In the year (4xxx or 5xxx) the new human race, known as the Tellans, who succeeded from the human race after an evolutionary war, continues to live on the planet earth (now tellus [prime?]). The Tellan Prime Government has decreed that there is no life outside of Tellan influence, and thus all planets in unrestricted space are colonize-able and considered property of Tellus.

The story begins when two scientists of a major corporation finish an illegal space craft they have been building on their own time. They gather supplies to help them synthesize food and necessities while in space. Before their departure, they steal a few important company files regarding restricted space systems, charted and uncharted (the company they worked for was in charge of developing space ships and supply stations for off world colonization).

As they make an escape from Tellus, they plan a four day trip to a star system deep into restricted space. Upon arriving they find two habitable planets, one seems to show signs of terraforming, so they plot a course for orbit to make contact. They crash on the planet and wake up three days later in what seems to be a paradise. Greeted by what seems to be an old human, the two scientists start to believe that humans didn’t die out in the war, but simply relocated to another planet (thus the terraforming).

Later they find out that these are not human’s but an alien species that has been extinct for millennia. The aliens are actually part of a penal colony, in which they can never leave. Due to an experiment gone wrong, the aliens enerygies were ripped from their bodies and cast unto the planet to remain for eternity. With their “ghost” like qualities they were able to infiltrate the computer of the ships crew, and find the knowledge of humanity. They put on the disguise so as to not frighten the Tellans.

The Tellans try to leave, but they cannot because of an anti-energy pattern around the planet. The life forms speak of a “warden” who they must see to prove that they are off-worlders and do not deserve to be here. The warden find the Tellans so interesting that he decides they cannot leave. It seems the warden is a collector of rare objects, since his life is to serve as warden to this facility (and now that he is trapped here eternally he is more determined to collect unique items as a way to subdue his madness) and he rarely gets to see anything off world.

Eventually they escape and stuff, but I really can’t tell you how or why or what, because that would ruin the book.

Approx. Read Time:  4-6 minutes

Ever wake up and realize you forgot to plug-in your cellphone, laptop, or other mobile device? Without that charge in your mobile device, you can have a pretty terrible day. We’re not just talking verbal communication, but you could have your e-mail, short message service, and instant messaging services cut off, which makes getting around and changing plans much harder. It would be nice to never have this problem of forgetting to plug something in before you go to sleep, but as long as we’re transferring energy through wires, it’s going to happen here and there.

The solution is a process called inductive charging. Earlier last month, Palm released their new Pre phone and Touchstone wireless charging station. The Touchstone charger magnetically grips the Pre and begins charging it with a magnetic field. While this may not help you if you forget to set your phone on the charger, it’s certainly a step closer.

Another company, WiTricity, has been working on a way to transfer wireless energy over a greater distance. Their fine engineers have found that using magnetic fields, you can transfer power very efficiently at a distance up to several meters. This technology can yield up to a 95% efficiency, which is phenomenal by any standard. Better yet, the magnetic fields generated from the power source can go through and around objects. Soon we will be able to turn off the lights and go to bed without worrying about our appliances being charged.

Wireless Wonderland

As our gadgets get more powerful, they need more energy to operate, which dilutes battery time. Whenever I want to play games on my cell phone or browse the web, I usually get only a few hours out of my batter before the phone is low and needs to recharge. It’s a little frustrating when you still have 4-5 hours left until you’re near a charger. The other down side to batteries are that, when it gets charged too much, it can lose it’s ability to hold a charge. This results in a weaker battery and less operating time for our machines. One solution to this would be to have our phones hooked up to a wireless power source, while leaving the battery as a back up power source for when there is no wireless power around. For the most part, this would be limited to your home, until someone installs wireless power stations around your area. The good news, is that could already be on it’s way.

Toyota, which has just launched it’s new Prius model, has put solar powered flowers around Boston (and soon other major cities) that provide  Wi-Fi and 110 volt power outlets for anyone who passes by to use for charging their portable devices. It’s possible to have similar stations for anyone using WiTricity or other wireless power technologies to use as a constant power stream for mobile machines to stay powered, reducing battery decay and allowing extended use of high energy draining functions. Even installing them in the walls and floors of coffee shops and restaurants is a productive, and feasible idea!

Is it safe?

In fact, it could be safer than traditional outlets, as there are no exposed points to electrocute yourself with, and any harmful electric fields are contained within the device. These devices work on a magnetic field similar to the earths, and have a very weak, if any, effect on biological life forms. There is no “Tesla Coil” effect going on between source and the capture device, which means electricity isn’t actually flying through the air.

To give you a break down of how WiTricity works, whenever you run an AC current through a conductor, you generate an oscillating magnetic field. Using two selected resonating coils, you can couple them in a magnetic field, one generating the magnetic field and capturing it. When the oscillating magnetic field from the source collides with the power capturing coil, it starts to move the electrons and generates voltage. This works best when the coils resonate at the same frequency and it enables the energy to be transferred further than before using magnetic induction. The process is specifically called resonant magnetic coupling.

