Russia to make first floating "Noah's Ark" - Ark Hotel 10k people in a self-sustaining biosphere, invest your $$$ in fear!

 
This giant floating steel-and-glass-vertical-doughnut hotel, claiming to offer a self-sustained environment, its lower half immersed in water and its upper half afloat, is nothing if not intriguing.

Designed to withstand floods caused by rising sea levels, The Ark Hotel has been envisioned as a safe, self-contained ‘biosphere’ – a haven in the case of disaster.

Sounds very inspired by the Noah’s Ark concept huh ?

With its design concept deeply entrenched in “green design”, the Ark Hotel attempts at being self-sustaining at as many levels as possible.

The building uses solar panels and a rainwater collection system to provide inhabitants with power and water, while the greenhouse-like environment created by lush vegetation helps with air quality and also provides food sources.

[link to www.industryleadersmagazine.com]

The Ion Drive - Get to Mars within 5 hours!!! Is this the future of space propulsion?

What do you know about these?



"Basically, take an atom and zap it to remove it's electron. Then the atom has a positive charge. Use a positive electric field to fire the atom out the back (positive charges repel each other). Since it is a little atom, you can fire it at a VERY VERY high speed.

It is like propelling your car by shooting BBs out the back. Basically, it takes a long time to get up to speed, but it much more efficient since you can shoot those BBs out at close to light speed. For the same mass of propellant, you end up going a lot further and faster(EVENTUALLY!).

Think of it this way. If you have 100 pounds of propellant and shoot it all out the back at 50,000 mph and have used it up in a few minutes (like a rocket) vs. taking that 100 pounds and shooting it out at the speed of light (though it takes you a month to shoot it all out) then you've imparted a lot more thrust overall at the end of a month.

If you wanted to go faster at the start, you need a whole mess of BB shooters going all at once. So in order to get to Mars fast, you need to design something that can shoot out more than 1 BB at a time. If you could, for example, take that 100 lbs and shoot it all out the back at the speed of light in a few minutes, you'll be really haulin'.

Current ION thrusters only shoot a few atoms out at a time, so they have been used on long missions that are weight constrained and so can't carry lots of fuel. NASA's Deep Space 1 probe (launched in 1998) was the first to test out using one.

NASA's DAWN probe that is about to reach the asteroid Vesta also uses ION engines.

[link to www.space.com]

So, the hope is that now that ion engines have been proven, that they can make much bigger ones (or hundreds/thousands of them) on a ship. We have a long way to go still, so some ideas are to use ion engines for delivering cargo/supplies and old fashioned rockets for people."


[link to www.universetoday.com]
[link to www.amazon.com]

Edit to update:

Apparently, according to the scientists on the show, they said 39 days so more like 6 weeks.

It assumes an ion drive has a nuclear power plant on board for all the power needed.

The ion engine design is assumed to be the VASIMR drive, which uses superconducting magnets to generate powerful magnetic fields to accelerate the ions. Someone mentioned this VASIMR drive earlier in the thread:

Here is a nice article on it->

"Vasimr Trumps Star Trek Ion Drive Aiming At Mars"

[link to www.dailygalaxy.com]
star-trek-ion-drive-aiming-at-mars.html

Bosco Verticale - The Forest in the Sky

This is amazing, hope this catches on worldwide! Con molto rispetto!!

"The Bosco Verticale is a system that optimizes, recuperates, and produces energy. Covered in plant life, the building aids in balancing the microclimate and in filtering the dust particles contained in the urban environment (Milan is one of the most polluted cities in Europe). The diversity of the plants and their characteristics produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, producing oxygen and protect the building from radiation and acoustic pollution. This not only improves the quality of living spaces, but gives way to dramatic energy savings year round.

Each apartment in the building will have a balcony planted with trees that are able to respond to the city’s weather — shade will be provided within the summer, while also filtering city pollution; and in the winter the bare trees will allow sunlight to permeate through the spaces. Plant irrigation will be supported through the filtering and reuse of the greywater produced by the building. Additionally, Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems will further promote the tower’s self-sufficiency."

http://inhabitat.com/bosco-verticale-in-milan-will-be-the-worlds-first-vertical-forest/

"Safety is also a major factor and Brunello explained: 'If a tree was blown down in the wind from a great height this could be a huge problem.

'So we tested various trees in a wind turbine to make sure we had the right ones.'

When the sky forest is completed by the end of 2012 the structure will house the same amount of residents as 50,000 square meters of conventional urban sprawl.

The towers will not only be home to human residents but to the insects, birds and animals that usually live in the parks of Milan.

The towers, which are still under construction, are the brainchild of world renowned Milan architect, 55 year-old Stefano Boeri."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054135/Green-apartments-vertical-forests-sky-called-Bosco-Verticale.html

Image slideshow:

http://inhabitat.com/bosco-verticale-in-milan-will-be-the-worlds-first-vertical-forest/_bosco-verticale/

The Ion Drive - Get to Mars within 5 hours. Is this the future of space propulsion?

