Cool Science Story Of The Day [Continuing Thread]

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by masraum

I just read that earlier. Very cool.
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/watch-scientists-create-strongestever-indoor-magnetic-field-and-blow-up-their-lab-in-the-process/

When I was on campus at the University of Illinois, there was a *rumor* about one of the massive electromagnets that they used in early superconductor research (the superconductor was invented there). They built this monster in the basement of one of the engineering building, piece by piece in situ. When they finally turned it on, the entire building shook, and the electromagnet cracked the floor bolts and shifted several inches over, severing various cooling lines and wires. It ended up being attracted to either the building itself, or the neighboring building, or the Earth's magnetic field. It's supposedly still sitting there, broken, too big to remove from the basement...to this day...ooooohhhhh.....

[kach22i]

Pretty amazing that something you cannot see and has almost no mass can be so destructive.


Watch Scientists Create Strongest-Ever Indoor Magnetic Field – And Blow Up Their Lab In The Process
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/watch-scientists-create-strongestever-indoor-magnetic-field-and-blow-up-their-lab-in-the-process/

[masraum]

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/15/world/vantablack-blackest-black-material/index.html

A building described as the "darkest on Earth" has been unveiled at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, in South Korea.
It's the work of British architect Asif Khan, who achieved the super-black effect by coating the building in a revolutionary material that absorbs 99% of light.
The Hyundai Pavilion, which Khan describes as a "schism in space," has four curved walls, each of which is studded with thousands of tiny lights -- like stars against the night sky.

"It will be like you're looking into the depths of space itself," said Khan, ahead of the Games. "As you approach the building that star field will grow to fill your entire field of view, and then you'll enter as though you're being absorbed into a cloud of blackness."
Juxtaposed against the pristine whiteness of the Olympic Winter Games, Khan hopes his building will provoke a philosophical experience by presenting visitors with a "void of infinite depth and possibility."

The building's exterior is covered with a substance called Vantablack VBx2, a derivative of nanomaterial Vantablack. Touted as the darkest man-made substance in the world, the original Vantablack is so black the human eye can't quite decipher what it is seeing.
It is said to be the closest thing to a black hole we will ever experience.
That's because Vantablack is not a color, it's the almost complete absence of color.
Since the material was first developed by Surrey NanoSystems three years ago, the British firm has been flooded with inquiries from designers, architects and aerospace engineers -- and even people who want to wrap themselves in it or eat it.
Part of the appeal of the original Vantablack is that it absorbs 99.96% of the light that hits its surface.

"When you have no light reflected back to the viewer, you see nothing, so your brain paints it as black," Ben Jensen, co-founder of Surrey NanoSystems tells CNN.
When used as a coating, Vantablack appears to change the dimensions of an object, rendering 3D objects completely flat.
It's this absence of color, light and depth that first drew Khan to Vantablack.
"To break the fundamental rules of perception, as this material does, turns 3D things into 2D things, it absorbs light instead of reflecting light, it's as powerful as switching off gravity. That's the possibility of it in architecture," said Khan.

Breaking down Vantablack -- can I eat it?
One square centimeter of Vantablack consists of about one billion carbon nanotubes spaced perfectly apart. When light comes in it is bounced around and ultimately trapped and converted to heat.
"Carbon nanotubes are like very, very long blades of grass," explains Jensen. "Now you imagine if you were a human walking around in grass 1,000 feet tall how little light would get down to you. It's like that but on a very tiny scale."

The nanotubes are "grown" under powerful lamps that bring the surface temperature to 430 degrees Celsius or higher.

The spray-applied version used by Khan isn't based on carbon nanotubes and absorbs 99% of the light that hits its surface.
Vantablack was originally designed for engineering in space, but, since launching in 2014, Jensen has been inundated with requests to use the material.
"The inquiries built like an avalanche... everything from superstars wanting to coat their guitars in it to people wanting to coat their cars in it," he says.
The strangest request Jensen received was from someone wanting to film themselves eating it and then post the video on YouTube. "Obviously that's not a really good idea," Jensen says.
Nor is crafting a little (Vanta)black dress, as the material would irritate your skin, and you'd look like shapeless piece of cardboard.

