Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121231180632.htm

Excerpt: “Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts,” said M. Kerry O’Banion, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the senior author of the study. “The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”

It appears when Eugene Parker wrote “Shielding Space Travelers” in 2006 he was right- and all the private space sycophants claiming radiation mitigation is trivial are wrong.

Only a massive water shield a minimum of 14 feet thick and massing 400 tons for a small capsule can shield human beings in deep space on long duration missions. And since a small capsule will not have sufficient space to keep a crew psychologically healthy on a multi-year journey it is likely such a shield will massive over a thousand tons.

This mass may seem to make Human Space Flight Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit (HSF-BELO) impractical but in fact it is not an obstacle but an enabler. Nuclear Pulse Propulsion using bombs to push a spaceship to the outer solar sytem becomes more efficient the larger the ship and this amount of water is useful in a closed loop life support system.

Lighting off bombs in the Earth’s magnetosphere is not acceptable and this points to the Moon as the obvious place to launch nuclear missions and also to acquire the water for radiation shielding. The Space Launch System (SLS) is the human-rated Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) with a powerful escape system that can safely transport the required fissionables to the Moon.

2013 may be the year of the comet and the year of the spaceship if the two goals of protecting the planet from impacts and establishing off world colonies are finally recognized as vital to the survival of humankind.

A happy new year to the human race from it’s most important member; me. Since self-worship seems to be the theme of the new American ideal I had better get right with me.

With my government going over the fiscal cliff it would appear that the damned soul of Ayn Rand is exerting demonic influence on the political system through worship of the individual. The tea party has the Republicans terrified of losing their jobs. Being just like me, those individuals consider themselves the most important person on the planet- so I cannot fault them.

As Ayn Rand believed, “I will not die, it’s the world that will end”, so who cares about the collective future of the human race? Towards the end of 2013 the heavens may remind us the universe does not really care about creatures who believe themselves all important. The choice may soon be seen clearly in the light of the comet’s tail; the glorification of the individual and the certain extinction of our race, or the acceptance of a collective goal and our continued existence.

Ayn Rand made her choice but most of us have time to choose more wisely. I pray for billions, tens and hundreds of billions of dollars- for a Moonbase.

I am not one of the Earth is overpopulated crowd. We could have a high quality of life for every man, woman and child on this planet if we did not, as a species, spend most of our resources pandering to moral weakness and cravings for profit. The myth of scarcity is a smokescreen to obscure the reality of greed and ignorance. Which is why people like Gerard K. O’Neill sought to improve the human condition with space colonies.

We need to go into space to first safeguard the Earth from impacts and the human race from extinction, and along with these missions to spread life into the universe through colonization. None of those three things has anything to do with getting filthy rich or intimidating other nations with our firepower so we can steal their resources. Which is why it has not happened.

Happy New Year with hopes for a more enlightened public.

Happy new year to my Wife, my Daughter, my Father, and to those who give a damn about next year even if they will not be there.

I was recently told by a person commenting on another blog that beamed energy is a myth. The commenter claimed that Fusion energy would be a more likely future development. I cited Criswell and Zehner and gave back.I am a very progressive eco friendly person and I have wondered many years if there is some energy industry conspiracy that keeps clean power from becoming a reality. The only conspiracy is human greed influencing exactly how we live on this planet.

Zehner’s book spells out the situation in a unique way; he calls it as he see’s it and the numbers cannot be spun too much because he presents the basic foundations of what it takes to make the electricity flow. Criswell is more biased toward his proposal even though it is peer reviewed and has all the math equations.

What Criswell is proposing is a river of energy traveling from vast collectors on the surface of the Moon to Earth Geostationary orbit and from there down to surface recievers of several square kilometers.

What fusion proposes is to keep a sustained nuclear reaction going without the use of a sun. The other way to generate useful energy from a fusion reaction is to actually explode H-bombs underground and harvest the resulting heat and nuclear products. The only useful work that can be had from a H-bomb besides this kind of excavation is to use it as a propulsion device for spaceships.

The two questions here seem to be:
1. Can microwave energy be beamed across long distances in space (a quarter million miles or so) from a transmission site on the surface of the moon to a geostationary relay station? Yes or No? Probably yes but what really matters is the size of the geostationary relay station.
If it has to be over a couple square miles in area
then getting it to Earth geo from the metal shop on the Moon may not be practical.

2. Can energy be made available for the projected world population of 10 billion people in the coming decades of this century?

