Whatever Happened To Airships?

Airships are great! Anyone who's even seen a picture of one will agree...unless it’s that picture. You know the one, the "Oh the humanity!" one. Anyway since that unfortunate moment airships have slowly dwindled from our collective consciousness, except in the form of wistful steam punk imaginings and a few ambitious companies trying to bring them back. The logic of the comeback is sound. With fuel costs rising along with concern over emissions conventional heavier than air travel is becoming problematic. Planes need a lot of juice not to mention huge runways to land. Also a lot of people worry that they’re going to fall out of the air. I don’t know if they’d be happier in an airship but it’s a thought. Airships, being lighter than air don’t so much crash as slowly sink to the ground. They expend far less fuel to fly. With modern materials like carbon fibre it would be relatively easy to design an airship that’s much lighter and therefore more efficient. Their propellers could be powered by electric motors and solar panels across their huge surface. They could lift huge volumes of cargo into remote places without the need for any infrastructure. They also look great.

                So why the conspicuous absence of airships? The obvious culprit is the Hindenburg Disaster. Television wasn’t long out at the time and nothing sticks in a person’s memory like a huge ball of flame on their screens. It’s a shame really. It’s very difficult to explain to people after the fact that it was a very unlikely event. Airships are inherently safe and it was a combination of bad engineering, bad luck and bad politics that led to its destruction. The Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen but it had (sensibly) been designed to use helium. Unfortunately for the Zeppelin people, helium was very hard to come by in 1937. The Americans who pretty much had a monopoly on the stuff wouldn’t sell it because of something called the helium control act of 1927*. The only other option was hydrogen which, when combined with an outer skin which may have been effectively thermite, was a recipe for disaster. So we wound up with a horrible accident and airships were left with horrible reputation.

                Their exile from the world of mainstream aviation may be coming to an end. A few projects are underway to design and build an airship for the 21^st century. The Aeroscraft is an airship that can vary its buoyancy allowing it to load and unload freight without worrying about floating away when it’s emptied. This setup allows it to take off and land vertically with little or no ground crew and to land on rough unprepared surfaces, literally anywhere there’s room to land its enormous bulk. The Aeroscraft will be built in 20, 60 and 500 tonne capacities. The prodigious size of an airship which can lift 500 tonnes would be something to see! Another design is the Boeing/SkyHook JHL-40. It’s a hybrid craft which will be part helicopter, part airship. It will be capable of lifting 40 tonnes of cargo while the weight of the craft itself will be negated by the helium. I think it’s a pretty neat idea but the lack of real photos the skyhook makes me worry about the project. There’s been a lot of talk about the resurgence of airships but more often than not promising designs flounder at a certain phase of development. A recent example it the cancellation of the U.S military’sLEMV airship project earlier this month. It was claimed that the project was cancelled because the LEMV was designed for use in Afghanistan, a war quickly drawing to a close. Other reasons cited included the LEMV’s failure to live up to expectations. A big feature of the LEMV’s design was its purported ability to stay aloft for 21 days straight. When it came to testing however it only lasted six days. The LEMV joins a line of military airship designs which have been shelved in recent years to say nothing of the numerous civilian designs that have failed to deliver. I’m still hopeful however. The fact that there’s so much interest and so many attempts being made to create a modern airship means the idea holds promise and maybe someday soon we’ll no longer be stuck with boring old aeroplanes.

* The U.S had been very stingy with helium until 1996. The National Helium Reserve used to contain over a billion cubic meters of helium. Now they’re selling it off. Artificially lowering the cost of helium and when it runs out the price will skyrocket. Buy into helium now! Or don’t, what do I know? 

