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Here are links to NASA live broadcast of Curiosity’s landing on Mars. Curiosity is the one ton car-sized rover that NASA is landing on Mars today.

This is another step in Man’s great adventure into interstellar space. Well Done, NASA.

NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

NASA Ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

NASA TV Schedule: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html

Today’s (August 5, Sunday 2012) Schedule (All Programs Eastern Time Zone):

6 a.m. – Replay of NASA Science News Conference – Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Mission Status and Entry, Descent and Landing Overview (8÷4) – HQ (All Channels)

7 a.m. – Replay of NASA Science News Conference – MSL Mission Science Overview (8÷2) – HQ (All Channels)

8 a.m. – Replay of NASA Science News Conference – Mission Engineering Overview (8÷2) – HQ (All Channels)

9 a.m. – NASA Television Video File – HQ (All Channels)

10 a.m. – 12 p.m. — Replay of NASA Social for the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Landing – HQ (All Channels)

12 p.m. – NASA Television Video File – HQ(All Channels)

12:30–1:30 p.m. — NASA Science News Conference Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Pre-Landing News Conference — Rover Communication overview — JPL (All Channels)

1:30 p.m. – Replay of NASA News Conference to Announce New Agreements for Next Phase of Commercial Crew Development – HQ (All Channels)

2 p.m. – Replay of ISS Update (8÷3) – HQ (All Channels)

3 p.m. — NASA Science News Conference Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Pre-Landing News Conference — Rover Communication overview – JPL (All Channels)

4–6 p.m. – Replay of NASA Social for the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Landing – HQ (All Channels)

6–7 p.m. — NASA Science News Conference — NASA Science Mission Directorate — JPL (All Channels)

11 p.m. — Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Landing Coverage of Entry Decent and Landing (Commentary #1 Begins 11:30 p.m.) — JPL (Public and Education Channels)

11 p.m. — Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Landing Coverage of Entry Decent and Landing (Clean Feed with Mission Audio Only) — JPL (Media Channel)

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative

While emailing back and forth with Ron Kita, I realized that it would be useful to compile a list of researchers who have published serious papers, past & present, in the new field of propulsion physics (gravity modification is an example) at least for the purpose of finding out how many countries are at some stage in this field.

This is important to do if we are to hasten the theoretical & technological development to leave Earth on a commercially feasible scale. I was surprised by what I found.

Below is the list. I’m sure it is not complete but it is a start. If you know of anyone who should be on this list, please let me know, and I will update this post.

Here are the ground rules for including a name.

1) They must have published their research in a journal accessible to the public (preferably in English as I’m monolingual and cannot verify the validity if it is not). This excludes anyone in secret projects or black projects (therefore Greenglow, Phantom & Skunk), or could not reach the level of research where peer review would consider the paper acceptable.

2) Excludes papers related to conventional technologies. This excludes sails, tethers, conventional fuels, ion propulsion and nuclear detonations.

3) Excludes the extension of conventional physics. For example, it is estimated that doing interstellar travel to Alpha Centauri, with conventional fuels would require a fuel cost of approximately 3.4x 2011 World GDP.

4) Exclude papers requiring ‘Millennium Theories’. Millennium Theories are theories that will require more than a 100 years to falsify. This eliminates research using exotic matter. For example, it is estimated that doing interstellar travel to Alpha Centauri, with antimatter would cost of approximately 43,000x 2011 World GDP.

5) Includes researchers attempting to solve anomalies or unexplained observations, today, but exclude those whose focus is not propulsion.

6) Includes researches in established organizations but excludes researchers involved in the test methodologies or the management of such programs.

7) It would be desirable if the publishing journal/conference was associated with a national organization such as AIP, AIAA, Elsevier or other similar organizations.

