Buck Rogers Stuff

We’ve seen the jetpack in Bond flicks, and at the superbowl.  We’ve all wanted one.  But this guy has come up with a new improved jetpack.  It has four times the endurance of the original, and is far less likely to singe the hairs on the backs of your legs.  The downside is that the new model looks a little goofy with all those teeny, tiny jets sticking out to the sides.  But hey, you can be superman for four minutes at a time if you have $200,000 handy.

I'm flyink

[Wik] For those really interested in rocketbelts and jetpacks, there will be a Rocketbelt Convention at the Niagara Aerospace Museum in Niagara Falls, NY on the weekend of September 23-24.  The festivities are, perhaps predictably, being hosted by an energy drink sponsor, but will culminate in a fly-off.  That should be something to see, though as cool as it may be, it will not be as cool as seeing 100 P-51 Mustangs all at once.  Murdoc pointed this one out, and I think the Buckethead clan will have to attend, as this event is being held at Rickenbacker field in Columbus, Ohio.  We have lots of relatives in Columbus and late September is conveniently located halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving when we always make the trek east.


Posted by Buckethead on 08/01/06 at 06:43 PM
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Knights in Shining Armor

That Buck Rogers StuffWar

Liquid armor will soon be available in a store near you.  As we reported some time ago, in a post I am too lazy to find, University of Delaware scientist Norman Wagner invented a remarkable material that is composed of polyethylene glycol and nanoscale bits of silica.  The developers call it a “shear-thickening liquid,” one which stiffens instantly when struck, and then re-liquifies instantly once the stress is gone.  New materials for armor have been the focus of constant research ever since the introduction of Kevlar back in the seventies.  While Kevlar flak jackets offered a significant degree of protection, astute observers have always been aware that Kevlar armor has never been able to protect from rifle fire, or even all shrapnel.  Kevlar armor has been reinforced with everything from steel to ceramic plates in an effort to improve protection, but the sad result of most of these efforts was to greatly increase the weight of the armor.  Researchers have also attempted to use a variety of other synthetic fibers, and even cloned spider silk, but these efforts were unable to produce anything noticeably more effective than Kevlar.

Armor Holdings, inc., a company until now primarily concerned with supplying the Army with vehicle armor, bought the rights to this technology, and hopes to be selling suits of liquid armor by early next year.  At first, Wagner thought that the liquid armor might be applied almost like peanut butter, in a relatively thick layer.  But experimentation showed that the greatest protective effect was achieved by applying many very thin layers of the liquid to sheets of Kevlar.  The shear-thickening effect of the liquid is enhanced when the liquid is embedded in layers of Kevlar - the force of a blow is spread wider, resulting in greater protection for the wearer.  By greatly enhancing the stopping power of Kevlar - less is needed.  AH hopes that its new armor suits - with liquid armor sandwiched between two layers of ballistic fabric - will be significantly lighter than existing models.  And, amazingly, it will also be cheaper to manufacture.  The first target of their sales effort will be prison guards, for the reason that liquid armor will stop knife attacks - something even the best Kevlar has never been able to do.  AH hopes that troops might start getting theirs by the end of 2007. 

Liquid armor hasn’t been alone in the field of advanced armor concepts.  Back in 2005, we heard that Israeli researchers had developed a nanomaterial that was five times stronger than steel.  A detailed and informative article can be found here, but there has been little news since.  The Israeli nano-armor is rigid, and can take shock pressures of at least 250 tons per square centimeter and remain unmarred.  That’s fairly impressive.  They are reportedly working on a newer version of the material - one constructed on the same principles (nanoscale inorganic fullerenes) but with a different base; Titanium Disulfide instead of Tungsten Disulfide.  If this pans out, the resultant improved nano-armor should be even stronger, yet weigh a quarter as much. 

If all of this research and production bears fruit, we could see American troops significantly better protected in a matter of years.  That is, of course, all to the good.  The introduction of lightweight, and - importantly - truly bulletproof armor could have a great effect on the conduct of military operations.  Those who are interested in this sort of thing, and I am certainly one, spend our free time pondering how technology has changed warfare, and how it continues to change warfare today.  We often focus on the complicated products of our computer and military industries.  UAVs, missiles, missile defense systems, lasers, VTOL fighters and multi-billion dollar warships.  Armor for the infantryman might not seem as big a thing, but it could be much bigger.

