News from the Engineering and Scientific World

I find there is often an interesting story relating to engineering and/or science because there is all too often a new theory or a new goal set out by an ambitious person from their specific field. This week a number of stories have come to my attention so I thought I'd share it with you.

Chinese Physicists Reportedly Break Teleportation Record

From a recent news article from the website for "Time Magazine:"

"Harry Potter and Star Trek fans, rejoice! Teleportation is real. Using powerful lasers and optics to manipulate photons, or units of light, researchers in China set a record for teleporting a photon more than 10 miles (16 km), TIME reported in 2010. Now a different team of physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai says it has shattered that record, claiming to have sent a photon more than 60 miles (97 km)."

"Quantum teleportation, which has been around since 1997, is a little different than what you see in sci-fi movies. Considered “one of the holy grails of practical quantum communication,” as the scientists write in their abstract, teleportation is the ability to essentially move one object from one place to another without traversing the space in between. But as Forbes explains, the actual object is not moving from point A to point B. Rather, the distant photon mirrors the information contained by the original photon, essentially becoming an identical twin." 

"As Technology Review notes, “these guys clearly have their eye on the possibility of satellite-based quantum cryptography, which would provide ultra-secure communications around the world.” Experts say this all-but-unbreakable code would be a perfect way to transmit classified information such as military directives or codes."

 Sources:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/15/beam-them-up-scotty-chinese-physicists-reportedly-break-teleportation-record/

 http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27843/

 http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2024



Engineer Wants Us To Build Real-Life Starship Enterprise 

This is the story of a systems and electrical engineer who has said we should build the USS Starship Enterprise and that there exists the ability to do it today, in this current age of technology (although I doubt it'll have warp capability.)
  This is a story that will make the Star Trek nerds blow their loads and make even casual Star Trek fans like me curious.
  The person, know as "BTE-Dan" on twitter has gone into extensive detail as well:

"His site includes layouts of the proposed ship's size and specs, potential missions it could undertake, a schedule outlining its development and even a backup plan should the ship's creation be thrown off schedule."

According to "BTE-Dan" it would be able to reach Mars in just 90 days, as opposed to the current mission to Mars which will land in August after nine months.

"In addition, as Atkinson points out, the ship would serve as a spaceship, a space station and a spaceport for up to a thousand people and could eventually go on missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus and beyond."

The ship would use and ion propulsion engine powered by a 1.5GW nuclear reactor. Another three nuclear reactors would supply electricity for the entire ship.
  The cost would be a cool $1 trillion (or just short) over a period of twenty years.

So there you go, something interesting to look forward to. 

 
Sources:

https://twitter.com/#!/BTEDan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/real-life-starship-enterprise_n_1514372.html

http://www.universetoday.com/95099/engineer-thinks-we-could-build-a-real-starship-enterprise-in-20-years/

http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/cost-mass