BUILDING A TEST PLANET

30-Ton Metal Sphere Spins for Magnetic Fields

Building a test planet takes serious engineering. Researchers at the University of Maryland have constructed a 30-ton sphere that spins at more than 90 mph to generate magnetic fields. The 10-ft.-dia. sphere is filled with 13.5 tons of liquid sodium to mimic the Earth’s liquid-iron center core. A 3.3-ft.- dia. stainless-steel sphere inside the larger one counterrotates to approximate the motion of the planet’s solid iron inner core. The action of Earth’s inner liquid produces a magnetic field that makes compasses work, deflects harmful cosmic rays and protects the planet from solar wind. The field reverses every couple of hundred thousand years. By using a model instead of a computer simulation, scientists hope to determine how these reversals occur and predict the next one.

Stats of Spin

Little Earth: Both spheres are driven by 350-hp electric motors. At full speed the outer sphere spins at 240 rpm; the inner sphere reaches 960 rpm.

Dangerous Metal: Sodium is highly conductive and melts more easily than iron, but it can explode if touched by water. (The lab in Maryland has no sprinklers.)

Fuel Metal Jacket: The corrugated half-pipes around the sphere are filled with oil, not water or steam, that heats the sodium inside to its melting point, 207.9 F.

BOMB DISPOSAL!!!!!

Bomb Disposal ROBOTIC'S- An Extra hand to mankind

The robot with the dirtier, and arguably more dangerous job description is an advanced explosive ordinance disposal unit. This bot, a collaboration between Segway Robotics and SRI International, allows a remote operator to defuse a bomb with surgical precision. That's not an exaggeration—the robot is a wheeled platform for SRI's M7 telesurgery system, which surgeons (such as PM contributor Ken Kamler) have used to suture simulated flesh in a range of environments, including microgravity.

The purpose of this unnamed drone, according to SRI, would be to handle the bombs and IEDs of the future; advanced threats that can't be neutralized by a slap from a robot's pincer or a burst of high-pressure water. "Inevitably, there are going to be complex devices, like a dirty bomb or a chemical dispersal system, that are going to require an expert to technically deactivate the device, rather than just disrupt it," says Thomas Low, director of the medical systems and devices program at SRI.

WHILE SEARCHING FOR LIFE....

MARS MOUNTAINEER

When searching for life on a distant planet, it pays to make sure that any biologically derived molecules you find didn’t catch a ride from Earth on the spaceship. Avoiding “forward contamination” takes elbow grease, and the right mix of chemicals, before a mission even launches. To test NASA’s sterilization protocol, scientists set off for the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard with Cliffbot, a next-generation rover (shown here). There, they perfected a seven-step procedure involving distilled water, hydrogen peroxide and chemical swabs, making sure to scrub every one of Cliffbot’s ­scoopers. The regimen worked, removing one more obstacle before cadres of squeaky-clean robots can further humanity’s search for microbial company on Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Mars Mountaineer

Arctic Outdoor Lab: Scientists use Norway’s far northern Svalbard islands to test gear-sterilization techniques and space-bound rovers such as this prototype.

Social Climber: Cliffbot is part of a three-rover team. Two other robots are tethered to the machine to let it access terrain as steep as 85 degrees.

Bot Specs: The rover is the size of a toy wagon, weighs nearly 18 pounds and creeps at 6 inches a second on level ground.

SILICON VALLEY'S

If Team Mira's robots are a circus act, then Silicon Valley's fleet of drones might be an entire circus. This team's system is designed to be easily scaled up or down and can include different kinds of UGVs, static sensors (dropped in place by UGVs), various UAVs, tethered blimps and kites.

At the MoD Grand Challenge, the team's robot army featured a pair of six-wheeled UGVs called Moonbuggies. There are two versions of the Moonbuggy: a larger model, designed to investigate the environment, and a mini-Moonbuggy that generally stays in one spot or patrols a given area. The system also includes a glider that can fly on autopilot over the village, feeding video to a pair of glasses. Similar to Team Mindsheet's easily replaceable toy cars, Silicon Valley's system is intended to use largely off-the-shelf, commercially available gear.

Though its robots are impressive, the algorithm that the system uses is perhaps its most striking asset. It includes image recognition software that can—in theory—spot the command wires leading back to an improvised explosive device. Though the Silicon Valley team didn't take first place in the Grand Challenge, the team's technical lead, Richard May, believes they could have "a trialable system in six to nine months and a fieldable system within 18 months."

