McLaren P1 vs Bugatti Veyron

McLaren P1 vs Bugatti Veyron 

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NASA Announces New CubeSat Space Mission Candidates

Feb. 27, 2013 — NASA has selected 24 small satellites, including three from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The proposed CubeSats come from universities across the country, a Florida high school, several non-profit organizations and NASA field centers.

Artist's concept of the Interplanetary NanoSpacecraft Pathfinder In Relevant Environment (INSPIRE) CubeSat project. The dual INSPIRE CubeSats, the world's first CubeSats to be launched beyond Earth orbit, will demonstrate functionality, communication, navigation and payload hosting in interplanetary space. INSPIRE is a NASA JPL partnership with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; and the University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

CubeSats belong to a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. The cube-shaped satellites measure about 4 inches (10 centimeters) on each side, have a volume of about 1 quart (1 liter), and weigh less than 3 pounds (1.1 kilograms).

The selections are from the fourth round of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. After launch, the satellites will conduct technology demonstrations, educational research or science missions. The selected CubeSats will be eligible for flight after final negotiations and an opportunity for flight becomes available.

The following organizations submitted winning satellite proposals:

• The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
• The Discovery Museum and Planetarium, Bridgeport, Conn.
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, Ariz.
• Morehead State University, Morehead, Ky., in partnership with the University of California at Berkeley
• Montana State University, Bozeman (two CubeSats) in partnership with The University of New Hampshire, Durham
• Merritt Island High School, Fla., in partnership with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
• NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
• NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. (three CubeSats)
• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (three CubeSats)
• NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
• Pennsylvania State University, in partnership with the Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, Calif.; and The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
• Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Mo.
• Tyvak Nano-Satellites Systems, Irvine, Calif., in partnership with the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
• University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
• University of Colorado, Boulder
• University of Florida, Gainesville, in partnership with Stanford University
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• University of Texas, Austin
• Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., in partnership with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, Silver Spring, Md.

The three CubeSats from JPL, which is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, are:

• The Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA), a technology demonstration of a practical, low-cost Ka-band high-gain antenna on a 3U CubeSat that will increase downlink data rates from a baseline of 9.6 kilobits per second to more than 100 megabits per second with minimal impact on spacecraft mass, volume, cost and power requirements.
• The CubeSat VHF transmitter to study Ionospheric dispersion of Radio Pulses (CHIRP), a 6U CubeSat designed to provide measurements of very high frequency (VHF) radio pulses propagated through the ionosphere that will be essential to the development of SWORD, a future explorer class charged-particle astronomical observatory.
• The Interplanetary NanoSpacecraft Pathfinder In Relevant Environment (INSPIRE) project, which will open deep-space heliophysics and planetary science to the CubeSat community by demonstrating functionality, communication, navigation and payload-hosting in interplanetary space on dual 3U CubeSats.

In the three previous rounds of the CubeSat initiative, NASA has selected 63 missions for flight. The agency's Launch Services Program Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) Program has launched 12 CubeSat missions. This year, 22 CubeSat missions are scheduled for flight.

For additional information on NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative program, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/nXOuPI .

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:http://www.nasa.gov

source:sciencedaily.com

New Fabrication Technique Could Provide Breakthrough for Solar Energy Systems

Feb. 27, 2013 — A novel fabrication technique developed by UConn engineering professor Brian Willis could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve today's solar energy systems.

Illustration of a working nanosized optical rectifying antenna or rectenna. (Credit: Illustration by Justine Braisted ’13 (SFA))

For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on incredibly small nanosized antenna arrays that are theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.

The technology would be a vast improvement over the silicon solar panels in widespread use today. Even the best silicon panels collect only about 20 percent of available solar radiation, and separate mechanisms are needed to convert the stored energy to usable electricity for the commercial power grid. The panels' limited efficiency and expensive development costs have been two of the biggest barriers to the widespread adoption of solar power as a practical replacement for traditional fossil fuels.

But while nanosized antennas have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas -- known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current -- must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.

