Supersonic Flying Wing Nabs $100,000 from NASA

An aircraft that resembles a four-point ninja star could go into supersonic mode

By simply turning 90 degrees in midair. The unusual "flying wing" concept has won100,000 in NASA funding to trying becoming a reality for future passenger jet travel.

The supersonic, bidirectional flying wing idea comes from a team headed by Ge-Cheng Zha, an aerospace engineer at the University of Miami, and inlcuding collaborators from Florida He said the fuel-efficient aircraft could reach supersonic speeds without the thunderclap sound produced by a sonic boom — a major factor that previously limited where the Concorde passenger jet could fly over populated land masses.

"I am hoping to develop an environmentally friendly and economically viable airplane for supersonic civil transport in the next 20 to 30 years, "Imagine flying from New York to Tokyo in four hours instead of 15 hours."

The U.S. military's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber that debuted in 1989 represents the only previously successful flying wing aircraft, even though experimental flying wings flew before then. Zha's bidirectional flying wing kicks the general concept up a notch by essentially laying two flying wings on top of one another at a 90 degree angle, so that the aircraft faces one way for subsonic flight and rotates another way for supersonic flight. 

The midair transformation allowsto fly in its most fuel-efficient modes at both subsonic and supersonic speeds, Zha explained. Jet engines located on top of the aircraft in concept illustrations appear to rotate independently of the aircraft so that they can always point forward in flight.

Such midair spinning might sound unpleasant for people riding the aircraft. But a five-second rotation would only cause pilots and passengers to experience a "g-force" just one-tenth the force of gravity passengers experience during takeoff.

NASA liked the idea enough to give Zha and his colleagues a $100,000 grant from the Innovative Advanced Concepts program. But the U.S. space agency does not expect such funded concepts to fly for at least another 20 years or so.

"We are inventing the ways in which next-generation aircraft and spacecraft will change the world and inspiring Americans to take bold steps," said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space Technology Program.

The bidirectional flying wing aircraft could also lead to the first supersonic drones soaring over the U.S. homeland or distant battlefields. Zha previously pitched the robotic military version to the U.S.  aerial systems conference in 2009.

Both the U.S. government and aircraft manufacturers also have begun pushing for hypersonic aircraft capable of flying more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5). Aerospace giant EADS displayed one passenger jet concept at the Paris Air Show in 2011, but aviation experts suggested a ticket to board the flight would cost at least $10,000.

The U.S. has already begunof unmanned hypersonic aircraft, but with mixed results. A U.S. Air Force test of the unmanned X-51A WaveRider ended prematurely when the aircraft plunged into the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 14.

Canada Unveils Next-Generation Robotic

The Canadian-built robotic arms built for NASA's space shuttle fleet and the International Space Station are about to get two new siblings.

Last week, the Canadian Space Agency showed off the Next-Generation Canadarm (NGC) prototypes, which were unveiled after three years of development at Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. The mechanical limbs are the successors to the shuttle fleet's Canadarm and station's Canadarm2, which played pivotal rolls in the station's construction for more than a decade.

The CSA and MDA plan to use this technology to position Canada for newer space business opportunities in areas such as in-orbit refuelling of satellites, said Gilles Leclerc, the agency's director-general of space exploration.

"We prepared all these new systems so that we will be well-positioned for the next thing in space," Leclerc said.

However, the Canadian government's $53.1 million contribution to the arm project (as well as supporting testbeds and simulators) has only brought them to the prototype stage so far. The arms will require more money for launch configurations and a ride to orbit.

Fuelling competition

One of the prototype arms spans 49 feet (15 meters), the same length as the space station's Canadarm2. But the new arm is lighter and has two sections that telescope into each other. This makes it more suitable to fold up inside the smaller spacecraft of the future.

The other NGC prototype arm is a miniature, at 8.5 feet long (2.58 meters). Like the station's Dextre robot, which it is modelled after, it will be able to refuel satellites, grapple tools and manipulate items such as blankets that cover satellites.

Manufacturer MDA has spent several years touting the benefits of satellite refuelling, which the company says would save money since satellites could be kept aloft longer if they can receive more after launch.

In March 2011, MDA signed a $280 million agreement with Intelsat SA to advance this concept, but the deal was scuppered in January 2012 after receiving lukewarm interest from potential customers.

NASA is also considering robotic refuelling. There is debate among Canadian space circles as to whether MDA could contribute to NASA's project, since it is a Canadian company.

Future government funding?

The CSA's contribution to NGC came from one-time stimulus funding it received in the federal budget between 2009 and 2011. Now, the agency is trying to figure out its priorities in the next few years amid large budget cuts, and with future government funds to NGC in flux.

