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Whilst I was checking up on C.O.R.E. (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment) this weekend, I read of latest plans to ship plutonium MOX fuel assemblies from Sellafield to the small German port of Nordenham near Bremerhaven on the NDA’s (Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) ageing ship Atlantic Osprey.

The Atlantic Osprey, built in 1986, is a roll-on roll-off ferry purchased third hand by British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) in 2001 and converted to carry radioactive materials. It is the only ship not to be custom-built of the UK’s designated nuclear cargo ships, and so is not double-hulled, and has only a single engine, among other short-comings.

According to CORE it has a chequered history as a nuclear carrier that includes an engine-room fire and breakdowns at sea, and equivalent sister ships have historically been retired at or before a standard 25 years of service. Whilst the ship is soon to finally brought to the scrapyard, it is due to be replaced by a 25-year old ship Oceanic Pintail recently saved from the scrap yard itself — and one would get the impression that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are cutting corners on safety to save on expenditure.

CORE spokesman Martin Forwood has pointed out that INS (International Nuclear Services — a subsidiary of the NDA) appears hell-bent on shipping this MOX fuel to Germany on a third-hand ship with second class safety and kept afloat on first class INS PR alone” and on learning about the current state of affairs, one would be inclined to agree.

“The shipment of such highly dangerous nuclear material should never be entrusted to a ship not only past its sell-by date but also described recently in the press as a rust-bucket. Given its known safety and security weaknesses which now include the apparent lack of the vital sonardyne sunken vessel location system, using the Atlantic Osprey for the German MOX is a prime example of the nuclear industry putting business before safety. Common sense dictates that these plans should be abandoned immediately”.

Although the CORE concern is quite specific in this case, it raises the broader question — on what are acceptable safety standards for the nuclear industry as a whole — and to what extent such businesses cut corners for financial reasons — at the expense of public safety.

Learn about C.O.R.E: http://corecumbria.co.uk/

Dear CERN:

I love you as only a scientist can love the biggest scientific institution on earth. My proposal how to stabilize the ITER (a still larger big-science experiment than your LHC) so it can produce unlimited usable energy for the planet, just got published. I very much cherish high tech whenever it serves humankind.

This attitude of mine notwithstanding, I have been asking you in public for 4 ½ years to, please, falsify some other results which prove that your LHC experiment is jeopardizing the planet on a maximally short term basis. Specifically, I showed in mounting detail that the black holes that you are trying to produce in the LHC, (i) arise much more readily than hoped for, (ii) are invisible to your superb detectors, and (iii) are going to grow exponentially once gotten stuck inside matter (so as to shrink the earth to two centimeters in perhaps ten years’ time).

As you know, I dearly hope that the result can be shown to be false at a critical junction. Anyone who succeeds in doing so is your closest ally. However, as long as this aim is waiting to be achieved, I continue being your only ally. All other apparent allies who support your strategy of non-updating your 4 ½ years old safety report are your worst enemies. They have good reason never to show their face in public. Anyone who is opposed to the danger being disproved is obviously not your friend.

Forgive me, dear CERN, that I am so much on your side as to give you the “order” to immediately halt the LHC experiment until the proof of danger has been dismantled.

I know I have no right to give you any orders. I am not the police nor the CERN Council nor the Security Council of your sister organization, the United Nations. As long as these institutions all violate their duty of requesting an update on your 4 ½ years old safety report before letting you continue, I have the right and the duty to speak in their name to you.

The planet will never forget it to you if you heed the friendly order given to you by someone who deeply admires all your great achievements but, at the same time, insists on the worst safely gap of history to be plugged immediately.

Take care,
Sincerely yours,

Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher

Greetings to the Lifeboat Foundation community and blog readers! I’m Reno J. Tibke, creator of Anthrobotic.com and new advisory board member. This is my inaugural post, and I’m honored to be here and grateful for the opportunity to contribute a somewhat… different voice to technology coverage and commentary. Thanks for reading.

This Here Battle Droid’s Gone Haywire
There’s a new semi-indy sci-fi web series up: DR0NE. After one episode, it’s looking pretty clear that the series is most likely going to explore shenanigans that invariably crop up when we start using semi-autonomous drones/robots to do some serious destruction & murdering. Episode 1 is pretty and well made, and stars 237, the android pictured above looking a lot like Abe Sapien’s battle exoskeleton. Active duty drones here in realityland are not yet humanoid, but now that militaries, law enforcement, the USDA, private companies, and even citizens are seriously ramping up drone usage by land, air, and sea, the subject is timely and watching this fiction is totally recommended.

(Update: DR0NE, Episode 2 now available)

It would be nice to hope for some originality, and while DR0NE is visually and means-of-productionally and distributionally novel, it’s looking like yet another angle on a psychology & set of issues that fiction has thoroughly drilled — like, for centuries.

Higher-Def Old Hat?
Okay, so the modern versions go like this: one day an android or otherwise humanlike machine is damaged or reprogrammed or traumatized or touched by Jesus or whatever, and it miraculously “wakes up,” or its neural network remembers a previous life, or what have you. Generally the machine becomes severely bi-polar about its place in the universe; while it often struggles with the guilt of all the murderdeathkilling it did at others’ behest, it simultaneously develops some serious self-preservation instinct and has little compunction about laying waste to its pursuers, i.e., former teammates & commanders who’d done the behesting.

Admittedly, DR0NE’s episode 2 has yet to be released, but it’s not too hard to see where this is going; the trailer shows 237 delivering some vegetablizing kung-fu to it’s human pursuers, and dude, come on — if a human is punched in the head hard enough to throw them across a room and into a wall or is uppercut into a spasticating backflip, they’re probably just going to embolize and die where they land. Clearly 237 already has the stereotypical post-revelatory per-the-plot justifiable body count.

Where have we seen this pattern before? Without Googling, from the top of one robot dork’s head, we’ve got: Archetype, Robocop, iRobot (film), Iron Giant, Short Circuit, Blade Runner, Rossum’s Universal Robots, and going way, way, way back, the golem.

