will_marx

A shame Williams never wrote a "Rebel March", as it would be appropriate for this weekend's festivities.

Hoorah = Air Force

Although it tends to be more of a hoorah in most AF formations.

::mutters:: I remember when we took pride in being called the Chair Force

NASA's looking at shields, and a few other potentially Sci-Fi-ish solutions:

From NASA.gov:

David E. Steitz

Headquarters' date=' Washington

202-358-1730

[email protected]

 

 

May 31, 2012

 

RELEASE : 12-178

 

 

NASA Seeks Early Stage Innovations For Space Technologies From U.S. Universities

 

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA is seeking proposals from accredited U.S. universities focused on innovative, early-stage space technologies that will improve shielding from space radiation, spacecraft thermal management and optical systems.

 

Each of these technology areas requires dramatic improvements over existing capabilities for future science and human exploration missions. Early stage, or low technology readiness level (TRL) concepts, could mature into tools that solve the hard challenges facing future NASA missions. Researchers should propose unique, disruptive or transformational space technologies that address the specific topics described in this new solicitation.

 

"Both science and human deep space missions pose serious challenges that require new, innovative technological solutions," said Space Technology Program Director Michael Gazarik at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Radiation, thermal management and optical systems were all identified in the National Research Council's report on NASA Space Technology Roadmaps as priority research areas. This call seeks new ideas in these areas."

 

Space radiation poses a known danger to the health of astronauts. NASA is seeking proposals in the area of active radiation shielding (such as "shields" of electromagnetic force fields surrounding a spacecraft to block incoming radiation) or new, multifunction materials that are superior to those that exist today are sought. NASA also is interested in new technologies for active monitoring and read-out of radiation levels astronauts receive during long space trips.

 

Current space technology for thermal management of fuels in space is limited. NASA is seeking early-stage technologies to improve ways spacecraft fuel tanks and in-space filling stations store cryogenic (very low temperature) propellants, such as hydrogen, over long periods of time and distances. NASA also is seeking novel, low-TRL heat rejection technologies which operate reliably and efficiently over a wide range of thermal conditions.

 

The next generation of lightweight mirrors and telescopes requires advanced optical systems. NASA is seeking advancement of early-stage active wavefront sensing and control system technologies that enable deployable, large aperture space-based observatories; technologies which enable cost-effective development of grazing-incidence optical systems; and novel techniques to focus and detect X-ray photons and other high-energy particles.

 

NASA expects to make approximately 10 awards this fall, based on the merit of proposals received. The awards will be made for one year, with an additional year of research possible. The typical annual award value is expected to be approximately $250,000. Second year funding will be contingent on the availability of appropriated funds and technical progress. Only accredited U.S. universities may submit proposals to this solicitation. Notices of intent are due by June 21, 2012, with proposals due July 12.

[/quote']

Oldest tugboat in the fleet.

And really, this person needs to remember the title of the TNG series finale - All Good Things (must come to an end). I loved TNG, DS9, and Enterprise, and I liked Voyager, but everything has to end sometime, and there's a reason they do. Time to stop living in the past.

Well Said Bruce! The only series that really didn't have an "official" finale was TOS, but even then it lived on with TAS followed by the movies, with TUC truly its finale. Shatner, Doohan, and Koening in the beginning of Generations was like having De Kelley in the pilot of TNG- passing the torch to a new franchise, in this case the movies.

Star Trek will always have its detractors, no matter what the series. The TNG/DS9/VOY fans were closed minded to ENT and New TOS. And just because its not the "continuing story-arc" of the TV shows, doesn't mean its any less Trek worthy

And the win goes to Crash this time.

Have at it.

So, Carl Weathers kick your butt too?

I've already cleared my calendar for that weekend, so I'll be there ready to commit Mayhem as usual

Real Science! From weapons research.

 

Scientists help define structure of exoplanets

February 1st' date=' 2012 in Space & Earth / Astronomy

 

 

[b']Using models similar to those used in weapons research, scientists may soon know more about exoplanets, those objects beyond the realm of our solar system.[/b]

In a new study, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators came up with new methods for deriving and testing the equation of state (EOS) of matter in exoplanets and figured out the mass-radius and mass-pressure relations for materials relevant to planetary interiors.

