100km with only 1 litre of diesel!

German automaker Volkswagen recently unveiled their latest prototype that can lead to improve fuel consumptions. The "one-litre-car" was build to test the capabilities of aerodynamics and fuel efficiency, this is why the bullet-shape design is a major advanced feature much like the material used to built the car, carbon fibres and a light 0.33 litre diesel engine that allow you to drive for 100km with just 1 litre of diesel! Imagine the money you save.

It fits only two people and you can pack little with you, but this experiments shows how a simple design can be effective in a situtaion where fuel prices are soaring.  The car's engine turns off when the car is stopped at lights and automatically restarts when the accelerator is pressed. This will avois wasting fuel while waiting at traffic lights or during rush-hours endless queues.

Also mirrors to see traffic have been replaced with small cameras that capture the image from different angles, this allows to achieve a better aerodynamic effects with no side rear-view mirrors creating frictions upon impact with air. The steering-wheel is made of magnesium and weighs only 1 lbs, and to keep weight limited no paint is applies, this will make 'black' the default color. 

Volkswagen is considering selling this car around 2010 in limited units at a tag price of 29,000 Euros, even if it doesn't come cheap it can be the right direction in order to save drastically fuel costs and CO2 emission in the atmosphere. This car is no different than a Smart car, it sits two and you have a small trunk, with the advantage to go further on the read while visiting gas pumps less and less.

Space habitats and colonization

Space is quite utterly big, little we know of its vastity and its dangers apart from what text books tells us to stare and avoid. The habitatat that space offers is harsh: temperatures that go well below -200 degrees Celsius (close to the absolute zero), extreeme heating from nearby stars, and gamma ray burst that will kill any human in seconds. Apart from this unpleasant side, space is a fertile "land" where humanity can build and expand, gathering new resources in order to bring ballance to planet Earth.

Take for example the space race, it gave us the possibility to experiment with long time exposure to zero-gravity of the bones, this allowed us to test the limits of the human body. Then orbital stations provided the essentil data to understand what is needed to people to live in space modules, their mental reaction along with many experiments useful to science.

To propel the human kind into a more serious and sophisticated colonization of our solar system, it is important to understand that new vessels must be built off Earth in order to take advantage of the absence of gravity, which enhance metals giving them better qualities.

 

Imagine these vessels with thousands of people on board traveling to other solar systems while life goes on on a daily basis. In order to colonize space we must push our technologies to the maximum so humanity can benefit from it in peaceful therms. 

Some theories created in the 20th century were probably the best solution for an eventual colonization of space, here a few:

Bernal sphere

In 1929 John Desmond Bernal proposed an artificial habitat for humans where 20,000 to 30,000 people could live in a sphere orbiting on itself producing artifical gravity (Earth's gravity 1g). The original design specified the dimensions of the project with a 16 km diameter, later on Bernal reproposed a much smaller design of just 500m in diameter where people would like at the heigh of the equator, the landspace would me the same of our planet. This was one of the first idea of long-term environment for humans to live in, generations of people would live their normal life while exploring space.

O'Neill cylinder

This structure is a cylinder with a 3km diameter and 20 km in lenght. Artificial gravity is provided with the rotation of the cylinder on its longitudinal axis simulating Earth's gravity of almost 1g, this will give habitats the same condit

ions on our planet, although no motion sickness will be felt, some dropped object can be deflected by a short distance due to a total different gravity system.  Three islands are built along where each of them hosts a different landscape: the first island will have people living, the second one is for agricolture providing food, while the third one is for manufacturing where a lower gravity will grant higher quality materials.

Standford torus

This is a basic idea of space habitat that can host an entire city or more. It is a ring-shaped structure hollow in the inside that spind on itself creating centripetal force, therefore simulating gravity up to 1g which will recreate a condition similar to Earth's force while spinning once a minute. This is necessary to stop decalcification of the bones due to a lack of gravity. The structure is 1.8 km in diameter (as of the original project) and it was designed to host 10.000 people. Other projects can sustain a bigger population with a greater ring dimension.

Generation ship

This type of structure is similar to those listed above. The theory behind this ship is to have thousands of people willing to live their entire life on board this vessel that is constantly travelling towards its destination. Picture a trip to a remote star where it will take 100 years or more years to reach it. This vessel will host generations that will live, work, sleep, eat and die in a self-sustaining environment similar to Earth for the sole purpose of reaching the objective of the mission. This ship will require at least 160 different  individuals in order to maintain genetic diversity along the trip.

Sleeper ship

The sleeper ship is another way of space travel that can help humanity to shorten mission. It can be used along interstellar travels (between stars) where great distances need to be covered. In this case the whole crew will be but to sleep in an hibernation stage where heartbeat and life functions will be slowed to an optimal point in order to save energy on the ship. An automated guidance system will carry the vessel along its path where the crew will be waken upon arrival. 

SENS

Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence is a theory that supports the replacement of those human parts that are decaying due to age. This will allow a certain number of astronauts to travel great distances cheating centuries of trip ahead of them. British biogerontologist Aubrey de Gray published his theories in 1999 with the book Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging.

Embryo space colonization

This type of colonization is theoretically cheaper than any of the designs listed above. This mission will be set towards Earth-like planets where a spaceship will transport frozen early-stage human embryos or the technological or biological means to create human embryos. The whole process will be handled by robots that are programmed to build structures to host the growing embryos and eventually the planning of crops to sustain life with natural foods.

Reset the countdown

I'm starting to feel the US political pressure that streams from every cable of the net, informations, gossip and accusations. This 2008 political campaign is all bout resetting American foreign policy, but more important its behaviour towards an afro-american candidate like Barack Obama.

For all we know we have been living in a world of happy-consuming economy where we all spend our money upon everything we laid eyes on. Unfortunately the comedy is over. I use the word unfortunately for all those who thought that life was a dream written by some cheap Hollywood underpaid writer. But it is not!

US foreign policy is the backbone of international affairs, this means that whoever is the next candidate to win the White House elections, she/he can re-write the future from November 2008.  I do feel that this election is like the war of Stalingrad for the Germans in 1943. It is a crucial point where America can change for good and returns to be the Founding Father's land or the cruel present of corporate never-ending deals in places like Iraq, the educational system having kids growing more ignorant every year,  and everything money can buy or corrupt...