While Russia struggles to make up ground following a dozen-plus 2011 launch problems and the American Space Launch System sinks in Capitol Hill quicksand, the commercial space sector is racing to fill the gap — and to open new markets in space taxis, trucks and tourism. Since you can’t tell the players without a program, here are the . . .
10 Major Players in the Private Sector Space Race
Quiz: Branson or Bezos: How well do you know the players in the new space race?
On Aug. 6, 2012, a new rover will touch down on Mars — bigger, badder and bristling with more gear than a spelunker convention. Although rocking the same suspension system and basic design, Curiosity, aka the “monster truck of science,” is so much heftier than its predecessors that NASA and JPL had to invent an entirely new way to land it: one part HALO jump, one part rocket-hovering sky crane. Its mission: investigate if the right conditions exist, or ever have, to support microbial life.
Some inventions save people’s lives, others improve them and still others end up as the white elephant gift no one wants to take home. Sometimes the question isn’t, “Why didn’t I think of that?” it’s, “Why would anyone think of that?”
Well, if benefit to humankind were the only means of making a profit, there would be no reality TV. In that spirit, here’s a list of ten kooky creations that made a mint, including one that turned out to fill a legitimate need.
One of the unwritten rules of physics says you can’t get something for nothing; at best, you can swing a fair exchange rate between energy in and energy out. The problem is heat: Like an energy embezzler, it skims off the top of chemical reactions, physical systems and electrical circuits (which is why we can’t have perpetual motion machines).
Superconductors don’t break the laws of thermodynamics, but they do manage to find some fairly large loopholes. Send current through a superconducting wire, and it loses no energy to resistance. Bend the wire into a loop, and it will hold charge indefinitely. Levitate it above a magnet, and the sun will devour the Earth before it will fall.
Plus, it can levitate a frog.
What is Superconductivity?
Quiz: How Super are Superconductors?
NASA is planning its most powerful rocket to date, a jack-of-all-trades vehicle intended to carry the American space program through a dizzying array of potential missions. Inheriting parts from the now-defunct space shuttle, its stillborn successor, Constellation, and the Saturn V workhorse that launched Americans to the moon, this modular monster is Senate-mandated to meet the requirements of any mission NASA dreams up, from near-Earth milk runs to massive undertakings like Mars exploration.
Can a single vehicle serve so many masters in so many ways, or will this phoenix turn out to be a turkey? Find out below – and then test your knowledge in the Big, Bad Space Launch System quiz.
How the Space Launch System Will Work
Blastoff! The Big, Bad Space Launch System Quiz