Show Me More Me
Seems we really, really dig on this kind of story. Continue reading “The Recurring Parable of the AWOL Android” | >

I do not regret voting for this President and I would and will do it again. However.……I am not happy about our space program. Not at all. One would think there would be more resistance concerning the privatization of space and the inferior launch vehicles being tested or proposed. Indeed there would be objections except for a great deception being perpetrated on a nation ignorant of the basic facts about space flight. The private space gang has dominated public discourse with very little answering criticism of their promises and plans.
This writer is very critical of the flexible path.

It is a path to nowhere.

Compared to the accomplishments of NASA’s glory days, there is little to recommend the players in the commercial crew game. The most fabulous is Space X, fielding a cheap rocket promising cheap lift. There is so little transparency concerning the true cost of their launches that one space-faring nation has called the bluff and stated SpaceX launch prices are impossible. The Falcon 9, contrary to stellar advertising, is a poor design in so many ways it is difficult to know where to begin the list. The engines are too small and too many, the kerosene propellant is inferior to hydrogen in the upper stage, and promising to reuse spent hardware verges on the ridiculous. Whenever the truth about the flexible path is revealed, the sycophants begin to wail and gnash their teeth.

The latest craze is the Falcon “heavy.” The space shuttle hardware lifted far more, though most of the lift was wasted on the orbiter. With 27 engines the faux heavy is a throwback to half a century ago when clusters of small engines were required due to nothing larger being available. The true heavy rocket of the last century had five engines and the number of Falcon engines it would take to match the Saturn V proves just how far the mighty have fallen.

Long, long posts, doubling as SpaceX advertisements, swamp any forum where the deception is exposed. The most popular and endlessly repeated dogma concerns fuel depots. Refueling in space is hyped as the answer to all problems. Unfortunately the chances of making it work with the selected propellant- liquid hydrogen- are not good. This kind of blasphemy is sure to bring howls of protest on any forum where it appears. The sad truth is the American people are being conned into throwing away the Heavy Lift Infrastructure that is the only path to Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight. SpaceX is more of an exploitation company to charge the taxpayer twice than aerospace company. Everything they are pushing- from the engine design to friction stir welded stages, to the heat shield on the capsule has all been developed by NASA on the taxpayers dime. They use NASA labs and engineers for token payment and then advertise low prices. It is a scam. Worse than a scam, it is a distraction from and drain on funds from the only real possibility for space travel on the horizon; the Space Launch System (SLS).

LEO is not space exploration. It is not space travel. It may have qualified as space flight at one time but not anymore. It is endless circles at very high altitude. If any achievement deserves the “been there” scoff it is Low Earth Orbit.

Human beings left Earth at 24,200 mph (38,938 km/hr) in December of 1968. In December of 1972 we returned and have not gone back. We did continue Heavy Lift launches after Apollo with the Space Shuttle- but the STS did not launch humans beyond earth orbit. Due to lack of funding the Shuttle regrettably launched a hundred tons of wings, landing gear, and never full cargo bay over one hundred times so they could come right back. What little stayed up there at very high altitude going in circles is that higher price tag people cry about.

To expand the human race into the solar system requires nuclear energy. We will not be assembling, testing, and lighting off any nuclear systems in LEO. We do however have a human rated capsule with a powerful escape system almost ready that is suitable for transporting fissionables directly to the Moon- where we can assemble, test, and light off nukes. To send that capsule directly to the moon, and the human beings to construct a base that can support a nuclear mission, we need an HLV with hydrogen upper stages. The hydrogen upper stages are what made Apollo successful by making a heavy payload go fast. That vehicle is a few years away and sooner with more money. The DOD has vast resources it expends on weapons that do not protect us from two clear and present dangers; impacts and plagues. I often give examples on this site of “cold war toys” that are “hideously expensive” and do not seem to work right or do anything magical. That big rocket is the magic that will open the solar system to human colonization. Private space efforts are not capable of making any of it happen. This is why I consider the whole “new space” movement as being essentially rich hobbyists selling tourist trips. My thoughts on this “narrow and inflexible path” are based largely on the work of Freeman Dyson and Eugene Parker- and the discovery of millions of tons of water on the Moon.

Despite having “been there,” the Moon is the next step in opening up the solar system to human exploration and colonization. Low Earth Orbit is being sold as space travel even though to travel, you have to go somewhere. The battle cry of “cheap lift” is promoting the equivalent of the “liar loans” that wrecked the housing market. Falling for this something for nothing too good to be true rip-off will leave the U.S. trapped. Decades more of nothing but more endless circles at very high altitude. Mars is used as a marketing gimmick but is really just a rock with a deep gravity well. Everyone seems to think it is “just close enough” for chemical propulsion. It is not. If you are going to build the necessary Atomic Spaceship (and we would have to have a moonbase to launch a nuclear mission) you might as well go someplace really interesting.

All those places are in the outer solar system.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628190006.htm
To establish a moonbase requires the Space Launch System to be put into service. There is no substitute for a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.

The 130 ton lift of the proposed SLS is also at this time slated to be used as a crew vehicle. This was one of the worst mistakes of the shuttle program. The crew capsules being tested and built by SpaceX and Boeing pack seven astronauts into a vehicle without a proper escape system and, in the case of SpaceX, doubling as a cargo vehicle. Both of these vehicles have an escape-system-that-is-not-an-escape-system. These underpowered hypergolic systems are not very good at saving a crew but will work great raising the orbit of tourist space stations. This is another one of those worst mistakes being repeated.

Infomercial hype aside, the falcon “heavy” and Delta IV are not HLV’s. This misinformation deceives the public and makes the average citizen think the SpaceX hobby rocket is a Saturn V. At a thrust of around 100,000 pounds each it would take 72 merlins to equal the thrust of the SRB’s on SLS, not counting what the 4 liquid hydrogen engines also produce- with much greater efficiency than Kerosene.

The real problem with the U.S. space program is obvious to anyone looking at how much money is spent by the DOD. It is always interesting to hear sermons about how critical surveillance satellites are to fighting illiterate mountain tribesman. Any DOD contractor hearing complaints about NASA wasting money breaks down in maniacal laughter. One of my favorite talking points is that we can train our young people to clear buildings with automatic weapons or we can train them to build spaceships; either way the money will get spent.

Take a look at military spending increases and it is obvious funding for spaceflight can go up. And there IS a valid DOD mission BEO and BELO (Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit). The valid military mission is impact defense and establishing outposts in the outer system- but this is hard money the aerospace industry wants nothing to do with. Unlike so many easy money weapon systems, spaceships have to actually work.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905134912.htm

It is a race against time- will this knowledge save us or destroy us? Genetic modification may eventually reverse aging and bring about a new age but it is more likely the end of the world is coming.

