Recently there's been some ripples in the waves caused by some new toys that the US Navy is playing with. In response to Iran's threat of closing a narrow shipping strait crucial to the world oil trade and the stalling of diplomatic talks over the Iranian nuclear program, the USN has deployed two carriers, a squadron of F-22s and at least a carrier air wing of older carrier aircraft, several mine clearing frigates in addition to the normal carrier battlegroups, and two Army brigades are standing by to Kuwait. The forces mentioned above are very obvious to anyone aware of the situation in Iran, and have been acknowledged by the pentagon, but what has not yet been commented on or even mentioned are a fleet of tiny unmanned submarines deployed by the Navy.
While various newspapers and other information sources refer to these vehicles as unmanned "drone" submarines, they are really just specialized torpedoes, weighing in at around 100 pounds and small enough to be deployed by helicopters and motorboats. Equipped with a camera and a "high-caliber shaped charge" and guided by optical fiber, these torpedoes are sent on search and destroy suicide missions aimed mostly against naval mines...
This is the part where several narrow/nearsighted critics started bemoaning the taxpayers money, for the thought of using a 100,000 dollar advanced torpedo to take out a mine which cost at most a few thousand dollars to make and deploy does sound a bit tactless. One outspoken critic describes the idea as a over-sophisticated way to accomplish something that can be done by sticking a bomb on a stick and poking a mine. While I certainly admire the critic's bravado, I am not so confident that this multi-million stunt was really undertaken just to give defense contractors their profits (furthermore I am certainly not volunteering to be engaged in any activity which involves a stick, a shaped charge, a naval mine, and frankly, an idiot.)
Think back to the days where the skies were dominated by flashy planes and the F-117 was the way to get a missile somewhere without being noticed. Nowadays if we wanted a hellfire missile in someones window all we need is a predator drone. The move to unman certain undemanding tasks such as shooting a missile at the ground from an aircraft was the ultimate end result of a slow chain of events. Unmanned aircrafts started out as a sheer redundancy, the first unmanned drones were meant for use as artillery spotters and were literally RC planes with webcams attached. When the first drones took to the skies guided missiles had already dominated the world of indirect fire support, and even if you had to use tube artillery, all one needed was some skill in mathematics and a radar. The thought of using a shiny camera in the sky to correct fire must have seemed as ludicrous as using a 100,000 dollar submarine to take out naval mines.
Now you see where I'm going with this?
In the world of submarines, there are many tasks that make shooting missiles at rocks seem like the pinnacle of human entertainment. Take for example the ominous tasks of ballistic missile submarines, whose job is to safeguard a small forest of nuclear missiles in case the order ever came to demolish the face of the planet. With the world as (relatively) peaceful as it is now, I'm certainly not going to hold my breath waiting for that order to be sent, and really, should the submarine ever receive that order, its just a matter of uploading a few coordinates and pushing the big red button. The theoretical endurance of the reactor of a Ohio-Class ballistic missile sub is about a decade, while the endurance of the crew's rations is only about half a year, and the endurance of the sanity of the crew locked inside an undersea coffin for months at a time is still unknown. On-board a submarine whose job is to hide and make as little noise as possible and remain hidden for as long as possible all in order to perform a relatively simple task should the need arise, the benefits getting rid of some noisy, needy, fragile, and unpredictable humans are quite apparent.
Of course people are going to have a few scary thoughts about placing the firepower to decimate the planet within an automated platform which can play hide-and-seek indefinitely for as long as it wants (sounds like a bad movie), but boomer (ballistic missile) subs are not the only ones that can be automated. (and really, if you are going to have nightmares about unmanned nuclear submarines blowing up your house, just put an independent targeting system on the missile, the subs job is just to fire the damned things, you can have the honor of telling them where to go and when to blow up, or just give the unmanned guy conventional missiles) Passive sonar detectors, mobile off vector torpedo launchers (shooting at you from one direction while I [the real sub] is in another direction), decoy subs (which are already in use), mine-layer subs, the possibilities are nearly endless.
The Australian Government is in your Wifi, Stealing Your Moneyz!
1
Starting from about 2009, an Australian research firm CSIRO sued its way over existing patents to over 200 million dollars of reimbursement for patent violation. According to the firm, they were the group responsible for the creation of WiFi and have been victimized by the world producing its invention without paying them back. A further lawsuit recently granted them about a $4 royalty on every WiFi enabled device sold, needless to say, that's a whole lot of money.
The controversy here however, isn't the fact that these multimillion lawsuits haven't really surfaced in commercial news, but because the claim of the firm to having "invented" WiFi is shaky at best. Moreover, other electronic inventions such as the Flash Memory Devices that are in every flash drive, iPod, and iPhone today have never rally been definitively copyrighted, highlighting an issue of intellectual property in our changing electronic world.
The controversy here however, isn't the fact that these multimillion lawsuits haven't really surfaced in commercial news, but because the claim of the firm to having "invented" WiFi is shaky at best. Moreover, other electronic inventions such as the Flash Memory Devices that are in every flash drive, iPod, and iPhone today have never rally been definitively copyrighted, highlighting an issue of intellectual property in our changing electronic world.
China: Underloved, Underappreciated
0
With election year rolling in to the dockets of politicians nationwide, international issues that fall short of wars roll right out of those same dockets. The Obama Administration has handled the Iran/Iraq situation for now, and steered the nations economy somewhat through troubled times, but the issue of international trade has been in the backstage for quite a while now, and a major player is getting a little riled.
Ever since the Bush administration, the United States has been pressuring China to raise the value of its currency, the Chinese Yuan. Because of the very biased conversion rate of aproximately 8 yuan to one dollar at the start of the century, China's manufacturing industry has been booming due to low relative cost of manufacturing. In a Chinese sweatshop, workers are paid a few yuan a week, and the same goods they make by the thousands sell for a few dollars worth of profit each. Just assuming that one happy meal toy equivalent takes 1 yuan to make and makes a profit of 1 dollar, the profit margin is a huge 800%.
The policy of high conversion rate, however, has its downsides. Because the currency is so weak, the Chinese businessmen who make their profit in Yuans are at a disadvantage when purchasing American goods, a meal in New York can easily cost a week of a Chinese tradesman's salary. This leaves the average Chinese household and businesses with a tiny amount of purchasing power for the amount of labor they produce. And to further worsen the issue, the sensitive goods that China want to import, like high end manufacturing know-how and weapons/space development technology is being marked as banned goods by the international community, so even though the Chinese in general have a large amount of relative buying power, no one will sell them what they want.
