EVLN(NASA's ultimate Electric ATV @ -300 degrees)

[Bruce EVangel Parmenter <brucedp@yahoo.com>]

EVLN(NASA's ultimate Electric ATV @ -300 degrees)
[The Internet Electric Vehicle List News. For Public EV
 informational purposes. Contact publication for reprint rights.]
 --- {EVangel}
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/dyehard/dyehard010705.html
Space Blimp Futuristic Version of Oldest Flying Machines
Could Explore Space By Lee Dye  Special to ABCNEWS.com

July 5 — Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Southern California have been asked to design the ultimate
all terrain vehicle, something that can operate billions of
miles from Earth at temperatures of around 300 degrees below
zero, and be able to fly like an aircraft, roll along the
ground like an ATV, and cruise across an ocean like a boat.

So they borrowed from the past, and looked to the future,
and came up with kind of a flying swamp buggy that dates
back to the beginning of aeronautical engineering. It's a
blimp.  Later this month, the wizards of Pasadena hope to
begin testing a scaled down model of a blimp that could give
us a close-up look at one of the most mystifying and
intriguing objects in the solar system, Saturn's largest
moon, Titan.

Titan is no small body. With a diameter of 3,200 miles, it's
bigger than the planet Mercury. We don't know a whole lot
about what it's really like, because it is enshrouded in a
dense atmosphere that makes it almost impossible to see the
surface. But what we've seen so far has left planetary
scientists screaming for more.

Floating Over Gas Oceans
Images from the powerful Keck Telescope in Hawaii penetrated
the atmosphere just enough to show dark and light areas on
Titan's surface. There's a good chance the dark blotches are
oceans of liquid hydrocarbons, most likely methane or
ethane.

We'll get a better feel for the place in January of 2005,
when the Hugens probe is released by the Cassini spacecraft
and plunges into the atmosphere of Titan. Cassini, launched
in 1997, is speeding toward Saturn and is expected to give
us our best look yet at the ringed planet and its moons.

One person who will be watching that encounter with a great
deal of interest is Jack Jones, a mechanical engineer in
JPL's advanced projects group, who is leading the research
effort to find out if a blimp would really work on Titan.
The idea has some appeal, Jones says, because a blimp would
be so versatile.

"The scientists want to explore the atmosphere, and both the
solid surfaces and the liquid oceans. They want to land on
both of them and explore," Jones says.

They will do that remotely, of course. There won't be
anybody aboard this blimp. It would inflate just as it
reaches Titan's atmosphere, and drift around the moon at
about six miles altitude during its shake-down cruise.
Scientists would use its cameras and instruments to identify
areas they want to take a closer look at, and eventually the
blimp would use electric-powered propellers to drive it down
to the surface and guide it to the desired locations.

The harsh conditions at Titan could make it ideally suited
for a blimp, Jones says.

Working at Minus 300
"It's very cold on Titan," he says, and that could work to
the advantage of the blimp. A colder climate means a denser
atmosphere, and since a blimp — which is actually just a
powered balloon — has to displace atmosphere to remain
aloft, it works more efficiently in a dense atmosphere.

But designing a blimp to work at 300 degrees below zero is
no piece of cake. The tricky part is coming up with a
material for the blimp's envelope that will be strong enough
to take a hard knock if the blimp bumps into a rock on
Titan's surface. Several types of plastics seem promising,
according to tests at JPL, but the researchers are still
trying to come up with a glue that will seal the pieces
together, including the blimp's interior bladder, which will
be filled with helium to give it the necessary lift.

"Glues don't work at that temperature," Jones says. Again,
several products look interesting, but require further
testing, Jones says.

The idea is to build a fairly compact blimp, say about 30
feet in length, that could serve as an instrument platform
for everything from high altitude observations to close-up
photographs. Once they get to Titan, Jones says, it should
be pretty smooth sailing because the atmosphere has very
little wind.

There's so little heat from the sun that there isn't a
dynamic weather system like we have on Earth. Titan is so
far from the sun that sunshine reaching its cloud-tops is
about 100 times less than we receive here on Earth. And
about 90 percent of that is absorbed by the upper
atmosphere, so about a thousand times less sunlight actually
reaches the surface of the moon.

That's unfortunate, in a way, because Titan's atmosphere is
so rich in organic elements that it is ripe for life, just
as the Earth was so long ago. What's really lacking is heat
that most scientists believe is necessary for the spark of
life.

Seeking Heat, Seeking Life?
So the blimp, if indeed this works out, will probably carry
an infrared camera which could detect any heat on the
surface of Titan. Many scientists think heat may indeed be
generated by geophysical processes on the large moon.

"That would be tremendously interesting to scientists
because you have all the ingredients for life there," Jones
says. So if the infrared camera detects a hot spot, the
blimp could zoom down for a closer look.

"By golly," Jones says, "we might stumble onto some life.
"That would be very exciting."

But of course, as he notes, the ultimate all terrain vehicle
is still a long ways from reality. If the Cassini mission
shows that it is possible for instruments to function in the
dense atmosphere of Titan, then the Aerover Blimp, as JPL
officials call it, might be just the ticket for a follow-up
mission.

That could come within a decade.
And what an interesting footnote to aviation history that
would be. The first human flight of any kind is generally
credited to the Montgolfier brothers of France, who built a
hot air balloon and flew for five miles over Paris in 1783.
Maybe similar technology will allow us to explore a very
forbidding world.

Lee Dye’s column appears weekly on ABCNEWS.com. A former
science writer for the Los Angeles Times, he now lives in
Juneau, Alaska.
-



EVLN(Discerning guests go Electric)
[The Internet Electric Vehicle List News. For Public EV
 informational purposes. Contact publication for reprint rights.]
 --- {EVangel}
http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/Business/BusinessStory.asp?Brand=EDPONLINE&Category=BUSINESS&ItemId=NOED24+Jun+2002+14%3A55%3A18%3A917
BUSINESS Cars are perfect for a 'green approach' June 26,
2002 07:52

A Norfolk golf club has secured a fleet of state-of-the-art
golf cars worth more than £70,000 as it begins to phase out
its petrol vehicles in favour of more economical and
environmentally friendly transport.

Wensum Valley Golf Club, at Taverham, near Norwich, has
bought 20 electric "IQ" golf cars from Club Car which will
gradually replace its petrol vehicles.

Martin Lucas, UK business development manager for Club Car,
said: "The use of electric vehicles gives golf clubs
substantial savings in a number of areas. For example,
petrol cars cost up to £1 per round of golf, whereas the
running cost for electric cars is only around 20p per
round."

Stuart Edge of Ben Burgess, the distributor which negotiated
the deal, said: "The fact that these cars can be programmed
gives our members added benefits when they are playing golf.
Varying degrees of control can be electronically introduced
by golf course management, ranging from acceleration and
braking power to speed control."

Basil Todd, proprietor of Wensum Valley Golf Club said that
the deal with Club Car reflected the club's continuing
growth and the overall trend for golfers to use cars more
regularly. "As we continue to attract more discerning guests
and golfers, we must have the right facilities at their
disposal."
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