The Fermi Paradox informs us that intelligent life may not be intelligent enough to keep from destroying itself. Nothing will destroy us faster or more certainly than an engineered pathogen (except possibly an asteroid or comet impact). The only answer to this threat is an off world survival colony. Ceres would be perfect.

Part 2 Here

Need For New Experiments To Test Quantum Mechanics & Relativity
We now have a new physics, without adding additional dimensions, that challenge the foundations of contemporary theories. Note very carefully, this is not about the ability of quantum mechanics or relativity to provide exact answers. That they do extremely well. With Ni fields, can we test for which is better or best?

A better nomenclature is a ‘single-structure test’, a test to validate the structure proposed by a hypothesis or theory. For example, Mercury’s precession is an excellent single-structure test for relativity, but it does not say how this compares to say, quantum gravity. On the other hand, a ‘dual-structure’ test would compare any two different competing theories. The recent three photon observation would be an example of a dual-structure test. Relativity requires that spacetime is smooth and continuous but quantum gravity requires spacetime to be “comprised of discrete, invisibly small building blocks”. This three photon observation showed that spacetime was smooth and continuous down to distances smaller than predicted by quantum gravity. Therefore, suggesting that both quantum foam and quantum gravity maybe in part or whole invalidated, while upholding relativity.

Therefore, the new tests would authenticate or invalidate Ni fields as opposed to quantum mechanics or relativity. That is, it is about testing for structure or principles not for exactness. Of course both competing theories must first pass the single-structure test for exactness, before they can be considered for a dual-structure test.

Is it possible to design a single-structure test that will either prove or disprove that virtual particles are the carrier of force? Up to today that I know of, this test has not been done. Maybe this is not possible. Things are different now. We have an alternate hypothesis, Ni fields, that force is expressed by the spatial gradient of time dilation. These are two very different principles. A dual-structure test could be developed that considers these differences.

Except for the three photon observation, it does not make sense to conduct a dual-structure test on relativity versus quantum mechanics as alternate hypotheses, because they operate in different domains, galactic versus Planck distances. Inserting a third alternative, Ni fields, could provide a means of developing more dual-structure tests for relativity and quantum mechanics with the Ni field as an alternate hypothesis.

Could we conduct a single-structure test on Ni fields? On a problem where all other physicist-engineers (i.e. quantum mechanics, relativity or classical) have failed to solve? Prof. Eric Laithwaite’s Big Wheel experiment would be such a problem. Until now no one has solved it. Not with classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, relativity or string theories. The Big Wheel experiment is basically this. Pivot a wheel to the end of a 3-ft (1 m) rod. Spin this wheel to 3,000 rpm or more. Then rotate this rod with the spinning wheel at the other end. The technical description is, rotate the spin vector.

It turns out that the solution to the Big Wheel experiment is that acceleration a=ωrωs√h is governed by the rotation ωr, spin ωs, and the physical structure √h, and produces weight loss and gain. This is the second big win for Ni fields. The first is the unification of gravitational, electromagnetic and mechanical forces.

How interesting. We have a mechanical construction that does not change its mass, but is able to produce force. If the spin and rotation are of like sense to the observer, the force is toward the observer. If unlike then the force is away from the observer. Going back to the Ω function, we note that in the Ω function, mass has been replaced by spin and rotation, and more importantly the change in the rotation and spin appears to be equivalent to a change in mass. Further work is required to develop an Ω function into a theoretical model.

The next step in challenging the foundations of physics is to replace the mass based Ω function with an electromagnetic function. The contemporary work to unify electromagnetism with gravity is focused on the tensor side. This essay, however, suggests that this may not be the case. If we can do this – which we should be able to do, as Ni fields explain electron motion in a magnetic field — the new physics will enable us to use electrical circuits to create force, and will one day replace all combustion engines.

Imagine getting to Mars in 2 hours.

The How Of Interstellar Travel
But gravity modification is not the means for interstellar travel because mass cannot be accelerated past the velocity of light. To develop interstellar propulsion technology requires thinking outside the box. One possibility is, how do we ‘arrive’ without ‘travelling’. Surprisingly, Nature shows us that this is possible. Both photons and particles with mass (electrons, protons & neutrons) have probabilistic natures. If these particles pass through a slit they ‘arrive’ at either sides of the slit, not just straight ahead! This ‘arrival’ is governed by probabilities. Therefore, interstellar travel technology requires an understanding of how probability is implemented in Nature, and we need to figure out how to control the ‘arrival’ event, somewhat like the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s ‘infinite improbability drive’.

Neither relativity nor quantum mechanics can or has attempted to explain probabilities. So what is probability? And, in the single slit experiment why does it decrease as one moves orthogonally away from the slit? I proposed that probabilities are a property of subspace and the way to interstellar travel. Subspace co-exists with spacetime but does not have the time dimension. So how do we test for subspace? If it is associated with probability, then can we determine tests that can confirm subspace? I have suggested one in my book. More interestingly, for starters, can we alter the probability of arrivals in the single slit experiments?

To challenge the foundations of pshyics, there are other questions we can ask. Why is the Doppler Effect not a special case of Gravitational Red/Blue shift? Why is the Hubble parameter not a constant? Can we find the answers? Will seeking these answers keep us awake at night at the possibility of new unthinkable inventions that will take man where no man has gone before?

References
R.L. Amoroso, G. Hunter, M. Kafatos, and Vigier, Gravitation and Cosmology: From the Hubble Radius to the Plank Scale, Proceedings of a Symposium in Honour of the 80th Birthday of Jean-Pierre Vigier, Edited by Amoroso, R.L., Hunter, G., Kafatos, M., and Vigier, J-P., (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, USA, 2002).

H. Bondi, Reviews of Modern Physics, 29–3, 423 (1957). G. Hooft, Found Phys 38, 733 (2008).

B.T. Solomon, “An Approach to Gravity Modification as a Propulsion Technology”, Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences International Forum (SPESIF 2009), edited by Glen Robertson, AIP Conference Proceedings, 1103, 317 (2009).

