The XCore suborbital reusable horizontal launch rocket is a new contender for the space tourism crown. Taking off from a normal airstrip and being able to launch 4 times a day for 10 days before requiring servicing. They are pitching to sell the vehicles throughout the world. The idea looks like a neat toy for a wealthy Adrenaline junkie. It would also be a very quick way to get around for globe trotting adventurists who could effectively island hop their way around the globe in a matter of hours by launching themselves into sub orbit and letting the earths rotation do the hard work. Add on a couple of extra pounds of fuels and they can increase the burn time to make the distance covered longer and the over all trips shorter.

In a way it is surprising that the US have decided that it is time to allow this technology to be exported off their shores. But given the decline of the US dollar and economy it makes perfect sense that one of the ways they expect to work their way out of the global recession is by selling expensive toys to wealthy consumers.

The only thing missing from this technology is a way to stop the blinding flashes of light caused by cosmic rays that plague humans as soon as they get outside of the Earths magnetosphere. Once that has been solved we should be able to fly anywhere we want in the solar system. Holidays in moon craters may well become a viable tourism destination.

One interesting aspect of this venture is the way the industry has been designed. The scientists at NASA seem to have found a way to take their knowledge and commercialise it without having to depend on Elite Politicians for their funding. Now that they have split NASA into several commercial ventures and the best minds have made their bets on the direction they want to travel the Banksters will be less able to control them through their lobbying efforts. This by itself bodes well for the future as it will become fashionable to become intelligent, well read and educated. Hopefully that will translate into a more open minded and rational society where decisions are made based on logic and science rather than wishful thinking and passing the buck.

Tags: aircraft, Elite, Engine, Fuel, machine, Space, transport by Sparky
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Like Elvis, Burt Rutan just keeps delivering hit after hit. With the announcement of the decision to commit his own personal wealth earned from the Microsoft empire to funding the next phase of Burt Rutans Scaled Composites Space launch system Paul Allen has jumped back into the space industry with gusto. Forming a new company called “Stratolaunch Systems” and including the former Chief of NASA Michael Griffins on the Board of Directors is a bold move on his part. Given his history of making ridiculous amounts of personal wealth by “leveraging” the work of others before him this move is not out of character. However at least in this case he was one of the initial backers for the first space launch system that allowed Scaled Composites to win the Ansari X prize.

What is slightly more interesting is the list of names that are associated with the new phase of development. First Paul Allen and Burt Rutan are obviously the driving forces behind the plan. Next up are Richard Branson and Elon Musk both of whom have contributed their own personal wealth to other aspects of the development process. In Branson’s case it is by committing his wealth and organisational benefits of his Virgin Empire to the second phase of the Space Launch System which has resulted in Virgin Galactic. For Musk it is his SpaceX rockets that will be launched by Allen’s Plane.

With the addition of Jeff Bezos who is independently developing a reusable ground launch system it is clear that the commercial space race is being lead by an elite group of wealthy Information Tech heads who having conquered the web are now directing their wealth and organisational skills towards conquering space.

The next question is where are they going to get all the energy required to build, fly and launch the payloads?

Tags: aircraft, construction, Engine, Fuel, Space, transport by Sparky
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The team at the Automotive Research Experiment Station from Michigan State University have been developing a new prototype engine system that they claim can get 60% efficiency from conventional fossil fuels. They also claim the weight of the engine is significantly less than a standard ICE which greatly increases fuel economy due to weight savings. They are currently in the process of building and installing a functional system in a vehicle.

The engine has a rotor that’s equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.

The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

Researchers estimate the new model could shave almost 1,000 pounds off a car’s weight currently taken up by conventional engine systems.

Tags: Components, e=mc2, Energy Storage, Engine, oil by Sparky
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This latest video from Nasa shows the updated Radar movie of “asteroid” 2005 YU55.

“The animation reveals a number of puzzling structures on the surface that we don’t yet understand. To date, we’ve seen less than one half of the surface, so we expect more surprises.”

Each of the 28 frames required 20 minutes of data collection by the Goldstone radar. At the time of the observations, 2005 YU55 was approximately 860,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) from Earth. The resolution is about 13 feet (4 meters) per pixel. 2005 YU55 takes approximately 18 hours to complete one rotation, so the rotation in the movie appears much more rapid than the actual asteroid rotation speed.

The Goldstone observations utilized a new system to obtain images with a resolution of 4 meters, which is five times finer than the highest resolution previously possible at Goldstone.

“The encounter with 2005 YU55 has produced an enormous amount of data that is still being processed.” said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the 2005 YU55 Goldstone observations, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The sequence of images we obtained shows unprecedented fine-scale detail on this asteroid, which is comparable in size to the Empire State Building. The Goldstone images show evidence for concavities, a ridge near the asteroid’s equator, and numerous features that may be large boulders.”

The diameter of the object is roughly the same measurement as the height of the Empire State Building, but the volume is much much greater. They are obviously not large boulders since the object is not so big as to be meaningfully self gravitating. There would be nowhere near enough gravity to get the spheroidal surface.

