mancinedinburgh
mancinedinburgh OP t1_je0l9z4 wrote
Reply to The Swiss hypersonic hydrogen jet aiming to fly between Europe and Australia in 4 hours by mancinedinburgh
I’m still not convinced of the merits of hydrogen as an effective, eco-friendly fuel source but could it be any worse than the current fuel used by long haul carriers to fly aircraft halfway across the world? We’re moving towards futuristic aircraft like this (perhaps not for several decades) but by the time it’s in service, we may have found a better fuel source.
mancinedinburgh OP t1_jd7dxnf wrote
A new analysis of data from the last 40 years suggests there may be water hiding beneath the frozen surfaces of two of Uranus’ moons. Why is that significant? They are the latest two celestial bodies in our solar system believed to be potential hosts of life. Who knows - it could be a useful refuelling outpost/staging point for human missions explorations into deep space in the centuries to come.
mancinedinburgh OP t1_j6y14pl wrote
Reply to Future humans living on the Moon and Mars may one day live in homes grown from mushrooms by mancinedinburgh
I think the point behind yet another gimmicky-sounding project is that it would mean less foreign microbes from humans/Earth contaminating the moon or Mars. Also, apparently this particular fungus makes a biomass building material (which can easily be transported into space) that is “stronger than concrete” when mixed with a certain type of algae. Who knew?
mancinedinburgh OP t1_izdqusi wrote
Windows as modems? Swiss scientists recently announced they had created windows that convert sunlight directly into electricity. This seems to be in a similar vein, whereby polarisation of sunlight is converted into binary code used to send signals to devices in a particular room. Goodbye router boxes? Perhaps. It sounds cool though to me that wireless Internet could be provided to entire offices or homes through adapted glass windows.
mancinedinburgh OP t1_je0w2kr wrote
Reply to comment by Sagybagy in The Swiss hypersonic hydrogen jet aiming to fly between Europe and Australia in 4 hours by mancinedinburgh
It’s not that it’s a bad fuel source but it seems to be very hyped and currently not very economical nor is it as safe as other fuels (highly flammable etc). In order to accommodate it, other prototype aircraft have had to remove space for passengers because of the size of the fuel cell required, for instance.
I would be the first to say that I am open to persuasion and am by no means as well educated on it as I could be so always happy to be directed to reliable sources of info.