An update on the LPP Fusion efforts in focus fusion development: LPP Fusion Report July 18th 2014.
A video from their recent crowdfunding campaign (now ended):
Category Archives: Science and Technology
Ever-increasing data and the tools to handle it
A reader pointed me to these posts that look at several topics related to the growth in information technologies and their use in science, which generates ever more data:
- Will we ever Skype from the Moon? – Community Site News..
- Will we ever Skype from the Moon?
- Data and the Internet
- The importance of the Internet on our lives
- Broadband on the Moon
- Look to the stars – Community Site News..
- The World Wide Web
- Ever-increasing resolution
- Ever-increasing data demands
- The power of visualization
- What can the internet and apps be used to see over the coming months?
Square Kilometre Array to include 100s of radio telescopes in two countries
The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project
is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, with a square kilometre (one million square metres) of collecting area. The scale of the SKA represents a huge leap forward in both engineering and research & development towards building and delivering a unique instrument, with the detailed design and preparation now well under way. As one of the largest scientific endeavours in history, the SKA will bring together a wealth of the world’s finest scientists, engineers and policy makers to bring the project to fruition.
Unprecedented Scale
The SKA will use hundreds of thousands of radio telescopes, in three unique configurations, which will enable astronomers to monitor the sky in unprecedented detail and survey the entire sky thousands of times faster than any system currently in existence. The SKA telescopes will be co-located in Africa and in Australia. South Africa’s Karoo desert will cover the core of the high and mid frequencies of the radio spectrum which will have telescopes spread all over the continent, with Australia’s Murchison region covering the low frequency range and hosting the survey instrument.
Continue…
Gravity in orbit is never zero
An explanation of why the term “zero gravity” is misleading: Zero Gravity: It May Not Be What You Think.
A couple of videos explaining the same thing starting with a short one:
And then a longer one:
Sci-Tech: More on Polywell fusion + Focus Fusion crowd-funding update
Alan Boyle gives some additional details about the Navy funded Polywell fusion power project (see post here) that recently published a paper on progress they have made : Low-Cost Fusion Project Steps Out of the Shadows and Looks for Money – NBC News.com.
The Navy funding is running out and they are now looking for private funding. This is not out of the question. General Fusion in Canada has raised a considerable amount of money from Jeff Bezos and others. And secretive Tri-Alpha Energy has raised money from Paul Allen another others as well. (Others is a very rich guy…)
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Another promising fusion power approach that I’ve mentioned here several times (e.g. see here and here) is the dense focus fusion concept, which LPP Power in New Jersey is pursuing. Their crowdfunding campaign has raised $120,000 towards a $200,000 goal. They just got a 20 day extension to try to reach the full amount: FOCUS FUSION: emPOWERtheWORLD -Indiegogo.
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One might have the wacky idea that the Department of Energy would grant some modest funding to these high risk but high pay-off fusion power projects. However, most all of DOE’s fusion funding goes directly or indirectly to the ITER tokamak project, which will, at best, provide a pay-off in 30 or 40 years.
This is typical in science and engineering programs, the biggest project gets bigger and bigger as its influence and industry/political ties multiply with its spending. See, for example, SLS/Orion in NASA’s HSF program and James Webb Space Telescope in NASA’s science outlays.