MIRA'S Traveling Robot Circus

Team Mira consists of a trio of robotic scouts that together seem more like a traveling robot circus act than a team of military droids. Its entry consists of a UGV called MACE 1, which carries a small UAV on its back, and tows a trailer holding a small blimp. MACE 1 (which stands for MIRA Autonomous Control Engineering) is clearly the ringleader, a hybrid-electric four-wheeled robot that has autonomous navigation and threat-detection software. The flying saucer–like UAV that comes off of MACE 1's back has to be controlled by a human operator, while the blimp's job is simply to relay images from high above the battlefield. The star of this team—which, like Stellar, includes both private and academic organizations—is MACE 1, with its ability to turn off its internal combustion engine for stealth missions and haul payloads as heavy as 660 pounds. And while Team Mira's blimp and remote-operated flying saucer could help locate threats, most of the sensor capabilities are mounted on the UGV. Though the three-part combo didn't win the trophy, the competition could serve as a launching pad for this versatile drone

MINDSHEET

If this team had its way, tomorrow's soldiers wouldn't be able to walk past a Toys R Us without breaking into a sweat. The fleet of four UGVs that Mindsheet deployed were made from off-the-shelf radio-controlled toy cars fitted with off-the-shelf sensors and communications gear. "This is an awesome vehicle," says Raglan Tribe, managing director of Mindsheet Ltd. The Traxxas EMAXX can power through wet terrain and over curbs, and has a maximum speed of 30 mph. "You can drop it from about 2 meters without damaging it," says Tribe. "We haven't wasted any time or resources reengineering the chassis. The same applies to the vehicle controller, the sensors, communications, etc. Instead, we are putting our effort into threat detection algorithms and vehicle control behaviors." Using commercial gear could streamline maintenance, but if the backpack-portable drones ever make it to the battlefield, their existing battery life would be boosted. Mindsheet's UGVs navigate the training village with full autonomy, but once potential targets are spotted, classifying each threat requires some human assistance. Before the competition Tribe noted, "We might lose a few points, but it's probably the only way to pick out the IED and sniper."

STELLAR - SATURN

The Stellar team's Grand Challenge entry, SATURN (short for Sensing & Autonomous Tactical Urban Reconnaissance Network), took the top prize in yesterday's MoD competition: Of the entries, it was the most successful at identifying threats and relaying them back to the team. This doesn't mean that Stellar will automatically get a contract with the British Armed Forces, but the MoD will consider it for incorporation into its future frontline kit, along with successful elements from other teams' entries.
In many ways SATURN is something out of a sci-fi nightmare: Swarms of mindless drones buzz through densely populated cities and towns and report back to a centralized computer that analyzes the situation and feeds back commands. In the case of Team Stellar, its Ground Control Station (GCS) consists of a laptop that processes image data from a combination of unmanned ground and air vehicles.
According to Julia Richardson, director of Stellar Research Services and head of the multi-organization team, the GCS hosts two software suites. The Autonomous Threat Detection software looks at incoming footage from the single UGV and multiple UAVs and picks out threats. It then indicates the location of each threat on an overhead map, which is displayed on the laptop screen.
"Meanwhile, the IP [Intelligent Processing] software decides which platforms should be sent where, and then provides them with the commands and routes, via GCS waypoints," says Richardson. Instead of relying on GPS data, Stellar's hivemind-like SATURN system plans routes based on aerial imagery, collected in advance by satellites or UAVs.
Stellar's UAVs may not be in the British army's immediate future, but their success in the Grand Challenge means that the technology is hardly science fiction.