The Canadian government recently began cutbacks to address its deficit, and CSA was among the affected departments. CSA faces a 25 percent budget drop to $315.3 million (CDN$309.7 million) in 2013-14. The year after, money will fall even further to $294.3 million (CDN$289.1 million.)

The agency is doing an internal review to determine its priorities with the lesser budget, said Leclerc. Work on the International Space Station will come first, since the Canadian government agreed to take part in the station until 2020, he said.

CSA's approach will be to "maintain signature technology to develop" while placing resources where it can, he said.

The agency's priorities will also be determined by an external review of the Canadian aerospace sector that should be submitted to the government in the coming months.

Canadarm's legacy

Canadarm has a cherished spot in Canadian space history because its success eventually led to the astronaut program.

The first Canadarm flew in space in 1981 on STS-2, the second space shuttle mission. NASA was so impressed by the robotics that it invited the Canadians to fly payload specialists on future shuttle missions.

The first Canadian, Marc Garneau, flew in 1984. He has since called it a "pay-to-play" arrangement.

Subsequently, Canada provided four more Canadarms to NASA between 1981 and 1993 (one was lost on Challenger), as well as the next-generation Canadarm2 that was installed on the space station in 2001.

Over the years, the arms have grappled satellites, hoisted astronauts and assisted on construction and repairs to the International Space Station.

One of the original Canadarms was converted into an orbiter boom sensor system, a 50-foot extension for shuttle arms built to inspection orbiter heat shields as part of safety procedures implemented after the loss of Columbia in 2003. The boom remains on the space station today, in the wake of the shuttle's retirement.

Three first-generation Canadarms remain. NASA kept one for engineering analysis and "potential future use," according to NASA spokesman Michael Curie.

A second arm is being refurbished at MDA before being shipped for display at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters near Montreal.

Sandy Power Outages Spotted from Space

When Sandy's punishing winds and waves smacked into New Jersey and New York Oct. 29, they knocked out power to millions.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, more than 8 million people were thought to be without power. Some 90 percent of Long Island lost power, as well as numerous communities in New Jersey and all of Lower Manhattan ―which created strange views of the island's iconic skyline from neighboring boroughs and New Jersey.

The Suomi NPP satellite caught the eerie sight from above at 2:52 a.m. EDT (0652 UTC) this morning (Nov. 1). It stands in contrast to an image taken of the same area — New Jersey, New York and eastern Pennsylvania — Aug. 31.

The image was taken with the "day-night band" on the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). This band detects light between the green and near-infrared wavelengths of light, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. Filtering brings out features on the Earth's surface like gas flares and city lights — or, in this case, lack of lights.

 A close look at the images reveals the dark lower end of Manhattan. Long Island and New Jersey appear dimmer in the Nov. 1 image than in the Aug. 31 one.

"The barrier islands along the New Jersey coast, which are heavily developed with tourist businesses and year-round residents, are just barely visible in moonlight after the blackout," the Earth Observatory notes.

Con Edison has said that power should be restored to Lower Manhattan by Saturday. Restoring power to other locations could take longer.

New NASA Satellite to Boost Space Communications Network

A NASA communications network used to track satellites and spacecraft orbiting 

the Earth is about to get an upgrade with the launch of a new satellite on Wednesday (Jan. 30).

The space agency is set to launch the new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite K (TDRS-K for short) on Wednesday at 8:48 p.m. EST (0148 Jan. 31 GMT) from a pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will boost the satellite into an orbit 22,300 miles (35,888 kilometers), where it will join a network of other relay spacecraft high above the planet.

The TDRS-K satellite is the first of three new satellites to launch between now and 2015 to bolster the TDRS communications satellite network that relays data and messages between spacecraft in orbit and ground stations. Without factoring in the cost of the vehicles used to transport it, the TDRS-K satellite costs anywhere from $350 to $400 million.

"Any day we support over 100 missions," Badri Younes a scientist in the Space Communications and Navigation office in NASA said of his division. "Anything you see going to space has to be enabled by us."

While the TDRS system isn't responsible for all communication between crewed spacecraft, satellites and NASA, it does make up part of the agency's Space Network. By using the network's seven satellites currently in orbit around the Earth and some ground-based elements, NASA can monitor the full treks of every satellite in low-Earth orbit.

The large TDRS-K satellite is the 11th spacecraft to join the TDRS network since the first TDRS satellite was launched in 1983. The most recent TDRS launch before now was in 2002. Five TDRS satellites are still functioning in orbit today. According to a NASA mission description, the TDRS-K satellite is expected to last at least 15 years in orbit.

"All of the beautiful images, looking at galaxies, looking at weather trends, providing support to the International Space Station are because of TDRS," Younes said. "Science couldn't be performed the way you expect it today without it."