Telepresence, Social Media And A World Without Borders

The Internet’s a funny old thing. It connects people all over the world without them even noticing. In my online life I often come across this phenomenon. People on Imgur or those posting comments on a news article who seem to be oblivious to the global nature of the net. A perfect example is the running joke on Imgur where a particularly odd, creepy or vulgar picture is met with “It’s very early in the night for that!” It usually seems to come from an American. Understandable since it’s an American site and beyond that the English speaking world is very U.S centric because of population alone. But I’m not American. And neither are huge portions of the people who use the site. Very early in the night? No, maybe on your side of the planet but here in Ireland its 2 am. I don’t think it’s an effect of the American mind set. Although I have heard the term ‘Americans’ used instead of ‘people’ often enough to make me worry about the place. I digress. Presumably the effect comes from peoples’ tendency to assume that the username they’re corresponding with is like them, from the same country, background and culture as them. I like to think it’ll do wonders for cultural globalisation and racism. I’d imagine it’s very hard to remain racist after you've met a few really nice, funny people from the culture you supposedly despise. Back in the day when the only way to communicate in real time with someone in another country was with an expensive international call people curtailed most of that casual interaction to people in their own neck of woods. In spite of air travel and telecommunications there were still very real barriers between people in different countries. Even since the internet it’s taken until relatively recently for truly global social networks to come into their own. Now of course there’s very little separating people all over the world, but the last few barriers need to be removed. That’s where telepresence comes in.

The internet has long had the whole world talking to each other. But the streams of messages can only do so much. They do make the world smaller but not small enough. An obvious boon to the world of communication comes in the form of VOIP programmes like the old favourite Skype, Facebook video and many more. A great example of the usefulness of these programmes came to me a few months ago. I was at a my grandmother’s funeral where of her thirteen children only twelve could make it, the thirteenth being in Australia. But thanks to Skype she was there. There was a smart phone being passed around the graveyard with her face on the screen. She saw what it saw and was able to accept condolences from many confused and bemused seventy somethings standing in the drizzle in a graveyard in rural Ireland while she sat at a laptop in New South Wales in the middle of the night. It’s a comforting image.

Sharing kind words isn’t the only use for telepresence technology of course. DaVinci System is a robot arm which can perform delicate surgery when controlled by a surgeon either in the same room or across the Atlantic. The fact that the surgeon is five time zones away is no longer an issue. Equally impressive is the use of human controlled robots to explore dangerous or uninhabitable places. Virginia Tech’s Thor robot is being developed to navigate and explore disaster zones such as earthquakes. Such a machine would be especially useful in disasters similar to Fukushima. NASA’s Robonaut is a robot for operating on the outside of the International Space Station. The idea being that it will be able to cut down the number of dangerous space walks needed to repair and upgrade the station and other satellites. Telepresence technology is changing the world in many subtle yet powerful ways. Its gets people to where they need or want to be without ever moving them. It makes the world a smaller place and it breaks down the barriers and differences between people. Hopefully to the point where there will be none.

Cyber Fear!

Our kids are being turned into hyper-violent, socially crippled introverts. Also they’re fat. And lots of them are pregnant, but that’s for another rant. It’s all the internet’s fault apparently. I feel bombarded by a certain scaremongering brand of journalim. Big scary buzz words abound, cyber-bullying being my particular favourite. It implies some sort of dystopian future (or present) shot with a pale blue filter where malevolent teens, presumably on drugs, in some basement full of mismatched LED screens are using their arcane knowledge to torment your poor child in ways you can’t prevent and to much greater effect than anything that came before. Its true kids are bullying each other on Facebook and by text but that said they bully each other on the bus, in school, at football practice, and pretty much everywhere else there’s more than one child. The ‘cyber’ realm may be the one exception where kids actually find it possible to avoid the onslaught. Facebook, for all the criticism it’s received on the subject, does in fact have many features to make your profile as private, secure and discriminating about who can contact you as you like (if you’ll excuse the turn of phrase). If you’re receiving threatening messages block the user who’s sending them. Kids using social media to torment their peers is obviously an issue but to label it “cyber-bullying” lends it far too much sinister gravitas. To invoke the ‘cyber’ element of the bullying as though it makes the act somehow different is purely a ploy by newspapers with middle aged readers to frighten and outrage said readers.

Texts are much trickier however. Kids are rarely inclined to call the police to track a number sending offensive messages. Kids not talking about being bullied is a big part of the problem. The core of the issue is of course the anonymity that these media provide the tormentors. They can say things in a text that they would never dare say in person. Even the bullies themselves may be unaware of the extent of the trauma their words create. It’s an easy effect to see. Anyone who’s ever scrolled through the comments of a vaguely controversial Youtube video can see how easily people become disconnected from the words they type. It’s caused by not having a face to speak to and in a way having none to speak from. Their words don’t have the power of a personality or name to give what they say any weight, so they unconsciously ramp up the extreme language, vulgar turns of phrase and as we’re all too aware, the caps lock. They are literally screaming to be heard and noticed in a world of a billion equally ignorable voices. One would be forgiven for assuming that kids raised in this environment would be somewhat desensitized to anonymous usernames screaming caps locked swearwords at them but of course it’s the personal nature of the messages that gets to the victims.

