For a planetarium program intended to show possible future NASA exploration directions, Home Run Pictures was tasked with creating plausible human habitats on the various planets and moons in the Solar System. Engineering concepts required understanding of the environments and the structures or spacecraft necessary for longer term human survival. Avoiding being too science fiction was difficult at times. The surface of Venus is a rough environment with temperatures and pressures at the extreme. But the dense atmosphere seems to allow the possibility of “floating” a space station hanging below some sort of blimp-like structure. An attempt at using what would look like modular structures, similar to what has been used with the International Space Station was implemented. A circular structure was used to keep the station in balance in the turbulent Venusian upper atmosphere with a long strut hanging down from the center to help stabilize the craft and provide mounting points for various experimental packages and docking ports for shuttles or exploratory probes. Small shuttles would drop into the upper atmosphere delivering cargo and personnel. When the station’s scientists desire to dive deeper into the Venus atmosphere for exploration, shuttles that lean more towards the submersibles used for Earth ocean exploration are used. The Venusian atmosphere is very dense and the pressure would crush anything but craft that are constructed like submarines with reinforced portholes instead of windows. Instead of using rocket power for maneuvering, the shuttle/submersible vehicles use large turbo-fan like engines. Everything needs to be constructed of cororsive-resistent materials to survive the acidic Venusian atmosphere. Scientists theorize that massive lighting events would be the norm and electronic and digital hardware would need to be insulated from the extreme electrical environment.
Category: engineering – Page 261
Scientists plan to build human genome from scratch
Efficiency trends in DNA sequencing (green) and synthesis of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA, blue) and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA, red) over the past ~35 years. The disruptive improvement in sequencing and ssDNA (oligonucleotides) synthesis technologies has improved from multiplex and miniaturization technologies in high-throughput DNA sequencing and oligo microarray technologies, respectively. (credit: Jef D. Boeke et al./Science)
Leading genomics experts have announced Genome Project-write (HGP-write), which aims to synthesize entire genomes of humans and other species from chemical components and get them to function in living cells.
As explained in Science, the goal of HGP-write is to reduce the costs of engineering large genomes, including a human genome, and to develop an ethical framework for genome-scale engineering and transformative medical applications.
$17M to shape the future of music
Very cool!
Schulich’s Music Multimedia Room has been used as a laboratory for CIRMMT and a favourite recording studio for orchestra-size ensembles since the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building opened in 2005.
By Lev Bratishenko.
The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), established by McGill, Université de Montréal and Université de Sherbrooke in 2000, is known for its virtual acoustics work. Some Montreal concertgoers will recall their rare and memorable concerts where the room’s acoustics change at the push of a button. But CIRMMT’s many projects also include research on engineering, information technology, the science of music performance and expanded musical practice.
How We Want to Turn Asteroids Into Spacecraft
It’s funny, because even in the space industry, it isn’t every day that you get to work on a really far reaching idea. At Made In Space the vast majority of our engineering energy goes to concepts that will be operational hardware within 5 years. We like to talk about the future a lot, and there is a great deal of whiteboard engineering of what space colonies will look like or what the constraints to manufacturing on Enceladus would be. But we don’t usually get to work directly on the long term stuff. Thanks to the NIAC program, we’ll be doing some of that work.
NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program awards research grants with the intent of studying out-of-the-box ways that space exploration might be done differently. Most of the focus is longer horizon stuff that would be operational on 10+ year timescales. Made In Space recently proposed a new vision for exploring and using asteroids and was awarded a NIAC grant. This is what we proposed.
Elon Musk goes on a ‘machines building machines’ rant about the future of manufacturing
Tesla’s 2016 Shareholders Meeting yesterday was an unusual one. CEO Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel were on stage for close to 4 hours and went through the bulk of Tesla’s history – recounting stories from the early days with longtime employees of the automaker.
We already reported on important nuggets of information the execs released about the Gigafactory and the Model 3 during the event, but what probably stands out the most from the event – from my perspective at least – is Musk’s rant about the importance of the “machine that makes the machine.”
The CEO said that he recently – in the last 2 or 3 months – came to the realization that the potential for improvement is at least a factor of 10 greater in manufacturing vehicles than in the actual vehicle engineering.
Finding a New Formula for Concrete
Researchers at MIT are seeking to redesign concrete — the most widely used human-made material in the world — by following nature’s blueprints.
In a paper published online in the journal Construction and Building Materials, the team contrasts cement paste — concrete’s binding ingredient — with the structure and properties of natural materials such as bones, shells, and deep-sea sponges. As the researchers observed, these biological materials are exceptionally strong and durable, thanks in part to their precise assembly of structures at multiple length scales, from the molecular to the macro, or visible, level.
From their observations, the team, led by Oral Buyukozturk, a professor in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), proposed a new bioinspired, “bottom-up” approach for designing cement paste.
Engineering nanodevices to store information the quantum way
Wonderful! We’re well on our way of making QC more available on many devices in the near future.
Creating quantum computers which some people believe will be the next generation of computers, with the ability to outperform machines based on conventional technology—depends upon harnessing the principles of quantum mechanics, or the physics that governs the behavior of particles at the subatomic scale. Entanglement—a concept that Albert Einstein once called “spooky action at a distance”—is integral to quantum computing, as it allows two physically separated particles to store and exchange information.
Stevan Nadj-Perge, assistant professor of applied physics and materials science, is interested in creating a device that could harness the power of entangled particles within a usable technology. However, one barrier to the development of quantum computing is decoherence, or the tendency of outside noise to destroy the quantum properties of a quantum computing device and ruin its ability to store information.
Nadj-Perge, who is originally from Serbia, received his undergraduate degree from Belgrade University and his PhD from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He received a Marie Curie Fellowship in 2011, and joined the Caltech Division of Engineering and Applied Science in January after completing postdoctoral appointments at Princeton and Delft.