July 2002

The Australian University of Queensland has made its second attempt to launch a scramjet engine, and so far the signs are that it may have worked this time around. If it is found to have worked it will be the first free-flying test of a scramjet in the world. Scramjets are a special breed of jet engine that works at very high speeds. A normal jet engine can't make it above mach 4 before the flame basically gets blown out the back of the engine. Scramjets use a specially configured air duct that bears more resemblance to the old ramjet engines of the 1940's than today's modern jet turbines. If the design can be perfected, they may open up cheaper access to space and aircraft many times faster than Concorde. Of course, we may not be allowed to ride on them because of concerns over terrorism, but that's another story.

Hydrogen fuel is injected into the engine when it reaches mach 5 - the scramjet just won't work below that speed -and the resulting explosion pushed the engine forward. For a variety of reasons, the engine looks more like a futuristic artillery shell than anything else. Mounted on top of a rocket and diving down, the engine reached speeds of mach 7.8, so should have had ample speed to get itself up to steam. Unfortunately braking and landing were not part of this test, so the remains of the engine are embedded deep in the desert downrange, 400km west of Woomera.

Them Falling Rocks

Another big rock was spotted heading our way this month at 28 kilometres per second. Asteroid 2002 NT7, a 2 kilometre wide chunk of space rock, was discovered on the 19^th July this year. Initial observations suggested there might be a chance of a collision around the 1^st February 2019, but a more accurate series ruled this out. There is still a possibility of an impact further in the future as it does pass us on a regular basis, crossing our orbit every 2.29 years. Fortunately, we're at a different place in the orbit every time it comes back, but eventually it and Earth are going to have a bit of a fender-bender unless someone goes up there and modifies its orbit. For those with long enough memories, the next close passes are in 2035 and 2051.

Who You Callin' Old And Cracked?

The latest setback for the US space shuttle is a series of multiple cracks 2-7mm long found in the metal liner of the fuel pipes of all shuttles before the planned mid-July flight by Columbia to the International Space Station (ISS). These cracks have stopped all planned shuttle flights up to the 26^th September at the earliest, much to the annoyance of Ilan Ramon, who was due to cadge a lift from his good friends the Americans to become Israel's first astronaut. He now won't get up there before December at the very earliest.

NASA believe they can safely weld the cracks closed, and will start work early in August. The main concern is not that the pipes themselves will burst - the shuttles have all flown several times with these cracks - but that fragments of the liner may break off and enter the turbines in the engine, causing catastrophic engine failure and much fireworks.

Ironically, this is all good news for Lance Bass, the singer in 'N Sync, who is definitely not old and cracked. Due to the knock-on delays and the crew of the ISS now being up there for somewhat longer than originally planned, he has more time to do his training and may yet make a flight up in a Russian Soyuz this year. The US electronics retailer RadioShack (their equivalent of "Dick Smiths") have agreed to sponsor him. With luck they'll pay extra to leave him up there.

The Other SkyTower

OK, so we have this big, pointy thing in the middle of Auckland called the Sky Tower, stuck in like an enormous spigot to drain the money out of Aucklanders or anyone else daft enough to go to the casino. The other SkyTower is not actually a tower. It's a concept based on unmanned solar-powered aircraft called Helios and Pathfinder that fly above the worst of the cloud. As they have rechargeable fuel cells onboard too, they can store electricity in the day and use it to keep the craft up during the night.

So what's this got to do with a tower? Well, seeing as it flies 20km or more up in the air and has a power supply, it can be viewed as one heck of a tall cellphone mast - a sort of low-level satellite if you will. Because it looks more or less straight down on the people below, it doesn't need to transmit signals through anything solid and nor does the upcoming signal have to be so strong. In fact, it uses so little power that thousands of computer buffs would be able to use it as a floating wireless internet connection. This has been tried out, running a 24Mib/s data connection on 1 watt of power if that means anything to you.

Aerovironment have developed the special fuel cells needed for the craft with NASA, and have recently been testing it with the Japanese Ministry of Communications. Other companies such as Fuji, NEC and Toshiba are interested in using it for high altitude research and transmitting HDTV pictures.

Rocking All Over The Moon

Moonrock sales have been making the news recently, and real moonrock too not fake dust and lumps of concrete. The most prominent story is the one about four employees of the Johnson Space Centre in Florida nicking a 600lb safe containing moonrocks and meteorites. Undercover FBI agents placed adverts for moonrock, sat back and caught them with the goods.

Another story has been brewing since 1998, when FBI agents seized moonrock from Alan Rosen. The rock had originally been given to the president of Honduras, but things being what they are it got misplaced some time later and was sold on. Of course, NASA wants to maintain the monopoly on moonrock in the US and consequently there is now a legal case intriguingly titled "United States v. Lucite ball containing lunar material". One hopes that poor old Lucite Ball will get time off for good behaviour.

This edition is also on the web, just point your web browser to http://olliver.family.gen.nz.   vik@olliver.family.gen.nz

"Mankind will only be happy when the last capitalist is hanged with the guts of the last bureaucrat!"

- Students of Goethe circa 1968
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