B.T. Solomon, Phys. Essays 24, 327 (2011)

R. V. Wagoner, 26th SLAC Summer Institute on Particle Physics, SSI 98, 1 (1998).

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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.

Part 1 of this Essay is here

The Missing Link, The Ω Function
General Relativity is based on separation vectors. Splitting this separation vector into two equations, gives one part a function of mass and the other a vector-tensor function. This gives rise to the question, can the mass part be replaced by something else say an Ω function, where Ω is as yet undefined but not a function of mass? Maybe the Ω function should be a description of quark interaction, and not mass?

Now it becomes obvious that the theoretical physics community has focused on the vector-tensor part to the complete omission of the Ω function. That is, there is definitely the opportunity to question the foundations of physics.

Looking at the massless equation for gravitational acceleration g = τc2, change in time dilation divided by the change in distance is what describes a gravitational field. A small body orbiting the Earth has a certain velocity which can be converted to time dilation. Change the orbital radius of the small body by a small amount, less or more, gives a new orbital velocity and a new time dilation. Therefore, divide this change in time dilation by the change in height and multiply by the velocity of light squared, gives the gravitational acceleration present. The same is with a centripetal motion. Use the velocity along the radius at any two points. Determine the change in time dilation then divide this change in time dilation by the change in radius, the distance between the two points. Then multiply by the velocity of light squared, gives the acceleration present.

The same is true for an electron traveling in a magnetic field, but this cannot be explained without the use of equations. See Solomon 2011 for a detailed explanation. Further, this approach now explains why force is orthogonal to both electron motion and magnetic field. Contemporary electromagnetism cannot explain why other than stating it has to be a vector cross product. Which raises the question, what is the electron doing in the magnetic field? In addition to the arched motion of the electron, does the electron experience rotation? That is, is it rotating with respect to the magnetic field i.e. is the electron orientation locked with respect to the radius of the arch? Or is the electron orientation rotating with respect to the radius of the arch i.e. is the electron orientation locked with respect to the magnetic field? Or is some other orientation function present?

It is important to note that time dilation as a spatial gradient is the key to acceleration and is termed Non Inertia or Ni Field. The Ni field concept is the first major challenge to quantum mechanics in a hundred years. Quantum mechanics states that force is transmitted by the exchange of virtual particles, whereas the Ni field states that it is the spatial gradient of time dilation. Unlike quantum mechanics, the Ni field is able to unify gravity, electromagnetism and mechanical forces.

My Philosophy Behind the New Propulsion Physics
How did I arrive at these discoveries? Let us back up a little. If a 100,000 of the brightest scientist & engineers, over the last 100 years could not solve the gravity modification problem, then the problem is not with the tool users but with the tools. Along this note Space.com has an article Have Three Little Photons Broken Theoretical Physics?, that suggests that some if not all of quantum gravity may be invalidated.

Niels Bohr (I could not find the reference) is reputed to have said that the mathematical equation is all we need to describe the Universe, and explains why theoretical physics has become very abstract (not a judgement). Einstein on the other hand said use your imagination. Both had different approaches to discovery. Both used mathematics as a tool to describe the Universe. But as Prof. Morris Kline describes in his book “Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty”, mathematics has become so sophisticated that it can now be used to prove anything, and therefore the loss of certainty. Ironically it was Einstein who started the search for a unified theory of everything.

How did I avoid trying to prove ‘anything’? By staying close to the experimental data.

One arrives at new hypotheses by breaking old axioms. Some of the axioms are explicit and some are implicit. Two explicit axioms are, a charged particle moving in a magnetic field is equivalent to a point, and all the laws of physics in this Universe are consistent with each other. An implicit axiom would be that the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation somehow does not operate on a particle falling in a gravitational field. I show that this is incorrect in my Physics Essays paper.

In my research I chose to explore physical properties that contemporary physics had not, that particles are real physical three dimensional objects. Therefore to answer questions like what would happen to the shape of a particle falling in a gravitational field? Or how would the shape of an electron affect its motion in a magnetic field, if at all? Or how would the distribution of mass within an elementary particle affect its motion in a gravitational field?

To be continued … Part 3 Here

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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.

A secret agent travels to a secret underground desert base being used to develop space weapons to investigate a series of mysterious murders. The agent finds a secret transmitter was built into a supercomputer that controls the base and a stealth plane flying overhead is controlling the computer and causing the deaths. The agent does battle with two powerful robots in the climax of the story.

Gog is a great story worthy of a sci fi action epic today- and was originally made in 1954. Why can’t they just remake these movies word for word and scene for scene with as few changes as possible? The terrible job done on so many remade sci fi classics is really a mystery. How can such great special effects and actors be used to murder a perfect story that had already been told well once? Amazing.

In contrast to Gog we have the fairly recent movie Stealth released in 2005 that has talent, special effects, and probably the worst story ever conceived. An artificially intelligent fighter plane going off the reservation? The rip-off of HAL from 2001 is so ridiculous.

Fantastic Voyage (1966) was a not so good story that succeeded in spite of stretching suspension of disbelief beyond the limit. It was a great movie and might succeed today if instead of miniaturized and injected into a human body it was instead a submarine exploring a giant organism under the ice of a moon in the outer solar system. Just an idea.

And then there is one of the great sci-fi movies of all time if one can just forget the ending. The Abyss of 1989 was truly a great film in that aquanauts and submarines were portrayed in an almost believable way.

From wiki: The cast and crew endured over six months of grueling six-day, 70-hour weeks on an isolated set. At one point, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had a physical and emotional breakdown on the set and on another occasion, Ed Harris burst into spontaneous sobbing while driving home. Cameron himself admitted, “I knew this was going to be a hard shoot, but even I had no idea just how hard. I don’t ever want to go through this again”

Again, The Abyss, like Fantastic Voyage, brings to mind those oceans under the icy surface of several moons in the outer solar system.

I recently watched Lockdown with Guy Pearce and was as disappointed as I thought I would be. Great actors and expensive special effects just cannot make up for a bad story. When will they learn? It is sad to think they could have just remade Gog and had a hit.

The obvious futures represented by these different movies are worthy of consideration in that even in 1954 the technology to come was being portrayed accurately. In 2005 we have a box office bomb that as a waste of money is parallel to the military industrial complex and their too-good-to-be-true wonder weapons that rarely work as advertised. In Fantastic Voyage and The Abyss we see scenarios that point to space missions to the sub-surface oceans of the outer planet moons.

