39 Days to Mars

Breakthrough in plasma rocket engine technology drastically cuts transit times to the Red Planet from six months to less than six weeks

A new breakthrough in space propulsion technology could one day power spacecrafts to reach Mars in just 39 days, instead of the gruelling six months it takes to reach the Red Planet. Scientists have tested a powerful new ion engine that works with plasma at temperatures close to the interior of the Sun.

On Wednesday, Ad Astra, a US-based corporation ran its VX-200 engine with a superconducting magnet, which helps the engine process large amounts of plasma power. The company’s founder Chang Diaz claims that the engine is the most powerful plasma rocket in the world, and that it could transport payloads in space far more efficiently and economically than today’s chemical rockets.

The company had signed an agreement on Wednesday to commence testing the VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) engine in 2013 on the International Space Station (ISS). The 200 kilowatt ion engine could by used by NASA to maintain the ISS’s altitude and orbit.

Conventional thrusters aboard the ISS consume 7.5 tonnes of fuel ever year, Chang said that the VASIMR rocket would require only 0.3 tonnes of fuel, saving millions of dollars in operational costs.

100 TIMES MORE POWERFUL

While chemical rockets are effective in giving the initial thrust to push the rocket off the Earth’s surface, trip times and payload mass are major limitations of conventional rockets.

Ion engines provide much less thrust, but once in space, they can give a continuous push for years, accelerating gradually, eventually  moving faster than normal rockets.

VASIMR works something like a steam engine, with the first stage performing a duty analogous to boiling water to create steam. In the second phase,  it uses a radio frequency generator to reach power levels a hundred times as higher than conventional ion engines.

“Preliminary data indications point to operation well within the design specifications.” said Dr Jared P Squire, leader of the experimental team conducting the tests. The company envisions the technology to reduce maintenance costs of space stations, satellites, lunar outposts and fuel depots. The engines could also reduce transit times for robotic and human missions to Mars and beyond.

AS HOT AS THE SUN
The VASIMR engine works with plasma, electrically charged fluids that can be heated to temperatures close to the interior of the Sun. Plasmas can be controlled and guided by strong magnetic fields, which can be used to insulate the structure. Temperatures well beyond the melting point of materials can be achieved while maintaining safely of the aircraft.

Why 'bomb' the moon?

Find out all you need to know of why US space agency NASA plans to crash two spacecraft into Moon

Scientists hope to make a splash by “bombing” the Moon with two spacecraft on Thursday. The plan is to slam the projectiles into a dark crater at the lunar south pole, kicking up a six-mile high dust cloud that may contain water.

British researchers helped Nasa pick the spot for the drama, which will be broadcast live on the American space agency’s website.

The Cabeus south polar region was identified by the University of Durham team as a site with high concentrations of hydrogen - a key component of water.

Search of water ice

It is believed water ice could lie at the bottom of dark craters at the Moon’s poles, where temperatures are lower than minus 170C.

The crashing spacecraft consist of an orbiter, LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), which is now mapping the lunar surface, and its 2.2 tonne empty Centaur launch rocket.

Both are currently on collision course with the Moon and still attached together.

In the early hours, British time, the probe and rocket will separate. Then at 12.31pm the larger rocket will smash into the crater at 5,600 mph, blasting out 350 tonnes of debris in a 6.2 mile high plume. Following close behind, the LCROSS satellite beaming live pictures back to Earth will fly through the material and four minutes later plunge into the crater itself. LCROSS will trigger its own dust cloud a third of the size of the first one.

As the debris is propelled into sunlight, scientists on Earth will study its composition with ground-based telescopes.

Amateur astronomers in dark parts of the world will be able to view the spectacle through their own instruments. But daylight will make this impossible in the UK.

Dr Vincent Eke, from the Institute for Computational Cosmology at the University of Durham, said: “Water ice could be stable for billions of years on the Moon provided that it is cold enough.

“If ice is present in the permanently shaded lunar craters of the Moon then it could potentially provide a water source for the eventual establishment of a manned base on the Moon.

“Such a base could be used as a platform for exploration into the further reaches of our Solar System.”

The TNT impact

The energy generated by the rocket hitting the Moon will be equivalent to exploding about two tonnes of TNT, he said. He added: “While this sounds dramatic, the impact of this will simply create one more dimple on the moonscape.

“The cratered surface of the Moon shows it has a history of violent collisions with asteroids and comets.”

Dr Eke led a study of data from Nasa’s 1998 Lunar Prospector mission which showed that hydrogen was concentrated in permanently shaded craters at the Moon’s polar regions.

If the hydrogen really is a sign of ice, it implies that the craters could hold a total of 200,000 million litres of water.

Last month new findings from three spacecraft, including India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe, showed that small amounts of water might be chemically bound up with the Moon’s soil.

The smaller probe carrying cameras and other scientific instruments separated from the rocket as planned.

