Feature
A deeper look at polar ice. An electric-car renaissance. The death and rebirth of major scientific experiments. Read on to discover what this year has in store
Posted 12.23.2009 at 3:01 pm 28 Comments

Space and Aviation

Airbus A400M:  Courtesy Airbus Military

New Freighter Takes Flight

Last call for Airbus’s new military cargo plane
It’s four years late and an estimated $6 billion over budget, but Airbus’s ultra-light military cargo plane is finally poised to fly. When it does, the A400M will be the first craft that’s roomy enough to fit a modern military’s bulkiest tanks and choppers, light enough to land on just about any straight stretch of sand, mud, gravel or stone, and versatile enough to double as an in-flight refueling tanker, medevac, troop transport or surveillance plane.

By early summer, Airbus plans to have three test crafts aloft, each sporting four turboprop engines with counter-rotating propellers to reduce drag—an aviation first. Typically, propellers are fuel-efficient and great for low, slow-flying missions. With 44,000 horsepower, the A400M will have the ability to reach jetlike speed and altitude while hauling twice the cargo (almost 41 tons) over twice the distance (4,000 miles) as the aging turboprop plane it will replace. And because a third of the craft’s structure is made from carbon-fiber composite, the A400M can afford the extra weight to beef up its landing gear. Equipped with six pairs of titanium legs with low-pressure tires and hydraulic shock absorbers, the craft can land on soft or rough terrain, and do it so gently that A400Ms could set down on the same makeshift airfield 40 times without chewing it up.

It has been a long, hard road for the A400M. Six months ago, news of a major software glitch on its prized new engines ignited talk of customers like the U.K. canceling orders. If this year’s flights are successful, the company will make its first deliveries to France by 2013. With 192 planes on order from nine countries, the A400M could be the dominant hauler of the 21st century.
—Rena Marie Pacella

On Thin Ice

Cryosat-2:  Courtesy ESA
CryoSat-2 finally delivers the deepest look yet at polar ice
In late February, the European Space Agency will get a second chance to launch a satellite designed to take the most sensitive measurements yet of sea ice and glaciers. In 2005, the launch rocket failed to separate and brought the original CryoSat satellite crashing into the Arctic Ocean. After a $207-million do-over, CryoSat-2 should be releasing data by September, says Mark Drinkwater, head of the ESA Mission Science Division. During its three and a half years in orbit, CryoSat-2 will amass data on the polar ice every 30 days from an altitude of 445 miles, recording centimeter-size changes in ice thickness by measuring the ice’s height with microwaves. Because microwaves penetrate clouds better than the infrared used on NASA’s ICESat, the satellite will offer unprecedented tracking of cloud-covered regions like Greenland. “I think that the effects of climate change are felt most in terms of the changes in the polar ice masses,” Drinkwater says. Pinpointing their thickness will help climate scientists make better computer models to predict polar temperatures, ocean circulation and, perhaps most important for those of us on the rest of the planet, rising sea levels.
—C.S.

Liftoff!

Who and What are Headed to Space

  • Mission: Solar Dynamics Observatory
    Who: U.S. Launch: February
    Three cameras onboard this minibus-size observatory will monitor solar activity to help scientists understand the mechanisms that underlie the sun’s behavior and the solar cycle.
  • Mission: Prisma
    Who: Sweden Launch: February
    The two Prisma craft, Mango and Tango, will dance together in orbit, testing technology that could lead to autonomous spaceflight using a combination of GPS, satellite-tracking cameras and radio signals.
  • Mission: Kanopus-V/BelKa-2
    Who: Russia/Belarus Launch: Spring
    This launch will send two satellites into orbit around Earth to collect data on both natural and man-made disasters, detect forest fires and pollution, and monitor natural resources.
  • Mission: Planet-C
    Who: Japan Launch: TBD
    The Venus Climate Orbiter, or Planet-C, will circle Venus, photographing its surface and measuring atmospheric winds, in an effort to gain information about the planet’s poorly understood atmosphere. It may also shed light on Earth’s climate evolution.
  • Mission: Chasqui 1
    Who: Peru Launch: November
    Peru’s first nanosatellite will snap photos with the eventual goal of finding remnants of ancient cities under the forest canopy.
    —Brooke Borel
      • Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:  NASA

Life After Death?

