The Don Quijote mission — so we don’t go the same way as the dinosaurs.

With some help from colleagues, I recently produced a report on the planned European Space Agency Don Quijote mission to divert an asteroid’s trajectory (kind of a test-run for the real thing that may happen some time in the future) as a 365 Days of Astronomy podcast.

It is reassuring to see humanity beginning to deal with this genuine risk to Earth’s survival  — just in case we don’t all get swallowed up in a 2cm black hole in the next five years wink

The transcript is also available for reading on the 365 Days site if you are not a podcast fan.

Thanks

Steve Nerlich (Space Settlement Board member and Death-by-LHC skeptic)

ISDHuB — International Space Development Hub — Hangar One/Nasa Ames Research Park

An aspect of support for the 100 year star ship program
A.H.Sinclair 11/11/11

For the formulation of a 100 year star ship prospectus and for a comprehensive and compatible100 year world view which will advance both the sciences of space exploration and the issues of a planetary sustainability we suggest the following discussion as being alternative to the more isolate modes of inquiry:

Technology
The star ship continuum may readily represent a “basket” of leading edge and advanced technologies. Some may have emerged already within theory and methodology, such as solar sail propulsion, laser beaming modus and experimental plasma, nuclear and fission designations. Some may not have emerged yet into even a hypothetical realization, even so we can expect that future research and development stylistics will evolve around themes that construe for a deeper knowledge of affective issues within fields of particle and energy physics and the notable materials sciences including experiential nanotechnologies, leading into the original, insightful and creative perspectives of purpose and applications which are found through a radical scientific advancement.

Although such remote and intense inquiry spearheads and poses for the pinnacle of a scientific acumen, it occurs within the larger designations as given by expansion into the solar system and the contemporaneous potentials for cis lunar and lunar development, asteroid investigation and mitigation frameworks and martian exploration. Therefore it may be said that although 100yss is a somewhat esoteric vehicle it is also an intrinsic and central part of the overall solar system expansion strategy. Within such community it is inevitable that the designs, products, applications and research brought forward by star ship technological perspectives will have effect for the many expedient space exploration platforms including those of expedient flight, duration and settlement.

100yss should not be considered as lying outside of main stream space exploration. it should be considered as leading out for main stream space exploration although such a position remains to be carefully established.

The star ship road map can establish such purpose, the star ship continuum is perhaps easily related to as a jigsaw or puzzle play into the limitation of investigation. How far will the paradigm penetrate, to discover newer forms of space propulsion, to discover the newer materials and techniques that will make so much more possible in so many space arenas, and finally to discover the moving edge of human insight for the material world as the star field destination comes into view.

The purpose of the star ship canonical road map is to lay out and formulate the lines of inquiry, to enable related and inter-disciplinary models and alliances and most significantly to provide the genuine and highly rational scientific background which postulates star ship development into a leading vehicle for the future world proficiencies. The 100yss road map and implementation structure delivers an evolving and supporting framework which may be construed as an immediate contingency within accurate focus for space exploration parameters and for research and development, educational and public outreach potentials

Society
The star ship is above all a very human vehicle, it occurs at the early moment when our planet, our only home base since we took the first steps towards the skies of a space faring species, faces the unprecedented dangers. As mankind must stand naked and alone to view the dawnings of the Anthropocene and the ending of the chapters of human history, we might indeed ask ourselves in such serious terms what is the value of the star ship? Yet such value is inestimable and incalculable if it is considered as being the inclusive vehicle of our temporal advancement.

In order to make the decisive intellectual leap we will need to adopt an inclusive and holistic world view in regard to the formulation of the many levels of the national and international space development prospectus. This inclusive viewpoint also represents the underlying sentiment of the global populations towards the inspiring perspectives which are proffered by the view of the vibrant blue dot, as we unfold the heaven above and reveal such remarkable qualities into the accessible forums of a human skill and knowledge. And it is all of one warp and weft, despite the multitudes of categorizations. We do not have any need to discriminate the mundane from the overview, from grass roots to earth orbit, a global mass communications and informational ability now gives us the original tools with which to steer and remake our planet earth, the original star ship into the formative venues of the planetary development dynamics whose sights are set on the stars.