Not only is it safe, it will help save energy in everyday life. Usually, after a device is done charging or turned off, it still draws power from your electric socket, raising your electric bill and needlessly wasting energy. Through design, WiTricity has made it possible for devices to only use the energy that is needed and, when it is off or not charging, it switches over to an energy saving idle state. Using wireless electricity could reduce your household appliances energy consumption by 20%! With the electronic world we live in, that is a huge figure.

Conclusion

I saw a very interesting picture while I was researching this technology, which showed wireless energy transfer being used in space. I love the idea of exploring our own solar systems and ones like it close to us, but I also think we have so much to learn about whats around us. If we could perfect this technology, we could have extended space walks, and a way to power a moon or mars settlement. Putting a solar powered station above a planet that supplied the surface with wireless energy from the sun could provide a useful, mobile, tool for setting up bases and settlements on other worlds.

This could also be a great addition to electric cars. If you wanted to run an electric car without a fuel cell from Los Angeles to New York, you would have to stop a lot along the way and recharge. One of the problems lies on the west coast of the nation. Some of these highways are barren and don’t have many stops along the way while you are driving. It would be possible to install charging stations that line these highways, giving your car the extra boost in needs to make it to the next stop.

You could also have a back up, portable, battery that you carry in your car. When you are running low on power, switch it on and let the car charge. After you get to the nearest station you can charge your car and the battery at the same time using wireless energy transfer technology.

Regardless, wireless power transfer is definitely going to revolutionize the future and cut costs on energy bills. I believe that within the next couple of years major countries will start to integrate wireless power stations around their cities. This will lead to a faster lifestyle, and hopefully a better, evolved, society.

Torbjørn V.N.

Additional Info

Solar Powered Flowers

Better explanation of how WiTricity technology works

Approx. Read Time:  5-8 minutes

The dream of interstellar travel may not be as far off as it seems. With recent advancements in propulsion technology, and innovative thinkers and dreamers like Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and Blue Origin, Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, which includes Virgin Galactic, and PayPal founder Elon Musk, who also founded Spacex, it’s now a concept just within our grasp. For example, Virgin Galactic’s goal is to get passengers in orbit possibly as early as next year, which is impressive!

However, there are a few challenges that may or may not make the difference on whether small commercialized spacecraft can make it into space, safely back down to earth, and keep relative time in check.  Nevertheless, with the vast scale of technology available to us today, I believe it is possible to fix these problems in time for space travel to become vastly popular among Earth culture.

Orbital rehab program

The first of many of these problems, as many of you might already be aware of, is the unchecked and sometimes untrack-able space junk that flies around the earth. Recently, NASA has been working with radar technology to track as much of this debris as possible, but it is certainly not enough.  The smallest bit of debris track-able by radar is currently the size of a softball, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Softball sized objects are visible to radar only if the object is in a low orbit, the farther from Earth, the bigger the object needs to be. With the current limitations, only about 10% of the debris in space has been tracked and documented! Most of these objects are traveling around 5-8 miles per second, which at the size of a softball, is more than enough to blast a hole through smaller commercial spacecraft.

The technology for tracking junk around earths orbit needs to be improved before we can start actively removing some of it, but there also needs to be more aggressive measures for preventing additional debris from building up in our orbit. You might have heard about the two commercial satellites that crashed earlier this year, leaving a clutter of space debris to go swarming about earths orbit, but there have also been instances of astronauts losing tools objects from satellites and space stations into space. Working on measures to secure tools to an astronauts suit, and improving space collision detection should be our first priority when working on clearing up the orbit of earth.

What wonders Whipple’s do!

New technology has sprung about to dampen the blow to a spacecraft, but the effects thus far on commercial flight are dubious. The current shield being used today is called a Whipple shield, or Whipple bumper, and works on multiple layers of thin sheets of metal with gaps in between them so the first layer breaks the object up into smaller fragments, which the next layer can easily absorb. A stuffed Whipple has, between the layers of metal,  a dampening object like Kevlar to increase it’s strength and let the shield absorb more blows.

Recently, NASA has started to install metal foam as a dampening agent, to be used as early as next year, to hopefully increase the shields effectiveness. The point of this new technology is to reduce the shield to weight ratio of a spacecraft, for the obvious reasons, while increasing the safety of the crew during all flight operations.  It’s not an easy task, but the more research that goes into it, the better the result for passengers and astronauts alike.

A Whipple might be a great way to stop space debris from jeopardizing any potential passengers in a commercial spacecraft, but if they want to keep the vehicle small, new technologies, or smaller versions of the Whipple need to be developed. I highly doubt anyone is going to want to go into space on a craft that can barley hold three passengers and no lavatory! It would be much easier just to avoid the debris all together, but at the speed it is moving, and by the time you detect it and change course, it has already hit you and is possibly already five miles away.  As well as the fact that, even though astronauts themselves seldom get hit with space debris, it is still very possible for one section of the craft’s shield to take too much damage, and possibly ripping the craft in two with a hull breach in a matter of seconds.