These factors lead to the situation we saw a few years back, with every cheap thing in Wal-Mart being made in China. The import-export surplus equaled to almost 10% of China's GDP at its peak, and that is a very large number thought to be unsustainable by many economists. Manufacturing jobs flowed out of the US and into China where better markets and cheaper labor and materials can be had, which is why the US was hit a lot harder than China by the global recession.
The Bush administration thought it could solve the economic turmoil in America by forcing China to raise the value of its currency. Done through some one-sided and brutal diplomacy, the Chinese agreed to the request. The conversion rate is now 6 yuan to one dollar and dropping, but the United States is hardly very appreciative...
Thanks to Bush's antics in office, most of what he has done for the country has been smeared in bias. Public opinion polls today reveal that more than 50% of Americans still blame China in some way for the current recession despite the recent change. Instead of congratulating China for their remarkable progress to our request, the people of the United States would love to see harsher China policies. Obama is being a little indecisive, but several republican candidates would like to see even more economic demands on China to ultimately make China the economic servant of the "developed" world.
Already the change in conversion rate is hurting the Chinese economy. China, which holds some trillions of US debt, is rapidly losing relative debt value thanks to the conversion change that was almost forced upon them. 1 trillion dollars of debt used to be bought by 8 trillion Yuan, but now the effective value of that same debt is only 6 trillion. Over the course of 4 years, China has lost 2 trillion Yuans of debt value per trillion dollars of debt held, to a market being manipulated by the US. Instead of even a pat on the back or plain indifference, China is being faced with even more pressure for lower conversion rates and more open markets.
You can only extort so much money out of a country, and when you go too far, the country getting pushed blows a really big gasket. When Germany was being pushed over the brink, it embraced Hitler and started WWII, and should China, who is the only country showing steady signs of growth at a time of global economic strife so much as looks down the path of blood and iron, the rest of the world should be very scared indeed. Even if the "free world" can rein in the dragon, the world will lose the largest producer and exporter it has ever seen, and this little recession we are getting right now will then seem like "the good old days".
Ever since the Bush administration, the United States has been pressuring China to raise the value of its currency, the Chinese Yuan. Because of the very biased conversion rate of aproximately 8 yuan to one dollar at the start of the century, China's manufacturing industry has been booming due to low relative cost of manufacturing. In a Chinese sweatshop, workers are paid a few yuan a week, and the same goods they make by the thousands sell for a few dollars worth of profit each. Just assuming that one happy meal toy equivalent takes 1 yuan to make and makes a profit of 1 dollar, the profit margin is a huge 800%.
The policy of high conversion rate, however, has its downsides. Because the currency is so weak, the Chinese businessmen who make their profit in Yuans are at a disadvantage when purchasing American goods, a meal in New York can easily cost a week of a Chinese tradesman's salary. This leaves the average Chinese household and businesses with a tiny amount of purchasing power for the amount of labor they produce. And to further worsen the issue, the sensitive goods that China want to import, like high end manufacturing know-how and weapons/space development technology is being marked as banned goods by the international community, so even though the Chinese in general have a large amount of relative buying power, no one will sell them what they want.
These factors lead to the situation we saw a few years back, with every cheap thing in Wal-Mart being made in China. The import-export surplus equaled to almost 10% of China's GDP at its peak, and that is a very large number thought to be unsustainable by many economists. Manufacturing jobs flowed out of the US and into China where better markets and cheaper labor and materials can be had, which is why the US was hit a lot harder than China by the global recession.
The Bush administration thought it could solve the economic turmoil in America by forcing China to raise the value of its currency. Done through some one-sided and brutal diplomacy, the Chinese agreed to the request. The conversion rate is now 6 yuan to one dollar and dropping, but the United States is hardly very appreciative...
Thanks to Bush's antics in office, most of what he has done for the country has been smeared in bias. Public opinion polls today reveal that more than 50% of Americans still blame China in some way for the current recession despite the recent change. Instead of congratulating China for their remarkable progress to our request, the people of the United States would love to see harsher China policies. Obama is being a little indecisive, but several republican candidates would like to see even more economic demands on China to ultimately make China the economic servant of the "developed" world.
Already the change in conversion rate is hurting the Chinese economy. China, which holds some trillions of US debt, is rapidly losing relative debt value thanks to the conversion change that was almost forced upon them. 1 trillion dollars of debt used to be bought by 8 trillion Yuan, but now the effective value of that same debt is only 6 trillion. Over the course of 4 years, China has lost 2 trillion Yuans of debt value per trillion dollars of debt held, to a market being manipulated by the US. Instead of even a pat on the back or plain indifference, China is being faced with even more pressure for lower conversion rates and more open markets.
You can only extort so much money out of a country, and when you go too far, the country getting pushed blows a really big gasket. When Germany was being pushed over the brink, it embraced Hitler and started WWII, and should China, who is the only country showing steady signs of growth at a time of global economic strife so much as looks down the path of blood and iron, the rest of the world should be very scared indeed. Even if the "free world" can rein in the dragon, the world will lose the largest producer and exporter it has ever seen, and this little recession we are getting right now will then seem like "the good old days".
PDQ Bach
0
Writing a blog full of technicalities can get boring at times, which is why today I would like to share with you all an oddity in the world of fine arts.
While everyone has probably at some time heard the name of J.S. Bach, famous classical composer, almost no one has ever heard of PDQ Bach, a musical jester who makes a living by making classical music that makes fun of other music. Claiming to be the long lost third cousin-of-the-brother-of-the-grandson-of Bach himself (or something like that), he has written pieces like "A sportsmens guide to the 5th Symphony", a piece that gives American football style, "play by play commentary" during the famous 5th symphony "fate", "A piece for a whole lot of winds and brass", the "1712 Overture", which shamelessly butchers the melodies from the 1812 overture and cannons blasts are replaced by slapstick or firecrackers, church bells are replaced by what seems to be brass cups, and the entire symphony takes a huge collective breath in the repetitive sections.
