Space Elevator - Devy the Gravity and Reach the Outer Space

After the space shuttle Columbia lifted off on April 12, 1981 from Kennedy Space Center, to start the first space shuttle mission, the dream of a reusable spacecraft was realized. Since that time, NASA has launched more than 100 missions. Each mission was done by launching a large rocket that has to be built from a scratch. It surely cost a lot to make even a single rocket, and the additional cost to launch the rocket (approximately $10,000) would be a very burdensome budget.

Considering the cost and the time to make and launch the rocket, scientists have to figure out how to send people or machines into space at a low cost and the spacecraft has to be reusable. By borrowing the Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s concept about the tower that reach the earth’s geostationary orbit, they have come out with a concept of a new space transportation system that could make travel to Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) a daily event and transform the global economy. The space transportation system is called the “Space Elevator”.

space elevator is a proposed type of space transportation system. Its main component is a ribbon-like cable (also called a tether) anchored to the surface and extending into space. It is designed to permit vehicle transport along the cable from a planetary surface, such as the Earth's, directly into space or orbit, without the use of large rockets.

To better understand the concept of a space elevator, think of the game tetherball in which a rope is attached at one end to a pole and at the other to a ball. In this analogy, the rope is the carbon nanotubes composite ribbon, the pole is the Earth and the ball is the counterweight. Now, imagine the ball is placed in perpetual spin around the pole, so fast that it keeps the rope taut. This is the general idea of the space elevator. The counterweight spins around the Earth, keeping the cable straight and allowing the robotic lifters to ride up and down the ribbon.

The centerpiece of the elevator will be the carbon nanotubes composite ribbon that is just a few centimeters wide and nearly as thin as a piece of paper. Carbon nanotubes, discovered in 1991, are what make scientists believe that the space elevator could be built. Carbon nanotubes have the potential to be 100 times stronger than steel and are as flexible as plastic. The strength of carbon nanotubes comes from their unique structure, which resembles soccer balls. Once scientists are able to make fibers from carbon nanotubes, it will be possible to create threads that will form the ribbon for the space elevator. Previously available materials were either too weak or inflexible to form the ribbon and would have been easily broken.

Once a long ribbon of nanotubes is created, it would be wound into a spool that would be launched into orbit. When the spacecraft carrying the spool reaches a certain altitude, perhaps Low Earth Orbit, it would begin unspooling, lowering the ribbon back to Earth. At the same time, the spool would continue moving to a higher altitude. When the ribbon is lowered into Earth's atmosphere, it would be caught and then lowered and anchored to a mobile platform in the ocean.

The ribbon would serve as the tracks of a sort of railroad into space. Mechanical lifters would then be used to climb the ribbon to space.

While the ribbon is still a conceptual component, all of the other pieces of the space elevator can be constructed using known technology, including the robotic lifter, anchor station and power-beaming system.

Lifter

The robotic lifter will use the ribbon to guide its ascent into space. Traction-tread rollers on the lifter would clamp on to the ribbon and pull the ribbon through, enabling the lifter to climb up the elevator.

Anchor Station

The space elevator will originate from a mobile platform in the equatorial Pacific, which will anchor the ribbon to Earth.

Counterweight

At the top of the ribbon, there will be a heavy counterweight. Early plans for the space elevator involved capturing an asteroid and using it as a counterweight. However, more recent plans like those of LiftPort and the Institute for Scientific Research (ISR) include the use of a man-made counterweight. In fact, the counterweight might be assembled from equipment used to build the ribbon including the spacecraft that is used to launch it.

Power Beam

The lifter will be powered by a free-electron laser system located on or near the anchor station. The laser will beam 2.4 megawatts of energy to photovoltaic cells, perhaps made of Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) attached to the lifter, which will then convert that energy to electricity to be used by conventional, niobium-magnet DC electric motors, according to the ISR.

Once operational, lifters could be climbing the space elevator nearly every day. The lifters will vary in size from five tons, at first, to 20 tons. The 20-ton lifter will be able to carry as much as 13 tons of payload and have 900 cubic meters of space. Lifters would carry cargo ranging from satellites to solar-powered panels and eventually humans up the ribbon at a speed of about 118 miles per hour (190 km/hour).

If the space elevator is realized later in the years forward, in addition to seeing from the technological point of view, we also have to look from the standpoint of the impact on society. Space elevator is a great yet a very dangerous technology, because it involves not only the environment on the earth, but on the space which is mostly unreachable and unpredictable. If we look at the bigger point of view, we can see that the space elevator compared to the earth is only a tiny fragile string attached to a ball, so it is very easy for it to break up if anything happened inside or near the earth. For example, the lightning stroke can damage the cable; meteors can easily break the cable or destroy the elevator although the chance is tiny; Wind loading study that can vibrate the cable; atomic oxygen in the upper atmosphere which is extremely corrosive and will etch the epoxy in our cable and possibly the carbon nanotubes; radiation damage; and the possibility of environmental impact during the construction.

Besides its impact to the environment, the space elevator gives society a great amount of contribution that gives the advantage for the people. First, space elevator has the potential to transform the global economy. It helps the economy such as reducing the cost needed to make a spacecraft and it may bring us to a new world of economy. Second, it gives us a bigger chance to study about the space. It also helps the scientists to collect data, real-time, without using any kind of robots/special devices. And the last but not least, it gives all the people in the world a chance to go to the outer space and see what’s going on above our earth, to know, and to study all things outside the earth.

