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Παρασκευή 18 Μαΐου 2012

The Atlantis Myth;



One of the most ancient sunken cities, just minutes from South Pantanassa in Laconia, digitally recreated through the potential of technology. A port, houses with gardens, clothes spread out on the yards, streets and squares, create a city with elements of the urban lifestyle. Only here talking about the Bronze Age! The Pavlopetri was a city with excellent layout, which included a very well constructed roads.Independent and non-dwellings up to two storeys, coexisted with public buildings. What impresses is the complex system of water management in line with the findings contained channels and gutters. "There is no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world," said Dr. John Henderson, a professor of underwater archeology at the University of Notinncham.Afta discovered that surpassed all expectations. They found a city with buildings, squares, streets and monuments. The bottom is filled with scattered vessels. In the same area and found a large building, 35 meters long, which probably was the seat and residence of the political leadership of the city 'scientists are trying to find the answer to the question why the city sank. There are three theories. The first is that gradually rose, the sea level, the second otiypochorise the soil and third tsunami that sank.

images from Mars


Valles Marineris Explorer – using a robotic swarm to explore Mars

15 May 2012
Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the Solar System and a potential refuge for extraterrestrial life, is 7000 metres deep and stretches for some 4000 kilometres along the Martian equator. But this complex terrain of mountains, gorges, canyons and caverns can only be explored efficiently and cost-effectively using a swarm of airborne and ground units. The Valles Marineris Explorer project is jointly funded by the Space Administration of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the German state of Bavaria, and involves researchers from Technische Universität Braunschweig, the DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation and Technische Universität München. Conducting simulations and practical experiments on Earth, this project aims to devise navigation solutions to enable such a robotic swarm to search for life deep in the craters and canyons of another planet.


View from an imaginary point above the adjacent highland across the central Valles Marineris from south to north. The three central valleys – Melas Chasma, Candor Chasma Searching for life in Valles Marineris

The Valles Marineris canyon on Mars is an interesting exploration target; the deep breaks in the Martian crust offer new insights into the geological history of the Red Planet and, possibly, prospects for finding extraterrestrial life. Spacecraft only image areas visible from orbit, so they are not suitable for finding evidence of microorganisms. Semi-autonomous rovers, which have been used on the surface for some time now, can only explore easily accessible areas with no large obstacles. "But these places are of rather limited interest in the search for extraterrestrial life on Mars. If life did develop on Mars billions of years ago, it could only have survived in protected niches, because the environmental conditions have since become hostile to life. The deep chasms in Valles Marineris represent such a biological niche. The atmospheric pressure in such places may even be high enough for pools of water to exist – the ideal habitat for microorganisms, as we know from Earth. These places, which are hard to get to, can only be explored with any efficiency by a robotic swarm," says Oliver Funke, leader of the DLR Space Administration elements of the project.
Exploration with a robotic swarm
The key technologies for dependable position finding with a swarm of airborne devices and rovers that do not rely on an infrastructure must first be researched and tested on Earth. This has potential for other uses, such as navigation underground or during search and rescue operations in regions devastated by catastrophes. But what form might such a mission scenario take? A swarm is despatched from a base station to the target area. Upon arrival, it will need to navigate through the unknown terrain autonomously, reliably and accurately. Potential obstacles will need to be detected and bypassed or flown over. The individual elements of the robotic swarm will need to be able to locate one another in order to orientate themselves while they are exploring the target area by means of cameras, laser scanners and measuring instruments. These two tasks are being combined into a compact navigation solution, under the leadership of Technische Universität Braunschweig.
"While the airborne elements will survey large areas quickly and generate a map, the rovers will explore the mapped area and any objects of interest in detail. The orientation of the rovers will be improved by the better view from the airborne elements and the knowledge of their positional relationships. This can be extremely helpful both in the Valles Marineris on Mars and for catastrophes on Earth," says Funke, explaining the benefit of swarm navigation. Street maps quickly become useless for logistical purposes in a city devastated by an earthquake, because of the rubble. In this event, accessible routes for heavy machinery need to be found quickly.
As soon as all the swarm elements are in place, a communication network used to transmit the data acquired about difficult terrain to all the swarm elements is established. The DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation is working on the technical solutions for this swarm communication and cooperation, and is building a Mars scenario simulator. The network established by the swarm provides redundancy for the exploration and data transfer as well as in the event of failure of individual swarm elements – but if several systems fail, these faults must be compensated for. Technische Universität München is working on this challenge, as well as flight control and optical navigation.
Fast, autonomous navigation in difficult terrain

But a large number of technological challenges will need to be solved before an airborne device can be used on Mars. Due to the lack of systems such as GPS or Galileo there, an airborne device has to rely on the terrain and on a limited number of onboard sensors for navigation. "Airborne devices will need to use the data acquired immediately for flight control, so navigation must operate substantially more autonomously than with the NASA Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. It takes 40 minutes for a radio signal to travel from Earth to Mars and back, so remote control via telemetry is out of the question. The airborne device must therefore be capable of exploring independently," says Funke. At the moment, there are large gaps in our capabilities for exploring other planets; the partners in the Valles Marineris Explorer project are looking to close these gaps.and Ophir Chasma, each around 200 kilometres wide – can be seen running parallel to one another. Candor Chasma is visible in the foreground, with Ophir Chasma behind. The steep cliffs in the background and the centre of the image are around 5000 metres high and show traces of intensive erosion; the remnants of massive landslides can be seen at the foot of the cliff wall. It is unclear how this massive structure was formed.

video 3d

FINE




B-2 Stealth Bomber Red Flag 09-2


SUPER CARS








Aston Martin has carved out its own niche in today’s automotive market thanks to its flagship vehicle, the DBS. While everyone loves a good supercar, their low ground clearance means they’re not always practical in markets with poor road conditions, like China, Russia, and India. That’s why Aston Martin has decided to bring the Lagonda nameplate back from extinction and relaunch it with a portfolio that will consist almost entirely of high-end SUVs.
The original design of the Lagonda SUV first debuted back at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show to little praise, but that didn’t phase the British automaker. Ulrich Bez, CEO of Aston Martin, has hinted that an updated Lagonda concept is due out “in the coming year.” Another Lagonda model, a sedan, has already been hinted at being a reality too.
Aston Martin isn’t the only super car maker to enter the SUV realm in the face of a recovering economy. Lamborghini and Bentley have also recently unveiled its own interpretation of an SUV to the public. Bentley’s EXP 9 F SUV concept was met mostly with public chaffing while Lambo’s  Urus SUV can’t go into production soon enough. Bentley has decided to push its new SUV into production later this year while the Urus won’t see the light of day until 2017.
So why are all of these globally known luxury automakers turning to robust SUVs to boost sales? The global economy has placed its figurative hand tightly around the supercar sales figurative throat and consequently, vehicles over $150,000 have seen sales drop.
This is good news though for super luxury automakers as it tests the open and unforeseen waters of the SUV market. Consumers shopping for a supercar with a matching price tag still have options but they now come in a larger form. Porsche has already seen what happens when you put together a solid product that’s priced competitively in the form of the Cayenne. Lamborghini, Bentley, and now Aston Martin can only hope to imitate the Cayenne when their SUV models hit the open market in the next few years.


Read more: http://blogs.automotive.com/aston-martin-reviving-lagonda-brand-to-boost-suv-sales-in-china-94773.html#ixzz1vA9p1jhc