Posted on December 10th, 2010 by jxh
An artistic interpretation of cluttered Earth orbits
Tens of millions of pieces of space debris currently orbit Earth – discarded rocket engines, outdated satellites, and the fragments remaining after explosions and collisions.
All this clutter poses a threat to manned space missions, as even a small piece of debris can seriously damage a spacecraft. And while most debris will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, larger objects could fall to the ground intact, threatening lives.
That is why Russia’s space corporation, Energia, is going to invest $2 billion to build a space pod to fly around and knock the junk out of orbit and out of our way.
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Filed under: Aerospace, e-News, Nuclear | 4 Comments »
Tags: Aerospace, Nuclear
Posted on December 3rd, 2010 by axb
The shortfin mako shark, one of the ocean’s swiftest predators
Biomimicry seems to be popping up all over the news recently, and this week is no exception. While John Dabiri is busy modelling the complex mechanics of jellyfish, another engineer has taken on the study of a different, more dangerous resident of the ocean: sharks.
The shortfin mako shark is known as the “cheetah of the ocean” for its ability to accelerate rapidly and to reach speeds of around 30 miles per hour in the water. One mako shark has even clocked in at over 45 miles per hour (the world’s fastest human sprinters swim at about 5mph)!
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Filed under: Aerospace, e-News, Mechanical | Comments Off on Aerospace Engineer Discovers Speedy Shark Secrets
Tags: Aerospace, Biomimicry, Mechanical
Posted on November 1st, 2010 by jxh
This is the journey of a lifetime – literally.
NASA and DARPA have teamed up to build a Hundred-Year Starship, an initiative that would entail passengers leaving Earth and never coming back.
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Filed under: Aerospace, e-News | 10 Comments »
Tags: Aerospace, Space
Posted on October 19th, 2010 by jxh
For the past four years, Todd Reichert, an engineering student at the University of Toronto, has been working to perfect one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s greatest concepts – an ornithopter.
An ornithopter is a human-powered aircraft that flies by flapping its wings, and with the help of 30 other students, as well as $200,000, Reichert made history by building such a vehicle and piloting a sustained flight.
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Filed under: Aerospace, e-News, Mechanical, Transportation | 3 Comments »
Tags: Aerospace, Mechanical, Transportation
Posted on October 14th, 2010 by jxh
Carlos Barrios, the thirteenth miner to be freed, emerges from the capsule
On August 5, 2010, the San José copper-gold mine near Copiapó, Chile collapsed, leaving 33 men trapped over 2,000 feet below ground.
Sixty-nine days later (a record period of time for surviving underground), all 33 of the miners were rescued.
The miners spent 17 days underground before making contact with the outside world. But once they did, engineers had to race to devise an escape shaft that could reach so deep underground – and safely, without harming the men trapped below. In the mean time, teams of rescue specialists worked to make sure the miners stayed healthy and fed.
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Filed under: Aerospace, e-News, Mechanical, Mining | 7 Comments »
Tags: Aerospace, Mechanical, Mining
