3d printing

A lunar base

3rd November 2014 3 Replies Christopher Roberts

You may be wondering whether we have the ability to have a permanent base on the Moon. In the late 1960s and early 70s twelve men set foot on the Moon. Nobody has set foot on the Moon since… but why?

The answer is quite unfortunate really. People got bored.

In the 60s the Soviet Union and the United States – arguably the two most powerful nations at the time – were racing to the Moon. Russia won the race to send a man into space – and return him safely. Russia also won the race to construct a space station. America however won the all important race to the Moon.

For a space explorer looking up into the night sky in the 50s and 60s, the goal was always to get to the Moon. So what happened when America got there? The space race lost public support. People started questioning why there was a need to go into space, why money wasn’t being (better) spent elsewhere. The US had shown that it could get to the Moon, and it could get there first, so why carry on?

Today

As the recent crash of the Virgin Galactic test flight and the ISS destined rocket which exploded show, going into space can still be dangerous. That said however with today’s technology we are more than capable of travelling into space reasonably safely.

It is thought that the Moon has a lot of water buried within its surface. Water is a critical element required by us to live. Water can also be used to make rocket fuel. Rocket fuel uses hydrogen and oxygen – the key components of water.

Rockets on Earth need huge amounts of fuel to escape the reaches of Earth’s gravity. The Moon is significantly lighter than Earth, and therefore rockets would need much less fuel to take off. This makes flights into space (to Mars for example) much more viable, if they take off from the Moon.

Now, you may be thinking that we would need to get the rockets to the Moon in the first place, so why waste time relaunching them from the Moon? Well maybe we wouldn’t. The Moon has many of the resources we would need to build rockets. We would be able to create manufacturing bases on the Moon, with very little supplies from Earth. Progress would only be accelerated by the use of our new friend (or foe?) 3D printers.

All electrical power could be provided by solar panels – which we could build on the Moon. Lunar sun is very predictable, and with no atmosphere, the energy we could generate would be much greater than here on Earth.

Moon Base

A permanently manned Moon base is not a new idea. The US has had many plans over time to create a Moon base – originally for military reasons, however now for other reasons like energy and space travel. Japan, Russia and India are also currently all exploring the concept of establishing a base on the Moon within the next few decades.

The Moon could be a great service station for rockets. Missions into outer space could use the Moon as a pit stop to pick up supplies and refuel, before going on their way.

The Moon’s potential for solar energy could also be another interesting use for a Moon base. If we could cover vast areas of the Moon in solar panels and then transmit the energy back to Earth, we would be able to solve the global energy crisis. Naturally you would have to somehow persuade fossil fuel companies that it is a good idea first – and considering the power and influence they have, this could be difficult.

We currently have the technology and capabilities to create a permanent lunar base, now all we need is the enthusiasm and funding to make it happen.

Carbon Emissions and Aviation

13th June 2013 4 Replies Jonny Hankins

On Sunday I will be lifting off into the wild blue yonder once more for a quick scoot across the Atlantic from Boston to Dublin and on to Milan. This is a rather regular occurrence nowadays. Flying is part of my life and for the kids, who have been on more aircraft than trains.

The environmental impact of all of this folly though is tied up in a rather controversial debate. On the one hand we have those who say that airline carbon and pollution emissions is minimal, others disagree. It seems that between 2 and 5% of possible global warming type emissions come from aviation. Not a lot we might think, when we bear in mind that 10% comes from car use, and about 17% from agricultural food production, but we all eat, we do not all fly.

This year the European Union was to start taxing airlines on their carbon emissions, in line with the way they tax other industry on theirs. This might seem fair to some, not to others, particularly large airlines and countries. Here in the USA a law was passed to state that US airlines could not participate in the scheme, and so could not pay the tax. China, India and others followed, and so the scheme has been postponed.

A Modern Jet Engine

So back to my flight on Sunday. Between us, I and my family will produce about 12 metric tons of carbon dioxide in our time in the air. The average European produces about 10 a year, Americans more like 19 0r 20 and the average African about 0.3 tons per year.

Oh to put things in perspective the global average is 1.3 metric tons per year per person, and the 1.1 billion people who live on the continent of Africa produces about 7% of the emissions that the 0.6 billion population of North America produce.

So taken in terms of people and not percentages, flying is extremely polluting. But people are not going to stop flying. The aviation industry is ever expanding, even vegetables fly nowadays.

One way that aircraft engineers are trying to cut down on emissions is to design lighter and more fuel efficient engines. Weight is a big problem in flying, and it is our old friend 3D printing who might come to the rescue.

A company called CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aviation and the French company Snecma, has created the LEAP engine — an acronym for “leading edge aviation propulsion” that the company hopes reflects just how innovative the new aircraft component is. LEAP has many futuristic features, including a 3-D-printed nozzle, the part of the plane responsible for burning fuel.