The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the previous director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program. Willis joined UConn in 2008 as part of an eminent faculty hiring initiative that brought an elite team of leaders in sustainable energy technology to the University. Willis developed the ALD process while teaching at the University of Delaware, and patented the technique in 2011. 

It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.

The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.

Impressively, the rectennas, because of their incredibly small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light -- something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.

The federal government has taken notice of Willis's work. Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.

"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."

The Penn State Altoona research team -- which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade -- is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.

"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.

"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."

The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is already used by companies such as Intel for microelectronics, and is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.

Willis says the method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.

A 2011 seed grant from UConn's Center for Clean Energy Engineering allowed Willis to fabricate a prototype rectenna and gather preliminary data using ALD that was instrumental in securing the NSF grant, Willis says.

Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency. Willis compares the process to tuning in a station on a radio.

"We've already made a first version of the device," says Willis. "Now we're looking for ways to modify the rectenna so it tunes into frequencies better. I compare it to the days when televisions relied on rabbit ear antennas for reception. Everything was a static blur until you moved the antenna around and saw the ghost of an image. Then you kept moving it around until the image was clearer. That's what we're looking for, that ghost of an image. Once we have that, we can work on making it more robust and repeatable."

Willis says finding that magic point where a rectenna picks up maximum solar energy and rectifies it into electrical power will be the champagne-popping, "ah-ha" moment of the project.

"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."

source:sciencedaily.com

Connecting the (Quantum) Dots

Connecting the (Quantum) Dots: First Viable High-Speed Quantum Computer Moves Closer

Feb. 26, 2013 — Recent research offers a new spin on using nanoscale semiconductor structures to build faster computers and electronics. Literally.

This graphic displays spin qubits within a nanowire. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Pittsburgh)

University of Pittsburgh and Delft University of Technology researchers reveal in the Feb. 17 online issue ofNature Nanotechnology a new method that better preserves the units necessary to power lightning-fast electronics, known as qubits (pronounced CUE-bits). Hole spins, rather than electron spins, can keep quantum bits in the same physical state up to 10 times longer than before, the report finds.

"Previously, our group and others have used electron spins, but the problem was that they interacted with spins of nuclei, and therefore it was difficult to preserve the alignment and control of electron spins," said Sergey Frolov, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, who did the work as a postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Whereas normal computing bits hold mathematical values of zero or one, quantum bits live in a hazy superposition of both states. It is this quality, said Frolov, which allows them to perform multiple calculations at once, offering exponential speed over classical computers. However, maintaining the qubit's state long enough to perform computation remains a long-standing challenge for physicists.

"To create a viable quantum computer, the demonstration of long-lived quantum bits, or qubits, is necessary," said Frolov. "With our work, we have gotten one step closer."

The holes within hole spins, Frolov explained, are literally empty spaces left when electrons are taken out. Using extremely thin filaments called InSb (indium antimonide) nanowires, the researchers created a transistor-like device that could transform the electrons into holes. They then precisely placed one hole in a nanoscale box called "a quantum dot" and controlled the spin of that hole using electric fields. This approach -- featuring nanoscale size and a higher density of devices on an electronic chip -- is far more advantageous than magnetic control, which has been typically employed until now, said Frolov.

"Our research shows that holes, or empty spaces, can make better spin qubits than electrons for future quantum computers."

"Spins are the smallest magnets in our universe. Our vision for a quantum computer is to connect thousands of spins, and now we know how to control a single spin," said Frolov. "In the future, we'd like to scale up this concept to include multiple qubits."

source:sciencedaily.com

'NanoVelcro' Device to Grab Single Cancer Cells from Blood

'NanoVelcro' Device to Grab Single Cancer Cells from Blood: Improvement Enables 'Liquid Biopsies' for Metastatic Melanoma

Feb. 22, 2013 — Researchers at UCLA report that they have refined a method they previously developed for capturing and analyzing cancer cells that break away from patients' tumors and circulate in the blood. With the improvements to their device, which uses a Velcro-like nanoscale technology, they can now detect and isolate single cancer cells from patient blood samples for analysis.