But the material has been used in a $95,000 limited-edition watch by Swiss watchmaker MCT. Set against a Vantablack background, the elements of the watch seem to be floating in a bottomless void.

Blacking out light in space
A company in Sweden is using Vantablack to coat the inside of an optical telescope, which will be attached to a microsatellite. The coating will block stray light from the sun and city lights.

"We would like to make sure that the light that comes from the telescope comes from the atmosphere and not from any disturbing sources," says engineer Arvid Hammer of Omnisys Instruments.

By doing so, scientific researchers can get clearer pictures of the atmosphere and better data to improve current climate models, he explains. This can help make better weather and global warming predictions.

Despite this range of applications, Jensen is keen to stress Vantablack cannot simply be "painted" on just anything.

"There's this misconception out there that it's a black paint. It's not," says Jensen. "It's something that's grown through very complex means ... definitely not something you can paint out of a bucket."

[Heel n Toe]

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/three-huge-asteroids-expected-to-fly-past-earth-one-closer-than-the-moon-on-24-july-7046451.html

Three huge asteroids expected to fly past Earth, one closer than the Moon, on 24 July

In a reminder of how chaotic it can get in our galactic neighbourhood, three asteroids are expected to make fly-bys of Earth on 24 July. The closest of these asteroids — called 2019 OD — is expected to fly past our Earth at a distance of 3,53,050 kilometres, which is fairly close in astronomical terms. To put things in perspective, the Moon (which is ~3.84 lakh kilometres away) will be further away from the Earth than asteroid 2019 OD will be at its closest during the fly-by.

2019 OD, which was discovered just three weeks ago by NASA, is expected to zip past the Earth at 1.31 pm UTC (7.01 pm IST). At its widest point, the asteroid is 394 feet, and travelling at dizzying speeds of roughly 69,000 km per hour. That said, NASA is yet to tag the asteroid as hazardous, as it poses an extremely low risk of hitting Earth during its flyby.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by masraum

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/15/world/vantablack-blackest-black-material/index.html

Sounds to me like a solution for creating (converting) energy through heat.

[john70t]

In the next ten years I'm thinking there are going to be huge breakthroughs for combining carbon nano-tubes, photovoltaic cells, and graphene.

[masraum]

Not exactly hard core science like some of our other posts, but I still think this is hugely cool.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/07/solving-india-ancient-mysteries-citizen-archaeologists/

Archaeology isn’t the dusty science it was a generation ago. New technologies that once seemed straight out of sci-fi are now peering inside mummy bundles, locating buried traces of buildings, and revealing the ruins of cities hidden by forest canopies.

For more than a decade, National Geographic Explorer Sarah Parcak has been on the front line of this revolution, using satellite images to find and explore ancient sites around the globe. Now she’s about to take on a new challenge as she focuses her GlobalXplorer citizen-science project on the subcontinent of India.



In 2016, Parcak, a professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, won the first million-dollar TED prize for a big idea. She proposed creating an online platform, called Global Xplorer, to crowdsource the initial assessment of satellite images for signs of cultures from long ago. The platform launched on January 1, 2017, allowing anyone in the world with a computer and internet access to help discover and protect remnants of Peru’s rich cultural heritage.

The results have been staggering. The project has logged more than 80,000 participants from a hundred countries. Volunteers have viewed more than 15 million images, covering some 100,000 square miles, and identified 19,000 sites that were not in Peru’s database of archaeological ruins. The finds include 50 new Nazca Lines, the mysterious figures that indigenous people carved into Peru’s coastal desert many centuries ago. (Read why Parcak believes archaeologists have vastly underestimated the size and scale of past human settlements.)

