Transport: Planes, Trains, Boats, Autos, and Rockets

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Space | Stratolaunch’s giant airplane flies over Mojave

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Stratolauch Launch System

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Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

IEEE Spectrum | How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer

Design shortcuts meant to make a new plane seem like an old, familiar one are to blame.

About the Author

Gregory Travis is a writer, a software executive, a pilot, and an aircraft owner. In 1977, at the age of 13, he wrote Note, one of the first social media platforms, and he has logged more than 2,000 hours of flying time, ranging from gliders to a Boeing 757 (as a full-motion simulator).

Interesting.
As a grad student, I was repeatedly taught, in some situations one might say mercilessly, to "never attempt to fix it in software if it can be fixed in hardware".

___

Gregory Travis' observations about software design have a lot of implication for machine learning applications such as self-driving cars and radiology - diagnosing medical images.

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Design News | Automakers Are Rethinking the Timetable for Fully Autonomous Cars

A few years ago, the auto industry boldly predicted full, Level 5 autonomy would arrive in 2020 or 2021. But the task has proven more complex than they originally thought.

[Nonc Hilaire]

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French inventor Franky Zapata successfully flew across the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard.

This version used five small jet engines and Zapata carried kerosene in a backpack. It has 1500 horsepower. The 22-mile crossing took 20 minutes and reached speeds of over 100 mph. The flyboard costs about $250,000.

[Nonc Hilaire]

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Tech Rev | Why getting back to the moon is so damn hard

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https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-thi ... ard Safety

The Uber car that hit and killed Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Ariz., in March 2018 could not recognize all pedestrians, and was being driven by an operator likely distracted by streaming video, according to documents released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week.

But while the technical failures and omissions in Uber’s self-driving car program are shocking, the NTSB investigation also highlights safety failures that include the vehicle operator’s lapses, lax corporate governance of the project, and limited public oversight.

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Elektrek | The well-endowed Curtis-Hades electric motorcycle become a bit more modest

curtiss-hades-header.jpg (144.3 KiB) Viewed 18128 times

[Nonc Hilaire]

Elektrek | The well-endowed Curtis-Hades electric motorcycle become a bit more modest


curtiss-hades-header.jpg

Needs a rider with a full length duster and pterodactyl wings.

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CarScoop | Electric Vehicle Sales Fall Despite A Proliferation Of New Models

Electric motors are brilliant. Batteries remain range limited due to very low energy density.

[noddy]

Charge time is the main killer now - the more range they give them, the more time you sit around waiting for that to charge.

nobody on the planet wants to spend that much time at a service station, especially when you are wanting to use that range on weekend trips and this turns a considerable part of the holiday into waiting around in industrial carparks.

Code: Select all

Charger level	Time to charge
NEMA 5-15	3 miles of range per hour
NEMA 14-50	10 ½ hours
Wall connector 	6 to 9 hours
Supercharger	1 hour

unless you have the latest tesla and access to the latest supercharger (tm) those are shocking amounts of fun ruining time - even 1 hr is a joke

[Typhoon]

Charge time is the main killer now - the more range they give them, the more time you sit around waiting for that to charge.

nobody on the planet wants to spend that much time at a service station, especially when you are wanting to use that range on weekend trips and this turns a considerable part of the holiday into waiting around in industrial carparks.

Code: Select all

Charger level	Time to charge
NEMA 5-15	3 miles of range per hour
NEMA 14-50	10 ½ hours
Wall connector 	6 to 9 hours
Supercharger	1 hour

unless you have the latest tesla and access to the latest supercharger (tm) those are shocking amounts of fun ruining time - even 1 hr is a joke

A good point.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Lithium strip mines, replacement batteries, charging stations, an increase on the coal fired electric load . . .

Using solar to get the hydrogen out of water and into fuel cells makes more sense to me. Big industry probably feels differently.

[noddy]

Hydrogen is the only real replacement for fuel on every level except storage - its so far been impossible for us to build bulk , ubiquitous storage which can contain 1 atom sized molecules without leaking.