A perfect example of the disconnection between ones words and their effect can be seen on Xbox Live. I’m not a regular visitor to the digital killing fields of Call of Duty but in the few forays I have made it’s been the voices in the headset that upset me far more than the gunshots screams and blood splatters. Trying to wander around an abandoned airport and shoot people would have been much more enjoyable if it weren’t for the team of rabid fourteen year olds roaring the kind of language that would turn heads in a Scorsese film. Again it’s because the kids doing the shouting cannot see their words hit the mark. Not that I was reduced to tears or anything. I can handle having my sexuality questioned every time I shoot or fail to shoot an opponent. But it’s an interesting incubator for vulgarity. It’s a war zone in there and healthy attitude or not a lot of players are heavily invested in their kill/death ratio. For the parents passing the bedroom door, it’s understandable why they believe the game is driving their son into some kind of murderous frenzy. Maybe it is but when you understand the game a little better it’s not dissimilar to the crowd at some strange football match where every shout falls on deaf ears, every player is against every other and the referee is a faceless unreasonable machine. This doesn't prevent the scaremongers from constantly questioning if violent games make violent kids. It seems very odd to me to hear shooting games scapegoated as the catalyst for real world shootings. The Grand Theft Auto series is a prime example. Particularly in the U.S! To claim it’s the games kids play that makes them obsessed with war, guns and murdering in one of the most militarised countries in the world is madness. It’s a country recently involved in two wars where anyone who shoots people for a living is hailed as a hero and automatic weapons seem to be so common people must be tripping over them in the streets. The games are affected by society not vice versa.

Much of the media makes use of peoples fear and ignorance of modern digital trends. The fear of the unknown draws people to these articles. They want to know more but maybe subconsciously they want to be offended by what they learn. It’s the media’s responsibility to inform these people, allay their fears and reassure them that we’re not sinking into some kind of William Gibson style dystopia and that at the end of the day people are just people. They use new ways to communicate and interact but apart from that not much has changed.

3D Printers: An Economic Game-Changer Pt 2

Previously I spoke about the current state of 3D printing and rapid prototyping. It’s a fascinating field; right on the cusp of a revolution which I believe will profoundly change the world we live in. Conventional Economics is in for a shake up and for better or worse thing will be very different in ten, twenty or fifty years time. In my more optimistic moments I envision a utopian world not dissimilar to Star Trek where universal replicators can create anything we want and people are freed from labour to engage in only the most worthwhile pursuits. The cynic in me on the other hand sees endless litigation and licensing laws put in place by a dwindling manufacturing sector to try to throttle the progress of desktop prototypers. I could draw endless analogies with big media’s attempts to fight online piracy and indeed the manufacturing sector having seen what’s becoming of Hollywood’s fight for its intellectual property will be watching the growth of hobbiest 3d printers with suspicion. If I were to make a copy of a gadget which was molecularly identical to one designed by apple or Samsung (to name two apparently litigious companies) I would be stealing right? That said who’s going to know or stop me for that matter? If the rise of the internet has thought us anything it’s that for every attempt to protect IP by a big company there’s a thousand new ways to circumvent it. 3D printing will be the same. There will be endless attempts to curtail it but in the end anyone who wants to pirate a design can and will be it a beanie baby or a gun.

So where does that leave us. In a world where information is free and material goods are becoming freer every day what place will be left for large manufacturing firms? Not much. They’ll be pushed into the margins becoming more specialized making niche items of high value, exotic materials or things that are too big to fit in your desktop printer. The 3^rd or is it 4^th industrial revolution is coming and there simply won’t be a place for many of these obsolete firms just like there isn’t much of a place for cottage industry nowadays. I won’t quote Marx here but he was pretty keen on people owning the means of production, maybe he was just a century or two out.

Innovation is likely to skyrocket in the fields of product design and engineering when everyone has access to the machines. Anyone with an idea will be an inventor or an artist. Crowdsourcing of designs will be the norm of the day. I can see a system where after downloading an object from an online repository such as thingiverse today people will simply post their feedback and subtle changes will be made to the design. The next person to download it won’t get the wonky power button for example.