Country Count People Count Country Last Name First Name
1 1 Austria Hense Klause
1 2 Austria Marhold Klause
1 3 Austria Tajmar Martin
2 4 Brazil De Aquino Fran
2 5 Brazil Alcubierre Miguel
3 6 Canada Hathaway George
4 7 China Li Ning
4 8 China Wu Ning
5 9 Finland Nieminen R.
6 10 France de Matos Clovis
7 11 Greece Provatidis Christopher
8 12 India Gupta R.C.
9 13 Italy Modanese Giovanni
9 14 Italy Ummarino G.A.
10 15 Japan Hayasaka Hideo
10 16 Japan Musha Takaaki
10 17 Japan Nishino Kimio
10 18 Japan Takeuchi Sakae
11 19 Romania Agop M.
11 20 Romania Buzea C. Gh.
11 21 Romania Ciobanu B.
12 22 Russia Podkletnov Eugene
13 23 Slovakia Sima Jozef
13 24 Slovakia Sukenık Miroslav
14 25 South Korea Tajmar Martin
15 26 UK Laithwaite Eric
16 27 USA Brandenburg John
16 28 USA Brantley Whitt
16 29 USA Chiao Raymond Y.
16 30 USA Clark Rod
16 31 USA Cramer John
16 32 USA Forward Robert
16 33 USA Fralick Gustave
16 34 USA Gaines J
16 35 USA Haisch Bernard
16 36 USA Hammer Jay
16 37 USA Kir Asit
16 38 USA Koczor Ron
16 39 USA Maclay Jordan
16 40 USA March Paul
16 41 USA Michael George
16 42 USA Milonni Peter
16 43 USA Murad Paul
16 44 USA Niedra Janis
16 45 USA Noever David
16 46 USA Puthoff Hal
16 47 USA Reuda Alfonso
16 48 USA Richland Center
16 49 USA Robertson Glen (Tony)
16 50 USA Rounds Frederic
16 51 USA Sanderson L
16 52 USA Serry Michael
16 53 USA Solomon B.T.
16 54 USA Torr D.G.
16 55 USA Villareal Carlos
16 56 USA Woods Clive
16 57 USA Woodward James

There are 16 countries! and 57 researchers. In a 2011 email to us, James Woodward had suggest that there are only about 35 of us seriously researching propulsion physics, on this planet. He came close, or I’m being generous. OK you can exclude Finland and India because I do not think these two countries have a concerted effort to develop a new propulsion technology.

Thanks to Ron Kita for pointing me to Takaaki Musha (Honda), Kimio Nishino (Toyota) and RC Gupta. I was surprised that Honda and Toyota, the car companies were interested in gravity modification.

Ron had also suggested Mike Gamble (supposedly of Boeing, and I did not attempt to either confirm or disprove his employement), and Brice Cassenti. I did not include Cassenti because his work was on Biefield Brown, which is an electric field effect.

Propulsion physics is about anything that is not related to gliding, rocketry, jets, electric motors, and internal combustion engines. I included South Korea because Tajmar is there now.

I excluded Mike Gamble, and here’s why. At SPESIF 2012 (which I had not attended) he announced that ‘Boeing has been using a “scissoring gyroscope” style of inertial propulsion for satellite maneuvering for years!’ and showed a picture (see http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/Enews/EnewsMar2012.htm).

I am very skeptical. I could not make out what the picture shows, and in my opinion a “scissoring gyroscope” type technology is too jerky to be used as a means of satellite propulsion.

Kumaran Sanmugathasan had suggested Mehran Keshe of Belgium, he does not satisfy the rules. Thanks Kumaran.

Gary Stephenson had suggested many, many names. Thanks Gary. Gary had also suggested S.M. Godwin & V.V. Roschin of Russia, but I could not find enough information about them with respect to the rules, above, and have to exclude them.

Hope this blog posting will increase the number of serious researchers in the new field of propulsion physics, increase the funding, and raise the awareness of propulsion physics as opposed to astronomy or cosmology.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative

Recently Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, wrote an article in the Huffington Post How to Find Extraterrestrial Life. He had proposed that the search for extraterrestrial life was a three-way horse race. According to Shostak:

(1) Discover Life Nearby: This is the search for life in our solar system.

(2) Sniff It Out: Do the sort of spectral analysis that might detect atmospheric gases caused by biology.

(3) Eavesdrop On ET: Otherwise known as SETI, is the effort to detect radio signals or laser flashes from technically savvy extraterrestrials.

Neat, Shostak has set the frame work for further dscussions. Note that the (1) is the search for the existance of life based molecules. That (2) is the search for life forms, whether past or present. And (3) is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

He says that a priori all are equally likely to be successful. Lets think again.

With respect to (1) Discover Life Nearby, lets look at the record. Using the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit & Opportunity, as examples, Spirit which was 2.3m wide, covered 8.81 km over 581 sols (a Martian day that is approximately an Earth day), that is approximately 19 m2 per day. Given that the surface of Mars is 144,798,500 km2 it will take Spirit about 7.6 x 1012 days or 208,340,844 centuries, to examine the total surface of Mars. That is, assuming randomness, and that life did exist on Mars in the past, the quick & dirty probability of finding life on Mars on any day with current technology is 1.3 x 10-13. We have a better idea of Mars. It is mostly barren. However, not a clue about the Europa the moon of Jupiter, that is believed to have oceans beneath its ice.

With current projections it likely that NASA will have a satellite at Europa in the 2020–2030 time frame.

So, we can make 2 types of guesses. Assuming that life started on Europa some millions ago, then the probability (from a detection perspective) of finding life on Europa is good, close to 1. However, if Europa is a liquid version of Mars, then the probability is on the order of 1 x 10-13.

