Centauri's Thoughts

40 years ago today, man set foot on another world. Even though it was only a quarter million miles away (compared to say, the asteroid belt or Mars) it was the furthest we had gone and under the most severe conditions at the time.

I was in grade school at that time, and the way things were going, I thought sure we'd ALL have the opportunity to live and work in space if we chose to. Well, that certainly didn't happen. Those who get to work in space these days are few indeed.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do out there, but I know I wanted to be involved. I studied as many things about the sciences as I could, and especially anything that could be useful for space. This started with chemistry, physics, electronics, and progressed later into the math involved for calculating orbits and masses, and finally the jump into astronomy. about that time the web took off and I was in heaven (In my own way). I could study ALL of these subjects as much as I wanted (and I did).

Sadly, we are still no closer for the “the common man” to go live and work in space, and by the time it DOES happen, I'll be too old!

We are exploring some robotically, and through space telescopes we are seeing even more, but our human presence in space is a mere 250 miles away.

I'd love to know that we have colonies in space and on other worlds, and have even had a hand (mentally) at designing such structures, although I haven't yet posted that.

I can only hope we do better in the NEXT 40 years!

This is potentially great news. A laptop battery with 2 hours of life could have 20, and an electric car with a 100 mile range could have 1,000. It will be interesting to see how all this develops.

Reference: NewScientist

I came across an interesting article in New Scientist today, and its something I have pondered for a while, specifically the trapping. A charged particle (electron, proton, positron, or anti-proton) can all be trapped magnetically, but an atom of anti-hydrogen is neutral.

It's a problem ATRAP and ALPHA are still working on. "Capturing antihydrogen atoms is the current frontier, and it's a challenge," says Rolf Landua, a physicist at CERN who advised on the Angels and Demons movie and is rumoured to be the inspiration for Leonardo Vetra, an antimatter scientist in the original story. "So far nobody has managed to do it, but I'm pretty sure we will." Still, encasing a smouldering chunk of antimatter in a portable antihydrogen trap as happens in the book is a quite a way off, he says.

See the entire article here

The Kepler mission is due to launch next week (March 6th)

It is the first mission with the ability to find planets like Earth -- rocky planets that orbit sun-like stars in a warm zone where liquid water could be maintained on the surface. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life.

"Kepler is a critical component in NASA's broader efforts to ultimately find and study planets where Earth-like conditions may be present," said Jon Morse, the Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The planetary census Kepler takes will be very important for understanding the frequency of Earth-size planets in our galaxy and planning future missions that directly detect and characterize such worlds around nearby stars."

The Kepler spacecraft will watch a patch of space for 3.5 years or more for signs of Earth-sized planets moving around stars similar to the sun. The patch that Kepler will watch contains about 100,000 stars like the sun. Using special detectors similar to those used in digital cameras, Kepler will look for slight dimming in the stars as planets pass between the star and Kepler. The Kepler's place in space will allow it to watch the same stars constantly throughout its mission, something observatories like Hubble cannot do.

The method used will be the “transit” method (star-crossing orbit). We have seen venus do this: here and here.

Of course, this method wont detect every planet orbiting a star, because the planet must pass directly in front of that star, and given solar systems random alignment compared to ours, the Kepler mission is figuring lower odds for detection. But given the large survey sample (100,000) they feel that the number found will tell us more about how common planets are in other solar systems.

References and more reading:
Keplers Home Page

space.com article

Scientific American Article

This stuff looks pretty wild! Interesting video

This same video has also been getting coverage on CNN's edge of Discovery.

This is great! The more processes they find to liberate hydrogen, the better.

This one uses two sets of specially formulated aluminum, one acts as a base, and one as an acid, and they break the bonds in water molecules to liberate the hydrogen.

This process happens at room temperature and without input of more energy.

Read the full details on physorg.com here.

I Have read up on many physics subjects, and know the basic research thats going on, but for some people, all they are hearing about is the LHC might create black holes and such.

An interesting little rap video has been made that does explain things a bit, and in a memorable way: see it here.

A good article in New Scientist about life's top 10 inventions is here


It takes a while to read through it all, but puts forth some interesting info. At a point while reading, I became aware that life is stranger than fiction, and in fact, fiction was not invented, but merely putting a twist on something life had already done.

Another new year, and hopes for the future. Scheduled events for this year: Mars landings, Cassini Orbit around Saturn, and Shuttle return to flight. We might also see someone grabbing the X-Prize, and given what tests we have heard about, my money is on Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan).

This year should see more happening around here. The Robotics should be in full swing, with added sensors, and more electronics design. House mapping and other Robotic goals should be happening. Use of servos and making of a robotic arm should come together this year (hopefully in 1st quarter).
x-10 and home automation is also new on-going goals.

In the case of world events, I hope we see continuing foundations laid in Iraq, and hopefully, some progress on the peace plan for Palestine and Israel.

For the world of science, no doubt some interesting things will happen, none of which I'd try to guess at, it could be in any field, from nanotech to biology.