As the world at large collectively recovers from a post-Superbowl hangover, we want to make sure we don’t forget our loyal readers. So sit back, relax, grab another cup of coffee and enjoy this week’s links.

Florida Today has an interesting piece about Engineering Careers, and how they’re still considered the wave of the future.

From ABC News, apparently Cornell scientists are creating “Spiderman technology” that will allow humans to crawl up walls. No word yet on the Super Soldier Serum.

Sfgate.com has a story about scientists attemption to recreate the power of the sun via 192 lasers.

And finally, I don’t know how viable a fuel source it is for cars, but could you imagine filling up with Coca-Cola?

With the Space Shuttle program coming to an end on September 16, Craig the Rocket Scientist is taking a look back at the program and its roots. If you haven’t yet read it, check out part 1.

In Part 1 I talked a little about the motivation of moving from large, disposable, heavy lift vehicles to smaller, reusable space transport system which would be able to launch every week to facilitate an orbital infrastructure.

It may feel like I’m retreading old ground, but I want to illustrate the point that everyone was interested in space, but there was very little coordination between all interested parties. NASA, the Air Force, and the President, all had very different ideas about what the future of American space flight was going to look like.

• NASA wanted a fleet of small shuttles (a term coined in a “purpose” section of an official invitation for production contract bids in 1970) to efficiently service a large space station, which would serve as a hub for science and exploration.
• The Air Force was looking for something to transport military astronauts into space that would be capable of launching and servicing large military satellites.
• The President wanted options, and wanted something economical.

In 1969 President Nixon formed the Space Task Group, chaired by vice president Spiro T. Agnew. In terms of function this group was very similar to the Augustine Commission, it’s goal was to develop several options for a post-Apollo NASA along with budget requirements for each option. This group returned with the following options:

1. Manned missions to Mars
2. Follow-on lunar missions
3. An orbital infrastructure, including a large space station (12-24 people)

After the President selected the third option as the new direction for American space flight, NASA and the Air Force, cast their lots together, combing some of their ideas and abandoning others.

The Shape of Things to Come

In order to maintain its economical edge, this space transport system would need a large number of launches, meaning it would need to be at least partly reusable. However, what this system would look like was still a bit of mystery. Starting in the mid-60’s NASA had developed a series of trade studies on a possible system and The US Air Force had been working on its own space transport system called the DC-3. (No, not THAT DC-3.) Both systems being developed were two staged, and included an orbiter with fixed wings, allowing it to fly back to a specific landing spot.

Initially, NASA’s concept called for a 2-stage system. The first stage would essentially be a large fuel tank with wings, capable of lifting off vertically and delivering the second stage to a specific altitude after which the second stage would launch itself into space while the first stage was piloted back to earth not far from its launch site.

This set-up presented two problems: NASA didn’t have the budget to develop two separate vehicles, and the system would be too heavy to allow for the large payload that the Air Force required for its satellite launching/servicing missions.

In the end a number of features were cut from the design. First, the manned first stage was dropped and replaced by a disposable fuel tank; this lowered development costs and also increased shuttle payload since it no longer had to carry the bulk of its own fuel. Second, jet engines which would allow the Space Shuttle powered flight upon reentering the atmosphere were scrapped to allow for greater payload. Twin solid rocket motors were chosen for their low cost, high reliability, and partial reusability.

Design changes, budget issues, waffling support, and contractor in-fighting plagued the program all the way up to September 17, 1976 when the Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out of the hanger for the first time. Originally this prototype / test article was to be named the Constitution but a massive letter campaign from sci-fi fans persuaded NASA to name the Shuttle after the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. Sadly, the name Millennium Falcon was never considered… Sorry Mr. Solo.

It’s interesting to note just how much history repeats itself when looking at the early days of the shuttle program and the constellation program. Both have had to deal with constant budget issues, design issues, wavering support, and stubborn contractors refusing to play nice. If anything, this should give one some measure of hope for the Ares rocket!

The Space Shuttle rescuing Sky Lab? Yup, it was actually part of the plan. I’ll get into that more, next time in our third section of The History of the Space Shuttle.

Last week I spoke with John Patrick after reading a post on his blog regarding Genesys XVI. I got in touch with John to get more insights into the past, present and future of the internet.

John is a former Vice President of Internet Technology with IBM, and currently serves as president of Attitude LLC. John is also the author of Net Attitude, an essential primer on e-business strategies. John has served on Knovel’s Board of Directors since 1992.