NanoVelcro chip. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Los Angeles)

Circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, play a crucial role in cancer metastasis, spreading from tumors to other parts of the body, where they form new tumors. When these cells are isolated from the blood early on, they can provide doctors with critical information about the type of cancer a patient has, the characteristics of the individual cancer and the potential progression of the disease. Doctors can also tell from these cells how to tailor a personalized treatment to a specific patient.

In recent years, a UCLA research team led by Hsian-Rong Tseng, an associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has developed a "NanoVelcro" chip. When blood is passed through the chip, extremely small "hairs" -- nanoscale wires or fibers coated with protein antibodies that match proteins on the surface of cancer cells -- act like Velcro, traping CTCs and isolating them for analysis.

CTCs trapped by the chip also act as a "liquid biopsy" of the tumor, providing convenient access to tumor cells and earlier information about potentially fatal metastases.

Histopathology -- the study of the microscopic structure of biopsy samples -- is currently considered the gold standard for determining tumor status, but in the early stages of metastasis, it is often difficult to identify a biopsy site. By being able to extract viable CTCs from the blood with the NanoVelcro chip, however, doctors can perform a detailed analysis of the cancer type and the various genetic characteristics of a patient's specific cancer.

Improving the NanoVelcro device

Tseng's team now reports that they have improved the NanoVelcro chip by replacing its original non-transparent silicon nanowire substrate inside with a new type of transparent polymer nanofiber-deposited substrate, allowing the device's nanowires to better "grab" cancer cells as blood passes by them.

Tseng and his colleagues were able to pick single CTCs immobilized on the new transparent substrate by using a miniaturized laser beam knife, a technique called laser micro-dissection, or LMD.

The researchers' paper on their improvement to the chip was published online Feb. 22 in the peer-reviewed journalAngewandte Chemie and is featured on the cover of the journal's March 2013 print issue.

"This paper summarizes a major milestone in the continuous development of NanoVelcro assays pioneered by our research group," Tseng said. "We now can not only capture cancer cells from blood with high efficiency but also hand-pick single CTCs for in-depth characterization to provide crucial information that helps doctors make better decisions."

Testing the improvements on melanoma

Using the new assay on patients' blood containing circulating melanoma cells (CMCs), Tseng's team was able to isolate and preserve single CMCs. Melanoma is a deadly type of skin cancer that is prone to spreading quickly throughout the body. The ability to capture and preserve single CMCs allows doctors to analyze melanoma cells' DNA structure, determine the genetic characteristics of the patient's cancer and confirm that the circulating cells remain genetically similar to the tumor they came from.

The preservation of single captured CMCs in this proof-of-concept study also allowed researchers to conduct an analysis -- called single-cell genotyping -- to find within the cell a specific target (BRAF V600E) for a drug called vemurafenib. BRAF V600E is a mutation in the BRAF protein that appears in approximately 60 percent of melanoma cases. Drugs that inhibit BRAF are able to slow and often reverse the growth of melanoma tumors.

"With this technology, we are getting closer to the goal of a widely clinically applicable liquid biopsy, where we can sample cancer cells by a simple blood draw and understand the genes that allow them to grow," said Dr. Antoni Ribas, a professor of medicine in the division of hematology-oncology, a Jonsson Cancer Center member and one of Tseng's key collaborators. "With the NanoVelcro chips, we will be able to better personalize treatments to patients by giving the right treatment to stop what makes that particular cancer grow."

Dr. Roger Lo, another key Tseng collaborator and an assistant professor in UCLA's department of medicine, division of dermatology, and department of molecular and medical pharmacology, was also optimistic about the new method.

"This scientific advancement -- being able to capture the melanoma cells in transit in the blood and then perform genetic analysis on them -- will in principle allow us to track the genomic evolution of melanoma under BRAF-inhibitor therapy and understand better the development of drug resistance," said Lo, who is also a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center.

source:sciencedaily.com

Scientists Develop a Whole New Way of Harvesting Energy from the Sun

Feb. 24, 2013 — A new method of harvesting the Sun's energy is emerging, thanks to scientists at UC Santa Barbara's Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Materials. Though still in its infancy, the research promises to convert sunlight into energy using a process based on metals that are more robust than many of the semiconductors used in conventional methods.

