Star Energy Share Discussion Threads

[mark hollick] 27/11/2008 15:09

Hammy, are you referring to the coloured balls you'd have gone for, or the people and what they were wearing?


Those Thai women aren't as yellow as they look you know.

and as for the chap in Blue.....


Cheers.


Rupes.

[scuba doo] 27/11/2008 14:39

You certainly seem to know your onions, Hammy ....

[hammy_davies_snr] 27/11/2008 14:33

I would have gorn for teh yellow and screwed back for teh green and blue mesen.


vbrs


A. Higgins.

[scuba doo] 27/11/2008 14:28

LOL!

No, I'm happy to keep it on there.

I note you're showing off with the old TAG watch once again though ....

[mark hollick] 27/11/2008 10:48

P.S.

I had a qick game with the mayor of Pattaya after.

Me and him, we're very fond of each other.


Rupes.

[mark hollick] 27/11/2008 10:46

Morning morning.

Scuba, I wondered if this was good enough to get me on here..

Myself casually playing pool with my very good friend Steve.




I'll remove it if asked to.

Rupert.

[scuba doo] 26/11/2008 23:12

I'd be happy to put a picture up in the header if you like - as long as it's not too big and doesn't over shadow Shane in anyway.

Well, I must say ... it's nice to see the old STAR thread ticking along.

[mark hollick] 01/8/2008 07:16

Breaking news, right here.....


Shane Richie is to 'star' in the new version of 'Minder' on channel five.

You'd have thought that Scuba would, or could have broken this news, but maybe they've lost contact?


Regards,


Mark.

[scuba doo] 09/6/2008 22:35

LOL! (real one)

You're as go as your word, I'll say that for you.


She was a tidy boiler - I can understand why we all used to wear it now !

[call-logger] 09/6/2008 22:09

By request

call-logger - 9 Jun'08 - 21:02 - 376 of 379 edit

Scube

My mum was doing Spanish classes in Chiswick with the Hai Karate bird last year. Looking at the photos, you'd want to remember her as she was then IMO.

Then



Now

[waldron] 19/4/2008 08:14

Ion engine enters space race
By Helen Briggs
Science reporter, BBC News



Engineer Neil Wallace peers into a huge vacuum chamber designed to replicate - as far as possible - the conditions of space.

Cryogenic pumps can be heard in the background, whistling away like tiny steam engines.

Using helium gas as a coolant, they can bring down the temperature in the vacuum chamber to an incredibly chilly 20 Kelvin (-253C). The pressure, meanwhile, can drop to a millionth of an atmosphere.

This laboratory in a leafy part of Hampshire is where defence and security firm Qinetiq develops and tests its ion engines - a technology that will take spacecraft to the planets, powered by the Sun.

Ion engines are an "electric propulsion system". They make use of the fact that a current flowing across a magnetic field creates an electric field directed sideways to the current.

This is used to accelerate a beam of ions (charged atoms) of xenon away from the spacecraft, thereby providing thrust.

Neil Wallace, technical lead of the electrical propulsion team at Qinetiq, winds open the door of the testing chamber.


The most exciting time for us will be when that space craft comes over the horizon
Neil Wallace, Qinetiq

He points to some large metal blocks at the bottom of the chamber.

"These are the xenon pumps and these are cooled down by the helium compressors to approximately 20 degrees Kelvin," he explains.

"So any gas atoms that strike those panels, they freeze. After you've been running the engines for a number of hours you can see a frost - it looks like snow - which is actually frozen air and xenon."

During testing, the engine fires ions towards the opposite end of the chamber, which has a protective coating of graphite.

"The ions are travelling very fast, at approximately 50km a second," he says.

"When they strike the other end of the chamber, they actually knock atoms off the surfaces they strike; it's analogous to sand-blasting on an atomic level."

Cruise control

The ion engine developed by Qinetiq, the T5, will be flown for the first time on the European Space Agency's Goce spacecraft. The mission will fly just 200-300km above the Earth, mapping the tiny variations in its gravity field.


GOCE - EUROPE'S GRAVITY EXPLORER
1. The 1,100kg Goce is built from rigid materials and carries fixed solar wings. The gravity data must be clear of spacecraft 'noise'
2. Solar cells produce 1,300W and cover the Sun-facing side of Goce; the near side (as shown) radiates heat to keep it cool
3. The 5m-by-1m frame incorporates fins to stabilise the spacecraft as it flies through the residual air in the thermosphere
4. Goce's accelerometers measure accelerations that are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth
5. The UK-built engine ejects xenon ions at velocities exceeding 40,000m/s; Goce's mission will end when the 40kg fuel tank empties
6. S Band antenna: Data downloads to the Kiruna (Sweden) ground station. Processing, archiving is done at Esa's centre in Frascati, Italy
7. GPS antennas: Precise positioning of Goce is required, but GPS data in itself can also provide some gravity field information



A replica of the T5 engine sits in the test facility at Qinetiq. It is tiny - weighing 3kg, and looks rather like the oil filter of a car.

Yet despite this humble appearance, it took 20 to 30 years to develop, at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.

In space, ion engines will draw electric power from solar panels, generating a thrust equivalent to the weight of a postcard.

This incredibly gentle thrust could, in theory, take a spacecraft beyond our Solar System, if sustained for long enough.

Goce is staying very close to Earth, flying in an ultra-low orbit, where it will encounter wisps of air.

The benefit of an ion engine on this mission is to provide drag compensation, or cruise control.

"This spacecraft is [travelling] at a speed of about eight and a half kilometres per second," says Neil Wallace.

"As it travels around the Earth, it's going through the upper atmosphere and it experiences a buffeting.