Imagine a Marine.  He has ApNano armor covering his head, torso, arms and legs.  His helmet and armor is made of a material capable of deflecting a shot from a .50 caliber machine gun at close range.  The joints between the hard armor are protected by liquid armor cloth.  While not as effective as the hard armor, it will fully protect him from smaller caliber weapons and most shrapnel.  Imagine further that all this armor weighs half what the current Interceptor plus K Pot weighs, thanks to the miracle of advanced materials science, the whole armor system weighs in at a miniscule 20 pounds. 

This Marine is mobile.  His lightweight armor does not impede his movement, and does not overtire him.  It affords him near invulnerability from anything save vehicle mounted weaponry or artillery.  And unlike armored vehicles like the Stryker, he is a much smaller and harder to hit target. 

His opponents are armed, mostly, with AK 47s and the like.  They can’t kill him with those.  What does this remind you of?  It reminds me most of all of Cortez and the Aztecs.  Cortez’ soldiers in their steel helmets and back and breast armor were invulnerable to all the weapons the Aztecs had.  The Aztecs couldn’t kill the Spaniards unless they caught them alone and overpowered them.  And we all know what happened to the Aztecs.

US Troops are already vastly superior to most actual and potential opponents in terms of doctrine, training and weapons.  The effect of this superiority is, typically, lopsided casualty rates, especially during “regular” phases of combat when all of America’s advantages in air support, mobility, intelligence and training come into play.  Where our opponents gain back some ground is in static insurgency warfare where improvised munitions and house to house combat remove much of our high tech gimcrackery from the equation.

How different will urban combat operations be when a soldier can enter a hostile environment knowing that short of a freak accident, the chances of injury are remote?  I think they will be very different indeed. 

These technological developments promise real body armor.  Body armor proof against almost any weapon an insurgent can get and carry.  Even if liquid armor and ApNano breastplates don’t happen now, or next year, the research will lead to the real thing in the short term – five to ten years out at the outside.  And when it does, and American troops get it, they will have an advantage more powerful than most of the rest of the panoply of modern equipment can provide – safety.  It will also be an American advantage, because insurgents won’t have access to it. 

In an era where casualty figures are a political weapon, this alone may be a boon beyond price. 

[Wik] Thanks to the greatUnknown over at Murdoconline for pointing out that it is “shear” and not “sheer.” Every single news or popular science article got that wrong.  But, if you go back and look at links to the technical abstracts, they all correctly describe the material as “shear-thickening.”


Posted by Buckethead on 08/01/06 at 05:57 PM
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Research Promises More Fulfilling Robotic Relationships, Part II

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a piece discussing the work of Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro.  From his lab outside Kyoto, the professor was working on lifelike replicants designed, among other things, to help his research into human behavior.  In that piece I included this photo of the good professor and his latest creation; aware that he’s not the most, um, charismatic of photographic subjects, I pointed out that “the dude with glasses is NOT the robot”:

image

Ah, but that was then.  Our man in Kyoto has cashed in some more nice grants, and recently demonstrated his latest project : himself!  In other words, the dude with the glasses now could very well be the robot:

He has named his creation “Geminoid”, a label both properly scientific-sounding and chillingly non-human, which will make it just that much easier for robot conquerors to use them to infiltrate society.  I would’ve gone with homo sapiens simulacra, but Geminoid works too I guess. 

Professor Ishiguro continues to explore the fundamentals of human interaction with his synthetic double:

But why bother to build robots that look like humans? Ishiguro views machines as good vehicles to learn more about human nature. He combines engineering with cognitive science with the aim of making very humanlike robots, which can be used as test beds for theories about human perception, communication and cognition. He calls his approach “android science.”

“A robot is a kind of simulator for expressing human functions, especially the cerebellum or the muscles,” says Norihiro Hagita, director of the ATR lab that developed Geminoid. “It’s a kind of ultimate human interface.”

Ok, super.  It’s a test bed for exploring the interaction of the blah with the semiotics of which and the effect of huh and the wazzit.  But Geminoid research also has more immediate, real-world applications more familiar to the rest of us: he uses it to go to meetings or class in his stead (which may explain why the thing looks irritated) and surely it is just a matter of time before it can make decisions and actually do your job for you.  And I’m certain that baser applications will yet prevail, however advanced the design may be or lofty the goal. 

Entrepreneurs, banking on the depravity of humankind, might have changed the above quotes thus: “Why bother to build robots that look like humans?” “ To fuck ‘em, of course!”

Oh wait- they already do.

[Wik] Minister GeekLethal inexplicably failed to point out the the confluence of these two stories leads to the inevitable conclusion that Professor Ishiguro can, in fact, go fuck himself.  [- Minister B.]

[Alsø wik] Minister GeekLethal inexplicably included the phrase “Entrepreneurs, banking on the depravity of humankind...” written in a tone indicating that he might have been expecting something else. [- Minister P.]