The process by which light is captured by the gold nanorod, and converted into energy that can spilt water (H₂O) into hydrogen and oxygen. (Credit: Syed Mubeen)

The researchers' findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"It is the first radically new and potentially workable alternative to semiconductor-based solar conversion devices to be developed in the past 70 years or so," said Martin Moskovits, professor of chemistry at UCSB.

In conventional photoprocesses, a technology developed and used over the last century, sunlight hits the surface of semiconductor material, one side of which is electron-rich, while the other side is not. The photon, or light particle, excites the electrons, causing them to leave their postions, and create positively-charged "holes." The result is a current of charged particles that can be captured and delivered for various uses, including powering lightbulbs, charging batteries, or facilitating chemical reactions.

"For example, the electrons might cause hydrogen ions in water to be converted into hydrogen, a fuel, while the holes produce oxygen," said Moskovits.

In the technology developed by Moskovits and his team, it is not semiconductor materials that provide the electrons and venue for the conversion of solar energy, but nanostructured metals -- a "forest" of gold nanorods, to be specific.

For this experiment, gold nanorods were capped with a layer of crystalline titanium dioxide decorated with platinum nanoparticles, and set in water. A cobalt-based oxidation catalyst was deposited on the lower portion of the array.

"When nanostructures, such as nanorods, of certain metals are exposed to visible light, the conduction electrons of the metal can be caused to oscillate collectively, absorbing a great deal of the light," said Moskovits. "This excitation is called a surface plasmon."

As the "hot" electrons in these plasmonic waves are excited by light particles, some travel up the nanorod, through a filter layer of crystalline titanium dioxide, and are captured by platinum particles. This causes the reaction that splits hydrogen ions from the bond that forms water. Meanwhile, the holes left behind by the excited electrons head toward the cobalt-based catalyst on the lower part of the rod to form oxygen.

According to the study, hydrogen production was clearly observable after about two hours. Additionally, the nanorods were not subject to the photocorrosion that often causes traditional semiconductor material to fail in minutes.

"The device operated with no hint of failure for many weeks," Moskovits said.

The plasmonic method of splitting water is currently less efficient and more costly than conventional photoprocesses, but if the last century of photovoltaic technology has shown anything, it is that continued research will improve on the cost and efficiency of this new method -- and likely in far less time than it took for the semiconductor-based technology, said Moskovits.

"Despite the recentness of the discovery, we have already attained 'respectable' efficiencies. More importantly, we can imagine achievable strategies for improving the efficiencies radically," he said.

Research in this study was also performed by postdoctoral researchers Syed Mubeen and Joun Lee; grad student Nirala Singh; materials engineer Stephan Kraemer; and chemistry professor Galen Stucky.

source:sciencedaily.

Light from Silicon Nanocrystal LEDs

Light from Silicon Nanocrystal LEDs: Scientists Develop Multicolor LEDs Without Heavy Metals

Feb. 22, 2013 — Silicon nanocrystals have a size of a few nanometers and possess a high luminous potential. Scientists of KIT and the University of Toronto/Canada have now succeeded in manufacturing silicon-based light-emitting diodes (SiLEDs). They are free of heavy metals and can emit light in various colors.

Liquid-processed SiLEDs: By changing the size of the silicon nanocrystals, color of the light emitted can be varied. (Credit: F. Maier-Flaig, KIT/LTI

The team of chemists, materials researchers, nanoscientists, and opto-electronic experts presents its development in the journal Nano Letters.

Silicon dominates in microelectronics and photovoltaics industry, but has been considered unsuitable for light-emitting diodes for a long time. However, this is not true for nanoscopic dimensions: Minute silicon nanocrystals can produce light. These nanocrystals consist of a few hundred to thousand atoms and have a considerable potential as highly efficient light emitters, as was demonstrated by the team of Professor Uli Lemmer and Professor Annie K. Powell from KIT as well as Professor Geoffrey A. Ozin from the University of Toronto. In a joint project, the scientists have now succeeded in manufacturing highly efficient light-emitting diodes from the silicon nanocrystals.

