The USAF brass are dreaming about space war again. Having (mostly) rejected the idea of just destroying enemy satellites, the new plan is to hijack their steering systems, using a “parasitic attitude control system,” or PACS. This little gremlin will attach itself to the target, and either run it out of fuel (rendering it useless), thrash it around until bits drop off, realign it for use by friendly forces or move it for safe destruction or capture.

Space exploration requires resources. But not only that, the resources need to be accessible. The NASA engineers believe that orbital ‘filling stations’ that can refuel spacecraft with liquid hydrogen and oxygen are required if interplanetary missions are to become truly viable. I wonder if there’ll be a franchise deal available – the first burger joint in space is sure to follow.

You don’t have to be a government or a telco to launch a satellite these days. The Russians are participating in a project that allows universities and private companies to put their devices into orbit for a budget price. The ‘Cubesats’ are kit-built 10cm cubes; 14 of them are set to be launched from Baikonur on June 28th. Still not a cheap gig, though – the launch costs each satellite maker a cool $40,000.

The big names in computer processors have remained fairly static for some time, but there could well be a new competitor moving into the spotlight. The scientific computation community is getting very excited about the Cell processor, designed for the forthcoming Playstation 3. Research seems to indicate vastly superior performance in certain configurations, compared to other architectures. There’s more info on the Cell (for serious bit-heads) at Wikipedia.

The logistics of watching a large expanse of ground with a surveillance drone are tricky; you either use many cameras (expensive) or just one (poor coverage). Or at least that was the case until an inventor filed a new patent for a way to mimic a natural human eye behaviour (‘saccade motion’) using two cameras – one to watch a broad area and the other to rapidly zoom in on any motion in that area.