Image: This artist’s conception illustrates what brown dwarfs of different types might look like to a hypothetical interstellar traveler who has flown a spaceship to each one…. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
There are a class of celestial objects much heavier than our systems Jupiter but about the same size. They are not really planets just balls of dense hot gas, but they are not really stars because they lack the mass to collapse and heat their core to ignite sustained fusion. These Brown Dwarves are probably one of the most common objects in our universe but little is known about them because until recently they were essentially impossible to find. With new tools and new techniques this fascinating class of in between are coming into focus.
“Thus, gene therapy treatment of only a few nervecells stimulated the axonal regeneration of various nerve cells in the brain and several motor tracts in the spinal cord simultaneously,” says Dietmar Fischer. “Ultimately, this enabled the previously paralyzed animals that received this treatment to start walking after two to three weeks. This came as a great surprise to us at the beginning, as it had never been shown to be possible before after full paraplegia.”
The proposed Juno extended mission (EM) would take advantage of the natural northward progression of the periapsis of the spacecraft’s orbit and the consequent lowering of spacecraft altitudes over Jupiter’s high northern latitudes. The EM would run until the end of the mission, with an expected duration of approximately four years. Under the High and Medium Scenarios, propulsive maneuvers would be utilized not only to target Jupiter-crossing longitude and perijove altitude, as during the prime mission, but also to target close flybys of Ganymede, Europa, and Io. The flyby maneuvers would act to shorten the spacecraft orbital period, yielding more close passes of Jupiter within a given time interval, and increase the rate of northward movement of spacecraft perijove. Under the Low scenario for EM operation, the satellite gravity assists and close satellite flybys would not be attempted.
from the Senior Review
Exciting new data from Jupiter inbound over the next 5 years. Just in time for this….
So the Naval Strike Missile, a middle weight anti ship missile will be mounted on an Amphib to provide integral defense and a little bit of offense capacity. The main purpose of this deployment is for experimentation with the fleet, to see if it changes the nature of the game when at sea. The Amphib is a big ship but is in essence a sea going ferry for the marines, a fast freighter. But these ships are big and impressive and sometimes used to show the flag. They have defensive weapons but nothing to ‘shoot the archer’ usually that is left to an escort. Having some rounds on board would change the dynamics and utility perhaps in a positive way.
While the preliminary deployment will have the missile amidships like a warship might. But the missile could be mounted on a truck that is being transported, just drive it out onto the flight deck, lock it down and shoot. With all sorts of truck mounted ordinance such as Hellfire, 155mm Cannons, HIMARS GPS Guided Rockets, there are a lot of options that this could provide for protection or force projection.
With the continued growing cost of specialized warships this sort of flexible tactical utilization looks like a good use of modern precision weapons. One can and should argue that it does not provide any kind of one for one replacement for a warship. But is a warship; a frigate, destroyer, cruiser… really what we need? Maybe its a combination of gnat weight autonomous missile slingers supporting heavy flex fighters like this Amphib.
Our World In Data chart, via SingularityHub By Jason Dorrier – Dec 13, 2020This has been in the news but discounted in some ways utility side issues still make this a success story the utilities could do without. A couple of general downside views. Solar modules are a troubling refuse stream until recycling tech hits new highs. The cell modules wear out over time, the wear out and $payback often overlap in the wrong way. Both of these issues should ease in the coming years but you cannot discount them yet. Still this is amazing and it seemed obvious at least 5 years ago, nice that it kept on trend.
A really cool concept. Miniature walking rovers that can explore tiny spaces, a single test to the moon this year with plans for swarms (small ones) in the not too distant future. Tbe video animation from Spacebit is worth a couple of minutes.
Boston Dynamics Atlas doing parcur from an article in The Verge
The Boston Dynamics robots are at the point that they can do most things a human can in regards to locomotion. It is unclear how much beyond balance and moving is local to the robots as the thoroughly bounded arena makes clear but the basics of the body frame is there. Ability to manipulate the environment other than in the most basic way has not been demonstrated by Boston Dynamics but other companies are making huge strides in manipulators. Ability to sense and understand the environment is another huge step. Except that the sensors exist (autonomous cars etc). Leaving understanding the environment beyond a very limited ‘world.’ And that takes a brain, and that seemed a long way off….except is it?
From the article The picture above shows an inverted dome with a waterfall at is base pouring water into another circular waterfall. An interesting visual metaphor for the reinforced learning of many modern AI systems.
GPT3 would appear to be on the threshold of general purpose artificial intelligence. In the article it is noted that GPT3 is a brain in a box with no ability to sense or manipulate the environment without human intervention. But ‘wrapping’ those abilities ‘around’ GPT3 appears all but trivial. Given its ability to learn on its own would a Boston Dynamic’s wrapped GPT3 become something close to the robot of our dreams and nightmares. It certainly appears so.
Atlas’s is battery powered, I think, to the tune of an hour or so. GPT3 is instantiated on a huge computer network but both of those limitations are receding every day as computing power and battery storage continue to improve driven by their broad application across the tech scene.
Five years from now it would seem likely that the general purpose android robot will be a real thing. If built in quantity like say a Tesla 3 are you looking at $30K a pop? What does that lead to?
I want to make sure they understand that I for one welcome our dancing robot overlords.
An act of cyberwar is usually not like a bomb, which causes immediate, well-understood damage. Rather, it is more like a cancer – it’s slow to detect, difficult to eradicate, and it causes ongoing and significant damage over a long period of time. Here are five points that cybersecurity experts – the oncologists in the cancer analogy – can make with what’s known so far.
Description of who, how, what at least in general terms and a thoughtful overview of how to start thinking about the impact and meaning.
To me this attack seems just part of the reality we live in. As discussed in Modes of War, this is one of the modern modes that are more about gains and pains than blood and gore. This sort of strike, ignored and multiplied, could bring a nation down and given the context of reality today, direct kinetic action is highly unlikely.
Sunrise at Boca Chica, SN9 on Launch Mount B being readied for the test campaign. Thanks to Mary and all the gang for keeping me sane.
So one of the things that has kept me a little bit sane this last 9 months is SpaceX, Starship, and 24 Falcon launches… All I have to say is WOW and thank you Elon!
I’m in the periphery of the electric car business and have been for over twenty years now. The only thing that made me a believer was Tesla.
I’ve been watching space since I sat in front of the telly as Armstrong stepped off the lunar lander. The first time I believed that the final frontier finally within grasp was watching SpaceX doggedly pursuing landing Falcon boosters.
I’ve been a big believer in sub surface transportation, in particular for cargo and rapid medium distance, since high school! And the first time I saw it really taken seriously was Elon’s Boring Company.
It is really hard to think of another great innovator who had such a broad impact in the world. Brunel maybe (Victorian England) Edison, Tesla, Marconi, the Wrights, Sikorsky, Johnson…they all did great things only Brunel had as broad as Elon Musk. Maybe some of the other engineer entrepreneurs of the 1850’s to 1950’s working in what would become industrial powerhouses might have been similar but a different time and public culture hid them…maybe it’s just that Elon’s working today and as a geek I gravitate to him and the search engines feed my observer bias.
This World and Others 