DARPA's Urban Challenge

DARPA's Urban Challenge was, in some ways, a bait and switch. Carmakers touted it as the next great evolutionary leap for the autonomous automobile, but the Pentagon's research arm was investigating the prospect of self-driving vehicles that can carry supplies or wounded soldiers through the urban battlefield.
Now, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has held its own robotics competition, the Grand Challenge, that cut to the chase with unmanned vehicles stalking human targets through the Copehill Down training village in southwestern England. The finals took place this weekend, and the MoD announced the winners yesterday.
A key difference between the Grand Challenge and DARPA's Challenges is hardware diversity. The robots who slogged through the training village, picking out an array of potential targets—including uniformed troops, armed snipers perched in windows and roadside bombs—ranged from familiar, sensor-studded unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Some teams even used a combination of ground and air bots, since UAVs might be useful for spotting a tactical (a pickup with a mounted weapon) while UGVs are better at detecting improvised bombs. Less "operator intervention" required to navigate the village, find warm bodies and differentiate between civilians and legitimate military targets earned more points.
Stellar won the competition with its SATURN system, and PM picked three other teams that took innovative approaches to the challenge. The winner won't receive a cash prize, so the entire competition was essentially an open audition. The most impressive systems could land contracts with the MoD or be snapped up by larger defense firms, even if they didn't take home the trophy.

New Mini Fuel Injector Sets Pace for UAV's

When aerospace companies set out to make reliable engines for small UAVs, they call in designers who work with printers. That’s how John Da Cunha got involved in the defense business. The researcher left a product-development job at Hewlett-Packard to get in the defense game with NWUAV Propulsion Systems, an Oregon-based company that makes engines for Insitu, a UAV shop that in turn makes the ScanEagle for boieng. Fluids act differently at small scales, and so engines for diminutive, lightweight aircraft need to be designed from scratch. Instead of using pumps, tiny engines rely on capillary action and surface tension to control droplets of fuel.

MEMS Fuel Injection System

The culture of the defense industry might be different from that of office supplies vendors—PM caught Da Cunha manning a booth in 98 degree weather at an UAV demonstration at a naval air station in Maryland—but the technology of printers and engines are related. Ink-jet printers have very tight control over the amount of fluid released by the nozzles. That kind of precision is needed to avoid problems that occur when the injector releases blobs of fuel that are too large to fully evaporate, which can make the engine stutter or gum up the insides. “The structures are the same but the dimensions are different,” Da Cunha says. “Inks are water-based, and they’re different than hydrocarbon fuels.” Da Cunha’s MEMSFIS has been tested with various heavy fuels, including traditional aviation standbys JP8 and JP5, producing 10 micron drops. The structures are so small that there are 750 nozzles around the 9mm ring in this laser-cut plastic chip. These can be stacked as needed to increase the amount of fuel. The company, of course, is eager to pass on the dividends of this research to civilian applications, including lawnmowers, power generators and motorcycles.

Electric Airplanes Impress at Oshkosh Air Show

There was electricity in the air at this year's EAA Airventure air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Literally. A serious new trend at this year's show was the sudden proliferation of electrically powered airplanes. A German company called Lange Flugzeugbau showed off its gracile motor glider, the Antares 20E, which it claims can climb 10,000 feet on a single charge of its lithium ion batteries. Once at a suitable altitude, the retractable propeller stows away, and the pilot then needs to find air currents to stay aloft.

 Yuneec

 

By contrast, the Shanghai-built Yuneec (pronounced "unique") e430 is a more conventional two-seat light sport aircraft. It's equipped with battery packs that can keep it in the air for the better part of 90 minutes, and is designed only to fly around for as long as the juice lasts. So you won't have enough time in the air to get very far? Big deal, says managing director Clive Coote: "The idea is just to go up and have fun." It's easy to understand Coote's enthusiasm for electric power: Last year aviation gasoline hit a punishing $5 a gallon. And with global warming on everyone's mind, electricity-powered flying is definitely appealing. But how thrilling can electric flying be? Batteries are always going to hold less energy than an equivalent weight of gas, so electric planes are either going to be comparatively underpowered, short-legged, or both.

The special appeal of Oshkosh–which started out as a confab for home-builders–has been to see what astonishing new creations America's legion of amateur aeronautical innovators had come up with. By that score, this year's air show was disappointing. The most fun–and surprising–new aircraft we came across was the Snedden M7, designed by Ohio pilot and plane-builder Andrew Snedden. It features bright red fabric covering a truss of aluminum tubing, with splays of wire bracing to keep everything in place. The unusual four-wheeled undercarriage looks better suited to a shopping cart. To get into the open cockpit, you have to crouch, crawl under the wing, and climb up into it from below. The most novel feature is its one-on-a-kind inverted V-tail that serves as both an elevator and a rudder via a mechanism that we don't quite understand. With a cruising speed of about 35 mph, the aircraft isn't going to get anywhere fast, but that's okay: "Low and slow is the best way to see things," Snedden says. He has yet to decide if he's going to put it on the market as a kit plane. Either way, he gets top marks for creativity.

