Lockheed Martin-Developed Tool Enables Scientists to Efficiently Utilize Massive Data Stream From NASA’s Solar …

Lockheed Martin-Developed Tool Enables Scientists to Efficiently Utilize Massive Data Stream From NASA’s Solar …
read more

Read more on SYS-CON Media

Spinoff 2005

Product Description

BUY FROM AMAZON–>> Spinoff 2005

New Moon Rising: The Making of America’s New Space Vision and the Remaking of NASA: Apogee Books Space Series 42

Product Description
The book is a detailed history of the evolution of the U.S. civil space program from the February 1, 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident to the release of the Presidential Commission report on Moon, Mars, and Beyond on June 2, 2004. During these extraordinary 16 months, nearly every element of NASA’s leadership was placed under a political microscope, with the result that the space agency set upon a new course of reorganization, resulting with President George W. Bush’s announcement of an entirely new space policy for the U.S.

The book begins with a comparison of all of the previous U.S. space policies, beginning with President John F. Kennedy’s selection of a manned lunar landing goal in May, 1961. Using declassified tapes and records from the Kennedy Library, his administration’s internal debates over what would become the Apollo project are detailed. President Richard M. Nixon’s decision to build a reusable space shuttle, and the placing of the shuttlecraft at the center of NASA’s programs, are also detailed. How and why President Ronald Reagan chose a permanent space station as his major civil space goal is recounted as well, as is the failure of President Bush’s father to launch a return-to-the-Moon and Mars initiative in 1989.

With this as the backdrop, the book describes the last decade of space policy under President Bill Clinton, and the inside story of the leadership of NASA by administrator Daniel S. Goldin. Using previously unreported stories of the inner workings of Goldin’s NASA, the book shows how the once proud space agency fell into disarray during the 1990s decade.

With the election of President George W. Bush in 2000, the book takes the reader into the inner councils of the new Bush presidency in the months after the September 11, 2001 attacks as Bush himself chooses a long-time family friend to head up NASA-Sean O’Keefe. For the first time, the private conversations between Bush and his senior staff over NASA’s future are told, including Bush’s charge that O’Keefe transform the broken space agency. O’Keefe’s internal battles within NASA to institute reforms are told, ending with an agency on the mend-on the morning of February 1, 2003 when space shuttle Columbia fell from the skies above Texas. In a virtual minute-by-minute recounting, the events of that tragic day are told from the inside of O’Keefe’s inner circle for the first time. Based on extensive, on-the-record interviews with O’Keefe and his top managers and leaders, the book gives the reader the feeling of being present as the details of the space disaster unfold. In the weeks and months following the event, the reader learns of how NASA struggled to reform its failed safety program, and what the secret debates were inside the Bush administration on how to accept the recommendations of the Columbia accident board-or to fight them publicly.

While NASA struggles to reform itself to continue human space exploration and repair the damaged shuttles, a quiet and largely unknown review begins at the White House as to what the nation’s purpose in space should really be. Working independent from NASA for many months, the story of how a handful of young staffers, supporters of space, work in secret to devise a series of potential space policy pathways. Others, outside the space program are solicited for their views as well. As the cause of the Columbia accident becomes clear, Bush moves to forge a new framework for an expansive space vision. The book brings the reader into these deliberations as a ‘fly-on-the-wall’, as one-by-one options for space exploration are studied-and rejected as either too expensive or too risky. As the summer of 2003 draws to a close, the policy process appears to be headed towards recommending manned lunar exploration as the new goal for the U.S. space program. But as the process draws towards a conclusion and a recommendation, Bush himself enters the picture, ordering the space vision reshaped to include other destinations in the solar system beyond the moon. Thus the moon becomes a location to craft new technologies that would provide a technology boost to industry as well as open space beyond earth orbit to traversing astronauts.

But beside the debate on where to go in space was another debate on how to pay for it. The book brings the reader into the deliberations on how to retire the fleet of winged space shuttles, exit the space station, and virtually reform the space agency to free up billions to pay for the new space plan. By fall, 2003 planners are ready to propose to Bush a bold space exploration agenda, blending new generations of space robots with space voyaging astronauts and a new series of manned spaceships resembling Wernher Von Braun’s original space goals.