The platform for Peru is still up and running but will be decommissioned when the India project launches—by the end of this year, Parcak hopes. If all goes well, the work in India could last for years as the project surveys the country’s 29 states and several territories.



“India has had relatively little archaeological remote-sensing work done compared to other places, which is what fueled my initial interest,” Parcak says. Also, the full extent of India's archaeological work—which began officially when British army engineer Alexander Cunningham founded the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861—has never been mapped comprehensively. Parcak expects her project to remedy that.

“The good news for us is that India has dozens upon dozens of diverse cultures from different periods of time, often layered over one another,” Parcak says. “Wherever we end up going, the crowd’s going to be able to see extraordinary things.” (See how satellite images helped reveal Viking settlements in Canada.)

Three dozen of India’s cultural heritage properties are already listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Parcak thinks there could be tens of thousands of as yet unknown sites mapped as part of this project—temples, tombs, forts, roads, and even entire cities. The discoveries promise to be spectacular across a subcontinent that has seen a parade of cultures come and go.



India’s historical wealth includes 9,000-year-old Neolithic sites, great cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro that belonged to the Indus Valley Civilization (about 3300 B.C. to 1300 B.C.), evidence of Roman-period trading along the southern coast, and a string of northern sites associated with the famed Silk Road, the network of trade routes that for centuries carried luxury goods between the East and the West.

Parcak’s team is completely rebuilding GlobalXplorer to make it smarter, faster, and more satisfying to use. The new platform will offer an improved tutorial to help volunteers get up to speed quickly, and volunteers will be able to share discoveries and comments with the rest of the Global Xplorer community.

Parcak would be thrilled if this new phase of Global Xplorer attracts millions of volunteers, with tens or even hundreds of thousands from India itself. “That would be a huge win for us,” she says. (Here's how to become a space archaeologist.)

In the future, Parcak hopes other countries will contact to her to launch their own crowd-sourced satellite surveys, all of which could run simultaneously on the new, expanded Global Xplorer platform. The possibilities are immense. Parcak estimates that there are at least 12 million potential archaeological sites yet to be discovered—perhaps as many as 50 million. That means the sky’s the limit for her archaeology-from-space project now that it has gotten off the ground successfully.

[GH85Carrera]

Using freshly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors more than 400 years ago and an array of high-tech equipment, Blakeslee located what he believes to be the lost city of Etzanoa, home to perhaps 20,000 people between 1450 and 1700.

They lived in thatched, beehive-shaped houses that ran for at least five miles along the bluffs and banks of the Walnut and Arkansas rivers. Blakeslee says the site is the second-largest ancient settlement in the country after Cahokia in Illinois.


https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kansas-lost-city-20180819-htmlstory.html

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Using freshly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors more than 400 years ago and an array of high-tech equipment, Blakeslee located what he believes to be the lost city of Etzanoa, home to perhaps 20,000 people between 1450 and 1700.

They lived in thatched, beehive-shaped houses that ran for at least five miles along the bluffs and banks of the Walnut and Arkansas rivers. Blakeslee says the site is the second-largest ancient settlement in the country after Cahokia in Illinois.


https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kansas-lost-city-20180819-htmlstory.html

That's really cool. I love that sort of thing.

[sammyg2]

OK, this is really out there:
My son's rocket team had a visit and presentation last week from a rep from a group that is working to develop a system to sent a rocket into orbit using centrifugal force.

i know, no such thing in physics, generic term used to describe kinetic bla bla.

But their plan was to spin a rocket in a large radius in a vacuum to mach 5 or something outrageous, and them fling it off into space.

You know me, Mr. Skeptic so I called BS and came up with several reasons why it wouldn't work but he told me the team voiced the same objections but they countered with all the right answers.
As crazy as it sounds, they are building it and recruiting young aerospace engineers for the project.


