Good morning #EUROAVIAns, in today’s Fact Friday we talk about Alitalia. Alitalia was the largest italian airline, it was created in 1947 and ceased operations on the 15th of October of this year selling its assets to ITA Airways a new italian fag-carrier. It was property of the Italian Government until its partial privatization in …
Good morning #EUROAVIAns, in today’s Fact Friday we talk about human tourism, specifically on Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company “Blue Origin”. Blue Origin is a private aerospace company founded in 2000 with the mission to “Increase access to space through reusable rockets”. Reusability is the key word, since by making reusable rockets 🚀, flight costs decrease …
The Stipa Caproni was an experimental aircraft built by Luigi Stipa in the early ‘30s as a proof of his ducted propeller principle, which states that enclosing a propeller in a duct can increase its performances and efficiency, plus it may exploit the heat emitted by the combustion engine to achieve a further (although limited) …
Good morning dear Euroavians,today we talk about the unit conversion error that made NASA lose a 327 million dollar mission to Mars. Have you ever struggled on a physics exercise only to realise at the end that the force was given in pounds instead of in newtons? Well, that’s not so dissimilar to what happened …
Good evening EUROAVIAns,in today’s Fact Friday we will talk about Dyson spheres! What is a Dyson sphere? First of all, it’s not some kind of toy for your home pet, neither is it some peculiar ball! The concept of a Dyson sphere was developed in 1960 by Freeman Dyson, a British-American mathematician interested in astrophysics. …
Good evening EUROAVIAns,in today’s Fact Friday we will talk about Engineers and Formula1 Being part of a Formula1 team is the dream of a lot of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering students. But what does it take to be chosen among the number of candidates applying every year? Today we’ll talk about Andrea Stella, now a …
Good morning EUROAVIAns,in today’s Fact Friday we talk about biomimicry in engineering. Biomimicry is a study that solves human problems with models, systems and elements of nature. Living beings have evolved multiple times by creating structures and mechanisms which are efficient and well-built, so when we build or design something we can be inspired by …
Good morning EUROAVIAns,in today’s Fact Friday we talk about space medicine. Space medicine is a term first used in the 1950’s when commercial aviation grew rapidly and big steps were made towards the first space missions. This makes it hard to imagine that, after all that time, the main medical equipment aboard the ISS was …
Good morning EUROAVIAns,in today’s Fact Friday we talk about #meteorite: on March 15th, a meteorite fell in Temennotte, Molise. Yes, you read right, it may seem absurd but it’s the truth. The rock weighs approximately 1 kilogram and it is about the size of a fist. It is of great interest to the National Institute …
Good morning dear EUROAVIAns,in today’s Fact Friday we talk about Space Rider, ESA’s mini-shuttle! Space Rider, acronym of Space Reusable Integrated Demonstrator for Europe Return (space people really like acronyms!), is Europe’s first reusable space transportation system. It is developed by Thales Alenia Space in collaboration with the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA). Space Rider …
Good morning EUROAVIAns, in today’s FactFriday we talk about Planet Nine! How many planets are in our Solar System? If you answered eight, we’re sorry to inform you that, as shocking as it sounds, there might be a ninth planet out there! No, we’re not talking about Pluto (sigh), but of an undiscovered planet hiding …