ARTEMIS!

 Back to the Moon?

It is claimed that this four person mission is a fly around and not a landing, so why send four, when it could be done with less, unless some form of landing is to be attempted just to check-out what was left can be re-used!

Maybe China and Russia have already made out and are building their join southern base camp, what a blow would that be to the United States and Europe?

But maybe that 70's space race is not a big deal anymore and more collaboration missions will be undertaken to explore the moons of our Solar System than wondering off the the nearest star!

The final frontier has much to offer up in visiting many places and wonders still near and far?

Specialist Shipping!

 Leading the way with electric powered.

Up-Lifters and other vessels of the same types are now leading the way with electric power, but with the end of the COP, it would imply that there is no rush to move from fossil fuels to green, as the host of the conference claimed that he had not yet seen any scientific documentation to prove that global warming had anything to do with the warming up of the Earth?

The race is on now between shipping and aviation and at every turn there is something new in technology from carbon wings to new metals improving solar energy and other and some nations seem to be committed, many remain confused as to what is really going on?

The developing world wants to burn fossil fuels to be on a par with the first world, they want to make their way to our level and perhaps when we are all equal then the serious work of saving our planet will begin and perhaps by then we will have no choice?

Another Cop-out Conference?

 Saudis are doing fossil fuel sales under the cover of green energy!

The truth to the matter is that people are meeting together for many other reasons than what they claim is on the agenda for the future of alternative green energy and despite the fine speeches, most have arrived and will leave in their high energy burning jets!

Sp much for the future is being swept away, by the people with the money and what remains of oil in the Middle-East and Russia out pricing the Arabs. So Africa has become the new market for the Gulf States, whiles solar works on a local basis to charge mobile phones and tablets, vehicles still need fossil fuels along with the generation of power?

Here is the U.K. we are seeing the demise of Dowlais top (South-Wales) open cast mine, but there is no plans to do anything with it for now but later on it may re-open to meet the needs or demand on the power grid if needs be!

Uranus and Neptunian Discoveries?

139 Plutonian objects and regular space telescope Observations!

The Ort cloud has revealed a group of six hundred objects beyond Neptune of which 139 may be Pluto sized planets and amongst them may be that elusive dark planet nine that astronomy is gathering pace to discover?

The distances of these objects are now estimated to be up to eight times the distance of Earth from the Sun, Pluto to the fringes of the Ort cloud and it is not clear if it was New Horizons that has gathered this data or a Space telescope observations that have tracked unidentified objects only to discover that there are many more planets in our Solar system than ever thought?

The latest Space telescope is to be used on a regular basis for more observations of both the cold gas giants Uranus and Neptune, which are now revealing perhaps more of their secrets and that they are not inactive far our worlds than we have thought for over forty-seven years?

Wither another New Horizons probe is sent to Pluto is hard to know, but eventually something will be sent maybe from the Martian colony when it is established in the next fifty years or so? 

Meanwhile NASA has revealed that the proposed Gateway Lunar station is now not required for the Artemis programme but a smaller station will provide emergency backup!

What Alternatives?

Thinking outside the Box!

There has to be alternatives for vehicles and machines to what is happening now?

The media addresses aviation and plastic as the biggest pollutants, but the reality is the dumping of chemicals by heavy industry and the burning of Diesel and petrol!

 Engines produce carbon monoxide which is the main cause of asthma and other respiratory diseases and this has been known for some time, sowing more tree and offering inhalers is not enough when humanity can reach the stars?

Currently we have LPG (Liquid petroleum Gas), solar power, battery and electric engine developments, but the truth be told nothing much has changed with some of these technologies since 1895!

The question is why is this all taking so long and the answer to that question is big business and human greed to make a quick investment hoping that in at least three hundred years from now we will have found better alternatives if they make us money?

The Moon?

NASA's Gateway to the Solar System!

The return to the moon is underway with a new space ship being constructed in the U.S. for a return mission and the establishment of a Moon Base and first human travel to Mars by 2030? The Trump administration believe that with the current technology available all of this can be achieved within the next eleven years!

Wither this is true or not by 2030 NASA hopes that the International Space Station ISS will be defunct and some of its component parts will be cannibalised for the Moon base? At this time there is n mention of reinstating the space shuttle programme which on paper still remains a viable proposal for inter-planetary travel!

Both China and Israel now have probes working on the Moon to gather much needed data on radiation exposure from the Suns solar flares and other problems that were discovered during the Apollo flights back in the 1970's!

Happy New Year 2019!

Britain takes a lead in Electric Aircraft?

It would seem that the world is in a rush now to develop the electric engine in aviation and we here in the U.K. are making some leaps and bounds of our own? Norway, Poland, Israel and the U.S. have several of their own projects that we are hearing mush about, but so far they are limited in their viability!