Therefore, the time frame for discovery of extraterrestrial life by (1) Discover Life Nearby, is about 2025 assuming no budgets cuts or other re-prioritizations.

With respect to (2) Sniff It Out, scientists estimate that there are about 1 x 1010 Earth like planets in our Milky Way. Lets assume that the Goldilocks Zone is a necessity. Using Pluto as the outer extreme of planets in a Star Local system, and Mars and Venus as boundaries of our Goldilocks Zone, then the approximate probability of finding one of these Earth-like planets in the Goldilocks Zone is 2.89 x 10-2. This reduces the number of Earth-like planets capable of supporting life to 289,340,102. Or the probability of finding life on at least one of these planets (assuming life is present) is at least 3.45 x 10-9.

I would estimate that the time frame for detecting extraterrestrial life is between today, and 35 years from now to 2047.

It could be any day now as the Dutch using the Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Andes have detected carbon monoxide on a planet hugging the star Tau Bootis that is 51 light-years away. The other end of my estimate is 2047. This is because developing a technology like the James Webb telescope was 30 years in the making.

So (2) Sniff It Out, has a better chance of finding evidence of life than (1) Discover Life Nearby.

Now how about (3) Eavesdrop On ET? As the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification, it is slim. Sorry, Tarter, Shostak and all of you at the SETI Institute. But wait, I haven’t finished.

Look at our civilization. In 1895 Guglielmo Marconi proved that long distance radio transmission was possible. In 117 years we have exponentially evolved our technological sophistication to what it is today, 2012.

As the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification I have proposed (see page 195) the existence of subspace, where everything is probabilistic, and light speed is not a restriction. Therefore, if confirmed, there is the strong possibility that by 2025/2035 this planet will go radio silent, because all our transmissions will be through subspace.

That is, the window to observe a radio intelligent extraterrestrial civilization is about 100 to 150 years, then they go silent. 100–150 years is an immensely thin slice or duration compared to the distances of stars even within our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Or the probability of detecting extraterrestrial radio transmissions within our own galaxy is approximately 1.25 x 10-6. It is actually a little better than this but I am using quick & dirty for this blog posting, and this will do. This is much better than a posteriori 1 x 10-13 for (1) Discover Life Nearby and 3.45 x 10-9 for (2) Sniff It Out.

So SETI, keep eavesdropping, and we can expect confirmation of Extraterrestrial Life by 2047 latest.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative

The unknown troubles and attracts us. We long to discover a reason for our existence. We look out to the stars through the darkness of space to observe phenomena incredibly far distances away. Many of us are curious about the things we see, these unknowns.

Yet, many of us look skyward and are uninspired, believing that our time and resources best be kept grounded. Despite our human-centered ideologies, our self-assured prophecies, our religious and philosophical beliefs, no existential rationale seems apparent.

We as people welcome technology into our lives and use it constantly to communicate and function. Scientific discoveries pique the interest of every citizen in every country, and technological revolutions have always preceded social and political revolutions from the creation of the internet back to man’s first use of simple tools. Leaders of nations proclaim the importance of science and discovery to our welfare to be utmost.

But what we have seen done recently contradicts these proclamations: space programs are closed; science funding for schools always falls short; and we see no emphasis of the significance of science in our modern culture. Our governments call for the best but provide capital for only the satisfactory, if even. We no longer succumb to the allure of learning simply for the sake of knowing what we once did not know. We have stopped dreaming.

The exploration of space is as related to earthly affairs as any trek, perhaps even more so, because what we learn along the way directly affects the knowledge we apply to our politics, our religions, societies, and sciences. We learn about ourselves, our dreams, our fears. We learn about our strengths and our weaknesses as nations and as a species. In searching the void all around us we learn how to interact with each other and bridge differences between races, religions, genders, and ideologies. The societies of Earth need to emphasize the importance of discovery and innovation to the longevity of mankind, as well as the very human need for the pursuit of challenge.

We are and always have been an adaptable species capable of creating dreams and accomplishing them. We should seek to explore our new frontier and chase ideas yet to even be conceived. The exploration of space has lifted our human spirit, enlightened us, and has made lucid and close our fragility and responsibilities. Perhaps our inhibitions and worries, and our craving to overcome them fuels our explorative ambitions.

If we desire greater purpose then let us earn it; through hardship to the stars! The sky is no longer a limit, but a starting point. We can define our lives, and our existence, by how we accept and handle the unknown; our significance as humans set forth by our bravery and intelligence. Regardless of our qualms and fears, exploration of the unknown is an intrinsic passion of mankind. Why not remind ourselves of what has advanced us thus far?

