Category Archives: industry

Why Do Bike Lights Have Batteries

Posted on Mon, 2011-02-28 by gravityloss

They could very easily be pedal powered, requiring no charging or battery changes ever. Old dynamos resisted pedaling because of the old lamp technology, and the lamps also burned out often. No more. This seems to be a nice diagram, … Continue reading →

Posted in Homebuilt, industry, Transportation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hero Designers and Testing

Posted on Sat, 2011-01-29 by gravityloss

This shows the “golden age” during and just after the war. Even large things with a lot of design input could not be designed to be close to optimal right from the start. The B-36 experienced failures in structural testing … Continue reading →

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Get the benefit while everyone pays the cost

Posted on Mon, 2010-11-29 by gravityloss

Dr. Rabett has translated Ottmar Edenhofer’s Süddeutscher Zeitung interview from German. Excerpt: OE: Take coal for example. Worldwide there are about 12, 000 gigatons of coal in the ground. If we want to meet the goal of not warming by … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Global, idiocracy, industry, Science Links | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Camera Systems

Posted on Sat, 2010-11-27 by gravityloss

Back when digital cameras started appearing around the turn of the millennium, it pretty quickly turned out that just making a digital version of an 35 mm SLR camera was not a very efficient move. The image quality with full … Continue reading →

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Why precool but not liquify – Skylon and SABRE

Posted on Fri, 2010-10-29 by gravityloss

Well, I thought maybe I could add some content. Everybody’s heard about the British Hotol follower Skylon and its airbreathing SABRE engines. What’s special about them? My understandin’s based on this excellent document from Reaction Engines explaining why the system … Continue reading →

Posted in airplane, Architecture, Design, Energy, engines, ESA, industry, Launchers, RLV:s, Suborbital, Transportation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Can I have Linux with that?

Posted on Thu, 2010-10-21 by gravityloss

Apple’s Iphone, the various Google Android phones by Samsung, HTC and probably others, and Nokia’s Symbian phones are fighting on the smart phone market. As far as I know, Iphone is “closed” and you can only download those apps that … Continue reading →

Posted in industry, Navelgazing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Parawings and Rogallo wings, again

Posted on Thu, 2010-10-07 by gravityloss

Inspired by Michel Van (not Scott Lowther as mentioned earlier) at Secret Projects, who ran into the Gemini inflatable Rogallo wing test videos that are now available (not embeddable so linked only). There are parafoil systems for airdropping stuff, though … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Design, industry, RLV:s, Spacecraft, Suborbital | 2 Comments

Gravity Assist Competition

Posted on Wed, 2010-10-06 by gravityloss

Or The Space Game, by ESA. This is a nice javascript webpage where a probe is shot from Earth to Jupiter with gravity assists at Venus (twice), Earth and Mars. You try to achieve the lowest propulsive delta vee. You … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Astronomy, Depot, Design, Energy, ESA, Homebuilt, industry, Launchers, Lunar, Models, Motivation, Science Links, Spacecraft | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sankrithi Channels Wallis

Posted on Mon, 2010-09-27 by gravityloss

Most people with interest in aerospace history know of Barnes Wallis’ geodetic structures, most famously used on the Vickers Wellington. He first invented them for the R100 airship, basically a weave of thin aluminum shapes going in different directions, forming … Continue reading →

Posted in airplane, Art, Design, Homebuilt, industry, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Turn-Boost-Glide-Back approach for first stages

Posted on Sun, 2010-09-26 by gravityloss

In a patent by the famous Barnaby Wainfan. EDIT: corrected the link. This patent was filed in 2006 and granted in 2008.

Posted in airplane, Architecture, Art, Design, engines, industry, Launchers, RLV:s, Suborbital | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments