NASA Picks Seven Commercial Spaceships for the Next Generation of Suborbital Science Missions

By Clay Dillow

SpaceShipTwo Courtesy Virgin Galactic

The new post-shuttle NASA has said it aims to work more cooperatively with private space industry and outside sources of innovation in writing the next chapter in space exploration and science, and the agency is putting its money where its mouth is. After selecting 30 future technology proposals for funding earlier this week, NASA has now inked a number of much larger contracts with seven private space companies--including Virgin Galactic--to integrate and fly various technology payloads aboard their suborbital spacecraft.

We single out Virgin because its SpaceShipTwo is the furthest spacecraft along, development-wise, which means it could soon be ferrying scientific payloads into suborbital space, making it the first commercial company to take that role over from NASA in the post-shuttle era. SpaceShipTwo is already undergoing flight tests and could begin commercial operation as soon as next year (though that’s probably optimistic).

That’s a big deal, because it’s a stepping stone toward fulfilling NASA’s vision of opening up space to more scientists and technology developers, and doing it on someone else’s less-expensive spacecraft. And Virgin isn’t the only company with a dog in this hunt: the other companies splitting the $10 million in contracts are Armadillo Aerospace, Near Space Corp., Masten Space Systems, Up Aerospace Inc., Whittinghill Aerospace LLC, and XCOR.

Many of these companies are looking to carry tourists into space, but the overarching idea of the Flight Opportunities Program (that’s the NASA funding initiative) is to cultivate a variety of ways for researchers to get their experiments--manned or unmanned--into space as well. There’s a lot of benefit to be spread around in doing so.

For one, it opens up suborbital space to groups that couldn’t afford it or simply couldn’t make the manifest on prior NASA missions (which were quite selective and pricey per pound of cargo). It also supports the private space industry by opening up another revenue stream for the Virgins and XCORs and Mastens of the world. But perhaps most importantly for NASA it means a proliferation in space science and technology development, and technologies that fall out of this program just might become part of NASA’s next-gen space transportation model.

NIST Scientists Use Microwaves to Quantum-Entangle Two Ions for the First Time

By Clay Dillow

NIST's Microwave Ion Entangler Y. Colombe/NIST

We’re still many years away from the first functioning quantum computer the size of a building, much less the first one the size of a desktop computer or a smartphone, but researchers at the National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST) are already moving toward smaller quantum computing devices. For the first time, physicists there have entangled two ions using microwaves rather than the usual array of laser beams, paving the way for miniaturized, easy-to-commercialize quantum computing technologies.

Quantum computers would leverage the unique properties of the quantum world to solve huge computing problems--problems our best and biggest classical supercomputers can’t cope with. But first we have to gain precise control over those particles, turning them into quantum analogs for our classical computer bits.

Ions are a good candidate for those quantum bits, or “qubits”--the basic building blocks of the quantum computing scheme. And the ability to manipulate ions with microwaves to achieve quantum entanglement--a phenomenon in which the properties of two separated ions become linked (and a central pillar of information storage and transfer in the quantum scheme)--is huge.

Microwaves are already used to carry wireless communications. The technology used to generate and control them is well understood, ubiquitous, and therefore relatively inexpensive. And while there is still a need for an ultraviolet laser to cool and measure the ions in a microwave entanglement setup, it’s a low-power laser that could feasibly be scaled down to the size of those lasers used in portable optical readers like CD or DVD players.

The rest of the technology also packs significantly less bulk. The entire layout described by the NIST researchers in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature is tabletop-size, or roughly one-tenth as big as the usual room-sized “laser park” needed to generate controlled ion entanglement with light. As the technology develops, the team thinks they could scale a microwave device down to the size of a desktop computer, and perhaps someday even a tablet or smartphone device (for a more detailed, technical explanation of how this technology works,click through). Microwaves also demonstrate other quantum computing advantages, like the ability to reduce errors caused by instabilities in laser beams.

But there’s still a long way to go before microwave technology unseats laser tech in the pursuit of practical quantum computing. The NIST team could only achieve entanglement with microwaves about 76 percent of the time. The best laser schemes miss less than one percent of the time.

New Drug Can Treat Almost Any Viral Infection By Killing the Body's Infected Cells

By Rebecca Boyle

Virus Therapy In the left set, rhinovirus (the common cold virus) kills untreated human cells (lower left), whereas DRACO has no toxicity in uninfected cells (upper right) and cures an infected cell population (lower right). Similarly, in the right set, dengue hemorrhagic fever virus kills untreated monkey cells (lower left), whereas DRACO has no toxicity in uninfected cells (upper right) and cures an infected cell population (lower right). MIT

A new broad-spectrum treatment for viruses could be as effective as antibiotics fighting bacteria, MIT researchers report. The method uses cells’ own defense systems to induce invaded cells to commit suicide, preventing the spread of the virus. In lab tests, the new drug completely cured mice that had been infected with influenza.

Viruses work by inserting themselves into a cell and hijacking its machinery for its own use. The invaded cell then creates more copies of the virus, which involves creating long strings of double-stranded RNA — which contains the virus’ genetic material, like DNA contains ours.

When the virus is done copying itself, its hostage cell usually dies, from the virus bursting through its walls (lysis), changes to the cell’s outer membrane, and from apoptosis, or programmed cell death.

Human cells have plenty of defenses against viral invasion, including proteins that attach to the double-stranded RNA, preventing the virus from replicating itself after successful invasion.

This new drug therapy combines those dsRNA proteins with a protein that induces apoptosis. It’s called a DRACO, Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer.

When one end of the DRACO binds to dsRNA, it signals the other end of the DRACO to induce cell suicide, an MIT News article explains. In this way, the cell is killed before the virus can take over and eventually kill it anyway. If there is no dsRNA, the healthy cells are left alone.

“In theory, it should work against all viruses,” said Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory who invented the new technology.

A handful of drugs can target specific viruses by interfering with their replication process, through addition of modified DNA building blocks or the blocking of enzymes the viruses need to stimulate the replication process. But viruses are wily bugs, and they can evolve to resist these treatments.

The DRACO therapy could be effective because it targets the host cell, not just the virus.

Rider and colleagues are testing DRACO against more viruses in mice, according to MIT. Rider hopes to license the technology for trials in larger animals and for eventual human clinical trials, too.

GEOPOLITICAL REDESIGN, OR: A BRIDGE BETWEEN EUROPE AND AFRICA

[Image: A cable car connects Europe and Africa, by Fabio Tozzoli and Eliana Salazar, Bologna (Italy); via Domus].

Back in May, the revitalized Domus magazine asked to see "your ideas for a connection between Africa and Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar," suggesting in the process that the best results might be a "Bridge? Tunnel? Cablecar? Dam? Metropolis? Market? Power plant? Museum? Icon? Prison? Park? Airport?"

Perhaps all (or none) of the above.

[Image: Walking alone through the precarious geopolitical space between Europa and Africa, by Gabriele Garavaglia (Italy); via Domus].

Of course, viewed simply on the level of geography, this is no ordinary crossing. AsDomus points out, "a tunnel would have to overcome engineering challenges far greater than those faced by the Eurotunnel's designers: the water is exponentially deeper (nearly 1 km at the shortest point across the strait, compared with just 70 metres in the English Channel)." A bridge wouldn't be much better, as any such proposal "must take into account the presence of heavy east-west marine traffic, and its piers must be able to withstand ship collisions and high winds." On the other hand, "an underwater 'mountain' exists at the center of the strait's narrowest section," and this "could be used to divide the bridge's span in two"—but, unfortunately, "the location of the crossing coincides with an active fault of the African and the Eurasian tectonic plates."

Even this, though, is well before the harrowing reality of a trans-Mediterranean crossing has been politically improved for so many of those who attempt to make it. Indeed, as one response suggests, there are "a lot of things to think about before building a massive bridge between two different worlds"—indeed, "dialogue is the solution" to international relations around the Mediterranean Sea, not some Herculean piece of half-baked infrastructure.

No matter how you look at it, then, it seems an architectural connection between the continents is not only difficult, it is perhaps impossible.

[Image: The Eurafrican maritime border as "geostrategic platform," by Gabriel Esteban Duque, Juan Miguel Gómez, Maria Isabel González, Medellín (Colombia); via Domus].

