Lifeboat Foundation

Technology is as Human Does
When one of the U.S. Air Force’s top future strategy guys starts dorking out on how we’ve gotta at least begin considering what to do when a progressively decaying yet apocalyptically belligerent sun begins BBQing the earth, attention is payed. See, none of the proposed solutions involve marinade or species-level acquiescence, they involve practical discussion on the necessity for super awesome technology on par with a Kardeshev Type II civilization (one that’s harnessed the energy of an entire solar system).

Because Not if, but WHEN the Earth Dies, What’s Next for Us?
Head over to Kurzweil AI and have a read of Lt. Col. Peter Garretson’s guest piece. There’s perpetuation of the species stuff, singularity stuff, transhumanism stuff, space stuff, Mind Children stuff, and plenty else to occupy those of us with borderline pathological tech obsessions.

[BILLION YEAR PLAN — KURZWEIL AI]
[U.S. AIR FORCE BLUE HORIZONS FUTURE STUFF PROJECT]

The profile of the most powerful man on earth is rising. I cordially ask him to support the necessity of a black-hole conference. If the new constant-c interpretation of general relativity is correct as no one publicly denies, CERN is each day trying to produce black holes that its detectors are blind to and that with a sizable probability will shrink the planet to 2 cm within a short time (5 percent?, ten years?).

A decision not to check on an extant proof of danger is one of the few acts taken by an individual or a group that is never justified. I ask the General Secretary of the United Nations to tell the planet why he backs the stance of the Security Council of the United Nations not to request clarification.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear revered Secretary General,

Professor Otto E. Rossler, Chaos Researcher, University of Tubingen, Germany

Many are prepared but only one was called. That is how I would sum up Astronaut Neil Armstrong’s life.

This reminds me of the Bible verse, Matthew 22:14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” What an honor.

The New York Times described him as a “ … quiet, private man, at heart an engineer and crack test pilot …”

I was very moved on hearing of his final journey, and I don’t know why. I was 11 years old when I watched him walk on the moon, on black & white TV, in a small town in what was then considered the backwaters of Peninsula Malaysia.

Continue reading “A Tribute to Neil Armstrong” »

Tim Ventura told me 2 days ago that American Antigravity is back. Congratulations Tim. Yours was a very popular site and it was a loss when it went dark.

Welcome back Tim. I look forward to more scoops from American Antigravity.

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Continue reading “American Antigravity is Back!” »

I am very pleased to have received an email from Dr. Takaaki Musha of the Technical Research and Development Institute, Advanced Science-Technology Research Organization, Yokohama, Japan.

Dr. Musha and Prof. Mario J. Pinheiro will be publishing a book on electrogravitics including the electromagnetic propulsion systems, titled, “Physics of the Zero Point Field and Its Applications to Advanced Technology”, Nova Science Pub Inc. Publication date is Sept.25, 2012 (tomorrow).

To quote Dr. Musha:

“Space-time in a vacuum has generally been viewed as a transparent and ubiquitous empty continuum within which physical events take place. However quantum field theory and quantum electrodynamics views the vacuum as the sum total of all zero-point fluctuations of the vacuum electromagnetic field, arising from the continuous creation and annihilation of virtual particle pairs. It is this latter more contemporary view that is, for the first time, more fully explored in text form with Physics of the Zero Point Field. The scope of applications in this book range from the Casimir effect, the variation in zero-point energy at the boundaries of a region observable in nano-scale devices, to ideas for a proposed inertial drive as first described by Puthoff.”

Continue reading “Physics of the Zero Point Field and its Applications to Advanced Technology” »

Here is my attempt at interstellar black hole jokes. With the 2nd and 3rd I was attempting humor with a minimum number of words. I’ve managed a 2 word joke. I hope you finds these funny and please contribute your version of these interstellar black hole (family friendly) jokes.

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The Mechanic & The Owner

Spaceship owner tells spaceship mechanic, “I lost my black hole. Can you help me find it?”

Continue reading “Interstellar Black Hole Jokes” »

Pervious blog post in this debunking series

Recently I had an interesting discussion about Laithwaite’s Big Wheel demonstration.

Note that the late Professor Eric Laithwaite was Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, and inventor of the linear motor, and the maglev train technology which Germany and China have taken the lead. The poor Brits they missed out on their own invention.

The Big Wheel experiment is basically this. Attach 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.

Continue reading “Debunking Laithwaite’s Critics” »

Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland co-authored the paper Are Black Hole Starships Possible? (http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803) that suggested that one could use Small Black Holes to propel starships close to the velocity of light for interstellar travel. To give them credit, they stated that this is at the “edge of possibility” and would only be possible in the very distant future:

“The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to build artificial BHs of the appropriate size, and to employ them in powerplants and starships. The conclusion we reach is that it is just on the edge of possibility to do so, but that quantum gravity effects, as yet unknown, could change the picture either way… Many questions which arise in this program lead to calculations in general relativity which have not been done. Whatever the other merits of our proposal, we are confident it will pose many interesting problems for classical and quantum relativity.”

Note, BH = Black Holes

That is it. Crane & Westmoreland were presenting an academic exercise to pose “many interesting problems for classical and quantum relativity”.

Continue reading “Debunking the Black Hole Interstellar Drive” »

It is with great bewilderment that I read the precautions that NASA rovers are sterilized to, to ensure that Life does not infect the Martian environment. I understand NASA want to explore Mars for signs of Martian life — but which is more important — to explore whether Life almost evolved on Mars, or to induce the whole process and allow it to occur?

We can get caught up in the concept that preservation of Human Life as the ultimate goal, in how do we colonize other worlds as soon as possible — but perhaps the most honorable pursuit is the propagation of Life itself — we should be introducing bacteria or simple xerophytic plants to Mars, algae to Europa and such worlds, in the anticipation that if a foothold can be taken, evolution could take hold — and we may not live to see it — but we have then passed on the gift of life to another world.

Whimsical Notions or Planning With Foresight? Unless we cause our own demise by inadvertently engineering our downfall, as often discussed here, or are struck by a statistically unfortunate large asteroid impact, Life is here on Earth for the long haul — it has been durable for billions of years, albeit with significant setbacks, and one can expect it will be here for billions more to come. We may well have time on our hands.

If we sow the seeds now, we may have other worlds to move to in a few million years — long before we may need it — such as in five billion years when the Sun has expired into a Red Giant. It is quite reasonable to expect that if we seed Mars with our bacteria now, and other basic forms of life at the bottom of the food chain — in some million years from now Mars may be flourishing with vegetation — evolved to suit the terrain — that a colony there could live off.

It has been considered, that Life on Earth started by a similar process, that a comet or asteroid carrying bacteria inseminated our planet with the seeds of life. So let’s pass on the gift and stop being so prudent. Lets start at the basics, and create lifeboats of Life around our solar system. Perhaps one day our descendants will thank us for nurturing such habitats.