Electro-motive Force for Space Travel

My better half sent me an article on electro-motive force which was interesting enough but what I really enjoyed was the fact that it had links to youtube that started with bone conduction of audio ( which I have always found very interesting) which then had links to electric motive force as it applied to spacecraft and space travel. Check out the video link and I think that you might find it equally compelling.

Would You Travel to Space, Given the Chance?

Would You Travel to Space, Given the Chance?  The answer to that question would seem to be, at face value, an extremely simple one...duh  of course!  But it would seem that we are in the minority.  

Matt Novak writing for Gizmodo writes:

• Monmouth University in New Jersey has the new poll with the somewhat surprising results. When asked if they'd like to go to space with a private space company, a whopping 69 percent of Americans said that they wouldn't. Even if the company were offering the trips at absolutely no cost! Only 28 percent said they'd take the free trip.

Most Americans would not take the high road even for free?  So it would seem.   One might think that this would be a fairly recent phenomena but not so.  A Gallup poll from 1966 found that only   17% said that they would want to be on the first flight to the Moon.  

But not all is dark and gloomy.  Check out the rest of  Monmouth University's findings   HERE 

NASA's moon landing now out past 2020

Reading in the Guardian today concerning NASA's next planed Moon landing had been moved back to beyond 2020 from an internal date of 2018. Citing severe budget cutback from the previous administration for development of the Aries V heavy lifter, NASA administers say that ongoing and future research can not continue.

From my standpoint at least is is really starting to look like the next person to step on the Moon's surface will not be a NASA astronaut, but one of the other countries competing for the honor. There is every likelihood that it might even be a "private" consortium or company that might pull that hat trick. The Google Prize is still in play - so like the X prize, who is to say that the time for big government funded launches are at an end and the "for profit" business model may be heir apparent.

Theoretical Force Field Could Make Space Travel Safer.

One of the more daunting challenges to long term space travel and colonization are "cosmic rays" which are extremely dangerous and difficult to block. Now scientists at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the Universities of York, Strathclyde, and IST Lisbon have shown that it is possible to create portable, artificial magnetospheres. These would direct the solar wind away from spacecraft or other threatened area.

Science Daily notes that earlier computer simulations have been confirmed "in the laboratory in the UK using apparatus originally built to work on fusion. By recreating in miniature a tiny piece of the Solar Wind, scientists working in the laboratory were able to confirm that a small "hole" in the Solar Wind is all that would be needed to keep the astronauts safe on their journey to our nearest neighbors."

Now the next challenge is to make, and affordably power, a full scale model and make certain that it isn't itself a danger to astronauts.

<Science Daily via SF Signal>

Space radiation may cause prolonged cellular damage to astronauts

With major implications for long-duration space travel, a study from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center demonstrates that the high-energy radiation found in space may lead to premature aging and prolonged oxidative stress in cells. The findings suggest that astronauts may be at increased risk of colon cancer due to exposure to the high linear energy transfer (LET) radiation found in space.

“Radiation exposure, either intentional or accidental, is inevitable during our lifetimes,” says Kamal Datta, M.D., assistant professor at Lombardi and the study’s lead author. “But with plans for a mission to Mars, we need to understand more about the nature of radiation in space. There is currently no conclusive information for estimating the risk that astronauts may experience.” Full release