Kilo Seven

MSNBC reports a California company with an alternate launch site in Texas , JP Aerospace , is on their third test article of a blimp system specifically designed to fly to space. Blimps. To Space. At payload costs around a dollar a ton-mile to LEO . This compares rather favorably to NASA's $155,555 per ton-mile with the Shuttle. Their concept, first unveiled at the Space Access '04 conference in Phoenix last month (with a blog report here , include the Ascender , a ground-to-near-space blimp, which docks to a helium-inflated two-mile-long station at the edge of space , over 20 miles up. Another ship , also a blimp but specifically designed to reach orbit, takes the payload from there to LEO, using well-proven electric propulsion (AKA ' ion drive '). That trip to LEO would take up to nine days, but that's a good thing; for, what goes up fast, must come down fast, and speed is energy which must be bled off by either massive amounts of expensive and explosi...

A story in the Fall 1990 WHOLE EARTH REVIEW #68, pp. 101-104, documents a 1984-1987 USGS study which showed a 70% correlation between radio signals on 200 Hz - 100 KHz (signals which BPL, if permitted by the FCC, will largely block ). Multiple citations are included to other research at the end of the article . I think I will build one, even though when I bought my new home, it was built in Zone Green .

One Freecycler asked on 2004-05-20: OK, can someone tell me the deal with WiFi? I have two pretty ancient (1996? and 98?) PC laptops that I want to have wireless access on at home and at coffeeshops, school, etc. I know I need to have a wireless card? Do they have PCMCIA Type II or III, or PC Card Type II or III card slots? That's needed for wirelessing. and get a router at home, right? Probably, not necessarily; there are exceptions (A3 and A5). I don't have cable or anything, so I need to order something for the house that gives me this type of access? A: THE BIG CONNECTION FOR HOME If, at home, all you have is a dial-up modem, you owuld need broadband, and there are five ways to do that without getting obscenely spendy: A1. DSL from Qworst. You can get 'business DSL' from them, including the things an ISP does (e-mail, USENET), or you can pick a DSL-capable ISP and pay Qworst for the DSL connection and pay the ISP for the ISP stuff. A2. Cable modem (from Comcast?) co...