Crashes and Photonic Speed

Last week the most reported event was a rocket crash into Kazakhstan, taking its Japanese communications satellite payload with it. Lots of poisonous rocket propellant in the steppes, which, although empty of regular imhabitants in the drop zone, are not always empty of scrap metal dealers. Let’s hope that they realise that this time they’d better leave the metal to be recovered by the Russian rocket forces. Not only to save themselves from the poison, but also to allow the investigators to look at as many scraps from the rocket as possible, to try to figure out what actually happened, and how to prevent this from happening again.

Tis week also saw a demonstration of a Photon Engine. This could become a very efficient rocket engine, allowing planetary travel to happen much quicker (visit the stars one day?). At the moment the engine has a thrust of 35 microNewton. That is about 3 millionths of the lift that you produce while holding a kilogram of sugar. So, on Earth is would not be much good, but if you can put it in space with a regular rocket, then while floating high up, such a force, or maybe a bigger version, or very many of them, would slowly start to push it along, and make for some impressive speeds after say a few weeks or months of accelleration.

If we could make it to Mars in a few weeks, we would not have to deal with all the long-term medical issues that the currently estimated 6 month transfer would involve. Weightlessness is bad for the bones and muscles, and when at Mars there’s no welcoming committee with a stretcher, like there is for the space station crew when they return to land after their six month stay. Less chance of a quick frying by a solar storm too.

Now for a better way to just get off the Earth’s Surface, with more reliable and less expensive rocket ships: we will keep working on that one too.

Earth Observation

Seeing the volume of logs bobbing along the Fraser River in Vancouver, it should not have been a surprise to find such swiss cheese expanses in BC’s woodlands. However, I was taken aback by the scale of nibbles those mice loggers have taken around, for example, Golden, BC. Canada’s westernmost province is roughly four times the size of the United Kingdom, with forests covering approximately two-thirds; that’s big lumber business. One might not worry about a few holes in the 59 million hectares of forest, but on top of fires and commercial harvesting currently averaging around 200,000 ha a year, the province lost almost 9 million hectares of trees to mountain pine beetle in 2005.

When earth observation satellites provide imagery of natural and man-made disasters, the extent of damage can be quickly monitored, and automatic algorithms can detect and measure the size of any type of ground cover. This enables planning to have accurate inputs, allowing forecasts to be regularly updated without having to send out armies of people to look at every field and plot of woodland.

When the conflict in Darfur first hit the headlines, the UN found that the only maps of this vast area (think Texas size) were a few sketches made by World-War 2 German bomber pilots. A small satellite with a wide-angle camera quickly imaged the region, allowing a map with information about vegetation (cooking firewood!) water, and other information to be made.