Jul 072019
 

The subject of the financially disastrous S.S. Statendam cruise to witness the launch of Apollo 17 has been raised hereabouts before. It’s famous among a relatively small number of people, and forgotten by the public.

Turns out someone made a documentary about the cruise, using footage filmed on board… clips of speakers, bits of interviews, discussions, etc. There are some *really* interesting people (Krafft Ehricke, Carl Sagan, Hugh Downs, Issac Asimov, etc.) saying some *really* interesting things here… and a lot of it is damned depressing. This was the last Apollo flight, and they all knew it; but what the future of manned spaceflight really held they didn’t really know. Some were optimistic, a lot were pessimistic. And the pessimists gave their reasons for why things were going to stagnate… and they were pretty much right. Feh.

Sadly, it seems that this documentary, about half an hour in length, lost its second half hour somewhere. Maybe someone has it stored away somewhere…

 Posted by at 2:53 pm
Jul 072019
 

You can weld two electric bicycles together to make an off-road wheelchair for a paralyzed person. The idea is pretty simple (“weld two bikes together”), but the bikes themselves are the result of a whole lot of careful engineering, going back well beyond the bikes themselves to the materials and technologies that went into them. And after a test run they found things to improve; testing and incremental improvement are inherent to the scientific and engineering processes.

You can spot a number of areas where improvement can be called for, from a need for better rear-wheel shocks to a better ingress/egress system, to perhaps something like an Ackermann steering system, to perhaps the need for different wheel spokes to deal with side loads that a bike wouldn’t have to worry about. The power system can always (*ALWAYS*) be improved. The seat looks kinda traumatizing. It should probably have retention systems. A roll bar? Lighten the connecting structure via optimized design and lighter materials (titanium or carbon fiber).  Some way to collapse the structure for storage on the back of a van, say. But for a prototype, not too shabby. Lift fans. I SAID LIFT FANS.

Now.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to imagine what an alternate version of this would be. A version based on the same idea, “how to give off-road mobility to someone with no use of their legs,” but tackled not with modern western science, tech and engineering, but with “other ways of knowing.” I want to see one of these things as built within a system that empowers traditional and indigenous knowledges. I said I want to *see* one, not ride in one. Without even having anythign specific in mind, I can already imagine the tetanus and splinters, the structural failures and infections that would come with a non-STEM off-road wheel chair. Use vines to strap a paraplegic to a donkey, perhaps? Ill-trained carrier-gorillas? A hastily assembled travois lashed to a pig? Hodor?

 

 

 Posted by at 1:06 pm
Jul 072019
 

Some years ago the “Waterseer” hit the interwebs. It purported to be a design for a mechanism that would suck in air and pipe it to an underground cistern, the cool walls of which would condense the water out and send the now-dry air back up and out. The ideas was that it would be a “free water from the air” device for poor people in the crappier parts of the world. It was based on *terrible* science, to the point where it just wouldn’t work. Thunderf00t did a few videos thoroughly debunking the idea. He also debunked similar things like the “Fontus,” a small dehumidifier that was based on impossibly optimistic efficiencies (well over 100%)  to make a device the size of a small drinking bottle with a few square inches of PV cells that would produce a meaningful volume of drinkable water from the air. Since then, Fontus has gone belly-up… but Waterseer continues.

But it doesn’t continue in its original form. As originally proposed, it was a purely mechanical system, using wind power to blow air through the system. Now it requires electricity, and a fair amount of it. It operates more like a dehumidifier now. And as the new Thunderf00t video below shows, it’s actually an off-the-shelf dehumidifier. One you can get from WalMart for $200, but Waterseer put it in a new plastic cylinder, re-branded it, and charges almost $1400 for it. So now, instead of being free water from the air, it now needs to be plugged into an electrical grid, producing water for about 50 times the cost of municipal tap water. The video includes an interview with a satisfied customer who is using the system to water his commercial lettuce garden. According to Thunderf00ts math, the guy will pay $4 just in electricity (never mind amortizing the cost of the machines) for each head of lettuce that he’ll try to sell for about 35 cents.

Like a lot of Thunderf00ts more recent videos, this one is loaded with a hell of a lot of extraneous rehash, redundancy and self-congratulations. So you can safely skip ahead to about the 23 minute mark and get straight to the point.

 Posted by at 3:48 am
Jul 062019
 

A sketch of the 1980s/90s SP-100 space-based nuclear reactor, designed to provide 100 kilowatts of electrical power continuously for years on end. It would have been just the thing for applications where solar panels would not have been practical, such as deep space probes or military systems that need to be somewhat maneuverable. One might thing that replacing vast PV arrays with a small reactor would have made the satellites less visible… and on radar and likely visible light, that’s probably true. but that reactor and its radiators would have been quite visible in infra-red, apparent to any IR sensor pointed int its general direction. The sketch below shows not only the tests and progress that had been done on the SP-100, but also a conceptual payload of an undefined sort. It seems to be festooned with sensors.

