Hi. The posts here will be about my experiences. I have varied interests from swimming to reading Fortune magazine.
These first few blogs are going to share my experiences at the U.S. Space Academy in Huntsville, Alabama. It was an amazing experience, and it was all thanks to Congressman David Wu's Education Opportunity scholarship. The link to that website is here: http://education-opportunity.com/
Below is the essay I wrote that won me the scholarship. Out of four topics, I choice one that asked me to describe in detail a futuristic object or piece of equipment that we may see some day, how it works, and how it will help humanity, Earth, and the era of space exploration.
Piezoelectric Bubble
Unless we can clean up our act on Earth, Mars looks like the next step for humanity. By no means will colonizing Mars be a routine task. Many road blocks stand in our way. One of these impediments is an energy source.
Employing the concepts of piezoelectric energy, scientists and engineers could create an ingenious device. A “bubble” would surround a colonist city. It would consist of three layers: the outside layer of a glutinous and flexible substance, the second layer a strong metal with channels of an electricity-conducting metal, and the third, an amalgamation of plastic and rubber shielding the citizens from the energy produced. At the apex of the bubble, a metal rod would sit between the first and second layers, gathering all the energy and allocating it to the necessary locations.
The Martian wind is constantly blowing, and the location of the city would be no exception. The outside layer of the bubble would be a substance that is capable of creating piezoelectric energy. The wind would blow onto this first layer, compressing it between the minute distance between it and the second layer. The result: energy is created. This energy is channeled into the electricity-conducting portions of the second layer. Each of these “roads” would lead up to the apex rod, handing control of the energy over to the “brains” of the bubble, and hence providing energy to the city.
If the Martian wind is blowing with too much gusto, the first layer would have to be pushed away from the second by a mechanism to ensure that the production can continue smoothly. Also, the first layer would have to be replaced at some point, or be rendered useless.
Perfecting this idea would solve some of the energy problems for colonists and Earthlings alike.
