A big day at the Cape...

Today will be awesome when United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy takes off from Cape Canaveral this afternoon. This is the largest payload rocket in current operation. The launch is scheduled for 1:59 PM EDT but there is a small possibility for delay due to Lightning.  Keeping fingers crossed.

Here is a link to the Launch on the ULA site:

http://www.ulalaunch.com/delta-iv-heavy-to-launch-nrol37.aspx

Here is a link to the webcast:

http://www.ulalaunch.com/webcast.aspx

Can't wait to see it!\

UPDATE:  Unfortunately the weather refused to cooperate and they had to postpone the launch.  They have a 48 hour recycle time so the next attempt will be on Saturday the 11th.

ORBCOMM-2 Full Launch Webcast

Congratulations SpaceX on a successful launch and landing ushering in a new era of space exploration!

Stored Solar Energy: Elon Musk style

So, Elon Musk held a news conference last night and announced that he has a new division of his Tesla Motors company called Tesla Energy. This division will produce a new wall-mounted lithium-ion electric battery, powered by solar panels for the home and small business market. He is calling the system The Tesla Powerwall. He also talked about a larger version for utility scale use called the Tesla Powerpack. I certainly applaud his innovation and his efforts to try and reduce or eliminate the CO2 produced from power plants, but there is a part of the plan that concerns me.

 My concern is with the use of Lithium-Ion batteries. Lithium is already a hot commodity with the high demand for all of the rechargeable batteries in our electronic devices. Another issue is the production of Lithium produces toxic waste materials that must be dealt with. While it certainly looks good on paper, I wonder if having people unplug from the electric utilities will put our infrastructure in jeopardy. Less people requiring less energy from the electric companies means less money available to maintain the existing infrastructure.

 I have always been a proponent of utility scale solar chimney power plants. Sure, they aren't revolutionary, nor are they a product that can be sold to consumers individually, but producing electricity with almost no environmental impact surely seems the best option for utilizing the vast amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth on a daily basis. The operation of the plants produces no waste products as they operate on simple thermodynamics. They can be scaled and adapted to run 24 hours a day.

The biggest hurdles are the cost of the initial construction and the large footprint they require to be effective. I personally believe these are not true hurdles, but mere bumps in the road towards energy sustainability.

Being 'disruptive' is a good thing!

I remember in school that anyone who didn't sit down and follow the rules was labeled as a disruptive student. Anyone who caused us to question what we were told to do or why we had to do it was considered a disruptive force. We were led to believe that being disruptive was a bad thing. I've now come to believe that being disruptive is a good thing!

According to the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary Disrupt means

to cause (something) to be unable to continue in the normal way : to interrupt the normal progress or activity of (something)

True innovators are disruptive forces.  They question the status quo and look beyond what we can currently do to see and strive for more.  Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Fathers, Thomas Edison. These were all disruptive people who challenged what was and pursued what could be.

Part of the reason for my change of heart is a blog post Peter Diamandis of XPrize and Singularity University sent out this past weekend as part of his newsletter. The part of the post that hit me the hardest was when he talked about how it takes courage to be disruptive. Dan Sullivan's 4 C's.  Let me quote this for you:

The first is to make a commitment.
This commitment gives you the willpower and energy you need for the second C: courage.
With commitment and courage, you have the power to create capability.
And finally, armed with commitment, courage and capability, you then have confidence to execute your vision.

 This makes perfect sense to me and I see it with regard to all great innovators.  They had committed themselves to make a change, had the courage to forge ahead. They created the capability to make the change and had the confidence to execute that change, no matter what it was.

In his newsletter Peter put forth the example of 3D printing which is currently in the disruptive phase. Truthfully the origins of 3D printing goes back 35 years and it is only through persistence and courage that it has reached the success it has and it is predicted to approach $5 Billion in sales in the next 2 years.

So, will you simply follow the status quo or will you be a disruptive force in the world?

Analysis of Solar Chimney Power plants

Previously I wrote a short post about how much I like the idea of Solar Chimney Power Plants here. Since then I have been scouring the interweb looking for news, articles and studies regarding these types of plants and I have to say I'm disheartened at the lack of material available.  There have been a couple of papers written (the newest I found was 2012) and there had been news of a plant that was being built in Arizona and another in Australia, but neither of these appear to be progressing.

A recent article on the National Geographic site talks about a possible alternative to a rigid concrete tower that record holding balloonist Per Lindstrand has proposed where the tower is built of fabric at a significant savings. This would be exceptional if it can be done.