However, that's exactly the kind of challenge that design increasingly thrives on, and over the past two months an extraordinary collection of postcards has been arriving at theDomus offices in Milan, responding to this call for ideas. These potential continental connections have fallen into a few dozen categories, including:

21 Islands and archipelagos
10 Ship chains
6 Bridge-cities
6 Red Sea [Biblical partings-of-the-water]
5 Bridges suspended with air ballons
4 Tensile structures
4 Funiculars
4 Tightropes
3 Rainbows
3 Markets
3 Airships
2 Underwater bridges
2 Roller coasters
2 Tunnels
1 No bridge
1 Geoengineering
1 Shopping mall
1 Zebra crossing
1 New continent
1 Swimming Pool

And this still doesn't tally the full run of ideas coming in from all over the world (in fact, you have till 19 July to submit your own). A suite of 300 different responses will be on display starting at 7pm, Thursday, 21 July 2011—with free drinks—at the Gopher Holein London. See the Gopher Hole's website for more info.

[Image: Europe and Africa perhaps sarcastically joined by a bridge of colored balloons, by Pat and Luca Architecture, Melbourne (Australia); via Domus].

One entry in particular, seen here for the first time courtesy of Domus, seems worthy of comment: a new international currency designed by architect Bjarke Ingels of BIG. 100 samples of Bjarke's new infrastructurally-themed currency will be printed on banknote paper and given out at the event, so it's worth stopping by if for no other reason than to collect counterfeit money designed by one of today's most widely recognized architects.

[Images: The 1,000 Afro note by Bjarke Ingels].

These are the 1,000 EURO note and the 1,000 AFRO note.

[Images: A new 1,000 Euro note by Bjarke Ingels].

As BIG explains:

BIG has designed a 1000 EURO bill and a corresponding 1000 AFRO bill as a first proposal for a United African Currency—the AFRO.
The two bills portray the proposed connection across the Gibraltar Strait linking Europe and Africa. The bridge is conceived as an inhabited overpass uniting Euro-African typologies—such as Firenze’s Ponte Vecchio and Le Corbusier's Obus Plan for Algiers—into an intercontinental hybrid of city and infrastructure. The investment in concrete and steel doubles as load-bearing structure for living and working spaces for the many immigrants anticipated over the next decades, and will help establish the bridge itself as a bicontinental city in its own right.
The EURO bill draws on the current design template, emphasizing architecture as the common denominator between the various European cultures.
The AFRO combines great African landmarks—in this case, the bridge—with great African people of recent history who have contributed significantly to making a free united Africa a possibility.

Briefly, I'm reminded of a student project from 2008 called Our New Capitol, by Bryan Boyer. For that project, Boyer asked what sort of congressional meetinghouse would be most appropriate for U.S. governance in the 21st century, but also what that country's currency should look like.

[Image: From Our New Capitol by Bryan Boyer].

Or, of course, there is the famous Dutch architecture coin by Stani Michiel:

[Image: Speculative numismatics by Stani Michiel].

The idea that a nation—or an inter-nation, as it were, formed by a crossing between Europe and Africa—deserves its most representationally accurate currency is a compelling one, as is the idea that architects and designers could start issuing their own banknotes as geopolitical provocations, simply to see what happens next.

Of course, if we're going to take this experiment seriously, then we should perhaps ask why it is worth including one of Bjarke's own earlier buildings on the notes—as you'll see, above, the 1,000 EURO features the VM Houses, designed by Bjarke Ingels and Julien De Smedt—although this is fairly obviously a joke. And, further, I would love to see a 500, 100, 50, etc., AFRO note, simply to rest assured that the architect doesn't really believe this bridge is the single "great African landmark" worthy of monetary representation.

But, putting those criticisms aside, BIG's money is a useful launching point for wondering aloud what we could do, as architects, designers, writers, artists, and more, to rethink the accoutrements of the nation-state, from passports to parking tickets, and thus how we might reconsider, down to the smallest details, how the State, writ large, is understood and presented.

That is, how can we redesign the geopolitical ephemera through which nation-states currently recognize each other, and how might these sorts of peripheral—even frivolous—interventions inspire real constitutional change elsewhere? To put this in spatial terms: what is the architecture of the post-nation-state? And what sorts of infrastructure might the future of governance require? (See, for example, Pier Vittorio Aureli's Brussels: A Manifesto Towards the Capital of Europe for a provocative look at how urban design can help to implement a transnational system of governance such as the European Union).

Altering the order of emphasis here, perhaps it is time to prioritize the wholesale redesign of nation-states as a central problem for the 21st century, whether that means redrawing international (or intranational) borders around natural resources, such as this alternative map of the western U.S. produced by John Wesley Powell—

[Image: A hydrocentric alternative to today's western geopolitical boundaries by John Wesley Powell; see the excellent book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner for more on Powell].

