A step closer to interstellar travel...

Another nice gem was found in the wide space of Internet. It seems that the smart minds of NASA have started to come around to a technical solution that the SCFI world has known for ages. The simple concept of Deflector. There have been a lot of experiments consisting of generating, stabilizing and forming of plasma fields.

We still don't have the materials to create super strong alloys that would withstand the pressure or radiation gradients of open space but they are not that far away maybe few years of theory and another two to finalize the material generation.

Nor do we have the technology to get into the orbit efficiently. The best are ether hydrogen/oxygen or kerosene/peroxide rockets. Well in few years we should have the reusable crew vehicle, but still anti gravity is just a theory. There are some promising ideas - one of which is HexaLifter - its not a mature technology, nor is it a anti gravity device. Tho it could provide some interesting flight apparatus - well if we could create a light enough power reactor capable of putting out few gigawatt's of energy and would weight around 100kg.

When we get out to the orbit, getting to the next planet will be easier as we already possess the the ION Drive technology. Getting it to go faster wont be a problem.

The hull design could be HyFish as its very aerodynamic design and also because of its light weight. Also an plasma generator could be up on the nose part of the craft to make the ride smoother.

Mind condition: Hopeful wishing at full potential.

technorati tags:Space, Travel, SCFI, Space, Flight, HexaLifter, HyFish, ION, Drive

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Late and Later...

haven't had time to write something new - tried to Survive the school, Work and the flue. Yes I'm still not well, but here goes...

The first thing is: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 is out. Looks sleek, works a bit faster and looks like the spam engine got a little boost :) Lightning works also, but as usually there is a catch (and I don't get why the people coding lightning haven't integrated it yet) - Lightning Multiweek View is not compatible with with TB 2.0. Well I hope Joey Minta is fixing the problem, or at least he will update the version requirement in the extension. Usually people wont know what they are missing and a month view is not sufficient when you are at the last week of the month - this little gem will show you the next 4 weeks (thats how many weeks I want to see into the future - less is insufficient and more is too much I can bare :) ).

Next gem is the HP new printer family. Well It seems they are so efficient in inc consumption that they wont make ends meat with the ink industry. So the geniuses there will lease you a printer instead selling you one. I would have nothing against it BUT they charge for each printed sheet AND that is based on the printing quality. This pops up some questions:

1) I print 1000 pages that contain 100 dots of with the highest quality setting - probably I will be taxed with the highest rate per page, so increase the amount of pages by few million and HP gets a HUGE profit out of nothing as the ink will last well really long (this is a theoretical exercise, but to use so high volume printer you might just print out blank forms)

2) Ok, You lease the printer, You print um, some 100 000 pages in a month, so its time to start paying for the service. So do you call the service people and get them to come to your work place so they would take out the statistics? Who says that the data that the technician takes is the same you are billed by? You augment your network so that the printers can go and report to some HP site that they have printed xxx pages with this quality? Big deal, you just wont let the printers to connect to the HP site - profit right? Well, what happens if someone hijacks the session and crawls back to the intranet with that?

3) You take out you Uzi and start shooting it at your firewall to open up dozens of IP-s and ports so that the (hmm technicians?) processes can go and monitor the "printer". As the high volume printer probably will utilize some PC and most likely will operate on a OS (who wants to bet that it will be some kind of a stripped down windows?), so I will not go into the security risks it will propose...

4) Who can guarantee that the printer wont lie? Everyone lies - its just the matter of degree of detecting it!

Enough with HP - lets continue with google. I understand competition, but I don't understand regression. So far I have been happy with most of the services that they provide, but the deal to buy doubleclick.com was a blow below the belt (I think). I would understand the tactics to eliminate the the competition by eliminating them by merging (and I hope thats their tactic). Google has been my (Idol would be a bit much, but still...) example when it comes to web advertising. I survived the switch when they started to do flash based adverts - thats where I draw the line. I have seen my share of web based flash advertising that filled the whole page. SO I hope they are just eliminating the competitor!

New Ubuntu Feisty Fawn is out and should be looking great (haven't had time to test it tho).

Next rumor is that the Valve servers have been hacked - nothing is sacred any more.

There is a new material that is tougher than the diamond. Well its not completely correct, as there are several materials that are tougher than diamond, but they are super expensive to create. Most people would thing "the Frell with it" who needs it. I on the other hand would imagine creating some kind of hexagonal grids from it melted into a some king of a elastic material. Well I assume it is as fragile as as a diamond - tough does not mean strong you know! This would be interesting as micro meteorites ore some debree in space will not pierce or scratch the craft while out in the space :) Weird way of thinking? Well yea - I want to be in space someday so Ill try to progress it as much as I can :)

There is so much more I would like to comment, but soo little time - so thats it for today - hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

technorati tags:Thunderbird, Lightning, HP, printer, security, trust, valve, hacked, diamond, space

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Space madness...

Looks like Bill Gates is finally starting to think out of the box - hes going into space:)

This is great that rich people spend some of their money on spaceflight. It could stimulate the space industry a little and maybe generate some new concepts of how to do it better and safer. It would be a hard blow to the companies ego to report to the public "We are sad to inform that the rocket/shuttle transporting Bill Gates to the ISS has exploded after takeoff". Some would be sad and the Linux people would rejoice (nothing personal Bill - its just business). Well, to think of the past, when bill was head of Microsoft security was nonexistent but at least the release schedule was kept strictly by the numbers...

This makes me wonder - when will NASA send the last (14?) peaces of the ISS up to orbit? I know that there should have been a lot of science modules, but how about sending a nice motel up there? As there have been 5 civilians up there and possibly more to follow. Also they could put a nice herbonics bay in place - the astro-/kosmo-/taikonauts need their daily vitamins also and where else can you grow 100kg melons (ok ok Chernobyl does not count as you would glow green the rest of the life).

As I have not been in space I really cant comment on what to do better (I can at least dream of it :) ) but when I will go I would expect a nice motel, good food, nice beverages and some more room. I could not imagine bouncing around in a 2 by 2 barrel all day looking at the blue sphere that is the earth. It will be interesting for about 2 hours total - 1 for day time and the second for night time, so what I'm supposed to do the rest 2+ days?

PS! Anyone willing to loan me 130M $USD for a trip to the ISS and a spin around the moon? :) Ill pay You back in 10k years - I promise. ;)

technorati tags:Bill, Gates, space, flight, ISS, NASA, trip

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