"They need to compensate that buffeting very accurately and that's what we're doing, so we're actually providing cruise control for that spacecraft."

Real flight

Various types of ion engine have been used before on only a handful of space missions, including Smart-1, the European mission to the Moon, and Nasa's Deep Space 1, which flew by a comet.

Future Esa missions such as BepiColombo, bound for the innermost planet, Mercury, will also use the technology.

Qinetiq gets to test its T5 engine for real this summer, when Goce is launched from the Russian space port of Plesetsk. It will go up on the same type of rocket that failed three years ago, destroying Europe's Cryosat ice mission.

Neil Wallace says the nature of the space business makes watching any launch a dramatic event.

"You spend 10 years working on a mission, treating the components and equipment like a newborn baby. You never take it out of the clean room, and then you put in on the top of 100 tonnes of high explosive and set light to it," he says, laughing nervously.

"But no, the most exciting time for us will be when that spacecraft comes over the horizon and the ground station picks it up, and you can see the engines are doing what we've always said they will do."

Hear more about Goce and its ion engines in Science In Action on the BBC World Service this Friday, 18 April, at 0930 GMT. (Check World Service schedules for alternative broadcast times)

Story from BBC NEWS:


Published: 2008/04/17 12:09:30 GMT

[old tom howard] 08/4/2008 13:58

Who left this bu99er lying around?

[peter peters] 03/4/2008 12:16

LOL!

Oh ye of little faith Wallace.

Surely a man of your calibre could have given him the old left right body punch, followed up with a left hook to the temple and a kick in the nadgers.

Then you could have moved onto the prince..

[wal footrot] 03/4/2008 00:15

took the dog out the other day in windsor great park

a small indian looking kid came towards us on a bike. me being the gentle soul i am told him in no uncertain terms that he ought not be riding on the bridal path, or thereabouts, and that he really ought stick to the paved roads as per the instructions outlined at the gates

he shouted (along the lines of) 'no thanks squire, i'll do what i like'

trundling along behind him was a rather good looking lady, hanging off the arm of a rotund indian looking gentleman who told me in no uncertain terms to stop shouting at his kid.

1 double take later and i (fortunately before starting a reply) realised it was none other than a fat prince naseem hamed.

i reckon i could have outrun him for about 3-4 mins but if he had any latent fitness under the seal blubber i would have been a dead man

have you been training him, russ?

[michaelg1] 28/3/2008 09:08

I was once at Zante airport and on teh plane with a chuckle brother (teh bigger of teh 2). He was wearing some sort of black shellsuit.

[waldron] 26/3/2008 18:49

New entry in space tourism industry




LOS ANGELES (AP) - A California aerospace company plans to enter the
space tourism industry with a two-seat rocket ship capable of suborbital flights
to altitudes more than 37 miles above the Earth.
The Lynx, about the size of a small private plane, is expected to begin
flying in 2010, according to developer Xcor Aerospace, which planned to release
details of the design at a news conference Wednesday.
The company also said that, pending the outcome of negotiations, the Air
Force Research Laboratory has awarded it a research contract to develop and test
features of the Lynx. No details were released.
Xcor's announcement comes two months after aerospace designer Burt Rutan and
billionaire Richard Branson unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, which is being
built for Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism company and may begin test
flights this year.
Xcor intends to be a spaceship builder, with another company operating the
Lynx and setting prices.
The Lynx is designed to take off from a runway like a normal plane, reach a
top speed of Mach 2 and an altitude of 200,000 feet, then descend in a circling
glide to a runway landing.
Shaped something like a bulked-up version of the Rutan-designed Long-EZ
home-built aircraft, its wings will be located toward the rear of the fuselage,
with vertical winglets at the tips.
Powered by clean-burning, fully reusable, liquid-fuel engines, the Lynx is
expected to be capable of making several flights a day, Xcor said.
"We have designed this vehicle to operate much like a commercial aircraft,"
Xcor Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason said in a statement.
Greason said the Lynx will provide affordable access to space for
individuals and researchers, and future versions will offer improved
capabilities for research and commercial uses.
Rich Pournelle, Xcor's director of business development, said initial
testing of the Lynx will be conducted at the Mojave Airport north of Los
Angeles.
Xcor is also negotiating with various spaceports to set up franchises, "and
New Mexico is at the top of the list, based on the significant financial
commitment the state has made towards the spaceport," he said.
A planned $198 million Spaceport America complex would cover 27 square miles
near southern New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, where the U.S. launched
its first rocket after World War II.
Xcor has spent nine years developing rocket engines in a facility down the
flight line from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC at the Mojave Airport. It has
built and flown two rocket-powered aircraft.
Virgin's SpaceShipTwo is being developed on the success of SpaceShipOne,
which in 2004 became the first privately funded, manned rocket to reach space,
making three flights to altitudes between 62 miles and 69 miles and winning the
$10 million Ansari X Prize.
Powered by a hybrid engine -- the gas nitrous oxide combined with rubber as
a solid fuel -- SpaceShipTwo will be flown by two pilots and carry up to six
passengers who will pay about $200,000 apiece for the ride.
Like its predecessor, SpaceShipTwo will be taken aloft by a carrier airplane
and then released before firing its rocket engine. Virgin Galactic says
passengers will experience about 4 1/2 minutes of weightlessness and will be
able to unbuckle themselves to float in the cabin before the craft returns to
Earth as an unpowered glider.
Xcor's Lynx also is intended to return as a glider but with the capability
of restarting its engine if needed.

[dale gribble] 13/3/2008 15:01

I think we have a winner!


LoL!!!