Battery power has been around since the 19th Century, despite advances in Solar power cells and their adaption, the battery still remains the same in power outage and range! Space will perhaps help us replace the diesel engine, which has turned out to be more polluting than was once thought?

Yet about 85% of the worlds power is based on this engine alone, trains, trucks, farm machinery, construction and shipping! The task may look daunting but once electric engines are built on an industrial scale perhaps the world will be a cleaner place? 

Transport in Africa. Part-One.

Changing Continent?

Not much is thought about the continent of Africa, when it comes to transport it all seems backward? But this is far from the truth, in fact it is seeing some of the latest technology being tested before we might get it?

Republic South-Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and Botswana are fast growing economies with the technology and industry to back them up and they are aiming higher than Europe in some areas? Solar power, Aviation, mechanical engineering, mining and automobiles as well as Space flight are on the cards for them to pursue in the next one-hundred years!

What is not much known about the continent is that is has a long space-race history with Europeans using facilities in Kenya and Nigeria and that RSA is one of the most advanced nations with an established Locomotive, military, vehicle and aviation industry!

China, Russia and the U.S. along with Europe and the U.K. have had a long history of supplying equipment, but it has been the Africans who have adapted everything to meet their own needs!

Interstellar Travel. Part-One.

Our nearest Neighbour.

Much of space science is currently being employed into the idea of sending a Laser powered sail spacecraft on a thirty year trip to our nearest neighbouring star, which is four light-years away. With our current technology it would take us two hundred years plus to get there and back.

At this time the only manned Space ship is the International Space Station, which is three-hundred miles up making a 45-minute circle of the Earth. The Russian Progress robotic and U.S. Dragon supply vessels are the only way of getting up and down, since the retirement of the ageing former Space Shuttles.

The next objective in to get a manned mission to Mars by 2035 or establish a southern-hemisphere Moon base, as a first step by 2028?

Prof. Stephen Hawking's is very keen to encourage the Solar sail project, but some believe it would be wise to test it out first within the known confines of the solar system? making a four hour journey to Pluto, instead of the ten years it took the New Horizon probe. 

It also remains unclear what is beyond Pluto in the Kuiper belt, which the second phase of the New Horizons will arrive at in 2019. One of the six believed moon type objects has already been spotted and a new planet Niku is on a 110 degrees plane between Neptune and Pluto. Meanwhile this small world is blue and is travelling backwards to the normal pattern of all the other planets rotation around the Sun.

The problems with Interstellar travel is the possibility of another rocky domain well beyond the Kuiper Belt that would be like a mine field to exit the Solar system, there is also believed to be another planet known as X9 somewhere out there with a very large gravity field?

Segways.

The Two wheel Wonder.

The Segway is taking the world by suprise from the streets of the Czech Republic captial Prague to Thailands Bankok International airport. But many are now wondering how safe are these gyrocope controlled vehicles?

The Segway is perhaps the most prolific developmnet to compare to the invention of the bicyle, but it remains not as good and versatile as the bike. No seat and it is limited to short distant travel and depends very much on human balance technique.

With the further development of solar panels and digital guidance and stability platforms the Segway will perhaps have a further inpact, but it will in no way surpass the bicyle!

Ballooning.

First solar powered.

We tend to forget about the balloon in the age of machines, but it was the balloon (Montpelier's) that opened modern society to aviation well before the invention of the (Wright brothers) aeroplane. Today ballooning is a major sport and can be a dangerous pursuit.   

Recently Bristol University in England have been the first to develop the totally Solar powered balloon and fly it safely, this a a major breakthrough that will perhaps spread to Micro-Lights and Gliders/Hand-Gliders in the near future.

Solar scientists in Wales have been developing a flexible solar panel skin and I had wondered if this had been Incorporated into the Bristol project.

Solar Powered Flight.

Not the first to Try.

This solar powered aircraft that is attempting a world flight record is far from the first, in fact there have been longer distance flights made between A and B/Z in the past. These aircraft failed to attract the publicity that this one has got, for various reasons that are not worth going into.

Some commercial airlines have added solar power cells to the roofs of aircraft to charge batteries with some success, but nothing more has happened since. Now that Australia has fashioned the first commercial possibility of a car for mass production I suppose an aircraft is the next target.

Japan was for a time the leader in solar powered said technology on general shipping and perhaps this stop over has really some connection with that factor?

Two Breakthroughs.

First possible commercial Solar powered Car.

Australia who is the leader in the field of Solar (Sun) powered vehicles have developed a vehicle which can now be mass produced and sold to the general public. Every invention has to start somewhere and this one has come out of forty years of continued development and research.

The Solar powered car will not be at a loss even here in the U.K., because it like an electric car can take a charge.

The second Breakthrough is the development of a Bionic suit that helps those who are not able to walk, walk. 

Some of the research from this has come from Space suit design, while the rest from connecting the human nervous system to a chip.