Astronomers started detecting exoplanets 18 years ago and more than 700 have been found so far, the vast majority within the last two years. Interest is now growing in the structure and atmospheres of these worlds.

New equation-of-state work helps interpret the structure of exoplanets. As there is a minimal amount of data in each exoplanet observation, interpretation of their composition and structure depends largely on comparing their mass and radius with the composition expected given the distance from their parent star. The makeup implies a mass-radius relation, which relies heavily on EOS calculated from electronic structure theory and measured experimentally on Earth.

In the new research, lead Laboratory scientist Damian Swift, along with LLNL colleagues Jon Eggert, Damien Hicks, Sebastien Hamel, Kyle Caspersen, Eric Schwegler and Rip Collins, compared their modeling results with the observed masses and radii of exoplanets. Their results broadly support recent assumptions about the structures of exoplanets but can now take advantage of the accurate EOS models and data produced at Livermore.

"Current theoretical techniques for calculating electronic structures can predict EOS relevant to planetary interiors," Swift said. "But we still need experimental validation of these calculations; something that can now be done at the National Ignition Facility (NIF)."

LLNL's National Ignition Facility is the world's largest laser designed to perform research on national security, fusion experimentation and basic science, such as astrophysics.

The team made specific predictions for notable exoplanets having earth-like, rocky, icy compositions, with planetary center pressures ranging from 8 to 19,000 Mbar (8 million to 1.9 billion atmospheres of pressure).

"We have a project to measure material properties up to billions of atmospheres on NIF. We will eventually exceed the highest pressures investigated in the very small number of previous experiments using underground nuclear tests, which reached far above pressures that can be explored with other techniques currently available," Swift said.

Placing constraints on the structure of exoplanets requires accurate information about the compressibility of relevant compositions of matter, including iron alloys, silicates, and ices, under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature.

"This sets the record straight and presents a survey of exoplanet structure information using material properties generated for, and validated using, experimental capabilities at the national labs," Swift said.

More information: The research recently appeared in The Astrophysical Journal (APJ, 744:59, 2012).

Provided by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

From the Toronto Star:

Neither Mathew Ho nor Asad Muhammad can vote, or buy beer.

 

They haven’t been accepted to college yet, though that might change after this story.

 

The 17-year-olds have already sent a (Lego) man into space.

 

Two weeks ago, Ho and Muhammad launched a homemade balloon carrying a Lego passenger and four cameras. It fell back down to Earth 97 minutes later with astonishing footage from an estimated 24 kilometres above sea level, three times the typical cruising altitude of a commercial aircraft.

 

Their jerry-rigged contraption recorded the Lego man’s journey from a soccer pitch in Newmarket to the stratosphere — high enough to see their two-inch astronaut floating above curvature of our planet, clutching a Canadian flag with the blackness of space behind him.

 

The project cost $400 and took four months of free Saturdays. It wasn’t a school assignment. They just thought it would be cool.

 

“We didn’t really believe we could do it until we did,” says Ho.

 

“It shows a tremendous degree of resourcefulness,” says Dr. Michael Reid, a University of Toronto astrophysics professor. Noting that similar projects had been undertaken by PhD students, he said, “For two 17-year-olds to accomplish this on their own is pretty impressive.”

 

Ho dreamt up the project two summers ago when he saw an online video of a balloon sent to near space by some Massachusetts Institute of Technology students. He decided to try it himself. He likes building things and has an adventurous streak, he says. He wants to be an entrepreneur, so he has applied to Queen’s University and University of British Columbia for commerce.

 

Ho approached Muhammad in the hallway of Agincourt Collegiate Institute, where they are both Grade 12 students. Muhammad has a passion for all things flight-related. His goal is to be an aircraft technician, so he has applied to engineering programs at U of T and Centennial College.

 

The two met in middle school. Muhammad’s family had just immigrated emigrated from Pakistan, and he spoke no English. When other students were ignoring him, Ho walked up and made friends.

 

Starting this past September, the duo spent their Saturdays at Ho’s kitchen table in Scarborough, drawing up plans and building the balloon.

 

“People would walk into the house and see us building this fantastical thing with a parachute from scratch, and they would be like, ‘What are you doing?” says Ho. “We’d be like, ‘We’re sending cameras to space.’ They’d be like, ‘Oh, okayyyyy….’”

