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MISSING THE POINT:
NANO-PARTICLES CAPTURE SOLAR ENERGY
Kansas State University researchers are experimenting with nano-particles that could have major applications in solar power. The researchers said they are using nano-particles for solar electric cells because today’s solar panels, which are made with larger silicon crystals, contain impurities that limit their efficiency. The nano-particles, made of gallium selenide, are just the right size for solar electric applications because they absorb all visible light but nothing from the invisible light at the red end of the spectrum, which would reduce voltage.
So, at what point does it become competetive with nuclear power? Especially when you consider just how much acreage those “large, high-output solar voltaic panels” will require (a 1GW installation running at 100% conversion efficiency 24 hours a day with no atmosphere, no degradation over time, no dusting, etc. — ie: ideal conditions unattainable in the real world — would require around 190 acres of panels).
MORE PROBLEMS FOR SHUTTLE: “Transporter woes derailing shuttle plans”
Now it’s the bearings in the lift cylinders in the crawler-transporters. Sure, they say it isn’t due to the age of the equipment, but one has to wonder, considering the fact that the things are nearing forty years old…how long were these things intended to last, anyway?
The article points out a troubling yet common problem regarding NASA’s space program, that of a dwindling or obsolete supplier base. They claim they can manufacture additional “one-of-a-kind, special order” bearings to replace the cracked ones, are they so sure? Certainly the things can be made, but how long will it take the vendor to go through the certification process and get their parts approved?
The process could be accelerated by simply building duplicates of the originals. But, this being NASA, there is no way that the new parts will be built-to-print from the original designs and materials — for one thing, there was apparently some kind of “flaw” in the design (though calling a part that has likely lasted three times longer than its original lifetime “flawed” is a bit strange). Rather than building duplicate replacement bearings with the same “flawed” service lifetimes that will still exceed that of the rest of the Shuttle infrastructure, the flaws will be investigated, documented, re-engineered, and tested out of existence.
But how long is this going to take? How much will it cost? And of how much benefit will it be to NASA’s space program to chase this problem to an absolute and final resolution?
PERMANENT: Here’s a space settlement advocacy site worthy of some surfing time: Permanent.com.
Their focus is on commercial development of orbital resources and infrastructure, including sophisticated communications platforms, orbital industry (for both export to Earth and use on-orbit), propellant production, space habitats, and solar power satellites.
The main purpose of this WWW page is to reach out further into the engineering, investor, and general business communities, as well as the general public, to find people with a variety of skills who are interested in being partners in developing, openly critiqueing and refining business plans and mission scenarios which are realistically likely to succeed, as well as performing public and investor relations…
…Our focus is on certain “mission definition” topics which are outside of NASA’s current implementations and which need work despite lack of much government funding. (We are leading, not following.) Topics covered on this website are such things as mining and processing asteroidal and lunar material into feedstocks for industry, the value and design of end products in space made from asteroidal and lunar materials, the economics of missions to specific asteroids, and other mission defining topics
There’s a great wealth of content there, much of it in the form of an annotated bibliography of papers and proposals.
CAN WE BE BLUNT HERE? SpaceProjects.com doesn’t pull punches when talking about NASA’s, er, “questionable” activities.
This article was interesting, though. I remember Andrew Beal’s first angry missive, but I hadn’t seen this follow-up. A lot of what he says about NASA is true enough, but I still have to wonder if the collapse of the launch services market after Iridium, et al, went belly-up didn’t have just a little bit to do with BA’s demise, despite his claims to the contrary.
It’s too bad he didn’t partner up with Robert Bigelow, who just might be looking for a (privately owned) launcher sometime in the near future.
BAD TIMING: Just when I decide to start a daily practice of posting a link to the latest THEMIS image, the sun gets in the way.
Ah well. It’ll just have to wait until next week.
LAMS WINS AWARD! Craig Dooley emails me from the Mars Society Convention in Boulder with the news that LAMS has won the “2002 Outstanding Volunteer Award“:
On August 10, 2002, I accepted the “Outstanding Volunteer Award” for Political Activity in behalf of the Louisiana Mars Society at the 5th International Convention of the Mars Society’s Annual Banquet.
Maggie Zubrin stated that we were the smallest group in the United States Mars Societies.
Note that last sentence…Sure, we may not be building rovers or habs or spacesuits, but we don’t let that stop us from doing something to promote human exploration and settlement of Mars. Every little bit helps.
BUILD YOUR OWN: Another space advocacy organization into building simulation facilities.
ISECCo’s primary focus seems to be on “Closed Ecological Life Support Systems”, ie: using biological processes (greenhouses, earthworms, anaerobic decomposition) in closed-loop life support systems.
THEMIS IMAGE OF THE DAY: Meroe Patera
NO FEZ FOR ME: The 2002 Mars Society Convention is underway in Boulder.
Unfortunately, I used up all my vacation time earlier this year, and couldn’t attend. However, LAMS President Craig Dooley is there, and was scheduled to deliver a presentation on Thursday afternoon…hopefully all went well.
MAY OR MAY NOT BE INTERESTING: There looks to be an interesting gallery of Mars base renderings linked here. Unfortunately, the link doesn’t work for me, and it isn’t a full URL so I have no way to dig it up manually.
Anyone else out there able to see these images?
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