And in Lockdown we find a prison in space where the prisoners are the victims of cryogenic experimentation and going insane as a result. Being an advocate of cryopreservation for deep space travel I found the story line.……extremely disappointing.

Complexity decomplexified: A List of 200 Results Encountered over 55 Years

Otto E. Rossler

Faculty of Science, University of Tubingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, 72076 Tubingen, Germany

Abstract

The present list was compiled by a “specialist for non-specialization” who owes this scientific identity to the masters of three disciplines: physicist Carl-Friedrich von Weizsacker, biologist Konrad Lorenz and mathematician Bob Rosen. With the best findings, compressed into a line or two by heart, the synopsis brings hidden patterns to the fore. Simultaneously, the individual results become maximally vulnerable so as to facilitate either improvement or falsification.

(August 28, 2012)

Philosophical Preface

Descartes re-invented the rational world of Heraclitus. Specifically he asked the following question (paraphrased): “Do the ‘assignment conditions’ which we find ourselves glued to (the body; the now; the qualia including color or joy) represent an acceptable state of affairs?” The answer is “yes,“ Descartes proposed, if and only if the other two conditions that hold us in their grip (the “laws” and the momentarily applicable “initial conditions” in Newton’s later parlance) are intrinsically consistent. As long as this “machine conjecture” is fulfilled empirically, an infinite privilege separates the conscious observer from all other inhabitants of the world: The others become “mere machines” in the experience of the first (so that he can, for example, do a brain operation on them to save their life). Levinas calls this state of one’s being totally outside the other’s interior side, “exteriority.” The subject then has the option of not misusing the infinite power of exteriority – by acting fairly towards the poor “machine” of the other so as if it possessed a subjective side too even though this cannot be proven and indeed is totally absurd to assume were there not the miracle of the consciousness of the first. A single act of not misusing the infinite power of exteriority performed by the inmate of the dream of consciousness would then put the Dream-Giving Instance (DGI) to shame in case it is not benevolent. The fact that this risk is being taken by the DGI is living proof according to Descartes that the chain of colorful subjective moments, imposed on the subject is “not a bad dream.” In this vein the study of the “steel fibers” of the Cartesian coordinates that mathematically fit the colorless sub-portion of experience (its “Hades part”) acquires a maximum dignity. (Note that in the Greek Hades, all relations of our own upper world were preserved – except for the “blood” that gives color and substance to them.) The shadow part, as long as consistent, hence becomes an instrument by which to do good to one’s fellow dream figures which being machines are totally given into the dreamer’s hand as hostages. This “exteriority theory” (Levinas) endows science with an infinite dignity, Einstein-style, as long as it remains consistent. The problem of whether quantum mechanics fits in, with its apparent indeterminism reflecting a deterministic assignment, was first taken up by Everett. (I thank Ali Sanayei and Ivan Zelinka for discussions and Stephen Wolfram for encouragement. For J.O.R.)

The List

• An energy-saving nonlinear voice-proportional distortion-free amplitude modulation (based on negative feedback)

• “Almost invisible machines,” consisting of virtually infinitely many non-negative chemical variables that with arbitrarily long delays accruing at very low concentrations

• Chemical evolution is a special case, forming an Erdos-type growing automaton (similarly Stu Kaufmann and Joel Cohen)

• Teilhard’s “second arrow” in thermodynamics represents a valid description as an asymptotic approach toward “point Omega”

• “Recursive evolution”: Evolution improves evolution in the first place (with Michael Conrad in the footsteps of John Holland and John von Neumann)

• “Metabolic adaptation” (discovered by Darwin) is not predictive in its history-dependent details; however, “positional adaptation” (while itself implemented by metabolic adaption) is predictive

• “The Rossler task” (Michael Conrad): The decision-type traveling salesman problem

• Ric Charnov’s simultaneous “optimal foraging theory” is a parallel development

• Gödel’s theorem can be considered as a limiting solution to the NP-complete traveling salesman problem (which fact makes it intuitive)

• The “bacterial brain” implements a suboptimal local solution to the “smoothed-out traveling-salesman problem” (with Hans Bremermann)

• “The brain equation”: Yields an efficient local solution to the decision-type traveling-salesman problem

• An eusocial version of the brain equation does not exist

• A “universal brain”: Brain equation combined with a powerful “universal simulator” (or synonymously cognitive map system or Virtual-Reality machine)

• The “sinc algorithm” (real-space equivalent to a Fourier window in frequency space) can be approximated by a multi-level (both ascending and descending) Reichardt-von-Foerster type neural net (with Bernhard Uehleke)

• “Tolerance attractors” form under recurrence in such a neural net, implementing Poincaré-Zeeman-Poston-DalCin “tolerance theory” and realizing von Foerster’s dream of “Platonic ideation” (with Michael Klein)

• The “problem of fast picture-shifting” in multi-resolution neural nets, while solved by nature, eludes mathematical understanding

• “Pandaka-pygmaea Institute“: Was proposed to solve this and other brain problems by investigating the smallest fish brain (and that of its normal-size relative, Gobius niger)

• The positive sum-potential in the brain equation (“happiness”) is displayed by the young of social animals

• One particular sub-potential in the brain equation (“bonding”) is predictably displayed by social animals independently of age

• Two distinct displays (like “happiness” and “bonding”) can, through an evolutionary accident called “Huxley evolutionary ritualization,” acquire a functional overlap

• This accident happened independently in the evolution of two mammalian species: tail-wagging signals both affection and happiness in wolves, and the Smiley face signals both happiness and bonding in humans (similarly Jan van Hoof)

• “All animals are autistic” (AAAA): because the brain equation, an autonomous optimizer, is autistic

• Every brain-equation-carrier is “alive” independently of hardware because it solves the positional adaptation problem which is no less vital than the metabolic adaptation problem ( biochemical life and brain life have equal rank)

• Universal brains are “mirror-competent” owing to their high simulational capabilities

• Unlike humans and some other species, wolves do not have an universal brain (their VR component is too weak for mirror-competence)

• Smile-laughter overlap + strong bonding + mirror-competence = sufficient condition for an “epigenetic function change” in the sense of Robert Rosen, called the “personogenetic function change” (PFC)