How could such a dramatic deed be accomplished and why? The responsibility that science bears to humanity is classical, significant and it is well intended. Unfortunately or not science is the only universal medium, space science even more so. There is no other language apart from art or music which is spoken by all peoples everywhere, and science is bountiful.

Through space development we might enable what may turn out to be an adequate safety and security for all populations and through information and data revision we could enable what may turn out to be an adequate and globalized civil society assurance and protection. Such inevitable events are already well established and supported by a strong and friendly AI. The global community which seeks the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space may prove both capable and determined in applying and understanding such formative technologies, the technologies of space which will not only assist for each unseen and autonomous individual in fulfillment of the diverse requisites but also will propose and maintain for how each nation can readily fulfill that obligation. Space disseminates the largess, science for sustainability may give us all the resources that are needed for an equitable co-existence and for the optimal usage of our limited supply.

Space can do more, it can attempt to ensure the energy prospectus of a future world, stretching hundreds, thousands or millions of years into the future. The paradigm can now be readily analyzed, space based solar power may well turn out as the feasible model, and if not, ingenuity and technological proficiency will make sure that our complex calculations are the correct ones, that we do not run out before we have enough and that we pass through the transition with our eyes wide open. So much has been done already in these few short years, we have seen focus and motivation to find the solution before the problem catches up, global carbon trading and emissions cap for example. What turmoil and how brave and courageous mankind is in face of the unacceptable adversary of a climatic extinction.

The star ship speaks to us of annihilation also and of many other and strange things. SETI estimates the no of inhabited worlds and they are surely correct, but that is all a very long way away, and we are so infinitely small between the stars. Do we envision that the star ship will carry some survivors away, or even our DNA profile when nothing else is left, in that end time, some time soon perhaps. But much, much better than final foray, the star ship can return us to ourselves, to focus our understanding on outer space as offering the vehicle for planetary prosperity and this is the true meaning of the endowment of the mundane heaven. We can take the opportunity and or we can leave it aside. Science and space is impartial, the decision for insight is made for humanity and on behalf of humanity. The 100yss is the endowment of humanity, it will bring results even from inception as an formative ideal and we will surely understand very well that only the human can breathe life into the machine. There is nothing which is artificial here, we are the organic matrix of both our technology and our environment. Human cultures are diverse, but the threads which draw us together are universal. The ancient networks of culture, compassion and insight are enabled by the skillful tools of science, a turn around has arrived.

Putting It Together
Issue for 100yss is both technological and social in nature. But such far reaching paradigms do not readily see the light of day. The delivery of the message of a star ship enlightenment is not any propaganda it is a complex, subtle and sensitive process and supposes the alignment of the methodologies of both containment and endowment. The democracy and education of space is obtainable but only if the message for the purport of such global affinities can be readily located and disseminated.

For this reason we propose the establishment of ISDHuB at the ARC on Moffett Field in the heart of Silicon Valley. The hub may act as radical nexus and focus for 100yss going forward. A fortuitous circumstance will make this unique and iconic national and global asset quickly available, a time-line is obtainable through 2012, and public and educational provision may be established within the shortest possible term following on from the preparation of the partnership alliances and criteria. Our strategy is one of inclusion. We would expect the initiation of ISDHuB to be proposed and obtained through both US and International Space Agency subscriptions. Such entities may include the ARC Lunar Science Institute as a formative settlement model, along with many other distinguished US space science proviso according to interest and demand. The ARC based space science consortia within ISDHuB represent a basic ground and verification for the 100yss independent representation. 100yss road map is informed by such attributes and it will fulfill an appropriate and negotiating role as it carries the 100 year continuum forward. The function of the star ship is not only to envision and offer support for the advanced vehicles of a future space exploration it is also to propose the enduring parameters of the 100 year space based world view. We know our time is finite and we know that we must leave our careful design behind for the generations of the future world. We know that there are many problems that were not looked at or seen before, and we know how to easily solve most if not all of them. The future generations will continue to expand the horizons of knowledge, but the more provisions that we can consolidate now, the easier the struggle will be.