—in which the outer limits of U.S. states are determined not by human demographics but by watersheds. Or perhaps we should more aggressively rethink the future of governance and national validity through such things as literary works—through novels like Paul Auster's Man in the Dark, Rupert Thomsen's Divided Kingdom, or Anna North'sAmerica Pacifica—or even through games, such as the underwhelming and jingoisticHomefront.

More to the point, could we use Domus's Project Heracles to open the door to other, equally radical possibilities for geopolitical redesign; where do these possibilities now most urgently exist (Israel/Palestine? the Bering Strait? the U.S./Mexico border?); and what is the most useful way for architects and designers to catalyze new forms of human governance?

Do we start with counterfeit money or do we build new geographies altogether?

In any case, be sure to stop by the opening party at the Gopher Hole in London on Thursday night—and keep your eye out for Bjarke Ingels's new cash.

INTERPRETATION-BASED SPATIALITY

[Image: A collage of various buildings by Robert Scarano, from photos by Gabrielle Plucknette for the New York Times].

After reading today that a New York appeals court has upheld a ban on architect Robert Scarano, preventing him from practicing in the city, I found this fascinating anecdote published a few months ago about one of the tactics Scarano has used to get his developments cleared by the Department of Buildings. Quoting the New York Times at length:

It’s the summer of 2008. A young couple decides to buy an 800-square-foot apartment in a new condo building on the gentrifying outer edge of a fashionable Brooklyn neighborhood. The buyers go to close on the place, and as they’re signing away half a million dollars, the building’s developer, keeping a wary eye on the hovering lawyers, leans over and whispers something. There’s a second bathroom in the apartment, he says, one that does not appear on the floor plan—its doorway is concealed behind an inconspicuous layer of drywall. At first, the buyers think the developer is kidding. This is before the crash, near the peak of the market, and no one’s giving away a square inch. But the developer says no, he’s dead serious, just look. So a few days after they buy the place, the couple takes a sledgehammer to their wall.

Like something out of House of Leaves—or a kind of architectural Advent calendar, in which various walls are knocked down at specific times of the year to reveal whole new rooms and corridors behind them—the building contained more space than its own exterior had indicated.

Later, the article's author goes on to attend a party in another of Scarano's buildings: "'There’s a secret room,' [the party's host] told me, conspiratorially. Up on the mezzanine level, next to a pair of D.J.’s turntables, he knocked on a wall. It sounded hollow."

I have to admit that this totally blows my mind. Imagine another room within that room whose doorway is also sealed behind drywall—and then other rooms within that room, and further corridors and stairs and entrances. Tap, tap, tap—you navigate by sound, knocking deeper and deeper into an architectural world you only reveal by means of careful deconstruction. Amidst this labyrinth of drywalled rooms, you realize the true extent of your property, which extends so far beyond what you originally thought was your building that you end up, at one point, standing in another zip code.

[Image: The underground city of Derinkuyu].

In a way, I'm reminded of the massive underground city of Derinkuyu, which, as Alan Weisman explains in The World Without Us, was discovered entirely by accident:

No one knows how many underground cities lie beneath Cappadocia. Eight have been discovered, and many smaller villages, but there are doubtless more. The biggest, Derinkuyu, wasn't discovered until 1965, when a resident cleaning the back wall of his cave house broke through a wall and discovered behind it a room that he'd never seen, which led to still another, and another. Eventually, spelunking archeologists found a maze of connecting chambers that descended at least 18 stories and 280 feet beneath the surface, ample enough to hold 30,000 people—and much remains to be excavated. One tunnel, wide enough for three people walking abreast, connects to another underground town six miles away. Other passages suggest that at one time all of Cappadocia, above and below the ground, was linked by a hidden network. Many still use the tunnels of this ancient subway as cellar storerooms.

In any case, for Scarano it was not always about literally hiding extra rooms inside a building; it was often just a matter of using certain words—like basement—instead of others—like cellar—to hide his intentions. For instance, "Scarano tried to build a two-story addition to the roof of [an] old warehouse by transferring floor area from the building’s lowest level, which he planned to convert to parking, to the top of the roof. But the zoning code distinguished between a basement (which is partly above ground, defined as habitable, and therefore counted toward the floor-area ratio) and a cellar (which is underground and uninhabitable). Opponents accused Scarano of trying to finesse the difference, and eventually the Department of Buildings declared the space a cellar. New height limits have been established in the neighborhood, and the partly built addition is coming down."