If the space agency only used ground-based antennas to keep watch on the satellites, it would be impossible to constantly monitor spacecraft, and that creates problems. The International Space Station, for example, sends all of its data through the TDRS satellites.

Since the orbiting science laboratory is always in motion, sometimes it leaves the direct range of ground-based telescopes. The TDRS satellites are positioned in such a way to keep communication lines open between the crew and NASA on the ground.

The Hubble Space Telescope also transmits its data through TDRS first before the data is beamed back down to Earth. The network of satellites functions as an intermediary between NASA's White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, N.M. and the various spacecraft that use it to send information back to the ground.

The Atlas 5 rocket responsible for carrying the TDRS-K into orbit even relies on the Space Network, Vernon Thorp, a program manager with NASA said. The rocket sends data to its handlers on the ground using the satellite system.

Two other communications systems run through NASA. Like TDRS, the Near Earth Network monitors satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbits; however, it does so only by using ground-based antennas.

The Deep Space Network uses ultra-sensitive ground-based radio telescopes to monitor far-off spacecraft, including Voyager 1 and 2 — two probes launched in 1977 that are nearing the edge of the solar system.

Canada Funds Space Robot Projects Amid

Canada's government will chip in $5 million to help its space experts compete for robotics contracts, according to an announcement made in Montreal today (Feb. 8).

Scientists developing planetary rovers and other types of space robotics will receive the grant money over five years from the government's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Another $5 million will come from in-kind and cash contributions from several companies, including major space players such as Neptec and Canadarm maintainer Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates. The Canadian Space Agency will offer use of its facilities.

While the United States, European Union and other countries are putting together their own robotics networks, the NSERC Canadian Field Robotics Network has an annual budget of $2 million, a large sum in Canadian terms.

"Canada can use 10 times as much, but you have to start somewhere," said Michael Jenkin, a York University researcher in robotics who is a part of the network.

"In the Canadian landscape, this is an exceptional investment. I think it is enough to be a significant contribution to making us better, and making us among the best – if not the best – in the world."

Although the Canadian Space Agency is facing deep budget cuts, the government recently deemed robotics as a priority area for economic stimulus funding. Ottawa  allocated $110 million to the agency in 2009 to principally develop rover and robotic arm prototypes, money that has all been spent.

New software and regular field tests

More than 50 percent of the new grant money will go to student stipends and scholarships. There also will be allocations for equipment, as well as for academics and companies to do field tests.

Working together could be tricky, given that many Canadian academics compete for research funds and that companies typically vie for the same CSA contracts. The collaborators, however, acknowledge this is just "the nature of life," said Gregory Dudek, a computer science researcher at McGill University, where the network is administered.

"There's always a temptation to compete, but it's better to collaborate against the challenges facing you," said Dudek, scientific director of the robotics network. He cited competition for contracts from Japan, South Korea, the European Union and the United States as the primary challenge for Canadian researchers.

Collaborations will take place most visibly through an annual field test to put robots through their paces. These will be similar to rover tests that took place at a simulated "Mars yard" near the CSA last year, but will expand to include environments such as in water.

These tests are essential because they expose limitations in a design, said Tim Barfoot, the head of the University of Toronto's autonomous space robotics lab. Fieldwork he oversaw with a rover in a Mars-like environment, for example, revealed a more efficient way for it to move around obstacles.

"Our approach to navigating robots fundamentally changed because of these observations," he said.

Additionally, the network partners will build a common set of tools – especially software tools – that everyone can use for the various projects.

"Not every flying robot, swimming robot and land robot can use the same software, obviously, but we’re trying to build bridges between the big players in Canada so they can share stuff, interoperate and work together," Dudek said.

CSA programming uncertain

The United States announced its own national robotics initiative in 2012. The project, which includes agencies ranging from NASA to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is supposed to create new applications for robotics technologies.

Canada's new government grant comes amid a period of program uncertaintyfor its space agency. The CSA faces a 20 percent budget cut this year. Its president, Steve MacLean, left Feb. 1 to join a quantum physics venture. Gilles Leclerc is now acting president.

In an October interview, Leclerc said he hoped the government would provide more money for robotics now that the stimulus funding is spent.

"We will see what the government does with the aerospace and space review, and how high space ranks as a priority," said Leclerc, then the CSA's director-general of space exploration.

"Somewhere in the future we can develop a rover [for flight], or at least provide signature technologies in robotics and vision systems. That's our Canadian heritage."

Balloon Flights Bring Near-Space Exploration

Talk about ballooning expectations. How about launching your own payloads into the exotic environment of near space?