The guys work is all over youtube, just type in PDQ Bach whenever you get a few minutes of time. Heres a video of his satire of the 5th symphony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXoVo16pTg&noredirect=1
While everyone has probably at some time heard the name of J.S. Bach, famous classical composer, almost no one has ever heard of PDQ Bach, a musical jester who makes a living by making classical music that makes fun of other music. Claiming to be the long lost third cousin-of-the-brother-of-the-grandson-of Bach himself (or something like that), he has written pieces like "A sportsmens guide to the 5th Symphony", a piece that gives American football style, "play by play commentary" during the famous 5th symphony "fate", "A piece for a whole lot of winds and brass", the "1712 Overture", which shamelessly butchers the melodies from the 1812 overture and cannons blasts are replaced by slapstick or firecrackers, church bells are replaced by what seems to be brass cups, and the entire symphony takes a huge collective breath in the repetitive sections.
The guys work is all over youtube, just type in PDQ Bach whenever you get a few minutes of time. Heres a video of his satire of the 5th symphony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXoVo16pTg&noredirect=1
Orbital Power Grid
0
Ever since the advent of communications and navigation via satellite, there was always a demand for more and higher quality satellites to service the new systems. Thanks to the large bulk of most commercial satellites and the high cost of launching payload into orbit, currently around 3,000 USD per pound for a small rocket, the satellite industry in general has barely grown since its inception. In an economy plagued by speculation and lack of consumer demand, there are always telecommunications companies, oil and mineral companies, military organizations, and even third-world countries seeking a chance to put their own platform into space, and the industry of making that task easier could be quite a lucrative one indeed.
If we take a closer look at today's satellite systems, every continuously functioning satellite in orbit uses large solar power cells that can sometimes account for up to half of the mass and/or volume of the satellite which they power, if only there was a readily available power source out there in orbit, then future launches will only have to send up the core components absolutely critical to a satellites function, reducing the bulk and weight of the launch payload and making the process a simple matter of designing the most compact and efficient transmitter/receivers, taking the concern of power generation and management off the list of engineering worries.
Although setting up a commercially viable power grid in space seems a daunting task of astronomical proportions, I believe it is quite possible given that the earth acts like a giant magnet in space. Given this fact, our orbital power grid does not even need generators, all it really needs is a large web of conducting cables connected by transformer pylons. Cables of a strong and conductive metal alloy stretched over a long distance and quickly rotating around a magnet that is our earth effectively acts as a huge DC current generator, and the resulting power is then converted and redirected to functioning satellites at key pylon satellites which by their paths of orbit keep the cables taunt.
An advantage of this system is that all an incoming satellite needs to do is to reach very low earth orbit, connect itself to a pylon via cable, and then drag itself along the cable to a higher orbit. With this in mind, not only now would we need to send up less material, we also don't have to send it up as high. These factors working together should make it possible for even small companies to send up their own private communications satellites.
If we take a closer look at today's satellite systems, every continuously functioning satellite in orbit uses large solar power cells that can sometimes account for up to half of the mass and/or volume of the satellite which they power, if only there was a readily available power source out there in orbit, then future launches will only have to send up the core components absolutely critical to a satellites function, reducing the bulk and weight of the launch payload and making the process a simple matter of designing the most compact and efficient transmitter/receivers, taking the concern of power generation and management off the list of engineering worries.
Although setting up a commercially viable power grid in space seems a daunting task of astronomical proportions, I believe it is quite possible given that the earth acts like a giant magnet in space. Given this fact, our orbital power grid does not even need generators, all it really needs is a large web of conducting cables connected by transformer pylons. Cables of a strong and conductive metal alloy stretched over a long distance and quickly rotating around a magnet that is our earth effectively acts as a huge DC current generator, and the resulting power is then converted and redirected to functioning satellites at key pylon satellites which by their paths of orbit keep the cables taunt.
An advantage of this system is that all an incoming satellite needs to do is to reach very low earth orbit, connect itself to a pylon via cable, and then drag itself along the cable to a higher orbit. With this in mind, not only now would we need to send up less material, we also don't have to send it up as high. These factors working together should make it possible for even small companies to send up their own private communications satellites.
Dream Modeling
0
Ever wonder how fast the human brain could really operate if used with a higher proficiency? Consciously, we can only use about 20% of our brains processing power, I's sure we've all heard this before, but all it really takes to go beyond that is to dream a little.
When we dream, a level of our subconscious mind uses the knowledge we have to build the dream environment. If I dreamed of a city the cityscape would be constructed of my knowledge of architecture and modern city planning, mixed in with the mood I'm feeling at the moment. If I were dreaming of a forest, the dreamscape would be built based on my knowledge of plants and animals, and the natural cycles of life that I've been taught since middle school.
When the conscious mind makes a decision in a dream, the subconscious moves even faster to predict the outcome. When you step off a ledge, you know that you are going to start falling, when you get chased down by some big animal, you know that its probably not going to end well, and you knowledge of physics and anatomy usually fills in the gory details.
Dreaming has been working since the dawn of man, but why then, have we not sought some way of using this to our advantage?
There are already medications available to instantly send a person into the dreaming part of sleep, and some iffy physiological techniques such as hypnosis are readily available to alter memory. So say we wanted to model an event, such as the big bang and the formation of the galaxy, something beyond the capabilities of modern computing. We find a very logical and methodical patent, and somehow block his normal memories of being a person, family, daily life, etc, and limit his mind to ponder existence with nothing but a through knowledge of physics and its proven laws, it would be quite curious to see what conclusions that person may reach.
When we dream, a level of our subconscious mind uses the knowledge we have to build the dream environment. If I dreamed of a city the cityscape would be constructed of my knowledge of architecture and modern city planning, mixed in with the mood I'm feeling at the moment. If I were dreaming of a forest, the dreamscape would be built based on my knowledge of plants and animals, and the natural cycles of life that I've been taught since middle school.
When the conscious mind makes a decision in a dream, the subconscious moves even faster to predict the outcome. When you step off a ledge, you know that you are going to start falling, when you get chased down by some big animal, you know that its probably not going to end well, and you knowledge of physics and anatomy usually fills in the gory details.
Dreaming has been working since the dawn of man, but why then, have we not sought some way of using this to our advantage?
There are already medications available to instantly send a person into the dreaming part of sleep, and some iffy physiological techniques such as hypnosis are readily available to alter memory. So say we wanted to model an event, such as the big bang and the formation of the galaxy, something beyond the capabilities of modern computing. We find a very logical and methodical patent, and somehow block his normal memories of being a person, family, daily life, etc, and limit his mind to ponder existence with nothing but a through knowledge of physics and its proven laws, it would be quite curious to see what conclusions that person may reach.
