Hasta La Gadget!

No one keeps carbon nanotubes down — especially not these guys. The always popular allotropes have been enlisted by researchers at Rice University to create a composite material that gets stronger under pressure. When combined with polydimethylsiloxane, a rubbery polymer, the tubes form a nanocomposite that exhibits self-strengthening properties also exhibited in bones. During testing, the team found the material increased in stiffness by 12 percent after 3.5 million compressions. Apparently, the crew is stumped on why it reacts this way, but is no less eager to see it working in the real world — discussion is already underway to use the stuff as artificial cartilage. And here we thought aerogel was cool. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure

Self-strengthening polymer nanocomposite works best under pressure originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Mar 2011 06:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No, that’s not the Apollo command module you’re looking at up there. What’s old is new again in space design, and what’s floating weightless above this text is a photo of humanity’s next great chariot into space. It’s the Orion spacecraft from Lockheed Martin, commissioned for NASA and designed to carry a crew of four not just for trips into orbit but well out into the solar system. Lockheed Martin has just taken the wraps off the thing for the first time, also showing off its new Space Operations Simulation Center (SOSC), located neither in Houston nor Cape Canaveral. It is instead dug into built atop the bedrock in Colorado, theoretically isolating it from seismic and other disturbances so that the testing crew can do their thing without any outside interference. In that bunker the ship is currently testing ahead of a planned first launch in 2013, taking a crew into orbit as soon as 2016. Mars? That might be another few years.

Update: John wrote in to point out that the facility is actually built on some bedrock, not within the bedrock. So, it’s not an underground lair after all — but it’s still a lair by golly.

Lockheed Martin shows off Orion spacecraft, new secret lair originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On Saturday March 19th, the Moon will be closer to the Earth than it has been in 18 years. The technical term for this moon phenomenon is perigee-syzygy, but I greatly prefer the popularized term: super moon!

NASA says, the Moon “will be around 17,000 miles (27,359 km) closer than usual as it rounds Earth in its elliptical orbit.” Don’t get too excited; that’s still 221,567 miles (356,578 km) from Earth, so it’s not exactly “close.” The effect of this change of distance is that the Full Moon will be appear 14% bigger than usual. Though it will be closer, brighter, and appear bigger, these differences will be difficult to notice, seeing how it’s an orb in the massive sky with no objects for size reference. 

But, nonetheless, it’s still pretty cool and probably worth trekking outside to take a peek at, so you can at least say you say you saw a “super moon.”

Photo via NASA

The space around our planet is full of trash. And it’s becoming a problem. Even the tiniest piece of metal floating in space can cause serious damage to shuttles and satellites, and there are more than 500,000 pieces of junk more than one centimeter big in orbit around the Earth.

NASA’s proposed solution is a giant laser beam that could eradicate the waste. It would be a 5kw ground-based laser that would slow down individual pieces of space junk, as opposed to disintegrating them outright. Then, once they’re slowed enough, they will fall out of orbit with the planet, putting them out of harm’s way. And it wouldn’t even be that expensive to build, costing an estimated $1 million, a fraction of NASA’s overall budget.

A similar idea was cooked up back in the 1990’s, though it involved creating a laser that could actually destroy floating pieces of debris. But due to the fears of creating a potential death laser, the plans obviously never went through.

Via Inhabitat

Plasma propulsion may very well be our ticket to visit those little green men on Mars, which is why NASA is becoming besties with Ad Astra, makers of the VASIMR VX-200 plasma rocket. After successful terrestrial testing, the next step is to try out a VF-200 flight model in space — and a new agreement gives NASA engineers access to VASIMR while letting Ad Astra leverage NASA’s spacecraft expertise to get it into orbit. The plasma rocket was assumed to be destined for use on the International Space Station because it requires far less fuel than conventional boosters — making it better suited than the propellant-hungry thrusters keeping the station in orbit today — and can take advantage of the ISS’s considerable electrical power (250kW) to fully test VASIMR’s 200kW output. Plasma rockets produce sustained thrust, as opposed to the quick bursts of its chemical cousin, which makes it the preferred means of propulsion for space travel as well. NASA hasn’t fully committed to either use — but if Marvin and his fellow Red Planet denizens know what’s good for them, they’ll be watching VASIMR’s development with great interest.

NASA and Ad Astra team up to test VASIMR plasma rocket in space originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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