Finally one of the most intriguing aspects of 3D printers will be their ability to reproduce themselves. Because of this conventional economics won’t apply. There will be a tipping point where they achieve the ability to reproduce and at that point their numbers will explode. Everyone who wants one will have one. As great as that sounds I like to think a bit beyond households full of gadgets. I can imagine a shipping container with a generator and 3D printer being dropped into disaster zones to rebuild them. Dropped into remote villages to develop them and hopefully someday dropped onto other planets to build on them and maybe even terraform them. That’s only possible with machines that can reproduce otherwise the initial investment of time and energy would be too high. The possibilities are fascinating and the best part is we’re only a few years from seeing the first real impacts of these machines. 

3D Printers: An Economic Game-Changer Pt 1

There's a storm brewing in the world of manufacturing. Its a slow steady build up of clouds on the horizon, slow because F=Ma. Truly massive things take a long time to get up to full speed. 3D printers and the technology of rapid prototyping have existed for several years but the amazing (sometimes frightening) implications of these extraordinary machines are only now coming to the fore. There are many parallels  between this imminent revolution and the one which propelled computers out of university labs and onto desks and laps everywhere. 3D printers are right at the point where PCs were just before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs turned them into big business. They're sitting in workshops and hacker-spaces all over the world but have yet to make the leap into the realm of household appliances. The truth is they just aren't good enough. Not everyone is a hacker/tinkerer just like in the 70s not everyone was a programmer willing to invest time, effort and money into getting the damn thing to work. They still aren't but we overcame that with GUIs. The hobbiest 3d printers on sale today are too slow, too complicated to use and too limited in what they can produce. For now.
  Presently these little machines can only make small plastic items, just toys and simple parts for little gadgets and machines but when you have a million intelligent creative people working with these machines how long will it be until they are routinely printing with metal or begin printing circuitry straight into the parts they make?
 The first steps out of the the simple and plastic have already been taken. Accuracy improves with every new model that comes out. 100 micron resolutions are becoming common in the hobby community. The range of materials too increases. The University of Warwick has developed a 3d printable carbomorph material which conducts electricity and changes its properties when heated, compressed etc. With the right electronics attached the material can act as buttons, temperature probes, or anything else which would have required a conductive metal part before. With two extruders on your printer you can now print the bones of a circuit in the same pass as the structural material. The engineering possibilities of this should be obvious. No more seams in your gadgets for example. Engineers in Bath University started a project to design a 3d printer which can print almost all of its own parts! It's not quite there yet. There's still a lot of parts it can't make. the metal bearings and complex electronics are for now beyond the plucky little rep rap but its getting there. The implications of having a machine on your desk which can produce anything you can think of including a clone of itself are staggering. In part 2 I will explore some of these effects some with precedent already and some that are speculative.

Curiosity Is Boring And That's Exciting!

The Mars Science Laborotaire, or Curiosity as it's affectionately known, (paraphilia not withstanding) has been on Mars for a few months now but only lately have the NASA engineers begun to slowly unpack and test one of the most interesting parts of Curiosity's suite of gadgets: it's hammer action drill! A drill might be a common tool here on earth and most people would assume that it is a standard feature on mars rovers since they are sent there to study Mars' geology but in fact curiosity is the first rover with the ability to crack the surface of the red planet. Even the viking landers had scoops but they could only gather samples from soft loose soil. It's deep inside rocks and under the surface where much of the interesting chemistry lies (though Curiosity can't bore very deep hopefully it will find something of interest in those rocks). On a planet with little atmosphere and no magnetic field the surface of mars is bathed in ultraviolet radiation and high energy cosmic rays which would destroy any organic compounds, the ones vital for life, left laying on the surface. If Mars really was wet and warm long ago as many scientists believe and organic material or life did form as many scientists hope the best chance of finding it will be under the surface. It's possible that in the martian soil deep enough to be shielded from the harsh surface, kept warm by residual heat in the planets interior there's a few martian critters alive today. If they are there, or even traces of them, and realistically it was only traces of life and evidence of a watery past that Curiosity was designed to look for, Curiosity has the best chance yet of making some really exciting discoveries inside those martian rocks.