As the astrophysicist and activist Carl Sagan said, “We were hunters and foragers. The frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the earth and the ocean and the sky.” Let us now explore the boundless, and go forth into the starry-night, fresh and inspired, ready to accept any challenge, just as those before us did, when they first set sail for the unknown.

Read the original post at bmseifert.com.

America has been a spacefaring nation since 1958. Over the past fifty-three years, America overtook its first rival, the Soviet Union (spacefaring since 1957), and maintained its supremacy in the aerospace and aeronautical industries, having the most developed and successful space program, the strongest private aerospace/aeronautical industry, and the most intelligent engineers and scientists. During times where space exploration and advanced scientific research programs seem inappropriate to publicly fund and continue where economic difficulties, contested military actions, and other civil/financial issues seem to demand precedence, it needs to be promoted that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is of immense importance to the security and welfare of the United States of America and must remain a national priority. NASA drives STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education as well as the development of commercial and defense technologies and works with private engineering and science companies across the country, employing thousands of brilliant engineers, scientists, and technicians to ensure the safety of the American people and maintain the technological and explorational prestige this country has always possessed.

NASA’s accomplishments are inspirational to students. It is capable of orbiting people around the planet in minutes, building a space station, and placing man on the moon, and in doing so powerfully inspires individuals to aspire for careers with the organization. In order to become involved with NASA, a student must study science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics, and by creating a strong incentive for people to study these topics, demand for STEM education increases. As demand increases, more STEM programs will develop and more people will become involved in STEM disciplines. Students studying STEM subjects develop critical thinking skills and strong senses of logic to overcome various problems and conflicts. New generations of engineers and scientists will rise to replace the retiring generations and surpass them in their accomplishments, but only will do so if opportunities to take such careers exist. Should NASA decay, it won’t only be NASA careers disappearing. Jobs at firms like Lockheed Martin, The Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and SpaceX among others will be lost as well and some of these firms will face immense downsizing or possibly even be forced to shut down, severely harming motivation for younger American students to pursue a degree or career in STEM related fields.

One of the greatest positive externalities of NASA is the technology developed as ‘spin-off’ used in the commercial and defense industries. When NASA was tasked with putting man on the moon, NASA realized the Apollo capsule would need computing systems installed within it that were far greater in power and far smaller than those currently in use and therefore tasked private industry with the development of compact computing devices that later became the PC and laptop. Without NASA funding, heart rate monitors, thermal video imaging, light emitting diodes, and velcro among many other technologies would not have been developed. While current domestic debate surrounds whether or not NASA should be downsized, enlarged, or completely phased out over time, foreign countries and blocs such as China, India, and the European Space Agency are investing even more time and money into improving their programs, their educational efforts, and plan to surpass American capabilities within the near future. Technological innovation, though still very prevalent within the United States, is beginning to grow very rapidly in foreign countries and more new technologies are being imported rather than exported every day. Instead of questioning whether or not NASA is necessary, America should be questioning what seemingly impossible task NASA should be working on next. Originally, the Apollo project seemed insurmountably difficult. But when national security threats (Soviet technological capabilities during the Cold War) met technological challenges (the Apollo program), NASA proved to be an irreplaceable source of innovation and wonder that united a nation, inspired a generation with dreams of space exploration, and provided a feeling of security to millions of people who feared another devastating war.

Which is also why NASA is critically important in the defense industry as a customer. NASA helps improve private and public defense and communication technologies. The relationship between NASA and the private industry is very symbiotic. NASA develops a plan or project and administers/contracts production and testing tasks out to the private industry, challenging thousands of engineers and scientists to improve their designs and inspires technological and manufacturing developments, which in turn allow NASA to complete its mission in an efficient and effective manner. China has proven it is capable of destroying our satellites by destroying one of its own and has announced its desire to develop a space program separated from America’s influence and plans to land on the moon in 2020. India, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Romania, Japan, and Ukraine among others have all had confirmed launches and are working to become space powers themselves, developing their own aerospace industries and programs. Iraq and North Korea have also both touted successful launches, though their success are unconfirmed. NASA helps to keep America competitive by constantly challenging private industry and by making sure its goals for space and technological development are always beyond those of other countries, which helps to prevent enemies from defeating our technologies, thus keeping us safe.

NASA’s importance as a national priority is great. It inspires and motivates American students to study math, science, and engineering, expands our knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, geography, and oceanography, develops unimaginable technologies, promotes international teamwork with a healthy amount of competition, and unites a nation under a common passion and history for exploration of the unknown. We were once afraid of what may have been beyond the edge of the ocean. Now we’ve become curious about what lies beyond the edge of the universe, and NASA’s journey to explore our reality has so far improved our quality of life, improved our technological advantages, and solidified our defenses against national threats.