The book takes the reader inside the Bush White House on December 19, 2003 when, in secret, the President adopts the new space plan for America. Then, the book reconstructs January 14, 2004 when Bush makes his speech announcing his vision for NASA-as Vice president Dick Cheney speaks in California at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But no sooner does the new plan become public waves of criticisms roll over NASA about another policy decision- abandon the Hubble Space Telescope. The book gives previously unreported details on how the Hubble decision was reached-and how NASA scrambled to defend its choice. The book also takes readers to Capitol Hill as the new policy faces withering criticisms from Republicans and Democrats alike. While the plan supporters battle for its survival in a crucial election year, the book also takes the reader into NASA headquarters, as the first contracts and studies on what would be called ‘Project Constellation’are developed, giving readers a first look at possible designs for the new ships. The book also tells how NASA gained the crucial support of former moonwalker Neil Armstrong, and why the reclusive American space hero agreed to come forward to help rescue the plan from political defeat.

The book ends with the June 2, 2004 report of the Presidential Commission appointed by Bush to vet the NASA plan. Calling for a massive restructuring of the civil space program, the book ends with how NASA was secretly planning to ‘one up’ the commission-by announcing a new plan of its own to redesign the American space program to get back to the moon-and to go to worlds beyond.

Main Points

The inside story of how NASA responded to the 2003 Columbia accident in never-before-reported detail

The secret deliberations within NASA on how to make way for a new goal such as manned lunar and Mars flight

The story of the major U.S. political figure who came to NASA’s aid during the debates, and whose support became crucial to helping get Bush on board

The role of the president himself in shaping-and reshaping-the space plan

How NASA reached the decision to abandon the space shuttle and station to free up funds to pay for the new plan

How the Sean O’Keefe administration built a quiet political coalition to support the proposal-and why it almost came undone during the critical weeks following the Bush announcement

What it was like at the helm of U.S. civil space as tragedy gave way to an unexpected opportunity, told from the insider’s unique perspective in a you-are-there- in- the- room style with Sean O’Keefe and his inner circle, battling over options to save NASA-and what President George W. Bush really believed the space program should do for America.

Note:
This book was written with the full cooperation of NASA and the Bush administration, but has not been and will not be reviewed by them or pre-approved in any way.

BUY FROM AMAZON–>> New Moon Rising: The Making of America’s New Space Vision and the Remaking of NASA: Apogee Books Space Series 42

Engineering of Creativity: Introduction to TRIZ Methodology of Inventive Problem Solving

Product Description
Invention and innovation lie at the heart of problem solving in virtually every discipline, but they are not easy to come by. Divine inspiration aside, historically we have depended primarily on observation, brainstorming, and trial-and-error methods to develop the innovations that provide solutions. But these methods are neither efficient nor dependable enough for the high-quality, high-tech engineering solutions we need today.TRIZ is a unique and powerful, algorithmic approach to problem solving that demonstrated remarkable effectiveness in its native Russia, and whose popularity has now spread to organizations such as Ford, NASA, Motorola, Unisys, and Rockwell International. Until now, however, no comprehensive, comprehensible treatment, suitable for self-study or as a textbook, has been available in English.Engineering of Creativity provides a valuable opportunity to learn and apply the concepts and techniques of TRIZ to complex engineering problems. The author-a world-renowned TRIZ expert-covers every aspect of TRIZ, from the basic concepts to the latest research and developments. He provides step-by-step guidelines, case studies from a variety of engineering disciplines, and first-hand experience in using the methodology.Application of TRIZ can bring high-quality-even breakthrough-conceptual solutions and help remove technical obstacles. Mastering the contents of Engineering of Creativity will bring your career and your company a remarkable advantage: the ability to formulate the best possible solutions for technical systems problems and predict future developments.