According to published reports a Solar Updraft power plant in the 200 MW (megawatt) range would have a tower approximately 1 km tall (1000 M or 3280 feet) and a collector surface area approximately 7000M in diameter.  That is a huge area to place under a roof. (approximately 9500 acres)

The 2 biggest challenges are obtaining that amount of land and building the tower that tall.  Neither of these is insurmountable but both are expensive!  The idea of the plant is that it would be built ion land unsuitable for other purposes, which is in its favor.  Deserts are the best places for this type of plant.  The fact that it doesn't use any water in the production of electricity is also ideal for the desert environment.

There is currently a pilot plant operating in China.  It is privately owned and funded, but seems to be having its own challenges.  According to the article, it has issues with glass in the collector breaking from the heat and the tower is too short to be efficient.  Despite these issues, the plant is in operation and generating electricity.

I really do think these plants make a lot of sense as they are environmentally friendly, consuming no resources during operation nor producing and waste products including CO2.  There is also no need of many rare elements nor a sophisticated production facility needed to produce components.  There is also no need to deal with excessive heat nor cooling.

One other idea is the tower itself could become an attraction with the addition of an elevator and an observation deck on the top.  this would provide an additional revenue stream for the plant.

This is a technology and a method of producing electricity that must be utilized!

A successful Falcon 9 V1.1 Launch

Spacex successfully launched their Flacon 9 V1.1 at 22:41 UTC from Cape Canaveral on December 3.



It was a sight to see and well done getting their first commercial satellite, SES8 into it's proper orbit.  this was a major milestone and one that finally went off after previous issues had aborted the launch.

Well done Spacex!

Maybe today

Spacex Aborted the second launch attempt on Friday due to an issue with Oxygen in the igniter fluid that is used to ignite the Merlin Engines.  They are doing a scrub down of the components and have said that a new attempt will be Monday Evening at the earliest.  I hope they can get the launch off successfully as this is a major cusp for the Space Company.

If all goes well and they are able to overcome these technical issues, this will be a very big win for the corporation.  If they do not manage to successfully launch, then this may be the first tolling of their death bell.  It would only take one catastrophic failure to shut them down completely.

Personally I am hoping that this launch is a success and that they are able to learn from the issues they've had.  We need Spacex and other companies like them in order to truly open space to the public.One encouraging note is that China has successfully launched its own Moon Rover over the weekend, but what worries me is that if there aren't commercial, public companies making successful launches to space, then the Chinese government will take over and control access to space.

What I find interesting is thinking about the series Firefly and how that showed that space was actually opened up by a combination of English and Chinese endeavors and a new language was created which had elements of both languages.  I could easily see this as happening.

UPDATE:  The launch will be Tuesday 5:41 PM ET with Wednesday as a fall back.

So Excited - Spacex Launch

Ok, so I was browsing the Spaceports blog and was excited to see that there was a launch scheduled this afternoon of a Falcon 9 rocket to GEO transfer orbit.  This is the next big step for SpaceX and I tuned in to see that the countdown was put on hold at T minus 6:11.  There appears to be a problem with the transfer to internal power.  So far they have not scrubbed the launch today as they have a 66 minute window in which they could launch and are only about 20 minutes into that window at this time.

They just made an announcement that they could recycle the count back to T minus 13:00 and restart and successfully launch yet today.  This essentially means they have about 30 minutes to troubleshoot and correct the issue to get this launched today.

UPDATE:  After approximately 11 minutes the countdown clock was recycled to 18:25 and after verifying all systems were ready, the count was restarted.  They are planning on stopping at T minus 13:00 if necessary.

UPDATE #2:  The count was held again at t minus 3:40.  Not sure what the issue was at that point, but appeared to be an issue with the first stage LOX as it vented a lot just before the hold.

UPDATE #3: Launch window for today has closed.  They will recycle and trouble shoot and hopefully try to launch again tomorrow.

UPDATE #4:  Nope, the launch was rescheduled for Thanksgiving day at 5:38 PM EST.

The Incredible Bionic Man

I was on You Tube the other day and came across an episode on the Smithsonian Channel called "The Incredible Bionic Man."  I was blown away at the current state of the art in prosthetics.  Unfortunately I can't embed the video here, but here is the link:

http://youtu.be/DfUvdKNvpQs

Some very interesting stuff, especially the new artificial ankles!

