A Dazzling Green Ring of Stuff Around the Equator in Space
For as short of time as we have been in space, it’s amazing how much stuff we have managed to put up there. Commenter Mitchz95 found this cool 3D graphic of tracked orbital objects. Use your mouse...
View ArticleTesla Coils Do the House of the Rising Sun
As an electrical engineer, this is awesome. The Tesla coils are 7 foot tall each.
View ArticleThe Stars are Close
While out taking a night walk, when looking up at the night sky a thought hit me: There are an awful lot of stars that are really close to us. When you look up at the night sky you can see a great many...
View Article53 Colorized Photos From The Past
The past was in color too! Here is how it might have looked.
View ArticleNASA: Propellantless Engines Like the EmDrive May Work After All
If you have read the BTE blog for long you will know that I think the EmDrive is something that should be evaluated closely and that I think it’s promising. It is one of those inventions that much of...
View ArticleNASA Needs to Repeat the Propellantless Thruster Study Soon
In my last post I said that NASA researchers claimed to measure thrust on an experimental propellantless device. That’s quite interesting – but many people are pointing to what at first appears to be a...
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NASA Microwave Thruster Test Paper Summary Table
In my last post I said that NASA’s recent testing of EmDrive-like microwave cavity thrusters was not invalidated because they had different models of engines that both produced thrust. I should add...
View ArticleLifting the Entire Gen1 Enterprise to Orbit with the EmDrive
If the EmDrive is real, the challenge of developing a low-cost launch system for getting things from Earth to orbit will be solved. And also – the ships going to orbit can be really big. In fact, a...
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Fictional Ships Approaching the Gen1 Enterprise in Size
Some people have said that the Gen1 Enterprise is too big, but compared to the latest fictional ships the sizes are not all that different. See here for a discussion on why the Gen1 ship is so big....
View ArticleBuildTheEnterprise Open Letter to Billionaires
Dear Billionaires Everywhere, As the years pass perhaps you are beginning to feel it’s time to start giving away some of your money. Well, when considering all of your options in these matters of...
View ArticleSierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems: Dream Chaser
Dream Chaser has as much usable volume as the space shuttle. But it’s coming from private enterprise rather than government, so its cost and operating costs should be much lower.
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The Sun is Really Small from Pluto … Meanwhile Pluto Still Wants to be a Planet
Pluto fights back. And Pluto is way, way out there. When looking at the sun from Pluto, it looks more like a bright star. Sun Size From Planets – Image Credit: Astro Bob
View ArticleSpace Junk – It’s Getting Crowded up There
Crazy picture showing all of the trash in space that NASA is tracking.
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The Gen1 Enterprise’s Autonomous Collision Avoidance System
Image credit – CBS (original Star Trek TV series) The Gen1 Enterprise needs to avoid colliding with objects in space such as when in the junk-filled region around Earth. NASA has been tracking space...
View ArticleGraphene-Enhanced Composites Might Be Best for the Enterprise Hulls
Composites are excellent for structural components of spacecraft due to the low mass per unit of volume. And graphene holds great promise for strengthening composites: “Haydale, a developer of a unique...
View ArticleProject Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship
The book is from 2002, but it tells what could have been: Like cheap, shiny space suits and bug-eyed rubber monsters, nuclear-powered spaceships today seem like little more than laughably naïve 1950s...
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When We Visit Titan
Above compares smaller planets and larger moons in our solar system. Some things are surprising – like Saturn’s moon Titan is bigger than the planet Mecury. Speaking of Titan, researchers are working...
View ArticleArtificial Gravity Needed in Space – Without It Humans Have All Sorts of...
Here is why the gravity wheel is needed in the Gen1 Enterprise: “Long-duration spaceflight is hard on the human body; some researchers even call time in weightlessness an accelerated aging process....
View ArticleZubrin’s Hoax of a Debate
Robert Zubrin says he wants a debate: “Thursday, Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin issued a challenge to a debate to Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, former astronaut and president and CEO of Ad Astra.”...
View ArticleIsaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
A BTE commenter posted Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics on an earlier post that I wrote where I gave an estimated timeline for the development of humanoid robots. Asimov came up with these three...
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