The United States border patrol is hiring 12,000 new border patrol agents but having a tough time recruiting. This is because the FBI, the military and the TSA are all trying to recruit more people. Local police departments simply cannot find enough people to fill all the positions to protect the citizens. This is turning into a crisis and recently the Online Think Tank considered using technology as a possible solution.

Currently the United States government has contracts with a firm to put a virtual fence along the Mexican - US border. This indeed may work in many places, but we also need other technologies to prevent illegal aliens from entering our country. What if we use black light projections to create shadows and then those crossing the border would not know if the shadow is a real person or not.

A shadow creation type device would come in handy for national defense and security on our borders. Such a device has absolutely killer applications, for instance the Border patrol or possibly security in the Green zone in Iraq to protect the new government, US diplomats, military and citizens. We might also use these shadow creation devices at home in guarding our infrastructure facilities, protecting military bases and government buildings.

By using the shadow creation device to project Random showings of shadows, those who wish us harm would be either scared off or attempt to find a totally different tactic in their endeavors, thus protecting US assets, personnel and our nation. A shadow creation device would not be difficult to make with current technology and the price would be low enough that it could see widespread use. Perhaps this is something we should be thinking on.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lance_Winslow

Considering the danger represented by the climate changes and the global warming phenomena scientists and businessmen worldwide started to look for alternative energy sources. Besides the wind power or the nuclear energy is has been recently taken into consideration a new power generating substance: helium 3.


What exactly is helium 3? Helium 3, an isotope of helium, a gas used to inflate balloons, has a nucleus with two protons and one neutron. The solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, strikes the planets and their sattelites in the solar system and thus helium 3 is deposited in the superficial soil (also called regolith). As the Moon’s atmosphere is not very dense this flow of particles easily penetrates the gas layer and reaches the ground. Over millions and billions of years that adds up. But for its denser protective gases layers the Earth would have been under the direct action of the Sun too thus being contaminated by toxic products.


Louie Alvarez and Robert Cornog discovered helium 3 in 1939 but it was only 1957 when it drew the attention of researchers. It has been estimated that only a few hundreds pounds exist on Earth, most the by-product of nuclear-weapon production. Experts estimate that there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the Moon, enough to provide the world with power for thousands of years from now on. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load (25 tons) could supply the entire United States’ energy needs for a year, according to Apollo 17 astronaut and Harrison Schmitt.


The advocates of this energy source support the idea of building reactors based on the reaction of deuterium and helium 3 even in the middle of a big city. It is said that the fusion reaction using this gas is very efficient and it releases very little radioactive by-products. This gas could also be used for powering spacecrafts.


Commercially unfeasible


Man on Moon


The US goverment and some European countries as well have studied the energy potential of the Moon. And yet it is highly unlikely that any government or group of states will spend the money necessary to go to the Moon and establish a base on it to support scientific research or the construction of the first production facilities. Hopefully the next few years will witness a media campaign to support the enterprise in the context of the global warming and the lack of terrestrial resources. Human society is straining to keep pace with its ever increasing energy demands which are expected to increase eightfold by 2050 as the population swells toward 12 billion. The moon and its resources just may be the answer.


At the moment the most important aspect that prevent the exploitation of the lunar resources is the money. The long term investors have to consider spending a lot of it for 10 to 15 tears before any adequate return of investment. Companies in the field of energy production are reluctant to consider investing in such an enterprise. The other element that encourages skepticism is the lack of appropriate technologies. The fact is that once applied for economical purposes – not only in labs – and used on large scale these technologies become very expensive. Both proponents and skeptics have to consider that for example to produce 70 tons of helium 3 one million tons of lunar soil would need to be heated to 800° C to liberate the gas.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cristian_Ignat

The technologically advanced equipment that provides the capability for modern warfare demands that people responsible for its maintenance are much more technology literate than any previous generation.

New high performance, fast jet, aircraft systems, such as EFA Typhoon and Joint Strike Fighter t(JSF), are defined as half jet, half computer. The maintenance crews of these aircraft will be working with sophisticated computer systems unheard of with today’s legacy aircraft. This, by its very nature, redefines the required maintenance skills and offers new opportunities in the way knowledge is acquired.

Additionally, as the military strives to operate within ever tightening defence budgets, there is less likely to be money available to fund additional pieces of equipment for srictly training purposes. All equipment procured must be available for operations, and it is becoming increasingly common for maintenance technicians to only interact with and gain system knowledge when the new equipment is already in service.