• The PFC consists in the invention of the “suspicion of benevolence shown by the other” (which leads to a state of “being moved” in a positive feed-back comprising both sides)

• The PFC represents an example of “creation out of nothing” (the suspicion of, and production of, benevolence)

• “Person attractor” (Detlev Linke): The new stable mode of functioning arising in the PFC

• The PFC can be seen to be nothing but a misunderstanding (a mistaken convergence concocted in the universal simulator; but it is interactively confirmed

• The fact that the PFC represents a joint functional trap allows one to speak of “Nature’s Schadchen trick” (with Roger Malina)

• The person attractor resembles a “folie à deux” (a form of animal schizophrenia) compared to the physiological (autistic) functioning of the two autonomous optimizers with cognition

• The PFC constitutes a miracle worked by the toddler

• Watching this creation-out-of-nothing being achieved by the toddler is a maximally moving event; there appears to be no recorded documentation of this “holy of holies” of humankind

• Friendly teasing jokes (“humor”) are implicit in the PFC

• The mutually confirmed suspicion of benevolence acquires the character of an “objective truth” (there is no older objective truth)

• The “miracle” goes still further: A third fictitious person is involved in the personogenesis (called “god” or “Buddha” etc. in different cultures): The Dream-Giving Instance DGI or, synonymously, the “non-I” (or even the “emptiness behind the dream”)

• The “non-I” arises concomitantly with the “I” and the “you” (the two other persons created in the PFC)

• Women are probably more religious (they statistically have more “heart” in the sense of bonding and in regard of the presence of the bonding hormone oxytocin, and moreover in the majority of cases are the partner in the PFC

• A “nonautistic languaging” automatically develops as a consequence of the PFC (similarly C. Andy Hilgartner)

• Human society in all its essential aspects is formed as a consequence of the PFC: Society is based on asking questions and giving answers – on the basis of the mutual trust between persons

• The mentioned “physiological autism” of every autonomous optimizer with cognition persists in human beings with an innate “smile blindness” strong enough to prevent the epigenetic PFC from occurring

• The causal explanation of autism enables a causal therapy: The caretaker can deliberately produce an “acoustic smile” whenever momentarily happy (the acoustic smile consists in a tender bonding noise)

• The fact that the caretaker must be the essential bonding partner proves that modern child cribs are a collective tragedy (their uninformed use explains the global rise of autism)

• The “causal therapy of autism” has been shunned by the profession for 37 years (only Gregory Bateson approved of it)

• The reason for the silent boycott probably lies in the fact that the person attractor is “too easy to elicit”: Young mirror-competent bonding animals can predictably be lured into the personogenetic function change, too

• “Galactic export” is the technical term for the export of the personogenetic bifurcation towards non-human mirror-competent bonding animals (since the “small step” of recruiting another terrestrial life form is the giant leap involved)

• The planet-wide shying-away before the main step is an example of a collective subconscious “speciesism”

• The fear is palpable ever since Gregory Bateson and John C. Lilly’s joint student, Margaret Howe, tried to adopt a male dolphin 47 years ago; Koko (Francine Patterson’s gorilla life partner) and Kanzi (Susan Savage-Rumbaugh’s grown-up bonobo child) are underrated

• Stephen Spielberg played on the same taboo in his movie “AI” – which brings-in the added feature that his non-biochemical person is potentially immortal (a fact he played-down tactfully)

• Leo Szilard introduced non-human persons in his 1948 sci-fi story “The Voice of the Dolphins” (written in the aftermath of his failure to prevent his other brainchild, the bomb, from being dropped)

• The “Rosette phenomenon” of sperm whales deserves to be taken seriously: What function has their daily meeting? (Cf. the author’s Sci-Fi story “The Tale of the Whale” mentioned in the Neosentience book by Bill Seaman and the author)

• “Horizontal exteriority” in the sense of Emmanuel Lévinas, is the omnipotence of the PFC, re-activated in an act of fairness

• “Vertical exteriority” is the matching term in the theological sense of Edmond Jabès (with Nils Röller)

• “A program can force the programmer to reply” (with Christa Sommerer and Adolf Muschg)

• “Simulacron Three” (by Daniel F. Galouye 1964) and “A Puppeteer’s World” (by Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1973) are anticipations of the same insight (followed by the “Matrix” movie and Ray Kurzweil’s “Singularity Theory”)

• The “Turing test” – a test for personhood – got first passed in ancient Rome by the Cretan slave and later stoic philosopher Epictetus (as I learned from Bob Rosen, with Bill Seaman)

• Mathematical proof that the orangutan brain is functionally superior to the human brain

• An equation for a universal immune system (with Robert A. Lutz)

• A chemical universal circuit (with Dietrich Hoffmann)

• Differentiable automata exist mathematically (because certain ordinary differential equations can be approximately if correctly described by automata theory)

• Well-stirred automata exist physically

• Reaction scheme for a temperature-compensated chemical clock

• An “ultra-longterm continuous-stirred-tank-reactor version” of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction proposed: To check for a “late explosion” in the number of variables (with Michael Conrad)

• “Traffic-light” version of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction (with Reimara Rossler)

• “Slinky attractor” (with Okan Gurel)

• “Reinjection principle” is valid in more than two-dimensional phase spaces (independently Christian Mira)

• Chaotic electronic multivibrator (built with Hartmut Waible)

• “The Rossler attractor” (Norman Packard)

• “Spiral chaos”

• “Screw-type chaos”

• “The sound of chaos” (idling motor; hoarse voice)

• Chaos (a stereoscopic sound movie made with Reimara Rossler and Thomas Wiehr 1976)

• “Hyperchaos” (name courtesy Paul Rapp)

• “The sound of hyperchaos” (like raindrops falling on a car’s roof)

• X-attractor (still unidentified)

• “Playdough task” (to be given to thousands of toddlers to find the hoped-for X-attractor)

• Atrio-ventricular heart chaos (with Reimara Rossler and Herbert D. Landahl)

• “Endocrinological chaos” (with Reimara Rossler, Peter Sadowski and Colin Sparrow)

• Chaos in the Zhabotinsky reaction (with Klaus Wegmann, in parallel to John L. Hudson)