Say goodbye to a number of space projects - for now

Cassini Spacecraft: 1997–2010
Final act: Cassini finished its original mission of exploring Saturn and its moons in 2008. Its new Equinox mission to observe seasonal changes on Saturn extended its life to this year.
Second life? Likely to be extended again, Cassini will continue to send information and images until at least 2017. After that, researchers might crash it into Saturn to get more data about the planet, but only if they can find a way to get it through the rings intact.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: 2009–2010
Final act: Its successful primary lunar-exploration mission—searching for water and mapping suitable landing sites—ends this September.
Second life? Since it’s already up there, the orbiter’s instruments could be used for a longer, three-year science mission to measure, for example, the radiation reflected from the lunar surface or to study the evolution of the moon’s crust.

Odyssey orbiter: 2001–2010
Final act: The solar-powered craft ended its original Mars exploration mission in 2004. Odyssey will complete its third mission extension this year and is serving as the radio relay for NASA’s Mars rovers.
Second life? It will possibly make it to 2012 and beyond, where it could serve as a relay for NASA’s upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Deep Impact/EPOXI: 2005–2010
Final act: The spacecraft collected data from the comet Tempel I in 2005, showing that water ice exists on the surface of comets. The mission, renamed EPOXI in 2007, will study comet Hartley 2 late this year.
Second life? The craft could observe stars thought to have planets orbiting them, but no specific plans have been made for it.
—Sandeep Ravindran

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28 Comments

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Kim - Talkingde...
12/23/09 at 5:12 pm

Its hard to feel sorry for the drug companies when they charge us more money for perscriptions than the Canadians or Europeans pay for the same drug.

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riff_raff
12/23/09 at 10:41 pm

To paraphrase the old joke: "For the past 40 years we've been told that a practical electric car will be ready within 5 years". I'd bet that 40 years from now we'll still be waiting for one.

An electric car is only practical for people living in urban areas. Those same areas are also suitable for subways or light rail. That's why electric cars will never really be widely accepted. Do you really think that some guy living out in rural Nebraska, with subzero winter temperatures, is going to buy a $40,000 Chevy Volt?

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Jmor117
12/24/09 at 7:25 pm

Cheaper Drugs=Help for the people who need drugs but can't afford the Brand Name ones.

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niteshft
12/25/09 at 6:18 am

Drug cunpanys started out with thier own money or money from investors with a promise of financial return. The cost of drugs to us include money for research and development and what do we get in return? More expensive drugs that include charges for further research and development. Something is wrong with this picture.

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gialo26
12/25/09 at 6:18 am

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Hojomojo143
12/26/09 at 1:30 am

I think there should be some sort of accountability for the way that drug companies spend their profits. It's a bitter pill (pun?) to take knowing that we pay more for drugs than Canada and Europe, but if I could SEE how much the drug companies reinvest that money, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with paying the big bucks. But absent that information, I really have to wonder where that money goes to?

Sure, generics make things cheaper, but then there is less money for research and development. IF the drug companys actually spend as much on research and development as they say.

In the long run, I guess it's a trust game. Pay the big bucks and trust that the big drug companies are doing the right things with their profits. But money is power and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Bring on the generics!

HJ

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Hojomojo143
12/26/09 at 1:58 am

The AirBus A400 is six billion dollars over budget? SIX BILLION? They had better sell a LOT of airplanes to make up for those numbers!

If memory serves me right, the A380 was quite a bit over budget as well!

