Launch of New Orion Spaceship Has NASA Flying High

Looking back at the space shuttle days, the recent impending debut of Orion spacecraft has left NASA on a high note. According to the sources, shuttle veterans are expected to be leading the charge in two-orbit, 4½-hour test flight, which is meant to shake out the capsule, before the astronauts can climb aboard. The destination at the moment has been said to be Mars. As per the lead flight director stationed at Mission Control in Houston, Mike Sarafin, they never felt this kind of feeling since the closure of the shuttle program. This is a very proud moment for them, as they will be launching an American spacecraft from the United States of America’s soil, which is meant for starting something new and explore some of the dark secrets of the space.

The launch of new Orion spacecraft: 

The spacecraft is expected to fly farther than any human-rated spacecraft (this is since the Apollo moon program) and it will aim at a distance of 3,600 miles, which is 14 times higher than the International Space Station and it is expected that altitude will provide a momentum for a 20,000-mph and 4,000-degree entry over the Pacific. The most vital part of the test flight is called the "trial by fire” by NASA, which is the 11 short minutes to splashdown. The heat shield at Orion's base is the largest of its kind ever built, which is at 16.5 feet across.

If sources have to be believed, nearly 650 journalists and around 26,000 guests are expected at the Kennedy for the sunrise launch. The space center press site was packed with many out of station reporters who have not been since the last shuttle flight in 2011. The capsule's inaugural run was put on par with that of the formative steps of Apollo and the space shuttles by the NASA's Orion program manager, Mark Geyer. He stated that they are starting a new mission, which is at the region on the moon and looking forward to something beyond than that. As per Jeff Angermeier, “Ground support mission manager from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, everybody can feel the buzz as this is a very exciting time for them”.

According to Charles Bolden Jr, Administrator of NASA, “In past 40 years, it will be the first time when America is going to launch a spacecraft meant to carry humans beyond low-Earth orbit. That’s what makes it a big deal”. Before 2012, Orion is not planning to carry any astronauts. NASA wants to test some of the most critical parts of the capsule as it will be travelling through the high-radiation Van Allen belts surrounding Earth and engineers are looking forwards to check on the effect on the on-board computers.

As if now the spacecraft will be hoisted by Delta IV rocket but for the next flight in 2018, it will use mega-rocket which is still under development. The spacecraft without any humans has taken some of the stress off the NASA scientists, as they are still trying to overcome the October's explosion moments of the commercial rocket, which was carrying supplies for the International Space Station.

The Best Games for Your New Android Phone

There are lots of arguments pertaining to the lack of games on Android based phones and tablets when compared to the ones with iOS. Even though Android is working hard to get these gaps filled, still there are lots of games which are worth playing and having on the phone. The games for android range from monster-punch madness to a Zen like strategy games. The list is endless. Some of the favorites among market experts and players are:

1 Rymdkapsel: - This game is a space-age strategy game, which has been set in a strange, pixel-perfect world. In this game, the player has to control many white rectangles as they keep on gathering resources, food stores, fire lasers at intruders and research unexplained monoliths.

2 Smash Hit: - This game is known to elevate itself into a total art form and is well known method of stress relief. The players have to go through a path wherein they have to face Glass walls, pyramids, windows, and even DNA-like helixes in their path. The players have to destroy these obstacles before they can do any damage to them. This game is very simple and addictive and can be a player’s delight.

3 Badland: - This game explains more or less about the evolution of human genome through time. In this, the untitled protagonist species keeps on shrinking or multiplying many times in a single level. The immersive 2D aesthetic and the puzzles make this game a pleasure to play.

4 Plants vs. Zombies: - The game is about strategically positioning the plants on the game board to avoid the legion of zombies, which are ready to overtake the game board. New challenges and increased number of zombies make this game more than one can handle.

5 Hearthstone: - At present this game is accessible on phones and tablets with more than 6 inches screen. This can be full of thrill of one on one fight and quickly made the player addicted.

6 Jetpack Joyride: - The game is all about getting the highest score through some of the basic cartoon animations of the game.

7 Super Hexagon: - In this game the player is in the form on a triangle and moving across on a pulsating hexagon, which keeps on throwing obstacles at the player. It is difficult for the players to be alive for more than 60 seconds but, this is what makes the game so addictive.

