‘Ion space drive’ designed by Australian student smashes NASA’s fuel efficiency record

Australian student smashes NASA’s fuel efficiency record with ‘Ion Space Drive’

With some improvements the innovative Ion space drive would be able to power a spacecraft so that it can travel till “Mars and return with just one tank of fuel”.

Paddy Neumann, a PhD student from the University of Sydney, has designed a new kind of “Ion space drive” which has smashed the current fuel efficiency record set by NASA.

Ion space drive: 

The new space drive designed by an Australian student works on the principle ofIon propulsion technology.

Under normal conditions, a spacecraft is propelled by using standard chemicals as fuel; however in this technology the gas is ionized or charged electrically to propel the spacecraft.

Currently NASA’s record holder for fuel efficiency is its High Power Electric Propulsion or HiPEP system and it allows 9,600 (+/- 200) seconds of specific impulse.

However, as per the student newspaper Honi Soit, the new Ion space drive developed by Neumann was able to achieve up to  14,690 (+/- 2,000), which is pretty impressive.

Interestingly, the new Ion space drive or the Neumann’s Ion drive uses an entirely new type of fuel. NASA’s HiPEP system runs on Xenon gas, however the Neumann’s Ion drive utilizes a range of metals as fuel and so far the best results have been achieved by using metal magnesium.

Working of the Ion space drive:

In this case electricity is used to ionize the metal. Electric arcs strike magnesium, which is being used as fuel, and it results in the formation of ion spray that is then directed by a magnetic nozzle to produce the required thrust.

The standard chemical propulsion devices that are currently used in the industry works by short, high powered bursts of thrusts followed by coasting.

On the other hand, Neumann’s drive can run on a combination of short and light bursts thus conserving the fuel source.

Neumann’s Ion drive smashes the current fuel efficiency record set by NASA; however it could not beat NASA’s acceleration. In other words the new Ion space drive is not an ideal option to power a spacecraft off a planet. However, Neumann says that with some improvements, such as pairing with other propulsion systems, the Ion space drive would be in a better position to power a spacecraft so that it can travel longer distances without having to stop and refuel.

Neumann says there is also a possibility that in future his Ion space drive might actually power a spacecraft so that it can travel to  “Mars and back on one tank of fuel”.

Neumann believes that his Ion space drive would definitely reduce the cost of space transportation and at the same time help the satellites to remain in orbit for much longer time as well as it might also power the spacecraft to travel much longer distances.

Another plus point of Neumann’s Ion drive is that it runs on those metals which are commonly found in space junk indicating that the exhausted satellites could possibly be utilized as fuel for this new drive thus making provision for recycling of the old satellites. Well, this also means that the new Ion space drive would be much more cheaper and it might probably even help the space companies to save on the exorbitant cost of carting fuel into space.

The results of Neumann’s innovative Ion space drive is currently awaiting a peer review; however Neumann has already lodged a patent for the new device under the purview of a new start up named Neumann Space, because for some unknown reason the University of Sydney decided not to commercialize the invention and just passed back the research completely to Neumann and other two researchers who were part of the project.

He plans to present the details of his innovative device on 30th September at the 15th Australian Space Research Conference, where he might provide some more concrete details of his device.

For now, Neumann and his team are busy securing funds for further research and development of the new propulsion system-Neumann’s Ion drive.

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5k Retina iMac takes on Anti-Tank Cannon, what else can really happen?

Watch Apple’s 3K Retina iMac face an anti-tank cannon …and lose, badly

The creators of the YouTube channel, FullMag have one of the most addictive hobby on the planet. They take expensive devices outside the city and shoot them from different caliber weapons. They have already dropped an iPhone 6 from thousands of feet, frozen and smashed an iPhone 6 Plus with a sledgehammer and ended an Apple Watch’s time with a rifle.

Richard Ryan, who is behind all the aforementioned tech destruction has now taken things to the next level by targeting a 27-inch Apple’s iMac with 5K Retina Display with a 90mm anti-tank cannon. The day the video was released, it was watched over 100000 times.

The destruction is terrifying and predictable. However, when a shot is shown in a slow motion mode, it looks spectacular. After ripping a hole in that beautiful display, all the internal layers of the computer are removed by the force of the blow looking like an exploding onion.

Watch the video below to see it for yourself.

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A drone that can steal data just by hovering above you

‘Aerial Assault’ Drone Helps Hackers Penetrate Internet Networks by hovering above

If you are a hacker and want to infiltrate Internet networks in areas out of reach, you can try this new drone. Aerial Assault drone is a unmanned aerial vehicle which is available for $2,500 and has the ability to hover about the target network, sniff vulnerabilities in the PCs below and report back to the owner.

