Tractor Beam Version 1.0

Laser 'tractor beams' to tidy up space junk - tech - 29 April 2010 - New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627585.900-laser-tractor-beams-to-tidy-up-space-junk.html

A new thruster design could make it possible for dead satellites to be pushed, pulled and steered by lasers aboard other craft

- Not really a tractor beam as such but at least they're thinking along the right lines. 

Our Best Pictures From Meeting Buzz Aldrin

Here are the best shots of our meeting with Buzz Aldrin this past Saturday at Yuri's night.

I love this shot and everyone always enjoys meeting Gina.

What do Yuri Gagarin, Buzz Aldrin and I have in common?

Answer: The NYC Yuri's Night Party of 2010.

These parties are celebrated all of the world to commemorate Yuri Gagarin's famous first manned flight into space. If you've never heard of them that's understandable given our current culture. In point of fact I had never heard of them until I was on the set of "Sci Fi Science" a few weeks ago. There I met a very nice woman named Carol. She told me about the party and introduced me to her friends who were setting the whole thing up.
I almost missed it because I had miss remembered the date, but I got word from Carol yesterday that none other than Buzz Aldrin himself might be attending. Needless to say I was all about the chance to meet the famous astronaut. Also the Yuri's night party is a big costume event so I of course broke out the Star Fleet uniform again. (As an aside, to those who go around saying I just look for any excuse to wear that damn thing  . . . you are 100% right.)
This time Gina was feeling better, so off we went into Manhattan's lower east side, to a club named "DROM" for a night of live bands, science talk and a chance to meet one of the first men to walk on the moon.
Well, not only was Mr. Aldrin, and his very nice wife, already there but he seemed to be in a really pleasant and talkative mood.
Once I was introduced to Mr. Aldrin, who according to his wife really does prefer that everyone call him "Buzz", I asked him about what he thought about the recent advances in technology. His response was focused on the recent set backs in manned space exploration, but this was fine with me. I had expected nothing more than a brief polite introduction and then to be overtaken by others perhaps more interested in his recent appearance on "Dancing with the Stars" but this was not the case at all. This crowd was focused on science more than reality television which I must say suited me just fine.
After a while the conversation, which involved a few of us now, drifted into what Buzz thought the future of America's manned space program should look like. I must say he had some really well thought out and wide ranging ideas on the subject, as one might expect. We talked about Mars, Space Elevator technology and low Earth orbit operations as opposed to the Lunar exploration missions he was part of and many other topics.
Eventually I asked him about the work of Dr. Marc Rayman and using some of the technologies developed in "Deep Space One" and to my surprise, he didn't seem to know anything about it. I went on to explain the ion drive and other new technologies that had been developed and that's when he asked me to send him more information at his email address. This, of course, I did last night, before I even went to sleep.
Gina and I had a great time and went to the restaurant upstairs from the club and had sushi for dinner.
All in all it was a great night and we had a wonderful time.

Meeting Michio

Forgive me for the title, I know it makes it sound like the venerable Dr. Kaku and I are on a first name basis, but he is truly a very friendly fellow and we did actually get to talk a little about self replicating nano-technology.

Let me not jump ahead though. As I already wrote I noticed in my Twitter feed that the Discovery / Science Channel was having a contest to be a guest on the set of “SCI FI SCIENCE: physics of the impossible.” To enter you had to tell them why they should pick you, what you would wear (costumes were encouraged) and then write a VERY short essay on how you would terraform a planet and how you would colonize the galaxy.
I entered and got called back, interviewed over the phone and finally told where and when to be for the shoot.

Gina was originally going to come with me but she has been ill and despite really trying to get it together for the shoot she just couldn’t do it. In any case, she did spruce up my Star Fleet uniform and off I went.
Now the shoot was in Manhattan at 5:30 and I left the house at about 3:15. Plenty of time I thought but as fate would have it there was a jam at the Lincoln Tunnel and I lost more than 90 minutes. I’m sure I was quite a sight, sitting there in full Star Fleet regalia raging silently at what I was sure would now be a missed opportunity. I saw 5:30 come and go and I was still crawling up to the tunnel. I held fast though, I would get there and see what, if anything could be salvaged of the situation. I finally get in to the city, find a place to park near the cross street I’m looking for and catch a cab to my actual destination. I arrive 45 minutes late only to find that everyone is still outside.

Victory! I had not missed a thing.

I chatted with some very nice Mandalorian Mercs from Virgina and took a few pictures, posting them directly to my Facebook page. I met some excellent people and even got invited to a “Yuri Party” in the city.
Yuri Parties are global events, I had never heard of, that celebrate Yuri Gagarin’s first journey into space and the larger ones even feature a costume contest like the Farpoint or Shore Leave conventions.

Once on the set they had lager and wine waiting for us and the whole thing was more like a party than a shoot with the director, Adam Warner, interrupting only occasionally to give us direction. Dominic Aston and everyone on the set was very friendly, professional and easy going. It turns out the whole production is run out of England so everyone had those charming accents and were just generally more polite that the typical New York inner city dwellers.

Finally we got to meet Dr. Kaku who comes in and presents his ideas on the big screen of how to terraform Mars. I was fortunate enough to be up front, center of the crowd for this episode and had the opportunity to be the first one to ask a question. (They liked it so much that had us repeat the entire exchange on the reverse angle shot.)

Now this was a Television show, so everything had to be repeated four times of so from different angles, between takes Dr. Kaku would invite questions and chat it up with us. I noticed that this could be pretty hard on him as some of the questions were either based on a ridiculous movie premise or a really poor understanding of basic physical laws. He handles these situations gracefully though, like a politician he would ask them to repeat the question and then simply give a short answer to the question he wished they had asked, followed by a polite but firm “next question”. With those of us who were better able to keep up however he talked at length about his ideas and what he though future trends might lead to.