It is now trailing behind ready to measure the debris kicked up by the rocket before hitting the moon’s surface four minutes later.

Windows 7

Windows 7, Microsoft’s upcoming operating system (OS) will be available on October 22. Unlike Windows Vista, Windows 7 is designed to be a more robust operating system with lots of improvements. It will also have all the hardware and application software compatibility that Vista has. In Windows 7, you will notice the overall responsiveness while performing common tasks such as startup/shutdown. If you are switching from Windows XP, you will be amazed to see the overall design with significant level of improvements. Clean installation of Windows 7 on a new computer takes less than 20 minutes. You can directly upgrade Windows Vista to Windows 7, but there is no direct upgrade supported from Windows XP to Windows 7 due to many architectural changes in Windows 7. Users will have to use Windows Easy Transfer or USMT.

USER INTERFACE

Windows 7 Desktop will have a new Windows Taskbar. You can ‘pin’ favourite programs anywhere on the taskbar for easy access. Point to a taskbar icon to see a thumbnail preview of open files or programs. You can close windows from the thumbnail previews. Management of System Tray icons has become easier with the improvements in the Notification Area Icons. Jump Lists take you right to the documents, pictures, songs, or websites you turn to each day. This OS is the first to fully embrace Multi-Touch Technology and Biometric devices.

NETWORKING AND SECURITY

Enhanced Network and Sharing Center makes it easy to manage wired and wireless net works. The new feature Home-Group makes it easy to share your libraries and printers on a home network. Windows 7 is bundled with Internet Explorer 8. Windows 7 has a re-designed User Account Control. There is a new BitLocker to Go feature for encrypting removable storage devices. Windows Security Center is now Action Center.

EDITIONS AND PRICING

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Windows 7 will be available in six different editions — Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. Enterprise edition will be only available through Volume Licensing. Pricing is available on Microsoft’s website.

FINAL VERDICT

Overall, Windows 7 is the most stable release in the history of Microsoft Corporation. Windows 7 has been improved a lot, overcoming all the issues raised in Vista. It has a rich user interface and rock-solid security. Windows 7 is the next big thing that will rule the PC market. It also faces a tough competition against "already-released" Mac OS X Snow Leopard. So will it beat the Leopard or get eaten by it!? Wait till Oct 22nd !!

Porsche’s sailing in new waters

German carmaker creates new mega yacht, in association with Singapore-based yacht builder

Not one to be told to stick to its core business, Porsche’s design arm has teamed up with a Singapore shipyard to design a state-of-the-art catamaran megayacht, reports autoblog.com. The Porsche Design Group and megayacht manufacturer Royal Falcon Fleet have begun releasing details and images of their first joint project. The RFF135 is a massive twin-hull design measuring 135 feet in length with a 41-foot beam. That’s enough space to accommodate 10 guests and 10 crew members below decks in 472 square metres of area, with another 208 square metres of deck space up top. 

That’s unfathomably large, and to propel the vessel up 35 knots (about 64.82 kmph), the catamaran will be equipped with twin V16 turbodiesel engines from German manufacturer MTU, each producing a massive 4,600 horsepower. This beauty will drink down 750 litres of diesel every hour though.

First Picture of a Molecule

(The delicate inner structure of a pentacene molecule has been imaged with an atomic force microscope )

IBM scientists have been able to image the ‘anatomy’ or chemical structure inside a molecule with unprecedented resolution, using a complex technique known as noncontact atomic force microscopy, says a company press release.

The results push the exploration of using molecules and atoms at the smallest scale and could greatly impact the field of nanotechnology, which seeks to understand and control some of the smallest objects known to mankind. The team’s current publication follows on the heels of another experiment published just two months ago in the June 12 issue of Science (pages 1428–1431) where IBM scientists measured the charge states of atoms using an atomic force microscope (AFM).

These breakthroughs will open new possibilities for investigating how charge transmits through molecules or molecular
networks. Understanding the charge distribution at the atomic scale is essential for building smaller, faster and more energy-efficient computing components than today’s processors and memory devices.

As reported in the August 28 issue of Science magazine, IBM Research, Zurich scientists Leo Gross, FabianMohn, Nikolaj Moll and Gerhard Meyer, in collaboration with Peter Liljeroth of Utrecht University, used an AFM (Atomic Force Microscope - Wikipedia)operated in an ultrahigh vacuum and at very low temperatures (–268 degree Centigrade or –451 degree Fahrenheit) to image the chemical structure of individual pentacene molecules. With their AFM, the IBM scientists, were able to look through the electron cloud and see the atomic backbone of an individual molecule. While not a direct technological comparison, this is reminiscent of x-rays that pass through soft tissue to enable clear images of bones.

THE TIP THAT TIPPED THE SCALE

The AFM uses a sharp metal tip to measure the tiny forces between the tip and the sample, such as a molecule, to create an image. To achieve this, the IBM scientists were required to increase the sensitivity of the tip.