New Armored Ride Will Protect Troops From IEDs in Afghanistan

July was the deadly time for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began. Fortunately, after nearly eight years of fighting, Army infantry and Marines in Afghanistan will finally be getting a new vehicle that is designed to meet the challenges of the theater.

Most of the damage to American soldiers in Afghanistan is done with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). These roadside bombs have proven to be a plague to U.S. and coalition troops, who load into convoys of mine-resistant heavy vehicles, called MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected), that were designed to protect troops from blasts. The Pentagon, aided by an influx of Congressional funds, went on an MRAP-buying spree when Humvees in Iraq became targets of choice for insurgents. But the family of MRAPs produced for the Iraq war is not well-suited for Afghanistan. The vehicles' suspensions cannot handle the lack of paved roads. Top-heavy with armor, the vehicles can tip, especially along the steep, winding paths that lead to rural villages. Humvees are too lightly protected, and MRAPs too top-heavy. So the Pentagon just spent more than $3 billion on a vehicle that it hopes will be just right. About 5000 of these new vehicles, called the MRAP All Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV) are expected to be fielded by spring 2010. The Pentagon's contracts with Oshkosh Corp., one issued last month and a second issued today, specify that the company deliver all the M-ATVs by March 2010, but the first are expected in theater by October. By December, the company plans to make 1000 M-ATVS a month.

The Oshkosh team

met shortly after the Pentagon issued an emergency call for the vehicles, in an "urgent need" request that falls outside the traditional, sluggish procurement process, to plan a way to adapt an existing vehicle to the new terrain. "It's not as much of a challenge as you might think," says Dan Binder, Oshkosh's technical director for the M-ATV. "Our design is based on a modular concept." The company's plan revolved around removing an axle from the chassis of an MTVR, a six-wheeled, 7-ton truck they sell to Marines. The commonality between other vehicles is appealing to the Pentagon, which is always interested in streamlining logistics and training by using similar equipment. The M-ATV shares several parts with the Marines' 7-ton truck, including the drivetrain, dashboard panels and coil-spring suspension, which can clear 16 inches while carrying a normal load, as can the Marines' 7-ton truck. The specially built (and proprietary) suspension system is also being retrofit to other vehicles in the Army and Marine inventory. There is also a slew of protective features that make the vehicle a vast improvement on Humvees while keeping its weight and profile to a minimum. These include a V-shaped hull that deflects the force of explosions away from the vehicle's occupants; seats that are suspended from the ceiling with straps, instead of being bolted to the floor, so that explosive energy doesn't travel into the cab and cause leg injuries; energy-absorbing floor mats; wheels that are located away from where people sit so that pressure-plate-triggered IEDs do not detonate under the crew capsule; and tire rims can survive if the wheels are blasted away, at least long enough to escape the kill zone of an ambush. Oshkosh's Frankenvehicle strategy puts a premium on paying for research that can be applied to future contracts. And M-ATV is just the tip of the military-vehicle iceberg. The real prize, called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program, is meant to replace the Humvee for good. The future family of vehicles will include five armored versions, including infantry combat, command, reconnaissance and armored utility vehicles. Such a contract would easily total tens of billions of dollars in construction alone, not to mention funds for maintenance and field support services

The Trouble With MRAPs

The MRAP family of vehicles are saving soldiers' lives in Afghanistan, but suffer from flaws that make replacements urgently needed. During the past seven years, the Pentagon has tried to adapt its MRAP fleet to better handle the rigors of combat. Flaw: Top-heavy vehicles are prone to tip over, which can be deadly along bridges, culverts and mountainous terrain. Stop-gap solution: The U.S. military is sending a vehicle rollover simulator to train deployed troops how to escape from a tipped-over MRAP. Flaw: The antenna of tall vehicles can touch power lines, risking electrocution for occupants.Stop-gap Solution: Soldiers use rope to tie down the whipcord antenna until they are needed. Flaw: Suspensions break when on bad or nonexistent roads. Temporary Fix: Oshkosh is replacing suspension of more than 1500 existing MRAPs with its advanced TAK-4 system, which allows up to 16 inches of wheel travel. Also, this year the Pentagon and industry manufacturers started to modify MRAPs with central tire-inflation systems that deflate before the wheels hit an obstacle.