The hub can educate millions upon millions for the future of our world. For space as the vehicle of a planetary endowment, and for space as an ultimate destination.. We need a practical methodology of means. ISDHuB can supply the platform because it is an inclusive and obtainable working basis for this world and the worlds beyond. The diffusion of insight and appreciation is complex and personal, and that is how the democracy of space is truly represented. The research and development of 100yss may be supported by ISDHuB continuum over all the ensuing multitudes of years. Of course any physical building only stands for a certain amount of time, but the partnership that ISDHuB will bring and the enduring message that it will undertake will live on through all the vicissitudes, because the education of a peoples, a nations and a planet for the journey to the beyond, is not anything irrelevant.

Most of us grew up watching the space program – the first orbiting satellites, the Apollo program, the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. We became accustomed to constant “leaps for mankind” in technological achievement. We shared in the sorrows – the Challenger explosion, the loss of Columbia high over Texas – and we shared in the numerous heroic successes of our astronauts and the scientists and engineers who formed NASA.

With the ending of the Shuttle program, many Americans are now beginning to feel that all those glory days are behind us. I’ve heard people lament the changes in direction of our policy of space exploration as though the adventure of discovery beyond the pull of Earth’s gravity is all but over.

I would like to remind you that we are not at the END of the Space Age. We are still merely at the beginning. Current circumstances – mainly economic ones – might make it seem that we are unable to advance – or that major advancements might not come in our lifetime. But there are still a lot of things going on that make me believe we are rapidly entering a new age of civilization that ultimately will take us beyond Earth and to the stars. All things considered, this new age is likely to be the kind of pivotal movement in history that occurred as Western civilization emerged from a state of decline through what became known as the Renaissance – literally the REBIRTH of civilization.

This new age we can call the Space Renaissance, because it comes at a time when humanity faces dire predicaments on Earth while possessing the technology to approach solutions through advancing into extraterrestrial space. And it will bring about vast changes in the way we think about ourselves – our science, our politics, our economics, even the social contracts that bind us together as human beings. It will alter, in fact, the way we regard mankind’s position in the universe, in much the same way as the notion of Renaissance astronomer Copernicus more than 500 years ago that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

The Space Renaissance will both create such changes and be forged by them. As ideas advance into new technology and new endeavours, those developments will spawn new ideas. This is the way humans have always advanced – and are advancing even today.

There is no question – in my mind – that we are progressing rapidly toward a time that human beings will routinely travel through extraterrestrial space – tapping resources such as energy, minerals and even water – not as an Earth civilization but as a Solar Civilization. Not everyone might agree with that assessment. Some are simply too pessimistic to believe that mankind will be able to work together long enough to make it happen before destroying our planet. Others think it is too futuristic to contemplate – especially during a time when we are faced with widespread joblessness, rising debt and mortgage foreclosures at home, along with wars and revolutions in the Middle East and Wall Street protests.

I have to remind my friends that although many of the ideas of space exploration and development seem spun from science fiction, in many respects they are not of the future but of the present. Consider this:

• Hundreds of people have already traveled in space.
• The International Space Station continues to operate, conducting experiments and research that have widespread implications not just for future space missions but also for developments here on Earth.
• Daily, we send and receive communications transmissions that are bounced off of manmade satellites.
• We have robots exploring other parts of our Solar System, including the surface of Mars, and devices such as the Hubble Space Telescope transmit images that provide ever increasing insights into the expanse of the Universe.

In short, we are already THERE – in space. And this is happening just 50 years after the first space missions that sent men into orbit. In many ways, it is akin to the explorations of the New World that occurred in the decades after Columbus first sailed across the Atlantic during the age of the first Renaissance centuries ago.

Now, in the decades ahead many more changes are sure to follow. I see it as a natural progression of human civilization, just as the exploration and development of the New World led to new nations built on new ideas of human freedom and democracy that were unprecedented in human history.