A Strange End
0
In the world of modern high energy physics, there exists one type of particle that can single-handedly reduce the entirety of the Earth to a smoldering rock. That particle is whats known as a "strange" particle, a hadron (mass made of quarks) composed of quarks so massive that it needs to gain mass in order to maintain stability, and it gains mass by energizing the quarks of ordinary matter into massive "strange" quarks and then assimilating it. The process feeds upon itself and will continue until all the matter surrounding it has been converted and assimilated into one super massive particle, which will remain stable for an unknown period of time. It is comparable to some sort of viral/bacterial particle, changing and accumulating the matter around it in order to sustain its own stability.
While this type of doomsday particle exists only in theory, the fact that theory allows it is a scary thought indeed. The accidental production of one tiny little particle can destroy all of the Earth. In the future, should this particle ever become realized, it will posses the same threat to entire planets as what threat nuclear weapons posses against our cities today.
While this type of doomsday particle exists only in theory, the fact that theory allows it is a scary thought indeed. The accidental production of one tiny little particle can destroy all of the Earth. In the future, should this particle ever become realized, it will posses the same threat to entire planets as what threat nuclear weapons posses against our cities today.
Dyson Sphere, Take II
2
A long long time ago some genius physicist by the name of Dyson predicted that as technology evolved and population grew, the only way to meet an advanced civilizations energy demands is to build a massive superstructure that would completely enclose the sun, capturing most of its energy for our use. Simple mathematics will reveal that such a massive undertaking is simply impossible because the amount of matter required to construct such a large structure simply does not exist within our solar system. This mathematical argument convinced me for a short while, but then an alternate solution presented itself.
The sun emits so much energy across so broad a spectrum that if we only captured a small spectrum of its emission, the energy gained would still be significant. While the Dyson sphere will capture all of the sun's rays, it would be possible to capture only the ionized energy by projecting via magnetic containment several panels of plasma-state gasses with distinct focal points on generators. While most of the visual light from the sun will pass through the plasma, ionized particles will be reflected to energize a generator. The same particles that power our auroras will then be shoved onto conductors where their excess electrons energize the circuits projecting the plasma barrier, and excess energy is shipped off elsewhere for consumption.
The concept is still a far ways off, but its a lot closer to reality than the massive Dyson sphere. The technology to contain plasma already exists, as with the ability to produce electricity when given a supply of ions.
The sun emits so much energy across so broad a spectrum that if we only captured a small spectrum of its emission, the energy gained would still be significant. While the Dyson sphere will capture all of the sun's rays, it would be possible to capture only the ionized energy by projecting via magnetic containment several panels of plasma-state gasses with distinct focal points on generators. While most of the visual light from the sun will pass through the plasma, ionized particles will be reflected to energize a generator. The same particles that power our auroras will then be shoved onto conductors where their excess electrons energize the circuits projecting the plasma barrier, and excess energy is shipped off elsewhere for consumption.
The concept is still a far ways off, but its a lot closer to reality than the massive Dyson sphere. The technology to contain plasma already exists, as with the ability to produce electricity when given a supply of ions.
Golden Rain
1
Mankind's military forces have grown better and better at delivering objects to distant destinations with extreme force. Ever since the first stone age man figured out how to make a sling, we have been trying to find better ways of throwing stuff with greater speed, precision, and range. However while we moved from bows to guns to rockets, there has only been one significant change in the payload which we deliver, and that is we switched from sharp/heavy objects to explosives. One could argue that a warhead could be engineered to perform just about any task, but I would counter by saying that once it is engineered, its purpose does not change. An armor piercing tank shell will do little agianst a squad of infantry, while an incendiary antipersonnel bomb will do little against a tank. Explosive weapons are inherently inflexible, and I would like to propose a possible solution.
A warhead is created composed mainly of individual rods of thermite, each with an individual fuse and spaced out by a thin layer of explosives. Depending on the target, this warhead will behave in very different manners.
If one hard target is to be struck, then the missile delivering the payload will follow its normal path. The thermite primer goes off seconds before impact, and the explosive spacers are not detonated. The result is one dense glob of burning metal boring a hole straight through a ship or a bunker.
If multiple soft targets are chosen, then the missile will follow a slightly altered course taking it over the target, at which point part of the explosive spacer is detonated, and then the thermite is lit, resulting in several smaller meteors of pseudo-plasma material, each of which will heavily damage vehicles and kill infantry.
Finally for area denial against infantry/light vehicles, the same high course is chosen, and all of the explosive spacers detonate before primer ignition. This will seed the air in the area with thermite fuel, and act much like a fuel-air explosive when the primers ignite the cloud of volatile powder, cooking all caught in the blast radius.
A warhead is created composed mainly of individual rods of thermite, each with an individual fuse and spaced out by a thin layer of explosives. Depending on the target, this warhead will behave in very different manners.
If one hard target is to be struck, then the missile delivering the payload will follow its normal path. The thermite primer goes off seconds before impact, and the explosive spacers are not detonated. The result is one dense glob of burning metal boring a hole straight through a ship or a bunker.
If multiple soft targets are chosen, then the missile will follow a slightly altered course taking it over the target, at which point part of the explosive spacer is detonated, and then the thermite is lit, resulting in several smaller meteors of pseudo-plasma material, each of which will heavily damage vehicles and kill infantry.
Finally for area denial against infantry/light vehicles, the same high course is chosen, and all of the explosive spacers detonate before primer ignition. This will seed the air in the area with thermite fuel, and act much like a fuel-air explosive when the primers ignite the cloud of volatile powder, cooking all caught in the blast radius.
Barometric energy generator
2
This is just a crazy concept for renewable energy that i came across, I'm not saying that it will work, I'm saying it could work.
Basically, this is a scheme of sorts to generate energy by abusing the pressure differences on this planet. What we need is a decently deep body of water and a gas medium preferably denser than water. A flexible "bag" of gas is dropped from a factory down a pipeline into the depths, where the gas becomes pressurized. A simple mechanism at the bottom of the lake transfers the gas from the flexible container to a rigid one. The rigid container is large and takes several bags to fill, once it becomes filled to capacity with pressurized air, it is brought up to a surface generation plant where the pressurized gas is either packaged and sold or used to power gas turbines for power.
Basically, this is a scheme of sorts to generate energy by abusing the pressure differences on this planet. What we need is a decently deep body of water and a gas medium preferably denser than water. A flexible "bag" of gas is dropped from a factory down a pipeline into the depths, where the gas becomes pressurized. A simple mechanism at the bottom of the lake transfers the gas from the flexible container to a rigid one. The rigid container is large and takes several bags to fill, once it becomes filled to capacity with pressurized air, it is brought up to a surface generation plant where the pressurized gas is either packaged and sold or used to power gas turbines for power.
