What's New August 27, 2009

Nuclear Fusion, everyone is trying to develop it. We are led to believe that it is years away of being used practically and yet, it seems that secret US Navy research has shown that it may be practical to start using it in the very near future. A new company called General Fusion says that they used this research and figured out how to create safe nuclear fusion. We know that other people and companies have said this before, especially in the case of cold fusion, but have failed. This company has developed a system that uses acoustic shock waves that are generated by a sort of engine that has 220 pistons. The pistons are said to be precisely tuned for the job. The US Navy research project was called Linus. Why is it that this old research is being resurrected and what makes this company feel that they can now make the whole thing work? They say it is because digital processing has moved forward to a point where it can be be reliably used.

Graphic Source: EPA

Would you like to become a millionaire and do you have some free time on your hands? If you are clever enough and know enough about aircraft design you can try and get the 1.5 million dollars that NASA is offering to anyone who can design an aircraft that can get 200 miles per gallon of fuel. There is one catch however, the aircraft has to be able to maintain 100 miles per hour and fly 200 miles. That means you can fuel up with your one gallon of fuel and try and fly almost twice the distance from New York City to Philadelphia, or some equivalent distance. Remember this, the best aircraft engineers have yet to accomplish this, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. On the other hand, Americans have a history of inventing things in their garages that have astounded the world.

A man without formal aircraft design training has invented a totally new type of plane. It seems to unite the traditional type of aircraft with a circular UFO like design. It is very maneuverable and the body provides lift, unlike most planes where only the wings do that. Only a model exists right now, but it was brought to a university to be tested and here is the video of the craft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKiQqORDnJQ

Ion Engine
Photo Source: NASA

Many different forms of propulsion have been proposed for gaining the ability to travel throughout the solar system in a reasonable amount of time. Some have employed a stream made of particles and others explosions by shooting exploding pellets out the rear of the ship. In the pellet version it has been suggested that mini atomic explosions be used to increase ship velocity. While this might work, I say might, because the ship would have to be made of extremely strong construction, we would be contaminating space with the radiation. This is such a disgusting thought, but knowing what we have done to our planet, it wouldn't surprise me if we were even secretly using a system like this right now to fly around out there. Anyway the newest Ion engine is almost ready to be used and that engine is said to be capable of taking us anywhere in the solar system. It is now being said that the new engine will be able to get people to Mars in about 39 days. The further the trip, the faster the ship goes before it reaches its speed limit, since the engine builds up speed as the ship travels, so you get more of a benefit on a distant trip. The newest ION engine is called VASIMR or Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket. When this engine is compared to former ION engines, it is over 100 times more powerful. In order to accomplish this, it heats gas to over one million degrees.

Right now, medical device companies are trying their hardest to develop a device that will be able to diagnose any health problem. This device is considered the holy grail of medicine. None have been developed yet, but you never know what may happen in a few years. We have to remember that anything that involves computers is advancing at a break neck pace and medical devices are no exception. Who would have thought a few years ago that X-Rays would be able to be seen on computer screens thousands of miles away from where the pictures were taken? It is being said that the demand for medical devices that can do more and take less space is a challenge to companies building these devices.

Joint Strike Fighter
Photo Source: USAF

A report is out that states that America is developing a new fighter plane for the British Military. Unfortunately for the US, the plane that was the basis for this, is the American Joint Strike Fighter. I say unfortunately, because the computer system was hacked and the plans for America's most expensive fighter plane ever are now in the hands of unknown persons and countries. An unknown source says that the intruders were able to steal several terabytes of information that were related to the design and electronics system. It seems that every time we spend billions of dollars to design a new weapon, spies or hackers get our designs and plans. If we truly have a space plane I guess we can take this type of hit, but it almost seems pointless to develop these things if we can not protect them. I guess we can expect to see copies of the plane hit the air in a few years and systems to protect against it come out even sooner.

For some time now, some people have been saying that there are machines orbiting the earth that are not from this world. An amateur astronomer has found a way of increasing the effectiveness of his small telescope so that he could photograph some of these objects and he was harassed for it. To see the photos and his story copy and paste the following link into your browser's address bar:* http://www.nogw.com/download/_07_orbiting_machines.pdf

The above article is in the form of a PDF file.

As I write this article, our representatives in Washington are fighting to the death over the proposals for universal health insurance. Some are tired of seeing over 45 million people without insurance and state that we are all paying for them anyway, because every time they go to the hospital and don't pay, our insurance rates go up and since they don't get the preventative care that many of the insured do get, they are more likely to become sick. Others argue that many of the uninsured can afford insurance, but don't get it because they can get treated for free. As this fight rages on, I am reminded of all the companies that claim that insurance premiums for their employees have reached 30% of their total cost. There is no doubt that if we want to remain competitive with the rest of the world, these companies need relief. Those that can afford insurance should either have to buy it or be assessed the cost of their treatment. As for the rest of the 34 million uninsured, if getting them insurance makes them healthier, we all gain.

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