And just as developments then called for new ideas – new ways of looking at mankind and our relationship to the planet – there will be new ways of considering our relationship with other human beings today. There will be a need for unprecedented international cooperation as we advance not just on the basis of national interests but of the interests of all humanity coexisting on one planet. The old economic models that competed during the last century as Capitalism and Communism will give way to new models that rely on extensive cooperation between governments and private enterprise. In many ways, this is already happening. Consider the recent trends in the U.S. Space Program, in which greater reliance is placed on other governments and private companies to propel our astronauts to new discoveries.

And it in this latest development there are many opportunities opening up already to pave the way for the future of commercial space. This is certain to accelerate as systems that have failed in their missions to achieve human success are replaced by new efforts based on the long-term goal of protecting planet Earth while reaching beyond the confines of its gravitational pull toward other worlds. Space-based solar power is a prime example, with the potential to provide energy to Earth and habitats beyond.

So, the message I would like to share is that we are still heading out there, toward the stars. The same ambitions that drove Europeans to discover and explore new worlds, and inspired inventors like the Wright brothers to keep pressing forward until man could take flight, and pushed the United States into the space race that landed men on the moon are still with us, driving us ever onward and outward.

We are now, and will continue to be propelled by a new energy and new ideas into a new age for civilization. Another Renaissance – SPACE RENAISSANCE.

The California Dream Act.

The banking industry is likely California Dreaming about the day when more states get their act together. …For those of us who think that the US will see a bubble in the education industry caused by its efforts to distribute human kind’s knowledge communities outside of the affluent elite, they shouldn’t hold their breath.

The Cali Dream Act could seem like an altruistic attempt to empower our desperate relatives converging on US cities, but there are some fiscally desperate economics behind this proverbial triumph over “social evil”, as if such a thing ever existed…LOL

For-profit and Not-for-profit education is big business…consider the $4.9B income of the Apollo Group, owner of University of Phoenix or the pride of the west coast’s $16.5B endowment at Stanford University. All of these are affected by the arbitrage (my favorite word smile ) in an industry… losing applicants with the confidence that a degree or certificate is honestly their best investment. 

One thing is for sure, the US is the largest knowledge community on the planet currently, and one thing it can still sell the world’s consumers on, is that they’ll want to tap into the experience in their quest to secure the ideal 20th century standard of  success. To be redundant, the 20th century American Dream is still the benchmark for making it in 2011 for the vast majority world around us…even as those of us investing in the future would harshly disagree.  Where better to catch a dream life than in California…or even Michigan, with residents exiting at record paces.

The reality is that undocumented immigrants are a new class of Americans or non-Americans to sell long-term deferred and/or short term deferred loans. Its an ideal way to build collateral on the balance sheet of a lending company ;-). I’m not only expecting for more states to echo California’s legislative desperation/foresight (call it how you like), but I am expecting for the near future to offer American educations with State and possibly Federal assistance (at a taxable premium + interest) to undocumented immigrants of the US… and even foreign nationals with no immediate intent on coming to the US for legal or illegal residency. It’ll be called globalization…

The US education models designed by the non-profit traditional institutions and technologized (new word for me…lol) by the more agile for-profit institutions, will be distributed throughout the world at the rate of technologies acceptance in foreign countries.

And, of course, where there is government support (large pot of $), private speculation (smaller pots of $) will follow its low risks. fueling the distribution of what we know and what we are exploring.

Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess will share the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 has been awarded “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae” acknowledging the amazing discovery announced in 1998 that — based on the measured velocities of Type 1a supernovae — the rate of the universe’s expansion is increasing over time. The prize will be shared by three astronomers, now officially ‘outstanding in their field’, Saul Perlmutter of UC Berkeley, Brian P. Schmidt of the Australian National University and Adam G. Riess of Johns Hopkins University.

Announced on Tuesday 4 October 2011, this was the second of this year’s Nobel prizes awarded. On Monday, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman (sadly deceased).

The Nobel prizes are handed out annually for achievements in science, literature, economics and peace. All but one of the prizes (economics) were established in the will of the 19th century millionaire Alfred Nobel, who made much of his fortune from the invention of dynamite.