BUY FROM AMAZON–>> Engineering of Creativity: Introduction to TRIZ Methodology of Inventive Problem Solving

Hypersonic and Supersonic Aviation in 2057 (nasa Award Winning Article)

AEROAGE

En route on the mach 4.7 supersonic jet, I flipped open my iTV , which connected me to the most advanced space network, spacecast. The usual news was being broadcast; “NASCOM, the space people have started mining a new mineral on the moon which is almost identical to Uranium; the Americans have come out with yet another version of the unmanned X-67 which maneuvers itself at mach 25 (courtesy nuclear fusion engines!); the international space station at Mars has discovered a revolutionary microorganism that can be used to fight multiple cancer, a predominant disease on Earth”. Yes, this is the age I’m living in, and when I look back in time at the history of aviation, it leaves me flabbergasted. The history of AVIATION commenced in the 20th century, and a few lucky people who were witness to the first tentative flight of the Wright Brothers, managed to live through these 150 years (through medical advancement of course!) to witness the hypersonic X-67s as well. As Robert Wall once rightly said (towards the end of the 20th century), “So rapid has been the development of aeronautical science that no one can say with safety that an end has been reached or that there is any limit to the ability of man to develop flight at the same pace in the next century.”1

Today, in 2057, man has traveled a long way in the field of civil and space aviation. Advancements that were merely probable 5 decades ago are possible and practical today. All these developments are a consequence of decades of stupendous achievements in space exploration. Half a century ago, landing human astronauts on Mars was within the bounds of possibility. However, today, successful implementation of hypersonic space travel and use of geodesic domes have not only enabled man to experience the surface of Mars, but have also helped him estabilish cyborg colonies there. In addition to the Moon, even Mars is available now, for scientific exploration! The international space station on Mars, in addition to helping scientists in their research work, has facilitated in mitigating the power crisis, which at present is history! After the establishment of The International Lunar Base Station in 2037, man has passed several milestones in setting up a long term colony on the moon. Today, the hotels on the moon go full with increasing number of world, or rather space, citizens going on lunar holidays! A fleet of spaceships taking space tourists high above the atmosphere is now a routine affair. These spaceships are improved versions of Spaceshiptwo, which took Santosh George of India along with other space tourists to as high as 55000 feet, enabling them to experience the excitement of weightlessness and the thunderous deceleration of aerodynamic drag on reentry, in 20072. In addition, disputes between industries, over the acquisition of lunar land for mining have become fairly common.

At the start of the 21st century, the failure of NASA’s Mars lander caused despondency over the failure of its apparently reliable technology and put a question mark over other similar systems3. However, perennial human effort and incessant advancement in hypersonic space travel have led to the innovation of extraordinarily efficient probes which are now meeting the challenge of unearthing secrets about the solar system’s remotest planets. For example: a recent probe that has been sent to Pluto weighs only 570 pounds and stands almost 10 feet tall and 27 feet wide. It is composed of 19 solar panels, an extremely light nano-fission engine, and is controlled by an onboard computer. The probe functions by harnessing the light energy of the Sun. At present the fission engines are taking it close to the Sun. Once it is sufficiently close, the fission engines would shut down and light energy from the Sun would push the probe towards Pluto with a tremendous amount of force. The probe would then constantly accelerate and reach hypersonic speeds enabling scientists to have a glimpse of the details of Pluto within their lifetimes!

The innovation of the controlled nuclear fusion engine, after the ion and fission engines, in 2031, was by far the most significant advancement in space travel. It enabled spacecraft to reach astonishing speeds. Many decades ago, scientists deciphered that scarce and expensive raw materials exist in abundance on asteroids in our solar system. Today, aeronautical geeks have succeeded in designing manned aircraft, run by fusion engines that travel at supersonic speeds to these asteroids. They are slowed down, when close to the asteroid’s surface and then are made to land by making use of the asteroid’s relatively low gravity. During this rendezvous, with a suitable asteroid, the spacecraft uses abundant solar energy to extract and refine metals like gold and platinum and then the fusion engines power them back to Earth.4

In order to aid space travel and further exploit the hypersonic travel technology, a set of 5 astronomical telescopes, linked by laser, 100 times more powerful than the antiquated Hubble Space Telescope of the 20th century, was deployed in space in 20255 with the aid of space stations and hypersonic jets. Through these telescopes, we have been able to probe deeper into the universe and directly study details of planets in the Milky Way, without having to study the wobbling of stars.