I don't know who's running the show over there at AirBus, but they need to fire some managers before they run themselves into a bankrupcy!

SIX BILLION? That's like a car company bailout! Man!

HJ

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Hojomojo143
12/26/09 at 2:25 am

Thank God the electrics are almost here! The internal combustion engine is soooo ineffecient, it's actually more effcient at heating your home then it is pushing your car down the road.

I understand that we have a huge investment in infrastructure to support the internal combustion engine, but if we continue on that logic, we should still be riding horses!

Putting the electric motor in the wheels is simply a stroke of genius! If you consider that every time two pieces of metal rub together (pistons, gears, etc), putting the electric motors in the wheels reduces all the friction of an internal combustion engine to rubber meeting the road. It won't get no better until we are all driving hovercars!

We are making constant strides in battery research thanks to President Obama and his investments in that field. Sure, right now they yield only 40-100 miles in a charge (only?), but soon we will be driving 500 miles on a charge. Plus, we will be able to use them to flatten out the power grid and make solar and wind power more practical.

And it might be within 10 years that you'll have a battery in your basement that can run your house for a week! You'll never know that some guy ran into a power pole down the road and the local grid went out for six hours!

Die, internal combustion engine, die! Get your stinky, polluting, ineffectient butt on our the door and make way for some REAL innovation! YEAH BABY!

HJ

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Jono
12/26/09 at 10:36 am

@riff_raff: You work for an oil company by any chance? It's sad patents were bought out that were left undeveloped for the sake of squeezing every last drop of oil from our wells. Electric cars only need an improvement in battery technology and that is far from impossible as you make it seem. The issue with subzero temperatures, although a limited market, seems like there would be a relatively easy solution. Wrap it in insulation and have some kind of warming wires run through the insulation to keep the battery warm during charging. All I seem to see on popsci is constant improvements in battery technology and a recent development for insulation that is more efficient than a vacuum. Gasoline will die a definite death. Only a matter a time. I believe sooner than later if the U.S. can lead the initiative.

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JohnnyH
12/27/09 at 2:02 pm

Better than the example of the "soon-to-be" electric car is the video phone. I believe it was around 1955 that AT&T showcased a videophone and said it would be a common thing within a decade. I still have never met someone who has a videophone. Not even the commanders of the greatest single nuclear force in the world (Minot AFB, North Dakota) have them, or were EVER authorized to even look into them. I've been in command posts all around the world and was a resource advisor in Minot (my office was right outside the commander's). We had no videophone. We didn't have remnants of any old system that might have been. 50 years later that the AT&T promise there has been nothing.

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JohnnyH
12/27/09 at 2:02 pm

Better than the example of the "soon-to-be" electric car is the video phone. I believe it was around 1955 that AT&T showcased a videophone and said it would be a common thing within a decade. I still have never met someone who has a videophone. Not even the commanders of the greatest single nuclear force in the world (Minot AFB, North Dakota) have them, or were EVER authorized to even look into them. I've been in command posts all around the world and was a resource advisor in Minot (my office was right outside the commander's). We had no videophone. We didn't have remnants of any old system that might have been. 50 years later that the AT&T promise there has been nothing.

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sjthuss
12/27/09 at 3:27 pm

Maybe you've never seen/used Skype? It's free.

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wendydream
12/28/09 at 9:19 am

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bdhoro87
12/28/09 at 12:52 pm

Thats a spammer above me. Anyway....

Those big pharmaceutical companies have little to worry about with their patents expiring, because the future of drugs isn't in the mass marketing of a single pill, within a decade the pills we take will be manufactured specifically for our own bodies, containing ratios of chemicals tailored specifically to the individual. And people don't realize that the biggest driver pushing the price of pharmaceuticals way up in this country is litigation, which there is very little the drug companies can do about, except stopping research into new drugs that could possibly have bad side effects a decade after they're approved.

