Save Centennial Challenges

NASA's Centennial Challenges is described as a "program of prize contests to stimulate innovation and competition in solar system exploration and ongoing NASA mission areas. By making awards based on actual achievements, instead of proposals, Centennial Challenges seeks novel solutions to NASA's mission challenges from non-traditional sources of innovation in academia, industry and the public." Current challenges include Beam Power and Tether challenges related to Space Elevators; the Lunar Lander challenge (almost won by Armadillo Aerospace at the recent X-Prize Cup); and the Astronaut Glove challenge. Unfortunately funding for this highly sucessful program has been zeroed out by the Senate in their 2007 budget.

"Congress, and in particular the Senate, needs to understand how prizes work," said Rick Tumlinson, founder of the Space Frontier Foundation. "They see the money sitting there unspent and it makes them salivate. But with a prize, just because it hasn't been won yet doesn't mean it has failed. Quite the opposite." Added Whitesides: "Take the current challenges for example, because the money is there already, waiting to be won, teams are working all across America right now, from universities and high school labs to commercial firms and even private individuals, each developing new concepts from beamed power to lunar landers to new types of aircraft – all of them striving to cross the line first."

The Centennial Challenges budget currently represents well under one percent of NASA's budget – in fact, it only makes up about one-twentieth of a percent. With that minimal expenditure, NASA is already driving innovation, attracting new ideas and new investors to the industry, and inspiring students across the country. However, studies have shown that larger value, higher visibility prizes could have an even greater effect. Thus many supporters are calling not just to save the challenges, but to increase them. "The Centennial Challenges funding shouldn't just be restored, it should be significantly increased. $30M per year would be a reasonable annual budget," concluded Tumlinson. "Dollar for dollar, they are the absolute best investment NASA is making in our future in space right now."

DARPA's Spider-Man Program

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)is known for doing way-out research, but this is particularly bizarre - they're looking to turn soldiers into Spider-Man...sort of.

The Z-Man Program will develop climbing aids that will enable an individual soldier to scale vertical walls constructed of typical building materials without the need for ropes or ladders. The inspiration for these climbing aids is the technique by which geckos, spiders, and small animals scale vertical surfaces, that is, by using unique biological material systems that enable controllable adhesion using van der Waals forces or by hooking surface asperities. This program seeks to build synthetic versions of those material systems and then utilize them in a novel climbing aid optimized for use by humans. The overall goal of the program is to enable an individual soldier using dry adhesive climbing aides to scale a vertical surface at 0.5 m/s while carrying a combat load.

Surviving the Vacuum of Space

Damn Interesting has a, uh, damn interesting article about what really happens when a human is exposed to the environment of space.

In scores of science fiction stories, hapless adventurers find themselves unwittingly introduced to the vacuum of space without proper protection. There is often an alarming cacophony of screams and gasps as the increasingly bloated humans writhe and spasm. Their exposed veins and eyeballs soon bulge in what is clearly a disagreeable manner. The ill-fated adventurers rapidly swell like over-inflated balloons, ultimately bursting in a gruesome spray of blood.

As is true with many subjects, this representation in popular culture does not reflect the reality of exposure to outer space. Ever since humanity first began to probe outside of our protective atmosphere, a number of live organisms have been exposed to vacuum, both deliberately and otherwise. By combining these experiences with our knowledge of outer space, scientists have a pretty clear idea of what would happen if an unprotected human slipped into the cold, airless void.

Your Indian Name Shall Be Running Dog

DSC00323, originally uploaded by Astroroach.

It's tough to get a photo of Ellie running...she's pretty quick!

Mom & Ellie

DSC00325, originally uploaded by Astroroach.

Sorry the blog hasn't been updated lately. My Mom's visiting and we're all having a great time with the newest member of the family, Ellie the Dog.

Although it looks like Ellie is trying to bite my Mom's face off, she's really just very affectionate!

Should Google Go Nuclear?

Google Tech Talks November 9, 2006

ABSTRACT This is not your father's fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional ... all » thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that's been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects.

Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), has spent 17 years perfecting IEC, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal... until now.

Dr. Bussard will discuss his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the scanning television).

Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google's annual electricity bill? Come see what's possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd.

Retrocausality Experiment

University of Washington physicist John Cramer has devised a an experiment to see if an entangled photon can signal its state backwards in time. If it works, a signal could be recieved before it is sent.

In that final phase, one of the entangled photons will be sent through a slit screen to a detector that will register it as either a particle or a wave -- because, again, the photon can be either. The other photon will be sent toward two 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) spools of fiber optic cables before emerging to hit a movable detector, he said.

Adjusting the position of the detector that captures the second photon (the one sent through the cables) determines whether it is detected as a particle or a wave.

The trip through the optical cables also will delay the second photon relative to the first one by 50 microseconds, Cramer said.

Here's where it gets weird.

Because these two photons are entangled, the act of detecting the second as either a wave or a particle should simultaneously force the other photon to also change into either a wave or a particle. But that would have to happen to the first photon before it hits its detector -- which it will hit 50 microseconds before the second photon is detected.

World Happiness

Adrian White, an analytic social psychologist at the University's School of Psychology, analysed data published by UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR, to create a global projection of subjective well-being: the first world map of happiness.

...analysis showed that a nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51).

If this is true, then Ben Franklin provided the key to happiness when he wrote "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Clearly, Americans aren't getting enough sleep.

Here are the rankings:

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles
Other notable results include:

23. USA
35. Germany
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia
The three least happy countries were:

176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

When Aliens Attack

It's not often that a highly placed government official, or former offical in this case, speaks publicly about UFOs. Here we have the very guy who ran Britain's UFO investigative project saying he believes we've been visited. Hmm.

During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth and, more specifically, Britain.

His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.

And he complains that the project he once ran is now "virtually closed" down, leaving the country "wide open" to aliens.

Mr Pope decided to speak out about his worries after resigning from his post at the Directorate of Defence Security at the MoD this week.

"The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said.

"If you reported a UFO sighting now, I am absolutely sure that you would just get back a standard letter telling you not to worry. ''Frankly we are wide open - if something does not behave like a conventional aircraft now, it will be ignored.

Somebody Grab That Cat

As seen on Break.com

Cool Color Illusion

I promise this is an acutal illusion and not a "scare" video (like those my wife keeps sending me). After staring at the dot you'll see the picture change to normal color - until you look away, after which you'll see the "normal color" picture was black and white!

Spork of Heros

I found this "action shot" of ThinkGeek's cool, geeky and useful Titanium Spork in Iraq, but but it begs the question "What the hell is that guy wearing?"

It appears to be some sort of urban camouflaged load-bearing vest/body armor I've never seen before. I wonder if this stuff is now standard issue or if he's testing it? I hope it's an indication that we're finally getting the right equipment for this kind of warfare to the soldiers on the ground.

Cloudware

In this Wired article George Gilder discusses how the massive datacenters built by companies like Google for searching and indexing the web are morphing into general purpose computing platfoms. The scale of these systems is astonishing.

Just last century – you remember it well, across the chasm of the crash – the PC was king. The mainframe was deposed and deceased. The desktop was the data center. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were nonprofit googoos babbling about searching their 150-gigabyte index of the Internet. When I wanted to electrify crowds with my uncanny sense of futurity, I would talk terascale (10 to the 12th power), describing a Web with an unimaginably enormous total of 15 terabytes of content.

Yawn. Today Google rules a total database of hundreds of petabytes, swelled every 24 hours by terabytes of Gmails, MySpace pages, and dancing-doggy videos – a relentless march of daily deltas, each larger than the whole Web of a decade ago. To make sense of it all, Page and Brin – with Microsoft, Yahoo, and Barry "QVC" Diller's Ask.com hot on their heels – are frantically taking the computer-on-a-chip and multiplying it, in massively parallel arrays, into a computer-on-a-planet.

