UPI news: Canada says it could build launch rockets
OTTAWA, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Canada, which now relies on other countries to launch its satellites into orbit, has the technological ability to build its own rockets, space experts say.
Canada's Defense Department and the Canadian Space Agency are considering the option of constructing a Canadian-made launcher, the Ottawa (Ontario) Citizen reported Monday.
"One option currently being evaluated relates to the development of an indigenous launch capability for certain classes of satellites," Julie Simard, a spokeswoman for the CSA, said.
The CSA has already completed two studies on the feasibility of a Canadian rocket.
"Those studies concluded that, although challenging, developing a launch capability in Canada was technically feasible," Simard said.
While some experts argue Canada doesn't launch enough spacecraft to justify such a program, CSA President Kevin Shortt said he believes there is an opportunity to market launches for small satellites to other nations.
Canada's geographic location is ideal for particular launches such as for polar orbits, he noted.
CSA officials say a project to design and build a launcher could take between 10 and 12 years.
Senin, 03 Januari 2011
The View From a Height
Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992) had a degree in biochemistry, and was a well-known Golden Age science fiction writer with his Positronic Robot series and his Foundation series to name only a few. But for most of his writing years he saw himself as a science popularizer. From 1957 until his death, he wrote a series of articles, on a wide variety of scientific subjects, for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. All but a handful of the 399 essays he wrote were then collected into anthologies and published in hardback and subsequently in paperback.
All of those books are out of print now, and you'll be lucky to find them in a library, too. (I assembled my collection of these essays by purchasing used books through Amazon.com's service - more than half of the books I recieved were de-accessioned library books.)
And this is a pity, because more than half of the essays Asimov wrote still have applications today. He explained his topics simply and clearly, so that even if a layperson couldn't quite grasp the intricacies involved, they still understood the general concept. These books really should be read by everyone aspiring to a scientific education. (And that should be all of us!)
Asimov explains it in his introduction to the anthology Adding A Dimension. I reproduce a few of the relevant paragraphs below.
[There is a fallacy called] the "growing edge," the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded an dead.
But is that true? ...
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. "If I have seen further than other men," said Isaac Newton, "it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
... In fact, an overly exclusive concern with the growing edge can kill the best of science, for it is not on the growing edge that growth can best be seen. If a growing edge only is studied, science begins to seem a revelation without a history of development.
... Science gains reality when it is viewed not as an abstraction, but as the concrete sum of work of scientists, past and present, living and dead. Not a statement in science, not an observation, not a thought exists in itself. Each was ground out of the harsh effort of some man [or woman] and unless you know the man and the world in which he worked; the assumptions he accepted as truths, the concepts he considered untenable; you cannot fully understand the statement or observation or thought."
All of this is my explanation for why, even though this blog is devoted to Rocket Science, I will occasionally recommend books on other subjects - such as chemistry, classical physics, astronomy, and so on. All these disciplines come together to make someone an informed scientific layperson - and that is the goal of this blog.
(Asimov continues in this vein and has some interesting things to say on the scientific method, and I'll share that in my next post.)
If you'd like to collect all of Asimov's collected essays from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, here are the titles:
Fact and Fancy (1962)
View from a Height (1963)
Adding a Dimension (1964)
Of Time, Space, & Other Things (1965)
From Earth to Heaven (1966)
Science, Numbers and I (1968)
The Solar System and Back (1970)
The Stars in Their Courses (1971)
The Left Hand of the Electron (1972)
The Tragedy of the Moon (1973)
Of Matters Great & Small (1975)
The Planet that Wasn't (1976)
Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1977)
Road to Infinity (1979)
The Sun Shines Bright (1981)
Counting the Eons (1983)
X Stands for Unknown (1984)
The Subatomic Monster (1985)
Far as Human Eye Could See (1987)
The Relativity of Wrong (1988)
Out of the Everywhere (1990)
The Secret of the Universe (1990)
Most of these can be bought from Amazon for a penny...and $3.99 postage. Others are more expensive. All of them are worth the cost, as you will discover as this blog progresses.