High-altitude balloon flights are becoming cheaper and more widely available, expanding research opportunities for scientists and hobbyists, as well as young people just learning how science works.

In the last year or so, for example, schoolkids have lofted a number of balloons to the stratosphere, including three carrying a Lego figure, a Hello Kitty doll and bobblehead versions of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, respectively.

Bringing near-space science to the masses

Maydell is a former flight controller for the International Space Station at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Viewing downlinked images of Earth taken from aboard the orbiting lab helped inspire him to found Colorado-based High Altitude Science in 2011, he said.

“I was awestruck by the beauty of our planet and the ability to be in space," Maydell told SPACE.com. "I really wanted to share that with as many people as possible."

Weather balloons seemed like the most accessible and affordable way to make that happen, he added. High Altitude Science provides balloon launch services to customers with specific near-space needs — such as scientific research, space hardware prototype testing and advertising — and others interested in the sheer fun of it.

"We've got a wide plethora of customers," Maydell said, from folks interested in curve-of-the-Earth imagery to those who want to assess the speed of the jet stream or measure high-altitude temperatures and pressures. "Some are launching gliders from the edge of space or doing some other bigger research projects."

Weather balloons can rise to an altitude of 24 miles (39 kilometers) or more before they burst, and a payload may land (via parachute) up to 75 miles (120 km) away, depending on wind conditions at the launch site, Maydell said.

Though outer space doesn't technically begin until you get 62 miles (100 km) above Earth's surface, the views are still great from 24 miles up. At that altitude, the sky is black and the curvature of the Earth is clearly visible, Maydell said.

"It’s about the closest an average person can get to being in space, and you can do it for about the price of a nice iPad,” Maydell said.

Hello Kitty gets a ride

One recent user of High Altitude Science services was Lauren Rojas, a seventh-grader at Cornerstone Christian School in Antioch, Calif.

Rojas' Hello Kitty doll soared to an altitude of 93,625 feet (28,537 meters), gaining a spectacular view of Earth before coming back down in a tree-snagging parachute landing.

Hello Kitty's mission also involved onboard sensors to gauge temperature, air pressure and altitude, along with cameras that documented the ride.The video of Hello Kitty's trip has been an Internet sensation, garnering more than 820,000 views since it was posted on YouTube on Jan. 25.

6 Surprising Facts about World

The Atacama Large Millimeter submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the world's most powerful 

observatory for studying the universe at the long-wavelength millimeter and submillimeter range of light. It's designed to spot some of the most distant, ancient galaxies ever seen, and to probe the areas around young stars for planets in the process of forming.

The opening of the $1.3 billiontelescope array is being celebrated in an inauguration ceremony on Wednesday (March 13) at its observation site in Chile's Atacama desert. Here are six things you should know about the ambitious, not to mention immense, astronomy project.

1) It is ginormous

ALMA combines the forces of 66 radio antennas, most almost 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, to create images comparable to those that could be obtained with a single 46,000-foot-wide (14,000 meters) dish.

The observatory is accurate enough to discern a golf ball 9 miles (15 kilometers) away.

2) A decade to build

The telescope is a collaboration of four continents, being sponsored by countries in North America, Europe and East Asia, with the cooperation of Chile. Planning and constructing the observatory took thousands of scientists and engineers from around the world more than 10 years.

3) ALMA is one high eye on the sky

The observatory is among the highest instruments on Earth, at an altitude of 16,570 feet (5,050 meters) above sea level. Its perch high atop the Chajnantor plateau puts it above much of the Earth's atmosphere, which blurs and distorts light.

4) It's in the driest place on Earth

ALMA's location in Chile's Atacama desert, the driest place in the world, means almost every night is clear of clouds and free of light-distorting moisture. Some weather stations in the desert have never received rain, and scientists think the Atacama got no significant rainfall between 1570 and 1971. 

5) ALMA dishes are nearly perfect

The surfaces of its dozens of radio dishes are almost perfect, with none deviating from an exact parabola by more than 20 micrometers (20 millionths of a meter, or about 0.00078 inches). This prevents any incoming radio waves from being lost, so that the resulting picture captures as much distant cosmic light as possible. The radio dishes, which weigh about 100 tons each, are made of ultra-stable CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) for the reflector base, with reflecting panels of rhodium-coated nickel.

6) This is one cool telescope — literally

The electronic detector called the "front end" that amplifies and converts the radio signals collected at each ALMA antenna must be kept at a chilling 4 Kelvin ( minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 269 degrees Celsius), to prevent introducing noise to the signal.

Ultimately, the ground-breaking observatory promises to reveal many new secrets of the cosmos — not to mention some really pretty pictures.