High Efficiency Launch Unit
0
There has been a lot of recent talk in regards to the development of space beyond earth's mesosphere, several plans have been proposed by the scientific community and the most popular, or rather, the most debated plans are the deployment of a system of space based solar power plants, a plan to send mining missions to the moon for Helium-3 ore, and the time tested space based ballistic missile defense plan.
As absurd as some of these plans sound, there is merit, or the public believes there to be merit in all of them. We've all seen the James Bond movie where the bad guy puts a giant mirror into space and beams down the suns energy by reflecting and concentrating it. NASA has recently smashed a probe into the moon to create a cloud of lunar dust for analysts, a stunt which revealed that the moon does indeed have deposits of potentially valuable Helium 3 ore, and the United States have been dreaming of a "Star Wars" orbital missile defense system since the cold war.
The reason that these plans are not already becoming reality is not that they will bring no benefit, but the sheer economical cost alone to implement them far outweighs the results. All 3 plans call for large amounts of material to be launched into space, and the most efficent launch rockets we have right now costs about $5,000 per POUND of payload. This means that a mining probe, a solar panel, or a laser would cost millions to launch apiece, and even if we get a significant amount of these things into orbit, we still need to send stuff up, most likely human astronauts (which are very prone to dying), to repair and resupply them.
The scientific community has some good stuff going with the whole development of space thing, but what it needs to do is to take a step back and realize that before we can build castles in the sky, we have to get our feet off the ground. The absurd amounts of funding going towards prototype defense satellites and mining probes are much better used to develop new launch vehicles, some of which I hope to propose in later articles.
As absurd as some of these plans sound, there is merit, or the public believes there to be merit in all of them. We've all seen the James Bond movie where the bad guy puts a giant mirror into space and beams down the suns energy by reflecting and concentrating it. NASA has recently smashed a probe into the moon to create a cloud of lunar dust for analysts, a stunt which revealed that the moon does indeed have deposits of potentially valuable Helium 3 ore, and the United States have been dreaming of a "Star Wars" orbital missile defense system since the cold war.
The reason that these plans are not already becoming reality is not that they will bring no benefit, but the sheer economical cost alone to implement them far outweighs the results. All 3 plans call for large amounts of material to be launched into space, and the most efficent launch rockets we have right now costs about $5,000 per POUND of payload. This means that a mining probe, a solar panel, or a laser would cost millions to launch apiece, and even if we get a significant amount of these things into orbit, we still need to send stuff up, most likely human astronauts (which are very prone to dying), to repair and resupply them.
The scientific community has some good stuff going with the whole development of space thing, but what it needs to do is to take a step back and realize that before we can build castles in the sky, we have to get our feet off the ground. The absurd amounts of funding going towards prototype defense satellites and mining probes are much better used to develop new launch vehicles, some of which I hope to propose in later articles.
The Lost Oil
1
Oil, the most precious energy resource since the advent of the internal combustion engine, the lifeblood of nearly all of mankind's creations. Prospectors have searched for the last century for this black gold, and after having turned over every last inch of land on this planet in search of it. Now, after every rock has been turned, we fail to find new reserves and this limit has caused a wave of terror in the commodities market since the last decade. Prices of oil are rising, and with it, the price of nearly every other commodity, but is this planet really running out of oil?
To realize the full implications of that statement, one has to realize that only 30% of the earth's surface is land, the other 70% water, meaning that if the concentration of resources is the same on land as under water, there lies more than twice our current assessable reserves of oil and metals under the ocean.
We have only recently developed the technology to develop and extract resourcess from the ocean floor, and by recently I mean think back about 2 years, Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill. Sure, the whole event was an embarrassment, but the fact that one poorly laid out oil well could leak enough oil to cloud up the entire gulf of Mexico literally speaks volumes about how much oil is out there, under the waves. For those who like hard statics over comparative imagery, a very gloomy estimate puts the worlds oceanic oil reserves at at least 30 trillion barrels, 800 billions of which are within the shores of America, compare that to the 1.4 billion barrels tucked away in Siberia.
The good news dont even end there, there are far more frequent and violent seismic activity occurring under the waves than on land, and while this is a good thing for us humans who live on land, its a great thing for underwater mineral reserves. In the Pacific "Ring of Fire" alone, where several tectonic plates come together to grind under each other, millions of tonnes of iron, nickel, copper, and even gold are being brought near the surface and deposited on the ocean-floor. There are already companies such as Nautilus who are expressing interest in these reserves which could very well hold enough metals to run the world for another century.
As mush as prices are rising, this planet is not going to run out of the black stuff any time soon. There wont be wars over petroleum or any other resource, just a lot of red tape about who gets to develop what, and speaking of red tape, my next post is going to cover one UN treaty that just so happens to get in the way of the development
To realize the full implications of that statement, one has to realize that only 30% of the earth's surface is land, the other 70% water, meaning that if the concentration of resources is the same on land as under water, there lies more than twice our current assessable reserves of oil and metals under the ocean.
We have only recently developed the technology to develop and extract resourcess from the ocean floor, and by recently I mean think back about 2 years, Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill. Sure, the whole event was an embarrassment, but the fact that one poorly laid out oil well could leak enough oil to cloud up the entire gulf of Mexico literally speaks volumes about how much oil is out there, under the waves. For those who like hard statics over comparative imagery, a very gloomy estimate puts the worlds oceanic oil reserves at at least 30 trillion barrels, 800 billions of which are within the shores of America, compare that to the 1.4 billion barrels tucked away in Siberia.
The good news dont even end there, there are far more frequent and violent seismic activity occurring under the waves than on land, and while this is a good thing for us humans who live on land, its a great thing for underwater mineral reserves. In the Pacific "Ring of Fire" alone, where several tectonic plates come together to grind under each other, millions of tonnes of iron, nickel, copper, and even gold are being brought near the surface and deposited on the ocean-floor. There are already companies such as Nautilus who are expressing interest in these reserves which could very well hold enough metals to run the world for another century.
As mush as prices are rising, this planet is not going to run out of the black stuff any time soon. There wont be wars over petroleum or any other resource, just a lot of red tape about who gets to develop what, and speaking of red tape, my next post is going to cover one UN treaty that just so happens to get in the way of the development
Reasoning, Path to Truth or Verbal Weapon?