K Exchange: First off thank you for agreeing to interview with us. To start with, I have to get your impressions on the topic-of-the moment, the Apple iPad. To me, it seems way more evolutionary compared to the then-revolutionary iPhone. By extension, is the iPad just a larger version of the iPod Touch but with more bells and whistles? Will this device ultimately mean anything?

John Patrick: I am quite enthusiastic about the iPad and can’t wait to get my hands on one. Some people are saying the iPad is just a big iPhone. Yes! I can’t wait and it is much more than an iPhone. It has applications galore. On day one it will run 140,000 iPhone applications plus significant upgrades to calendar, contacts, mapping, and email. I see the iPad lightening the load in briefcases when travelling. It will also take up a lot less space on the kitchen counter and while resting there in the new iPad case it will double as a picture viewer. (See complete review by John on his blog at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_31.php#Amazon and the iPad)

KX: In conjunction with that, do you see mobile devices becoming more important? Or do the limitations of 3G/4G speeds and device memory mean people will be relying more heavily on computers for the time being?

JP: Mobile is taking over. There are hundreds of millions of PC’s. There are billions of mobile phones. Today most of them are “dumb” but soon most of them will be “smart”. Most people in the world will access the Internet from their mobile device. The PC will become less and less relevant, accelerated by the iPad and the flood of tablet competitors who will follow.

KX: You mentioned in your blog the massive disparity between public WiFi in the US and overseas. Does the possibility of widely available WiFi (or WiGig, as you posited for the near future) make the question moot, and suggest that netbooks will be preferable to mobile devices?

JP: WiFi is growing all over the world. The netbook is just an inexpensive Windows PC. The only thing it has going for it is price. Do we really need another Windows PC? There is no innovation in netbooks.

KX: Switching gears, you also believe that social networking is going to be crucial to collaboration in the future. Are you talking about public social networks? Or about private intra-company or intra-industry networks?

JP: Both. All of the above. The days of just “plain” content are over. People expect to be able to compare notes on things. Inside or outside the firewall. The number one source that people use to pick a doctor or a hospital is not a website per se, it is asking their friends and family. Social networking is a tool to do that. In a corporate sense, the most valuable source of information on a topic may be somebody down the hall but again, social networks is a tool to reach them.

Collaboration is not new but the social networks provide enhanced tools to make collaboration work. It goes deeper than writing on someone’s wall. Specialized tools are emerging such as Kindling to make social networking concepts into serious business tools. The largest source of
content is user generated content. That is part of social networking too.

KX: Along those lines, we have statistics from Outsell that suggest that while 40% of engineers are on Facebook, only 4% are on Twitter. An interesting fact that may make more sense when you consider the recent stats suggesting that Twitter’s growth is stagnating. Why do you think Facebook’s adoption has been so much stronger among the engineering community?

JP: They are totally different types of social networking tools. Facebook is a people oriented way to establish a presence and connect with friends or colleagues. It is frictionless to achieve. Twitter is more of a protocol — a way to send a message or “tweet”. Twitter as a company may or may not survive but the concept of sending short messages and following companies or people is a fundamental and new “channel” on the Internet.

KX: Finally, I want to end on the question you asked to finish your post: “will we trust the internet?” You were talking in terms of security, but the question brings up an interesting point, do people inherently mistrust information that comes from the internet? Obviously Wikipedia is a flawed source, but does a company like Knovel have to fight the impression of being an internet company rather than an information provider?

JP: The Internet is the communications network. It will be a constant battle against those who want to disrupt it, but I am optimistic that the good guys will stay on top. I don’t think people inherently distrust the Internet — perhaps to the contrary. It is no different than a book. How do you know a book is accurate? The key is to test veracity through cross-checking just like doing any basic research. Knovel has a huge opportunity to leverage the Internet as the delivery mechanism to make engineers more productive. In the long run it will be important to use technology to provide digital signatures and authentication of data.

John’s post on Genesys XYI can be found at http://www.patrickweb.com/weblog/archives/2010_01_26.php#Genesys XVI.

Posted 2/3/2010

Welcome to another edition of K Exchange’s Monday Link Review, our weekly digest of the best science and engineering stories of the past week from around the internet.

I’m not ashamed to admit that my favorite links usually come in the form of a Popular Mechanics List, and this is no exception: The World’s 18 Strangest Tunnels.