The Aerial Assault drone houses a raspberry Pi running Kali Linux, a distro built specifically for pen testing of networks and devices. Once it is in the air, Aerial Assault can sniff insecure devices and networks and store that information locally or beam it back to the pilot.

David Jordan from Aerial Assault unveiled the aircraft at the Defcon hacking conference in Las Vegas Sunday.  He says that Aerial Assault is equipped with a array of software tools capable of “penetration testing”

“There has never been this capability before,” Jordan told Agence Presse-France.

The Aerial Assault drone is built on top of open source technology making it easy for white hat hackers and security researchers to customise it the way they want. Because it uses GPS, in addition to hanging outside of skyscrapers collecting unencrypted data, it can also be sent out to multiple buildings in areas that would be inaccessible by a person.

This $2,500 drone should be on sale in the next few days at Wall of Sheep.

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Bill Gates Sponsored Giant Fans Will Soon Suck CO2 From Air and Recycle it as Fuel

Short Bytes: CO2 is the major cause of climate change and global warming. As of now, sustainable development is just in speeches and when an immediate solution was seeming unlikely, Carbon Engineering came up with a technology that would reduce and recycle the CO2 present in the atmosphere instantaneously. Read to know more.

The rate of climate change today, and its effects on the planet’s future, incite some of the strongest opinions and anxiety among the people. While the world acknowledges it, yet no one wants to share the responsibility. No wonder Elon Musk calls this as humanity’s dumbest experiment.

Carbon emission is the biggest contributor to the increase in global temperatures worldwide, and it will continue to do so until an immediate solution is panned out. Planting trees can do the trick, but it would require vast amounts of fertile land to absorb even a small volume of CO2. But what if we could build something that does the same as forests- suck CO2 out of the atmosphere?

Carbon Engineering, a company sponsored by Bill gates, is working on technologies to take CO2 directly out of the atmosphere. It sounds amazing but not easy as CO2 represents just one molecule out of 2500 molecules in the air.

Related: World’s First ‘Clean’ Coal Power Plant Has Arrived, Uses Carbon Capture and Storage

Carbon Engineering has built the prototype contactor that converts 100 kilos of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere every day into harmless carbonates. Now just imagine the extent of their full-scale system.

At its maximum capacity, the full-scale system by the Carbon Engineering team is expected to capture the emissions from 300,000 cars every year. Air capture doesn’t require any exotic technology and can be scaled in size and installed anywhere on the Earth (since CO2 is present everywhere) depending on the economic and industrial needs of the place.

And, it doesn’t end here. The pure CO2 can be combined with H2 and form hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and jet fuel, thus continuing the above process.

Air capture seems quite a promising technology, a solution that could provide sustainable development at a lower cost. The conventional cars are not going out anytime soon and nor the industries going to slow their pace, so air capture could be a game changer without affecting the development agenda of the countries.

See the video by Carbon Engineering to get better knowledge about the technology. Share your views in the comments below.

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Mikel Obi welcomes twins

The Chelsea footballer had never hinted he was expecting kids, shocking fans as he posted a picture of himself and the twins on his Instagram page.

READ: Report: John Mikel Obi Begs NFF For Super Eagles Recall

“My whole world in my arms. Welcome to the world my angels,” he captioned the photograph.

The mother of the children, as well as their sexes, is unknown.

Mikel’s Russian girlfriend, Olga Diyachenko, is being touted as the likely mother of the kids.

Congratulations to the couple! See the twins below!

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This guy pranked his parents with a simple iPhone hack and the results are amazing

Adding a shortcut to parents phone
everytime they type”No” leads to some
hilarious results

A boy played a prank with his parents with an easy
iPhone hack and the outcome is glorious
Kids these days know how to get their things done by
their parents. Also, with most of them being technology
freaks, this makes its even more easier for them to do
so. That’s what Reddit user nasshole did with his
parents.

With just a simple iPhone hack, nasshole (real name
Brendan, according to the extremely angry texts) pulled
an astonishing prank on his parents and later posted the
consequences online.

“Added a shortcut to parents phone every time they type
‘No,'” he writes above a scede shot of a recent
conversation with his poor parents. He actually made
a shortcut in his mom’s phone that replaced “no” with
“HELL YES” and at the same time, he made a shortcut in
his dad’s phone that replaced “no” with “WHERE THE
BITCHES AT.”

Well, the results were beautiful, when he asked them
that if he could throw a party:

If you have to pick up a favorite part of the conversation,
it would be definitely be where the dad is saying
“Brendan, she’s trying to say WHERE THE BITCHES AT”.
This prank is so uncomplicated and yet so amazing. So,
how about stealing your mom’s phone next time and
sending message saying “Forget studies. It’s time to
party hard tonight.”

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