NASA issues future space tech RFI

Anyone planning to respond and cite KiTE as a source don’t forget about proper attribution. Possible techs from this prescient comedy to include: energy-agnostic launch method; space junk detection, slicing, dicing and processing; “BIC” reusable orbit booster modules…and more!

Quantum Teleportation

A breakthrough announced in the past few days. A state of information was passed from one atom to another some distance away. I’ll leave the clichès about science fiction becoming science fact to the scribblers in the legacy media. But the implications of this are more significant than can be imagined. There will be many more applications for this phenomenon prior to any Star Trek Transporter. How can two atoms share changes while separated by any distance? The process has yet to be discovered. Even the smartest man who ever lived threw up his hands. On the one hand, it would be easy to attribute some kind of physical mechanism to it. On the other, it would be hard even for a cold-minded scientist not to ponder some sort of METAphysical aspect to it. Think about radio waves. Think if you have a receiver and a transmitter and didn’t know that there were waves carrying signals between. It would be just as mysterious. But we know that radio waves are not magic, don’t we? If we care to think about it we do. But think of the uncounted masses out there who couldn’t care less about the relatively simple concepts that power the radios that bring them their Mariah Carey and TVs that bring them their WWF matches. Now think of the uncountable increase in the uncounted masses that will not care to think about how quantum computing and whatever it will bring works.

It is not this simple, we’re sure, but if it’s not a step into INFINITY we don’t know what is. Think of everything in the world that runs on silicon chips. Then increase their efficiency a near infinite amount. What will it mean for computing and everything that goes along with it? Think what it’ll mean for communications, for weaponry, for entertainment. Think of all the computing power that currently exists in the word, and then put it all in a device the size of a flash drive that you can buy at Radio Shack. Come to think of it, the people who conjure up how to apply the new technologies to do way with Radio Shacks once and for all will likely be the next generation of Quantum Billionaires. Hey, if you’re out there drop me a line.

We may have been present during the first step to infinity on Earth.

Here’re a couple of other informative links:

Caltech: Alice & Bob
IBM Research