In a story that seems, to me anyway, to be culled straight from 1930’s pulp comics, MIT researchers may have developed a new way to develop clean energy: levitating magnets.

From the always controversial world of climate change news, a group of environmental scientists recently posited a way to halt climate change in Nature Magazine: giant explosions.

And finally, we have a great list from an unlikely source: Spike TV’s website. The Top 10 (Gutsiest) Scientists in History.

With so much focus being put on the need for Engineers worldwide, we believe it’s important to learn what leads students toward Engineering Careers to encourage others to follow suit. I recently exchanged e-mails with Adrian Spoljarevic, a 21 year old Civil Engineering Student in his final semester at University of Queensland, St. Lucia Campus in Australia. We spoke about life, work, school and the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art.

K-Exchange: What made you want to be an engineer?
Adrian: I’ve always been very technically minded and hands on. While I was growing up my family and teachers just assumed I would be an engineer. Truth be told I didn’t even know what an engineer did until I did some research in my final year of high school when I had to apply for the Uni course.

KX – What made you choose civil engineering?
AS – Lack of direction initially. I couldn’t decide between electrical, software, mechanical or civil. I tried a few EE/software courses but failed them because I ended up not being interested in them. I Ultimately settled on civil because it seemed to be the broadest, and is probably the most useful discipline to have when applying for management type roles at non-engineering companies. Also my family background is in the construction industry so I spent a lot of time growing up on building sites and working with power tools in the back shed.

KX – What do you want to do after school?
AS – I have been changing my mind on this about every 6 months. My current position in this economic climate is “I’ll take what I can get”, but my long term goal is to enter into property development. An engineering degree isn’t necessary for that but it will certainly help to gain the background experience I need before jumping into that kind of self employment. I haven’t tried design work professionally, my initial trepidation to go into design was partly due to the types of assignments we were given at uni, but now that I’ve built up a good knowledge I do feel more confident about it.

What was your favorite class? Did that lead you to the career decision?
My favourite class was civil design, a year long capstone course that had us doing everything from architectural design to engineering design. It definitely softened my stance on not wanting to work in design, but I still don’t expect it to become a long term career.

KX – Do you now wish you’d started in another engineering discipline?
AS – No, I am confident I made the right decision. If I had wanted to be a design engineer I may have gone into mechanical or electrical, but I don’t.

KX – If you couldn’t be in an engineering discipline, what would you like to be studying?
AS – Anything that would help property development. Real estate, building, business.

KX – Anything specific that inspires you as a civil engineer?
AS – A project just finished in the city, Kurilpa Bridge. It is to my knowledge the first tensegrity bridge in the world. The general consensus here is that it’s hideously ugly and doesn’t suit the decor of the city. As a kid I remember building tensegrity structures out of wooden skewers and fishing line, and that’s how I see Kurilpa Bridge – giant wooden skewers and fishing line. It’s hugely inspirational to think outside the box and go against popular opinion if it means bringing your idea to fruition. Even though the concept was done by architects, I think engineers feel just as much satisfaction in seeing their design work, especially when so much of the final form of the structure is ultimately decided by the engineers.

KX – Any interesting stories, tales, failures, life lessons from your studies?
AS – The biggest life lesson I have learned was the principle of the “zone of acceptance.” There are too many “correct” designs, and not always a perfect one. You can’t be a perfectionist in engineering (it took me a few years to learn this the hard way). Define the zone of acceptance, and once you’re in it, stop. Anything else is a waste of time and money.

KX – Finally, as a civil engineer you’re uniquely qualified to answer this question. If you were a building, what building would you be?
AS – Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art:

What do Macaulay Culkin, Danny Bonaduce, Gary Coleman and the Space Shuttle have in common?

…

Ok, you know what? I can’t do this. I was really trying to give you a snappy opening relating the shuttle to tragic child actors, but I like the shuttle way too much to do that.

With the next Space Shuttle launch coming up next week, I was looking at the launch manifest for the last 5 shuttle missions. It struck me that I’ve lived in a world where the Space Shuttle has always existed. Astronauts were always featured in videos eating food in humorous fashions. There was always another mission.

But not anymore.

