SpaceX promised something big, and it’s now delivered. The company today revealed its plans for the Falcon Heavy, which promises to be the “world’s most powerful rocket.”
Just how powerful is that? SpaceX says the 22-story rocket will be able to carry satellites or spacecraft weighing over 53 metric tons (or 117,000 pounds) into low earth orbit, which is nearly twice what the Space Shuttle is able to carry.
What’s more, this isn’t just a far off promise. SpaceX says the rocket will be “ready” sometime next year, and the first test flight is planned for 2013.
The rocket’s sheer size isn’t it’s only selling point, though — it also promises to drastically reduce the cost of sending things into space, with each launch expected to cost “only” $100 million. Head on past the break for a taste of what’s in store. Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Science
- Date: Apr 2,2011
It’s been a while since we last heard about nanogenerators — you know, those insanely tiny fibers that could potentially be woven into your hoodie to juice up your smartphone.
Dr. Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology has reported that he and his team of Einsteins constructed nanogenerators with enough energy to potentially power LCDs, LEDs and laser diodes by moving your various limbs.
These micro-powerhouses – strands of piezoelectric zinc oxide, 1 / 500 the width of a single hair strand — can generate electrical charges when flexed or strained.
Wang and his team of researchers shoved a collection of their nanogenerators into a chip 1 / 4 the size of a stamp, stacked five of them on top of one another and can pinch the stack between their fingers to generate the output of two standard AA batteries — around 3 volts. Read the rest of this entry »
Electrical engineering researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a flexible, stretchable OLED that acts something like rubber, and does not tear or break when stretched.
The material is produced by spraying a layer of carbon nanotubes with a fluoro-rubber compound, creating a rubbery, conducive material.
The current, monochrome display prototype has a resolution of just 256 pixels, is 10-centimeters square, and can apparently be folded about 1,000 times with out falling apart, tearing, or imploding. Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Science
- Date: Feb 24,2008
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is in the process of transforming its Very Large Array radio telescope into the—wait for it—Expanded Very Large Array, thanks to digital technology that will boost the Socorro, N.M., facility’s already impressive ability to tune in on black holes, supernovae and the rest of the deep space menagerie.
Half of the Very Large Array’s (VLA) 28 dish antennas—each weighing 230 tons—have already been upgraded so it can collect eight simultaneous data streams at about two giga- (billion) hertz, up from the previous capability of four data streams at about 50 mega- (million) hertz.
The rest of the 28 antennas—which made their debut on the silver screen in the 1997 movie Contact, starring Jodie Foster and based on the eponymous Carl Sagan sci-fi novel—will go digital by 2012, increasing the facility’s power 10-fold. The makeover will also replace original components that had been in operation since it was built in the 1970s. Read the rest of this entry »