One package has arrived

from Sculpteo.  Funny how the company in France was able to print and ship these before the company in the US.  Anyway this is what arrived in the package:

These look good, if a little smaller than I thought they would be.  I like the way they stack, but the tabs and holes are working quite as well as I had hoped for the alignment of the blocks when placed on a 45 degree corner.  Have to see how the Shapeways ones look...

Shapeways vs. Sculpteo

Well, I managed to get a 3D model of my building blocks put together (Thanks Paul) and I've turned to 2 online services to get some of them 3D printed.

The 2 services I decided to use, primarily based upon price, were Shapeways and Sculpteo.  I was able to easily upload the 3D model to both sites and with just a few clicks to choose the material and finish was able to order the model to be printed.

The prices on both sites are very similar and competitive.  The main difference for now is the delivery times.  Shapeways estimated a delivery of 10/30 to 11/1 and Sculpteo a delivery of 10/25.

Once the respective models are received, I will be reviewing them in more detail.

Grasshopper hops over 2400'

This is amazing!  Spacex' Grasshopper spaceship takes off vertically, rises over 2400' in the air and then lands vertically back on the same launch pad.  The whole flight is incredible, but even more so when you realize that Grasshopper is 10 stories tall!

Here is a the video:

A better building block?

Its no secret that I love castles and would love to build my own some day.  I have been thinking about the best way to accomplish this and came to realize that quarrying stone for the outer and inner walls would be very labor intensive and very expensive. I then started thinking about creating a castle from cement blocks.  Now I would think your standard cement building block just isn't very attractive and the need for all the mortar in the joints and the fact that it has fairly thin walls limits how high you can stack it as well as how stable it can be.

Now one way to combat this is to include some type of internal rebar structure and fill the block with cement, but that just doesn't seem like the best way to go to me.  I was thinking more along the lines of interlocking cement blocks with hollow cores, but much thicker and sturdier than the blocks currently used.

So I've been doing a bit of sketching and came up with this idea:

As you can see this block is base don a hexagonal design and the protruding "tab" on the top would slip into the bottom of the next row effectively locking them into place.  One thing I liked about this design is the ability to stack these at a 45 degree angle, not just at 90 degrees.  One thing I dislike with the design is the perceived weak spot in the center of the block, so I did another revision:

This block feels much sturdier to me and still allows for stacking on the diagonal if the unneeded corners are cut.  This would produce a very sturdy wall indeed.  I am thinking about this block being 6 inches high x 12 inches deep x 24 inches long and the top tabs 2 inches high.

My next move is going to be to try and create a 3D drawing of both block to see about getting them printed via a 3-D printing service such as shapeways.com in order to play with them and see how well they can stack, etc.  My only issue at this point is learning an acceptable software package in order to create the necessary drawing to get it printed.

Anyone happen to be handy with 3D modeling software?

Any ideas or feedback is definitely welcome!

Solar Chimney Power Plant

The idea of producing electricity from sunlight isn't new.  Typically most people think about photo-voltaic cells when thinking about solar power, but I like this idea much better: a solar updraft chimney power plant.  Less rare elements, simple, proven technology just applied in a new configuration.

The concept is that you create a greenhouse area under glass that contains air that is heated by the sun.  Heated air likes to rise, so with a sloped roof and a tall chimney, the air is directed into central turbines that the flowing air turn to create electricity.  Very few moving parts.  Very low operating costs.  No fuel costs.

The biggest problems with this type of a power plant are the initial costs to build it, needing a large area of land to house it and finding the right location.  None of these are insurmountable issues if there are people who look to the future.

Here is a clean form of electricity production that doesn't created harmful emissions, it doesn't involve hazardous chemicals or rare elements in its manufacture and it had a lifespan of many decades.  These would ideally be placed in areas that are underdeveloped to take advantage of the abundant sunshine.  They could become tourist destinations as well.

Some critics have voiced the objection that these plants are unreliable - only producing electricity during daylight hours, but this is not true.  Because the plant works off the difference in temperature of the air underneath the greenhouse and the outside air, a thermal layer of encapsulated water on the floor of the greenhouse would provide 24 hour energy production.

Why aren't we building these today?????

A Place for Technology

There are many items that intrigue me in the world of technology - from Space to building blocks to Alternative Energy to phones.  Here I will discuss some of those things I find intriguing and hopefully find others with the same interests.