So far, manufacture of silicon light-emitting diodes has been limited to the red visible spectral range and the near infrared. As regards the efficiency of silicon diodes emitting red light, researchers from Karlsruhe are already top in the world. “Controlled manufacture of diodes emitting multicolor light, however, is an absolutely novelty,” explains Florian Maier-Flaig, scientist of the Light Technology Institute (LTI) of KIT and doctoral student of the Karlsruhe School of Optics and Photonics (KSOP). KIT scientists specifically adjust the color of the light emitted by the diodes by separating nanoparticles depending on their size. “Moreover, our light-emitting diodes have a surprising long-term stability that has not been reached before,” Maier-Flaig reports. The increased service life of the components in operation is due to the use of nanoparticles of one size only. This enhances the stability of the sensitive thin-film components. Short circuits due to oversized particles are excluded.

The development made by the researchers from Karlsruhe and Toronto is also characterized by an impressing homogeneity of the luminous areas. The KIT researchers are among the few teams in the world that know how to manufacture such devices. “With the liquid-processed silicon LEDs that may potentially be produced on large areas as well as at low costs, the nanoparticle community enters new territory, the associated potentials of which can hardly be estimated today. But presumably, textbooks about semiconductor components have to be rewritten,” says Geoffrey A. Ozin, who is presently working as a KIT distinguished research fellow at KIT’s Center for Functional Nanostructures (CFN).

The SiLEDs also have the advantage that they do not contain any heavy metals. In contrast to cadmium selenide, cadmium sulfide or lead sulfide used by other groups of researchers, the silicon used by this group for the light-emitting nanoparticles is not toxic. Moreover, it is available at low costs and highly abundant on earth. Due to their many advantages, the SiLEDs will be developed further in cooperation with other partners.

source:dailyscience

Space Heroes of Old India

Space Heroes of Old India  

The Ramayana telling in magic imagery the quest of Rama for his stolen wife Sita, has thrilled the people of India for thousands of years; generations of wandering story-tellers have recited its 24,000 verses to marveling audiences captivated by this brilliant panorama of the fantastic past, the passions of heroic love, tragedies of dark revenge, aerial battles between Gods and Demons waged with nuclear bombs; the glory of noble deeds; the thrilling poetry of life, the philosophy of destiny and death.  

Some descriptions of the war:  

In his wonderful translation of the ‘Ramayana’ Romesh Chunder Dutt describes Rama’s father, King Dasartatha, as ‘sprung of ancient Solar Race’, a descendant of Kings of the Sun, Spacebeings, who ruled India ..  

Ravan speeding on his chariot and Rama on the heavenly car fought an epic duel in long and wild fury, the winds were hushed in voiceless terror and the livid sun turned pale. Rama dueled with Ravana in celestial cars fighting in the sky and destroyed him with annihilating missiles to win back Sita. After rescuing Sita, Rama took her home by aerial car, an enormous, beautifully painted two-storied car, furnished with windows adorned with flags and colors, and several apartments for passengers and crew; the vehicle emitted a melodious sound heard on the ground.  

The happy pair, reunited flew from Sri Lanka across India over the Ganges , home to Ayodhya, as Rama gave a colorful description of the historic landscape of hills and rivers gliding swiftly below.  

‘Sailing o’er the cloudless ether Rama’s Pushpa chariot came
And ten thousand jocund voices shouted Rama’s joyous name.
Silver swans by Rama’s bidding soft descended from the air
And on earth the chariot lighted – car of flowers divinely fair.’  

(Note: To marveling mortals spaceships gleaming in the sun shine would resemble silver swans).  

The Drona Parva p. 171, rejoices that when Rama ruled his kingdom, the Rishis, Gods and men, all lived together on the Earth; the world became extremely beautiful. Rama (and presumably his descendants) reigned in his kingdom for eleven thousand years. In this Golden Age Celestials from other planets trod our Earth as mentioned in the Egyptian and Greek texts.  

