Following the succesfull first flight of their vertical liftoff and landing vehicle, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is looking for more people to help them go to space. The site has video from the launch on it – good to see more and more successes in private spaceflight, even if it is in the form of baby steps.

The Tokyo National Maritime Research Institute’s Advanced Maritime Transport Technology Department has thought up a system that allows ships hulls to be surrounded by a blanket of bubbles, which keeps away the water from the hull, reducing friction and drag and accounting for the efficiency increase of moving through water. In 2003 > 90% of all goods were transported by ship – which means that this could be a massive environment and fuel saver.

These brakes stop your car in half the distance and will last longer. Be careful of the car behind you!

I’ve seen these on motorcycles, but not yet on cars – looks cool, but what about overheating problems?

Yes, soon you too will be able to scale Mt. Everest with someone on your back thanks to your augmented powersuit exoskeleton. If you have the +- $60,000 to buy one with. Production for 2007 is expected to be around 20 units, with around 400 + rolling off the lines in 2008.

For $2.2m you too can own a jet which flies 6 people! After Honda’s jet, Piper is now following in the same low cost jet strategy. When are Cessna, Bombardier and Lear going to follow suit?

Michelin has invented the rather stupidly named ‘tweel’ – a wheel without air in it. The video in the link shows how it is mounted under a car, and has a few other applications for it as well.

The airless wheel might take a bit of getting used to, but it helps with suspension, simplifies the tyre by not needing air and a vent, damage to sidewalls becomes a non factor and no worries about whether the tyre is at the right pressure.

Gas turbines the size of a matchbox – an alternative to battery power, but I wouldn’t want something doing 500,000 RPMs coming loose in my pocket!

This consortium has a whole load of car manufacturers in it trying to create a decentralised network of road cars which beam each other driving information using 802.11 built in networks. The idea is to beam information about driving conditions, accidents, traffic jams, etc to cars within a few hundred metres.
Nice idea, but how are you going to limit the spread of messages between cars from the point of interest and limit the flow of conversation? Another one, considering the ease of hacking any 802.11, is how are you going to stop people with laptops from clearing roads for themselves by injecting “road closed for construction” messages into the network from a whole host of fictitious cars?

This guy allready has a test module in space – Genesis 1 and is planning to launch Genesis 2 soon. After that will come Galaxy, which will have some habitable space in it. Together with Lockheed Martin they’re designing a launch strategy to get people to the habitat. If this all works out, he’s going for the space hotel. Galaxy is slated for 2010. Private space exploration FTW!

China’s First Auto Works (FAW) has built a car that can drive itself up to 93mph. Damn, I was hoping that technology wouldn’t work – I like driving my car irresponsibly!

NASA has finally awarded the contract to build the new manned lander craft that will take people back to the moon in 2020 and hopefully to Mars. They are going back to the system that runs Arianne and Soyuz and the old NASA Apollo rockets: ie. a tiny capsule balanced on top of a huge damn rocket to escape the atmosphere and then it’s back on its own. They’re calling them Orions.

It looks fairly easy and it costs a lot at the mechanic. This is a good guide that should have you done in an hour or so.

Yup those big bulldozers – they’ve built a yellow car to beat the previous 1973 land speed record for diesel cars. It’s called the Dieselmax.
The driver will be the same guy that drove Thrust SSC to breaking the sound barrier and land speed record in 1997, Wing Commander Andy Green.

The Guardian has a good story

As does Autoblog

Good luck to them!

Another design for a modular space station / hotel for astronauts and tourists, using 7×4 m. capsules. Looking for funding – give it to them, but for heavens sake, use a different launch vehicle than that obsolete shuttle!

Honda is fed up with other jet manufacturers and hopes to make a splash in the business jet market. Production to begin somewhere in 2009 / 2010

Built to drive around on anything. Not in production.

Barabus has gone 4 bhp up on Bugatti’s Veyron with a car that will be unveiled in London tomorrow.

Tesla Motors has an electric car which looks cool and has the performance to match. It does 0-60 mph in something like 4 seconds and has a range of 250 miles. As it’s electric and has no transmission, accelleration is smooth throughout the speed range. They’re trying to qualify it for road use in the US now and expect it to be sold in the US towards the middle of 2007. Unfortunately they plan on not selling it outside of ConUS. Pricing totally unkown.

This helicopter has four engines for backup, flies at 55 mph, has a fuel load capable of carrying a 70kg person for around 1 hour, is classed as an ultralight / microlight and costs only $30,000,-. It also claims to be the smallest co-axial helicopter that actually flies and takes 2 hours to learn how to fly. It can be controlled with one hand.

An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its’ wings. Surprisingly this has never been done before, despite drawings of whacked out genius mr. da Vinci. After 30 years of trying Dr. James DeLaurier and his team managed a 14 second powered manned flight. What a sight that must have been.

Brian Walker, mad scientist and all around crazy person, plans to shoot himself 20 miles into the air in a homemade rocket launched from the world’s biggest crossbow. The rocket, which has a jet turbine with 1,350 pounds of thrust, will shoot off the track of the giant crossbow shown above, which is equipped with a 24-foot carbon-fiber bowstring. At the peak of his flight he’ll be traveling at a comfortable 10 Gs, and he’ll be wearing a $15,000 surplus Russian space suit to stay safe, because everyone knows the Russians will sell anything for a price.

http://www.uberreview.com/2006/06/worlds-largest-crossbow.htm/

This site has loads of videos involving cars, engines, motorcycles, women – mainly geared at the street racer type. Big collection.

This jacket is like an airbag for the motorcycle. Once the cable connecting the jacket to the motorbike is disconnected, the jacket inflates pockets in the jacket with gas, protecting the spine and other areas. The gas is released after a few seconds (hopefully after the impact) allowing you to move freely again. You can then replace the gas canister for re-use, if the jacket hasn’t been totally fucked up by then.

Via Impact Lab