No. To supply the same amount of energy to all 10 billion inhabitants of Earth that is presently consumed by Westerners with a high standard of living would require……..a river of energy being beamed down from space. All the fossil, nuclear, solar, and renewable energy on the planet is NOT going to be able to meet that need without an astronomical amount of coal and gas power plants, along with a huge expansion of nuclear.

It will be cheaper and less suicidal to build the power stations on the Moon.
If it will work.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/build-death-star-petition-clears-threshold-obama-response-185314096–politics.html

When the possible mixes with fantasy it should turn peoples heads- it does not happen very often. But this toungue-in-cheek petition is actually a case of truth being so close to fiction and no one seems to be noticing. I have been posting in the comments section of Centauri Dreams lately due to my disappointment with the contributor situation on the lifeboat blog and I am now happy to share edited versions of them here.

December 11, 2012 at 7:50

It is now the second decade of the twenty first century and we actually have a
tremendous amount of technology available and devices that may have been tested in some form in the past and found to work quite well but by various circumstance did not enter production. The example that every real space nut is aware of is the Aerojet AJ-260 monolithic solid rocket booster. Each of these put out over 7 million pounds of thrust and would probably have been used in a pair with yet another aerojet product called the M-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-1_(rocket_engine) as a core liquid engine as in the Titan configuration. This was the logical progression of a more powerful partially reusable vehicle to replace the Saturn V; a vehicle with over twice the first stage thrust. Instead we tried to go cheap with the Space Shuttle and recieved zero ROI. In fact we have the ability to build much larger solid boosters of up to 325 inches. Built with submarine hull technology it is recovered at sea and resused. This system is the only practical reusable technology as the liquid shuttle motors turned out to be a total waste of time returning to earth for reuse.

We can look back a half century (!) and see that it was Aerojet who had the equipment to set up a base on the Moon. By comparison the equipment that SpaceX is pushing as the next generation is.….a hobby rocket. With a pair of the largest possible solid rocket boosters and a core cluster of liquid hydrogen/oxygen along with upper stages, the HLV is the most efficient method available for getting into space. Getting into space by landing a payload on the moon. Chemical propulsion is completely appropriate for getting to the Moon where atomic spaceships can be assembled, tested, and launched on missions to set up the next base of operations. Eventually the ability to build large spheres with solar energy and lunar ore will make Bernal Spheres several miles in diameter available. This size should not be surprising considering there is no gravity and solar energy can be manipulated to refine and form large sections for such a sphere.

What may be the perfect place to build Bernal Spheres may be the same locale proposed for the next NASA space station http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2165/1. With vast amounts of microwave energy beamed from the Moon and focused this may be the place to melt masses of ore with microwaves and blow them up like glass balls. Balls several miles in diameter to start with.

Accelerated by beam propulsion and decelerated by H-bombs these Bernal Spheres, first proposed in 1929, may reach speeds of 10 percent of light and be our first starships before the end of this century. If revivable cryopreservation is available then several thousand colonists could be carried and if not then a small generaqtion crew would propagate for the journey. Not only starflight may be accomplished but our Earth powered by Lunar Solar Power allowing a western quality of life with a very high standard of living for a population of 10 billion. No more have-nots. Beam propulsion energy beamed down from relays in orbit from the Moon would allow cheap lift to space a reality and millions leaving the planet everyday for Bernal Sphere Lives in the outer planets or the many or the few leaving on star treks. Except for cryopreservation and more refined beam technology this is all just technology from over a half a century ago. The refinements in microwave beaming have come about through clean fusion energy research devices used by Kevin Parkin in his propulsion research. http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/2405/1/Parkin-Thesis.pdf

December 11, 2012 at 17:21

One of my favorite talking points concerns military spending; we can spend the public treasure on training our young people to clear buildings with automatic weapons or we can train them to build spaceships. We can keep building nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines or we can build spaceships. The money is going to be spent and supposedly a democracy has the right to choose how. Considering the tens of thousands of heavy bombers built in world war two and the fleets of jet bombers built in the cold war, supporting a launch schedule of 50 to 100 super heavy lift vehicles a year is not only possible but actually a easy goal. I will now tread on tricky ground by characterizing in the same category as jumbo jets; only construction costs are being looked at.

Considering the construction practices and materials, you would think the cost for a super-heavy lift vehicle should be close to the fly away price of a jumbo jet. This is a vehicle that can land a space shuttle payload at the lunar poles. It is simply a matter of retooling factories and retraining people.