Japan Launching Talking Robot & Cargo Into Space

Japan will launch a new cargo ship with tons of supplies and one small, talking robot 

 toward the International Space Station on Saturday (Aug. 3), and you can watch the liftoff live online.

The fourth unmanned H-2 Transfer Vehicle, or HTV-4, is scheduled to blast off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 3:48 p.m. EDT (1948 GMT; 4:48 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 4 Japan time). You can watch launch coverage on SPACE.com here beginning at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), courtesy of NASA TV and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. 

One of the precious items on the cargo ship is the Kirobo robot, a small humanoid automaton billed by its creators as a "robot astronaut" that is designed to talk with astronauts in space, as well as people on the ground. It stands about 13.4 inches tall (34 centimeters) and speaks Japanese.

Kirobo is expected to speak with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who is due to launch to the International Space Station later this year in November. It is one of two robots built by the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology as part of the Kibo Robot Project, which seeks to develop new technologies for robot-human interaction for long space missions.

Both robots are equipped with voice-recognition technology, face recognition, a camera and emotion recognition and natural language processing. The Toyota Motor Corp., Robo Garage and the public relations company Dentsu Inc. are partners in the project.

"I want to help create a world where humans and robots can live together," Kirobo said when asked what its dream is by an official from Toyota Motor Corp., during the Kibo Robot Project's press unveiling in late June.

The project's second robot, called Mirata, will remain on Earth to aid project engineers if problems develop with Kirobo in space. Kirobo is due to return to Earth in December 2014, project officials have said.

In addition to Kirobo, JAXA's HTV-4 is carrying about 3.5 tons of supplies, food and equipment for scientific experiments, which the crew of the space station's current Expedition 36 will offload when the cargo ship finally arrives on Aug. 9.

The HTV line of spacecraft is also known as "Kounotori," which means "White Stork" in Japanese. The supply vessels are about 33 feet long by 14.4 feet wide (10 by 4.4 meters) and can carry 6 tons of supplies to the orbiting lab.

Like Europe's robotic Automated Transfer Vehicle and Russia's unmanned Progress spacecraft, HTV vehicles are built for one-time use. Once these spacecraft have delivered their cargo, space station astronauts fill them with trash and send them off to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

That's in contrast to SpaceX's reusable Dragon cargo capsule, which is designed to splash down in the ocean and be retrieved by boat-borne crews. California-based SpaceX has successfully completed two resupply missions to the station using Dragon and its Falcon 9 rocket, and the company will make 10 more such flights under its $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

NASA also signed a $1.9 billion deal with Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. to make eight flights with its robotic Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket. Cygnus — which is expendable like the HTV, ATV and Progress — is slated to launch toward the space station for the first time in mid-September.

Saturday's launch will mark the fourth space mission for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's HTV program. HTV-1 launched in September 2009, HTV-2 took off in January 2011 and HTV-3 blasted off in July 2012.

How to Live on Mars

If humanity hopes to establish a lasting presence on Mars, it will have to learn to live off the land.

Ambitious exploration efforts have always aimed for self-sufficiency, but the need is especially acute when the new terrain being traversed is another planet. Extensive resupply from Earth would be prohibitively expensive, experts say, so exploiting Red Planet resources is crucial to making pioneering manned missions affordable in the short term and Mars settlement sustainable over the long haul.

"We want to move and explore in a very similar manner that we've done in the past, so that we can live off the land to make all these missions very cost-effective and more efficient," Prasun Desai, acting director of the Strategic Integration and Analysis Office in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said last Tuesday (Aug. 6).

The goal is to enable the exploration of Mars "in a much more aggressive manner, so that we can really get a sense of, Are we alone in the universe?" added Desai, who was speaking at a celebration at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. marking the first year on the Red Planet for the agency's Curiosity rover.

The Red Planet may be cold and dry, but it harbors a wealth of resources that pioneering astronauts could extract and exploit, said Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society. This non-profit organization advocates manned Mars exploration and is hosting its 16th annual conference on the topic Aug. 15-18 in Boulder, Colo.

For example, astronauts could generate oxygen and rocket fuel (for potential trips home to Earth) by pulling feedstock out of the Red Planet's thin, carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere, Zubrin said. And they could get all the water they need from the dirt under their boots.

"We now know that Martian soil has water in it," "Even at the equator, it's 5 percent water by weight; in the Arctic regions, it's 60 percent water by weight. And we've developed technology that can bake water out of that soil and make it available."

This water, along with Mars' plentiful carbon dioxide, would make it feasible to grow crops for food and other plants to make products such as clothing, at least in some regions, he added.

"Sunlight at the Martian equator is about equal to that of Norway," Zubrin said. "And there's also nitrogen and all the other elements needed to make fertilizers and so forth."