Read the original post at bmseifert.com.

I have just watched this video by Global Futures 2045.

This is my list of things I disagree with:

It starts with scary words about how every crisis comes faster and faster. However this is untrue. Many countries have been running deficits for decades. The financial crisis is no surprise. The reason the US has such high energy costs goes back to government decisions made in the 1970s. And many things that used to be crises no longer happen, like the Black Plague. We have big problems, but we’ve also got many resources we’ve built up over the centuries to help. Much of the challenges we face are political and social, not technical.

We will never fall into a new Dark Ages. The biggest problem is that we aren’t advancing as fast as we could and many are still starving, sick, etc. However, it has always been this way. The 20th century was very brutal! But we are advancing and it is mostly known threats like WMDs which could cause a disaster. In the main, the world is getting safer every day as we better understand it.

We aren’t going to build a new human. It is more like a Renaissance. Those who lost limbs will get increasingly better robotic ones, but they will still be humans. The best reason to build a robotic arm is to attach it to a human.

The video had a collectivist and authoritarian perspective when it said:

“The world’s community and leaders should encourage mankind instead of wasting resources on solving momentary problems.”

This sentence needs to be deconstructed:

1. Government acts via force. Government’s job is to maintain civil order, so having it also out there “encouraging” everyone to never waste resources is creepy. Do you want your policeman to also be your nanny? Here is a quote from C.S. Lewis:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

2. It is wrong to think government is the solution to our problems. Most of the problems that exist today like the Greek Debt Crisis, and the US housing crisis were caused by governments trying to do too much.

3. There is no such thing as the world’s leaders. There is the UN, which doesn’t act in a humanitarian crisis until after everyone is dead. In any case, we don’t need the governments to act. We built Wikipedia.

4. “Managing resources” is codeword for socialism. If their goal is to help with the development of new technologies, then the task of managing existing resources is totally unrelated. If your job is to build robots, then your job is not also to worry about whether the water and air are dirty. Any scientist who talks about managing resources is actually a politician. Here is a quote from Frederic Hayek:

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. Before the obvious economic failure of Eastern European socialism, it was widely thought that a centrally planned economy would deliver not only “social justice” but also a more efficient use of economic resources. This notion appears eminently sensible at first glance. But it proves to overlook the fact that the totality of resources that one could employ in such a plan is simply not knowable to anybody, and therefore can hardly be centrally controlled.”

5. We should let individuals decide what to spend their resources on. People don’t only invest in momentary things. People build houses. In fact, if you are looking for an excuse to drink, being poor because you live in a country with 70% taxes is a good one.

The idea of tasking government to finding the solutions and to do all futuristic research and new products to shove down our throats is wrong and dangerous. We want individuals, and collections of them (corporations) to do it because they will best put it to use in ways that actually improve our lives. Everything is voluntary which encourages good customer relationships. The money will be funded towards the products people actually care about, instead of what some mastermind bureaucrat thinks we should spend money on. There are many historical examples of how government doesn’t innovate as well as the private sector: the French telephone system, Cuba, expensive corn-based ethanol, the International Space Station, healthcare. The free market is imperfect but it leads to fastest technological and social progress for the reasons Frederic Hayek has explained. A lot of government research today is wasted because it never gets put to use commercially. There are many things that can be done to make the private sector more vibrant. There are many ways government can do a better job, and all that evidence should be a warning to not use governments to endorse programs with the goal of social justice. NASA has done great things, but it was only because it existed in a modern society that it was possible.

They come up with a nice list of things that humanity can do, but they haven’t listed that the one of the most important first steps is more Linux. We aren’t going to get cool and smart robots, etc. without a lot of good free software first.

The video says:

“What we need is not just another technological revolution, but a new civilization paradigm, we need philosophy and ideology, new ethics, new culture, new psychology.”

It minimizes the technology aspect when this is the hard work by disparate scientists that will bring us the most benefits.

It is true that we need to refine our understandings of many things, but we are not starting over, just evolving. Anyone who thinks we need to start over doesn’t realize what we’ve already built and all the smart people who’ve come before. The basis of good morals from thousands of years ago still apply. It will just be extended to deal with new situations, like cloning. The general rules of math, science, and biology will remain. In many cases, we are going back to the past. The Linux and free software movement is simply returning computer software to the hundreds of years-old tradition of science. Sometimes the idea has already been discovered, but it isn’t widely used yet. It is a social problem, not a technical one.

