Technologies of the Frontier

Editorial by Jacopo D. Cordero - Managing Editor

The new heading, dedicated to the aerospace sector, is born.

In an historical moment in which political, economic and social difficulties make the relationships among the people very unstable, perhaps the only unifying element is "to aim high", to look at the sky and hope to reach it in a stable way and for more and more wide space dimensions. Such a dream, besides a speculative fact, can be also useful to hypothesize existential solutions, more suitable to our evolutionary stage, to improve the quality of life on Earth, to tighten new pacts of alliance and fraternity among the people, to improve the scientific search, to give new rush to the creative impulse and so on.

Each-one of us knows that the dream to fly, to rise from Earth, to touch the sky with a finger, it is one of the more recurrent desires among children, artists, poets, but also between the most brave scientists and researchers because, somehow, such utopia lives inside us, as a sort of innate and ancestral inheritance.

While Earth seems to rebel against its occupants, unwise exploiters of its resources – and the recent earthquakes, floods, drastic climatic changes are a sad proof of it – another hypothesis is parallelly taking place: to transfer part of humanity upward, in the endless space, when modern technology will be able 'to make possible, a not so far day, what currently is thinkable.

In an official interview Hu Wenrui, teacher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, states the following: "the Chinese space activity wheels around two goals: to get new resources and sources of energy and, if necessary, to let the people to migrate. These objectives are distant from being realized, but they will be reached".

Technologies of Frontier considers every aspect tied up to the Aerospace sector and will follow the global course of it, the state of the art in the applied technology, the projects and the Italian and international space flights.

But not only. The webzine will also give a voice to those people who work in the aerospace compartment: we will guest articles and interventions from the ones which every day work with the themes and the problem related to space. And more, the space at 360°, as it is seen by artists, by musicians, by people that interpret the greatness of the infinite universe above of us with a greater sensibility.

This the summary of the main articles of this first number of the new TDF:

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The president's Newsletter, Adriano Autino, discussed by the TDF’s Inner Circle before the publication, touches themes of burning actuality, from the increasing environmental crisis to the space alternative, introducing the theme of the inseparable connection between ethics and culture, while the Civilization is approaching epoch challenges. We will develop such a topic also in the next issues.

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TDF presents the 1st International Convention, the April 1st 2006.

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The Chinese aerospace race - a panning on the new Chinese astronautic reality, after the return of Shenzen 5 that brought two taikonauts in orbit, by Jacopo Cordero.

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Aerospace industry - this issue inaugurates the section of the magazine open to the firms, institutions and individuals that work on the space and astronautics market, or they aim to play a role as protagonists in the dawning space economy.

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Report on Energy - with two articles, one by Alberto Cavallo on the oil thread, and one of Franco Pallavicini, making the point on the nuclear fusion research, we open the study file on the energy threads, that will continue in the following numbers.

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Quantum Computers – an high-level dissertation, developed by Luisa Spairani, on one of the most promising technological frontiers of the computer science.

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A new solar system - an article by Michael Martin-Smith, that opens an interesting window on the great and multiform wealth of our solar system, in terms of raw materiuals and energy.

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Gymnasium of the Mind - with a brief reflection on the unhappy connection between drug and cultures we open a new "room" of TDF, that will propose reflections, cursives, poetries, brief stories, targeted to show anxious or promising aspects, of our epoch.

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Reviews. With "Earth" of David Brin, reviewed by Luisa Spairani, we begin a cycle of reviews of science fiction books, interesting from the new-humanist and astro-humanist point of view.

 [26.JC.TDF.2005 - 13.11.2005]