September 16, 2010 will mark the final launch of the Space Shuttle and with it, it will bring to close an era of space flight. In respect to this once in a lifetime event I’ll be writing a series of articles dedicated to the most complex, high performance machine ever built. We’ll look at its development and early years, the incredible achievements of the program, as well as the tragedies that have beset the Shuttle. We will examine how the Space Shuttle changed the world. It’s a story of passion and politics. Of science and showmanship and exploration. A story equal parts danger and discovery.

It is a big story to be sure. I’ll do my best to liven up the dry parts, shed light on little known anecdotes, and side-step the controversies. (Just kidding. Controversy is the best part!)

In the Beginning…

It’s hard to talk about the Space Shuttle without first talking about the motivations behind it.

In 1969 NASA was flush with success. They had repeatedly landed humans on the moon and brought them safely home (If you don’t believe this, feel free to go here and discuss it). Serious talk had begun about long term lunar outposts, explorations of Venus and Mars and large space stations. Looking back at these ideas it’s easy to scoff at their seemingly unreachable goals, but at the time NASA had already accomplished the impossible; from where they stood, nothing seemed out of reach.

However, outside of NASA things weren’t quite as rosy. Public interest in the space program had fallen and landing on the moon signaled an end to the space race that had been vital to NASA’s funding. Add to that a government entangled in an expanding conflict in Vietnam and “less expensive” become a politically attractive buzzword.

This change in budget lead to a shift in vehicle design: Large, heavy lift launch vehicles capable of putting people and material into orbit around other heavenly bodies were replaced with smaller vehicles capable of only low earth orbit. The smaller vehicles were cheaper to build and launch and hinged on economies of scale. This system of numerous launches happening every few weeks was focused on building an infrastructure in space.

Gone were to Conestoga wagons that were the massive Saturn V’s, NASA started planning to build a rail road to space.

To be continued…

Part 2

I admit it.  Last night, when I attended the 2010 SIIA CODiE Awards dinner I was thinking about having a glass or two of wine, meeting some old business acquaintances, making some new contacts, and enjoying a congenial dinner with colleagues Ross Graber and Meagan Cooke.

We were certainly thrilled to be CODiE finalists in the category of Best Online Science and Technology Service, but we weren’t primed for the win, except when Meagan who is Director of Content Strategies and I, Director of Product Management (Platform delivery) joked about going to the podium to accept the award smiling and holding hands.  During the past year, we’ve developed a symbiotic relationship; Meagan’s stellar management of Knovel’s unrivaled content, and my focus on a feature-rich technology platform combine to make Knovel the product of choice among engineers.

We were up against stiff competition in our category: UniPHY, AIP’s literature-based, professional scientific networking platform; and ChemMobi, an iPhone app from Symyx that provides mobile access to chemical reference information.  The nominees for our category were announced, and  KNOVEL appeared on the screen as Winner.  We made our way to the podium to accept the award, surprised and thrilled.  As we headed back to our seats, a microphone and camera appeared, then the question, “What does the CODiE award mean to Knovel?” Last night, I was overwhelmed, tongue-tied and surprised by the journalistic assault, so allow me to answer in the clearer light of morning.

The CODiE Award is the acknowledgment of a decade of hard work by our dedicated and visionary product development team under the direction of our fervent, zealous CEO Chris Forbes,  as well as the consistent and steadfast efforts of our active customer community and design partners who continue to partner with us to make Knovel a more powerful solution with each iteration.

I’ll admit, I’m still reeling from a 2010 product strategy meeting  yesterday morning, which was heady in itself. Because of the grand plans we’re undertaking this year, the thrill of last night’s CODiE recognition was just icing on the cake.

Knovel Engineering Cases feature the stories of engineers who have applied innovative theories and new technologies to both common and uncommon challenges. The following Engineering Case was posted on January 26, 2010

A Look Inside Renewed World Energies’ Algae Bioreactor

By Richard Armstrong, CEO and Tim Tomkins, CTO, Renewed World Energies.

Renewed World Energies applies time-tested engineering strategies to the design of its cutting-edge algae bioreactor…. Read More >>

Welcome to another edition of K Exchange’s Monday Link Review. I’d like to take a second to tell all of our readers that this is the 100th post on K Exchange; a small number for some blogs out there, but a great accomplishment for us. We embarked on an initiative to improve our blog in August, and we’re proud of everything we’ve accomplished. Between our weekly Monday Link Reviews, Craig the Rocket Scientist every Thursday, and our new KFact program, there’s more content then ever being added to K Exchange, and we wanted to offer up a hearty thanks to all of our readers. But enough kudos and self reflection, on to the links!