The repeated use of the word “new”, etc. makes this video like propaganda. Cults try to get people to reset their perspective into a new world, and convince them that only they have the answers. This video comes off as a sales pitch with them as the solution to our problems, ignoring that it will take millions. Their lists of technologies are random. Some of these problems we could have solved years ago, and some we can’t solve for decades, and they mix both examples. It seems they do no know what is coming next given how disorganized they are. They also pick multiple words that are related and so are repeating themselves. Repetition is used to create an emotional impact, another trait of propaganda.

The thing about innovation and the future is that it is surprising. Many futurists get things wrong. If these guys really had the answers, they’d have invented it and made money on it. And compared to some of the tasks, we are like cavemen.

Technology evolves in a stepwise fashion, and so looking at it as some clear end results on some day in the future is wrong.

For another example: the video makes it sound like going beyond Earth and then beyond the Solar System is a two-step process when in fact it is many steps, and the journey is the reward. If they were that smart, they’d endorse the space elevator which is the only cheap way to get out there, and we can do it in 10 years.

The video suggests that humanity doesn’t have a masterplan, when I just explained that you couldn’t make one.

It also suggests that individuals are afraid of change, when in fact, that is a trait characteristic of governments as well. The government class has known for decades that Social Security is going bankrupt, but they’d rather criticize anyone who wants to reform it rather than fix the underlying problem. This video is again trying to urge collectivism with its criticism of the “mistakes” people make. The video is very arrogant at how it looks down at “the masses.” This is another common characteristic of collectivism.

Here is the first description of their contribution:

“We integrate the latest discoveries and developments from the sciences: physics, energetics, aeronautics, bio-engineering, nanotechnology, neurology, cybernetics, cognitive science.”

That sentence is laughable because it is an impossible task. To understand all of the latest advances would involve talking with millions of scientists. If they are doing all this integration work, what have they produced? They want everyone to join up today, work to be specified later.

The challenge for nuclear power is not the science, it is the lawyers who outlawed new ones in 1970s, and basically have halted all advancements in building safer and better ones. Some of these challenges are mostly political, not scientific. We need to get engineers in corporations like GE, supervised by governments, building safer and cleaner nuclear power.

If you wanted to create all of what they offer, you’d have to hire a million different people. If you were building the pyramids, you could get by with most of your workers having one skill, the ability to move heavy things around. However, the topics they list are so big and complicated, I don’t think you could build an organization that could understand it all, let alone build it.

They mention freedom and speak in egalitarian terms, but this is contradicted by their earlier words. In their world, we will all be happy worker bees, working “optimally” for their collective. Beware of masterminds offering to efficiently manage your resources.

I support discussion and debate. I am all for think-tanks and other institutions that hire scientists. However, those that lobby government to act on their behalf are scary. I don’t want every scientist lobbying the government to institute their pet plan, no matter how good it sounds. They will get so overwhelmed that they won’t be able to do their actual job. The rules of the US Federal government are very limited and generally revolve around an army and a currency. Social welfare is supposed to be handled by the states.

Some of their ideas cannot be turned into laws by the US Congress because they don’t have this authority — the States do. Obamacare is likely to be ruled unconstitutional, and their ideas are potentially much more intrusive towards individual liberty. It would require a Constitutional Amendment, which would never pass and we don’t need.

They offer a social network where scientists can plug in and figure out what they need to do. This could also be considered an actual concrete example of something they are working on. However, there are already social networks where people are advancing the future. SourceForge.net is the biggest community of programmers. There is also Github.com with 1,000,000 projects. Sage has a community advancing the state of mathematics.

If they want to create their own new community solving some aspect, that is great, especially if they have money. But the idea that they are going to make it all happen is impossible. And it will never replace all the other great communities that already exist. Even science happens on Facebook, when people chat about their work.

If they want to add value, they need to specialize. Perhaps they come up with millions of dollars and they can do research in specific areas. However, their fundamental research would very likely get used in ways they never imagined by other people. The more fundamental, the more no one team can possibly take advantage of all aspects of the discovery.

They say there is some research lab they’ve got working on cybernetics. However they don’t demonstrate any results. I don’t imagine they can be that much ahead of the rest of the world who provides them the technology they use to do their work. Imagine a competitor to Henry Ford. Could he really build a car much better given the available technology at the time? My response to anyone who has claims of some advancements is: turn it into a demo or useful product and sell it. All this video offer as evidence here is CGI, which any artist can make.

I support the idea of flying cars. First we need driverless cars and cheaper energy. Unless they are a car or airplane company, I don’t see what this organization will have to do with that task. I have nothing against futuristic videos, but they don’t make clear what is their involvement and instances of ambiguity should be noted.

They are wrong when they say we won’t understand consciousness till 2030 because we already understand it at some level today. Neural networks have been around for decades. IBM’s Jeopardy-playing Watson was a good recent example. However, it is proprietary so not much will come of that particular example. Fortunately, Watson was built on lots of free software, and the community will get there. Google is very proprietary with their AI work. Wolfram Alpha is also proprietary. Etc. We’ve got enough the technical people for an amazing world if we can just get them to work together in free software and Python.