Hence the never ending stories on fuel cell technology and coming up with a sponge which traps it under high pressure.

some Australian researchers found a quick industrial way of converting ammonia to and from hydrogen cheaply, so that sort of solved the ocean transport problem but the local storage and delivery problems are still waiting on the fuel cells.

I believe Honda and BMW both are chasing fuel cells aggressively, or atleast used to be.

[noddy]

turns out Honda and BMW still are pushing it, and cars are being released now.

https://global.honda/innovation/FuelCell.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hond ... SKBN1ZE0UB

https://www.bmwblog.com/2017/03/29/bmw- ... -car-2021/
https://www.bmw.com/en/innovation/how-h ... -work.html

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turns out Honda and BMW still are pushing it, and cars are being released now.

https://global.honda/innovation/FuelCell.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hond ... SKBN1ZE0UB

https://www.bmwblog.com/2017/03/29/bmw- ... -car-2021/
https://www.bmw.com/en/innovation/how-h ... -work.html

As is Toyoto. Toyota Mirai.

Claimed driving range: 502 km [312 mi]

Claimed refueling time: 5 min

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Hydrogen is the only real replacement for fuel on every level except storage - its so far been impossible for us to build bulk , ubiquitous storage which can contain 1 atom sized molecules without leaking.

Hence the never ending stories on fuel cell technology and coming up with a sponge which traps it under high pressure.

some Australian researchers found a quick industrial way of converting ammonia to and from hydrogen cheaply, so that sort of solved the ocean transport problem but the local storage and delivery problems are still waiting on the fuel cells.

I believe Honda and BMW both are chasing fuel cells aggressively, or at least used to be.

Ammonia is another candidate option. One that the former member known as "Torchwood" used to go on about.

Joule | An Efficient Direct Ammonia Fuel Cell for Affordable Carbon-Neutral Transportation

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Lithium strip mines, replacement batteries, charging stations, an increase on the coal fired electric load . . .

Using solar to get the hydrogen out of water and into fuel cells makes more sense to me. Big industry probably feels differently.

I doubt that there is enough available land in the USA for all the low energy density solar panels that would required to generate sufficient hydrogen to power a contemporary industrial economy.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Lithium strip mines, replacement batteries, charging stations, an increase on the coal fired electric load . . .

Using solar to get the hydrogen out of water and into fuel cells makes more sense to me. Big industry probably feels differently.

I doubt that there is enough available land in the USA for all the low energy density solar panels that would required to generate sufficient hydrogen to power a contemporary industrial economy.

My point is hydrogen is far “greener” and would frees the driver from much of the monopoly of big industry than battery tech. Hobbyists are now filling fuel cells with water sourced H using 12v 2x3 ft panels.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Hydrogen is the only real replacement for fuel on every level except storage - its so far been impossible for us to build bulk , ubiquitous storage which can contain 1 atom sized molecules without leaking.

Hence the never ending stories on fuel cell technology and coming up with a sponge which traps it under high pressure.

some Australian researchers found a quick industrial way of converting ammonia to and from hydrogen cheaply, so that sort of solved the ocean transport problem but the local storage and delivery problems are still waiting on the fuel cells.

I believe Honda and BMW both are chasing fuel cells aggressively, or at least used to be.

Ammonia is another candidate option. One that the former member known as "Torchwood" used to go on about.

Joule | An Efficient Direct Ammonia Fuel Cell for Affordable Carbon-Neutral Transportation

Useful in farm country where ammonia is common, but in urban areas I would prefer water. Ammonia is so caustic and highly controlled as it is used in amphetamine manufacture.

Great novel: Paul Theroux’s EXPLOSIVE “Mosquito Coast”. A paranoid father drags his family to South America to build an ammonia powered ice factory.

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AIP | Jet Propulsion with Air Plasmas

ADV20-AR-00587_image-768x508.jpg (50.67 KiB) Viewed 17525 times

Of course, one needs some source of energy to power the magnetron, RF power supply, and air compressor.