Who’s Killing the Electric Plane?

U.S. Aviation designers are hampered by federal rules restricting the use of battery-powered aircraft. Here is a look at a few electric planes that, under current FAA rules, are unavailable to sport pilots.

Even as the federal government jump-starts electric cars with $2.4 billion in research funds, electric airplanes are getting held back. In fact, current Federal Aviation Administration rules prohibit electric motors in light sport aircraft, a class of planes typically flown by less experienced pilots. The FAA decrees that LSAs be powered only by reciprocating engines, a measure intended to keep high-powered turbine engines out of the hands of novice sport pilots. This rule is now thwarting the sale of electric airplanes in the United States. “We’re reluctant to introduce technology on a less experienced pilot population,” says the FAA’s Steve Flanagan, who helped write the LSA rules. “We need to get some more flight experience with electric motors.” That position is frustrating to Randall Fishman, an ultralight pilot who’s currently developing an electric two-seat sport plane, the ElectraFlyer-X. The $65,000 kit plane is being designed to LSA specifications so it can quickly go into production if and when the FAA gives electric airplane motors the okay.

5 Metamaterials That Make Matter Invisible, Silent or Blindingly Fast
Step aside, nanotechnology, the buzzword for today’s material scientist is “metamaterials.” These substances are tiny engineered structures from existing composite that are used to manipulate light, sound and radiowaves. Researchers are just starting to find applications for this research and may soon come out with products that can cloak military vehicles, make stronger microscopes and faster computer chips. Here are 5 examples of metamaterials in action.

When nature can’t supply raw ingredients for next-generation hardware, scientists create their own. Man-made “metamaterials” are going beyond the lab and into real-world applications. Scientists use existing composite materials, like the gold and gallium-arsenide mixes used in electronics, to create complex, though tiny, structures. These When nature can’t supply raw ingredients for next-generation hardware, scientists create their own. Man-made “metamaterials” are going beyond the lab and into real-world applications. Scientists use existing composite materials, like the gold and gallium-arsenide mixes used in electronics, to create complex, though tiny, structures. These nano-size bumps, crosses, holes or ridges manipulate electromagnetic waves that hit them. Early prototypes of invisibility cloaks, which would guide light around an object to be shielded, have generated some techno­buzz. But researchers have quietly been inventing more near-term materials that will soon appear in the pockets of consumers and in the hands of military users.

Armored vehicles in Afghanistan (top) guard against whirling bomb fragments, but do little to prevent braindamage.

Armored vehicles enable U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to survive roadside explosive attacks. But the shock waves from such blasts have left survivors with traumatic brain injuries. It is difficult to study how to mitigate these injuries: The lab dummies typically used in such research are good for measuring blunt trauma, but they are largely unaffected by the effects of shock waves, according to Dr. Mark George, a neurologist at the Medical University of South Carolina. To measure such effects, George and vehicle manufacturer Force Protection used C-4 to blast Tupperware containing live celery suspended in gelatin. The veins of celery resemble the myelin sheath that carries impulses along human neurons. After each blast (left), the team analyzed the vegetables and discovered that they had tiny vascular tears that resembled damage in a brain suffering from shock-wave-induced trauma. The next step: integrating the findings into full-scale test dummies.

These big buses are made in Foremost, Alberta by Foremost Industries, a company that designs, manufactures and markets "high-mobility all-terrain wheeled and tracked vehicles used to transport heavy loads where there are no roads". The design of these vehicles provides for high approach and departure angles, deep fording ability and the ability to cross, descend and ascend steep slopes.
The Foremost Terra Bus is an all-wheel drive, three-axle, 56-passenger, off-road bus. Examples can be found shuttling tourists on the Columbia Ice field in Canada's Jasper National Park and transporting scientific personnel in the Antarctic.

Big tyre and impressive power

The M1A1 Abrams Main Battle tank, while not quite as invincible as Mr. Child describes in the excerpt quoted above, is indeed a formidable weapon, and the most powerful tank ever made. Named after the late General Creighton W. Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff and commander of the 37th Armored Battalion in the United States, the M1A1 Abram is the ultimate mobile ground-based weapon. Its function is to provide mobile firepower that can close with and destroy any opposing armoured fighting vehicle in the world, while protecting its crew in any combat environment. It can engage the enemy in any weather, day or night.