The video’s last sentence suggests that spiritual self-development is the new possibility. But people can work on that today. And again, enlightenment is not a destination but a journey.

We are a generation away from immortality unless things greatly change. I think about LibreOffice, cars that drive themselves and the space elevator, but faster progress in biology is also possible as well if people will follow the free software model. The Microsoft-style proprietary development model has infected many fields.

It’s been a while since anyone contributed a post on space exploration here on the Lifeboat blogs, so I thought I’d contribute a few thoughts on the subject of potential hazards to interstellar travel in the future — if indeed humanity ever attempts to explore that far in space.

It is only recently that the Voyager probes provided us with some idea of the nature of the boundary of our solar system with what is commonly referred to as the local fluff, The Local Interstellar Cloud, through which we have been travelling for the past 100,000 years or so, and which we will continue to travel through for another 10,000 or 20,000 years yet. The cloud has a temperate of about 6000°C — albeit very tenuous.

We are protected by the effects of the local fluff by the solar wind and the sun’s magnetic field, the front between the two just beyond the termination shock where the solar wind slows to subsonic velocities. Here, in the heliosheath, the solar wind becomes turbulent by its interaction with the interstellar medium, and keeping the interstellar medium at bay from the inners of the solar system, the region currently under study by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes. It has been hypothesised that there may be a hydrogen wall further out between the bow shock and the heliopause composed of ISM interacting with the edge of the heliosphere, another obstacle to consider with interstellar travel.

The short end of the stick is that what many consider ‘open space’ to traverse once we get beyond the Kuiper belt may in fact be many more mission-threatening obstacles to traverse to reach beyond our solar system. Opinions welcome. I am not an expert on this.

On a casual read of the appraised work of Duncan R. Lorimer on Binary and Millisecond Pulsars (2005) last week, I noted the reference to the lack of pulsars with P < 1.5 ms. It cites a mere suggestion that this is due to gravitational wave emission from R-mode instabilities, but one has not offered a solid reason for such absence from our Universe. As the surface magnetic field strength of such would be lower (B ∝ (P ˙P )^(1÷2)) than other pulsars, one could equally suggest that the lack of sub millisecond pulsars is due to their weaker magnetic fields allowing CR impacts resulting in stable MBH capture… Therefore if one could interpret that the 108 G field strength adopted by G&M is an approximate cut-off point where MBH are likely to be captured by neutron stars, then one would perhaps have some phenomenological evidence that MBH capture results in the destruction of neutron stars into black holes. One should note that more typical values of observed neutron stars calculate a 1012 G field, so that is a 104 difference from the borderline-existence cases used in the G&M analysis (and so much less likely to capture). That is not to say that MBH would equate to a certain danger for capture in a planet such as Earth where the density of matter is much lower — and accretion rates much more likely to be lower than radiation rates — an understanding that is backed up by the ‘safety assurance’ in observational evidence of white dwarf longevity. However, it does take us back to question — regardless of the frequently mentioned theorem here on Lifeboat that states Hawking Radiation should be impossible — Hawking Radiation as an unobserved theoretical phenomenon may not be anywhere near as effective as derived in theoretical analysis regardless of this. This oft mentioned concern of ‘what if Hawking is wrong’ of course is endorsed by a detailed G&M analysis which set about proving safety in the scenario that Hawking Radiation was ineffective at evaporating such phenomenon. Though doubts about the neutron star safety assurance immediately makes one question how reliable are the safety assurances of white dwarf longevity – and my belief has been that the white dwarf safety assurance seems highly rational (as derived in a few short pages in the G&M paper and not particularly challenged except for the hypothesis that they may have over-estimated TeV-scale MBH size which could reduce their likelihood of capture). It is quite difficult to imagine a body as dense as a white dwarf not capturing any such hypothetical stable MBH over their lifetime from CR exposure – which validates the G&M position that accretion rates therein must be vastly outweighed by radiation rates, so the even lower accretion rates on a planet such as Earth would be even less of a concern. However, given the gravity of the analysis, those various assumptions on which it is based perhaps deserves greater scrutiny, underscored by a concern made recently that 20% of the mass/energy in current LHC collisions are unaccounted for. Pulsars are often considered one of the most accurate references in the Universe due to their regularity and predictability. How ironic if those pulsars which are absent from the Universe also provided a significant measurement. Binary and Millisecond Pulsars, D.R. Lorimer: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0511258v1.pdf

Russia’s hastily convened international conference in St. Petersburg next month is being billed as a last-ditch effort at superpower cooperation in defense of Earth against dangers from space.

