Varinder Singh’s Blog

Yesterday the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched a H-2A rocket carrying the satellite Kizuna from the southern island of Tanegashima, about 620 miles south of Tokyo. Kinzuna is an experimental satellite which is hoped to enable data transmission of up to 1.2 gigabits per second at a low cost across Japan and in 19 different locations in South-East Asia. Kinzuna is expected to undergo 100 tests whilst in orbit including H.D TV tests. Jaxa has not yet sent a manned rocket to the moon but hopes to do so by 2025.

Earlier this week the U.S fired a missile to disable a toxic out of control Spy-Satellite (USA 193) which was plumeting towards earth. The main concern was that If the tank were to have landed intact, it could have leaked toxic gas over a wide area - harming or killing humans if inhaled, officials had warned.

With such a high profile mission concerning plummeting satellites and missiles it was more than likely to attract criticism and concern from Russia & China. China called on the U.S to provide more information about the mission whilst Russia accused the U.S of using the mission as an opportunity to test out it’s new arsenal of anti-satellite technology under the U.S missile defence programme.

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Gamers will have to add yet another new gadget to Christmas wishlists this year as the Emotiv Epoc Neuroheadset comes out. The neuro-headset interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain allowing interactions with a virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone. The brain is made up of about 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, which emit an electrical impulse when interacting. The headset implements a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) to read the neural activity.

The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate it to the avatar in game. It can also read emotions of players and translate those to the virtual world. “The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games,”Emotiv is working with IBM to develop the technology for uses in “strategic enterprise business markets and virtual worlds”. Emotiv has also recieved much interest from various other industries. It won’t be long before this technology will be used in vehicals.

How it works

- Sensors respond to the electrical impulses behind different thoughts; enabling a user’s brain to influence gameplay directly.
- Conscious thoughts, facial expressions, and non-conscious emotions can all be detected.
- Gyroscope enables a cursor or camera to be controlled by head movements.
- The headset uses wi-fi to connect to a computer.

Last night as usual I was reading up on news within the aviation industry and page by page growing sleepy until something caught my eye. Virgin Galactic. No, it’s not a new brand of Cola but an absolutely amazing service starting in 2009. The official website says:

“Virgin Galactic is the world’s first spaceline. Giving you the groundbreaking opportunity to become one of the first ever non-professional astronauts. Virgin Galactic will own and operate its privately built spaceships, modelled on the remarkable, history-making SpaceShipOne.”

At first I thought Virgin must be pulling my leg but it all seems to be legitimate. The aircrafts - sorry spaceships are being built by Burt Rutan (a well known name within the industry, he’s also on TED). However, as of yet they have not provided much information on job opportunities. Would the aircraft be manned or unmanned? How many crew members will it require? As for fitness I’m speculating the requirements for the position of pilot would be higher than the CAA’s class 1 certificate. I’ve requested some clarification from Virgin about this. After all, like NASA they may only employ ex-airforce personnelle.

Whilst browsing TED I came across a presentation by Burt Rutan. He talks about some very interesting opportunities that are opening up in the space industry. Check it out below.

Today I’ve been making paper aeroplanes. I’ve never been able to make decent paper planes but today with a big smile I can say that I’ve succeeded!

I present to you the standard Dragon paper airplane.

This plane is absolutely fabolous! Just hold it about 1/4 of its length from the nose tip and throw it overarm as hard as possible where you want it to go and it will slice through the air and get there. Alter the trajectory of the paper airplane and you can make it dive out of the sun towards people or fall vertically down on their heads nose first. Of course you should be very careful not to hit anyone with this paper airplane because you may poke their eye out (as I nearly found out)!

I decided to nickname my plane the V.1 Kamikaze due to it’s sudden nose dive, twist and nose first hit.

(Note the split nose. This is what happens when you become careless when folding.)

Under the plane.

I think the key is to keep the surface area wide and have weight towards the front of the plane. The weight at the front provides the plane with stability when going through the air. The large surface area helps keep the plane in the air when projected from the hand. The instructions of this plane can be found at paperairplanes.co.uk. Click here for a video showing you how to make this airplane.

This week I have joined a very noble organisation called Sikhcess. Sikhcess launched in January 2007 with the aim of promoting the basic Sikh principles of public service, sharing, community, inclusiveness, and equality for humankind. Sikhcess is involved in numerous charitable community efforts in hopes of making this world a better place, one small step at a time.

Sikhcess has launched various compaigns. The most successful has been the ‘Feed the Homeless’ campaign initially aimed to deliver 15,000 food packages to Vancouver’s homeless population within 12 months. The entire Sikh community rallied behind the program in Vancouver, and within only 9 short months, more than 20,000 packages had been delivered to the streets of the city. In less than 12 months, the Sikhcess ‘Feed the Homeless’ campaign had already delivered more than 70,000 food packages throughout the United States and Canada.

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