The data centers these companies are building began as exercises in making the planet's ever-growing data pile searchable. Now, turbocharged with billions in Madison Avenue mad money for targeted advertisements, they're morphing into general-purpose computing platforms, vastly more powerful than any built before. All those PCs are still there, but they have less and less to do, as Google and the others take on more and more of the duties once delegated to the CPU. Optical networks, which move data over vast distances without degradation, allow computing to migrate to wherever power is cheapest. Thus, the new computing architecture scales across Earth's surface. Ironically, this emerging architecture is interlinked by the very technology that was supposed to be Big Computing's downfall: the Internet.

Contact With Mars Global Surveyor Lost

"An unexpected break in communications has NASA struggling to restore contact with its Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft. If communication cannot be restored soon, NASA may try to diagnose the problem by having another spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, take pictures of MGS.
MGS recently had its 10-year anniversary in space (see the New Scientist Space blog Mars probe's birthday blues). It was launched on 7 November 1996 and has been orbiting Mars since September 1997. It has far outlasted its original mission, which ended in 2000. NASA has repeatedly extended its mission since then."

New Kid On The Block

Say hello to the newest member of the Astroroach family, Ellie the Dog. Ellie is about six weeks old and appears to be powered by some sort of matter/antimatter reactor or other source of nearly limitless energy. Welcome aboard Ellie!

P.S. - More cuteness on Flickr.

War Game Predicted Iraq Mess

A 1999 war simulation sponsored by the U.S. Central Command contained some uncannily accurate predictions of what might happen following a regime change in Iraq. The same study estimated that 400,000 troops would be necessary to maintain security (actual deployment peaked at about 160,000). I am simultaneously pleased and appalled - pleased at the accuracy of our war gaming and appalled that it was ignored.

"A change in regimes does not guarantee stability," the 1999 seminar briefings said. "A number of factors including aggressive neighbors,fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability."

"Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic -- especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments."

"Iran's anti-Americanism could be inflamed by a U.S.-led intervention in Iraq," the briefings read. "The influx of U.S. and other western forces into Iraq would exacerbate worries in Tehran, as would the installation of a pro-western government in Baghdad."

"The debate on post-Saddam Iraq also reveals the paucity of information about the potential and capabilities of the external Iraqi opposition groups. The lack of intelligence concerning their roles hampers U.S. policy development."

"Also, some participants believe that no Arab government will welcome the kind of lengthy U.S. presence that would be required to install and sustain a democratic government."

"A long-term, large-scale military intervention may be at odds with many coalition partners."

To Live Forever

Transhumanists believe it will soon be possible to live greatly expanded lifespans, virtually forever. Ray Kurzweil has a plan that amounts to staying alive long enough for the new life extention technologies to become available. Perhaps it will happen in the unlikely event we avoid apocalypse. Yet I'm conflicted. In many ways I am no longer the same person at 50 I was when I was 20. How much more difference would there be at 500, especially in a world transformed by the Singularity. If I could see myself at that time, would I even be recognizable? Still, life is precious and fleeting...

... we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

- Paul Bowles

Educational Levels of Enlisted Airmen

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

That may not be what Kerry meant to say, but it's what he said - and it's difficult to interpret it as anything but a slam on our troops. He claims he meant to say "you'll get us stuck in Iraq" and was referencing the president. Whatever.

In any event I'm glad it came up, because it gives me an opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about the military. Whether intended or not, Kerry's comments do reflect the belief of many that only the poor and uneducated join the military.

I don't mean this as an attack, but I think that belief is a reflection of one's own attitude toward service. A person who was not raised to embrace "duty to God and country" (as I was) might find it difficult to understand why an individual would volunteer for dangerous work and long hours at low pay unless they had no other choice. The concept of "duty" is simply foreign to them.

So what is the truth about the educational levels of the military? Here are current stats for enlisted personnel in my former service, the USAF:

73% of all Air Force enlisted personnel have some hours towards a college degree.