• “Cloud attractor” (with James A. Yorke)

• “Folded-towel map” (in parallel with Masaya Yamaguti’s “folded handkerchief map”)

• “Punctured hyperchaos” as source of any transfinitely exact 2-D self-similarity (with Michael Klein)

• “The chaotic hierarchy” (the simplest pertinent equation was subsequently found by Gerold Baier and Sven Sahle)

• Explicit differentiable Smale-Urysohn solenoid (with Pal Fischer and W.R. Smith)

• “Transfinitely invertible attractors” (almost everywhere)

• First explicit Poincaré recurrence (with Georg C. Hartmann)

• A generic Milnor attractor (with Francisco Doria and Georg C. Hartmann)

• “Flare attractors” (with Georg C. Hartmann)

• A “society of flare attractors” (with Georg C. Hartmann)

• “Hyperfat attractors” (with John L. Hudson and Erik Mosekilde)

• Particle indistinguishability is transfinitely exact (with Hans Primas)

• Deterministic entropy (with Hans Diebner)

• “Gibbs-Sackur cell” in phase space

• Classical unit action (the system-specific Sackur cell)

• Micro time reversals in the Sackur cell of the observer (with Richard Wages)

• An estimate of Planck‘s constant (based on Sackur cell)

• Causal (exo) explanation of quantum mechanics (with David Finkelstein and Peter Weibel)

• Causal (exo) explanation of spin (with Michael Conrad)

• “Single-spin chemistry” in ultra-strong magnetic fields (with Dieter Fröhlich, Günter Häfelinger and Frank Kuske)

• “Second Periodic Table of Elements” (single-spin chemistry)

• “Cession twin of action”: hc (with Claudia Giannetti)

• Everett’s global Psi-function replaced by Boltzmann’s global H-function (on the exo-level)

• Everett’s observer-centered explanation of nonlocality (1957), confirmed

• The momentarily consciousness-bearing Sackur cell in the brain determines both h and c – a conjecture (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Weibel)

• “VX-diagram” in spacetime of the “completed Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox” (with John S. Bell, in parallelism to Susan Feingold)

• The partly satellite-based VX-type EPR-Bell experiment: To prove that more than one quantum world exists (similarly Anton Zeilinger)

• Locally-counterfactual superluminal telegraph (with Uwe Niedersen and Jürgen Parisi)

• Everett immortality (with Markus Fix and Bryce DeWitt)

• Aging equation (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Kloeden)

• Evolutionary explanation of larger female longevity (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Kloeden)

• A constant-temperature physico-chemical time-of-life clock in the body, predicted (with Reimara Rossler)

• Melatonin as a likely “handle” of the time-of-life clock (with Reimara Rossler and Peter Kloeden)

• Lampsacus, hometown of all persons on the Internet (with Valentino Braitenberg and Gerhard J. Lischka)

• Early attempt to found Lampsacus (with Ezer Weizmann and Mohamed ElNaschie)

• “Earth-Moon University” in Lampsacus (with Wilfried Kriese, Artur P. Schmidt and George Lasker)

• The 16-level “pyramid of knowledge” (in Lampsacus)

• “WM-diagram” in time across different levels in gravitation (with Dieter Fröhlich)

• Gravitational-redshift proportional size increase (with Dieter Fröhlich, Heinrich Kuypers and Jurgen Parisi)

• Non-uniqueness of simultaneity on the rotating cylinder (with Dieter Fröhlich)

• Proof of flatness for the famous Ehrenfest rotating disk

• Black holes are “almost-black holes” (with Dieter Fröhlich, Heinrich Kuypers, Hans Diebner and Mohamed ElNaschie)

• A first proof of angular-momentum conservation in gravity (with Heinrich Kuypers)

• Einstein’s gravitational Time dilation possesses three new corollaries: Length, Mass and Charge suffer a proportional or antiproportional change (TeLeMaCh theorem)

• General relativity is in for a far-reaching mathematical and physical re-interpretation

• c is globally constant (Max Abraham, rehabilitated)

• Nonexistence of gravitational waves (as corollary)

• Nonexistence of gravitons (as corollary)

• The famous “indirect evidence for gravitational waves” (Hulse-Taylor), explained instead by tidal friction (with Dieter Fröhlich and René Stettler)

• A “Reeb foliation in spacetime” exists around any rotating black hole (with Dieter Fröhlich, following stimulation by Art Winfree)

• Kerr metric disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Ur-meter disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Ur-kilogram disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Charge conservation disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Reissner-Nordstrom metric disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Eddington-Finkelstein transformation disproved (via Telemach theorem) (with apologies to my close friend)

• Bekenstein theory disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• Hawking radiation disproved (via Telemach theorem)

• The “coordinate singularity” at the horizon rehabilitated as a physical singularity (via Telemach theorem)

• Interior Schwarzschild solution: Proof of nonexistence

• Singularity theorem inside black hole horizon (Penrose) proven non-existent (with aüologies to my superior friend)

• Wormholes proved non-existent

• Upper half of Flamm’s paraboloid: Replaced by a generic 3-pseudosphere; lower half proven nonexistent

• Supersymmetry disproved (field particles do not exist on exo level)

• The human Lorenz matrix (of facial expressions): A universal natural facial-expressions simulator (with Wilfried Musterle)

• An equation for a one-dimensional – purely temporal – brain (with Michael Conrad; similarly Susie Vrobel)

• Evil as a contagious disease (unlike the good, evil cannot arise spontaneously)

• Children and adults form two different species, ethologically speaking (with Konrad Lorenz)

• “Pongo goneotrophicus” is a more appropriate biological name of Homo sapiens (meaning “the parent-feeding ape”)

• Biochemical life (including Robert Forward’s nuclear-chemical life) on the one hand, and “brain life” on the other, are functionally disjoint

• A transfinitely exact version of Edward Fredkin’s Digital Information Mechanics (including both classical indistinguishability and universal time-reversal invariance)

• Electrons have finite volume (follows from Telemach theorem)

• As a corollary, string theory is qualitatively confirmed

• The qualitative confirmation of string theory implies that a successful generation of black holes by particle colliders has become much more likely

• Freshly generated black holes are undetectable at nuclear colliders

• The empirical “quasar scaling theorem” is extended downwards by some 50 orders of magnitude

