|
Marshall Savage
''The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps'' by Marshall T. Savage is a book (published in 1992 and reprinted in 1994 with an introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) in the field of exploratory engineering that gives a series of concrete stages the author believes will lead to interstellar colonization. Many specific scientific and engineering details are presented, as are numerous issues involved in space colonization. The book's thesis Savage takes a Malthusian view of the exponential growth of human population and life in general, and also recommends the exponential growth of blue-green algae for sustenance. He states that it is humanity's destiny to colonize every star in the galaxy. He draws heavily on the Fermi paradox (briefly stated as, "If there is intelligent life in space, why haven't we found it yet?") to support his position that it is humanity's burden alone to ignite the universe with the "spark of Life." In ''The Millennial Project'', he calls for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Books
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is an affinity group for contributors with shared goals within the Wikimedia movement. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ..., and exist to varying degrees within sibling projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermi Paradox
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. Those affirming the paradox generally conclude that if the conditions required for life to arise from non-living matter are as permissive as the available evidence on Earth indicates, then extraterrestrial life would be sufficiently common such that it would be implausible for it not to have been detected. The quandary takes its name from the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi: in the summer of 1950, Fermi was engaged in casual conversation about contemporary UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski while the group was walking to lunch. The conversation moved on to other topics, until Fermi later blurted out during lunch, "But where is everybody?" ( the exact quote is uncertain.) [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geosynchronous Orbit
A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital period means that, for an observer on Earth's surface, an object in geosynchronous orbit returns to exactly the same position in the sky after a period of one sidereal day. Over the course of a day, the object's position in the sky may remain still or trace out a path, typically in a figure-8 form, whose precise characteristics depend on the orbit's inclination and eccentricity. A circular geosynchronous orbit has a constant altitude of . A special case of geosynchronous orbit is the geostationary orbit (often abbreviated ''GEO''), which is a circular geosynchronous orbit in Earth's equatorial plane with both inclination and eccentricity equal to 0. A satellite in a geostationary orbit remains in the same position in the sky to observers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Station
A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitation facilities. The purpose of maintaining a space station varies depending on the program. Most often space stations have been research stations, but they have also served militarization of space, military or commercialization of space, commercial uses, such as hosting space tourism, space tourists. Space stations have been hosting the only continuous human presence in space, presence of humans in space. The first space station was Salyut 1 (1971), hosting the first crew, of the ill-fated Soyuz 11. Consecutively space stations have been operated since Skylab (1973) and occupied since 1987 with the Salyut program, Salyut successor Mir. Uninterrupted human presence in orbital space through space stations have been sustained since the operat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was established in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer and Amos Eaton for the "application of science to the common purposes of life". Built on a hillside, RPI's campus overlooks the city of Troy, New York, Troy and the Hudson River. The institute operates an on‑campus business incubator and the Rensselaer Technology Park. RPI is organized into six main schools which contain 37 departments, with emphasis on science and technology. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity". History 1824–1900 Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on 5 November 1824 with a letter to the Reverend Dr. Samuel Blatchford (university president), Samuel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leik Myrabo
Leik Myrabo is an aerospace engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who retired from there in 2011.Inside Rensselaer, May 20, 2011: Faculty Celebrated at Recognition Dinner accessed 2012-09-26 He made the first demonstrations of the use of ground-based s to propel objects, lifting them hundreds of feet. His goal was to use ground-based s to propel objects into ; possibly reducing orbit-flight costs by large facto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waverider
A waverider is a hypersonic aircraft design that improves its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by using the shock waves being generated by its own flight as a lifting surface, a phenomenon known as compression lift. The waverider remains a well-studied design for high-speed aircraft in the Mach 5 and higher hypersonic regime, although no such design has yet entered production. The Boeing X-51 scramjet demonstration aircraft was tested from 2010 to 2013. In its final test flight, it reached a speed of . History Early work The waverider design concept was first developed by Terence Nonweiler of the Queen's University of Belfast, and first described in print in 1951 as a re-entry vehicle. It consisted of a delta-wing platform with a low wing loading to provide considerable surface area to dump the heat of re-entry. At the time, Nonweiler was forced to use a greatly simplified 2D model of airflow around the aircraft, which he realized would not be accurate due to spanwis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beam-powered Propulsion
Beam-powered propulsion, also known as directed energy propulsion, is a class of aircraft or spacecraft propulsion that uses energy beamed to the spacecraft from a remote power plant to provide energy. The beam is typically either a microwave or a laser beam, and it is either pulsed or continuous. A continuous beam lends itself to thermal rockets, photonic thrusters, and light sails. In contrast, a pulsed beam lends itself to ablative thrusters and pulse detonation engines. The rule of thumb that is usually quoted is that it takes a MegaWatt, megawatt of power beamed to a vehicle per kg of payload while it is being accelerated to permit it to reach low Earth orbit. More speculative designs, using mass ("micro-pellet") beams, would allow for reaching the edge of the solar gravity lens, or even nearby stars, in decades. Other than launching to orbit, applications for moving around the world quickly have also been proposed. Background Rockets are momentum machines; they use mass ej ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free-electron Laser
A free-electron laser (FEL) is a fourth generation light source producing extremely brilliant and short pulses of radiation. An FEL functions much as a laser but employs relativistic electrons as a active laser medium, gain medium instead of using Laser, stimulated emission from atomic or molecular excitations. In an FEL, a ''bunch'' of electrons passes through a magnetic structure called an undulator or Wiggler (synchrotron), wiggler to generate radiation, which re-interacts with the electrons to make them emit coherently, exponentially increasing its intensity. As electron kinetic energy and undulator parameters can be adapted as desired, free-electron lasers are tunable laser, tunable and can be built for a wider frequency range than any other type of laser, currently ranging in wavelength from microwaves, through terahertz radiation and infrared, to the visible spectrum, ultraviolet, and X-ray. The first free-electron laser was developed by John Madey in 1971 at Stanford Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is contained in its global ocean, covering Water distribution on Earth, 70.8% of Earth's crust. The remaining 29.2% of Earth's crust is land, most of which is located in the form of continental landmasses within Earth's land hemisphere. Most of Earth's land is at least somewhat humid and covered by vegetation, while large Ice sheet, sheets of ice at Polar regions of Earth, Earth's polar polar desert, deserts retain more water than Earth's groundwater, lakes, rivers, and Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water combined. Earth's crust consists of slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's outer core, Earth has a liquid outer core that generates a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolf Hilbertz
Wolf Hartmut Hilbertz (April 16, 1938August 11, 2007) was a German-born futurist architect, inventor, and marine scientist. Notable contributions to science include the discovery of artificial mineral accretion / biorock and its use to create artificial reefs and other structures using electricity to attract materials already found in ocean water. Personal life Early life Wolf Hilbertz was born in Gütersloh, (Germany) in 1938, the first child of Rudolf Hilbertz (1909–1995) and Erna Hilbertz, née Uslat (1906–2008). His parents had quite different personalities; whereas his father was artistic and inventive, thinking up one of the first electric razors, his mother had a more down to earth, practical approach. While his father would have liked to become an artist, circumstances forced him to start working in a bank, whereas his mother enjoyed her occupation, channeling her forceful personality into her job as a school teacher. After Wolf Hilbertz was born, the family moved to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