Next, someone should calculate the centripetal acceleration on the inside surface of the object (assuming it is mostly hollow) for the measured axial rotation. If it comes close to 1 g, one could draw even more
interesting conclusions.

Of course NASA, DARPA and the rest of the Worlds military will have taken as much footage as possible of this mysterious object. No doubt plans are being hatched to send a spacecraft up to visit the object as soon as they have processed the masses of information.

Keep in mind that at the constant acceleration of 1 g it would be possible to travel around the galaxy in 200 human years. Of course that would work out to about 200,000 earth years due to relativity so any civilisation that existed at the launch time would be gone by the time you arrived back in the region.

Tags: e=mc2, Engine, machine, military, Space by Sparky
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According to the Financial Times the Falcon HTV-2 is being tested to allow delivery of conventional payload warheads anywhere in the world within 1 hour. Of course that makes absolutely no sense. The real reason for building a space craft that can reach the velocity required to escape earths orbit and reenter quickly at speed is to have a space vehicle that can be reused to allow the military to have access to our solar system without any issues of reentry.

The single biggest barrier to regular human space travel into our orbital region is the issue of reentry. The Military are trying to figure out how to re enter the earths atmosphere at super high speed. That way they can send pilots into space to do maneuvers without having to worry about being a target when they are forced to slow down the vehicle for the re-entry procedure. The military would like nothing more than to be able to enter and exit the earths atmosphere at super high speed. The exiting part has been possible for many years now with most modern fighter jets capable of sustaining speeds over mach 25. The re-entry part is still being worked out. What they don’t want is to be launching pilots and expensive aircraft into space and then having to retrieve them later on because they can’t get back home.

Tags: Engine, machine, military, Space, transport by Sparky
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There is a lot of talk about the importance of reducing emissions in mainstream media but almost none about the importance of conserving the remaining fuel resources that we have for as long as possible to attempt to provide the semblance of a smooth transition away from fossil fuels. Is this reluctance on the part of mainstream media a deliberate attempt at covering up the awful truth about how close to complete disaster we really are now? All reasonable and knowledgable scientists agree that we have less than 10 years fuel reserves at the current exponentially increasing rate of consumption.

Is it just a case of mainstream ignorance of the scale of the issue that we are facing as a civilisation? Are the editors scared to voice an opinion that is outside of the conventional norm? Are they waiting for someone else to say the truth so they can quietly and subtly let the cat out of the bag without having to take responsibility for being the bearer of bad news? Is it just too scary to contemplate the truth of the matter? Or are they just not able to comprehend the entirety of the picture in one foul swoop?

We lay it out again just in case there are people reading who have not already grasped the gravity of the situation.

The world is consuming more fuel everyday. The rate of consumption has increased exponentially for the past 100 years. We are now at the point that is otherwise know as 1 minute to midnight. The point at which the remaining resources will be consumed by the time the end of this period of doubling consumption is reached. The end of the current period is within the decade. What that means is by the end of this decade we will consume more fuel than we have available to consume. In other words we have almost completely run out of petroleum based fuel.

The drive to convert the remaining fuel reserves into other forms of energy harnessing technology like solar, wind, hydro, thermal, etc… is only increasing the rate of consumption of the remaining fossil fuel reserves. We will have to be very careful to use what is left as efficiently as possible in order to make the most intelligent use of it for the future generations to look back on and sing our praise.

The announcement today of the US commitment to achieve 54.5 MPG by 2025 is a pointless waste of breath. As useful as saying we pledge to do nothing about our consumption of our valuable fuel reserves until all the fuel has run out and then we will start to make some plans for what we can do to sustain our society with no fuel resources.

They have left it too little, too late. It’s the equivalent of the fixation with increasing the debt ceiling. They have no money so what they are going to do is lend themselves some more money to pay off the debt that they owe to themselves and everyone else instead of just admitting that they have no money.

Unfortunately fuel is a tangible product and when it runs out in the next 10 years there will be no way they can just increase the fuel reserve ceiling. If American’s don’t realise the mess they are in now when it is just stupid money that is on the line what are they going to do when they actually can’t eat because they have no fertiliser to produce their food and no petrol to transport the little amount of food that they can produce?

Until everyone is able to answer these hard questions with tangible solutions and not just meaningless political puffery the stability of global societies are going to get worse not better… and now that we are all connected that means everyone is affected in one way or another.

Tags: banksters, corporations, cover up, disaster, e=mc2, Elite, Energy Storage, Engine, environment, food, Fuel, government, media, replacements, social, unrest by Sparky
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The Gravity plane is a very efficient use of the energy available from buoyancy, thrust, acceleration and wind. It won’t be as fast as a petroleum powered engine but it will still get from A to B. Assuming they can make enough high strength composite material to withstand the force of acceleration on the hull and wings this “amazing flying machine” would be a useful transportation option for non urgent transportation requirements. It would be nice if they actually manage to make enough of them to form a fleet and make a difference before the energy to build them runs out.