(Note: Abduction of Sita by Ravana in the Epic of Ramayana. This wonderful epic of the ‘Ramayana’ the inspiration of the world’s great classic literature, intrigues us most today by its frequent allusions to aerial vehicles and annihilating bombs, which we consider to be inventions of our own 20^th century impossible in the far past. Students of Sanskrit literature soon revise their preconceived ideas and find that the heroes of Ancient India were apparently equipped with aircraft and missiles more sophisticated than those we boast today.  

This wonderful epic of the ‘Ramayana’ the inspiration of the world’s great classic literature, intrigues us most today by its frequent allusions to aerial vehicles and annihilating bombs, which we consider to be inventions of our own 20^th century impossible in the far past. Students of Sanskrit literature soon revise their preconceived ideas and find that the heroes of Ancient India were apparently equipped with aircraft and missiles more sophisticated than those we boast today.  

The 31^st chapter of the Samaranganasutradhara, ascribed to King Bhojadira in the 11^th century, contains descriptions of remarkable flying ships such as the elephant-machine, wooden-bird-machine traveling in the sky, wooden-vimana-machine flying in the air, door-keeper-machine, soldier-machine, etc. denoting different type of craft for different purposes. The poet had persons not initiated in art of building machines will cause trouble. Surely the understatement of the century!  

Ramachandra Dikshitar (1896 - 1953) in his fascinating War in Ancient India translates the Samar as saying that these flying machines could attack visible and invisible objects, ascending, cruising thousands of miles in different directions in the atmosphere, even mounting to the solar and stellar regions. ‘The aerial cars are made of light wood looking like a great bird with a durable and well-formed body having mercury inside and fire at the bottom. It has two resplendent wings and is propelled by air. It flies in the atmospheric regions for a great distance and carries several persons in it. The inside construction resembles heaven created by Brahma himself. Iron, copper, lead and other metals are also used for these machines. Despite their apparent simplicity the Samar stresses that these vimanas were costly to make and were the exclusive privilege of the aristocrats, who fought celestial duels. Today we associate such craft with Spacemen.  

The Mahabharata

The most fascinating tales of war in the air waged with fantastic weapons transcending our own science-fiction-today are narrated in the ‘Mahabharata’, a wonderful poem of 200,000 lines, eight times as long as the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ combined, a veritable world in literature. This epic concerning the great Bharata War in Northern India fought about 1400 BC paints in glorious color a great and noble civilization, where kings and priests, princes and philosophers, warriors and fair women, mingled in a brilliant society, perhaps the most glittering period in all history. The brilliant characterization of the noble prince Arjuna, his peerless bride, Draupadi, the God, Krishna, the host of Celestials and warrior-knights, transcend the bucolic creations of Homer and the colorful pageant is studded with human personages, whose fallings from sublimity to despair are revealed with an insight unsurpassed by genius in our Western world. Transmuting the martial adventures and exquisite passions brood the sublime teachings of the Bhagavad Gita with their incalculable influence on the Greek philosophers and the great Thinkers of the West. We today are more intrigued by the aerial craft and wonder weapons suggesting some secret science inspired by Beings from Space.  

The discourse between the hero, Arjuna and the Lord Krishna, as the warrior hesitates to fight his own kinsfolk form the lofty Bhagavad Gita, The Song of the Lord, where inKrishna reveals the meaning of the universe, the wisdom of Brahman and the duty of men expounding the religion of the Hindus.  

The battle between Arjuna and the giant Rakshasas soared from the plains of India to the skies. The Samsaptakabadha Parva p. 58, describes Arjuna and Krishna borne in a car,  

“….exceedingly resplendent like a celestial car, O king, in the battle between the Gods and the Asuras in the days of old, it displayed a circular, forward, backward and diverse other kinds of motion….The Son of Pandu blew his prodigious conch call, Devadotta. And then he shot the weapon called Tashtva, that is capable of slaying large bodies of foes together.”  

References in the ‘Mahabharata’ to fantastic weapons no longer evoke ridicule but becomes of intense interest to our 20^th century minds haunted by nuclear bombs. The Bhisma Parva, p. 44, describing the conflict between Arjuna and Bhisma states the enemy invoked a celestial weapon resembling fire in effulgence and energy, Chandra Roy in his masterly translation notes, “The Brahma-danda, meaning Brahma’s Rod, is infinitely more powerful than even Indra’s bolt. The latter can strike only once, but the former can smite whole countries and entire races from generation to generation.”  For thousands of years scholars assumed this to be a figment of the Poet’s imagination; we at once are struck by the ominous resemblance to our hydrogen-bomb, whose radiations mutate generations unborn.  

