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Towards space tourism
Single-molecule car produced Trends
PROF YASH PAL |
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Towards space tourism SPACE has always fascinated man. From time immemorial, man has dreamt of moving into the limitless expanse of the outer space. However, it was not until the Soviets launched world’s first artificial satellite way back in 1957 that the human quest to explore space assumed a sort of concrete shape. And in the wake of man setting foot on the moon and endeavouring to send manned missions to Mars before the middle of this decade, outer space is rapidly becoming a focus of plan for human settlement. Indeed, Indian President Dr Abdul Kalam who pioneered the development of India’s first civilian launcher SLV-3 is clear that India should “need to go to the moon and different planets to get the materials”. Dr Kalam holds the view that the “next industrial revolution will not take place on the land, on the earth but will take place in space”. Against such a scenario, it is not surprising that space tourism, now a fledgling enterprise, could blossom into a routine human endeavour in the none too distant a future. As it is, for more than decade now, many hotel groups and industrial outfits in the US and Japan have been thinking in terms of setting up hotels and recreational facilities in outer space. Of course, the technological elements for such a possibility are still far from well developed. Indeed, the concept of space tourism assumed a concrete dimension after the US financier Denis Tito became the first space tourist who made a trip in a Soyuz capsule in 2001 to visit the International Space Station (ISS). Thereafter in 2002, the South African tycoon Mark Shuttleworth made a similar trip to notch up the distinction of being the second space tourist. Meanwhile, Eric Anderson, Chief of the US base Space Adventures who was instrumental in sending Tito and Shutleworth into space as tourists has come out with a offer of providing a few days onboard ISS, 400 km above the earth for a hefty fee of $20-million. The package will include six months intensive training and a round trip on the Russian Soyuz vehicle. “We are the only company to send someone into space”, claims Anderson. The business strategy of Anderson to lease space on a flight planned to be operated by a number of outfits, including Richard Branson’s Virginia Glactic. Eric Anderson is quite optimistic that “private space flights and space exploration could go hand in hand”. On the other hand, Christopher D.Kraft, a former Director of the Johnson Space Centre of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), considers space tourism a fantastic opportunity. The Virginia based Space Adventures has a tie up with the Russian space agency to send two passengers on a Soyuz spaceship on trip lasting up to three weeks. Depending on the nature of itinerary the trip could cost upto $100-million. The never say die Anderson also says that his company is offering a trip of the moon before the end of this decade. Anderson is quite bullish about the prospects of space tourism and says that quite a few wealthy clients have evinced interest in the space tourism package offered by him. Since the Soyuz vehicle is not equipped for a direct trip to the moon, it is planned to launch a booster into near-earth orbit which will take the space tourists the rest of the way. However, as of now there are no regulations to cover various aspects of space tourism. It is left for some time to come, the space tourists must fly at their own risk and that any stringent regulation at this point of time may stunt the growth of this fledgling extraterrestrial enterprise. But with the tranquil borderless outer space becoming a veritable final frontier of tourism, the US has taken a step forward in disciplining this emerging sector with a bill that seeks to regulate the commercial human flights. As envisaged now, the bill authorises the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). To issue permits to allow private space tourism operators to ferry passengers to outer space for a fee. The ultimate objective of the FAA is to ensure the safety of passengers and the crew. As things stand now, there are many international laws and UN regulations covering national space activities and rocket development projects of private outfits, there are no specific laws and regulations covering commercial human spaceflight operations under the banner of space tourism. And as such, it is high time that a serious thought was being given towards regulating the space tourism enterprise even as it keeps evolving. Indeed from eco tourism and adventure tourism, the burgeoning tourism industry has taken a big leap upwards.
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Single-molecule car produced
AMERICAN scientists at Rice University in Houston have constructed the world’s smallest car — a single molecule “nanocar” that contains a chassis, axles and four buckyball wheels. The “nanocar” is described in a research paper that is available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. Researchers say they would eventually like to use the nano cars for moving objects and doing work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale. The nanocar consists of a chassis and axles made of well-defined organic groups with pivoting suspension and freely rotating axles. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. The entire car measures just 3-4 nanometers across. A human hair, by comparison, is about 80,000 nanometers in diameter. Other research groups have created nanoscale objects that are shaped like automobiles. The Rice university vehicle is claimed to be the first that actually functions like a car, rolling on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles. — PTI
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Trends Scientists have mapped patterns of tiny DNA differences that distinguish one person from another, an achievement that will help researchers find genes that promote common illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. The map represents “a real sea change in how we study the genetics of disease,” said Dr David Altshuler, a leader of the project that included more than 200 researchers from six nations. Scientists want to find disease-related genes as a means for diagnosis, prediction and developing treatments. Such genes give clues to the biological underpinnings of disease, and so suggest strategies for developing therapies.