The same amount of money for a different defensive strategy based on creating energy in space instead of stealing it on Earth. I was never a fan of Space Solar Power because just like O’Neill figured out in the 70′s we cannot send these truly gargantuan power station constructs up from Earth. But I have recently become quite interested in Criswell’s Lunar Solar Power. Within a realistic survey of the technology available it does not seem like there is any flexible path to the stars- only LSP has the potential to get a large number of human beings off the Earth by eventually providing enough energy to make the holy grail of cheap access to space possible- by way of Beam Propulsion. There really is no other contender technology.

It works like this; chemical propulsion to get to the moon where nuclear missions can be launched and eventually enough power can be beamed to Earth to allow beam propulsion to replace chemical propulsion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II
Considering the 150,000 bombers built by the allies in World War II I think we certainly have the ability to send a hundred big rockets a year to the moon if a couple decades down the road we have enough power beamed back to give everyone on earth a house with cheap electricity and clean water. A very high standard of living for everyone on Earth with zero carbon emissions and pollution. With enough electricity giant plasma reformers can break down contaminated materials and even nuclear waste could be safely lifted off planet with beam launched vehicles. Eventually the population will drop as space habitats become extremely attractive places to live and Earth becomes a vacation destination.

The public really has no clue that such a future is entirely possible- there are no technical challenges that have not been answered or laws of physics that have to be broken.

Though I am not really a Zubrin fan and do not consider Mars a good destination for various reasons, a chapter in one of his books describing the superships built by the Chinese Empire and their abandonment is really the classic lesson that should be taught to the public anyone advocating space travel. There is nothing stopping the human race from going into space except our lack of vision.

The ploy to make money off militarizing space fell on it’s face decades ago. The main reason for this is that if you want clear the table you can send a couple vehicles up in satellite opposite orbits and explode ball bearing filled warheads; no more satellites. This is the equivalent of nuclear weapons making war obsolete on the surface below, Mutually Assured Destruction of everything in orbit makes any weapons on the moon or elsewhere redundant. The only airspace that counts is zero to a couple hundred miles straight up. It only takes a couple minutes to get up there and they cannot be stopped.

Launching from the Moon has no purpose because to even contemplate destroying all these ground launched space weapons and making Moon weapons relevant means profoundly contaminating the planet with fallout from nuclear weapons and that brings MAD back into play.

This is the main reason there is no army base on the moon right now. The secondary reasons why there are no military bases Beyond Earth Orbit is of course the expense- it is hard money when building weapons that sit on a runway or in a silo are easy money. It is easy to roll hundreds of defense contracts cumulatively worth hundreds of billions through the door but anything that goes into space with a human in it has a microscope on it. No profit there.

December 13, 2012 at 15:20

http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-toutatis-passed-within-18-lunar-distances-on-december-11-12

The valid military mission for space is a CAPS Comet Asteroid Protection System; atomic spaceships armed with nuclear weapons. This also can answer another threat- engineered pathogens- by establishing survival colonies on other bodies in the solar system to guarantee species survival.

You would think with drones taking over pilot roles and Navy surface forces contracting that the military would be all over going into space. But the military mind is not famous for successfully preparing for the next war.

The war we are fighting right now is basically one of exploitation; the masses of poor are being manipulated with religion to violently oppose the status quo of haves and have nots on this planet. It took a while for the lightbulb to come on but it finally dawned on me recently that the solution to conflict on this planet is to provide every human being on earth those basic qualities of life that remove the percieved need for militant activity. The only system that has a strong possibility of winning the war against exploitation does so by exploiting Lunar Solar Power as advocated by David Criswell.

It is a truly epic project and is not a sure thing by any means; microwaving the atmosphere is going to have unintended consequences. But to bring the carbon footprint down to zero and have basically cheap endless electricity for the predicted 10 billion people on Earth may very well compensate for the downside.

December 5, 2012 at 16:05 Concerning Skylon:

The “point” is this- orbital speed is not the goal, escape velocity is. Getting to the moon with a worthwhile payload is the key to getting into space on Atomic Spaceships. LEO is just going in endless circles at very high altitude- going nowhere not fast enough. Chemical propulsion is appropriate for getting out of the magnetosphere without contamination the biosphere but that is all. The moon is the place to test, assemble, and launch the nuclear systems necessary to go anywhere in the solar system.
The holy grail is not Skylon or Falcon or anything resembling them; there is no cheap.
What is required is a couple thousand Isp and the only way to do that is beam propulsion. This line of reasoning ultimately ends with David Criswell’s concept of Lunar Solar Power.
The same magnitude of power necessary to even begin to think about any interstellar mission. Which, by the way, is what this blog (Centauri Dreams) is about.

December 6, 2012 at 16:24 –you cannot escape from the box you are trapped in- the money box. Whenever someone starts quoting economic formulae or strings of zeros it means only one thing; they are not going anywhere.