I don't know if this article is directly related to those guys but same basic idea (note this article is 6 years old):

Wild Idea: Reusable 'Slingatron' Launch Concept Could Slingshot Probes to Space
By Nola Taylor Redd




A new kind of reusable launch system could make hurling satellites, spacecraft and other payloads into space much less expensive.

A launcher that mimics the motions of the classical slingshot is currently under development by HyperV Technologies Corporation. Called the Slingatron, the device will utilize the centrifugal force generated by spiral motion to launch objects into space.

"The Slingatron space transportation system could provide routine daily multiple launches to low-Earth orbit and to Earth escape velocity," HyperV Technologies Vice President Chris Faranetta said in an email. [Wild Superfast Space Propulsion Ideas (Images)]


Hurling into space

A classical sling maintains a constant string length as its user whirls it faster and faster. The Slingatron is styled around a modified version with a constantly-extending string, but replaces the fragile string with a steel track. As the payload moves around the track, it increases speed until it reaches about 4 miles per second (7 km/s), fast enough to hurl it into low-Earth orbit.

The recent discussions on mining asteroids and manned missions to Mars bring with them the problems of launching sufficient supplies into space. Each increase in weight brings with it a significant increase in cost, making the possibility more daunting.

According to Adam Crowl of Icarus Interstellar, an international nonprofit group that aims to achieve interstellar flight by 2100, a number of designers have tackled the problem of sending bulk materials into orbit alone.

In reference to the Slingatron, Crowl, who is not involved in the project, said, "Such a launcher would be useful for all space missions requiring large amounts of materials in bulk, but able to be split up."

Objects launched by the Slingatron would reach high velocities, up to 60,000 times the gravitational force experienced by standing on the Earth's surface. As such, fragile objects (and people) would not be able to travel by Slingatron, and special g-hardened satellites would need to be developed.

But material launched by the Slingatron could be sent up rapidly. Faranetta and his team calculate that a single machine could make many thousands of launches per year.

"A Slingatron could lower the delivery cost of bulk materials to orbit — so long as they can be cheaply, quickly, and usefully gathered once there," Crowl said. [Images: Amazing Visions of Interstellar Space Travel]

With clever robotics and guidance systems, he thinks that it might make the concept of assembling spacecraft in orbit a more reasonable and attractive option for mission designers.

"Multi-part spacecraft are considered unattractive by present mission designers because launches get delayed, and so completing things to a schedule can't be guaranteed," Crowl said. "A Slingatron would allow rapid, frequent launches of smaller part, making on-orbit assembly a more reliable option."

Faranetta said that the Slingatron is a largely reusable space transportation system, with only a few components such as kickmotors that would need to be replaced over time. It doesn't require any future technology, but can be built with materials readily available today.

"We believe that a large-scale orbital launch Slingatron has the potential to be far cheaper per pound, provided that a Slingatron is used to support missions which require a high number of annual launches," Faranetta said.

In addition to on-orbit construction, HyperV Technologies foresees the Slingatron being helpful with the launch of satellite-based arrays, on-orbit refueling of launch vehicle stages, the delivery of radiation shielding for manned deep-space missions, the resupply of manned platforms, and the potential to provide planetary defenses by deflecting asteroids headed toward Earth.

The ability to launch a wealth of objects rapidly doesn't come without potential concerns.

"Irresponsibly launching too many 'throwaway' payloads into space would add to the space junk problem," Crowl said.

"But the Slingatron might encourage creative recycling of space junk, once on-orbit manufacturing is a growing concern, so it might help solve the problem rather than adding to it."

This artist's concept shows a smaller version of Hyper V Technologies Corp.'s Slingatron launch system for launching smaller payloads into space at higher velocities.
This artist's concept shows a smaller version of Hyper V Technologies Corp.'s Slingatron launch system for launching smaller payloads into space at higher velocities.(Image credit: Hyper V Technologies Corp.)
Derek Tidman first conceived of the idea in late 1994, after reading about experiments that used a two-stage light gas gun to accelerate a heavy projectile. He authored a textbook and published a number of studies on the Slingatron.