 

Ho had already assembled a super-light Styrofoam box to carry the cameras. So with a $500 self-imposed budget in mind, the two scoured Craigslist and Kijiji for used point-and-shoots. They needed Canons, which can be programmed to take photos every 20 seconds without stopping.

 

Next they sewed the parachute.

 

“By no means are we, like, seamstresses,” says Ho. “We broke like, what, four needles? It was ridiculous.”

 

Three weeks of jamming Muhammad’s mom’s sewing machine produced a rip-stop nylon parachute. It has raggedy seams but works perfectly. They tested it by throwing it off the roof of Ho’s dad’s 40-storey condominium, to some residents’ consternation. “People were yelling at me,” says Muhammad.

 

They ordered a professional, $85 weather balloon online, and bought $160 worth of helium from a party supply store. Ho purchased a special wide-angle video camera he had been coveting with his own money.

 

Finally, they assembled the whole thing, carefully carving out space inside the Styrofoam container for the three point-and-shoots, the wide-angle video camera, and a cellphone with a downloaded GPS app. They super-glued their Lego astronaut to a gangplank on the outside, and printed off a Canadian flag for him to hold. (They also checked to make sure the flight wouldn’t be dangerous or illegal.)

 

The pair discovered a website that calculates a weather balloon’s estimated landing spot based on input launch coordinates, prevailing winds, and balloon specs — different weather balloons are designed to burst at different altitudes.

 

The site kept spitting out Rochester, N.Y., as their balloon’s final landing spot. Muhammad and Ho didn’t like their chances with U.S. Homeland Security.

 

But one Saturday morning, Ho tried again, and saw the balloon would land near Peterborough. By 2:30 p.m., he and Muhammad were standing in a Newmarket soccer pitch.

 

They worked quickly, putting mitten-warmers in the box to keep the cameras working in the upper atmosphere. They fired up the four cameras and the cellphone’s GPS app.

 

Then they inflated the balloon, let it go, and watched their Lego man lift off.

 

At seven kilometres, the balloon passed cellphone-tower range, and the GPS signal cut out. So they went home and made dumplings.

 

At 4:12 p.m., Ho’s iPad started to beep — the Lego man had re-entered the atmosphere. A few minutes later, it touched down in a field near Rice Lake, 122 kilometres from its launch point.

 

The next weekend, the teens drove out to the field, and quickly found the balloon and the Lego man in the brush. “We kind of started jumping, because there was no one around, so you could do that,” says Muhammad.

 

Based on their calculations, the craft had climbed to about 80,000 feet in one hour and five minutes before the balloon exploded, beginning the Lego man’s 32-minute descent.

 

When the teens got home and uploaded the two videos and 1,500 photos onto a computer, they started screaming, they say.

 

Their footage shows the Lego man spinning at an altitude three times higher than the peak of Mount Everest, before the balloon bursts and he starts to plummet. “We never knew it would be this good,” says Ho.

 

Ho turned to Muhammad. “Congratulations Asad, we did it,” he said, and shook his friend’s hand.

Maybe its time to get kids away from the technology toys and let them be creative again?

Be glad she didn't go "Yippee-ki-yay" on you, Lefty.

The Friday night Academy will not be running this or next Friday. Have a safe, sane, and sober holiday folks.

Well...with only one entrant, you win by default, Shalin.

Since its officially the Christmas season, I figured I'd pull this one out again

 

Heh. Are you sure? At any rate, you made me chuckle, so I'm not sure I wanna fix it.

 

A'ight, one more time:

Beer...its what's for breakfast

Bird on the left: And here we have the H. Sapien diurnariis in his natural habitat...

Bird on the right: Where's the fish stand?

Winner: Kairi :D

For surviving the Friday night Academy and impressing Spyder and myself while getting blown up in a most dramatic way, welcome STSF's newest and old timer T'Loren Day

Thanks, Shalin. Have at it:

 

What you don't see parked in the parking garage is his fur-trimmed Sienar Fleet Systems Pimp-fighter

Winner, Shalin... Have at it young man

Because the world can't get enough Arnold. Well, except California maybe. Probably.

 

I...WANT...MORPHINE!

You did this to ME!!!

Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

They all made me laugh...but crossing genre's caught it. Although T'Aral's is a very close runner up, since US 206 in Burlington County (NJ) used to have scrapyards with all sorts of neat stuff in it.