Also what nobody realizes, the real problem for electric cars is they only marginally change our energy consumption while being far less effective at moving things. Where do you get the power to charge your electric vehicle? Likely a coal burning power plant... which is good for the environment how?

This magazine is kinda funny, because all the content is about some pretty advanced and amazing science, but it sometimes seems to be written by a bunch of dreaming hippies lol.

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Volt
12/29/09 at 12:46 am

I'm surprised that in the part where they talk about the people who's reputations are on the line they didn't mention the guy who claims to have created the EmDrive..
Controversial as it may be I still want one if it works. And China is currently working on attempting to validate his data. If so, a nobel could be around the corner. If not, well, he's going bankrupt and absolutely no one will remember him, though physicists might use his name as an insult in the future..

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biscit_papa
12/30/09 at 1:26 am

The energy efficiency of a Toyota Camry is rated around 0.28 km/MJ. The energy efficiency of a Tesla Roadster is 1.14 km/MJ (assume electricity generated by natural gas). A 300% increase is not what I would call "marginal improvement".

Please take into account that there is only one way to get oil (invade the Middle East), where there are many ways we can get electricity.

The German, the French, the Japanese, even the Chinese are developing electric cars. It is sad that we have to watch Detroit die. Please, let us not lose our competitive edge.

Personally, I do not trust GM with electric cars. They could easily fail on purpose just to prove it won't work. But it does not matter whether Volt fail or not, because the Mercedes Benz electric, and lots of other electric cars will succeed.

I only ask that they, as businessmen, would make a genuine attempt to meet the demands of the public. In other words, there should not be 50'000 back-orders on electric cars. Just make them already.

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isitontheinside
12/31/09 at 12:08 am

haha! did anyone notice we're gonna be MICROWAVING the little ice we have left!? YESSS!!! if we're gonna do this wrong, let's at least make it catastrophic.

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akcol
12/31/09 at 2:02 am

Hi,
Corey Binns writes, Jan. 2010, (Guide to the Year in Science 2010) "Pfizer recently announced a new drug for osteoarthritis."
Been looking for it - no mention anywhere I can see.
Anybody know this drug?
Thanks,
akcol

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depeiffer
01/04/10 at 12:46 am

@akol
www.wyeth.com/ClinicalTrialListings?query=Osteoarthritis

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richlinds
01/04/10 at 11:46 am

In your article about the airbus A400M, you stated that its counter-rotating propellers on a turboprop were an aviation first. You are incorrect. Do a search on the Russian TU-95 Bear bomber. It was powered by turboprops with counter-rotating propellers in the late 50's and was around for a very long time.

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seamountie
01/06/10 at 3:44 am

Ooops richlinds, ya didn't really read the article did ya.

The article explains the difference between counter-rotating and contra-rotating propellers. The Airbus has counter-rotating props (the engines each have one prop, the two engines on the same side turn in opposite directions) and the Bear has contra-rotating props (all engines have two props that turn in opposite directions)

Its all in the vernacular, y'know.

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ripper23tw
03/09/10 at 11:48 am

Amazing. Is science just cool or what? I mean really.

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Haverox
05/22/10 at 2:22 am

Well I think if a huge company sees the potential for a new "blockbuster drug" that they will pump enough money into the R&D to make it a reality. Even if they aren't making as much money as they used to in a few years if something looks profitable they will just have to play their cards right and make sure they invest in the right drugs. IDK though, just my two cents.
Have Rox
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tonymo
05/27/10 at 2:23 am

every day I receive email from drugs campaign(cialis, viagra, etc.)... with an entire set of offers(SPAM). fitflops

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burak111
07/30/10 at 5:49 pm

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every day I receive email from drugs campaign(cialis, viagra, etc.)... with an entire set of offers(SPAM). fitflops

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bloodyking
09/28/10 at 12:44 am

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holeofdarkness
02/10/11 at 5:37 am

This is not a blatant blog but a cool and informative blog in my opinion.

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