Or this: Scarano "adapted the zoning rules that applied to warehouse conversions. Under certain circumstances, the code classified loft mezzanines as storage space, not floor area, and Scarano assured developers their new building plans could slip through this loophole."

It's hermeneutics—as if the spatial expansion of whole neighborhoods is really just a graph of certain words used in different contexts. As if vocabulary itself materializes, precipitating out as alternative spatial futures for the city. Indeed, the New York Timeswrites, "in Scarano’s view, the city’s code was a Talmudic document, open to endless avenues of interpretation. Through a variety of arcane strategies, he could literally pull additional real estate out of the air."

I've long been a fan of David Knight and Finn Williams, two London architects with an encyclopedic knowledge of that city's building permissions and zoning codes (I highly recommend their book SUB-PLAN: A Guide to Permitted Development, as well as Knight's recent guest post on Strange Harvest). The following image, taken from that book, is just one example of the type of interpretation-based spatiality so often abused by Scarano.

[Image: From SUB-PLAN: A Guide to Permitted Development by David Knight and Finn Williams].

Whether or not hiding entire rooms behind drywall is part of London's "permitted development" is something we'll have to ask Knight and Williams.

(Thanks to a tip from Nicola Twilley).

SITUATIONIST DRAWING DEVICE

[Image: The "Situationist Drawing Device" by Ji Soo Han and Paul Ornsby].

The "Situationist Drawing Device" is a backpack-sized mechanism for recording the experience of landscape. Designed by Ji Soo Han and Paul Ornsby, and operating by way of mirrors, the Device "records a journey taken in an altered state of perception through drawing." It is an "intermediary and interpretative tool," the designers add, one that stands between the human body and the landscape it exists within and explores.

It is spatial equipment—an optical exoskeleton. Navigational clothing.

[Images: The "Situationist Drawing Device" by Ji Soo Han and Paul Ornsby].

This video shows it at work:



"As each eye retina receives different images, both conditions blur into one and simultaneously alternate—phasing in and out over the other," the designers write. "This blurring effect, as known as retinal rivalry, creates a new perception of the site. The device was initially adapted from the pseudoscope (Greek, false view) which is a binocular instrument that reverses depth perception. The idea of reversing left and right eye vision was adapted to reverse forward and backward vision."

You advance by looking backward, walking into layered optical phantoms of the place you've left behind. It is both mnemonic and projective.

[Images: The "Situationist Drawing Device" by Ji Soo Han and Paul Ornsby].

The key detail, though, is that the backpack also registers, through drawing, your experience of wearing it; a small, Iron Man-like disc (see opening image) on the user's back serves both to house and to produce those vaguely seismological sketches. It is a mystical drawing pad for upstart Situationists.

[Images: The "Situationist Drawing Device" by Ji Soo Han and Paul Ornsby].

The device later inspired Han to design a project called the "Scrap Metal Refinery," a few images of which appear here.

[Images: The "Scrap Metal Refinery" by Ji Soo Han].

That proposes a bridge that would stride across its own curved shadows and reflections, which are meant to be seen as a form of spatial notation, the structure registering itself in the landscape.

[Images: The "Scrap Metal Refinery" by Ji Soo Han].

For my money, the device is the stronger of the two projects, recalling the introductory essay written by CJ Lim for an edited collection of student work produced at the Bartlett School of Architecture, Devices: A Manual of Architectural + Spatial Machines. Quoting at length:

Devices have shared a long and complex history with architecture. The machines of Vitruvius and Leonardo da Vinci were devised in times of peace and war for both the construction and destruction of the built form. Today, kinetic intelligent systems are incorporated into building facades for environmental and aesthetic control. The device, however, has simultaneously followed a parallel trajectory—the Victorians invented a proliferation of devices, often ingenious, rarely of much practical use; Heath Robinson's contraptions displayed the absurd length to which devices were invented to satisfy our convenience and curiosity; his illustrations, sometimes carrying satirical and political overtones, are best remembered for their humor. Similarly, many of today's devices no longer perform quotidian practical tasks but are the results of artistic endeavor and are housed in galleries and museums.

The "Situationist Drawing Device" is what happens when an unironic Vitruvian sensibility is crossed with the willful absurdity of Situationist urban exploration, by way of mirrors and pens: an unfeasibly complicated piece of clothing through which the experience of built space is memorably upended.

Read a bit more at Ji Soo Han's website.