Iron oxide and silicon oxide are also common in Martian soil, so human pioneers would be able to make iron, steel and glass, he said. And the availability of water and carbon dioxide would allow them to make plastics as well.

"This civilization [here on Earth] was built on iron, steel and natural fibers until the 20th century," Zubrin said. "We can do all of that."

Complicated products such as computer chips would likely have to be imported from Earth for a long time to come, he added. But most such items would be lightweight, greatly reducing the mass — and therefore cost — of necessary resupply missions.

Living on Mars will require a considerable amount of power, of course. While solar panels and radioisotope thermoelectric generators (which convert the heat of radioactive decay into electricity) have powered robotic NASA rovers on the Red Planet, new strategies will be required for manned missions, Desai said.

"We're going to need a lot more power for when humans are on the surface with a lot larger vehicles, to be able to operate those types of systems," he said.

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is researching a number of possibilities, including more efficient fuel cells and better batteries to improve energy storage, Desai added.

While such technologies could help support the first pioneering steps on the Red Planet, a long-lasting human society on the Red Planet may require a more potent power source. And Zubrin thinks it can be found underground.

Some Martian volcanoes last erupted just a few hundred million years ago, he said, and Mars-orbiting spacecraft have found evidence for a subsurface water table, which could only exist on the frigid planet in the presence of internally generated heat.

"There is hot stuff underground," Zubrin said, noting that geothermal energy is the number four power source here on Earth, after combustion, nuclear and hydroelectric. "We should be able to locate places where we can drill down and access geothermal heat, which might also give us liquid water as well, which would be convenient."

Initial drilling to tap into this heat would be done using nuclear power, he added.

A manned Mars outpost will likely be supported financially at first by governments, foundations or extremely wealthy individuals here on Earth, Zubrin said. But if it hopes to last over the long term, it must eventually come up with a way to support itself and pay for its imports.

Red Planet settlers may be able to send some gold and other precious metals back to a picked-over Earth, Zubrin said, but such heavy materials are extremely expensive to launch. He thinks it's more likely that a Mars colony's main export will be intellectual property.

The frontier environment on Mars will serve as an incubator of innovation, just as it did in the United States, Zubrin added.

"You have, typically, a severe labor shortage and an extremely challenging environment, and so you're forced to innovate," he said. "This is where you get this culture of invention in 18th and 19th, even into 20th century America."

"The Martian frontier is going to amplify this to a much greater degree," he added.

Areas ripe for potential Red Planet innovation include robotics and agriculture, Zubrin said. And if indigenous life on Mars is ever discovered, its genome could be incredibly valuable, both scientifically and financially.

Underwater Plane' To Explore Ocean Depths

A new "underwater plane" will plunge wealthy riders down into the ocean depths for a hefty fee.

U.K. company Virgin Limited Edition recently announced the Necker Nymph, a three-person "aero-submarine" that can dive to depths of 36,000 feet – which is deeper than Mount 

Everest is tall.

The Necker Nymph vehicle is designed and built by San Francisco-based Hawkes Ocean Technologies and is based on the company's DeepFlight series of submersibles.

Virgin bills the Necker Nymph as a "a new class of high-performance, positively buoyant vehicles which safely extend the overall capabilities of scuba, while offering the unique experience of underwater flight."

Unlike conventional subs, which use ballast to sink in the water, the Necker Nymph uses "uses downward 'lift' on the wings to fly down to depth," Virgin explained in a statement.

Each dive can last up to two hours, during which time the "hydrobatic" Necker Nymph can perform dolphin-like flips underwater. An open cockpit provides a near 360-degree viewing experience.

Virgin says the Necker Nymph has "near-zero" environmental impact: "Its positive buoyancy prevents the sub from landing on a reef, and its low light and noise emissions ensure the fragile ocean ecosystems remain undisturbed."

But unless you're incredibly wealthy, don't expect to experience a ride aboard the Necker Nymph anytime soon. The craft is only available if you rent Necker Belle, Virgin's 105-foot (32-meter) luxury catarmaran. The boat's weekly charter rate is U.S. $88,000. Rent the Necker Nymph will cost an additional U.S. $25,000 per week.

Virgin and its founder Sir Richard Branson have a reputation for building extreme vehicles. Virgin Galactic recently unveiled a space plane, calledSpaceShipTwo, that will ferry tourists to suborbital space.

Electric Planes Could Transform How We Fly

As the promise of electric cars grows, so too does the potential of electric planes. 

These aircraft, whose motors are far more efficient, reliable and quiet than internal combustion engines, could help transform how we fly – if a few problems could be solved.

