So, did he really figure "what the hell" or did he realise that if he's to be shot in 1885 that means he'd have to live through the events of 1985, meaning that he'd be causing a major paradox by not re-assembling Marty's note?
The real question is, why was he surprised to see Marty in 1885? Shouldn't 1955 Doc have remembered that he sent Marty back? Though I suppose over 30 years had passed; maybe it just wasn't fresh in his mind.
"Dude! We should totally throw some paper airplanes...from SPACE!"
"Can't we just build a Killbot, or a doomsday device or something?"
"Pfffft. We already did that yesterday, remember? I'm telling you. Paper airplanes. Space. You know you wanna."
...why does it cost $300,000 to throw some paper airplanes? People are obviously gonna be up in space anyway, they might as well just add it to their little list of activities.
KASHIWA, Japan (AP) -- Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth.
It's no joke. A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel last month, Japan's space agency adopted it Wednesday for feasibility studies, and a well-known astronaut is interested in participating.
A successful flight from space by an origami plane could have far-reaching implications for the design of re-entry vehicles or space probes for upper atmospheric exploration, said project leader Shinji Suzuki, a professor at Tokyo University's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Suzuki said he was skeptical a decade ago when he first discussed with experts the idea of sending into space a craft made in the tradition of Japan's ancient art of paper folding.
"It sounded like a simply impossible, crazy idea," Suzuki said. "I gave it some more thought, and came to think it may not be ridiculous after all, and could very well survive if it comes down extremely slowly."
In a test outside Tokyo in early February, a prototype about 2.8 inches long and 2 inches wide survived Mach 7 speeds and broiling temperatures up to 446 degrees Fahrenheit in a hypersonic wind tunnel -- conditions meant to approximate what the plane would face entering Earth's atmosphere.
Having survived the 12-second test with no major damage or burns, the tiny plane theoretically could get back to Earth because re-entry from outer space involves passing through several layers that last only a few seconds each, said Osamu Imamura, a scientist who works with Suzuki.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, accepted it Wednesday for three years of feasibility studies and promised up to $300,000 in funding per year.
At this point, the proposal faces just one challenge, but it's a potentially crippling one: There is no way to track the paper craft or predict when or where they may land.
Critics say that makes the test pointless. Yasuyuki Miyazaki, an aerospace engineer at Nihon University who is not involved in the project, said the paper shuttles might not come back at all, depending on the angle at which they enter the atmosphere.
Suzuki said many things about science "have to be learned simply by trying them out."
Takuo Toda, the head of the Japan Origami Airplane Association, had nursed the idea of flying a shuttle-shaped paper plane since NASA in 1977 launched its first space shuttle Enterprise, a craft without an engine or heat shield that was used to perform test flights in the atmosphere.
He spent 18 months figuring out how to fold a perfect origami spacecraft from a plain sheet of paper -- without cutting, stitching or taping it -- and tested hundreds of designs in the process.
"Then I thought, perhaps I could someday have it fly back to earth from space," Toda said. "Nobody took it seriously, saying it would burn instantly."
Toda and Suzuki first met about 10 years ago, when Suzuki and other scientists attended Toda's launching of a 6.6-foot-long giant paper craft from the top of a mountain. The successful flight impressed Suzuki, and Toda revealed his long-cherished dream.
The effort has been a labor of love. It's had no outside funding so far, relying on paper donated by the origami association and Suzuki's access to Tokyo University equipment.
The project has inspired curiosity in the scientific community in Japan.
"You may think it's impossible, but we scientists are all extremely interested. I think it's a great experiment," said Miyazaki, the Nihon University engineer.
"No matter how it turns out, a paper craft flight from space would tell us many things," Miyazaki said. "The fact that a paper shuttle has endured the harsh environment in the lab tests also provides valuable data for future aerospace technology."
Suzuki and Toda use origami paper made of sugar cane fibers that are resistant to heat, wind and water. They spray a special coating onto the paper and then fold it into shuttles about 8 inches long and 4 inches wide that weigh about 1.05 ounces. How many shuttles will be released has not been decided.
The pair theorize that with the coating, rounded edges, a rounded nose cone and almost no weight, their craft will face very little of the heat-generating friction that causes most damage to vehicles re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
Astronaut Koichi Wakata, who has expressed personal interest in the project, would throw several origami shuttles into the wake of the international space station, which travels at Mach 20 some 250 miles above Earth -- if the JAXA feasibility studies pan out, Suzuki said.
Findings from the paper shuttles' flight could be used in developing new lightweight space probes that would study the upper atmosphere, Miyazaki said. The results could also help in designing a full-scale shuttle that re-enters the atmosphere slowly to reduce fiction and heat, said Suzuki.
Suzuki and Toda plan to write a message of peace on the planes in several languages, along with a request for anyone spotting them to notify the team.
"Just imagine, children around the world would be anxiously waiting for the return of our origami shuttle, perhaps looking up into the sky from time to time," Suzuki said. "That would be great fun."
"Dude! We should totally throw some paper airplanes...from SPACE!"