• There exist no more unstoppable and voracious parasites in the universe than black holes

• Miniature black holes grow exponentially inside solid matter (after getting stuck)

• “Clifford conjecture”: Finite-volume universe solutions to the Einstein equations are predictably unphysical (with Walter Ratjen); in this case, no “Gödel solution” exists and no time travel is possible

• The fractal dimensionality of the cosmos is close to unity, not only empirically but also theoretically (“Fournier-Mandelbrot solution” to the Einstein equation)

• Low-surface-brightness galaxies (“black galaxies”) are extraordinarily old

• A first consistent history of galaxy formation becomes possible

• Giacconi’s ultra-faint equidistributed X-ray sources are most likely ultra-distant, very-high-redshift quasars (so that redshift measurements are maximally desirable)

• The microwave background radiation is predicted to merge smoothly with equal-temperature galactic-halo objects (therefore the raw data of the “Planck mission” need to be published)

• Existence of differentiable dynamical systems that are made up, not of one-D locally parallel threads but of two-D locally parallel surfaces (Bouligand-Winfree theory)

• The Hubble-Perlmutter law holds true in a non-expanding Fournier-Mandelbrot cosmos (with Dieter Fröhlich, Ramis Movassagh and Anthony Moore)

• Zwicky-Chandrasekhar “dynamical friction” numerically confirmed (with Klaus Sonnleitner)

• Deterministic statistical thermodynamics (with Hans Diebner)

• Deterministic statistical cryodynamics: Exists as a new fundamental science besides deterministic statistical thermodynamics (with Klaus Sonnleitner and Frank Kuske)

• “Deterministic ectropy” formula (with Ali Sanayei)

• The smaller (almost-) black hole in a collision gets predictably “re-circulated (with Dieter Fröhlich)

• Black hole mergers are a source both of charged and of uncharged cosmic rays

• “Metabállon anapaúetai” (metabolizing it remains unchanged): Heraclitus’ transfinitely recycling cosmology proven valid after 2 ½ millennia

• Abramowicz’s “topology inversion” near black-hole horizon confirmed (with Dieter Fröhlich)

• “Identity jumps” between 3 indistinguishable classical particles on a ring calculated (with Peter Weibel and Richard Wages)

• Two shells form in a classical atom containing two indistinguishable electrons

• The counterfactual superluminal telegraph is “subluminally confirmable”

• A counterfactual world-change machine (with Jürgen Parisi)

• History of transfinitely exact indistinguishability (Anaxagoras, Gregorus of Naziance, the Mutakallimún, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Leibniz, Gibbs, Pauli, Hans Primas, Alexandre Ganoczy, Richard Wages, Rudolf Matzka)

• “Everett-Schrödinger Russian Roulette” (with Markus Fix)

• Unit “el-action” is a new universal conserved quantity (like the unit action)

• Unit “el-cession” is a new universal conserved quantity (like the unit cession)

• “G-zero” is a new fundamental constant of nature, replacing the gravitational constant G and the magnetic constant mu-zero which both remain locally constant (similarly Richard J. Cook)

• The nonlinear simultaneity generator in the brain is qualitatively reminiscent of general relativity (with Eva Ruhnau)

• Proposal to use the new science of cryodynamics to stabilize Tokamak-type fusion reactors (enabling unlimited free energy for humanity)

• Cryodynamics and thermodynamics, combined, allow for a revived eternal cosmology in modern science in the footsteps of Saint Augustine

• No WIMPs since cold dark matter was disproved

• No dark energy since accelerated expansion was disproved

• No big bang and no space expansion since cryodynamics explains the Hubble law in a fractal cosmos

• No inflation owing to the absence of space expansion

• No “primordial” nucleosynthesis in the absence of space expansion

• No Sunyaev-Zel’dovich cutoff, in the absence of a very distant origin of the background radiation

• The “survival of the scientific-technological world”-problem (C.F. von Weizsäcker) is once more the most pressing problem of humanity (with Eric Klien)

• An attempt made to convene an “LHC safety conference” (with Markus Goritschnig)

• Absence of Emile-Zola type intellectuals in our present time, and of devoted high-ranking journalists and politicians — if the following fact holds true: The European Nuclear Research Council CERN is for many months continuing operation of its LHC experiment at historic energies and luminosities while refusing to address an (to the best of my and everyone else’s knowledge) un-falsified published scientific proof of black-hole danger, or to at least update its 4-years-old safety report

(Note: Friedrich Valjavek kindly compiled an annotated bibliography in 2002: http://www.wissensnavigator.com/documents/RosslerBibliography.pdf )

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48869943#.UELWXqD0SXY

The glacial pace of NASA’s human spaceflight program –even with the glaciers melting- may possibly see human beings leave Earth’s gravitational field in 2025. Possibly.

The missing piece of the puzzle is a radiation sanctuary massive enough to protect a crew from a major solar event on such a journey.

http://www.nasatech.com/NEWS/Nov05/who_1105.html

A fairly massive shelter, probably made of RFX1, will have to be available for any deep space mission. But why chase down a boulder? A mission to orbit the moon is a much more worthwhile project.

Why do we have a space station orbiting the Earth instead of the Moon? The answer is money of course. Such a station would not have the protection of the Van Allen belts and would require heavy shielding. The vehicle to insert such a heavily shielded station into lunar orbit and resupply it existed in the form of the cargo version of the space shuttle- called Sidemount.

Sidemount was never funded, and a vast amount of money- over 100 billion dollars- spent on the ISS was essentially wasted on tin cans going in endless circles at very high altitude. It does have a nice window though.

Low Earth Orbit is a dead end.
We now have the opportunity to launch a station to orbit the Moon in a relatively short time frame using the Delta IV vehicle. But again, the political football that is human space flight is the first to be cut- while cold war monstrosities like the V-22 Osprey and F-35 Stealth Fighter suck up billions and deliver wonder weapons that do not work.

Why are we trapped and going in circles- going nowhere? Along with the trillion dollar war, billions of dollars are.….missing. Nobody even knows where those billions went.

I know one thing; there went our space program.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/13/official-billions-missing-in-iraq-may-be-largest-theft-of-funds-in-national-history/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/28/billions-afghan-aid-unaccounted-audit/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/military-spending-waste_n_942723.html