All of those books are out of print now, and you'll be lucky to find them in a library, too. (I assembled my collection of these essays by purchasing used books through Amazon.com's service - more than half of the books I recieved were de-accessioned library books.)
And this is a pity, because more than half of the essays Asimov wrote still have applications today. He explained his topics simply and clearly, so that even if a layperson couldn't quite grasp the intricacies involved, they still understood the general concept. These books really should be read by everyone aspiring to a scientific education. (And that should be all of us!)
Asimov explains it in his introduction to the anthology Adding A Dimension. I reproduce a few of the relevant paragraphs below.
[There is a fallacy called] the "growing edge," the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded an dead.
But is that true? ...
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. "If I have seen further than other men," said Isaac Newton, "it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
... In fact, an overly exclusive concern with the growing edge can kill the best of science, for it is not on the growing edge that growth can best be seen. If a growing edge only is studied, science begins to seem a revelation without a history of development.
... Science gains reality when it is viewed not as an abstraction, but as the concrete sum of work of scientists, past and present, living and dead. Not a statement in science, not an observation, not a thought exists in itself. Each was ground out of the harsh effort of some man [or woman] and unless you know the man and the world in which he worked; the assumptions he accepted as truths, the concepts he considered untenable; you cannot fully understand the statement or observation or thought."
All of this is my explanation for why, even though this blog is devoted to Rocket Science, I will occasionally recommend books on other subjects - such as chemistry, classical physics, astronomy, and so on. All these disciplines come together to make someone an informed scientific layperson - and that is the goal of this blog.
(Asimov continues in this vein and has some interesting things to say on the scientific method, and I'll share that in my next post.)
If you'd like to collect all of Asimov's collected essays from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, here are the titles:
Fact and Fancy (1962)
View from a Height (1963)
Adding a Dimension (1964)
Of Time, Space, & Other Things (1965)
From Earth to Heaven (1966)
Science, Numbers and I (1968)
The Solar System and Back (1970)
The Stars in Their Courses (1971)
The Left Hand of the Electron (1972)
The Tragedy of the Moon (1973)
Of Matters Great & Small (1975)
The Planet that Wasn't (1976)
Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1977)
Road to Infinity (1979)
The Sun Shines Bright (1981)
Counting the Eons (1983)
X Stands for Unknown (1984)
The Subatomic Monster (1985)
Far as Human Eye Could See (1987)
The Relativity of Wrong (1988)
Out of the Everywhere (1990)
The Secret of the Universe (1990)
Most of these can be bought from Amazon for a penny...and $3.99 postage. Others are more expensive. All of them are worth the cost, as you will discover as this blog progresses.
Minggu, 02 Januari 2011
Willy Ley Talks About Flying Saucers, 8/4/1952
Willy Ley was one of the founding members of the German Rocket Society, and when he emigrated to the US he was the pre-eminent rocket scientist here (pace Robert Goddard) until the Peenemunde rocket scientists - including Werner Von Braun - were brought to the US.
He was science writer for Galaxy for many years, and as a polymath, he wrot about just about everything. In turn, he was the model that Isaac Asimov took for his own essay writing career.
Here is a video of him, just uploaded today, of him as guest on a TV show called LONGINES CHRONOSCOPE. in which talks about "the so-called flying saucers that people claim to be seeing. "I believe that people are seeing something, but just what it is is another question."
For my Kindle readers, who can't see embedded videos here, you'll need to get on your computer, go to www.youtube.com, and do a search on Longines Chronoscope Ley. Then you'll be able to watch it. It's very interesting!
He was science writer for Galaxy for many years, and as a polymath, he wrot about just about everything. In turn, he was the model that Isaac Asimov took for his own essay writing career.
Here is a video of him, just uploaded today, of him as guest on a TV show called LONGINES CHRONOSCOPE. in which talks about "the so-called flying saucers that people claim to be seeing. "I believe that people are seeing something, but just what it is is another question."
For my Kindle readers, who can't see embedded videos here, you'll need to get on your computer, go to www.youtube.com, and do a search on Longines Chronoscope Ley. Then you'll be able to watch it. It's very interesting!
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