Gizmorama - December 19, 2012

Good Morning,

In the future, business will be done on the moon. Sound like science fiction? Well, it just might be science fact.

Learn about this possible future and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Moon missions for profit, not science? --*
WASHINGTON - A former U.S. astronaut, one of the last men to walk on the moon, says private enterprise, not governments, will take mankind back to the lunar surface. Harrison Schmitt told the BBC governments are "too inefficient" to make successful efforts at returning humans to the moon. A new space race -- driven by the commercial possibilities of lunar mining -- could see private companies financing missions to the moon, he said. One possible lunar resource, he said, is helium-3 -- similar to the gas used to inflate balloons, but with properties some scientists say could make it an attractive fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors. "The economy of space and economy of settlements of the moon will be supported by helium-3," Schmitt said. "When you have a reason to build rockets and spacecraft and mining machines, costs will come down. "Government is too inefficient to make the costs come down where it would be economic. It will be an entrepreneurial effort." Schmitt, a geologist, went to the moon in 1972 on Apollo 17, the last U.S. mission to the lunar surface.


*-- Optical drives heading for obsolescence --*
CUPERTINO, Calif. - "Burning a disc" may be a thing of the past as optical disc drives join other technologies made obsolete by advances in computer science, analysts say. The shift has begun: Apple's new desktop flagship iMac computer, released Friday, has no optical disc drive, following the lead of some laptop computers, CNN reported. With computers shrinking, leaving less room for bulky physical drives, and streaming music and movies on demand reducing the need for CD and DVD disks, the disc drive is becoming irrelevant, experts said. "Over time, an optical disc will be as much of an historical curiosity as a floppy disk," said Michael Gartenberg, a tech-industry analyst with research firm Gartner Inc. Apple also led the way in saying goodbye to the floppy drive; its first iMac shipped without one. "These old technologies are holding us back," Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing, told Time magazine. "They're anchors on where we want to go. We find the things that have outlived their useful purpose -- our competitors are afraid to remove them. We try to find better solutions -- our customers have given us a lot of trust." That's long been a philosophy at Apple, Gartenberg said. "It's clearly a long-term trend, but Apple's always been aggressive about making moves like this sooner as opposed to later."


*-- U.S. still opposed to Internet regulation --*
WASHINGTON - A controversial proposal to put U.S. Internet companies such as Google and Facebook under international regulation has been scrapped, U.S. officials said. The idea was proposed by a group of Arab countries at a conference in Dubai assembled to draft the first new international telecommunications treaty in nearly a quarter of a century. Strongly opposed by the United States as a step toward restrictive censorship of the Internet, the proposal was shelved after losing the support of Russia and China, the Financial Times of London reported Monday. The proposal by the Arab countries put forward Friday would have seen all Internet companies regulated in the same way network operators are, putting them into a regulatory system initially designed for the telecommunications industry long before the development of the Internet. "In our view, the Internet issues are completely non-negotiable," Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation at the conference, said. Extending existing regulations would hinder the Internet by increasing censorship and changing its fundamental underlying economic structure, he said. The United States would not sign any treaty with language supporting extended regulation of the Internet, he said.

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