The Next Wireless Revolution, in Electricity : By TINA ROSENBERG : September 11, 2013
Great synopsis piece on how the spin offs of our mobile life is creating an underpinning for a financially, socially and ecologically sound human social revolution. Or at least that’s what we can hope for.

Antimatter in space flight relevant quantities in 5 years!? Hot stuff!

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

AUGUST 30, 2013 Care of: Carnival of Space #317 Billionaire Peter Thiel funds Positron Dynamics who are developing a 10 microgram per week antimatter factory

For planetary, early interstellar precursor and simple omniplanetary applications, ACMF (antimatter catalyzed fusion) exhibits the best performance. The reference case of a 1-year human round-trip mission to Jupiter with a 10 to 100 metric ton (mT) payload requires an antimatter quantity of 1 to 10 micrograms (μg). It appears as though this requirement could drop into the 1 to 10 ng range for payloads consistent with unmanned, planetary missions.

So fuel for a trip to Jupiter (in one year!) every week.

Spiders in Space! SpiderFab, a fabulous NASA initiative

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

3ders.org a great 3 D printing site has this up…..TUI, a space technology development company based in Bothell, WA is currently developing “SpiderFab” to provide order-of-magnitude packing- and mass- efficiency improvements over current deployable structures and enables construction of kilometer-scale apertures within current launch vehicle capabilities.

Trusselator

SpiderFab project (credit: Tethers.com)

Go NASA!

Here is the TUI SpiderFab site

And remember this, Lego for the MIT set

Sometimes you’ve got to do it yourself to get it right…

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Google is laying the groundwork to build its own self-driving car—without a major auto manufacturer as partner
By Christopher Mims August 23, 2013 Google Ventures reportedly invests $250 million in Uber By Jacob Kastrenakes on August 23, 2013
Just think……

The Tesla Model S Is So Safe It Broke the Crash-Testing Gear
BY DAMON LAVRINC 08.20.13 Tesla California sales beat Chrysler, Volvo, Cadillac, other big names
Electric car maker snatches 12 percent of luxury sports category in first half of 2013.
by Lee Hutchinson – Aug 23 2013 Will the success of Tesla’s Model S speed along a $35k model with a 200-mile range?
By Amir Iliaifar — August 13, 2013

Autonomous electric taxi’s ( call them Charles) can (like a regular taxi) drop off and pick up at the curb, dense pack park, and get a range extending charge…or go pick up another fare, while the original call is shopping, chatting, exercising, etc. They make a huge amount of sense for two user demographics, the elderly who are still able to get around but perhaps are no longer safe drivers or even more likely don’t want to or cannot justify owning a personal vehicle. Second, the urbanite non driver of whom their are many, Charles provides the same service the hordes of yellow taxis do today, with reduced emissions and probably cost along with improved safety. Charles can also provide a vastly more personalized limo type service to elder home clusters in the ‘burbs. Even for suburbanites Charles makes a one car or no car life style thinkable.

Dream Chaser you have to like the name

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Dream Chaser in a captive carry flight over the Mojave. (Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation

EDWARDS, Calif. (NASA PR) – NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) of Louisville, Colo., successfully completed a captive-carry test of the Dream Chaser spacecraft Thursday, Aug. 22, at the agency’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.

10 story Grasshopper does a little daring

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Slashgear.com : SpaceX Rasshopper aces side tracking reusable rocket test go check out the video at the link way cool as always!Even more exciting, there’s some more details on the next steps!

Of course, the system will have to go significantly higher if it’s to be of use to NASA. SpaceX plans to introduce a second version of Grasshopper – known as v1.1 – sometime after October 2013, which will stand 160 feet tall and use nine of the engines from the Falcon 9-R rocket, rather than Grasshopper v.1′s single engine.

When testing begins, Grasshopper v1.1 is expected to eventually fly to heights of 300,000 feet, launching from a specially constructed pad at Spaceport America, New Mexico.

WoT me worry?

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

From the Lebanese (you know, the Lebanon, between the Mediterranean, Syria and Israel), The Daily Star || Rami G. Khouri || Blame those who brought Al-Qaeda to life

Excellent short piece, I agree that the WoT (war on terror) has gone AWOL and the drone wars are nothing but a bloody patch, rapidly passing their use by date. Drones have been shown to be a fundamental game changer along with precision weapons but its still state sanctioned murder (with the unintentional slaughter of innocents reduced but not eliminated) at first and still when used appropriately as part of a strategy with operational planning and support tactics they were/are a success but today they are fireworks pressed up to make like policy.

Our strategic and operational thinking & planning long ago died a dusty death and now the wonks blow things up by the numbers…this is LBJ/McNamara’s #’s game bombing Vietnam all over again.

Don’t get me wrong I doubt we’re killing indiscriminately and our operators are doing the best they possibly can but without the proper and appropriate strategy, planning and tactics, we cannot win, we cannot kill our way out of this. I am concerned that like with antibiotics, misused medicine eventually makes the disease much more dangerous.