Warp Drive for Sailors !

[Beausoleil]

I pondered whether to post this here, or in the Recreation, Entertainment & Fun forum.

"Scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before."

Imagine! If you could harness antimatter produced by thunderstorms, you too could issue commands like "we need more power for the impulse engines, Scotty!" And, of course, you'd hear the reply "she's givin' it all she's got, Cap'n!!!" And with power like that, you could fend off a hoard of Somali pirates as well as a Klingon warbird!

But seriously, it's news like this about the natural wonders of the world and the universe that makes me glad to be living in the 21st century. We may one day finally figure out what makes this universe tick. Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Feynman - they'd all be jealous they couldn't be around to share the moment.

With advances in nanotechnology and materials science, we may soon have sails with integrated flexible solar cells and self-adjusting unstayed masts, battery banks with tens of thousands of amp-hour capacity, and the ultimate prize: a boat with self-sealing joints everywhere so leaks are a thing of the past!

[pjop]

I hear ya Scotty, I mean Jon. Just think of the visionaries from 100 years ago that thought while looking at a compass, "one day they'll have little hand held machines that depitcts where you are on the planet and where you're going, the location of most of the shoals, not to mention the local tides." They may also have a little box that when you push a button a vertical landing craft appears out of no where within an hour to bring you to safety." Some idiot probably called him a witch and burned him at the stake.