Joey Volpe

Mars Curiosity Rover with Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) on board will launch November 25th from Florida and make its way to Mars, arriving August 2012. The video above details NASA’s new landing mechanism involving a crane and undercarriage propulsion system. Once landed, the rover will have mechanical arms and a drill to take samples from the Martian surface with a lab (MSL) on board to test the material. The rover will land as close as possible to a clay deposit site agreed upon through a consensus by scientists in the field to check for organic molecules and processes. Then it will head to salt flats where MSL will do more testing.

On thing to note is that this rover is better equipped for travel than its predecessors, Opportunity and Spirit, because it’s taller, allowing the terrain ahead to be viewed and accounted for better and more quickly. Also, the design of it’s wheel base prevents hiccups like having to drag faulty wheels across the Martian landscape for years a la Spirit. The most exciting thing that could happen would be for the rover to find a posited lake in one of the craters it plans to explore OR some sign of a suitable environment below the surface as underground deposits are analyzed.

Existing telescopes would be able to see a city the size of Tokyo as far as the edges of our solar system. Astronomers may also elect to focus their attention on stars closer to the center of the Milky Way, where 90 percent of its stars are clustered. Furthermore, the stars here are a billion times older than the sun, giving life more time to develop biologically and technologically.

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http://news.discovery.com/space/space-how-aliens-can-find-us-111108.html#mkcpgn=twnws1

Think for a second about how incredible our advances in technology have been. To be able to see city lights from a tiny city on a tiny planet in a tiny solar system at the edge of our massive galaxy from where we are is incredible. As the slow search for habitable planets and lit cities continues, it’s statistically only a matter of time before we find some sign of life. If we are already this advanced, imagine the endless possibilities for the future of space exploration. More importantly, imagine where civilizations in the center of the galaxy that are millions of years older than us could be with technology (and that’s just in our galaxy; there are many galaxies much older than ours).

One discouraging thing to note is that we have thus far (that we know of) not been contacted by an alien civilization in light of the facts presented above. The white house actually recently confirmed this: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/searching-et-no-evidence-yet. Do other beings exist or is life really MUCH rarer than we predicted? Perhaps our planet really is that perfect in terms of rotation, placement, composition, star size and having a moon. If aliens existed at some point, have they since been destroyed by celestial impacts or at their own hand before technology was advanced enough to allow them to branch out? I hope the latter isn’t an inevitable outcome as technology advances as some have predicted. In any case, these types of things are very interesting to think about.

EDIT: I just realized I misread the first line of that quote, hahaha. It says we could see a city the size of Tokyo as far as the edge of our solar system, not galaxy. o_O

Very excited for this documentary called Revenge of the Electric Car which features the founder of Silicon Vallet start-up Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, competing against the entrenched automobile giants (who are finally attempting to innovate) for supremacy in the emerging electric car market. Below is the description:

“In 2006, as many as 5,000 modern electric cars were destroyed by the major car companies that built them. Today, less than 5 years later, the electric car is back… with a vengeance.

In Revenge of the Electric Car, director Chris Paine takes his film crew behind the closed doors of Nissan, GM, and the Silicon Valley start-up Tesla Motors to find the story of the global resurgence of electric cars. Without using a single drop of foreign oil, this new generation of car is America’s future: fast, furious, and cleaner than ever.

With almost every major car maker now jumping to produce new electric models, Revenge follows the race to be the first, the best, and to win the hearts and minds of the public around the world. It’s not just the next generation of green cars that’s on the line. It’s the future of the automobile itself.”

I think it will be interesting to see if Musk can reach a low-price, high-volume system coupled with a distribution and marketing network by the third iteration of the Roadster as is his plan: “our third-generation vehicle will be low-price and high-volume”. And, if this occurs, will it be in time to compete with Chevy and Nissan who already offer electric cars to the mass market, albeit at 30K+ price tags. Another interesting fact to consider is that Tesla, right now, is a sports car/niche/higher-priced brand. Can it transform into a mass market electric vehicle company and is this what it wants to be? Only time (and listening to Musk interviews about the topic, haha) will tell.

Microsoft’s vision for the future of consumer electronics. One of the most interesting and inspiring videos I’ve seen in a long time. The touch graphics on surfaces are absolutely incredible, not to mention the moveable holograms and paper-thin devices. Now hopefully the ideas in the video can be executed because they’ve got the right vision and goals.

Video from the International Space Station! As the station moves forward, see what happens to the astronauts inside. Pretty cool.

Windows Phone Mango (7.5) was released last month by Microsoft and this review by The Los Angeles Times is a great intro for those of you unfamiliar with what makes Windows Phone different from iOS and Android.