This was just a glimpse of the hypersonic space travel in my age! Now, let’s delve into the advancement of supersonic and hypersonic travel in civil aviation. Civil aviation is governed by practicality and affordability. And when supersonic travel is looked at with these factors in mind, its picture seems somewhat blurred. Although, supersonic and hypersonic travel is easily available for civil aviation, its use is restricted only to the elite class. Four decades ago, hypersonic travel could take you anywhere on the planet in 4 hours6. Today, it can take you in just 2 hours! If the world population is transported from one corner of the globe to the other, then, oh my! The gas guzzling machines and sonic booms, created close to the earth’s surface, would simply attract the ire of environmentalists! Although this is the era of supersonic air travel, there also exists an alternative economic means of transport. No economy can ignore such basic realities. Even today we need economically viable means for mass transportation. So, where speed is not essential, the principles of freight transportation have been applied to mass travel. Non-inflammable gases are used to lift huge airships propelled by turbines7. This technology has made air travel extremely cheap, resulting in a five fold increase in air traffic compared to that of 2007. Although technology is reaching new heights every day, socialism continues to be a speed breaker!

In addition to supersonic and hypersonic aircraft being used in civil aviation, air taxis with tilt rotors have also come into daily use. Not needing a runway, these taxis can easily maneuver around the city. They help me land right in the center of a supermarket! In addition to the tilt rotors, which give them the vertical lift, they also make use of the ground effect that reduces the drag experienced by aircrafts8. This, thus, reduces the fuel consumption of the taxis. Bad news for environmentalists; they have one less topic to debate upon!

As far as the armed forces go, there is no stopping them! Billions were and are being spent to develop aircraft that are capable of traveling at such hypersonic speeds that they escape even the most efficient of all radars owned by their enemies. With the introduction of hypersonic travel, came the highly sensitive infrared radars that were capable of detecting the infrared radiation produced by the engines of these aircraft9.

Technology has constantly moved towards super automation. Way back in 2003, Arlen Rens’, a Lockheed Martin test pilot, describing automation in aviation, said humorously: “Airplanes are now built to carry a pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The pilot’s job is to feed the dog, and the dog’s job is to bite the pilot if he touches anything!”10

Now, the question arises; how did we reach this pinnacle? How did we overcome all the inevitable challenges?

The main challenges were:

a) Financial: the sums invested to develop this technology dwarfed those involved in making possible the Apollo missions to the Moon!

b) Biological: traversing long distances in space meant spending years in space in zero gravity conditions. The human body cannot adapt to stresses greater than 9g and react to situations as fast as machines. The human mind is incapable of making 1 million inferences per second unlike machines!

c) Technological: reaching high levels of automation required integrating man and machine, and the functioning of diverse systems in perfect synchronization over longer distances and timescales with a minimum of maintenance.11

d) Environmental and Ecological: sonic booms produced by supersonic and hypersonic aircrafts were a great threat to mankind, and wildlife12. Even if man could somehow artificially adapt his hearing sensibilities to sonic booms, he could possibly not dissuade animal activists from protesting against hypersonic travel. Apart from this, supersonic airlines of that age utilized gas guzzling engines, dependant upon dwindling petroleum supplies.

It has truly been a daunting task for man to find an answer to everything through technology. It is spellbinding to know how he prevented technology from reaching a standstill, without betting on speed at the cost of mankind.

It was observed rightly by Thomas Friedman, in 2006, that “the world is getting flat”. Outsourcing and around sourcing were the key to mutual cooperation, advancement, and ameliorating financial crises13 that would have otherwise brought about a pause in aviation technology. The cornerstones of cooperation, laid in the beginning of the 21st century, led to countries coming together to develop hypersonic and supersonic air travel. This has led us all to live in a more cooperative, rather than a competitive world. It was international cooperation that brought about the success of all the space projects since then and led to the establishment of international space stations.