The reason to go into space is not filthy lucre. This is a question on which may hang the extinction or continuation of the human race. If money cannot be made then it will not happen is the common perception. It will not happen for money. The best way I have found to understand the problem is to look at the U.S. defense budget. It is so immense yet almost invisible to the public who do not question the vast mountains of treasure being expended on shiny cold war toys. It seems that endless billions of dollars are consigned to endless lists of defense contracts.
Anyone who says we do not have the money to accomplish massive projects in space is a liar or ignoring the trillion dollars a year that disappears into the military.
The truth is that weapons and black projects are easy money; they often have no mission or cannot do the supposed mission they are intended for. They do not have to- mostly they just sit somewhere or are “classified.” I know from personal experience that much of the money spent on defense goes into programs that do not work as advertised or do not even work at all.
Spaceships are hard money- they have to work. No profit there.

December 6, 2012 at 16:52

Private space propaganda has had the effect of making it seem all so easy. Electric propulsion will not get you through the Van Allen belts fast enough. So far only Hydrogen and Oxygen have the kick necessary to get people out there. The Rocket Equation is not going to change. As for “refueling in orbit”, that is the most magnificent job of pushing baloney ever accomplished. Repeat a lie enough and people believe it. Liquid hydrogen technology was perfected at tremendous expense but that technology does not include storing and transferring it in space. In fact- it has never even been attempted due to the nightmare plethora of problems that arise. It is ultra-cold exotic stuff that does not store well, requires pre-cooling with liquid helium to transfer, and since a transfer pre-cool cannot be done completely it generates boil-off. Re-liquifying the boil off results in the exothermic form of hydrogen which promulgates more boil-off in the storage tank. That is just the beginning; zero G effects and radiation make everything even more difficult.
This is why they store oxygen in high pressure tanks in the ISS. Hydrogen is not even a possibility.

Storable propellents make earth departure stages very large compared to hydrogen oxygen stages. What turns out to be the best solution is a Heavy Lift Vehicle just like the much maligned SLS. The Ayn Rand-in-space-club wail and gnash their teeth and dogpile anything that appears in the blogosphere criticizing their demi-god Musk and his hobby rocket tourist scam. But that does not change the fact that there is no cheap.

December 7, 2012 at 16:33

Reusability is a myth. It is why the RS-68 was built. The key to resuability is robust construction and maintainability. Both are impossible with rockets. Fill a egg thin container with super cold liquified gas, subject it to extremes of heat and vibration; it and the controlled bombs called rocket motors then get thrown away because it costs far more to inspect, rebuild, and fly them again. And anyway performing complex maintenance in space is not practical.
There is no unobtanium or wishalloy that is going to change that.

December 8, 2012 at 18:52

Concerning the statement that “everyone agrees” that lowering launch costs is key.

Really? It would seem that spending MORE money on space access would be key. Like that one trillion that will be spent on the F-35 stealth fighter over the next half century. It does not work as advertised and never will but shareholder checks are going out. This piece of junk may eventually drop some million dollar bombs on some illiterate mountain tribesmen to justify it’s existence. Considering we have reusable solid rocket boosters that put out 3.6 million pounds of thrust ready for production but instead complain they cost too much and want to go cheap, I think your point is actually ridiculous.

Concerning why I appear to angrily dismissive of private space;

I do not appear to be, I AM angrily dismissive. The are scamming the taxpayer. Hobby rockets and billionaut toursts are not a space program.

Considering how I seem to be mistaking cheap access to LEO as unimportant;

You seem to be mistaking Low Earth Orbit for deep space. You are talking about going in endless circles at very high altitude. I think it is a stupid waste of time to think that way. 30 years of tin cans going around and around is enough.

Concerning questioning the powers that be fairly and with respect about launch costs;

Fairness and respect have nothing to do with it. It is all about greed. The “recieved wisdom” is that oversight and transparency is above all things the most important factor in space exploration. We know this by the Apollo 1 fire- probably the single most important event in the race to the moon. It took some people burning to death to make us hold the profit motive in contempt and demand the job be done rigtht. We know this from the Space Shuttle Program that used a single cooked-up think tank study to promise ridiculously low prices per pound to orbit. And the pressures to launch and budget cuts that prevented any escape systems being fitted or retro-fitted causing the loss of two shuttle crews. There is no cheap.

