Journey to space through space tourism is emerging space commerce. Private sectors developing rocket engine technologies are totally converting and racing for space tourism business. Among them, Virgin Galactic is the first space tourism company, which won ten million dollars X prize for their first private sector manned space mission. It is obvious that, space tourism is still an infant and it needs huge growth in comfortable flight and safety for the fellow passengers. These can only be achieved if those companies use flights with smooth takeoff and landing similar to the commercial jet airliners; instead of rocket propelled vertical takeoff and parachute landings.
Will the space tourism evolve completely in 10 or 15 years? At the least, it might take couple of decades!
Almost everyone at the bachelor’s party will be attracted by the blue eye contact lenses. Unlike other colors, blue eyes often exist in nature for humans. Few people from the Europe, North America and North Asia have blue eyes.
Scientists discovered that people with blue eyes have single, common ancestor. They reported that, it is a type of genetic mutation, which affects OCA2 gene involving in the melanin production. It occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, before then there were no blue eyes. Scientists able to show that the people having blue eyes have same haplotype, and they all exactly same gene mutations.
In detail, depending on the amount of melanin in the iris, the person’s eye color differs from brown to green. Brown eyed individuals have considerable melanin pigments, where as blue eyed individuals have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their iris. The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned down switch dilutes brown eyes to blue.
As discussed in the first episode of Future @ The Space Commerce, commercialization of space technology for earthly objectives is the current trend. Dr. Eric Schmidt at NASA’s 50th anniversary lecture series on January 17, 2008 in Washington, DC is an excellent example; which includes, direct application of space technologies for consumers and the utilization of commercially available leading industries by space agencies. Lot of other information too available in this lecture. At the end of the lecture in the questioner section, Dr. Eric Schmidt prediction about biotechnology as a 5th wave of human evolution is quite interesting.
Keep your eyes open, the next episode will be on space tourism.
Commerce is an important aspect governing humans for ages and solely depends on commercialization. The inventions, discoveries and exploration played an important role at the initial stages of improving commercialization. Few centuries ago (1492), Christopher Columbus discovered America, which lead to the development of a huge nation with well structured commerce. Later on, the modern era inventions and discoveries lead to the commercialization of advanced equipments helping human evolution and few percentage in destruction!
Is there any possibility for new space commerce evolution, other than the commercialization of space technology on earth? The telescopic view of the future reveals yes, there are wide possibilities. Christopher Columbus discovered America, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, in future a human land on mars, and first human to travel across the solar system, practically at the orbit of solar system.
Christopher Columbus on Santa Maria
It is obvious that scientists invent reusable space transportation systems, communication systems, power source and a lot more for the human survival in space. Not only inventions, numerous space expeditions have also been conducted. Countries around our globe started investing their capital in space science research. Still it’s a research, not yet completely commercialized. But, there are recent indications such as space tourism leading to the development of space commerce. The exploration days and space research around the earths orbit, moon and nearest planets will be soon over, and they might be converted to space colonies colonized by humans.
Neil Armstrong (Astronaut, University Professor, Naval Aviator and Test Pilot)
We are at the very edge of beginning the next era of space commerce. Yet its an edge, lot more to invent, research and discover. Couple of centuries later, space colonization might be one of the leading commerce. This concept tempted public and private sectors to encourage the implementation of new space industries for cost effective space access. It’s an idea that space commerce is going to play an important part in human evolution.
Most of us familiar with the word “Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems” (MEMS), but recently “Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems” (NEMS) have been explored by scientists. Ever wonder watching TV without a rugged box in front of you? Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California., developed prototype contact lenses embedded with metallic circuits. Wearing metallic circuits in our eyes sounds scary, not to worry, scientists tested them on the rabbit’s eyes and no side effects observed!
Contact lenses with metal electronic circuits worn by rabbits in the lab test
Isn’t similar to a terminator or a star wars bionic movies? The functions of this invention is quite interesting, not only it can be used as display, it can also be used as zooming lenses to observe the distant object in detail. Yes, it again sounds like 007 movie. The side effects like vision distortion have been controlled using nano materials present in these bionic lenses. It’s like looking the world outside with the superimposed image of a monitor cum zooming effect. The real hope behind this invention would be helping visually impaired people, pilots, drivers and military operations.
Couple of websites frequently updates Space News, among them the most popular is Space.com; it’s an universal space news website. These portals provide information about their research and projects, they are easy to understand even for non-technical person, no equations, derivations or formulas.
Numerous portals exist that are not given in the above list. These above portals could be classified based on different countries, and some of the dot com sites display useful and collective Space News from various agencies! Exploring these websites consume time, but will provide wide view about recent space technologies and discoveries.
The First Instant when I learned about weblog, I was hoping it would be a great opportunity to develop my writing skills and have fun on the Internet. I planned to run a weblog long time ago, but the circumstances doesn’t allow me to focus on developing a blog. Finally I push across the barriers and started blogging for my own development in writing skills. As a young scientist, I had hard time in writing articles related to my research. I guess it’s the right time to push beyond the limits of my writing skills. As far as I know, the speed and the accuracy in writing makes an excellent author.
