Category: Science

‘Make’ Premier Issue

MAKE Magazine
The premier issue of Make magazine is out and it is pretty much everything it said it would be. I’ll review the articles as I read them but for now I’ll leave you with a link to Slashdot so you can see what hundreds of other people have to say.
Slashdot – ‘Make’ Premier Issue

Space Elevator

Space Elevator

I hope that one of these gets built before I die. Anything that will get mass out of the gravity well is a good thing. Something like this could make space travel a reality for just about anybody.

The Space Elevator Reference brought to you by SpaceRef
Space.com – The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality
Wired – To the moon in a space elevator?
NASA – Audacious & Outrageous: Space Elevators

(space elevator,science)

One – You lock the target

As cool as interceptor missile defense technology sounds I wonder if the road the program has gone down is the right one. It’s been proven that the system can work, but the reliability is of some question. Also, the threat of an incoming missile attack has been reduced greatly in the last few years thus bringing into question if the system is needed at all. I am not in favor of scrapping the program out right, but I’d like to see more positive results before a large number of these are built. I think that the airborne laser systems have a better chance of knocking a bird down but the deployment of these are more of a local determent and not a global one.
But what would happen if the system were to work without fail? If the US would pledge that it would disable any missile fired from a nation how would that change the world political climate? Would there now be a rush to secure new kinds of weapons platforms? A move to a robotic or nanotech army? Would the suicide bomber become the standard weapon of small nations?

US missile defence test flounders again