Concerning my narrow view of practical propulsion schemes;

Like steam engines, we know the thermodynamic realities of rockets pretty well by now. Everything revolves around exhaust velocity which I hope can be grasped by comparing the numbers for rocket fuels and electric propulsion. Back in the 50′s ex-nazi/future nasa member Von Braun did calculations for reusing expensive rocket stages and came up with feeble payloads of a few tons delivered from massive lauch vehicles. Those calculations are just as valid today as they were then and lead to the same conclusion; our gravity well and rocket fuel exhaust velocities mean reusability is not practical. But there is obviously money to be made by lying about this and advertising the impossible.

December 10, 2012 at 19:37

Concerning the possibility of operating reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft like an airline;

Fantasy. You might as well be discussing star gates and hyperdrives. You get to your “hotel” and what happens next? Since liquid hydrogen depots are not going to happen for a very long time (I do not think ever) if you want to go anywhere except in circles you will have to board a Earth Departure Stage using storable propellents. The Isp numbers for UDMH and N204 mean your ticket to the moon is going be about the size of Saturn V first stage. Understanding these numbers is why we made it to the moon; it is obvious that the most efficient way is a direct launch from Earth by way of a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.
This is the first thing that anyone interested in space travel should comprehend; THERE IS NO SUBSTITUE FOR A HLV WITH HYDROGEN UPPER STAGES!

This is the second thing that anyone interested in space travel should comprehend; CHEMICAL PROPULSION WILL ONLY GET YOU TO THE MOON- NUKES ARE NEEDED FOR HSF-BLO (human space flight beyond lunar orbit).

And this is the third thng that anyone interested in space travel should comprehend; MASSIVE GOVERNMENTAL RESOURCES ARE REQUIRED TO BUILD ATOMIC SPACESHIPS CAPABLE OF ESTABLISHING OFF WORLD COLONIES!
It is not the airlines and tourists are not going to Mars. It is a scam. There is no cheap.

December 10, 2012 at 20:17

Concerning space “entrepreneurs” hopes for the future;

They clearly hope that the public remains as stupid as they are for believing the fairy tales they are telling.

Any space program that can be called such begins where Apollo left off- with at least a Heavy Lift Vehicle launching every month landing payloads on the moon near ice deposits. There is no flexible path- it is very direct and determined by physics to be possible with the appropriate technology and massive funding. So far “new space” is just a way to funnel tax dollars into those “enterpreneurs” pockets for nothing in return.

December 12, 2012 at 14:45

“Getting to Mars with chemical rockets is totally possible if you start in LEO”

The last mission profile I read had a 100 ton Earth Departure Stage. There was no mention of how much radiation shielding the crew would have or if they had an artificial gravity system. The will suffer some permanent bone loss and serious debilitation without artificial gravity; without massive shielding on the order of a couple hundred tons the first bad solar event that heads their way will kill them if mutated pathogens do not do them in first.

Chemical Propulsion will only get you to the Moon. Nukes are required for Human Space Fight- Beyond Lunar Orbit (HSF-BLO). The mass of radiation shielding removes any possibility of chemical propulsion being practical. The possible half exception is launching a beam propelled stage from the Moon and use aerobraking to slow down on arrival to Mars. But that would require large solar power installations and antennae fields on the moon. And you might boost your way to Mars this way with a couple thousand Isp beam propelled Lunar Departure Stage but you have to get back.

In any case all the really interesting places to go- low gravity icy moons- are in the outer solar system. Mars may seem “just close enough” and being a planet may seem to make it more hospitable in some way but this, like reusability, is a myth.
Bombs are the only way to carry a massive shield and get out past the asteroid belt and back within the psychological limits of the crew- which are probably around 5 or 6 years. This Moonwater filled shielding shell massing a minimum of 400 tons is one of the key elements in a closed loop ecosystem capable of supplying clean air and water to a crew for those 5 or 6 years.

I do not think this situation is going to change when they inflate some playboy clubs for going in endless circles at very high altitude. Of course Private space advertises it that way.

December 12, 2012 at 20:31

Concerning the difficulty transporting nuclear fuel and an atomic spaceship to the Moon;

“pits” can be sent to the moon in a human-rated capsule with a very powerful escape system on the SLS. That is as safe as it gets and after a hundred and thirty shuttle missions with no escape system and with packaging designed to survive vehicle failure that is the risk that must be accepted. A typical deep space mission lasting 5 or more years would require a couple thousand of these pits. This nuclear material represents the base fuel that when formed for a pulse unit system has an Isp so far beyond any chemical fuel that you must admit any comparison is completely ridiculous.