Electric motors are three to four times better than internal combustion engines at driving an airplane propeller. And the reliability of electric motors is "perhaps 10 times or even 20 times that of a piston engine," said Brien Seeley, president of the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation, an independent flight test agency which hosts NASA's Centennial Challenges for Aeronautics.

Because electric motors could be up to 95 percent efficient – compared to the 18 to 23 percent efficiency of regular engines – means they waste much less energy in the form of heat. As such, "they don't need anywhere near the same amount of cooling air flowing over them that internal combustion engines do, which is a very big deal with airplanes" and accounts for a significant part of the drag they experience that can slow them down, Seeley said.

Their boosted efficiency also means electric planes could be much quieter than regular planes. As such, the military is pursuing them for stealth applications, Seeley said. "Military contractors are spending significant investment in investigating electric-powered unoccupied air vehicles."

Quieter planes also means civilian airports can be located much closer to where people want to go without bothering local residents.

Weaning planes off fossil fuels is also good for the environment. "You have the climate change issue, the air quality issue from smog, and the energy independence issue," Seeley said.

The Achilles' heel

The one great Achilles' heel of electric airplanes, however, is battery life. Airplanes need to be light in order to stay up in the air, but batteries are notorious for being heavy for the amount of energy they carry. As a result, many engineers and materials scientists are experimenting with radical aircraft and designs and new, lightweight materials.

"We're seeing truly extraordinary sailplane designs with 70-to-1 lift-drag ratios, which can greatly reduce the amount of power needed, and super-lightweight carbon fiber construction techniques, all of which means that even modest battery packs can take you potentially 100 or 200 miles on a flight," Seeley said.

A San Jose-based company called Nanosolar is also experimenting with thin and flexible solar panels that could be applied to the wing surfaces of airplanes to allow for recharging during flights or when on the ground.

"There are major breakthroughs coming with the limitations of battery energy density as well," Seeley told TechNewsDaily. "Nanotechnologymay be able to increase their potential maybe 10- or 20-fold."

Seeley doesn't expect all planes to shift to electric. Military fighter aircraft will still rely on jet engines over electric motors in the future, given how they need to remain small, fast and maneuverable. Jet engines will likely also be the way to go when it comes to long flights or ones with many passengers, due to their range and weight constraints.

A 'transformative concept'

Still, Seeley sees electric planes offering major advantages when it comes to travel of 250 miles or less.

"If we look at statistics for door-to-door travel times, in current aviation, for trips of under 250 miles, the speed is below 55 mph, and that's much worse for certain metro areas or if traffic jams happen," Seeley explained. "So you have a 525 mph airliner on a 250-mile trip with a net speed of 55 mph, and that isn't good. The obvious implication then is you then drive a car to get there just as fast, but the truth is that due to gridlock, the car door-to-door trip speed is on the order of 30 mph."

The solution for these jaunts is to go electric, he suggested. The unprecedented quietness of electric planes means airports can be built closer to destinations, and they are capable of extremely short takeoffs since they don't have to gradually accelerate to liftoff speeds.

"We're exploring the concept of pocket airports, maybe lots of them, each just two acre parcels, that you can take, say, at 150 mph to another pocket airport," Seeley said. "It's a transformative concept."

The crossover with the automotive world, "which is going to transition to electric cars and thus process enormous numbers of battery sets and motors and so forth, could be a game changer for electric planes," he added.

Next steps

Today's gas engines become less efficient the smaller they are, but electric motors don’t suffer from this limitation. As a result, electric planes could use several small motors mounted at the edge of wings that blow air directly over them, "potentially leading to much greater efficiency," said NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore.

Internationally, there is growing interest in electric planes, CAFE's Seely said. "The company Yuneec just constructed a 260,000 square foot factory in China to build electric-powered aircraft—really, the first large production of such aircraft."

NASA's annual Green Flight Challenge, which is managed by CAFE, is also pushing planes to fly faster than 100 mph while exceeding a fuel efficiency of 200 passenger miles per gallon or that equivalent in electricity.

"This event now has nine very high-quality teams enrolled, drawing on the latest technology from around the world," Seeley said. "The goal of the challenge also meets the sweet spot of the 250-mile range or so one would want for electric planes."

E-readers Inspired by Butterflies

Full-color displays for e-readers could really take off soon  on the wings of butterflies.

Qualcomm MEMS Technologies new Mirasol is the first full color, video-capable display on a prototype e-reader. Built on the concept of theiridescence of a butterfly’s wing, the new technology reflects light rather than transmitting light the way LCD screens do.

The display is readable in sunlight and offers unprecedented energy savings for longer battery life. E-readers may just be the beginning for Mirasol displays as consumers seek color in every device they use, better visibility in bright light, and days or even weeks worth of battery life.