Two prototypes, the Mark I and Mark II, were constructed, and the company seeks to build a third, larger demonstration model, which they hope to use to increase interest in the final project. The company's Kickstarter page sought funding over the summer, but came in short of the its goal. Undeterred, HyperV has moved on to search for private investment capital for the Slingatron.

"The Slingatron is a logical outgrowth from the decades of research conducted by both Dr. Derek Tidman and Dr. Douglas Witherspoon [President and Chief Scientist of HyperV Technologies] in the area of hypervelocity launch," Faranetta said.


The two have worked on a number of projects that launch either plasma or a projectile at hypervelocity.

"A Slingatron's services need to be marketed aggressively to space mission planners, and more creative uses of small but frequent payloads needs to be on the mental horizon of potential space-entrepreneurs," Crowl said. "A successful demonstration would enable that, but so would a friendly regulatory environment and more real, lasting openness to new ideas in the world's space bureaucracies that are still the major customers."

https://www.space.com/23015-slingatron-reusable-launch-system.html

[red-beard]

Sammy, it will work and could solve some of the issues of an electric catapult.

Heinlein had some ideas in a linear unit, with a long slope to the top of a mountain in the 20,000 feet (6000 meters) or higher. Depending on the acceleration, the length would be 300+ miles long.

By using a giant cyclotron, you could reduce the distance. But there might be some issues with centripetal g-force, depending on the diameter. Exit velocity needs to be around 20,000+ mph (30,000+ kph) to both achieve low earth orbit and to get through the remaining atmosphere.

[sammyg2]

One day the kid is talking about maybe building a fleet of autonomous deep sea drones for the Scripps institute, the next about someday building a Buck Rodgers sling shot.
Makes me feel old.




Pretty sure this is them:

Spinlaunch is using large centrifuges to accelerate to payloads into space – target $500,000 per launch
Brian Wang | February 24, 2018

SpinLaunch is raising $30 million to use large centrifuges to power catapult to launch payloads into space. They use large centrifuges to store energy and will then rapidly transfer that momentum into a catapult to send a payload to space at up to 4,800 kilometers per hour (3,000 mph). If successful, the acceleration architecture is projected to be both lower cost and use much less power, with the price of a single space launch reduced to under US$500,000.

SpinLaunch was founded in 2014 by Jonathan Yaney, who previously started Titan Aerospace, a solar-powered drone company and subsequently sold it to Google. They raised $1 million in equity in 2014, the year SpinLaunch was founded, $2.9 million in equity in 2015, $2.2 million in debt in mid-2017 and another $2 million in debt in late 2017. SpinLaunch has raised a total of $10 million to date.

Last month, a bill was proposed in the Hawaii state senate to issue $25 million in bonds to assist SpinLaunch with “constructing a portion of its electrical small satellite launch system.”

SpinLaunch employs a rotational acceleration method, harnessing angular momentum to gradually accelerate the vehicle to hypersonic speeds. This approach employs a dramatically lower cost architecture with much lower power.” SpinLaunch is targeting a per-launch price of less than $500,000.

Based on Limited information – SpinLaunch appears to be the 1997 Derek Tidman Slingatron proposal

In 2013, there was an unsuccessful Kickstarter to fund the Slingatron. It was is a mechanical hypervelocity mass accelerator that has the potential to dramatically increase flight opportunities and reduce the cost of launching payloads into earth orbit, thus helping to make humanity a truly spacefaring species. The Slingatron technology can be incrementally grown in performance and size to ultimately launch payloads into orbit. The Kickstarter project goal is to build and demonstrate a modular Slingatron 5 times larger in diameter than the previous existing Mark 2 prototype. It will be used to launch in our laboratory a 1/4 pound payload to 1 kilometer/sec. That is about 2,237 mph. If launched straight up at that speed, a payload would reach an altitude of about 51 km, neglecting air resistance. This Kickstarter project is an important next step in the development of the Slingatron because it will provide vital technical information, practical experience, and cost data on what will be required to build a full-scale Slingatron orbital launch system in the future.

