Carnival of Space #47 Plus Exciting Bonus Topics

The Martian Chronicles hosts the 47th Carnival of Space (via NextBigFuture). This look at why the inflatable Bigelow space station may be a big improvement over the ISS boondoggle is worth a look.

Bigelow's modules on the other hand, may not only be cheaper to launch into space, but may be safer as well, as its thick outer skin may be able to take "a greater punch" than its metallic rivals.

These inflatable modules may also more expendable than their more rigid cousins, as it would be much easier to replace a module or two (like a Pontoon bridge), than an entire section of a more traditional space station.____Much more at_ColonyWorlds

Brian Wang at NextBigFuture reports on fascinatingnew ways to increase the efficiency of heat and radioactives to electricity.

Materials that directly convert radiation into electricity could produce a new era of spacecraft and even Earth-based vehicles powered by high-powered nuclear batteries, say US researchers.

Electricity is usually made using nuclear power by heating steam to rotate turbines that generate electricity....US researchers say they have developed highly efficient materials that can convert the radiation, not heat, from nuclear materials and reactions into electricity.

Liviu Popa-Simil, former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear engineer and founder of private research and development company LAVM and Claudiu Muntele, of Alabama A&M University, US, say transforming the energy of radioactive particles into electricity is more effective.

The materials they are testing would extract up to 20 times more power from radioactive decay than thermoelectric materials, they calculate.___NewScientist__via__NextBigFuture

Getting 20 times the electricity from nuclear batteries also sounds good, using the direct radioactivity-to-electricity nanotube approach. One more advantage to nanotech.

Brian Westenhaus at NewEnergyandFuel presents a new way to produce bio-gasoline. This method would not depend upon the use of food to make fuel. As more food-free ways are developed to produce bio-energy, the cries of those who claim that bio-fuels take milk out of the mouths of babies are sounding shrillier (shrill + sillier) all the time.

Right. We all should have known the ISS would turn out to be a boondoggle after Al Gore personally involved himself in outsourcing large parts of it to Russia (the parts that don't work). Bigelow's approach is better thought out, and until automated construction methods using space materials are developed to build space stations and habitats, Bigelow's habitats are simply better.