Technabob » orbit

Bloon Balloon: A New Way to Get Into Orbit

Range — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:25:12 +0000

I was pretty disappointed that when NASA’s space shuttle program (STS) was shut down, they didn’t have a replacement ready to go. The replacement was actually canceled last October due to budgetary constraints. Nevertheless, check out this ingenious way to get into space, using a balloon instead of a rocket, so going into space won’t be as rough as you first imagined.

This lighter-than-air balloon vehicle is called the Bloon, and it was created by the Barcelona-based company Zero2infinity. It lifts off using a specially-crafted inflatable dome. There is a central pod with windows, that can house 4 passengers and 2 pilots. The ship is connected to a large helium balloon. That’s the only propellant this balloon uses.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

In order to land, the pod is decelerated using a parafoil. There are also eight inflatable landing struts that will absorb the shock upon touchdown. The prototype was tested successfully up to 20.5 miles. That’s in the Earth’s stratosphere.

The first human test flight is expected to happen in 2012, and they’re expecting passengers will be able to go up 36km by 2015. A 3-hour flight will cost €110,000 ($160,000 USD) per person if you want to ride in the Bloon.

[via designboom]

Ziiiro Aurora & Orbit Watches: It’s Color-Mixing Time!

Range — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:20:03 +0000

Watch brand Ziiiro has come up with two new watches use an analog mechanism to display time in a visually-striking way. This time around, we have the Aurora and the Orbit. Of the two, the Aurora looks most interesting since it mixes two colors to show the time.

On the Aurora, the hour indicator uses a blue gradient, from 100% to 0% while the minute indicator uses a yellow gradient. The overlapping layers create a color mix that changes throughout the day. Unlike some of the more complex modern watches you can get from Tokyoflash, Ziiiro’s watch will allow you to intuitively learn a new way of telling time, just by looking at the resulting color mix.

The Orbit was inspired by space and the solar system, simply using a red planet to indicate hours, and a white one to indicate minutes.

You can pre-order them watches online over at Ziiiro for €129 ($184 USD).

[via Core77]

Robots Build Smaller Versions of Themselves, Ad Infinitum

Karen M. — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:37:17 +0000

Someone called ScreamyGuy built this fractal scene of robots. He says, “I built a robot whose sole purpose in life was to create an even smaller robot just like himself… So much like himself, that this robot endeavored to create yet another tiny robot, ad infinitum. This continued for a while until an extremely tiny speck of robot tried to endow purpose upon a cloud of molecules with ruinous result.” Ruinous result, eh? Care to elaborate?

If you check out the rendering on the site, you can zoom and orbit in ways that are fun and freaky, allowing you to see the bots from different angles. The piece’s gravitas reveals itself as you keep zooming in on more and more and more speck-like robots that, when enlarged, reveal themselves to be working on their mini-me’s.

But don’t fear, these aren’t really real robots, it’s just an artist’s rendering. Also, we might keep this in mind during the robot uprising, as we could possibly keep them busy with a task of this nature to distract them from wanting to kill and maim all of us. Seriously, people. We need to start thinking about that stuff.

Planetary Orbit Clock

Technabob — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:27:59 +0000

Here’s another interesting clock brought to us by Japanese online retailer Rakuten. This space-inspired table clock mimics planets in orbit to tell time.

If you can make out the cryptic diagrams above, little metal planets orbit a larger central planet at the middle of the “universe.” One planet signifies hours, another minutes, and the last tiny planet is the second hand. You can really only tell what time it is by viewing the clock from above, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. When viewed from the side, it still looks cool.

The clock is made out of aluminum and has an acrylic resin case to protect its mechanism. It’s just ¥3,990, which works out to be about $35 bucks, if you can manage to get one shipped overseas.

[UPDATE 4/24/2007: It looks like ThinkGeek has managed to import a handful of these from Japan, retailing for $49.99 each]