The Slingatron would not replace rockets. It would complements rockets, freeing them to launch what they launch best. Slingatron is best suited to launch bulk materials such as water, fuel, building materials, radiation shielding, g-load-hardened satellites, etc. into orbit. It cannot launch people or very delicate equipment due to high acceleration (g) loads experienced during the launch cycle. However, bulk materials will account for the majority of mass launched into orbit if we are ever going to establish a major presence in space, whether those materials are launched from the Earth or from the Moon.

Hyperv Technologies is also working on a version of nuclear fusion and minirailguns

A projectile of mass 500 kg could, for example, be accelerated in a slingatron of ring radius 640 meters (track width – 32 em) to a velocity of 8 km/sec. Its maximum centrifugal acceleration would be 10,000 g’s. If launched at an elevation angle of 30 degrees it could be inserted into LEO with a small rocket kick at apogee.

A much smaller scale test system would be a reasonable first step. For example, a slingatron of ring radius 40 meters could accelerate the same elongated projectile to 2 km/sec. If the projectile consisted of a light gas gun (LGG) which was encased for atmospheric transit (essentially an encased long steel tube), it could be launched vertically from the slingatron to an altitude of- 160 km, i.e., well above the atmosphere. At peak altitude th ~ LGG could then fire a small mass horizontally ~ 7.5 km/sec to the East into LEO, and then drop back via guided parachute to base for re-use. The mass in orbit would probably be too small to be useful in this case. However, this small ‘pop-up’ system could evolve into the full-scale sling launcher.

Nextbigfuture had coverage of small scale army funding of the potential of Slingatrons back in 2006.

In preparation for payload launch, the Slingatron is gradually gyrated up to approximately 40-60 cycles per second. Once the Slingatron track is cycling at launch speed, the payload module is released into the entrance of the track near the center of the rapidly gyrating spiral track. Once within the track, the payload module accelerates and quickly becomes phase-locked with the gyrating action of the entire platform as a result of the tremendous acceleration. The strong centrifugal force causes the payload module to continue accelerating throughout the spiral track. From the perspective of the payload module, it appears to be constantly sliding down a steep incline under a very high “gravitational force”, which is actually due to the centripetal acceleration. At high speed, the payload slides on a “plasma bearing” film that forms between the bottom of the payload and the surface of the steel track. This plasma bearing provides a very low coefficient of friction cushion which allows the rapid acceleration. When the payload reaches its launch velocity of about 7 km/sec in the last spiral turn, it then launches through a track angled up a hill or other structure to direct it into space.

How will a Slingatron launch payload into orbit?

Here is a conceptual overview of how a Slingatron would launch payloads into orbit:

* Satellites or a bulk cargo container are attached to a kick motor upperstage forming a payload module. The payload modules are then loaded into the launch rack at the center of the Slingatron spiral track.
* The Slingatron is gradually spun-up to a typical gyration speed of approximately 60 cycles per second. This is done over a period of minutes to ensure that all parts of the track are gyrating smoothly in phase.
* At the specified launch time, a Payload Module is released into the Slingatron spiral.
* The centripetal force from the gyrating Slingatron moves the payload module forward into the Slingatron track.
* The Payload Module rapidly accelerates under the tremendous centripetal force as it travels outward in the ever-expanding spiral track.
* The Payload Module exits the Slingatron at a velocity of about 4.3 miles/second(7 kilometers/second).
* The long thin Payload Module has an ablative nosecone which prevents thermal damage to the Payload Module during its brief (few seconds) flight through the dense layers of earth’s atmosphere.
* The Payload Module loses some velocity due to atmospheric drag. This is small compared to its overall launch velocity.
* The rocket motor upper stage on the Payload Module is fired near apogee (highest part of the parabola) to make up the velocity lost from atmospheric drag and to alter its trajectory into a circular orbit around the earth.
* Payload Modules that are not free-flying satellites are then captured in orbit by a robotic space tug and delivered to a central Payload Depot.

