Gravity is not the same everywhere on Earth. It is influenced by geological formations and varying density of materials beneath the surface. To map these gravitational differences, the ESA (European Space Agency), has built GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer). To be launched in early 2009, this craft will circle 155 miles above the planet to measure the differences in gravitational pull. The technical aspects can be quite mind boggling, but what it will do is determine what lie’s under the Earth’s crust, give an accurate measurement as to how high mountains really are, and more specifically, determine how Earth will react to the melting ice sheets. You might not think this will affect you, but it will.
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Over its lifetime of about 20 months, GOCE will map global variations in the gravity field with extreme detail and provide a unique model of the geoid, which is crucial for understanding ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all of which are affected by climate change.
It is quite possible to have your thoughts played out on the computer screen. It’s not a technology you can buy yet, as it in the research phase. However, a Japanese student has been able to walk in a virtual world, on a flat screen monitor, with the character controlled by his brain waves, in Yokohama, in 2007. Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? Reminds me of the Adventures of Johnny Quest. But now, researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories succeeded in processing and displaying images directly from the human brain. It’s just a simple affair of fairly simple dreams, but they hope to be able to play out dreams and secrets of the human mind in the coming future. To explain this a little technically, “When people look at an object, the eye’s retina recognizes an image that is converted into electrical signals which go into the brain’s visual cortex.” Yukiyasu Kamitani’s research team tapped into this and succeeded in catching the signals and then reconstructing what people see.
What they did was show people the six letters in the word “neuron” and then succeeded in reconstructing the letters on a computer screen by measuring their brain activity. It seems like it’s out of a bad sci-fi movie. But hey this is reality. They showed people 400 different still images and figured out their people’s individual brain patterns. Maybe eventually we can record our dreams and watch them later for entertainment value?
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This is unbelievable for me but this is true. According to Michael Laine the real critical test was on making a string strong enough. He said that the cable they made was rock solid.
This effort was considered a giant leap forward for scientists who are developing the world’s first space elevator.
According to the studies done by the United States based National Aeronautics space administration(NHSA), a space elevator would reduced the costs of sending cargo up into space from US$2,000 per pound down to $400 per pound. This cost reduction would have a great effect based on research, such a telecommunication, energy and pharmaceutical.
Using an outer space elevator instead of rockets would also be safer, easier, and gentler on fragile cargos such as electronics. Having a platform up in space can also provide room for large solar panels, more communication, cameras and hopefully, even people.
A space elevator would need a fixed lined, or cord that stretches from an anchor on Earth to station out in space, the station acts like a counter weight forever held above the planet by the antifungal force from the earth’s rotation.
The cord or shaft will be a carbon nano tube composite ribbon stretching around 99,779 kilometers up into space. The ground floor (anchor) will be a platform anchor in the sea, the elevator itself will be made up of robotic lifters that can climb up and down the ribbon at dizzying speeds without jarring its load, and the top floor will be space platform that also serves as a counter weight that will hold the whole thing upright. Gravity at one end and centripetal acceleration at the other end, will keep the space elevator from falling down on it.
So far so good the physics was the easy part. Science fiction writers had known all along that a space elevator would be possible in theory. The problem was the making of a string using a material strong enough to resist he incredible forces that the space elevator will go through.
But, their problem was solved in the 1990′s.When Carbon were discovered. Carbon nano tubes are many times stronger than steel. And now that carbon nano tubes are out of the lab and commercially manufactured, the few pieces of the space elevator are finally falling into place.
