The latest buzz  tickin’ among space engineering camps is that a group of elite engineers from the Seattle based LaserMotive have bagged the prestigious $ 900,000 NASA challenge for building a robotic climber as a space elevator powered from the ground up with a laser. This challenge project is called the Power Beaming Challenge

The rules of this challenge are to build a mechanical climber which is powered by wireless power transmission, notably by LASER, to climb up a vertical cable to a velocity of 3-5 m/s.

Among all the prominent entrants to the challenge, only LaserMotive team was able to achieve 4 times the feat of climbing the 1 km high tether that was dropped from a helicopter with their robotic climber at an amazing speed of about 4 m/s.

History of this Idea !

Before the advent of 20th century did somebody think of flying as feasible task ? Even if it was, it was to be in fantasy stories and fictions. On the same vein,  do we have ever thought of going to space without a rocket. Definitely weird ? How could one possibly go without the escape velocity being attained ?

Strange idea this though - building an elevator to zero gravity a.k.a space - this idea first surfaced in the19th century by the father of rocket science, Constantin Tsiolkovsky. He proposed a compressive structure (impressed by Eiffel tower) to be built from bottom up. Some more scientists took some modifications to the idea proposing a top-down approach of delivering a cable from a rocket from the geo-synchronous orbit (say, 35000 km up ).

Latest Advances:

Now the idea is refined by conscious groups who are pursuing  the space elevator research. This is how a space elevator is deemed to work - First a stable platform, similar to an oil rig would be built in the sea. Then a rocket would launch a special satellite into space that would position itself in geo-stationary orbit over the platform. This means that the satellite would remain directly over the platform for its entire deployment. Next the satellite would begin to drop a ribbon or tether all the way down to earth. New technologies in nanotechnology are making the development of a light-weight but strong tether possible. Once the tether reached the platform, it would be attached.

So, What makes the cut ?

Some may question the very feasibility of having such an idea and implementing it. Well, though the initial cost of setting things up - for the Geo-stationary satellite as the counter weight, dropping the tether down to earth and fixing it up in here - the cost of launching things to space will be immensely reduced when compared to traditional satellite lauching or reaching space by Rockets.

PS : I am really baffled and taken aback at this very idea that looks like science fiction ; Truly novel and innovative. Wanna end the story with this Einstein’s quote : Ideas Rule the World !!

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) , the largest, the most complex and the most expensive particle accelerator on earth dubbed as the “The God Machine” for its ability to unlock the secrets of this universe is back in action after a hiccup due to an accident that occurred last September.

Amid much fanfare from the particle physicists and fears from some sections of media for an apocalypse in disguise, the LHC started its journey to unlock mysterious questions that pose the scientific community for decades. Yet due to a small soldering error in one of the cables that carry power to the LHC, there was a huge meltdown which is notoriously known as the “World’s most expensive short circuit”. It was indeed a disappointing display for the CERN engineers who built the machine for more than a decade and the scientific community around the world who were very anxiously waiting for the LHC to fire up and produce ‘Godly results’.

It took almost a year for the CERN engineers to analyse, redesign, repair and get ready for yet another kick start. Now CERN scientists have started firing protons round one small section of the collider as they prepare for its re-opening. Over the next few weeks, more and more bunches of protons will be put into the machine until, by Christmas, beams will be in full flight and can be collided. The aim of the experiment is to see the higgs-boson dubbed as the God Particle that’s said to have the secrets locked for eternity about the beginning of space and time.

Apocalypse Now ?

With a section of media and physicists deeply divided on the notion that LHC would deem us nothing but an apocalypse, and that it is capable of producing miniature black holes that can eventually eat up everything on their way sounds eerie. Another strange prediction from some physicists is that since producing Higgs-boson is against nature so the very effort in producing them itself will cause ripples in space-time that go back in time to stop the collider from creating one. But the CERN scientists deny this and they say that LHC is more controllable after the revamp this year.

Let us wait to see what’s in store for us - either an answer to all life’s key or the dead-lock to our very existence  !

The second satellite in ESA’s Earth Explorer series – the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission – and the second demonstration satellite under ESA’s Project for Onboard Autonomy (Proba-2) were launched into orbit last night from northern Russia. The satellites were launched atop a Rockot launch vehicle provided by Eurockot GmbH.

SMOS Mission:

SMOS is a 658-kg satellite developed by ESA in cooperation with France’s CNES and Spain’s Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI). It is based on the Proteus small satellite platform designed and built by Thales Alenia Space and its payload is composed of a single instrument, the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS), developed by EADS CASA Espacio.