We filmed two episodes, one on terraforming Mars, (look for me in this episode next year) and another on colonizing space (if you see me at all in this episode it will be the wildest stroke of luck.)
I won’t post any spoilers here but his solutions were elegant and economical as always and he seemed a genuinely pleasant person. At the end he posed for pictures as we chatted some more.
I know this will only serve to reinforce my hardcore geek status but I must say it was a real honor to have the chance to meet and talk with him.

And We Have a Winner!

This is really big news (well, for a geek like me anyway.)

Recently I saw through Twitter that the Science Channel was having a contest.
I entered and had to describe how I would terraform a planet and how I would colonize the galaxy.
Those who know me know that these are among my favorite topics to ramble on about, but the contest (like most of my friends) had a 100 word limit and, as you might guess, that did pose a challenge for me.
Nevertheless after editing down my original 300 word answer I sent it in and, along with a lot of other people, I won.
It means a chance to be on the show "Sci-Fi Science" and meet the host the esteemed Dr. Kaku himself.
I am a big fan and often listen to "Exploration", his Wednesday show on NPR, as well as watching his many appearances on my favorite Science shows. I would welcome a chance to talk about his take on any number of topics. Gina is also invited and, if she isn't working, is coming with me.
The only minor down side is that it's filming this Thursday night so I will not be around for the usual festivities.
On the plus side they want us to wear our full Star Fleet uniforms and, of course, we will!

Missions to MARS

There and back again!
A visual guide to every Mars mission.
Good Stuff from Gajitz.

Stellar Cartography Report:

"SPACE.com -- Mystery Emissions Spotted at Edge of Solar System" http://j.mp/3Wx3k3

Let me pose a question here: If we think of the entire Solar System as one unit, with an electric charge, that interacts with the rest of the Galaxy; could this help explain the high rate of rotation along the outer edge of the Galaxy without the need for Dark Matter?

Science Station Report

Enceladus:
Saturn Probe Samples Moon's Ice Plumes : Discovery News

Impulse Engines?

Trips to Mars in 39 Days | Universe Today

To anyone who's ever read a Star Fleet Technical manual this looks very familiar and cutting the travel time from six months to thirty nine days sounds pretty good to me.

Just an AWESOME image

Three Galaxies and a Comet
Credit & Copyright: Miloslav Druckmuller (Brno University of Technology)
This is just stunning.

Pulsars

Pulsars for Interstellar Navigation.

Argh! I said this like three years ago.

h+ Article on Transcendent Man

by Ben Goertzel
Link here.
Another really good article. I can't wait to this. I'm just hoping I don't have to travel to far to see it. Who knows though maybe it will have wider release than I expect.

Falling into a Blackhole

Computer simulation of what it might be like.

Kepler Update from Centauri Dreams

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=7148

Very exciting stuff. There will of course be a period of calibration first, but soon, it looks like we'll be up and running. 

First Generation Shields Now in Development

Deep space travel gets one step closer.

"Computer simulations done by a team in Lisbon with scientists at Rutherford Appleton last year showed that theoretically a very much smaller "magnetic bubble" of only several hundred meters across would be enough to protect a spacecraft."

Warp Drive Designed

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/28/warp-speed-engine.html
That's what I've been saying!

How to say 'Hope' in Japanese,

Kibo!

This is some damn exciting, final frontier stuff, happening right here.

The Japanese Space program has certainly had it's share of set backs, but this project looks like a real winner. There should be some very exciting science coming out of this lab over the next few years.

Phoenix Mars Lander

Phoenix Mars Lander site

This is the good stuff right here.

For me the question is not; 'is there life on Mars?' or 'was there life on Mars?'. I strongly suspect that there is or was.
In any case, as our artifacts are currently there, one can safely say, there is now.
The real question for me is, if we find life elsewhere in our own solar system (Mars, Europa, or wherever), is that life the result of a separate genesis? If we find that life throughout our solar system is all related and therefore the result of a single genesis event, that will tell us something about the robust nature of life and it's ability to proliferate. If we find, however, that life occurs in our own solar system as a result of more than one, completely separate genesis events, that will tell us something entirely different about the likelihood of life existing elsewhere in our galaxy and the universe beyond.

The question after that will be, if life is abundant in the universe, how rare is intelligence?

Which of course kicks off that old conversation about what intelligence really is?
What if an alien life form conceptualizes the universe in a completely different way than we do? How would we be able to recognize each other as intelligent, let alone communicate? After all dolphins and whales are widely regarded as intelligent and are related to us, but we can't even really communicate with them yet. So the question then becomes, if life is abundant in the universe, how rare is intelligence that conceptualizes the universe in a similar manner to the way we do?
My feeling is, probably very rare indeed.
On the other hand, look at it this way, we begin here, extending our reach through our solar system, first with machines and bacteria, and then later with ourselves, as we surely must. Add to this our increasing ability to adapt ourselves both technologically and genetically to the environments we discover, and through our increasing mastery of nanotechnology to alter those environments to better suit us. I believe we will one day see alien life forms, bred from the life around us and ourselves, living everywhere we can reach.

Arthur C. Clarke . . . is dead

Whatever his flaws this man had a huge impact on myself, and many of my friends, to say nothing of the world at large.

Arthur C. Clarke
1917-2008

Virgin Galactic

You know at the moment, I'm just hoping I can pay my bills and get by for another year but, man, I would take a trip like this in a second. Maybe they could set up an a list of alternate alternates who could ride for a substantially reduced rate (read "Free") for people who can't go at the last minute. I mean it would be a shame to waste those empty seats. Damn! I wish I could afford this.