What are the disadvantages of a Slingatron orbital launch system?

* High peak g-loads of up to 40-60,000 g’s during launch limits the type and complexity of payloads that can be launched. Allowing larger diameter Slingatrons, however, can reduce these g-loads in direct proportion to the increase in diameter.

* Special g-hardened satellites will need to be developed for those applications requiring specialized satellite functionality.

* Non-satellite bulk payloads will most likely require orbital capture by a space tug and further processing at a supply depot on-orbit. The cost of these systems must be factored into the overall infrastructure cost of a large-scale orbital Slingatron launch system. These systems will presumably be reusable and enabled by the lower Slingatron launch costs.

* To reduce drag and heating during launch and the brief atmospheric transit, payload modules must be designed to be long and relatively small in diameter thin.
cont.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/spinlaunch-is-using-large-centrifuges-to-accelerate-to-payloads-into-space-target-500000-per-launch.html

[sammyg2]

cont:

Technical Objectives for the 2013 Slingatron Kickstarter

Our technical objectives for this Slingatron Kickstarter development project are to meet or exceed the following performance goals.

1) Slingatron proposed to design, construct, and test a Slingatron with a diameter of about 5 meters and capable of accelerating one pound payloads to 1 km/sec. They will need to achieve 40-60 cycles per second gyration frequency to accomplish this. They will only work with ¼ lb payloads during the basic Kickstarter project and for the demo event, but we will design and build the Slingatron so that later we can safely test launch one pound payloads. During these laboratory and demo tests, the payload will be captured in a tank.

2) They will design the 5-meter Slingatron as the core module of an expandable system to which additional modules can be added later to extend the performance to 2 km/sec or higher. This allows the investment in hardware provided by this Kickstarter project to leverage the construction of higher performance machines without having to start from scratch.

A 2013, 5 meter diameter Kickstarter Slingatron proposed to demonstrate launch of up to 1 lb test payloads at 1 km/sec. This is a fully modular approach, which can be further expanded to much larger systems.

The 5-meter diameter Kickstarter Slingatron will demonstrate launch of up to 1 lb test payloads at 1 km/sec. This is a fully modular approach, which can be further expanded to much larger systems.

Around 2006 the Army and Air force had magnetic catapult space launch funding

In 2006, the US army had some small funding for a Slingatron.

Initial studies have demonstrated the fundamental feasibility of the Slingatron concept. This program will explore the concept’s bounding limits and seek to develop uses for the technology within those limits. Included in this program will be studies of the key technologies that will allow the accelerator to achieve very high projectile energies.
The idea is a giant spiral Hula Hoop, somewhat bigger than a football stadium and oscillating at about nine revolutions a second.

Nextbigfuture noticed that the longer path in the Army design would allow for less extreme acceleration. (ie fewer G’s)

The program plans are nothing if not ambitious, aiming to:
– Fabricate experimental launchers.
– Demonstrate mass launchers that range in capabilities over three to four orders of magnitude.
– Demonstrate mass velocities on the order of several km/s and perhaps higher than 10km/s.

The Air force and Launchpoint are working on magnetic sled launch systems.

Before 2006, there was a $500,000 Phase II contract awarded from the U.S. Department of Defense Small Business Technology Transfer Program, LaunchPoint engineers, under the direction of Jim Fiske, evaluated an innovative magnetically-levitated space launch system.

The Launch Ring, as it is called, would accelerate a small payload within a subsurface magnetic tube until it reached escape velocity. At that point, the payload capsule would exit the ring onto an elevated ramp and be launched into orbit. The results of LaunchPoint’s R&D analyses suggest that a space launch system utilizing maglev technology could work very well, creating a more cost-effective means of launching small payloads into space.