Even though space junk is a huge, and deadly, threat to commercial space travel, It will definitely increase the awareness of the problem if we had more and more people going on personal space vacations. The more we are able to do something, and the more of a danger there is to doing it, the more attention gets directed to solving the problem and making it safer. Current commercial air travel hasn’t always been as safe, and it is still being developed to make it safer and safer for passengers to fly.

Where to go, and will the Earth be the same when you come back?

This brings me to the next problem, destination. I guarantee you as soon as readily available space travel arrives, people will want to go elsewhere. A simple orbit around the earth is nice, and could be fun for a few hours, but spending days or weeks in a space craft will make anyone feel cramped.

The moon will definitely be the first place to go, which will only be a few hours away with VASIMR Technology (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket), but a destination like that will not be as interesting as a planet like Mars. Going to the moon for a vacation would be quite fun, since the gravity is lower and you get a very nice view of your home, but building a station there will probably take at least a decade. It’s another place you couldn’t stay at for too long, but I’m sure there will be some kind of camping arrangement for each shuttle craft so you could stay a few days. It makes sense to take a few supplies and when they run out, head back to earth.

The other destination, Mars will take about a month, give or take any conditions you meet out in space. This poses a huge problem, as taking a month trip to get to mars and then a month back to stay for only a day or two, even a week max, is absurd. If you were going to go there, there will have to be a colony or some sort of facility set up so that you could stay, and possibly even gain some income for all that time you missed at work, so don’t plan on going to mars anytime soon.

So, lets say we eliminate all of the other factors. Lets say we clear all the space debris, have a lunar and martian colony, and even shorten the trip there to about a week. Well, I would say we’re moving pretty fast, but it’s awesome to be able to travel our own solar system like this. The problem is, according to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, time goes slower around you and/or your vehicle at higher speeds. Basically, time is normal for you, and anyone on earth, but if you were to look outside your window to your friend as you went by (assuming it was physically possible, which it isn’t) he would look as if he were trapped in fast forward, and you would look, to him, like someone trapped in slow motion! It’s almost like going into the future, but you never left the present. If we can propel ourselves to mars within a week, how fast will we be going? This might end up destroying our inner clock,  or it might even seem like we’ve been gone for three or four months, rather than 30 days, ruining your plans for the weekend after your vacation.

The effects of time dilation on the human body are a bit hard to study, since we can hardly gather enough data on it. Going that fast for that long might just inject new problems to the situation. It is of definite interest for science to be looking towards time dilation, and a way to counteract that force. Even though it has been tested, we may end up wrong in the long run, which may be good. One less thing to worry about while going out into the universe, is a huge step for space travel.

Conclusion

With all of the problems that present themselves through commercial space flight, The challenge is definitely scaled enough that we can tackle it. The more we look into these problems, the better off we are as a society, and the better we can understand the universe and the forces at work behind it. I hope that within ten years, humans will be roaming about freely in our own solar system, and within about 50 to 100 years we’ll be an interstellar species, finding new information and materials to further our existence. To boldly go where no man has gone before!

Before I leave you, I did find an article pertaining to special relativity in Scientific American. It’s long, but it’s worth a read on quantum physics and time dilation.  Read it here ->Was Einstein Wrong?: A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity

Torbjørn V.N.

Approx. Read Time:  1-3 minutes

Well then, this is the first post! It took me about two whole days to get this where I wanted it, but it finally worked.

I was working on my own theme for this blog, but after I had some problems with Internet Explorer, I decided I would just find a theme I like, and customize it. So here it is, this is the theme I chose, and I’ve changed a few things from the original authors specs. I hope to learn more about how Wordpress works, learn some more about getting IE to cooperate, and finally develop my own stylish theme. Until then, I like what I have here and I put a bit of work into getting my logo and icons working.

I’ve learned that when setting up a blog, it’s more important to get it out there, than to spend a lot of time working on your own fancy theme, and getting everything to work the way you want to. There are a lot of great free themes out there. Choose one, work on getting that running how you want, then design your own theme. It’s more important to start gathering readers and working on getting your first good post, then to spend a week or even a month getting your own theme working.

It was an interesting two days till this point where I made my first post. I learned to script a CSS only highlighting navigation bar through trial and error, got stung by a scorpion, and learned that setting up google ads with pixel size limitations is much harder than need be. Regardless, I got everything to work, and I think I’m going to kick this blog off with a few Ideas I have.

First thing is first,  I’m definitely going to add a tutorials page, so I can share all the information on how to solve the frustrating problems I encountered while working with Wordpress. I searched google for hours and got the same exact outdated answers over and over again. Hopefully I can help with some updated answers and solutions in my own personal tutorial blogs.

Second thing I want to add, is a debate page. I want to put up a post once a week for everyone to debate upon and share their answers. I might even choose to have a slinkset set up to choose the topic each week by seeing which topic is voted on the most.

Lastly, I’m going to be writing about anything I find interesting. Fun facts are a must, and I will be looking for anything out of the ordinary, or anything that is “brink” to post here. My goal is to make the posts on here interesting enough that you, my readers, don’t get let down. Let me know what you would like to see!

This is more of an under construction post, so I will be posting an article within the next day or two, so stay tuned.

Torbjørn V.N.