Three versions of the Abrams tank are in service, including the original M1 model, dating from the early 1980s. Newer versions include the M1A1, produced from 1985 through 1993, and the M1A2, which is an upgraded version that includes such high-tech devices as thermal imaging, GPS navigation and digital communications.

The M1A1 weighs 50 metric tonnes, and is 10 metres long when the gun turret is pointed forward. The tank is 3.7 metres wide, with a ground clearance of half a metre. It's powered by a 1500 horsepower gas turbine engine, and supports a crew of four: Commander, Gunner, Loader and Driver. The M1A1 can climb over obstacles over a metre high, and traverse ditches 3 metres deep. It has a top speed of close to 70 km/h, can accelerate from 0-32 km/h in just 7 seconds, and has a cruising range of 440 kilometres. The replacement cost for and M1A1 Abrams tank is over 4 million dollars US; over 8000 have been made.

The main armament on the M1A1 is the 120 mm smoothbore gun, which can fire a variety of ammunition, including a depleted uranium penetrating round. (Depleted uranium has a density two and a half times greater than steel and provides high penetration). Other armament includes various machine guns and smoke grenade launchers.

The M1A1 tank is protected by steel-encased depleted uranium armour. The depleted uranium provides a higher level of protection against anti-tank weapons. The tank is protected against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, and the crew are equipped with protective suits and face masks.

During the Gulf War, of 1,955 Abrams M1A1 tanks in battle, only 18 were taken out of service due to battle damage; no crewman was lost in the conflict, while inside the protection of the M1A1's armour, by enemy fire.

Nevertheless, the M1A1 Abrams is not invulnerable. It can be disabled by land mines, and incapacitated by RPG's - rocket-propelled grenades - if struck on the treads or between the treads and the deck. However, battlefield results have shown that an M1A1 can survive without damage after sustaining direct hits by T-72 tank rounds.

EXTREME TRACTORS

The Versatile 1080 (known as Big Roy) was built in the late 1970s as a prototype. It weighed 26 tons, and came with a 600 hp, V-12 19-litre Cummins engine and eight-wheel-drive on four axles. A 2100 litre fuel tank was in the front section.
Due to its large size, 120-degree wide angle television cameras were linked to monitors in the cab, in order to allow the farmer to view the implements hooked behind.
Fuel consumption? At the time, there were no implements big enough to challenge its pulling power, so no accurate tests were ever done. Soaring development costs and a small market for the huge tractor forced cancellation of production, but Big Roy is still on display at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum in Austin, Manitoba, Canada.

The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan

The USS RONALD REAGAN is the 9th Nimitz-class aircraft carrier built for the U.S. Navy. It was named after former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. The ship has a newer design than the other carriers in its class, including a completely re-designed island, a bulbous bow, and modifications to the flight deck. With a top speed of more than 35 mph, and carrying more than 80 combat aircraft, the USS Ronald Reagan has an expected lifetime of at least 50 years.

The carrier displaces almost 100,000 metric tonnes when fully loaded, and is over 330 metres long. Its flight deck covers an immense 4.5 acres; the island is 20 stories above the waterline. Power comes from two nuclear reactors that can operate for 20 years without refueling. Propulsion (over 280,000 horsepower) is taken care of by four huge bronze propellers, each of which is 6.4 metres across and weighs 30 tonnes.


In addition to the aircraft carried on deck and in the hangars below, the carrier is equipped with several types of missiles, various guns, and electronic warfare gear. Planes are launched from the deck using steam-powered catapults; a combat aircraft is sent down the deck 100 metres during which time its speed increases from zero to 165 miles per hour ... in just two seconds. Upon their return to the ship, aircraft are stopped by arresting cables stretched across the deck.

About 6,000 crew members are aboard when the carrier sails. Over 18,000 meals are served each day (for almost three months without restocking). The ship also contains a post office, a dental office staffed by five dentists and an oral surgeon, a 63-bed hospital with five physicians, a ship's newspaper, and three chaplains who conduct daily religious services. A desalination plant turns seawater into fresh drinking water at the rate of 1,500,000 litres per day.