Name                              : Hans Chandra

Lecturer Name                       : Aditya Pratomo

Campus                              : Surya University

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-elevator.htm

http://www.mill-creek-systems.com/HighLift/chapter10.html

Novint Xio - Revolutionary Technology for Gaming Device

Wii, Kinect, Leap motion, and Oculust Rift were the beginnings of a major revolution for gaming, allowing you to get up off the couch and actually experience some of the physical action of games yourself.

After those gaming devices hit the market, recently, Novint, the company that has created the Falcon controller, is taking that up a notch with the Xio, a self-contained force-feedback immersive exoskeletal gaming arm.

Novint Xio is a futuristic gaming controller that uses the prototype of exoskeletal arm that functions as a game controller. You strap it on, and as you wave your arm around, the Xio tracks your movements and translates them into in-game motions. Players have the option to stand in front of the TV like current Wii technologies, or they can sit at a desk and do control with their wrist movements.

The difference between this gaming controller and other controller is that, unlike current motion control technologies, you will be able to feel what is in the game. When you shoot a gun, take a full body golf swing, jump a car, or smash a sword into a shield, you can feel the same physical feelings as your character experiences.

The ability for a game to reach out and gives you the feeling of what your character in the game experiences is something that hasn't yet been taken advantage of, but it really has the potential to make that immersive gaming experience that we all crave even more. At the moment, the most severe consequence that a game can generally inflict on us is annoyance, when you die and have to start something over. With force feedback controllers, there are physical consequences to what you do in game. The physical consequences is not only about the pain that you will get if your character gets hit or damaged by the enemy, but you can directly experience every physical stimulus, such as pistols recoil from shooting with guns, ball texture in sport games, and others. With this controller‘s ability, it'll be much easier for you to immerse yourself in the game world, which is why we play video games in the first place, and it will be a fun part when you using this controller while exercising and playing video games at the same time. 

So, after a brief explanation about Novint Xio above, the next question is, what games does this controller support? Well, in the first place, the plan is to launch Xio with full game support. The Xio is expected to support for most, if not all, major AAA PC titles at launch. Part of the reason we expected this, is that Xio will use the same software base as the Falcon, so the entire Falcon’s game support, either its PC, console, or mobile gaming platform, it will work with Xio.

Besides for the gaming controller, actually Novint Xio can be used for medical applications, telerobotics, scientific visualization, physical therapy, sports training, and military simulation, and other.  

Name                              : Hans Chandra

Lecturer Name                        : Aditya Pratomo 

Campus                              : Surya University
 

http://twistedjunk.com/2012/06/17/the-future-of-motion-control-the-novint-xio/

http://www.novint.com/index.php/novintxio

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/04/novint-xio-force-feedback-immersive-exoskeletal-gaming-arm/

SixthSense Technology for the Future

Have you ever thought of an era where the display of computer screen appears on walls and commands are given by gestures? Or a smart digital environment which talks to us to do our work and so on? Or maybe a moving picture in the newspaper just like in the Harry Potter movie? Well, in this beginning of a new era of technology where the engineering will reach new milestones, these all is possible very soon!  A few years before, it was considered to be a supernatural or tantalizing imagination. But now it has been made possible. Thanks to Pranav Mistry, a genius who introduced mankind to this futuristic technology called the ‘SixthSense’. The main function of this technological wonder is to greatly augment the physical world loaded with digital information, and help mankind use natural gestures to utilize and communicate with that particular information.

So, why it’s called ‘SixthSense’? Well, everyone is aware of the five basic senses. However, in addition to these basic senses of mankind, there is one more sense, as well, and this is referred to as the sixth sense. This is the name of a technological wonder, which is very much related to the physical senses by means of which perception of something beyond the five senses is possible. In fact, the invention of this technology is expected to change the entire perception of the world. The device perceives what human eyes in general perceive, but in addition to that, it provides information in relation to the viewing object. In fact, the device has been designed in such a manner, so that it can easily project information on any surface.

SixthSense is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. The device comprising a neckworn pendant that contains a data projector and a camera. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction. Head-worn versions were also built at MIT Media Lab in 1997 that combined cameras and illumination systems for interactive photographic art, and also included gesture recognition (e.g. finger-tracking using colored tape on the fingers).

After this technology applied in the whole world, what will happen later? The short answer is that the entire world will becomes a computer, because The Sixth Sense Technology enables us to receive information on any object against any surface. With the help of the information delivered from this technology, it becomes possible for the entire world to become a computer. The device helps us to get closer to reality, and consequently, it also assists us in taking the right decision.

The greatest benefit of this device is the availability of wide varieties of applications in it.

• Mapping can easily be done from any location. The features of zooming in and zooming out make the entire task of mapping easier.
• Since it is portable, it can easily be carried.
• There is a drawing application in the device, and this application helps the user to draw on any kind of surface.
• The user can also read newspaper with the help of this device. This enables the readers to view videos along with reading the newspaper. Live sports updates are also available with the help of this device.
• Book lovers can also easily grab on any book and Amazon ratings on these books are also available.

The device recognizes wide varieties of gestures. It can easily interact with different everyday objects. It can always be expected that this technology has a bright future because it might bring about a change in the way we look at the world. It can really create a magic. For instance, if you need to make a call, you can just extend your hands into the projector, and the numbers will instantly appear before you to click. Even if, you want to know time, you can draw a circle on your wrist. 

It can also connect the real world with the internet, which is certainly a novel application, and can thus, be a great source of information for the world itself. Therefore, it can always be claimed that this device has a long way to go in the near future.

Name                             : Hans Chandra

Lecturer Name              : Aditya Pratomo 

Campus                                : Surya University

Reference :

http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SixthSense

http://www.quora.com/Sixth-Sense-technology/What-happened-to-the-SixthSense-project