While electric systems have high Isp’s, comparing their typically ounces of thrust to a bomb is even more ridiculous. The Moon has high quality ore to build alloy pusher plates in the thousands of tons range required- and thorium to fuel reactors for use in deep space. But in the short term thin discs can be sent to the moon on HLV’s and stacked to form thicker plates to construct the initial spaceships for the first bomb propelled deep space missions. The best destination for this mission is Ceres in my opinion. You can read more of my desperate plan to save the planet at–

voices.yahoo.com/water-bombs-8121778.html

I recently began studying David Criswell’s Lunar Solar Power concept. If I was a conspiracy theory type I would say investigate Elon Musk. About the time Elon decided to go into space instead of into solar power, David was proclaiming he could solve the Earth’s energy problems by beaming microwave energy to Earth from the Moon. My suspicion is that Musk is building a microwave deathstar weapon on the Moon. Think about it, he has tested these rockets and they seem to work fine but how many has he built somewhere in secret and put on ships to launch from the poles? There may be space-x factories on the lunar poles busily building solar energy converters and microwave antennae fields and fabricating the gargantuan constructs necessary to be launched from the Moon and put in geostationary Earth orbit as relay stations. Darth Musk may be building Criswell’s system with a slight improvement- the microwaves can be focused on the Earth in catastrophic concentrations. This guy is the anti-christ; he will be able to conquer any country, even the United States, by using these geostationary microwave transmitters to incinerate any target on the surface of the Earth. The point being that there will be no reason to destroy a nation when you can sell them cheap electricity instead. In this concept, the armed forces of the planet also control the power supplies to the planet through a network of super power battle stations. The trick is building these giant space fortress power relay stations on the Moon and launching them into geostationary Earth orbit. This lunar launch technique would take advantage of beam propulsion and also insert into geostationary orbit using power beamed from the Moon. As soon as the power is available from geostationary orbit then powering a vehicle from the surface to escape velocity becomes practical. These launch vehicles will most likely be in the form of a disc; flying saucers. The Flying Saucer Airlines will finally whisk thousands and then millions of people into the heavens. It would be better if the government would set up this giant power system that will so forever and completely solve the Energy problems of Earth.

Note: The below is exclusively about the United States of America, yet the theme is international.

Each time an extreme weather event takes place humanity is reminded again that basic preparation for an off-grid experience did not take place across large swaths of an affected population. Ironically, it does not begin to take place, publicly and en masse, after the event.

Saving humanity will have a lot to do with teaching a kid to build a fire, in the near term. More esoteric “preservers” and “shields” have their place, but “Scout” knowledge can produce immediate quantitative and qualitative improvements in humanity’s survival capabilities, fast.

After weather-induced disasters, our tendency is toward construction of physical things – better towers, more resilient dams, improved architecture. Seldom do we do anything to improve ourselves. Thousands remain helpless and dependent in the face of the Hurricane “Sandy” aftermath.

We have the resources in abundance to mobilize a citizenry education program. Many veterans have expert-level qualifications in survival training, for example, and with Internet and iPads their knowledge could be disseminated to every public school auditorium and town hall equipped with electricity at nominal cost, while also providing the instructors with competitive compensation.

To practice and train in the practical skills of preparedness, schools, towns, cities and parks could coordinate to deliver on- and off-site programs all citizens could reasonably take part in over a specified period of time. The goal should be to ensure within a specific time frame every citizen is aware of and able to employ a holistic set of preparedness actions in the event of an emergency. It’s a simple, clear and achievable objective.

It is what we do or fail to do as a society and as individuals to prepare for and learn from risk events that makes them more or less harmful now and in the future. The “existential risk” of extreme weather events, or extreme geological events, or terror events or financial avalanche, or their compounding, barring total annihilation, is the systemic and chronic damage which mutilates the fabric of society over time, making us weaker each time we face a new emergency, and also more prone to creating a new emergency or failing to prepare adequately for the next.

A citizen-wide preparedness program for unplanned emergency off-grid events could be designed for fun, building of comradery and orientation of adults and children toward a grounded, active, positive engagement with a highly variable world, thus doing much to off-set the negative impacts of an increasingly disaster prone environment and also much to build a more internally cohesive society. The literal ROA for investment in citizen preparedness should be exponential if the programming is organized with care, especially when including and evaluating the investment into human capital as an asset class. The very act of addressing how we handle disaster will diminish the potential for disaster itself.

A more self-sufficient and stable citizenry would help to increase public wealth and decrease public debt by limiting or eliminating the public expenditures made after an emergency (through the Federal Emergency Management Agency or through deployment of the military for example). Insurance claims of many types would decrease, new markets for sustainable goods and services would emerge, and dependence for survival upon non-sustainable resources like fossil fuels and coal-powered electricity would be tempered, all with increasing measure and positive impact over time.