But it cannot be overlooked that this conference comes in response to the highly controversial NATO anti-ballistic missile deployments in Eastern Europe. These seriously destabilizing, nuclear defenses are pretexted as a defense against a non-nuclear Iran. In reality, the western moves of anti-missile systems into Poland and Romania create a de facto nuclear first-strike capability for NATO, and they vacate a series of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaties with the Russians that go back forty years.

Deeply distrustful of these new US and NATO nuclear first-strike capabilities, the Russians announced they will not attend NATO’s planned deterrence summit in Chicago this month. Instead, they are testing Western intentions with a proposal for cooperative project for near-space mapping, surveillance, and defense against Earth-crossing asteroids and other dangerous space objects.

The Russians have invited NATO members as well as forward-thinking space powers to a conference in June in Petrograd. The agenda: Planetary defense against incursions by objects from space. It would be a way of making cooperative plowshares from the space technologies of hair-trigger nuclear terror (2 minutes warning, or less, in the case of the Eastern European ABMs).

It’s an offer the US and other space powers should accept.

High energy experiments like the LHC at the nuclear research centre CERN are extreme energy consumers (needing the power of a nuclear plant). Their construction is extremely costly (presently 7 Billion Euros) and practical benefits are not in sight. The experiments eventually pose existential risks and these risks have not been properly investigated.

It is not the first time that CERN announces record energies and news around April 1 – apparently hoping that some critique and concerns about the risks could be misinterpreted as an April joke. Additionally CERN regularly starts up the LHC at Easter celebrations and just before week ends, when news offices are empty and people prefer to have peaceful days with their friends and families.

CERN has just announced new records in collision energies at the LHC. And instead of conducting a neutral risk assessment, the nuclear research centre plans costly upgrades of its Big Bang machine. Facing an LHC upgrade in 2013 for up to CHF 1 Billion and the perspective of a Mega-LHC in 2022: How long will it take until risk researchers are finally integrated in a neutral safety assessment?

There are countless evidences for the necessity of an external and multidisciplinary safety assessment of the LHC. According to a pre-study in risk research, CERN fits less than a fifth of the criteria for a modern risk assessment (see the press release below). It is not acceptable that the clueless member states point at the operator CERN itself, while this regards its self-set security measures as sufficient, in spite of critique from risk researchers, continuous debates and the publication of further papers pointing at concrete dangers and even existential risks (black holes, strangelets) eventually arising from the experiments sooner or later. Presently science has to admit that the risk is disputed and basically unknown.

It will not be possible to keep up this ostrich policy much longer. Especially facing the planned upgrades of the LHC, CERN will be confronted with increasing critique from scientific and civil side that the most powerful particle collider has yet not been challenged in a neutral and multidisciplinary safety assessment. CERN has yet not answered to pragmatic proposals for such a process that also should constructively involve critics and CERN. Also further legal steps from different sides are possible.

The member states that are financing the CERN budget, the UN or private funds are addressed to provide resources to finally initiate a neutral and multidisciplinary risk assessment.

German version of this article published in Oekonews: http://www.oekonews.at/index.php?mdoc_id=1069458

Related LHC-Critique press release and open letter to CERN:

https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/02/lhc-critique-press-release-feb-13-2012-cern-plans-mega-particle-collider-communication-to-cern-for-a-neutral-and-multi-disciplinary-risk-assessment-before-any-lhc-upgrade

Typical physicist’s April joke on stable black holes at the LHC (April 1 2012, German): http://www.scienceblogs.de/hier-wohnen-drachen/2012/04/stabiles-minischwarzes-loch-aus-higgsteilchen-erzeugt.php

Latest publications of studies demonstrating risks arising from the LHC experiment:

Prof Otto E. Rössler: http://www.academicjournals.org/AJMCSR/PDF/pdf2012/Feb/9%20Feb/Rossler.pdf

Thomas Kerwick B.Tech. M.Eng. Ph.D.: http://www.vixra.org/abs/1203.0055

Brief summary of the basic problem by LHC-Kritik (still valid since Sep. 2008): http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/lhc-kritik-cern-1st-statement-summary-908.pdf

Detailed summary of the scientific LHC risk discussion by LHC-Kritik and ConCERNed International: http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/critical-revision-of-lhc-risks_concerned-int.pdf

We wish you happy Easter and hope for your support of our pragmatic proposals to urgently increase safety in these new fields of nuclear physics.

LHC Critique / LHC Kritik — Network for Safety at nuclear and sub-nuclear high energy Experiments.

www.LHC-concern.info

[email protected]

Tel.: +43 650 629 627 5

New Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/LHC.Critique/