Space Travel, a thought

The Bubble Nebula from NOAO

Credit: Brad Ehrhorn & Adam Block, NOAO, AURA, NSF

While I was watching the preparation and launch of the last Martian Lander Phoenix; I began to think of a spacecraft powered by a CERN accelerator. CERN had been in the news lately because it was ready to come online, and some scientists think the experiments will be unsafe. It is suppose to create new particles and perhaps mini black holes. I was thinking if the could create mini black hole perhaps it might manipulate gravity such that it could use the effects of gravity to propel matter with high mass. Create a bubble of anti-gravity around an object that could of bounce off earth’s gravity. Like when you push magnet together of opposite poles and let go, they fly apart; I should say repelled. The problem would be to get a portable accelerator and figure how to power it. I am sure that we can figure how to create the anti-gravity, by finding particles with this property.

You see I imagined the space ship and the sound as if I had seen it in the future.

A Manufactured Crisis

The crisis of the food supply dwindling, due to the use of grain to make ethanol. The politicos saying that Mexico will starve, their will be less grain to supply the hungry of the world. Grain will be priced out of the market for poor countries.

The crisis would become so, because of the money manipulators, placing all their bets on grain, specifically corn.

The one thing politcos can't change is sugar and cellulose can can be made into ethanol.

Fermentation of sugar

C₆H₁₂O₆ → 2 CH₃CH₂OH + 2 CO₂

sugar --> ethanol + Carbon Dioxide

Wikipedia:Ethanol

Cellulolysis (biological approach)

There are four or five stages to produce ethanol using a biological approach:

1. A "pretreatment" phase, to make the lignocellulosic material such as wood or straw amenable to hydrolysis,
2. Cellulose hydrolysis (cellulolysis), to break down the molecules into sugars;
3. Separation of the sugar solution from the residual materials, notably lignin;
4. Microbial fermentation of the sugar solution;
5. Distillation to produce 99.5% pure alcohol.

Wikipedia: Cellulosic ethanol


There are more than a few sources of sugar and cellulose, for example, sugar beets, switch grass, sugar cane, and garbage. This a scientific fact, corn is not the only source of ethanol. The politicos cannot manipulate that chemistry reaction to suit their purposes, like they do with the science of Global Warming. Today I learned that the lowly plant, Algae can produced ethanol.

It was refreshing to hear Senator Obama say we should look to Cellulosic sources other than food stocks to produce ethanol. He mentions switch grass and wood chips as a source during his interview at KY3 Political Notebook while he was visiting Missouri. View his answer during the interview answering the question, What's his position on mandating ethanol?


H/TNot Right About Anything

Dropping out of Warp

A Sonic Boom
Credit: Ensign John Gay, USS Constellation, US Navy

Before I opened this Astronomy Picture of the Day, it looked like the Enterprise dropping out of warp speed. Funny, how the mind plays tricks.

Gliese 581

The NASA Image of the Day at top of this blog barely shows a picture of a star that has a planet that may have water and an atmosphere. It is one and a half times the size of the earth. Click on the picture for more details. After today find it here. It revolves around it sun every 14 days. I wonder if it has life on the planet; does life moves 26 times faster, than on earth?

Clouds

Remember looking at clouds and seeing animals and other things. Looking at this star cluster in the clouds of natal gas and dust, I see this young girl's face. She has a slight attitude.

This is today's 01-10-07 Astronomy Picture of the Day from a Hubble image.






NGC 602 and Beyond
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA) - ESA/Hubble Collaboration

Peace

Peace

Silence

Tranquility

Absence of War

My wish for all

Massive Stars in Open Cluster Pismis 24
Credit: NASA, ESA and J. M. Apellániz (IAA, Spain).