A logical step for such a program would be for a public official of rank to announce it as a national priority. This could set a helpful tone of willingness, support or mandate. Local councils and agencies could also come together in confederation and create the same effect. Organizations disposed to the dispensation of preparedness skill sets could also use this time to create momentum.

Becoming competent in the ability to intelligently face adverse conditions is the most important skill required in society today. Until the time when all or a majority of people are able to act with sustained rationality and functionality in an unfamiliar situation or emergency, systems will continue to decay or collapse faster than ability to repair damage or survive impact peaceably.

It may have gone unnoticed to most, but the first expedition for mankind’s first permanent undersea human colony will begin in July of next year. These aquanauts represent the first humans who will soon (~2015) move to such a habitat and stay with no intention of ever calling dry land their home again. Further details: http://underseacolony.com/core/index.php

Of all 100 billion humans who have ever lived, not a single human has ever gone undersea to live permanently. The Challenger Station habitat, the largest manned undersea habitat ever built, will establish the first permanent undersea colony, with aspirations that the ocean will form a new frontier of human colonization. Could it be a long-term success?

The knowledge gained from how to adapt and grow isolated ecosystems in unnatural environs, and the effects on the mentality and social well-being of the colony, may provide interesting insights into how to establish effective off-Earth colonies.

One can start to pose the questions — what makes the colony self-sustainable? What makes the colony adaptive and able to expand its horizons. What socio-political structure works best in a small inter-dependent colony? Perhaps it is not in the first six months of sustainability, but after decades of re-generation, that the true dynamics become apparent.

Whilst one does not find a lawyer, a politician or a management consultant on the initial crew, one can be assured if the project succeeds, it may start to require other professions not previously considered. At what size colony does it become important to have a medical team, and not just one part-time doctor. What about teaching skills and schooling for the next generation to ensure each mandatory skill set is sustained across generations. In this light, it could become the first social project in determining the minimal crew balance for a sustainable permanent off-Earth Lifeboat. One can muse back to the satire of the Golgafrincham B Ark in Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where Golgafrinchan Telephone Sanitisers, Management Consultants and Marketing executives were persuaded that the planet was under threat from an enormous mutant star goat, packed in Ark spaceships, and sent to an insignificant planet… which turned out to be Earth. It provides us a satirical remind that the choice of crew and colony on a real Lifeboat would require utmost social research.

A recent article in Science Daily reported on efforts to measure Cesium-137 and Cesium-134 in bottom dwelling fish off the east coast of Japan to understand the lingering effects and potential public health implications. As the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history, it is not surprising that many demersal fish are found above the limits for seafood consumption. What is more significant is that the contamination in almost all classifications of fish are not declining — suggesting that contaminated sediment on the seafloor could be providing a continuing source. This raises a concern that fallouts from any further nuclear accidents would aggregate over time.

One would question if the IAEA is taking a strong enough position on the permitted location of nuclear power stations. It perplexes me that the main objections to Iran attaining nuclear power are strategic/military. Whilst Iran is not at risk to the threat of tsunamis as Japan is, Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, where destructive earthquakes often occur. This is because it is crossed by several major fault lines that cover at least 90% of the country. How robust are nuclear power stations to a major quake? The IAEA needs to expand its role to advise countries on what regions it would be unsuitable to build nuclear power stations — such as Iran and Japan. Otherwise we are risking a lasting environmental impact to eventually occur — it is only a matter of time.

How the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits just miles away from the notoriously active San Andreas fault was allowed to be located there let alone operate for a year and half with its emergency systems disabled (according to a 2010 safety review by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission). It seems as if there’s a missing link worldwide between the IAEA and regional planning authorities. Or perhaps it is simply down to responsible government.

The Kline Directive: Economic Viability

Posted by Benjamin T. Solomon in business, complex systems, defense, economics, education, engineering, finance, military, nuclear weapons, philosophy, physics, policy, scientific freedom, space, sustainabilityTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments on The Kline Directive: Economic Viability

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts:

1. Legal Standing. 2. Safety Awareness. 3. Economic Viability. 4. Theoretical-Empirical Relationship. 5. Technological Feasibility.