Posted by GeekLethal on 07/25/06 at 03:01 PM
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Thursday, July 20, 2006

Happy Moon Conquest Day!

That Buck Rogers Stuff

NASA’s site commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Apollo landing read, “On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.”

But the NASA text, and other sources, typically ignore one important and obvious detail:

We CONQUERED it!

image

The British created a world spanning empire through the simple expedient of planting the Union Jack on soil inhabited by wogs who didn’t know that flags meant ownership.  Benighted natives woke to British officers telling them that they now lived in the British Empire.  When they disputed this, the officers merely pointed at the flag and said, “See, there’s the flag.  England.” And when they continued to disagree, there was always the Maxim gun.  In keeping with this grand tradition of symbolic declaration strecthing back millenia (but without getting too into the semiotics of possession) our guy put our flag up there- so it’s ours!  Happily for the granola crunchy set, there were no Lunar aborigines that needed to be convinced more… strenuously.

Today is the 37th anniversary of that glorious event, when not just homo sap in general, but specifically God-fearing Amurricans left the cradle of Earth to begin the conquest of heaven.  We sent men into space on a tower of fire, backed with nothing more than whiz-wheels, slide-rulers, and less computing power than my car’s fuel injector.  A relatively modest start, some might say - the Moon being low-hanging fruit, solar system wise - but it was a start nonetheless on the long road to interstellar domination.

And someday, when Old Glory waves on 10,000 worlds and our mighty fleets cruise the galaxy, our fair descendants will look back at the Moon and Apollo as the start of it all.  The only question is how they’ll fit all those stars on the flag.

Huzzah!  Huzzah!  For the bonnie striped flag borne by a single moon!


Posted by GeekLethal on 07/20/06 at 02:01 AM
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Monday, July 10, 2006

Ad Astra

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Traveling to the moon is so last century.  Mars is small dusty ball with little of interest.  The rest of the Solar System is either very, very hot or very, very cold.  Where is an enterprising space traveler to set his sights?  The stars, of course.  Interstellar travel is widely considered to be impossible, or at the very least prohibitively difficult.  That hasn’t stopped a group of scientists, engineers and dreamers from forming the Tau Zero Foundation, whose purpose is to lay the groundwork for practical starflight.

I’m all for that.  The group is in its infancy, as yet.  Yet having someone out there, pushing for the development of the technologies that could get us out of this rural backwater and into the big cities of the galaxy, is a good thing.  Unless, of course, Greg Benford and Charles Pellegrino and not Carl Sagan are right about how dangerous the rest of the galaxy might be.  And that really is the big thing.  I am not saying that we shouldn’t head out into the big galaxy - we should.  Earth is the cradle of mankind, and we can’t stay in the cradle forever.  And if Earth is the cradle, the Solar System is the nursery.  We don’t know, yet, whether the universe outside the nursery is a barren desert, a civilised utopia, or a particularly savage part of the Bronx after sundown.  Given the fecundity of life on earth, and the size of the galaxy, I think the barren desert is unlikely.  There will be life, somewhere.  Probably manywheres.  If some of that life is sentient, the chances of a enlightened utopia is vanishingly small.  Perhaps we, or some other race, might unify and be nice.  All of them?  At the same time?  It only takes one to ruin the party, and someone is going to be nasty.  When the outcome of an interstellar war could be species extinction, how many races will take a chance on being nice?

I don’t think we will draw much attention to ourselves expanding into the solar system.  Whatever technology we end up using to travel starward, we will likely need the resources of the solar system to accomplish the journey - massive solar power stations harvesting the energy of the sun to create antimatter, or perhaps something even more odd.  When we head out, though - that’s different.  We will not only draw attention to ourselves, we will have proved that we have the capability of wreaking havoc on anyone in our neighborhood.  A relativistic spaceship is indistinguishable from a relativistic bomber. 

We’re not there yet.  But technology isn’t just increasing.  It isn’t even accelerating.  The rate of acceleration is increasing.  We might be there quicker than even the most optimistic appraisals allow for, even not counting the singularity.  It seems funny to talk of interstellar travel when we can barely get into orbit, but we went from not even being able to fly to walking on the moon in 66 years.  Once we’re in space, the expansion could be quite quick indeed. 


Posted by Buckethead on 07/10/06 at 12:46 PM
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Friday, June 30, 2006

Asteroid 2006-Mustafah

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Meanwhile, other scientists fear the asteroids.  NASA is attempting to come up with some sort of scheme to defend us against rogue asteroids with unstable, likely Islamic orbits.  The French, in a preemptive move, have already surrendered to asteroid 2004 XP14, which will make a close approach to the earth next monday.  NASA insists that it is a global problem, and that other nations should really get off their asses and help out. 