"Can't we just build a Killbot, or a doomsday device or something?"
"Pfffft. We already did that yesterday, remember? I'm telling you. Paper airplanes. Space. You know you wanna."
If this endeavor is successful, it would result in meat that didn't come from an animal, which is pretty rockin'! Animal rights activists are happy because animals don't have to be killed, vegetarians are happy because their meat substitute products would probably be less nasty, and as long as it tastes like the real thing, I'd probably be satisfied too.
Now if PETA will just stop funding animal terrorist groups like the Animal Liberation Front, everything might be just fine!
Although seriously, that would be pretty cool. And, if it's cheap, it could help the food problem we're facing right now. Less feed for animals means more food for us.
I really have to say that that is awesome news. My fiancee and I were just talking about that, actually. In a book she had to read for class, Oryx and Crake, their culture already produces slabs of meat that don't have any nervous system at all. At first she (and the main character) were kinda grossed out, but after we discussed it we realized that it would make things much easier.
PETA brings about "animaless" meat to eliminate the killing and mistreatment of animals for food. Ironically, cows, pigs, chickens and other such animals become extinct a century later.
Yes sir. Things never quite work out the way you intended.
Its heat powers the solar system. Its light makes life on Earth possible. Its gravitational pull keeps planets in orbit around it.
The sun is, in every sense of the word, a superstar. But despite its familiarity, there is a lot we don't know about it.
Now, scientists are planning humanity's closest visit yet to our most familiar star. The NASA Solar Probe, an unmanned spacecraft scheduled for launch in 2015, will explore some of the burning questions scientists have about the sun.
The probe "takes us to where space weather and, indeed, everything that directly affects life on Earth, starts," said Loren Acton, research professor of physics at Montana State University and member of the NASA team that produced the mission definition report. "I'm really excited to send a probe to where no mission has gone before."
The project, which costs around $750 million, will be able to withstand inconceivably high temperatures -- up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. The probe is being developed at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
Scientists hope the probe will help them better understand and forecast solar storms, which occur when the sun accelerates energetic particles that travel to the Earth along magnetic field lines at super-high speeds. iReport.com: Send us your photos of the stars
Such storms can disrupt power grids and communication satellites that affect cellphones and GPS navigation. In 1989, a solar storm caused the HydroQuebec Power Grid to lose power in Quebec, Canada, resulting in a nine-hour blackout for millions of people in the province.
Astronauts in space during a solar storm are also at risk for absorbing dangerously large amounts of solar radiation.
In the same way that hurricane predictors must consider how the ocean accelerates and powers hurricanes, scientists hope to understand how the sun accelerates particles in solar storms.
"This isn't a space weather satellite, but if you do want to have any hope of predicting solar storms, you have to have a better understanding of this mechanism than we have," said said Andrew Dantzler, Solar Probe project manager at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
Scientists currently believe the storms have to do with the activity of sunspots, regions of relatively low temperatures where magnetic field lines have breached the sun's surface. A strong sunspot cycle may signal strong solar storms, but researchers still have a lot to learn about forecasting.
Scientists also want to know why the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, is several hundred times hotter than the visible solar surface, which is where sunlight comes from.
The corona, whose temperature is about 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit, seems mysteriously warm considering that the sun's surface layer, much closer to the star's core, is less than 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The probe will capture images to help solve these puzzles over a period of almost seven years. During this time, the probe will fly by Venus seven times, gradually reducing the size of its orbit.
At its closest, the probe will get about 4.1 million miles from the sun. That may not seem so near, but consider that the sun is about 93 million miles from Earth. The probe will come about eight times closer to the sun than any spacecraft before it.
The NASA probe will also achieve a top speed of 450,000 miles per hour, which is three times the record of any man-made object in space, Dantzler said.
During loops around the inner solar system, two sets of solar arrays will extend or retract, regulating the temperatures and power levels of the probe's panels, according to preliminary designs. The probe itself will weigh about 1,000 pounds, with a shield filled with carbon foam 9 feet in diameter and 6 inches thick.
"Everything on Earth is affected by the sun. We can't turn off the sun or change anything about it," Dantzler said. "You can't change or turn out a hurricane. But you can prepare for it."
Comments
"Dude! We should totally throw some paper airplanes...from SPACE!"
"Can't we just build a Killbot, or a doomsday device or something?"
"Pfffft. We already did that yesterday, remember? I'm telling you. Paper airplanes. Space. You know you wanna."
Damn impressive video.
If this endeavor is successful, it would result in meat that didn't come from an animal, which is pretty rockin'! Animal rights activists are happy because animals don't have to be killed, vegetarians are happy because their meat substitute products would probably be less nasty, and as long as it tastes like the real thing, I'd probably be satisfied too.
Although seriously, that would be pretty cool. And, if it's cheap, it could help the food problem we're facing right now. Less feed for animals means more food for us.
I'd still rather have some spaghetti though.
Bizzaro Italy.
Yes sir. Things never quite work out the way you intended.
Neat, huh? =D 3 and 7 are my favorites.
6 is creepy.