Space & Science – Page 7

Polywell Fusion Not Quite Dead Yet

It looks like Dr. Bussard’s dream of practical and safe fusion power (including an enormously efficient space drive) via his Polywell design has not quite yet been abandoned. IMC2 has a new contract from the US Navy to investigate his designs further.

This must mean that some positive results came from the summer’s work, even though they have not yet been published.

One cannot overstate the positive effects this would have on the human condition were it to be successful. Practially unlimited energy from seawater and borax! No radiation, no nuclear waste, no air pollution or oil wars, voyages of mere weeks to all the planets of the solar system…

Boom De Ah Dah

I love the whole world Andrea has been teasing me for a few weeks about this, so I thought I’d share… It should come as no surprise to those who know me that when I do watch TV it tends to be Discovery Channel. Here in Canada they’ve been running a spot that, well, just makes me smile.

Go and watch the whole thing.

Falcon Flies

In all the crazyness of the past few weeks I completely forgot to mention the fact that the fourth time was the charm for SpaceX, who flew the first privately-funded liquid-fueled rocket to orbit last weekend.

Congratulations to SpaceX, and I hope that this is a further step on the road to an expanded human presence in space.

Two Shuttles

There are two shuttles on the pad at Cape Canaveral right now. Atlantis is scheduled to do some maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope October 10, and Endeavour will be prepped for a possible rescue mission should something go wrong (Hubble is in a much higher orbit — 590km vs 340km, with of course a completely different inclination — than the International Space Station, where stranded astronauts could hang out for a while in the case of emergency). Sounds like a job for Blackstar from the West Wing universe…

If all goes well with the Hubble mission, then Endeavour will fly the usual supply trip to the station.