Arjuna and his contemporaries appeared to possess an arsenal of diverse, sophisticated nuclear weapons, equal to, perhaps surpassing, the missiles of the Americans and Russians today. The Badha Parva, p. 97, mentions the Vaishnava weapon conferring invisibility, able to destroy all the Gods in all the worlds. The Drona Parva, p. 283, refers to an annihilating mace or missile.  

‘Encompassed by them (bowmen), O Bharata, Bhisma smiting the while and uttering a leonine roar, took up and hurled at them with great force a fierce mace of destruction of hostile ranks. That mace of adamantine strength, hurled like Indra’s thunder by Indra himself, crushed, O King, thy soldiers in battle. And it seemed to fill, O King, the whole Earth with a loud noise. And blazing forth in splendor, that fierce mace of impetuous course and endowed with lightning flashes coursing towards them, thy warriors fled away uttering frightful cries. And at the unbelievable found, O Sire, of that fierce mace, many men fell down where they stood, and many car-warriors also fell down from their cars.’  

Atomic warfare with defenders vainly launching anti-missiles to counter nuclear rockets startles us by its uncanny resemblance to future wars, when our Earth’s capital may be blasted with bombs of anti-matter launched from space-satellites. The Drona Parva, p. 592, describes:  

Selective missiles like the Narayana weapons, called ‘scorcher of foes’ were probably utilized against troops on the battlefield. The ultimate weapon was the Agneya, reminiscent of the Atlantean mash-mak, said to utilize some sidereal force, mercifully undiscovered by us today. The Drona Parva, p. 677, holds us spell bound.  

‘The valiant Ashwathaman, then staying resolutely on his car touched water and invoked the Agneya weapon, incapable of being resisted by the very Gods. Aiming at all his visible and invisible foes, the preceptor’s son, that Slayer of hostile heroes, inspired with mantras a blazing shaft of the effulgence of a smokeless fire and let it off on all sides, filled with rage. Dense showers of arrows then issued from it in the welkin. Endued with fiery flames those arrows compassed Partha on all sides. Meteors flashed down from the firmament. A thick gloom suddenly shrouded the Pandava host. All points of the compass also were enveloped by that darkness. Rakshashas and Vicochas crowding together uttered fierce cries. Inauspicious winds began to blow. The Sun himself no longer gave any heat. Ravens fiercely croaked on all sides. Clouds roared in the welkin, showering blood. Birds and beasts and kine and Munis of high vows and souls under complete control became exceedingly uneasy. The very elements seemed to be perturbed. The Sun seemed to turn round. The universe scorched with heats seemed to be in a fever. The elephants and other creatures of the land scorched by the energy of that weapon, ran in fright, breathing heavily and desirous of protection against that terrible force. The very water being heated, the creatures residing in that element, O Bharata, became exceedingly uneasy and seemed to burn. From all points of the compass, cardinal and subsidiary, from the firmament and the very Earth, showers of sharp and fierce arrows fell and issued with the impetuosity of Garuda on the wind. Struck and burnt by those shafts of Ashothaman that were all endued with the impetuosity of the thunder, the hostile warriors fell down like trees burnt down by a raging fire.  

Huge elephants burnt by that weapon, fell down on the Earth all around, uttering fierce cries loud as those of the clouds. Other huge elephants, scorched by that fire, ran hither and thither, roared aloud in fear, as if in the midst of a forest conflagration. The steeds, O King, and the cars also burnt by the energy of that weapon, looked, O Sire, like the tops of trees burnt in a forest fire. Thousands of cars fell down on all sides. Indeed, O Bharata, it seemed that the divine Lord Agni burnt the (Pandava) host in that battle like Somvarta fire destroying everything at the end of the Yuga. (Celestial fire destroying civilization at the end of a world age).  