What do you know about these?

Basically, take an atom and zap it to remove it's electron. Then the atom has a positive charge. Use a positive electric field to fire the atom out the back (positive charges repel each other). Since it is a little atom, you can fire it at a VERY VERY high speed.

It is like propelling your car by shooting BBs out the back. Basically, it takes a long time to get up to speed, but it much more efficient since you can shoot those BBs out at close to light speed. For the same mass of propellant, you end up going a lot further and faster(EVENTUALLY!).

Think of it this way. If you have 100 pounds of propellant and shoot it all out the back at 50,000 mph and have used it up in a few minutes (like a rocket) vs. taking that 100 pounds and shooting it out at the speed of light (though it takes you a month to shoot it all out) then you've imparted a lot more thrust overall at the end of a month.

If you wanted to go faster at the start, you need a whole mess of BB shooters going all at once. So in order to get to Mars fast, you need to design something that can shoot out more than 1 BB at a time. If you could, for example, take that 100 lbs and shoot it all out the back at the speed of light in a few minutes, you'll be really haulin'.

Current ION thrusters only shoot a few atoms out at a time, so they have been used on long missions that are weight constrained and so can't carry lots of fuel. NASA's Deep Space 1 probe (launched in 1998) was the first to test out using one.

NASA's DAWN probe that is about to reach the asteroid Vesta also uses ION engines.

[link to www.space.com]

So, the hope is that now that ion engines have been proven, that they can make much bigger ones (or hundreds/thousands of them) on a ship. We have a long way to go still, so some ideas are to use ion engines for delivering cargo/supplies and old fashioned rockets for people."


[link to www.universetoday.com]
[link to www.amazon.com]

Edit to update:

Apparently, according to the scientists on the show, they said 39 days so more like 6 weeks.

It assumes an ion drive has a nuclear power plant on board for all the power needed.

The ion engine design is assumed to be the VASIMR drive, which uses superconducting magnets to generate powerful magnetic fields to accelerate the ions. Someone mentioned this VASIMR drive earlier in the thread:

Here is a nice article on it->

"Vasimr Trumps Star Trek Ion Drive Aiming At Mars"

[link to www.dailygalaxy.com]
star-trek-ion-drive-aiming-at-mars.html

Weird: i-Fairy Robot officially weds a couple in Japan

DARPA’s Cheetah-Bot Designed to Chase Human Prey!

Perhaps you thought the four-legged BigDog robot wasn’t eerily lifelike enough. That’ll change soon. BigDog’s makers are working on a new quadruped that moves faster than any human and is agile enough to “chase and evade.”

Boston Dynamics, maker of the Army’s BigDog robotic mule, announced today that Darpa has awarded it a contract to build a much faster and more fearsome animal-like robot, Cheetah.

As the name implies, Cheetah is designed to be a four-legged robot with a flexible spine and articulated head (and potentially a tail) that runs faster than the fastest human. In addition to raw speed, Cheetah’s makers promise that it will have the agility to make tight turns so that it can “zigzag to chase and evade” and be able to stop on a dime.


Cheetah builds off work on the company’s previous four legged animal bot, BigDog.  It was built as a kind of unmanned pack mule, designed to carry equipment for troops on the battlefield. The robotic donkey could carry 300 lbs. over 13 miles on flat ground, take a swift kick and keep on moving. It’s creepy, lifelike movement can be seen on a number of videos online, climbing over hills and snow and hiking alongside soldiers, using GPS coordinates as its waypoints.

Aside from its unspecified military applications, Cheetah’s makers see it galloping to the rescue and building a brave new future in the fields of “emergency response, firefighting, advanced agriculture and vehicular travel.”
Think that’s creepy? Wait till you see its humanoid, Terminator look-alike buddy.

Meet Atlas, Cheetah’s humanoid pal. Atlas is supposed to look more or less like the T-800 series of Terminators, minus the head. Its designers say it’ll be able to walk like a human over rough terrain, crawling on its hands and knees when necessary and turning itself sideways to slip through any narrow passages it encounters. Headless, with a torso and two arms, it’s a step up from Boston Dynamics’ other biped, the lower-body-bot Petman.

Petman was built to test out chemical weapons protective suits for the Army by “walking, crawling and doing a variety of suit-stressing calisthenics” and “simulat[ing] human physiology.” Designers made it capable of walking heel-to-toe at 3.2 miles per hour and staying upright even after it gets pushed.
As the new models go into development, let’s hope Cheetah never develops a taste for human flesh and that Atlas doesn’t have any hard feelings about its predecessor being a poison-gas guinea pig for the Army.