Could this be the beginning of more green space programs? Next month, Japan is launching a spacecraft propelled by solar sails in deep space. The Ikaros, as the ship has been christened, will take to the skies on May 18, 2010. Ikaros means “Kite-accelerated interplanetary spacecraft by radiation from the sun.” The name is also a reference to the Greek myth of Icarus, a young man, with his father Daedalus, attempted to escape Crete by exile in the configuration of the wings of feathers and wax.

According to myth, Icarus flew too near the sun and heat melted the wax of his wings, making it to plummet to death. We certainly hope the spacecraft Ikarus meet a happier fate when the rocket takes off from the Tanegashima Space Center. Its creators call a yacht Ikaros space. ” 46 foot candles are thinner than human hair, but that will drive the ship, taking the pressure of light particles from the sun colliding with candles. The Ikarus is also equipped with solar panels to generate electricity.

“Solar sails are a technology that realizes space travel without fuel, we have sunlight,” said Agency of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spokesman Yuichi Tsuda. “The availability of electricity would enable us to sail further and more effectively in the solar system.” Solar sails have been tested in vacuum chambers by NASA in the past, but the agency failed to deploy this technology successfully.

If successful, the Ikarus will be the first spacecraft to use solar sails in space as a primary method of propulsion. This has cost JAXA spacecraft ¥ 1,500,000,000 (about $ 16 million) to build. The rocket also carried into space the first satellite launch in Japan of Venus. Plans for the future of JAXA could also include sending a robot to the moon by 2015 and the creation of a personal robot moon base by 2020 at a cost of 200 billion yen ($ 2,000,000,000) from here 2020.

By way of comparison, the Apollo project cost was $ 25,400,000,000, as reported in 1973 (that’s about 175 billion U.S. dollars now), and President George HW Bush’s era, the proposed NASA mission 400 billion dollars to Mars in 1989. the future of NASA lunar mission costs is projected at 104 billion U.S. dollars over 13 years in 2005. Other missions proposed low-cost lunar costs have been estimated at about $ 10 billion. Congratulations to JAXA to create an alternative economic resources and relatively easy to conventional methods of space exploration. We look forward to hearing more about the mission

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Solar sails do not need fuel, 100 years ago, humans had this idea, but the lack of strong lightweight materials and can be extended a large area but did not materialize. “Ikaros” solar Toshiba laptop battery sail for the side length of 14 meters square, only 0.0075 millimeters thick, able to withstand the space environment from the polyimide resin, weighing about 15 kilograms.

As the polyimide resin is usually yellow, sails need to spray the surface of aluminum foil to enhance the performance of the reflection of sunlight. “Ikaros” in order to sail solar particles hit surface resulting from the reaction as the driving force, by VGP-BPS8 adjusting the sail surface and the sun’s angle control speed and trajectory. The researchers also plan to “Ikaros” about 5% of the surface, installation of thin-film solar cells for the future development of ion engines and hybrid solar sail spacecraft to explore Jupiter’s technical reserves.

Solar sails would be rolled in diameter and 1.6 meters, 1 meter high cylinder-type body on the spacecraft launched into space a few weeks later by the centrifugal force generated by rotating the spacecraft launch. First, the pilot VGP-BPS9 solar power solar sails can be achieved, followed by six months to test their ability to use the sun as a driving force for particle acceleration and orbit, in order to accumulate data for future applications.

U.S. Planetary Society in 2001 has created a solar sail spacecraft testing, but the rocket failed. The association plans to launch by the end of 2010 new solar sail spacecraft, “light sail on the 1st laptop battery.” The European Space Agency is also under study solar sails. If the “Ikaros” trial is successful, will set a precedent in the history of human spaceflight.

Affected by natural conditions, geographical and environmental constraints, the impact of global warming on Japan is much larger than other developed countries DSLR Battery Grip, Digital Camera Battery. To this end, the Japanese established a public participation mechanism for response to climate warming, from the consciousness and the technical level to promote energy conservation, new energy development schemes.

According to the findings, if not to curb global warming, the 21st century, Japan’s maximum temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius throughout the year the number of days will increase to two to three times the current. Temperatures also resulted in rising sea levels, while the Japanese coastal city of about half of the population concentrated in the country.

Affected by rising temperatures, the Japanese famous “Koshihikari” rice for 50 years, will cut 10 percent, while rice dysplasia, quality will fall. Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate is low, climate warming on the world’s major grain producing area, especially for the Asian monsoon Canon EOS 450D Battery Grip with the impact of food production, there is a greater fluctuations in food production will affect food security in Japan. Global warming, sea temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide into the seawater but also in seawater floating plants and animals, as well as fish, shellfish and other potential impact.

The 20th century, 70’s two oil crises prompted the building of energy-efficient countries, Japan has taken the pace, but now a growing number of Japanese people understand that reducing energy consumption is still the main way of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Japanese to buy something, we will repeatedly purchase products are more energy-efficient. Buy a car, many people tend to fuel-efficient small cars; to buy electrical appliances, they would rather the price slightly expensive, they must also select energy-efficient. Japanese companies Canon EOS 500D Battery Grip have also attached great importance to the development of energy-saving technologies, and constantly introduce new in the field of energy-saving products. At present, the vast majority of air-conditioning electricity consumption in Japan and 10 years ago has declined by 50% to 70%.

In the throttle at the same time, Japan also tried open source. At present, Japan is accelerating the development of renewable energy, reduce oil, coal and other fossil fuel usage. For example, the main hydrogen as fuel in the domestic fuel cell cogeneration system has entered ordinary Japanese homes. It is estimated that a group of fuel cell can make a family’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 40%.

Japan’s solar capacity ranked second in the world after Germany, the world’s tenth column of wind generating capacity. The use of bio-fuels in power generation has also made rapid development in Japan has reached 100 percent utilization of waste paper pulp, wood processing waste utilization reached Canon EOS 1000D Battery Grip 90%, livestock manure utilization of 80%.

In addition, Japan is also actively developing carbon dioxide recovery technology. Japan’s industrial technology research institutions, the Earth’s environment since 2003 the city of Nagaoka in Niigata pressure of carbon dioxide into the 1,100 meters underground aquifer tests in 2005 has been successfully pressed a 1 million tonnes of carbon into the ground, equivalent to 2500 cars a year emissions of carbon dioxide.

Settled in large-scale amorphous silicon thin-film battery project Cixi

From Zhejiang Ci to Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd. invested 10 megawatt amorphous silicon thin-film battery project settled in Hangzhou Bay New District, held a signing ceremony yesterday morning. Ministry of Science and party members, “Science and Technology Daily” News Agency ZHANG Jing, national strategic high-tech Program (863 Program) Expert Advisory Group consultants Ma Junru attended the Nikon D40 Battery Grip signing ceremony.

The project is the State Science and Technology, Ministry of Finance and other departments in 2006 promulgated “China’s high-tech products directory” listed in the project, a national advocate and encourage the green renewable resource industries, with a total investment of 21.76 million U.S. dollars, is expected to be completed and commissioned after the end of the year annual output of 10 MW of amorphous silicon thin film photovoltaic cells of large glass, the annual sales income can create 50 million U.S. dollars. Settled in this project also means that in order to Hangzhou Bay New District to build wind power generation equipment, solar photovoltaic cells, etc., represented by the green energy R & D, manufacturing base to enter the substantial start-up phase.

After the signing ceremony, also held a New Energy and Industrial Vision and Nikon D40X Battery Grip Application Conference, from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Nankai University professor on the development and application of new energy sources gave a special lecture.