[IROC]

In other crazy ways of getting things to space, I wasn't involved in this, but worked with the people who were:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

After the development of carbon nanotubes in the 1990s, engineer David Smitherman of NASA/Marshall's Advanced Projects Office realized that the high strength of these materials might make the concept of a space elevator feasible, and put together a workshop at the Marshall Space Flight Center, inviting many scientists and engineers to discuss concepts and compile plans for an elevator to turn the concept into a reality.

I was working for McDonnell Douglas as a contractor to MSFC at the time...

[kach22i]

Three dimensions (WxLxH.....XYZ coordinates) + Time as a 4th dimension, is what we know of.

Also known as a subspace of four dimensions with gravity as a force than can affect all of the above.

Big gravity of the universe verses small gravity holding atoms together, how could they possibly be the same force?

2016
Looking For Higher Dimensions In Gravity
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2016/04/26/looking-for-higher-dimensions-in-gravity/#5229f5d85df1

In the effort to unify the gravitational theory of general relativity with the quantum theory of the very small theoretical physicists explore a lot of wild ideas. One of these is the idea of higher dimensions. While we may live our lives in the three-dimensional volume of space and the temporal dimension of time, that may just be a fraction of the total number of dimensions the Universe has. Some models of string theory, for example, propose an eleven dimensional universe.

Cannot allow one's self to confuse dimensions with forces........or can we?

Forces within the Atom

[sammyg2]

I've had one of these demonstrators at work for years, people say huh?
Lenz's law:

[john70t]

Teleportation is real (for single particles):

https://www.rt.com/news/477026-quantum-chips-teleport-data/
Scientists from the University of Bristol and the Technical University of Denmark have created “chip-scale devices” that are able to utilize quantum physics to manipulate single particles of light. The team’s findings have been published in the journal Nature Physics.

In one of the experiments with the chips, described as a “breakthrough,” the researchers were able to demonstrate “the quantum teleportation of information” between two programmable devices for the very first time using a physical process known as “quantum entanglement.”
Also on rt.com Ghost post! Google creates world’s most powerful computer, NASA ‘accidentally reveals’ ...and then publication vanishes

This is a phenomenon in which two or more particles have a similar state, and a change in one means a change in another and the distance between the two is irrelevant.

“We were able to demonstrate a high-quality entanglement link across two chips in the lab, where photons on either chip share a single quantum state,” research co-author Dan Llewellyn said.

[GH85Carrera]

https://earthsky.org/space/betelgeuse-dimming-late-2019-early-2020-supernova

This would be a cool site! I hope it does go supernova in my lifetime. Well actually 642 years ago so I can see it now!

[jyl]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190617164642.htm
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/06/feeding-cows-seaweed-could-reduce-their-methane-emissions/

Including 1% of a particular type of seaweed in cow feed reduces cow-emitted methane by 75% or more. The active ingredient is bromoform. Methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 (37X more). Some reading I've done suggests that in the US, livestock's climate change effect is on the same order as the transportation sector. A chemist tells me that bromoform should be easy to synthesize, as an alternative to growing millions of tons of this type of seaweed. Since bromoform is probably something like 0.1% or less of seaweed, maybe the feed only has to be 0.001% bromoform, or the bromoform gets added to feed by the farmer.

Anyway, I am quite optimistic about the power of technology to address climate change, whether the climate change situation is as, more, or less serious as some think. Solar + wind + wave + energy storage, electric vehicles, seaweed for cows, carbon capture, even geo-engineering in space. I don't think we (humans) need to do everything necessary right now, just make a good start and then figure out how much and how to do more as we better understand how much more is needed.

[Pazuzu]

https://www.aura-astronomy.org/news/nsfs-newest-solar-telescope-produces-first-images/

New ultra-high resolution image and video (don't miss the video!) of the roiling surface of the Sun.