The Nobel prizes have been awarded since 1901. Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.46 million U.S. dollars). The economics award was established by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.

Half of the cash component of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics will go to Perlmutter who is reported to have first commenced work on determining cosmological expansion from supernovae data in 1988. Schmidt who headed another team commencing similar work in 1994 and Riess who made a key contribution to that team will share the remainder.

While watching the occupy wall street movement gain momentum and challenge the status quo, we in the transhumanist and technoprogressive community should be taking notes at the differences between this movement and those of the 20^th century in direct opposition to some set of conservative policies.

This movement is not in direct opposition to anything. It is however, in opposition to any kind of conservative solutions being recommended to the systemic economic ailments of today. This movement attacks fascism while often improperly referencing the term, it attacks crony capitalism which is culturally vague, and corporatism which is a new word. While an academic or linguist might find them difficult to understand, it is quite simple to judge them as defending themselves as a part of society that is being depleted, as a direct result of our inability to allocate tangible value to them. They are angry. This growing mass of people across the United States is not looking to return to a socio-economic model that influences similar politics of the last century.

Watch the reference video. This is the same group of people (young and old) that are technologically transparent as Peter Singer identifies. They would likely take, but are not looking for traditional jobs, as I and so many others have talked/written about frequently. This vast majority of human potential, while looking at the numbers, can’t be satisfied their odds to compete successfully. Of course, democratic culture has a venue to argue the abstraction of political and even economic rifts in society, but there are none that allow the relatively untrained to argue root causes of the problems preventing their previously comfortable existence.

Movements that aren’t rigidly against some establishment, have a difficult time forming a set of solutions to seek. While the core argument may be “revolting against capitalism”, there is no replacement in site. Having stated that, the Smithian theories aren’t ill prepared; they do however, fail to address the very primitive ability of humans to gauge competition and allocate assets (tangible value); even in a vast market of millions of participants with relatively modest self-interest.

Those opposed, find five congruent contradictions (Ecology, Inequality, Poverty, Property, Systemic Risk) when considering the modern manifestation of what Aristotle, Adam, and Ayn elaborated on in the modern era. These contradictions are not in fact intrinsic to capitalism. They are intrinsic to the animal. In the human pursuit for ecological prudence, egalitarianism, distribution of wealth, shared property, and managed risks; we regularly reject the idea that it is impossible to achieve our goals without our technological extensions…without transparency of information, without distribution of education, without allocation of technologies based on need, as a result of our understandings through transparency. Courting technoprogressivism onto the American political stage may have been a viewed as radical in the last decade, even as its consistent economic recession ensued. But it may not be today, amongst the somewhat informed activists of virtual social networkers and physical street walkers.

In order to be rendered valuable, entities (people in this case) have to be represented well under some agreed upon or legal model. In the case of liberal desperation I think people are willing to consider the potential of living-out the interconnected scenario painted in my voting public or more vividly by Hank Pellissier‘s “representative democracy” in Invent Utopia Now. The transhuman rhetoric based around fundamentally transforming the human condition is not farfetched for the leftist movements of today. One would be naïve to think that tax reform or austerity or redistribution of wealth alone, could cure my aforementioned contradictions. There are no conservative means to remedy the problems of today, only to return to those of the past. Movements like occupy wall street are unlikely to reject transhumanist conversation because of their spiritual or educational or morally conservative roots. Further, we are witnessing an opportunity to empower activist’s discomfort with H+ solutions, to occupy all streets.

Given the interest of this blog in all things CERN, here’s my take on the recent OPERA/CGNS beam findings — where neutrinos were measured as travelling faster than light (FTL). My article is published on Universe Today — a moderated science blog.

Like LHC-will-destroy-the-Earth theories, the FTL finding is probably a load of old bollocks since it conflicts with core principles of modern physics - but the science team has provided a detailed paper with all their data, assumptions and calculations available for public scrutiny and comment - to enable everyone to get to the bottom of the problem. Very professional and appropriate practice — they are CERN scientists after all.

I hope this may be of interest.

Steve Nerlich (Space Settlement Board member and death-by-LHC skeptic)