Inspiration

The inspiration for Mirasol’s engineering came from nature’s most vividly colored creatures: the cerulean wing of a butterfly, the ruby throat of a hummingbird, and the rainbow flash of a tropical fish. The branch of science devoted to the study of technology imitating nature is known as biomimetics. It gave us Velcro, which was invented in 1948 by Swiss chemist George de Mestral, who mimicked the way burrs stuck in his dog’s coat.

Velcro may be one of the few recognizable brand names to come out of biomimetics, but that may be about to change.

“Looking at pretty structures in nature is not sufficient,” said MIT chemical engineer Robert Cohen. “What I want to know is, can we actually transform these structures into an embodiment with true utility in the real world?” Qualcomm engineers say, yes we can.

A closer look at the mechanics of natural iridescence reveals a common structure across many species — layers of microscopic crystals in insect wings, bird feathers and fish scales. The crystals reflect light at different angles, causing light waves to interfere with one another, which we see as changing or iridescent colors. Scientists call it structural color, as opposed to color by pigmentation.

Mirasol technology, formally known as interferometric modulation (IMOD), uses electrically charged, tiny flexible membranes overlaid onto a mirrored surface to imitate the reflective properties of biological crystals. Light reflected back out through those membranes is refracted so that interfering wavelengths create colors. Like a butterfly on a sunny afternoon, Mirasol reflective displays can be easily seen in bright light.

Better performance

Mirasol displays require virtually no illumination or backlighting, a power sucking requirement of LCD screens, resulting in significant energy savings. Pike Research estimates that IMOD displays consume 33.7 percent less energy and emit 94 percent less carbon dioxide equivalents while active than an LCD display of the same dimensions.

The Qualcomm e-reader prototype made by Foxlink caught media attention for its obvious advantages over available e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. “The displays use ambient light in order to create colour,” said marketing director Cheryl Goodman at Qualcomm MEMS Technologies. “It is a nature-based design and it is a significant innovation that no one has done before.”

Qualcomm claims Mirasol displays have approximately the same contrast ratio and reflectivity as a newspaper, making it easy to real in most any lighting situation.

Yet unlike black and white e-ink displays, Mirasol’s full color and fast response time allow a Mirasol-equipped e-reader to double as a media player for video and games. Viewing video on an ordinary device can quickly drain the battery, but Mirasol’s video capabilities require no sacrifice in battery life. Qualcomm estimates battery life in days, not hours. Easy to read in more places, extended battery life and multi-function make Mirasol a category driver for e-readers, but Qualcomm envisions a much wider application of its technology.

Without the need for backlighting, Mirasol displays can be even thinner and lighter than their LCD counterparts. Look for not only thinner e-readers, but even thinner versions of digital cameras, cell phones, gaming devices, and GPS units. According to Qualcomm, the technology is scalable and can be adapted to larger applications such as TVs and outdoor digital signs.

Qualcomm says Mirasol Color Video e-book readers will ship late 2010. Hardware partners will be announced in the first part of 2011.

Robot Delivers Snacks

Rrobotics researchers at Carnegie Mellon University get hungry at work just like you do. 

Unlike you, however, they can create robot minions to bring them food. Their latest creation is Snackbot, an autonomous mobile robot whose mission is to bring tasty treats.

"Snackbot is a mobile robot, about the size of a very small human, that rolls around on wheels, and will be delivering snacks to students, faculty, and office workers at Carnegie Mellon University," according to its inventors.

"Snackbot is meant as an ongoing platform for research," they write. "The Snackbot will support research into robust autonomous operation in office environments. Our efforts range from multi-sensor fusion algorithms for perception, reasoning about dynamic spaces,communicating with people through verbal and non-verbal mechanisms, and planning with incomplete information.

"The research will allow the robot to navigate through congested areas in a socially acceptable fashion, detect individual people moving near the robot, recognize when someone that the robot knows approaches it, and autonomously learn to recognize new objects."

Carnegie Mellon's web site insists that Snackbot is a research platform on all kinds of cool topics, like "behavioral science research on such topics as personalization" and "people’s relationships with interactive objects". But I think that CMU researchers want fresh snacks! And why shouldn't they? Hard working engineers who build our robotic future need fuel, just like the robots they build.

Of course, clean-up is important, too. That's why researchers at Intel Research's Personal Robotics project have been working on a robotic busboy to clean up those plates and glasses.

Science fiction writers have done everything they can to prepare us for this futuristic idea. For example, fans may recall Star Wars' Artoo Detoo serving food on Jabba's sail barge. And don't forget the waitress robot WA-7, the robotic waitress from Dex's Diner in Star Wars II Attack of the Clones.