— AP Chimps lack altruism
Chimpanzees share many traits with humans but altruism, it seems, is not one of them, scientists have said. Although chimps live in social groups and cooperate and hunt together, when it comes to helping non-related group members, they don’t put up with any monkey business. When given the opportunity to help themselves and other chimps they often choose the selfish option. — Reuters Diabetes and depression
Diabetes and depression can be a fatal combination and patients with this mix have higher mortality rates, compared to patients with type 2 diabetes alone. According to a new study, depression may be associated with increased mortality in patients with diabetes because of both behavioural and biological factors. More work is needed to untangle the cause-and-effect relationships among depression, behaviour, diabetes complications, and mortality.
— PTI Distance matters
The further a woman with breast cancer lives from a radiation therapy facility, the less likely she is to have breast-conserving therapy, a new study shows. Since 1990, Dr Anneke T Schroen of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and her team note, breast conservation therapy has been considered the gold standard for women with early-stage breast cancer. This type of therapy involves removing the tumour surgically along with
any cancer-containing lymph nodes, followed by radiation treatment. — Reuters Microbes in Arctic
Living microbes found in what could be 1 million-year-old ice on a remote Arctic island, support the theory that the frozen planet Mars could also sustain life, researchers said. An international team drilled ice core samples on the remote Svalbard islands at the extinct Sverrefjell volcano.They said that is the only place on earth with the same minerals — called magnetite crystals — as those found on a meteorite from Mars that was discovered in the Antarctic in 1996. “We have discovered a microbiological oasis in natural tubes of blue ice on Svalbard. This is an extremely tough environment in which we would not have expected to find life,” said the team leader, Mr Hans E. F. Amundsen, of the University of Oslo.
— AP |
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PROF YASH PAL The globe has more water than solid earth. Rocks and soil are heavier than water. Then why the entire earth does not drown in water under the force of gravity? Rocks, soil and other matter extend down to the centre of the earth some 6,500 kilometres, even though its form changes into molten rocks, metals and other minerals. Oceans might cover ¾ of the earth surface but their depth is not so great. The deepest ocean is less than 10 kilometers deep. The average depth might be two or three kilometers. So it is not true that we have more water on our globe than rocks and stuff like that. Nevertheless, it is true that if the earth were smooth and absolutely round, without any mountains there might be a thin layer of water covering us all around. But our earth is very dynamic and keeps throwing up continents and mountain ranges; therefore, even if some Divine force were to reform the planet with a uniform water layer on top, this state would not last long. Is it true that after death, our body weight increases? I am not aware of this. A dead body feels heavier to carry, much like a person who is unconscious or drunk. The perception is probably due to the fact that a dead person does not cooperate in distributing his weight on to different parts of your body - for example, by putting an arm around your shoulder or clasping his legs around your middle. After a while, the remains of a dead body must weigh much less because much of the body degrades through the action of bacteria. When traveling in the train, we move along at the speed of the train. Consider a fly in one of the compartments; does it have to fly faster than the speed of the train or is the train stationary for the fly? Why talk of a fly? What about you, walking through the corridor of a train running at a 100 km per hour? Surely, you walk as you would on ground, say at 6 km an hour (except for the jerks). To an outside observer, you would be seen to be moving at 106 or 94 kilometers per hour depending on which way you are walking, relative to the movement of the train. In a smoothly moving train, you spend the same effort walking as you would on ground. But why ride a train to prove this fact; the earth is also moving at a great speed. We do not have to run to keep up. We are not even aware of a difference of effort in running in different directions on earth. If you fly in a modern jetliner at 900 km per hour, you are not even aware which way you are going. If the plane were big enough, you could play table tennis or football using the same skills and dexterity you have acquired while playing on the ground. And a fly traveling with you in the plane uses skills well learnt in Delhi, London or New York for landing on a piece of cake. Our locomotion, as of the fly, is with respect to the frame of reference in which we are located. So the fly does not have fly any differently in a moving train - provided, of course, it is not next to any open window where a blast of air might blow it off. |