Could this marvelous description of a nuclear-like blast related by that Indian thousands of years ago be surpassed by our scientific reporters today? Such gripping narrative in homely words reminds us of the eye-witness accounts of the people of Hiroshima . This tale is stamped with the hall marks of truth; it can be no aery-fairy science-fiction, long ago in our world’s tortured history this frightful catastrophe must have happened. Such fantastic warfare must have baffled historian Romesh Chunder Dutt as he translated the Drona Parva in those leisurely days of 1888, when battles were won by cavalry charges and heroes waving banners; today we understand too well the titanic horrors of atomic war. Conventional history denies any high technology to the peoples of antiquity who are believed to have lived in a static culture for thousands of years in agricultural communities waiting for James Watt to wake up one day and invent the steam-engine. Man has suffered other Hiroshimas long ago; humanity always learns enough to make the same sorry mistakes.  

The ‘Ramayana’ and the ‘Mahabharta’ written so many millennia ago show that our remote ancestors were not barbarians but lived and loved in a gay and glittering culture with a spiritual insight into cosmic mysteries transcending our own. Perhaps in that distant past we discern our future. In a few decades our Earth may be graced again by Spacemen, the Gods of Old India.  

While our Western civilization is based on the Greeco-Judaic cultures, it is seldom realized that the Greeks and the Jews derived many of their fundamental concepts from old India especially after the invasion of Alexander in 327 BC.  Kannada and the Gnani Yogis speculated on the atom five hundred years before Democritus, Aryabhatta in the 6^th century BC taught the rotation of the Earth, the scientific principles of medicine, botany and chemistry were established as early as 1300 BC in India while Indian astronomy dates from remote Antiquity.  

The Creation in Genesis seems a primitive version of the profound teaching of the Days and Nights of Brahman; the tale of Noah an echo of Vaivasvata warned by Lord Vishnu to build a ship for the coming Flood; the Jewish Kabbala and various events in the Bible can be traced to Hindu scriptures written many centuries earlier.  

To minds conditioned by two thousand years of Christianity, the lives and teachings of Krishna and Buddha throw so much doubt on the historicity of Jesus, that we dare to wonder if the whole Christian Legend is but a plagiarism of Hinduism and Buddhism. Such apparent blasphemy outrages all our feelings, to doubt the reality of Jesus seems mortal sin, yet if we honestly study the teachings of Krishna, Hellenized to Chrestus hence Christ, and compare the fundamental dogma of Virgin Birth, Miracles, Ritual death on a tree or cross, Immortality, we find ourselves speculating whether Jesus was a myth based on the earlier historical Krishna.  Many scholars believe that Old India was the source not only of civilization, the arts and sciences, but also of all the great religions of Antiquity. 

(source: Gods and spacemen in the ancient east - By W Raymond Drake p. 1 – 65).

Today we tend to belittle the past and boast our age as the highest peak in human cultures, despite its sadly apparent short-comings; the common man in the West certainly lives more princely than many a King centuries ago and enjoys marvels of genius which would have amazed the old magicians, yet the literature of Eastern peoples show that the Ancients sometimes surpassed us in the very things of which we are proud of. The Indian lyricize of spaceships faster than light and missiles more violent than H-bombs; their Sanskrit texts describe aircraft apparently with radar and cameras; the wonderful ‘Mahabahrata’ rivals the ‘Ilad’ and the ‘Odyssey’, the ‘Aeneid,’ the plays of Shakespeare and most of our modern fiction all combined. The religions and philosophies of the East distilled a sublimity of thought scarce attained in the West; the wonderful Indian system of Yoga, the Gnani Yoga of Wisdom, Raja Yoga of Mind, Hatha Yoga of Body, Bhakti Yoga of Love, Karma Yoga of Work, developed a discipline millennia ago blending mysticism with daily life, showing Man’s relation to the Universe incarnating ever upwards to perfection to Union with God; this supreme and beneficent teaching now exerting widening influence in our Western world must surely have sprung from civilizations long vanished…”  

(source: Gods and spacemen in the ancient east - By W Raymond Drake p. 226).