The Guardian UK’s Environment Blog looks at the environmental impact of road construction, and how it can be made greener.

British website Core|Architect takes a look at how nanotechnology is revolutionizing architecture, claiming “Personalization of nanoarchitectural spaces will be a likely benefit giving occupants greater flexibility and choice.”

Meet “The Puffin” a electric powered hybrid helicopter/airplane intended as a solo vehicle. No word on whether it will be publically available, but this little thing sure would cut down on your commuting time, wouldn’t it?

Finally, deviating from our usual science and engineering links, in the wake of the Hatian earthquake, the Wall Street Journal took a very interesting, and very literary, look at how natural disasters have served as harbingers for positive economic growth and development throughout history.

Welcome to the KFact digest. Every week we publish 5 KFacts, a daily tweet that provides an Engineering Fact of the Day. These KFacts are available every afternoon on Twitter (@KnovelUpdates), with more information on our Facebook Fan Page. Every Friday we  provide a digest of the week’s KFacts on our blog in case you missed them.

These KFacts are all taken from our Titles of the Week, giving you immediate access to more information about these titles. Remember, you can click on any of the dates to find out more information about the KFact.

Monday January 18, 2010
#KFact – HF sky wave radars exploit the ionosphere to reflect upwardly transmitted radiowaves back to earth’s surface.

Tuesday January 19, 2010
#KFact – Penicillin was produced at a concentration of only 1 part per million by the first isolated producers.

Wednesday January 20, 2010
#KFact – Swimming pools consume 2-3x as much energy as an air-conditioned office building per square area.

Thursday January 21, 2010
#KFact – New Biotechnology involves genetic engineering & cell fusion to produce organisms able to make useful products.

Friday January 22, 2010
#KFact – French breweries require 25L of water to produce 1L of beer. Brewers in Denmark & Sweden use 1/5 that amount.

Back in the old days (you know, BEFORE the internet) every village had an idiot, everyone knew who the village idiot was and everyone kept that fact in mind whenever the idiot would speak. Now with the advent of the internet, normal people have to deal with people they’ve never met and we have no way of knowing who is or is not some village’s idiot. To make matters worse, village idiots have been able to congregate online and give each other positive reinforcement, allowing bad ideas to fester for an abnormally long time in the spot light.

I’m aware that there isn’t much I can do about all of it. It’s far too late for me to do anything about products including:  Doggles, Slap Chop, the Sonic Knife, the Potty Patch, the Shamwow, Flowbees, Ginsu Knives and the dreaded Snuggie (Ed note: The Snuggie is nothing but a backwards robe. Blankets aren’t supposed to have sleeves, if they were, they’d be called shirts.) I, however, believe I can do something about one rumored internet product, the underwater space cannon.

Popsci.com states that John Hunter, designer of the QuickLauncher, has “done the math” and is very serious about using a massive cannon, suspended from the surface of the ocean via some sort of monstrous pontoon-like contraption, to launch projectiles into orbit.

Previous work launching projectiles into orbit have used magnets to levitate and accelerate the projectile (similar in many ways to the systems used in modern roller coasters). The QuickLauncher uses the expansion of heated gas to push the projectile out of a barrel. The problem is that the projectile will be moving approximately 7.4 kilometers per second when it reaches the end of the barrel. This means the barrel structure will need to have serious reinforcement to prevent the pressure build up in front of the projectile from blowing the barrel apart.

While we’re on the subject, this structure is going to be sunk about 500 meters underwater. It will have to maintain perfect rigidity (non-straight barrels are kind of bad) while bobbing up and down and having currents push it in different directions at different depths, and deal with different rates of thermal expansion.

Now even if the structure is made rigid enough to overcome all these forces being placed on it, it will need to maintain pointing requirements. Even an error of just 2 degrees could result in a projectile ending up at least 7 kilometers off course! Imagine hitting a target a mile away with a high powered rifle being swung around in the breeze, that will give you an idea of firing the Space Cannon. There’s got to be a better way!

The concept of launching a projectile into orbit isn’t new; NASA has been toying with this idea for over 20 years. But the setup that Mr. Hunter is looking to go forward with is deeply flawed. If you’re interested to see some of the real work being done, check out some of the work NASA has been doing with linear motors in combination with several universities and the Navy!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do.