2
Reasoning, the ability of the human mind to apply logical thoughts and this thing called "common sense" to experiences and information accumulated, all with the intention of coming to a truth or conclusion. For centuries this ability to reason has been viewed as a path to truth and self-enlightenment, but recently, people credit the development of this skill to be based on the human desire for victory, be it physical contest, or in the case of reason, verbal contest.
Two people disagree on something, and when the facts alone are not enough to prove one side wrong and another side right, reason is used by both sides to try to see which idea is more right. But instead of both ideas coming together into one new idea, both sides usually hold firm to their own ideals, and will often bend the facts in an attempt to sway the public opinion. This phenomenon occurs daily on CCTV (I know, who watches that right?) and politicians trying to protect their own positions and benefits. They are the people who cant compromise because if they do they lose support, and so they must defend their starting positions to the last thought, usually with reason.
But at the end of the debate, reasoning is still used for other purposes, mathematics, theoretical science just to name a few, but then remains the most important question, was reasoning created just so we can "win", or is it really meant as a tool for finding the truth?
Two people disagree on something, and when the facts alone are not enough to prove one side wrong and another side right, reason is used by both sides to try to see which idea is more right. But instead of both ideas coming together into one new idea, both sides usually hold firm to their own ideals, and will often bend the facts in an attempt to sway the public opinion. This phenomenon occurs daily on CCTV (I know, who watches that right?) and politicians trying to protect their own positions and benefits. They are the people who cant compromise because if they do they lose support, and so they must defend their starting positions to the last thought, usually with reason.
But at the end of the debate, reasoning is still used for other purposes, mathematics, theoretical science just to name a few, but then remains the most important question, was reasoning created just so we can "win", or is it really meant as a tool for finding the truth?
Automated Stock Trading
0
As I hope that you are aware of, the US stock market recently led the world in another panicked selling frenzy, crashing over 500% from what it was only weeks ago. Despite the fact that it is beginning to recover, I think it is safe to say that us ordinary citizens without the massive amount of capital needed to have a say on the market are getting tired of some multimillionaire who decided to make even more money that hes not gonna be able to spend by crashing an important stock. This bring up the question of why the heck are human beings still allowed to interact directly in the stock market?
When you get down to it, all stocks is is a numbers game, when the numbers bottom out and starts to grow, you buy, when it tops off and starts to fall, you sell. Its a simple game played by humans only for the thrill or profit and personal gain, and it is because of those human emotions of greed and panic that the market is so unstable. Why cant we have an exchange which is fully automated and managed only by computers, who sells and buys stocks on a programmed bias and will emotionless evaluate numbers?
When you get down to it, all stocks is is a numbers game, when the numbers bottom out and starts to grow, you buy, when it tops off and starts to fall, you sell. Its a simple game played by humans only for the thrill or profit and personal gain, and it is because of those human emotions of greed and panic that the market is so unstable. Why cant we have an exchange which is fully automated and managed only by computers, who sells and buys stocks on a programmed bias and will emotionless evaluate numbers?
Solar Farming
0
Ever since the use of fossil fuels raised enough worries to begin a quest for a renewable energy source, sunlight has been one of the most sought after methods of power generation. From this quest to harness the sun mankind has created inefficient, but workable solar cells that convert light into electricity, along with monterous fusion reactors in an attempt to make our own "sun in a bottle". Despite these inventions, I'd say that without a significant breakthrough in either of these alternatives, we wont be able to power anything other than individual households even if they are implicated into our power grids en mass.
Fusion reactors are promising, so I wont shoot that idea down, but why did we go through all the hassle of creating chemical substances that react with light to give off electrical energy when a much more complex but very well engineered natural substance does pretty much the same?
Chlorophyll in plants convert sunlight into ATP and then from that, glucose. Its been around since the dawn of life on the planet, and, creation or evolution, it works at an efficiency much higher than machines. The only reason that we haven't been able to use it for fuel purposes is that the plant does not see the need to excrete fuel, only to grow and reproduce. Of the energy generated by a plant, a massive amount goes into growing its supporting structures, extracting nutrients from the soil and manufacturing chemicals used to reproduce, only a small amount by comparison is turned into stored sugar, which is of interest to us. What should be done is to engineer a simple plant cell that will at first take nutrients from its surrounding and divide for a set amount of cycles, then begin to grow massive amounts of chlorophyll and store large amounts of sugar, at a chemical que, the stored sugar is released into its surroundings, which would later be collected.
An outdoor pool given sufficient nutrients and a sterile environment could easily house millions of such cells. Given if one cell could produce but one gram of sugar per day, the energy yield of such a pool will be much larger than if it was covered with conventional solar cells, artificially engineered enzymes and chemical cycles could be implanted onto the cells and speed up production, the whole process is very skin to a nuclear one in the sense that the energy created by one reaction is very little, but the number of reactions make the total substantial.
Fusion reactors are promising, so I wont shoot that idea down, but why did we go through all the hassle of creating chemical substances that react with light to give off electrical energy when a much more complex but very well engineered natural substance does pretty much the same?
Chlorophyll in plants convert sunlight into ATP and then from that, glucose. Its been around since the dawn of life on the planet, and, creation or evolution, it works at an efficiency much higher than machines. The only reason that we haven't been able to use it for fuel purposes is that the plant does not see the need to excrete fuel, only to grow and reproduce. Of the energy generated by a plant, a massive amount goes into growing its supporting structures, extracting nutrients from the soil and manufacturing chemicals used to reproduce, only a small amount by comparison is turned into stored sugar, which is of interest to us. What should be done is to engineer a simple plant cell that will at first take nutrients from its surrounding and divide for a set amount of cycles, then begin to grow massive amounts of chlorophyll and store large amounts of sugar, at a chemical que, the stored sugar is released into its surroundings, which would later be collected.
An outdoor pool given sufficient nutrients and a sterile environment could easily house millions of such cells. Given if one cell could produce but one gram of sugar per day, the energy yield of such a pool will be much larger than if it was covered with conventional solar cells, artificially engineered enzymes and chemical cycles could be implanted onto the cells and speed up production, the whole process is very skin to a nuclear one in the sense that the energy created by one reaction is very little, but the number of reactions make the total substantial.