8 The Room 2: - This is a sequel to The Room and the developers have already taken the game to a new level and made it even more exciting. The puzzles are much more complex this time and it will not be easy for a player to get out of the room so easily.

9 Kingdom Rush Origins: - This is one of the best tower defense game that anyone can get on their phone or tablet. Origins are the latest additions to the Kingdom Rush series and it has everything to excite the fans of the previous game.

10 Minecraft:- Pocket edition: - This game carries out the essence of the main mine-craft game very well and sure to keep a beginner happy.

Evolvable Internet Architecture

When it comes to the future Internet research, making improvement in the existing architecture so that it meets different types of requirements becomes the key topic. Professor Xu Ke and his group from Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology (TNList), Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University have set out together to find a solution to this problem.

The team has been able to develop a novel evolvable Internet architecture framework under the evolvability constraint, the manageability constraint and economic adaptability constraint. According to them, the network layer can be used to develop the evolvable architecture under these design constraints. Their teamwork has been published SCIENCE CHINA Information Sciences.2014, Vol 57(11), with the title, "Towards evolvable internet architecture-design constraints and models analysis".

The total concept: 

With nearly 1/3 of the total world’s population having access to internet, it has become one of the strongest and the global means of communication. However, in a deeper sense, internet is no longer a communication channel but now it has been extended to become a communication and data processing storage area. Looking at the changes it is difficult for the existing Internet architecture to adapt.

Even though there are corresponding researches about future Internet research depending on the dirty-slate approach and the clean-slate approach, for more than years the two mainstream architecture development ideas have been conducted in many countries but still these approaches cannot fully solve the current Internet architectures problem efficiently.

As far as the dirty-slate approach is concerned, it can only solve a small range of local issues on the Internet but it also makes the internet architecture evolve into a complex and cumbersome structure. But when it comes to the clean-slate approach, there is serious deployment and transition issues, which becomes totally uncontrollable in the current architecture.

The evolvable Internet architecture combines the advantages of both the clean-slate approach and dirty-slate approach also ensures that the core principal is not hampered.

The evolvable architecture is more flexible when compared to the dirty-slate approach. Even the evolvable architecture becomes more stable when compared to the clean-slate approach. There are three different types of layers in the evolvable architecture.

Apart from ensuring that the construction of the evolvable architecture is in conformity with the design principles, three constraints are required during the development stages. They are the economic adaptability constraint, evolvability constraint, and the management constraint. This is all about the next generation of the internet.

The development and history: 

The collaborative efforts from many researchers from different institutes and universities are behind the discovery and development of this evolvable architecture. This project got the support from a grant from 973 Project of China (Grant Nos. 2009CB320501 & 2012CB315803), NSFC Project (Grant No. 61170292 & 61161140454), New Generation Broadband Wireless Mobile Communication Network of the National Science and Technology Major Projects (Grant No. 2012ZX03005001), 863 Project of China (Grant No. 2013AA013302), EU MARIE CURIE ACTIONS EVANS (Grant No. PIRSES-GA-2010-269323), and the National Science and Technology Support Program (Grant No. 2011BAK08B05-02).

Large-Scale Power Plants Based On Thermoelectric Effects

Large Scale Energy Plants – Generate Electricity Efficiently

New study shows that large scale energy plants using thermoelectric effects like temperature differences in ocean water can generate electricity efficiently at lower costs than solar power plants. According to researchers, these ocean based plants could resemble huge barges which float in tropical oceans that generate electricity using shallow water warmed by the sun to heat cold water which is brought up from the depths.

A paper which had been published in the New Journal of Physics and authored by Liping Liu, Associate Professor of Rutgers University,has analysed the feasibility of these types of floating power plants. Liu has informed Phys.org that the function is regarding the new notion of big scale green power plants which make financial use of the biggest accessible as well as sustainable power reservoir on the earth. It is due to the heating of the sun on the water surface to a temperature which in tropical regions would be 20 K greater than water 600 m deep.

 The surface water, usually acts as a giant storage tank of solar power. He further explains that the thermoelectric energy plants could perform by harvesting power of ocean waves and pump cold water from some of hundred meters deep up through a long channel.

