A number of science & technology related items have snagged the Chief’s attention – I’m not sure why these have all popped up out of the background all right now…but there are some pretty far-out
things going on.While The Core remains the all-time worst science movie of all times, part of it’s basic concept is not too far out for the Air Force to be actively looking at:
Throughout the ages, bad guys have loved bunkers, whether they’re in Nazi Germany or Jihadist Iran. With good reason: the suckers are hard to find, and even tougher to blow up. Even the most bleeding-edge, experimental bunker-busters can penetrate, at most, 10 meters down. Which is why the Air Force is considering a new approach: teams of foot-long “subterranean vehicles” with new-fangled ways to dig.
To quote a USAF document:
A subterranean vehicle could engage these types of targets in an effective manner, avoiding both collateral damage and unnecessary risks to our troops. It could be deployed a safe distance from the target and autonomously navigate itself to the target while detecting, identifying, and then avoiding buried obstacles such as pipes, wires, boulders and even other buildings. This vehicle would be able to penetrate the surface either through deployable techniques or on its own.
But “conventional digging techniques” will not get the job done, the Air Force warms. “It’s more likely that a revolutionary approach to digging, involving biologically inspired and/or unconventional physical and chemical approaches, would provide better results.”
It’s a deep subject!
Going in the opposite direction is this idea from NASA. (At least NASA going into space is more logical sounding than the AIR FORCE operating underground.)
NASA Studies Manned Asteroid Mission
NASA is appraising a human mission to a near-Earth asteroid-gauging the scientific merit of the endeavor while testing out spacecraft gear, as well as mastering techniques that could prove useful if a space rock ever took aim for our planet. Space agency teams are looking into use of Constellation hardware for a human Near-Earth Object (NEO) mission-an effort underway at NASA’s Ames Research.
Remember the movie Armageddon? NASA does! After noting the science associated with this project, NASA scientist Chris McKay goes continues…
“Then there’s the whole, what I call the ‘Bruce Willis factor’…the star in the movie Armageddon…and the ability to send significant assets to an asteroid. There’s a lot of public resonance with this notion that NASA ought to be doing something about killer asteroids…to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid,” McKay observed. “The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities,” he said.
Finally, how about communication…backwards in time…for bleeding edge science?
Going for a blast into the real past
If his experiment with splitting photons actually works, says University of Washington physicist John Cramer, the next step will be to test for quantum “retrocausality.” That’s science talk for saying he hopes to find evidence of a photon going backward in time.
“It doesn’t seem like it should work, but on the other hand, I can’t see what would prevent it from working,” Cramer said. “If it does work, you could receive the signal 50 microseconds before you send it.”
And the point is…?
If the UW experiment succeeds at demonstrating faster-than-light communication and reverse causation, the implications are enormous. Besides altering our concept of time, the signaling finding alone would almost certainly revolutionize communication technologies.
Communication FTL (faster-than-light) and BACKWARDS IN TIME? For real? No longer just science fiction? Phew!
Can warp drive be far behind? “…to go where no man has gone before…!”