U238 (depleted uranium) reactor
0
Depleted Uranium, its heavy, its hard to dispose of, it makes good armor piercing shells, and we have piles of it sitting around from nuclear reactors and mines waiting to be processed. Despite us having so much of the stuff, the fact that it is unsuitable for use as weapons grade fissile material resultes in research into its potential limited to it being incorperated into anti-tank rounds, and the fact that this stuff has the potential to power a reactor seems to have slipped the scientific community until now.
A reactor burning depleted uranium cannot produce any weapons grade material, we can just build one and shove it over to Iran and say "look, this stuff burns cheaper fuel, gives more power, has almost no risk of a catastropic meltdown no matter how incompetent your operators are, and is way better in every respect except that you cant make a bomb with it. If your nuclear intentions are peaceful, replace your reactors with this."
As for the reactor design itself, there is already one being looked into called a traveling wave reactor which will use enriched uranium to start a self sustaining reaction in a field of depleted uranium using neutrons released from the enriched reaction to enrich/destabalize the surrounding depleted uranium in order to keep the reaction going. Once fueled, such a reactor could run for decades before the entire field of depleted uranium is brunt, and its output will only increase unless checked for the "burning front" will increase in legnth as the reaction spreads. Despite the increased output, the fuel starts out unsutable for weapons and never actually gets close to a critical mass except when the reaction is first started, so although the risks of a meltdown are there if some idiot turned off the cooling system, the chances of the reactor turning into a bomb are slight.
Another design I was going to propose was slightly more complex and involves a series of faceleted and interconnected chamebers lined with depleted uranium, one central chanber will have a small neutron fuse like the ones used in bombs, but neutrons from the fuse will not be focused onto one point like in bombs but released to bounce along the chamber whose geometrical design allows the escape of neutrons into a similar neighboring chamber. The neutrons arnt actually "bouncing", rather, they are exciting and causing fissile reactions whenever they hit the sides of a chamber, causing more neutrons to be released.
A reactor burning depleted uranium cannot produce any weapons grade material, we can just build one and shove it over to Iran and say "look, this stuff burns cheaper fuel, gives more power, has almost no risk of a catastropic meltdown no matter how incompetent your operators are, and is way better in every respect except that you cant make a bomb with it. If your nuclear intentions are peaceful, replace your reactors with this."
As for the reactor design itself, there is already one being looked into called a traveling wave reactor which will use enriched uranium to start a self sustaining reaction in a field of depleted uranium using neutrons released from the enriched reaction to enrich/destabalize the surrounding depleted uranium in order to keep the reaction going. Once fueled, such a reactor could run for decades before the entire field of depleted uranium is brunt, and its output will only increase unless checked for the "burning front" will increase in legnth as the reaction spreads. Despite the increased output, the fuel starts out unsutable for weapons and never actually gets close to a critical mass except when the reaction is first started, so although the risks of a meltdown are there if some idiot turned off the cooling system, the chances of the reactor turning into a bomb are slight.
Another design I was going to propose was slightly more complex and involves a series of faceleted and interconnected chamebers lined with depleted uranium, one central chanber will have a small neutron fuse like the ones used in bombs, but neutrons from the fuse will not be focused onto one point like in bombs but released to bounce along the chamber whose geometrical design allows the escape of neutrons into a similar neighboring chamber. The neutrons arnt actually "bouncing", rather, they are exciting and causing fissile reactions whenever they hit the sides of a chamber, causing more neutrons to be released.
Recoil Inhibitor
0
"If the first shot hits their feet, the second shot probably goes up to their chest, the third flys over their heads, and anything after that you are wielding an anti aircraft gun." Such were the words of a gunnery sergeant describing the effects of firing an automatic weapon from the hip without aiming.
Over the course of the evolution of the gun, primitive muskets were made more reliable, more powerful, more accurate, and easier to reload. But as weapons got more "automatic", I think one area of development was missing until lately, recoil reduction.
The power and firerate of small arms are still being upgraded, the US military for example has finally moved past the 5.66mm NATO rounds used by the M16 and its variants into the more powerful 7.56mm NATO rounds used by higher performance weapons such as the M4A1 and the SCAR heavy. All this advancement in reliability, weight, and firepower still resulted in the same primitive recoil reducer in the form of a rifle stock jarring the shoulder of the soldier firing said weapon, someone seems to have forgotten to tell the firearm developers that the amount of kinetic force the target receives is always less than the amount of recoil generated.
One exception to this trend however is the KRISS Super V, otherwise known as the Vector submachine gun. It has a recoil dampening device built into the receiver which makes the hammer that fires the gun move in a up and down motion countering the up and down of the recoil resulting in a fully automatic weapon of the .45 caliber with the recoil of a pistol.
What I propose is an add-on which will dampen the recoil of any weapon, recoil is a phenomenon which occurs in two stages, stage one where the hammer hits the pin firing the bullet, and stage two where the bullet leaves the barrel and the gasses behind the bullet escape, pushing the barrel upwards. While the KRISS solved the issue by reducing stage one recoil, I try to take on stage two. After the bullet leaves the gun, an attachment that screws onto the end of the barrel captures some of the gas and releases a spring loaded hammer downwards against the recoil. After the gasses leaves, the hammer resets itself and waits for the next shot.
Over the course of the evolution of the gun, primitive muskets were made more reliable, more powerful, more accurate, and easier to reload. But as weapons got more "automatic", I think one area of development was missing until lately, recoil reduction.
The power and firerate of small arms are still being upgraded, the US military for example has finally moved past the 5.66mm NATO rounds used by the M16 and its variants into the more powerful 7.56mm NATO rounds used by higher performance weapons such as the M4A1 and the SCAR heavy. All this advancement in reliability, weight, and firepower still resulted in the same primitive recoil reducer in the form of a rifle stock jarring the shoulder of the soldier firing said weapon, someone seems to have forgotten to tell the firearm developers that the amount of kinetic force the target receives is always less than the amount of recoil generated.
One exception to this trend however is the KRISS Super V, otherwise known as the Vector submachine gun. It has a recoil dampening device built into the receiver which makes the hammer that fires the gun move in a up and down motion countering the up and down of the recoil resulting in a fully automatic weapon of the .45 caliber with the recoil of a pistol.
What I propose is an add-on which will dampen the recoil of any weapon, recoil is a phenomenon which occurs in two stages, stage one where the hammer hits the pin firing the bullet, and stage two where the bullet leaves the barrel and the gasses behind the bullet escape, pushing the barrel upwards. While the KRISS solved the issue by reducing stage one recoil, I try to take on stage two. After the bullet leaves the gun, an attachment that screws onto the end of the barrel captures some of the gas and releases a spring loaded hammer downwards against the recoil. After the gasses leaves, the hammer resets itself and waits for the next shot.