Heat Exchanger – Electric Generator

When the cold water reaches the surface it enters a heat exchanger and is heated by the surface water on the outside where the heat exchangers acts like a electric generator since its tubes are made of thermoelectric material which can transfer heat through its walls and can convert temperature variations in electrical energy.

The ocean based thermoelectric energy plant has a few advantages where for a single, the fuel or temperature differences, are cost free, simply accessible and unlimited. Moreover, the plant does not take up much space on land and have no moving solid parts with low maintenance fees. Besides this, the approach is green since it does not have any emissions.

Small scale thermoelectric generators are presently used commercially for applications like microelectronics, energy generation in remote areas and automobiles. In these cases, the conversion efficiency is an important aspect since the fuel accounts for biggest part of the price.

Commercial devices have conversion efficiency of about five to ten percent of the Carnot efficiency together with state of the art devices targeting efficiencies of about twenty percent though investigation is on its way to completion of additional strengthening the efficiency and there are limits of how higher it could go.

Fuel without Cost/Unlimited Supply

Liu, in the new paper, has showed that the significant scale thermoelectric power plants need not operate at exceptional high efficiencies in order to be economically competitive as alternative, but would depend on engineering uncomplicated structures like laminated composite for mass production support.

Improvements have been aimed on conversion capacity when compared to efficiency and can be improved with regards to orders of magnitude. Since the fuel is available at no cost together with unlimited supply, large scale thermoelectric energy plants could cope up with their size to what they may lack in efficiency.

The cost of creating electricity differs by supply and according to US Department of Power, the yearly expenses of one megawatt of electricity in 2016 is estimated at about $83 million for standard coal plants when compared to $1,84 million for photovoltaic power plants.

NASA Explores Inflatable Spacecraft Technology

At NASA’s Langley Research Centre located in Hampton, engineers have been devising a way to land astronauts on Mars which according to them seems that a simple thing like a child’s toy design would help to solve the problem. The progress is on, in the development of an inflatable heat shield which looks like a super-sized version of a stacking of doughnuts which an infant normally plays with.

The engineers are of the belief that a lightweight, inflatable heat shield could help to slow the craft to enter a Martian atmosphere which is much thinner to the Earth’s atmosphere. Landing safely in a large spacecraft on the Red planet is one of the many challenges faced as they are keen on sending humans, deep into space later this century.

This designed inflatable heat shield will enable the spacecraft to reach high altitude southern plains of Mars as well as other areas which otherwise would not be accessible under the prevailing technology. According to the experts, the rockets cannot be used to land a large spacecraft on Mars as done on the moon. Moreover, parachutes too would be of no use for a large spacecraft to send humans to the planet Mars.

Rings Filled with Nitrogen/Covered with Thermal Blanket

The inflatable rings would be the most appropriate option which would be filled with nitrogen and then covered with thermal blanket and once deployed to land, the rings could sit atop the spacecraft which resembles to some extent like a giant mushroom.

According to the senior engineer at Langley for advanced entry, descent and landing systems, Neil Cheatwood, he states that they are trying not to use propulsion if not required and will make use of that atmosphere as much as possible since it would mean that they will not have to carry the fuel with them. NASA’s leaders accept that getting humans to and from Mars safely, as early as 2030 would be very challenging. The scientists’ agency also agree that they should design new in-space propulsion systems with advanced spacesuits, long term living habitats abroad spacecraft as well as communication systems for deep space.

Work in Progress and Ready for Operational Use - By2016

This experiments needs to be tested on how second generation inflatable spacecraft technology would perform on re-entry in the Earth’s atmosphere. The testing is important since NASA officials are of the belief that an inflatable heat shield could be helpful for the astronauts to land on Mars and return with larger loads of supplies from the International Space Station and the experiment is scheduled on the next Antares rocket in 2016.

This new technology would be needed to land the astronauts on Mars since the kind of spacecraft which land humans would be larger than that which had landed on the planet earlier. The present heat shield technology is too much on the larger side with regards to weight which means that it cannot land anything larger than the rover which had been sent previously. Since the Viking program in the 1970s, NASA had relied on parachute based deceleration on Mars.

Work on the inflatable technology by the engineers at Langley has been going on for about a decade and is probably close to being ready for operational use.