Category: Science
August 26th, 2009
Do You Have the Techno Mojo to Survive an Apocalypse?
John Cohn and the cast of “The Colony” build a solar array.
John Cohn, a computer engineer and chip designer for IBM stars as the technology and electronics expert on Discovery Channel’s “The Colony”, a unique reality series which simulates how people would try to survive and rebuild society after an apocalyptic disaster. (Photos: Discovery Channel)
Podcast: Jason Perlow interviews John Cohn from Discovery Channel’s “The Colony”
John is an expert in many areas, including fixing, making or hacking anything electronic, building structures out of natural materials, tying knots, growing edible plants, mechanical fabrication, welding, sculpting and fire building. He helps build the chips at the heart of IBM’s mainframe computers as well as the chip brains in video game consoles. At home, John is a self proclaimed “Mad Scientist,” and he has performed a “Jolts and Volts” electricity show to more than 50,000 people across America. In 2006, John and his wife Diane’s 14 year old son, Sam, was killed in a traffic accident. Since then, John has dedicated all of his education outreach work to Sam’s memory. He is always eager to share his love for science and engineering with anyone who will listen.
July 21st, 2009
Best Faked Moon Landing... Ever!
They faked the Moon landing! The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s and AOL’s WeChooseTheMoon.org site is perhaps one of the coolest applications of Adobe Flash I’ve ever seen.
40 years ago this week, Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (assisted by Command Module pilot Michael Collins) stepped foot on the surface of the Moon. But even with all the overwhelming amount of evidence that we really did send men to that lonely barren world in late July of 1969, many people still believe we never went there.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more
July 19th, 2009
To the Moon: Grumman, One Giant Landing for Mankind
The historic Apollo 11 mission in July of 1969 culminated in the first manned moon landing. While many of the proud Americans who were involved in that project are no longer with us 40 years later, the technologies they built still live on, will be further refined, and will return us to that lonely world and beyond.
How We Built the Technologies (Introduction)
Boeing, the Rocket Foundry
The Integrators
Rocketdyne, Keeper of the Flame
As part of a series through the beginning of August, I am going to profile the key companies and the projects which made Apollo 11 a reality — from the firms that performed the systems integration, built and designed the avionics components, engineered and manufactured the powerful rocket engines which hurtled the mighty Saturn V into space, and created the legendary spacecraft which made history. Our third installment in our series is about Grumman, the company which built the Lunar Module (LEM) which made the historic manned landing on the Moon’s surface on July 20, 1969.
The Apollo Lunar Module, or “LEM” for short, was a highly specialized spacecraft built by Grumman Aircraft Engineering which was designed to land on the lunar surface and return the astronauts to the Command Module in lunar orbit for their trip back to Earth. (Photo by Jason Perlow)
Once it became clear that America was going to land on the Moon, it was painfully obvious that an actual design for the spacecraft in question as well as a strategy for how the landing was going to be accomplished once the spacecraft got into lunar orbit was going to be needed. In 1961, what would later be known as the Johnson Space Center put out a Request For Proposal to a number of large military/aeronautics contractors that included a large number of questions which required them to consider the operational requirements for a moon landing spacecraft and how the actual landing would occur.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
July 17th, 2009
Frugal Friday: Hewlett-Packard Tech Support, Amazon as "Big Brother", Apollo 11 40th Anniversary, Scientific Linux
Frugal Networker Ken Hess and I talk about my experience with Hewlett-Packard’s service and support, Amazon’s “Big Brother” approach to Kindle digital content rights management, the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and talk with Troy Dawson, one of the lead developers of Scientific Linux, a free clone of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS.
Click Here to Listen to the July 17, 2009 Frugal Friday Podcast
July 15th, 2009
To the Moon: Rocketdyne, Keeper of the Flame
The historic Apollo 11 mission in July of 1969 culminated in the first manned moon landing. While many of the proud Americans who were involved in that project are no longer with us 40 years later, the technologies they built still live on, will be further refined, and will return us to that lonely world and beyond.
How We Built the Technologies (Introduction)
Boeing, the Rocket Foundry
The Integrators
Grumman, One Giant Landing for Mankind
As part of a series through the beginning of August, I am going to profile the key companies and the projects which made Apollo 11 a reality — from the firms that performed the systems integration, built and designed the avionics components, engineered and manufactured the powerful rocket engines which hurtled the mighty Saturn V into space, and created the legendary spacecraft which made history. Our third installment in our series is about Rocketdyne, the company which built and designed the mighty rocket engines for the Saturn V.
The Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engine, producing 1.5 million pounds of takeoff thrust and fueled with Liquid Kerosene (RP-1) and Liquid Oxygen was the core component of the S-IC boost stage that propelled the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. The photo above is the engine undergoing testing at Edwards Air Force Base. (Photo Courtesy Rocketdyne)
Early In 1960, the Apollo program was conceived by the Eisenhower administration as a direct sequel to the Mercury program, the United States’s first manned space program. Much of the US’s backing of the manned space program was rhetoric, until Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin aboard his Vostok 1 spacecraft made history with the world’s first orbital manned flight in April of 1961.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
July 13th, 2009
To the Moon: The Integrators
The historic Apollo 11 mission in July of 1969 culminated in the first manned moon landing. While many of the proud Americans who were involved in that project are no longer with us 40 years later, the technologies they built still live on, will be further refined, and will return us to that lonely world and beyond.
How We Built the Technologies (Introduction)
Boeing, the Rocket Foundry
Rocketdyne, Keeper of the Flame
Grumman, One Giant Landing for Mankind
As part of a series through the beginning of August, I am going to profile the key companies and the projects which made Apollo 11 a reality — from the firms that performed the systems integration, built and designed the avionics components, engineered and manufactured the powerful rocket engines which hurtled the mighty Saturn V into space, and created the legendary spacecraft which made history. Our second installment in our series is about IBM and UNIVAC, the two primary computer systems integrators for the Apollo missions.
IBM’s Real Time Computer Complex in Houston (Top) and NASA’s Fresnedillas DSTN station in Madrid, Spain, (Bottom) one of the many Deep Space Tracking Network outposts using UNIVAC systems for pre-processing of telemetry downlink and command uplink data.
Sending men to the Moon was not just about building gigantic Saturn V rockets and shooting them off into space. While it was the key component of the overall program, and where a large portion of the money for the moon missions were spent, the rocket would have had no nervous system and we would have had no support infrastructure for the Apollo if it wasn’t for the efforts of two large systems integration firms — International Business Machines and UNIVAC — and the people who worked at those companies during the 1960s.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
July 10th, 2009
To the Moon: Boeing, the Rocket Foundry
The historic Apollo 11 mission in July of 1969 culminated in the first manned moon landing. While many of the proud Americans who were involved in that project are no longer with us 40 years later, the technologies they built still live on, will be further refined, and will return us to that lonely world and beyond.
How We Built the Technologies (Introduction)
IBM and UNIVAC: The Integrators
Rocketdyne, Keeper of the Flame
Grumman, One Giant Landing for Mankind
As part of a series through the beginning of August, I am going to profile the key companies and the projects which made Apollo 11 a reality — from the firms that performed the systems integration, built and designed the avionics components, engineered and manufactured the powerful rocket engines which hurtled the mighty Saturn V into space, and created the legendary spacecraft which made history. Our first profile is Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
Boeing’s work on the Saturn first stage booster took place at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans. Parts for the booster were shipped to Michoud from the company’s Wichita plant, as well as from subcontractors around the country. (Boeing)
The Saturn V rockets, standing 363 feet tall, were the most powerful launch vehicles ever built by the United States, and the most powerful in the world ever brought into operational status. They were comprised of over hundreds of thousands of component parts and weighed in at nearly 6.7 million pounds when fully loaded with liquid oxygen/hydrogen (LOX/LH2) and liquid kerosene (RP-1) propellants. Over 6.5 Billion dollars was appropriated in 1962 for their design and construction, which adjusted for inflation is roughly $45 Billion today. 15 of these gigantic multi-stage rockets were constructed, with 13 launched in missions between 1967 and 1973.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more
July 6th, 2009
To the Moon: How we built the technologies
The historic Apollo 11 mission in July of 1969 culminated in the first manned moon landing. While many of the proud Americans who were involved in that project are no longer with us 40 years later, the technologies they built still live on, will be further refined, and will return us to that lonely world and beyond.
Our commitment to space exploration began with a wake up call over five decades ago with a beeping sound.
Not with a clock radio, but with a transponder signal that could be tuned in by any ham radio enthusiast — the launching and ever present chirping of the Soviet Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957, the first artificial satellite. Shortly after, the Soviets followed with a dog, Laika, aboard Sputnik 2 and several follow on Sputniks, and then sent a man into orbit, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, aboard Vostok 1 in 1961.
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
June 22nd, 2009
ABC's "Impact": Oh No, Not Again!
How much more of the “Apocalyptic meteoroid-comet-asteroid-moon gonna hit the Earth/need to save us with a daring suicide mission involving nuclear weapons or a secret government project” genre can we possibly take?
Ah yes, Father’s Day. Going over to see the relatives for some pleasant conversation and outdoor grilling (well, maybe if you weren’t on the East Coast of the United States this last weekend), the unfolding terror and the continuing destabilization of the political situation in Iran, and a new Science Fiction miniseries about a desperate plan to save Earth from the moon which has been dislodged from its regular orbit by a chance collision with a piece of Brown Dwarf matter. Yay!
Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.