In this post I will explore Economic Viability. I have proposed the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM) to guide us through the issues so that we can arrive at interstellar travel sooner, rather than later. Let us review the costs estimates of the various star drives just to reach the velocity of 0.1c, as detailed in previous blog posts:

Interstellar Challenge Matrix (Partial Matrix)

Propulsion Mechanism Legal? Costs Estimates
Conventional Fuel Rockets: Yes Greater than US$1.19E+14
Antimatter Propulsion: Do Not Know. Between US$1.25E+20 and US$6.25E+21
Atomic Bomb Pulse Detonation: Illegal. This technology was illegal as of 1963 per Partial Test Ban Treaty Between $2.6E12 and $25.6E12 . These are Project Orion original costs converted back to 2012 dollar. Requires anywhere between 300,000 and 30,000,000 bombs!!
Time Travel: Do Not Know. Requires Exotic Matter, therefore greater than antimatter propulsion costs of US$1.25E+20
Quantum Foam Based Propulsion: Do Not Know. Requires Exotic Matter, therefore greater than antimatter propulsion costs of US$1.25E+20
Small Black Hole Propulsion: Most Probably Illegal in the Future Using CERN to estimate. At least US$9E+9 per annual budget. CERN was founded 58 years ago in 1954. Therefore a guestimate of the total expenditure required to reach its current technological standing is US$1.4E11.

Note Atomic Bomb numbers were updated on 10/18/2012 after Robert Steinhaus commented that costs estimates “are excessively high and unrealistic”. I researched the topic and found Project Orion details the costs, of $2.6E12 to $25.6E12, which are worse than my estimates.

These costs are humongous. The Everly Brothers said it the best.

Let’s step back and ask ourselves the question, is this the tool kit we have to achieve interstellar travel? Are we serious? Is this why DARPA — the organization that funds many strange projects — said it will take more than a 100 years? Are we not interested in doing something sooner? What happened to the spirit of the Kline Directive?

From a space exploration perspective economic viability is a strange criterion. It is not physics, neither is it engineering, and until recently, the space exploration community has been government funded to the point where realistic cost accountability is nonexistent.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not about agreeing to a payment scheme and providing the services as contracted. Government contractors have learned to do that very well. It is about standing on your own two feet, on a purely technology driven commercial basis. This is not an accounting problem, and accountants and CFOs cannot solve this. They would have no idea where to start. This is a physics and engineering problem that shows up as an economic viability problem that only physicists and engineers can solve.

The physics, materials, technology and manufacturing capability has evolved so much that companies like Planetary Resources, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corp, Virgin Galactic, and the Ad Astra Rocket Company are changing this economic viability equation. This is the spirit of the Kline Directive, to seek out what others would not.

So I ask the question, whom among you physicist and engineers would like to be engaged is this type of endeavor?

But first, let us learn a lesson from history to figure out what it takes. Take for example DARPA funding of the Gallium Arsenide. “One of DARPA’s lesser known accomplishments, semiconductor gallium arsenide received a push from a $600-million computer research program in the mid-1980s. Although more costly than silicon, the material has become central to wireless communications chips in everything from cellphones to satellites, thanks to its high electron mobility, which lets it work at higher frequencies.”

In the 1990s Gallium Arsenide semiconductors were so expensive that “silicon wafers could be considered free”. But before you jump in and say that is where current interstellar propulsion theories are, you need to note one more important factor.

The Gallium Arsenide technology had a parallel commercially proven technology in place, the silicon semiconductor technology. None of our interstellar propulsion technology ideas have anything comparable to a commercially successful parallel technology. (I forgot conventional rockets. Really?) A guesstimate, in today’s dollars, of what it would cost to develop interstellar travel propulsion given that we already had a parallel commercially proven technology, would be $1 billion, and DARPA would be the first in line to attempt this.

Given our theoretical physics and our current technological feasibility, this cost analysis would suggest that we require about 10 major technological innovations, each building on the other, before interstellar travel becomes feasible.

That is a very big step. Almost like reaching out to eternity. No wonder Prof Adam Franks in his July 24, 2012 New York Times Op-Ed, Alone in the Void, wrote “Short of a scientific miracle of the kind that has never occurred, our future history for millenniums will be played out on Earth”.

Therefore, we need to communicate to the theoretical physics community that they need get off the Theory of Everything locomotive and refocus on propulsion physics. In a later blog posting I will complete the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM). Please use it to converse with your physicist colleagues and friends about the need to focus on propulsion physics.

In the spirit of the Kline Directive — bold, explore, seek & change — can we identify the 10 major technological innovations? Wouldn’t that keep you awake at night at the possibility of new unthinkable inventions that will take man where no man has gone before?

PS. I was going to name the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM), the Feasibility Matrix for Interstellar Travel (FMIT), then I realized that it would not catch on at MIT, and decided to stay with ICM.

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

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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.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.