3D printing allows engineers to produce objects in materials that either would be too expensive or impossible to make using conventional techniques, and they can use lightweight materials or ceramics as is the case with the new CFM engine to substitute heavy metal parts. Check out this article in CNN for details.

Over the last couple of weeks an aeroplane has made a trans America flight using solar power, and this is just part of its round the world trip. A whole new concept in low carbon emission flight, although currently a bit slow.

Another possibility is to use organic jet fuel. Although this may seem strange, as long ago as 2009 Air New Zealand conducted a test flight using an organic jet fuel mix that seemed to demonstrate a 60% cut in carbon emissions.

Here is a link to an article in the New York Times about aviation and carbon developments and some more data about carbon emissions in Africa if I have tickled your interest. And as always, I am all ears.

The Gadget Show Live 2013

6th May 2013 3 Replies Christopher Roberts

On Sunday the 7th of April, I went to the Gadget Show Live at the NEC in Birmingham. It was a really great day, and I want to share the experience with you, I just haven’t had time to finish this post!

First of all I must give thanks to British Gas, who were very kind to give me tickets to the sold out event. As you may know, thanks to a collaboration between Technology Bloggers and British Gas, I have been able to step into the future of smarter living, and experience how technology has the potential to improve our lives. The technology I tested was of course their Remote Heating Control system, and I got to try it a few months before the national roll-out; I reported my findings via a series, which British Gas later posted on their website.

The day was very good fun, and I live tweeted from the event – take a look at our Twitter account and you can find some of the Tweets.

There was a lot of technology on show, some of which was cutting edge stuff, just being brought to the market.

Super Show

I had tickets to the ‘super show’ which was an event in which the three presenters of the Gadget Show: Jason Bradbury, Pollyanna Woodward and Jon Bentley, showcased exciting gadgets, offering various prizes to members of the audience. The show was good, however it did feel slightly commercialised, as pretty much every third word was plugging a product!

Smarter Living

After the show, the first stand (there were hundreds!) I visited was the British Gas stand. They had been kind enough to send me to the event, so I thought it only fair to pay them a visit!

They had designed their stand to look like a home, and had equipped it with all the very latest smarter living technology. Their Safe and Secure security system, Remote Heating Control and smart meters were all on show. It was very well designed and the complimentary Stuff magazine was appreciated!

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Microsoft

A tweet I posted about the Gadget Show, had attracted the attention of the team at Microsoft Windows UK, and they invited me to check out their stand, and to use their bloggers lounge.

As the main sponsor of the event, Microsoft got a pretty big stand – making it hard to miss!

On their stand, Microsoft were showcasing many of their different software and technologies, including IE 10, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Surface, Bing, 3D scanning software and a real time, 3D webcam!

There was quite a lot on display, and the amount of technology was quite impressive, that said, as the event was so busy, they needed it all, as their stand was quite crowded at times.

I got talking to the person manning the 3D printing section, and was then offered (as a blogger) to go to the bloggers lounge. There I met some great guys from the technology giant, including the faces of @IE_UK and @WindowsUK, and the Senior Product Manager for Windows at Microsoft UK. I was given a tour of Surface and IE 10, and got to test them out for myself. I was quite impressed.

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I love Windows 7 and don’t have any problems with it, so I have never really thought about upgrading to Windows 8, however having been given a Windows 8 license, I am going to test it – expect more soon!

AQUAdue Loo

There was some really innovative technology on show this year. One example was AQUAdue‘s toilet system, when you need to flush, a tap which runs into a basin on top of the loo, starts to run. Use this to wash your hands, and it fills up the toilet for the next flush. What a great idea to save water and space!

3D printed TARDIS cufflinks.

The 3D printer Microsoft were using on their stand was an Up! 3D Printer. On another stand there was a firm called Denford Ltd there, who were showcasing the capabilities of a 3D printer. Probably the best giveaway I got from the event were some 3D printed TARDIS cuff links – as a techie, and a Doctor Who fan what better freebie could you get?

The technology has been around for a few years now, however it’s now starting to become mass market. Fancy a 3D printer? Well they aren’t as expensive as you might think, here’s a link to somewhere you can buy an Up! Mini 3D printer for less than £1200!

An Up! 3D printer and some printed objects, included a printed TARDIS, castle and Yoda.

Microsoft were also using the Up! 3D printer to showcase their 3D scanning technology. You could get your head scanned, and then a miniature version printed out, right there and then – how cool is that! Gadget Show presenter Jason Bradbury seems to think so too, as he went to get his head scanned and printed! Take a look below.

Gadget Show's Jason gets a 3D printout of his head

The Gadget Show’s Jason Bradbury gets a 3D scan and print out of his head.

Too Much!

It was a really great day, and there was far too much there for me to talk about it all. Some of the best bits I have mentioned above, there’s loads more that I haven’t mentioned, mainly because I don’t want to run too far over 900 words – people tend to switch off after that!

I think from the number of tweets and images in this post, you can see that there was a lot going on 🙂

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