16% have an associate's degree.

5% have a bachelor's degree.

1% have a master's degree.

.01% have a doctorate's.

That's not too bad for us poor dumb enlisted cannon fodder. Almost three-forths have a degree or are working towards one.

By the way, in a few days, I'll be 50 years old. One of the things I've learned in all that time is that education and intelligence are not synonymous. One need only point to Bush and Kerry, both graduates of Yale, to make that arguement.

Kari "Mythbusters" Byron and Dad

Kari's dad Dennis is running for Town Council or governor or something...which is sufficent excuse to post a photo of Kari.

Troops Respond To Kerry

Give Me That Old Time Space Religion

Rich Goodwin of the National Space Society make the point that "Space advocacy is like a religion in that you have to have faith, either in the overarching goal of settling the solar system and maybe one day the stars, or in how that next Reaction Control System will have an ignition system that doesn’t use a single point criticality method for lighting the fuel and oxidizer. Everything is discussed with passion and conviction."

Like religions, there are splits and divisions as people seek the True Path. Some believe that commercialization of space is the only way; others that the solar system should only be subjected to scientific exploration. There are even arguments about such minor matters as the term "space tourist".

One thing almost all of us in the space community agree on is that space is the future of the human species. It’s important that we the converted and faithful, the “chosen people” spread our gospel to the unbelievers and the space infidels who comprise most of humanity. In order to do this we have to speak to them not from up on high from the temple walls in languages they do not comprehend, but in phrases and terms that they do understand. The infidels understand the word Tourist. It means somebody who is a traveler visiting new places on their own dime and hopefully having fun doing it. They get that. They know it costs a lot, but they get it. Trying to once again obfuscate the lexicon because we find the term “tourist” demeaning is counter productive to our cause. In private space churches if you want to call them Citizen-Space-Flyer-Explorernauts then do so, but don’t try to tell Joe & Jane Public that, because they’ll switch channels on you as fast as you can say “new reality show.”

Poetry Music Festival - Cotton Creek Performs

LOST: The Cost of Living

I haven't posted about LOST in a long time, but I've still been enjoying it. This season of LOST has struck a good balance between mysteries and revelations. I love episodes with island "mythology" and this one was a doozie.

Tonight's episode, "The Cost of Living" pretty much confirms that the "Smoke Monster" is able to assume any form - in this case Eko's brother Yemi. It's likely responsible for other manifestations like Jack's dad, Kate's horse, or Hurley's imaginary friend Dave.

Another revelation was that what Locke saw was not Smokie - at least not in that form. He saw a beautiful bright light, not a dark cloud - although a cloud once almost pulled him into a hole.

We also have confirmed that the x-rays Jack were Bens, and that Ben is going to die if the tumor isn't removed from his spine. Juliette probably intended Jack to "accidentally" see them - in fact that was the whole reason she brought Jack to the operating room. She wanted him to see them and spoil Bens plan to break and convert Jack, because she wants Ben to die. It could be that Ben and Juliette are both working on a con, but I don't think so. I think Juliette will turn out to be very, very dangerous - far more so than Ben. In fact I think Ben is "good". Remember what Sawyer said about her when she was holding a gun on Kate. She would have killed Kate with no problem.

Getting back to the Smoke Monster, it apparently acts as a judge, jury and executioner. It looked curiosly at the cross Eko held. After Eko's "confession" it said "You speak to me as if I was your brother" and walks away, shortly thereafter beating the crap out of him. Eko essentially was unrepentent, saying he did what he had to do to survive and he did the best he could. Earlier, when an alter boy asks him if he is a bad man, he says "only God knows." Did Smokie judge Eko by Eko's own conception of right and wrong or by it's own criteria? Would it have spared Eko if he had been repentent?

Ominously, Eko's last word are "You're next." Apparently all will be judged at some point.

Ben is always saying of the Others "We're the good guys", and there has been much discussion of what this means. My current theory is that "good" means they have been judged by Smokie and allowed to survive.