To address these issues, the construct of the maintenance classroom is changing. Where students were primarily taught using text books, wiring diagrams and old or out of service physical equipment, today’s computer literate students utilise Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) computer-based training devices that provide a desktop ’virtual system’ that looks, feels and reacts exactly like the real system.

Properly managed and modelled virtual maintenance training systems can recreate any complex system, to any level of detail. This is then dependent on a system creating a truly virtual free-play environment that allows the student to view and interact with the system in any way they want, and be confident that the consequences of their actions replicate precisely any interactions with the real equipment.

The real value of such a virtual free-play environment comes when an instructor has the ability to inject faults, the effects of which propagate through the equipment and result in symptoms which can be observed and then diagnosed by the student. This enables students to learn maintenance tasks such as fault isolation/detection, remove/replace procedures, operational/functional check, and maintenance task rehearsals.

This learning experience can be further enhanced by students’ ability to interface real or modelled equipment, such as test sets and prognostic systems, directly with the virtual system. This furthers the learning experience by allowing the maintenance technicians to learn how to operate the tools that they will go on to use in the operational role.

The main benefits of this approach over using real equipment can be summarised as:

1. Increased student throughput - The system is always available to the student. There is no requirement for the real system to be available, enabling maintenance procedures to be replicated many times on many single ‘virtual’ systems, such as high performance, fast jet aircraft.

2. Lower costs - providing real equipment requires a higher initial cost and incurs a high budget to support the in-service life span in terms of spares and repairs to frequently used equipment.

3. Safe training environment - students can not damage the equipment and can learn a job in a potentially harmful working environment without risk to themselves.

4. Ability to inject more realistic faults - Instructors can inject faults with ease and then immediately reset the system for the next task. The faults include diagnostic procedures that would be hard to replicate on real equipment without causing it serious damage.

5. Ability to aid instructor functionality - Instructors can monitor students as they undertake tasks; demonstrate particularly complex procedures for the students on their PC; record student performance and playback for debrief as well as evaluate and store student progress through an integrated learning management system.

6. Team Training Tasks - Many maintenance training tasks require maintenance technicians to work in teams. The virtual maintenance system allows students on individual computers to interact with each other and simultaneously undertake a team training task.

7. Multi-Configuration Scenarios - The majority of new military equipment now requires simultaneous training on a range of variants. An example of this is the JSF which comprises conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL), short takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) and carrier suitable (CV) variants. Systems such as the JSF are also likely to be in service for at least the next 30 years and there will be a requirement to upgrade component systems of the aircraft as technology continues to advance. Using a virtual maintenance training system, the instructor is able to quickly reconfigure the training simulation to any number of concurrent operational builds.

The economic and operational benefits that virtual maintenance training systems can deliver are well proven. However, some – such as VEGA group - believes it is the extent to which these maintenance training systems are now deployed that will determine the level of improved performance in front line equipment.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Martin_McAllister

Not long ago an interesting email came in to the Online Think Tank by a gentleman serious about building an organic winged aircraft. But could it actually be done with current technologies? Indeed, I have been thinking on this organic aircraft skin idea and well here it goes;

Grow Cells in a dish and then in huge sheets and layers, similar to growing skin for burn victims. Paste them onto Carbon nano-tube sheets with copper atoms inside of the nano-tubes. Coat the carbon nano-tube sheets with graphene on the outside. The Carbon Nano-Tube will be 30 layers thick.

On the inside are layers of organic cell in sheets pasted with dried or evaporated blood like they use in plywood, next a layer of porous spongy substance that will be soaked in needed nutrients and oxygen to keep the cells at their organic peak and very happy.

We then configure the resonance of the copper atoms in the nano-tubes to bounce at near Earth Frequency, pleasing to the genetic displacement of the organic cells. We allow the friction from the movement of the aircraft (remember it will be incredibly light-weight) to trade electrons with the air-flow over the wings/body of the aircraft, use that static electricity to bounce the copper atoms for power and the conductivity of the aircraft and morphing of the body as needed for various speeds of flight or hover.

We will also increase the air over the wings-body thru "eddy vortex flows" strategies by way of aerodynamic design stemming from protruding leading edge devices. We will then use the cells to connect to an organic brain of some type? Eagle, Mouse, human, Dolphin, Chimpanzee, etc for basic decisions.

The cells will have energy from the vibrational frequency to run LED circuits and systems and interact with the brain and organic system to morph as needed for flight. The aircraft will not only have organic components as part of its super structure, but in essence it will be alive in a way.

Using material memory strategies as the craft picks up in speed the shape will morph due to more electrical stimulation from the static electricity. So that is the concept in a nut shell, of course it is a lot more complicated than that, but this is a short article and that's it.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lance_Winslow