ralph.ewig

TAG Heuer SpaceX Watch - Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is making a special edition watch to commemorate 50 years since the first time a swiss watch flew in space (1962). The special edition watch features images of both the SpaceX Dragon and the NASA Apollo spacecraft on the back and the front face of the watch. Unfortunately for us pedestrian folks, only 2012 of them will be made with a suggested retail price of $5,800 (ouch …), but it’s cool nonetheless. Lots more high-rez pictures at the Perpetuelle website.

… the new TAG Heuer Carrera 1887 “SpaceX”, a limited edition chronograph.  This stellar looking timepiece marks the 50th anniversary of TAG Heuer (originally Heuer) being the first Swiss timepiece to be worn in space.  That being the above right, a modified Heuer 2915A stopwatch, worn by astronaut John Glenn in 1962.  Top to bottom, inside and out, this is one awesome TAG Heuer with a great story around it.

Vertical Axis Wind Turbines - A new style of wind turbine design is turning tradition on its head (or at least sideways). Rather than spinning a blade atop a long tower, these designs spin horizontally around a fixed point on the ground. 

Traditional wind turbine designs are HAWT. You know, not hot hawt, but HAWT like a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine.” A HAWT design is what you probably think of when you picture a wind turbine (it’s the thing that looks like a big propeller on a stick), but the next generation designs may be all about the VAWT, not the HAWT.

VAWTs differ from HAWTs in that a VAWT spins around at the base, which is where all of the complicated and heavy stuff (like the generator and gearbox) are located. This makes them easier to service, easier to deploy and much cheaper to maintain. The other big advantage of a VAWT is that you don’t have to point them into the wind: you just set them out and they start spinning, no matter which way the wind is blowing. 

Changing China - there has been a growing wave of increasingly mind-boggling architecture projects in the Land of the Dragon lately. Yank design has a great collection of images on their site, with some of the most futuristic designs I’ve seen yet. 

Zaha Hadid and her band of architects have been making news in China. With their Guangzhou Opera House bagging many accolades and awards this year, we thought about recapturing for you in one page, how she is managing to change China’s skyline.

There could be many political inferences we can draw from the sudden spate of modernizations in China. But for the sake of our interest in design, we stick only to admiring the beauty and integrity of theses 5 magnificent projects.

Need for Speed - People are taking notice of Terraspan’s trains concept, designed to run 4000+ miles per hour in evacuated tunnels. Gizmodo calls them the next frontier of speed, and Terraspan pitches them as the transportation solution for an ever increasing population on planet Earth.

Terraspan is a unique combination of existing technologies, which have proven successful in other applications. Terraspan proposes building a nation-wide superconducting grid, housed in underground tunnels. The same tunnels will be shared with Terraspan trains.

Terraspan trains are mag-lev trains similar to those in use now in Europe and Asia. Vacuum tunnels allow Terraspan trains to be much bigger and faster. Once the train is in motion it will take little energy to keep it in motion, therefore Terraspan trains can be enormous, heavy and travel at supersonic speeds while remaining very energy-efficient.

For more info check out the concept video on the Terraspan home-page. 

Space Habitats - The 70’s were years of big dreams, amongst them visions for human space colonies. Two of the most popular designs were the O’Neil Cylinder and the Stanford Torus. Gavin Rothery’s blog has a slew of design drawings of both types posted, and the audacity and scale of these visions is truly impressive. 

Both concepts use spinning to provide artificial gravity for their inhabitants, a feature noticeably missing from today’s International Space Station. However, with the cost of space access continuing to tumble, there is hope yet we may see a spinning space station in the near future; and maybe a return of the courage to dream big once again.