Tags: e=mc2, Energy Storage, Engine, food, machine, renewable, replacements, Sustainable, transport, wind by Sparky
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Revisiting the concept of leaner fuel mixtures to run Internal Combustion Engines is a favorite topic here. Latest news released today has lasers as the solution to the problem of igniting leaner ratios ex. gasoline to water. The claims are that the new advance in laser technology enables smaller lasers to fit inside the space that is normally reserved for spark plugs. Whether they will be drop in replacements or not is yet to be released. Without saying what the comparison is the researchers discount plasma spark plugs saying the problem with plasma (or as they refer to them – “high energy”) spark plugs is wear on the tips due to the metal being worn away after a relatively short period of usage. We have documented such issues with plasma plugs built using conventional spark plugs tips but the Firestorm plugs claim to have solved that issue by using a non conventional metal for the tip.

However the really interesting aspect of using lasers for ignition (apart from the obvious reference to Stanley Meyers Water Vehicle) is in the following quote…

Lasers inject their energy within nanoseconds, compared with milliseconds for spark plugs. “Timing – quick combustion – is very important. The more precise the timing, the more efficient the combustion and the better the fuel economy”

With nanosecond control that would provide much greater efficiency for energy usage. The lasers will most likely need to be powered with battery technology so every possible energy saving that can be achieved will contribute to the mileage of the vehicle. Being able to run an engine at leaned out ratios of 80:1 or even greater would certainly make a big dent in the short term issue of global energy supply. It might even allow us the possibility of being able to grow or manufacture enough combustible fuel to replace oil and gas when it runs out. However the increase in efficiency will only result in another 3 – 4 times more mileage for the amount of fuel consumed. That definitely gives us all some more time but only if every vehicle was converted to use this new laser technology today. Unfortunately that is not going to happen.

Due to the way the current system structured and run it will be at least 10 years before every car in the world could be retrofitted with this technology and that is simply too little too late. At best the laser spark plug technology will provide a couple of years extension in the global fuel supply but as the only people who could afford to buy fuel anyway will be the ultra rich or governments and corporations that won’t mean anything to the average person.

However if for some amazing reason the technology turns out to be relatively easy to replicate and people are able to build and install their own components then we will see a very positive step for global transportation issues. Of course that doesn’t solve the issue of what to use for fertiliser on the mega farms that feed the world but at least the people who survive the coming period of mass starvation will be able to drive their cars literally on the smell of an oily rag.

Tags: Circuits, Components, e=mc2, Engine, Fuel, oil, replacements, supply, transport by Sparky
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New Details on the Focardi-Rossi Reactor have been made public by the Swedish Sceptics Society. They have observed the device in action and made calculations of the energy input and required output to achieve the amount of water to steam conversion required for the amount of water flowing into the system. For the latest test they used a smaller version of the device which has some improvements for the ignition process. It seems they are well on their way to the 1MW installation in Greece funded by newly formed Defkalion Green Technologies Energy Consortium.

The basic premise of the Focardi-Rossi Low Energy Nuclear Reactor (LENR) is that they are harnessing the energy released as heat in the transmutation process from converting Nickel to Copper. The Transmutation process is well known to Nuclear physicists and has the basic principals of Alchemy. In other words converting one base element to another. The basic physics principals are well documented however the actual process is not entirely understood. Transmutation results in many exotic and often dangerous isotopes being created. This means the Focardi-Rossi LENR is unlikely to be available to the general public. The idea of Joe public being in charge of a device that has the potential for creating Plutonium-239 or any number of highly toxic and unstable isotopes like those currently emitting from the Fukushima facility is not exactly a thrilling prospect. It’s bad enough that we are already going the way of the Roman Empire with their Lead water pipes in our quest for nuclear energy sources. Given that even highly bureaucratic and heavily monitored organisations like TEPCO can manage to completely screw up Nuclear safety, providing every man and his dog with that capability is a guaranteed sure fire way to wipe out humanity.

View the detailed report here

“Any chemical process should be ruled out for producing 25 kWh from whatever is in a 50 cubic centimeter container. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production.”

Their analyses showed that the pure powder consists of essentially pure nickel, while the used powder contains several other substances, mainly 10 percent copper and 11 percent iron.

“Provided that copper is not one of the additives used as catalyst, the copper isotopes 63 and 65 can only have been formed during the process. Their presence is therefore a proof that nuclear reactions took place in the process,” Kullander said

Tags: Circuits, Components, e=mc2, Energy Storage, Engine, hydrogen, machine, nuclear, renewable, Sustainable by Sparky
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The massive German made Putzmeister Mobile Concrete Pumps are now flying in massive Russian Anatov skyships from LA to Tokyo. These machines are incredible pieces of technology and there are only a couple of them in the world. They will hopefully be used to spray Shot-Crete over the facility at the highest speed possible. However, why the Japanese haven’t already started on that after 4 weeks defies belief.

Tags: construction, disaster, Engine, machine, nuclear by Sparky
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