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Recently when the chinese created their fastest supercomputer dubbed Tianhe, literally meaning ‘Milky Way’, the reports indicated that it runs at 563.1 teraflops (1,000 teraflops equal one petaflop) on the Linpack benchmark.

Note: 1 petaflop = 1 quadrillion calculations per second

I began to wonder what this benchmark could be. It seems that it was originally developed by U.S. computer scientist Jack Dongarra and has become an internationally recognised method to measure a supercomputer’s performance in practical use.

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Lightning flashed through the pitch black sky, lighting up the hut like structure Dr. Janardan had set up in the heart of the Appalachian forests - literally in the middle of nowhere.

Myriad instruments populated the structure, the result of 21 years of pain-staking research.

“God is in everyone – everyone has a spark of the divine”. This is what he had learned in his grandmother’s nightly stories. But then his ambitious mind had come up with a twist to this bit of folk lore.

It all began with his belief that there is a small grain of truth in all folk lore. The duty of the researcher is to locate that grain of truth and use it for the benefit of all.

What is science? it is the acceptance and verification of facts -  Whether those facts are palatable to the popular scientific notions of the day or not!

It is not the dogmatic denial of anything which did not originate from a ‘scientific’ lab.

The fellows of the Royal Society, Nobel Prize winners, had all laughed at him when he suggested to them the possibility of harvesting cosmic energy through the human mind.

Research has shown that everywhere we look there is a universal “Cosmic Background Radiation” - a left electro-magnetic wave over from the Big Bang.

This radiation is always present - anywhere in the universe. Some call it the “Presence of God”.

Now Dr. Janardan had found another startling fact - there is a close correlation between the electro-magnetic field in a human brain, and the harmonics of this universal cosmic radiation.

Now the question remained, if resonance could somehow be achieved between the Cosmic “God” radiation and the human mind; what would happen?

And now, the hour of reckoning had finally arrived. A grand looking chair stood in the middle of the hut – ready for the experiment.

The chair had an elaborate umbrella on the top. This contraption was designed to create a disturbance in the space time continuum.

All the other frequencies would be wiped away in the range of the chair - only 2 frequencies would remain.

The alpha waves from the human brain, the cosmic God radiation.

Dr. Janardan belived this would create the necessary conditions for resonance to occur, and that the occupier of the chair would be granted a huge surge of controllable energy.

Now since all stuff is ultimately energy (remember Einstein’s equation?) this would make the chair-man “God” - but only within the range of the chair.

Jonathan, the good doctor’s pet chimp waddled about the hut, poking his nose at this and that.

That ape was a source of concern for the doctor, since his antics had more than once caused him much by way of repairs and damages.

But today Dr. Janardan was a happy man.

“Nobel prize, here I come!”

A cautious man, Dr. Janardan decided to start off at half-power first. He punched in the commands on the keyboard to activate the chair mechanism in 5 seconds, and at half-power.

He got into the chair and waited anxiously.

At the 5^th second, the blue light on the chairs canopy switched on - and immediately the doctor got an enormous ‘high’ - nothing could compare with the tremendous sense of peace and ‘oneness’ that came over him.

It was as if the universe was an extension of his own body and mind.

He gave a command to the world.

“Let it Rain”

Immediately the water molecules in the vicinity of the roof condensed like mist, and he could see that the roof of the hut had become soaking wet from the inside.

And this was just at half-power!

“Now for the good stuff” he said to himself as he turned on the machine to full power and reset the countdown – 5 seconds.

Seating himself on the chair, he was ecstatic.

“So this is how it feels to be God!  Technology Rules!!!”

As he waited to become God, a lightning flashed outside, and randomly struck the lightning pole on this very hut.

The resulting fluctuation in voltage caused a momentary spike in the delicate instrumentation, and sent a strong electric current into the chair.

The doctor found himself suddenly flung out of the chair and on to the ground.

But thankfully the systems returned to normal shortly - the countdown was still on - 2 seconds to Godhood.

The doctor hurried to get back to his throne - gotta make it!

Just then, Jonathan, scared by the lightning strike, appearing out of nowhere, made for the doctor.

“No Jonathan!!” Dr. Janardan cried out.

But on his way to his master, the ape was already crossing the chair.

At that moment, the countdown was complete.

The body of the ape seemed to be paralyzed on the chair. Time stopped, and then began to flow along with the apes humanoid mind-waves. Reality seemed to have come unstuck in the hut.

Jonathan the ape had become God in the hut - and Dr. Janardan was trapped in the hut with the Ape-God.

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The author is a freelance writer, working in a reputed company in Bangalore. He can be contacted at his personal mail @ amit.s.karnik@gmail.com . Please feel free to pour in your comments here as well !

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© Amit Suresh Karnik