EWOKS!!!!

Who doesn't love those little EWOKs!?



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Lunar GPS

With development and testing of the shuttle replacement well underway, the next milestone beyond first flight of the rocket, is a lunar base. In order for the lunar base to be successful, they will need to communicate with Earth. This could pose a challenge for when astronauts are on the backside of the moon.

The current proposal is to launch a number of satellites to act as communication relay for the astronauts, and they could also double as a Lunar GPS system. A few proposals currently exist for where to place the satellites. One is the most obvious of orbiting the moon, but the moon has a very irregular gravitational field due to irregular mass within the moon. So they would have to follow a very specific path. The second idea is to place the satellites in the Lagrangian points where they would be able to see the reverse side of the moon and would remain fixed relative to the Earth-Moon system.

Swing on over to Space.com to check out the full article.

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Is Your Son A HaCkeR?!?

Check this out, this site tells you how to know if your son is a Hacker.




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Lenovo vs MacBook Air

Check out this hilarious video which pokes fun at the fact that the MacBook Air doesn't include an optical drive, among a number of normally standard items.




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Sikorsky X2

Sikorsky helicopter company is developing a new helicopter design, using new technologies dubbed the X2 technologies. The aim of the program is to create new helicopter technologies to be able to make the helicopter fly faster without the overly complicated tilt rotor design.

Currently many passenger helicopters have a top speed of about 170 mph, and similar sized fixed wing aircraft can double that speed. The new design would add about 60% extra speed, to somewhere around 280mph. The increased speed would bring the advantages of a vertical takeoff/landing aircraft with more speed leading to shorter trip times.

The current design for the new helicopter prototype has two counter rotating main rotors and it appears that at the rear there is a pusher propeller to gain the addition speed that is desired in this design.

If you want some more info on this, check out the full story over at Aviation.com or Sikorsky.com



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Chernobyl To Be Enclosed

It looks like someone is finally doing something about the decaying Chernobyl power plant. As most people know, Chernobyl is the site of the worlds most devastating Nuclear power mishap. The reactor melted down and released tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere. At the time of the disaster, a concrete "sarcophagus" was built around the failed power plant in 1986.

Now the years of exposure to radiation has weakened the concrete structure and the worry is that it soon could collapse and release radioactive dust into the atmosphere. In 1997 efforts to shore up the concrete "sarcophagus" and repair the cracks and weakened structure. The shoring of the concrete structure is expected to be completed very soon and work on a large steel containment structure will then begin. This structure will be built next to the power plant and then using rails, will move over the entire power plant structure to enclose it.

To see the whole story and more details on the project, go check out FoxNews.com


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Top Ten War Planes

Here's a list put together by Aviation.com of the top ten war planes. Here is the list:


#10:

Fokker D.VII Biplane

#9:

Mitsubishi Zero

#8:

Messerschmitt Bf109

#7:

Supermarine Spitfire

#6:

North American P-51D Mustang

#5:

North American F-86 Sabre

#4:

Mikoyan MiG-21

#3:

Boeing F-18 Hornet

#2:

Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber

#1:

UCAV

Check out the entire list and descriptions over at Aviation.com



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