Posted by Buckethead on 06/30/06 at 11:56 AM
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SPF 5,000,000

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Seth Shostak, SETI researcher and man-about-town, has a nice bit explaining why a sphere is such a inadequate shape for a homeworld.  It is not exactly a new idea that we really ought to move off the planet and into the great void, but recently Stephen Hawking’s comments have made the news.  Hawking recommends new space colonies on the basis of the eggs in a basket rationale - that with life sequestered on just one world, we are vulnerable to a single point of failure - one asteroid, comet, disaster or alien invasion would put paid to the entire species.  Fair enough, but Shostak argues that if we look at the tonnage to terrans ratio, the numbers are rather startling.  For each of us, there is a trillion tons of earth.  That’s a lot of mostly inaccessible mantle and red hot magma for each of us.  Moving into a more frothy or fractal living space would bring the ration down significantly.  The asteroids have about the mass of the earth, but nearly all of it is easily accessible mass (assuming, of course, you have the capability to get to the asteroid belt.  That mass could be readily converted to a living space ten thousand times that of earth - just assuming that you built domes on the surface of the rocks.  If you actually cut them all up and made habitats out of them, the habitable volume could be millions bigger.  Getting the ttt ration down to the order of a thousand or a hundred tons per person would be vastly more efficient.  And therefore, we’d be better prepared to fight the giant fighting robots when they inevitably make their bid for domination. 


Posted by Buckethead on 06/30/06 at 11:48 AM
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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Diamandis wins Heinlein Prize

That Buck Rogers Stuff

Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize, has been awarded the Heinlein Prize for his contributions to the commercialization of space.  A good choice, I think.  Rutan may have built SpaceShipOne, but Diamandis got hundreds of companies working toward the goal of private space enterprise.  We need more like him, and hopefully there will be cause for more Heinlein Prizes to be awarded soon.


Posted by Buckethead on 06/27/06 at 12:01 PM
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Monday, June 26, 2006

NASA does something smart

That Buck Rogers Stuff

In a move long hoped for, NASA is taking a serious step towards supporting the growth of the commercial space industry.  As I have often argued here, one of the best models for space development would be that of the early commercial aviation industry.  In its infancy, commercial aviation was given a crucial boost from the Post Office, which gave contracts for airmail delivery.  The Post Office in effect created the first networks of airports and air routes as proto-airlines set up networks to deliver the mail.  Thanks to Post Office encouragement, passenger travel grew, following these smae routes.  Money from Air Mail contracts also spurred developments in aircraft design, as these companies took advantage of the opportunities made available.  The Post Office became a lever that boosted the aviation industry past the first hump of development.  Once it was seen that the government believed that aviation was possible, other means of support (like bank loans and other investors) became possible as well.

The golden age of flight was created in part by two outside factors - Air Mail and the collection of prizes for achievements in aviation.  We have already seen the positive effect of lever - the Ansari X-prize.  There are other prizes already waiting and more being created, and I am convinced that these will prove to be a powerful stimulus as well.  This move by NASA puts in place another lever.  By offering the modern equivalent of the old Post Office Air Mail contracts, the govenment and NASA will be doing the most useful thing they could possibly do.  By underwriting development, they can help private space industry get over the big first hurdle.  More to the point, they will do it in a way that (for the first time in NASA history) that development will serve as a platform for further development.  In almost fifty years of space travel, we have never made a serious effort to develop a space transportation infrastructure.  But now, government money might actually do us some good.

“Traditionally, Uncle Sam has done this many times before,” said van der Linden. “Prove it can be done, help business get involved and when business can make money, you step back and everybody benefits.”

I am well pleased with NASA.

[Wik] Bob van der Linden, the Smithsonian curator mentioned at the end of the article, works with my dad.  He’s a cool guy, buy his books.

[Alsø wik] I was shocked, shocked, that Transterrestrial Musings hadn’t already posted on this.  I hope to see some commentary on this from him.

[Alsø alsø wik] And my being well pleased with NASA is of course predicated on NASA actually following through and actually, you know, spending that money in the way described.  However, this is the most concrete statement of this kind I’ve heard from them, so I actually have some hope.  $500 mil is real money.  Rutan did SpaceShipOne (I still think that name is seriously lame) for a fraction of that sum.  This could do some real good.


Posted by Buckethead on 06/26/06 at 11:16 AM
That Buck Rogers Stuff • Permalink
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