Computer Optimization (AKA the reson I coudnt post for the last 5 days)
2
Personal computers have become so common nowadays that we don't really appreciate how complex they are until they break down and us dumb users are left with the daunting task of fixing them. My computer recently had a fit involving a corrupt windows folder on my backup portable hard-drive and the system trying to use the bad backup as its windows folder. Whats worse than the buggy performance was that one of the first things to go was the less-than-stable driver for my internet adapter, meaning I had no way of going online and just googleing whatever problem I had. Then came the chore of reinstalling windows on a computer that dosent recognize its own hard-drive (bad drivers) and reinstalling all the servicepacks, directx, adobe flash, java, etc., and at this point I wondered, shoudnt there be an easier way to do this?
Why dont somebody, like the manufactures who are trying to sell their computers, make a boot-able disc with all the registry, drivers, updates, extensions and all that crap pre-optimized and ship it with their products? Whenever dumb users decide to delete their drivers and system 32 folder and realize "oh crap, maybe that stuff was important" they just have to boot off the disk instead of bothering the manufacturer/retail store/tech support making life a little easier for everyone.
Why dont somebody, like the manufactures who are trying to sell their computers, make a boot-able disc with all the registry, drivers, updates, extensions and all that crap pre-optimized and ship it with their products? Whenever dumb users decide to delete their drivers and system 32 folder and realize "oh crap, maybe that stuff was important" they just have to boot off the disk instead of bothering the manufacturer/retail store/tech support making life a little easier for everyone.
Addon Video Card?
3
Well I just got back from a trip to China and the electronics there are dirt cheap. Some nice friends of mine decided to endow me with a new laptop to replace the ancient IBM R50 I have been using for the past 7 years, but sadly said friends know very little about computers...
The computer I received has a decent dual core processor and an upgraded 3GB of RAM, no complaints there. Its small, light as a feather and has a great keyboard, again no complaints. Its got all the safety specs that comes with the thinkpad series, but the only thing which makes it a piece of junk to a gamer like me is the integrated graphics card...
My older computer is about seven years old, and this one is only 3, one would think that the new one would run some basic 3d fps games a little faster, but that is sadly not the case. Games that ran smoothly on my old computer were choppy and gay on my new one, and when I looked for a solution, I seemed to find only a sad reality, you cant really upgrade integrated graphics...
I really don't think its the CPU or motherboards inability to handle a full sized graphics card, its just that its become cheaper recently to just slap a really crappy card onto the motherboard. I think if some genius out there would make a PCI splitter, the problem would be solved. I split the PCI cable used for the internet adapter, slap on another video card, the system recognizes the VGA, install a few drivers and we are good to go, right?
If anyone knows another way to increase graphics performance on a computer with integrated graphics, please feel free to speak up...
The computer I received has a decent dual core processor and an upgraded 3GB of RAM, no complaints there. Its small, light as a feather and has a great keyboard, again no complaints. Its got all the safety specs that comes with the thinkpad series, but the only thing which makes it a piece of junk to a gamer like me is the integrated graphics card...
My older computer is about seven years old, and this one is only 3, one would think that the new one would run some basic 3d fps games a little faster, but that is sadly not the case. Games that ran smoothly on my old computer were choppy and gay on my new one, and when I looked for a solution, I seemed to find only a sad reality, you cant really upgrade integrated graphics...
I really don't think its the CPU or motherboards inability to handle a full sized graphics card, its just that its become cheaper recently to just slap a really crappy card onto the motherboard. I think if some genius out there would make a PCI splitter, the problem would be solved. I split the PCI cable used for the internet adapter, slap on another video card, the system recognizes the VGA, install a few drivers and we are good to go, right?
If anyone knows another way to increase graphics performance on a computer with integrated graphics, please feel free to speak up...
Drone Carrier
0
This ideas seems to obvious and natural that I am amazed that i have found little mention of anything like it, either its being developed as some top secret project, or its being completely overlooked.
WWII has proved that aircraft rule the seas, period. The Iraq war has proved that drone aircraft are fully capable of delivering ordnance to a target and excel at reconnaissance and surveillance. These two instruments are virtually made for each other, lets put them to good use, together.
A naval vessel consisting of nothing but extensive machine shops and control centers for drone aircraft would be bulky, but smaller I'd think, than an actual aircraft carrier. Drones takeoff from vertical launch rails assisted by booster rockets, allowing for an extremely fast takeoff that would kill the pilot of a manned aircraft. Multiple such rails would take little deck space, and an entire wing of drones could be launched at once.
A drone is much lighter than an actual jet, so the landing strip could be shorter. Computerized landing and refitting allows a drone to quickly re-fuel and re-arm and get back in the sky. Drones once developed to be fast and maneuverable enough will serve as the carriers missile defense, specialized defense drones constantly surround the carrier and places themselves between any incoming projectiles and their host carrier.
At the current drone technology, the only fesitable combat role for a vessel "armed" with these drones would be similar to that of a missile cruiser, area defense and support. But once the next generation of possibly jet powered drones come operational, a large nuclear carrier refitted to carry hundreds of these drones could very well replace a super-carrier.
WWII has proved that aircraft rule the seas, period. The Iraq war has proved that drone aircraft are fully capable of delivering ordnance to a target and excel at reconnaissance and surveillance. These two instruments are virtually made for each other, lets put them to good use, together.
A naval vessel consisting of nothing but extensive machine shops and control centers for drone aircraft would be bulky, but smaller I'd think, than an actual aircraft carrier. Drones takeoff from vertical launch rails assisted by booster rockets, allowing for an extremely fast takeoff that would kill the pilot of a manned aircraft. Multiple such rails would take little deck space, and an entire wing of drones could be launched at once.
A drone is much lighter than an actual jet, so the landing strip could be shorter. Computerized landing and refitting allows a drone to quickly re-fuel and re-arm and get back in the sky. Drones once developed to be fast and maneuverable enough will serve as the carriers missile defense, specialized defense drones constantly surround the carrier and places themselves between any incoming projectiles and their host carrier.
At the current drone technology, the only fesitable combat role for a vessel "armed" with these drones would be similar to that of a missile cruiser, area defense and support. But once the next generation of possibly jet powered drones come operational, a large nuclear carrier refitted to carry hundreds of these drones could very well replace a super-carrier.
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