This video shows an interesting talk given at the University of Nevada at Reno by JB Straubel, co-founder and chief technical officer of Tesla Motors. He reviewed the history of electric cars, the founding and growth of Tesla, the challenge of creating affordable high energy density batteries, Tesla’s plans for the lower cost Model 3 sedan, the Gigafactory, and more.
The latest TMRO.tv live show discussed the smallsat : Is the smallsat market in a bubble? – TMRO
In this episode we ask if the smallest and/or cubesat market is in a bubble that may pop?
News items discussed:
* Long March 2D launch of earth imaging satellites
* Atlas V launches NROL-55
* Proton rocket launch with Turksat 4B
* Long March 3B launch with communications satellite
* United Launch Alliance selects launch pads for new Vulcan rocket
* Venture Class Launch Services Contract
* Virgin Galactic NewtonThree hot fire test
* SpaceX to Fly Orbcomm, not SES, on First Test of Upgraded Booster
With the game Planetbase you guide
a group of space settlers trying to establish an outpost on a remote planet. Grow food, collect energy, mine resources, manufacture bots, and build a fully self-sufficient colony.
This review is quite positive: Steam’s Latest Hit Is A Tough-As-Nails Mars Base Building Game – io9
The enduring message of Planetbase—at least, after a couple hours—seems to be, “Don’t get cocky.” It’s been immensely satisfying building up my base so far, but I know it can be so much more. Apparently I can go from a handful of people to hundreds, to a base that very literally spans the planet. And yet, rocks fall from the sky as though hurled vengeful space deities saying, “Don’t. You. Dare.” But I will dare, even though Planetbase’s Steam page warns me of sandstorms, intruders, and solar flares, and beta players mention “hundreds of ways to die.”
I’m about to build a landing pad, which will usher in my base’s next era. Fearing certain death, I might have over-prepared for my next handful of colonists, but who knows? The planet is a big place. I haven’t even had to sound an emergency alarm yet. I’m excited to see what awaits.
The Urban Astronomer hosts the latest Carnival of Space.
The earth’s magnetic field varies over time and even flips in polarity periodically. Bruce Buffet of UC Berkeley talks in this SETI Institute seminar about efforts to understand how the earth’s interior causes such variability : Geomagnetic Reversals and excursions: The origin of Earth’s magnetic field – SETI Institute
From the lecture announcement:
Palaeomagnetic observations offer important insights into the origin of Earth’s interior, but a detailed reconstruction of the underlying dynamics is not feasible. A practical alternative is to construct a stochastic model for the time evolution of the dipole field.
Slow changes in the field are described by a deterministic (drift) term, whereas short-time fluctuations are represented by a random (noise) term. Estimates for the drift and noise terms can be recovered from a time series of variations in the axial dipole moment over the past 2 million years. The results are used to predict a number of statistical properties of the palaeomagnetic field, including the average rates of magnetic reversals and excursions.
Dr. Buffet will explain how a physical interpretation of the stochastic models suggests that reversals and excursions are part of a continuum of time variations in Earth’s magnetic field, arising from convective fluctuations in the core. Relatively modest changes the amplitude of convective fluctuations can produce large changes in reversal rates, including the well-known occurrence of superchrons lasting longer than 10 million years.