Science Category Archive

Speed in space

3 Replies Christopher Roberts

One of the many problems with space travel is how we measure speed.

Speed is relative – as this very good Ted video shows.

Speeding Up

One of the problems facing human space travel isn’t travelling fast, it’s getting to that speed. The g-force excreted on the body whilst accelerating poses major health issues. So even thought we may be able to invent ways of travelling faster, unless we can control the g-force, its pointless going faster, as if we get to a fast speed too quick (accelerate too fast) the people travelling at that speed will die.

If you are driving a fast car and you very quickly put it into a lower gear and put the accelerator to the floor, you feel yourself fly into the back of your seat. If you are travelling at 60mph your body feels fine, as it does at 0mph, however in the few seconds it takes to get you there, you are subject to huge g-force’s.

Travelling from 0-60mph in 30 seconds puts the body under a lot less stress than if you do it in 3 seconds. It’s the same with space travel, the body can cope with moving reasonably quickly, however it cannot cope with getting there too fast.

F1 Example

Raikkonen F1 Crash British GP

Kimi Raikkonen’s 47G crash at Silverstone 2014

Those who enjoy F1 may remember Kimi Raikkonen’s horrific 150mph crash at Silverstone this year. For a matter of seconds the Fin had 47 Gs of force excreted upon him. For an F1 driver, 150mph is not an unusual speed, however spinning at that speed and coming to a sudden stop caused the dramatic force that Raikkonen endured. Had Raikkonen been spinning with 47 Gs of force for over a minute, the likelihood is he would have died, however because it was only for a short period of time, he was able to race again two weeks later, having sustained no lasting injuries.

Unlike us, robots can be built to sustain such forces, which is one of the reasons why missions like Rosetta and Voyager can see probes sent huge distances in (relatively) small periods of time.

Lets hope in the near future someone discovers a way to keep g-forces at bay, to enable us to travel further into space, faster!

Glocalism

1 Reply Jonny Hankins

glocal

This week I have had an article published in an international peer reviewed journal called Glocalism. The article is about food production, and reports on many of the arguments that I touched upon in my recent food series.

The article, rather catchily entitled “Collective food Purchasing Networks in Italy as a Case Study of Responsible Innovation” by J. Hankins and C. Grasseni is free and can be downloaded here. It is slightly more of an academic article than my blog writing, is co-authored with anthropologist Cristina Grasseni, and reports our joint fieldwork looking at alternative food production networks in Italy and the USA.

Glocalism

As I said above the article is in the journal Glocalism, which is all about glocalism. So what is glocalism? Well it is all in the name, it is being local and global at the same time. To take part of the explanation offered by the Globus and Locus Association

“The term “glocalism” identifies the momentous changes generated by globalization, changes which have resulted in a permanent intertwining of the global and the local dimensions. In fact, there is no longer any place on the planet which has not been touched to a growing degree by various types of global flows and, at the same time, there are no global flows which are not increasingly parsed according to the many different characteristics of the places”.

Do you agree with this? That globalism means that the local can only exist in relation to the global? Or that globalization has effected every corner of the world?

Globalization

If we think about changes in the environment that maybe we should accept this line. If we think about how event in one part of the world effect others (or all) then we can see the local as part of a global system. If we look for local solutions to a problem are we in some way involving the global? If we are talking about anything that has to do with poverty, or pollution, or the environment, or anything related to technology, then we would probably have to accept that these are not local issues, but global. A house in Detroit is not sold for $1000 because of the state of Detroit, but because the world that Detroit is in has produced a situation that makes a house in Detroit (some areas) worth $1000.

If we think about technology use through this framework, we can see how much the Internet (to give one example) is taking the local and moving it into the global. The proportion of our world’s population living in cities of a million or more has risen from thirty-seven percent in 1970 to fifty percent today. By 2030 more than two-thirds of world population will be in large cities, and most of them will be in Asia. Why is this? Well one reason is the need to operate via high speed Internet. The infrastructure is in the big cities, and it has become a necessary part of working life.

So the fact that a city in India or Thailand has high speed Internet infrastructure effects mobility across the globe, the local and the global are entwined. This has an effect on food production capability, transport, the environment, and everything else you might like to think about across the globe.

How about that for a thought on an autumn morning in front of the computer in the Netherlands or a wintry start to a New York day shovelling snow?

The ISS

2 Replies Christopher Roberts

The International Space Station is amazing. Humanity has a permanently manned space station.

You may think I’m saying that in every article of this series, and I probably am. But that’s because space and our accomplishments are quite frankly brilliant!

Mir

The International Space Station (or ISS) is not the first manned space station. The Russian space station Mir is widely considered the first successful long-term space station. Before the launch of the ISS, Mir was the largest satellite in orbit, and until 2010 when its record was surpassed by the ISS, Mir housed the longest continuous human presence in space; an impressive 10 years.

The Russians were leaders in space station technology, and without their expertise, I would argue the ISS would not be here today.

A Joint Venture

The International Space StationThe ISS is a joint space venture between Russia, the United States, the European Space Agency (the people who put Philae on a comet) Japan, Canada and Brazil.

The station was initially launched in in 1998 and has been continually manned since November 2000. Currently the station’s future is confirmed until 2020. It’s long-term future is to be determined by the relations between its key partners, the US and Russia.

The ISS is constantly being improved and upgraded, and is still being built. Amongst their most recent upgrades, includes the installation of a 3D printer. All the add-ons and upgrades are making the station heavier and heavier, and it now weighs more than 400 tonnes! But don’t worry, it isn’t going to fall from the sky any time soon.

The ISS can be seen from Earth, and if you have a pretty jazzy telescope, then you can view it in pretty remarkable detail. If you want to give it a go, check out NASA’s ISS spotters guide.

ISS as seen from Earth

The ISS as photographed through a telescope on Earth.

You can also track the ISS, and see exactly where above the Earth it is in real time. Check out this site which has a live view of what part of the planet the station is over. You may be surprised just how quickly it is moving!

Next Week

After the Thursday post last week and yesterdays site issues, I’m hoping that next Monday’s post will go without a hitch! See you then.