Month: August 2009

  • Water in the City

    Amazing how little we know about how we get the water we use in our homes.

  • Loss of Water Supply

    Imagine you live in a traditional village which has shared water with
    neighbouring villages, towns and cities for a century. This year was
    nasty and the water board is still pumping out water because those
    freak in the cities don’t see or ignore the lakes falling water level.
    Five years pass and people in your village die because of water abuse
    of your lake by others. The only step then remaining is fortifying the
    water source and levying a larger charge for geting the water. This is
    a possible situation we could be headed towards.

    Unlike computers and electricity, mechanical pipes don’t lend
    themselves to a very high transport efficiency. Precious water is lost
    in every pipe bend, valve, leak and pumping losses. Transporting water
    over large distances is not efficient.

  • Getting Students Interested in LARS

    A key pre-requisite to starting a lunar simulation project is to have
    enough people interested in it. The Chandrayaan mission has piqued
    media interest in the Moon.

    However, people still look at it through mysterious eyes. People think
    Apollo 11 was a hoax. They don’t know that 12 people have gone to the
    Moon. Even the amateur astronomy community does not know of many lunar
    features on the Moon.

    Under such circumstances, it is useful to get students interested.
    Accordingly, we plan to unveil a series of events and mini projects to
    get things going. The announcements begin on October 4.

  • Lunar Analog Research Station – India

    My first knowledge of an analog research station was Arctic Mars
    Analog Station Expedition or AMASE. A thought process carried forward
    with Flashline Mars Analog Research station or FMARS. The Moon Miners
    Manifesto’s India Quarterly expanded on the theme and brought the
    subject of a similar station for the Moon in India at the backdrop of
    the Chandrayaan series of missions to the Moon.

    I became a member of the Moon Society this summer and have begun
    planing on what can eventually be a lunar research station in India.

    I am still reading through papers and worrying about geting people
    on-board before begining the actual effort. I’m also working out a
    simultaneous outreach and education effort that will focus on the
    Chandrayaan series and serve the project’s basis.

  • Water

    My fascination for water started with the lines in my science text
    book urging me to drink 8 to 13 glasses of water everyday. I follow
    this naturally because I do get thirsty alot.

    Fast forward to my under graduate years and it amazes me that we still
    use the same 100 odd year old system to bring water from catchment
    areas to meet requirements of the city. Innovation has worked only in
    bringing water more efficiently in the old system.

    Today, we face a water shortage. Would not people staying closer to
    the water source claim ownership and sell water to her neighbours than
    allow its citizens to die?

    An analogy is supplying water to a colony on the Moon.

  • Hello World!

    I find that I blog little and little and so this sounded something worth looking at. This is my first test post. You can follow the updates on http://pradx.posterous.com. Thanks.