Welcome to the New and Expanded Blog

Welcome to MaSu on Machines, Meteors & Mozzies my expanded blog which be covering a couple of pet projects of mine.

My original blog An Engineer's Look at the Future of Energy was specifically set up to look at list of current and future technologies that show potential in supplying our future energy needs. We have now come to the end of the list of technologies as suggested by CR4 participants and as such finding material for threads has become difficult. The solution to this dilemma was to expand the scope of the blog and you are witnessing the launch of the new, expanded blog.

So, what do I mean by Machines, Meteors & Mozzies?

Machines: This is a continuation of the original blog and covers threads that look at future energy production as information on it comes to hand.

Meteors: The word meteors actually refers to any sort of atmospheric phenomenon or object that appears in the sky. This is the origin of the word meteorology that we normally associate with the study and prediction of weather events like rain, clouds, wind, storms etcetera. The word is also used to refer to objects that have arrived at Earth from extraterrestrial sources and are superheated by friction when they come too close and get caught in the Earth's gravity. If they burn up in the atmosphere they are called meteors and the few that manage to reach the ground are referred to as meteorites. The term can also be loosely used to describe anything at all that appears in the sky and that is how it is applied here.

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with the night sky. However, until recently I had never had access to any sort of astronomical telescope and so my interest in astronomy was limited to what you can see with the naked eye or read about in publications. This all changed recently when for my last birthday my wife surprised my by purchasing and astronomical telescope for me.

Never having had the chance to use an astronomical telescope I found exploring the night sky as fascinating as Galileo when he first pointed a telescope skywards and saw the mountains and craters on the Moon and Jupiter with its gaggle of moons circling it. I am however a complete novice and as a result I have needed to learn how to drive my new telescope from scratch.

After looking an many web sites and blogs that covered astronomy I found that nobody looked at if from a complete novice or engineers point of view. What I will be doing is starting threads that document what I have learnt and what I have observed from an engineer's perspective.

Mozzies: This again comes from a life long interest in aviation, flight and model making. One of the most fascinating aircraft that came from WWII was the de Havilland DH-98 Mosquito which was commonly referred to as the Mozzie. There are however no airworthy examples of the Mosquito left in the world and when I heard that an Australian group were in the process of restoring one to flying condition my interest was aroused. The restoration work is too far from where I live to participate so instead I decided to build a detailed flying model of the Mosquito. I will be documenting both the construction of the flying model as well as some of the history and engineering of the original aircraft.

There you have it, welcome to the new and expanded blog and I hope you find the future subject matter interesting.