Feature: Mindless Link Propogation

One of the things about being subscribed to several different industry digests is that I receive a ton of email updates. These updates are usually about trivial things or things that don't interest me. Often, however, they are interesting - sometimes very interesting. I'll usually find three to five unique things every day that tickle the proverbial fancy. This leads me to a problem.

See, I only type about sixty words a minute. The bulk of my blogging happens in the morning, between shower and breakfast. Trying to write about all of the nifty things I see in the course of a day is incredibly difficult, especially if I want the entries to be more than, "Hey, I found a link." One solution to the problem is to try to work all of these thing into one big post every week. Another solution is to simply ignore the problem and hope it goes away.

If I did that, I'd be shirking my responsibility to me readers and to myself. We don't like shirking.

I think I'll do a big link propagation post every ten days or so. This lest me keep space open to write about the other seven-hundred thirteen things I want to write about without letting the mindless links take over the site (like zombies).

Here we go, then, in no particular order.

There's a story on TechNewsDaily about how researchers have come up with a way to hide an object from sonar. The object is placed in the center of this disk-thing. The disk has several concentric rings which have different indicies of refraction. The sound pulse from the sonar is bent neatly around the center of the disk, reforming on the other side and continuing on as though nothing had happened.

I'm instantly reminded of my first Physics class, and so thankful that I understood what my professor was saying. This is a brilliantly simple idea with scads of potential applications, from medicine to building to cars and aircraft to the mentioned sonar-evading submarines.

Also from TechNewsDaily, this is a countdown of seven technologies in cars that got their start in aerospace. I love articles like these, for obvious reasons. I feel like the work that I'm doing now and will be doing in the future will really pay off. Worst-case scenario, I can work just about anywhere and do just about anything with a degree in physics and aeronautics.

December 14 of 2011 is the scheduled launch date for Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus X1 craft. The purpose is to test the Commercial Orbital Transportation System, a system designed to dock with the ISS. The payload is a token cargo load. Obviously, the primary function of the launch is to test the technology being used by a commercial vendor. Orbital has achieved 17 of the 21 milestones set for it by NASA to ensure a successful launch and rendezvous with Station.

I'm super excited about this. I fully believe that this is the way to go with respect to getting cargo into space and performing crew ferry functions. Let NASA do the really interesting stuff, and let the private sector do the mundane chores. The parallels between now and the early part of the Space Race are strong. The NACA was transiting into space, leaving private companies to handle further refinements in aeronautics. Everyone won then, everyone will win now. Go Orbital!

MIT has a blog called Technology Review. One story that they published last week was that Russian physicists had figured out how to work around the radio blackouts associated with re-entering spacecraft. The concept is simple - since the plasma sheath blocks radio waves, why not turn the sheath itself into a transmitter. The work is still very preliminary, but it has the potential to be a very useful tool.

Apparently, the moon has a core similar to the Earth's. Sifting through Apollo-era data, NASA researchers have concluded that the moon has a solid inner core ans a fluid outer core. The biggest difference is that the boundary layer between the crust and the core is much larger, as a percentage, than the Moho in our planet.

The primary mechanism for this discovery is advanced signals processing capabilities developed over the last forty years. Previously, there had been too much noise in the seismic signals to accurately divine what was in the moon. Now, new signals processing techniques have allowed researchers to cancel out the noise, leaving a clean signal for analysis.

China has unveiled a new fifth-generation stealth fighter. Actually, it looks more like a fighter/bomber, owing to its gargantuan size. Similar in shape to the F-22 but sized more like a Tupolev Tu-28, the J-20 is designed for air superiority and first-strike duties. Given the high ground clearance and apparent large internal space (for fuel or weapons), it would seem that the J-20 is primarily designed for long range strike duties. It's most likely not for aircraft carrier use - the thing's just too big.

The real question is who is the intended target of the J-20? Russia and China have never been the best of friends, and China seems interested in pushing the US out of the Pacific. Whether this aircraft can perform at the level of Russian or American fifth gen fighters remains to be seen.

That's enough for one day. Tune in tomorrow for a musing on the space race and how it's applicable today.




Also, before I forget, today is my fourth anniversary!. Woo! Go us! Love you hunnee :-)

Cheers,

-- Zach