There's a fair bit of gliding in Neil Stephenson's recently releases
SF novel "Seveneves" which I just finished. On balance I enjoyed the
book and the ending wasn't a downer. I had trouble buying into the
initial premise until I calculated the kinetic energy of the Moon (in
pieces) arriving at Earth's atmosphere, even say 0.5% to 2% of it.
The other bits were needed for the rest of the story.
Interesting concept to get to orbit starting with foot launch! Hi
tech glider and very hi tech instrument system. In the
acknowledgements the author mentions the guys he flew with in gliders
and suggests that all the hi tech instrument system will take is
"sufficient commitment of resources to development of sensors and
software - perhaps combined with a few improvements in the treatment
of motion sickness"
Only now are we even beginning to be able to do this (the
instruments, not the motion sickness) by actually being able to sense
the motion of the air the glider is flying through (no, currently
available instrument systems don't do this, they approximate this
using various tricks all of which have problems), let alone distant air.
Interesting pilot interfaces so the information can be interpreted
for soaring, too. Again we're just beginning on this.
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - design & manufacture of quality soaring
instrumentation since 1978
www.borgeltinstruments.com
tel: 07 4635 5784 overseas: int+61-7-4635 5784
mob: 042835 5784 : int+61-42835 5784
P O Box 4607, Toowoomba East, QLD 4350, Australia
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