January 25th, 2009
Fun at Kennedy Space Center
In early January, my wife Rachel and I visited Kennedy Space Center, on Merritt Island and Cape Canaveral, Florida. Having never been to a NASA facility before, I was absolutely blown away by the technology and exhibits. Have a look at my Kennedy Space Center slideshow.
Jason Perlow is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Tech Broiler via Email alerts or RSS.
SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- Three Steps You Need to Know to Stop Data Loss Varonis Sensitive data exposed to misuse or loss... it is the stuff of nightmares ... Download Now
- Finally, an easier way for Small and Mid-Sized Companies to Run Their Business Applications: IBM Smart Business IBM From the PC to the Internet to every piece of hardware and software in ... Download Now
- VMware Infrastructure: A Guide to Bottom-Line Benefits VMware Frustrated by the costs of maintain ever larger data centers?or building ... Download Now
Essential Topics 
Recent Entries
- A Chrome OS Video Tour
- Roku becomes cloud-enabled with new Roku Channel Store and Developer SDK
- Stupid DROID Tricks, Volume 1
- Frugal Friday: Joblessness, DROID, Chrome OS, Richard Stallman, V.i. labs
- Messing around with the DROID camera
Blogs From Our Sponsors
Most Popular Posts
- My First Week With DROID
- In Smartphone Wars, Darwinism Triumphs Over Intelligent Design
- Cool New Google Maps Feature: New Jersey Wormholes!
- Chrome OS: Some Early Preview Videos
- My Top Scary Technology Trends
- Messing around with the DROID camera
Top Rated
- My Top Scary Technology Trends+19 votes
- My First Week With DROID+13 votes
- Psystar: From Hell's Heart, I Stab at Thee!+9 votes
- In Smartphone Wars, Darwinism Triumphs Over Intelligent Design+6 votes
- Stupid DROID Tricks, Volume 1+6 votes
- Cool New Google Maps Feature: New Jersey Wormholes!+5 votes
- Messing around with the DROID camera+5 votes
- Please Feel Free to Send Me Your Therapist's Bill+4 votes
Premier Vendor Content Whitepapers, webcasts & resources from our Power Center Sponsors
- Reduce risk. Reduce complexity. Increase reliability.
-
A simplified IT environment isn't just less complex. It's also more reliable. Standardize on a single Linux platform with SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell, and get the world's most interoperable Linux
- Learn more >>
- The more you simplify, the more you save
-
When you transition from your existing Red Hat environment to SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell, you can recognize dramatic cost savings, perhaps as much 50%
- Learn more >>
- The best support in the Linux business
-
If Linux is going to power your mission-critical applications, you'd better have the best support known to business. Novell was rated the top provider of Linux technical support.
- Learn more >>
- Keep Up With The Latest In Document Management with The DocuMentor.
-
Doc delivers the scoop on today's enterprise content management, printer maintenance, and all other issues related to document management. It's the DocuMentor Blog.
- Learn more >>
Archives
Favorite Links
Blogroll
ZDNet Blogs
- All About Microsoft
- The Apple Core
- Between the Lines
- BriefingsDirect
- Collaboration 2.0
- Dev Connection
- Digital Cameras & Camcorders
- Ed Bott's Microsoft Report
- Emerging Tech
- Enterprise Web 2.0
- Forrester Research
- Googling Google
- GreenTech Pastures
- Hardware 2.0
- Home Theater
- iGeneration
- Irregular Enterprise
- IT Project Failures
- Laptops & Desktops
- Lawgarithms
- Linux and Open Source
- Managing L'unix
- The Mobile Gadgeteer
- On Sustainability
- Rational Rants
- The Semantic Web
- Service Oriented
- Smartphones and Cell Phones
- Social Business
- Social CRM: The Conversation
- Software & Services Safari
- Software as Services
- Storage Bits
- Team Think
- Tech Broiler
- Technology and the Global Supply Chain
- Tom Foremski: IMHO
- The ToyBox
- Virtually Speaking
- The Web Life
- ZDNet Education
- ZDNet Government
- ZDNet Healthcare
- Zero Day
White Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- The Impact of Virtualization Software on Operating Environments VMware Today's use of virtualization technology allows IT professionals to ... Download Now
- Virtualization: Architectural Considerations And Other Evaluation Criteria VMware Of the many approaches to x86 systems virtualization available in the ... Download Now
- Five Steps to Determine When to Virtualize YourServers VMware Server virtualization isn't just for big companies. Entry-level ... Download Now
Meet Doc
-
-
Here to help you with your Document Management Needs
- Doc is an enigma. Born to a Russian ballerina and a German electrical engineer, he grew up in various locations in the United States. He’s seen the insides of more brands, versions, and generations of printer and printer-related hardware than almost anyone.
- To learn more about this mysterious figure check out his blog on ZDNet and his Workspace on TechRepublic. You’ll be glad you did.
-
Produced by
ZDNet and -