The limiting reagent, in moving further down into space at hypersonic speeds, is the homo sapien! Although such speeds make one experience the tumbling alchemy of Earth and sky, the audacity, and miracle of flight, flying at stresses above 9g, in the Earth’s atmosphere, causes human blood to drain down from the brain, thus, extinguishing vision or even consciousness. In the old gravity suit, pilots would strain against their glottis. This would shut breathing. In the new suits, the pilots are able to flex their body muscles with less force, thus, reducing fatigue. This has been made possible by using “fluid muscles”, as they are called, which are independent of hoses and pressurized air on board, and reacts immediately to high g’s. Besides this, suits have designed in such a way, that pilots can communicate with each other even while traveling at such hypersonic speeds14.

As far as space travel is concerned, man’s shortcomings, both mental and physical, have been overcome by integrating him with machines. As Alwin Toffler predicted about 8 decades ago, the astronaut has become “an integral part of an ongoing micro-ecological process whirling through the vastnesses of space”15. What Theodore Gordon once said has come true. We have found that it would indeed be simpler “to provide life support in the form of machines that plug into the astronaut”. In accordance with his vision, an astronaut is “fed intravenously using a liquid food compactly stored in remote pressurized tank”. And “direct processing of body liquid wastes and conversion to water (is) accomplished by a new type of artificial kidney built in as part of the spaceship”16. Five decades ago, Professor Kevin Warwick, was able to connect his nervous system to his wife’s nervous system through a computer. Looking at that development, it is not hard to believe that today the human brain is directly connected to the computer, controlling his spacecraft. Thus, his mind is able to run as fast as a computer and in turn the computer gets a brain to think. Thus, what can be seen is that, the astronaut is no longer a separate entity monitoring the aircraft; he is in fact a part of the whole process.

If one divides human existence into three phases, then I would say that the first phase extends from the birth of humans till the year 1920. The second phase covers the time from 1921 to 2000 and we are at present in the third phase. This can be clearly explained by seeing the advancements that took place during these three phases. During the third phase mankind has moved so fast that from Earthlings we have started becoming Marslings! The technology that made all this probability a possibility would make a 20th century dweller dumbstruck! What humans did was that they teraformed Mars and tailored it to their requirements. The first thing that was required was to heat up the exceedingly cold atmosphere. The toxic pollution on Earth served as a medicine for Mars. Pollution creating machines were dropped on Mars whose work was to suck up a mixture of dust and atmosphere and process them into greenhouse chemicals. These chemicals trapped the heat radiated by the Sun and heated the surface and atmosphere of Mars. Once Mars was warm enough, plants and trees were grown in geodesic domes, which in turn increased the oxygen content of the atmosphere, making human existence possible17. This led to the establishment of an Earth colony on Mars which in turn gave birth to the Mars space station. The future now, is thus, to further the use of this technology and make the whole of Mars a human colony.

The technology developed for scramjets to attain hypersonic speeds, brought out a solution to the fossil fuel crises. Decades ago, rocket engines used hydrogen as well as liquid oxygen. The weight marred their performance and efficiency. A scramjet carries only hydrogen and uses oxygen from the atmosphere instead. Thus, it turns out to be lighter and more efficient18. Moreover, it also proves to be environment friendly. Mark Lewis of the University of Maryland had once said, “Flying an air-breathing rocket system above Mach5; that’s sort of the gleam in everyone’s eye”19. And yes, today we are all witness to the result of that vision. Scramjets have made hypersonic travel in the civil sector possible and to an extent, environment friendly as well. They fly at hypersonic speeds only high above the Earth and thus avoid the ill-effects of a sonic boom, protecting animals as well as mankind. In addition to the scramjets, the ion, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion engines are also an answer to the dwindling fossil fuel resources, since they efficiently use materials that are available in abundance on the Earth, Moon, and Mars. Besides this, scientists, with the aid of nanotechnology, are trying to devise methods to manipulate abundantly available elements at the atomic level and give them fossil fuel properties.

The problem of inventing a lightweight material that can endure the prolonged high temperatures of the flight engines, plus the heat of the air friction against the wings20, was taken care of by nanotechnology. By manipulating materials at the nanoscale, scientists were able to develop in 2020 a nano-aerogel from carbon which has excellent thermal properties. This material is used to insulate hypersonic aircrafts, which in turn are made up of sheets of carbon nanotubes and nanofibres that are 60 times tougher than steel and much lighter than graphite.

For all the above advancements to take place a perennial desire to achieve something better was required. In the words of a Pelican program manager, Blaine Rawdon: “From our perspective, anything that’s already flying is history.”21

From the very beginning of space exploration, most people have always thought it to be an extravagant luxury, affordable only by the superpowers, and only justifiable by them at times when questions of global prestige, between the competing systems of capitalism and communalism, were involved22. However, it has been practically shown that on an average, every dollar spent on the space program and/or aviation industry, results in 7 dollars paid back to the economy23. A list of spin-offs from space technology can be as varied as it is long.

The most significant of all spin offs was the result of the need for smaller and more powerful computers, which provided an incentive for the development of microchips. Development of rescue blankets, CCD chip technology, virtual reality systems, advanced keyboards, etc. are all a consequence of space technology. If these things seem vague to some people, they would be astonished to know how space technology has extended its wings to everyday articles like wheelchairs, school buses, batteries, television screens, home security systems, medicines, etc24. Besides this, the modern designs of hypersonic aircraft are the result of research carried out for spacecraft designs over the years. Thus, in some way or the other, we all owe our modern comforts to space technology.

Our forefather’s of the 1960s knew that they were witnessing some of space exploration’s “game changing events”25! With our present and near future focussed on Mars, our children may experience the same extraordinary odysseys. Today, we are on Mars and the Moon; tomorrow we might be on one of Jupiter’s moons or even farther. The speed of sound has long been surpassed, and now man’s mission is to approach the speed of light! This may seem like an impossible dream but we must remember that powered flight were seemed impossible when the Wright Brothers set out with their bamboo and canvas contraption to the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk almost one and a half century ago!

Read more at http://www.nanojini.com

Notes

1 Robert Wall, A History of Airliners (Burlington Books: London 1980, rpt 1989) p 238.

2 Hindustan Times, New Delhi, March 15, 2007, p 1. “the Richard-Branson owned Virgin Galactic company that hopes to begin a new era in tourism in less than two years.

Apart from George, two US-based Indian Americans have also signed up for the two-hour flight, Louela Faria-Jones of Virgin Galactic told Hindustan Times from London. SpaceShipOne, a prototype of the space vehicle, flew to space three times in 2004, she said. George will fly on board the SpaceShipTwo, which has large windows, reclining seats, cabins the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet and wings approximately the size of a Boeing 757. It will carry six passengers and two pilots, Faria Jones said.

3 David Owen, Into Outer Space (Burlington Books: London 2000) p 135

4 Ibid, p138

5 Space: Episodes 3 and 4, VCD, B.B.C., 2001

6 Michael Klesius, “Wings of Change”, National Geographic (National Geographic Society: Washington DC, December 2003), p 32

7 Wall, A History of Airliners, p 251

8 Klesius, “Wings of Change”, National Geographic December 2003, p 25, 29

9 My own assessment

10 Klesius, “Wings of Change”, National Geographic December 2003, p 13

11 Owen, Into Outer Space, p 137

12 Wall, A History of Airliners, p 238

13 Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat (Penguin Books: London, 2005)

14 Klesius, “Wings of Change”, National Geographic December 2003, p 20,21

15 Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (Pan Books: London, 1971) p 196

16 Ibid, p 196

17 Space: Episodes 5 and 6, VCD, B.B.C., 2001

18 Klesius, “Wings of Change”, National Geographic December 2003, p 32

19 Ibid, p 32

20 Ibid, p 32

21 Ibid, p 29

22 Owen, Into Outer Space, p 128

23 Ibid, p 128

24 Ibid, p 129

25 Jeffrey Kluger, “Nasa’s Plan for a Lunar Comeback Gets a Big Boost”, Time (Time Asia: Hong Kong, March 19, 2007), p 36.

http://www.nanojini.com

Next Page »