 Posted by at 8:19 pm
Jul 062019
 

I thought *sure* that some years ago I posted something about theiPad-like “newspad” from “2001,” describing how it very clearly predicted not only the pad itself but also the internet as a whole. But a search of the blog did not turn up what I thought it would; the closest was this bit from 2015 describing an article displayed on a Newspad.

Some more archive finds have provided more insight into the world of “2001:”

Did Stanley Kubrick invent the iPad?

The subject of the articles headline has been bandied about since 2011. But what’s of interest right here are the headlines that were written for the Newspad, specifically for the New York Times. Of course they didn’t appear on screen, so they are of arguably “canonicity,” but they’re interesting nonetheless:

  1. 1000TH BABY BORN AT SOUTH POLE CITY
  2. LAST WORLD WAR I VETERAN DIES IN LONDON
  3. AIRLINER FEARED LOST OVER ATLANTIC; 2304 ON BOARD
  4. WORLD POPULATION PASSES 6 BILLION MARK: EVEN SPLIT NORTH AND SOUTH OF EQUATOR
  5. LAST GRIZZLY BEAR DIES IN CINCINNATI ZOO: SPECIES NOW EXTINCT – TENTH THIS YEAR
  6. DEEP-SPACE SURVEY ENROUTE: FLIGHT REPORTED NORMAL IN ALL RESPECTS
  7. AQUANAUT RECORD NOW HELD BY BRAZIL: SUBMARINE SURVEY TEAM DOWN FOUR YEARS
  8. FUNCTIONING EARTH SATELLITES NOW NUMBER 3700: MAJORITY LINK WEATH AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS
  9. MOVE GAINS MOMENTUM IN WESTERN STATES FOR RETURN TO 4-PARTY SYSTEM
  10. GARZANTI DIES IN ROME: FAMOUS DETECTIVE CREDITED WITH FINAL DESTRUCTION OF MAFIA IN 1971
  11. DAWN OF MAN PUSHED BACK TO 5,000,000 YEAR MARK
  12. GRAND CANYON BRIDGE OPENED BY PRESIDENT: LAST LINK IN ARGENTINA-ALASKA ELECTRONIC HIGHWAY SYSTEM
  13. LANGUAGE BARRIER NOW NIL FOR 75% OF EARTH’S PEOPLES
  14. FOURTEEN WESTERNS UP FOR NEXT TV LINE-UP
  15. RESEARCH EXPENDITURES GREATER THAN PRODUCTION COSTS FOR SIX KEY INDUSTRIES
  16. TRIPLE ALLOCATION ANTICIPATION FOR GRAVITY-CONTROL PROJECT AT USC
  17. MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN ESP RESEARCH AT DUKE. PLANS FOR PRACTICAL APPLICATION LIKELY TO BE IMPLEMENTED WITHIN DECADE
  18. BOOK REVIEW: “THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: RISE AND FALL OF A DRAGON: BY KEITH ROGERS
  19. ART: PABLO PICASSO, PAINTING’S MOST INCREDIBLE SUCCESS STORY
  20. THEATER: THE BARRYMORES, FORGOTTEN LEGEND
  21. MEDICINE: HOW MUCH FURTHER THE AGE LIMIT? ARE 125 YEARS ENOUGH?
  22. GARDENING: WATCH THE PH FACTOR. ACIDITY MORE CRITICAL IN HYDROPONICS THAN IN SOIL
  23. NEW TRAFFIC COMMISSIONER FOR NEW YORK CITY. MAYOR PROMISES RESULTS. CITIZENS’ COMMITTEE REPORTEDLY PESSIMISTIC
  24. FINANCIAL: BUYING POWER OF DOLLAR UP. FIRST IMPROVEMENT IN SEVENTEEN MONTHS. EASING ON CREDIT SEEN.
  25. SPORTS: AUSTRALIANS  LIKELY VICTORS TENNIS

Some comments:

1: South Pole City is clearly a well-established facility in 2001.

2: This means the last WWI veterans were probably under 100 years of age when they died.

3: Previously discussed.

4: Population reached 6 billion in 1999, but it was nowhere near an even split between north & south hemispheres. Something must have happened to drive a whole lot of people south without actually killing a whole lot of people.

5: Apparently the environment of 2001 has gone to hell such that the grizzlies have died out. Perhaps that’s why so many people have fled the northern hemisphere? From the viewpoint of the mid-sixties when these were written, the environment sucked, and would continue to suck for quite a number more years.

8: Way more satellites than real 2001. Not surprising.

9: Huh. One wonders what those 4 parties are, and whether they want a return to 4 from, say, 2 or from 6.

12: What’s an “electronic highway?” In real-world usage it might refer to the internet, but here it’s clearly an actual highway. Perhaps an electrified roadway for long-range self-driving electric cars?

13: Presumably HAL-1000 translation programs?

14: 14 westerns on American TV in 2001 would indicate a major shift in cultural priorities. In the real world westerns had pretty much vanished by the end of the 70’s. Perhaps there’s a link between the “cowboy ethic” and “frontier stories” with having an *actual* frontier…

15: And that’s why technology has advanced so far.

16: Umm… wha-what? Gravity control?

17: Clarke was obsessed with ESP. It has of course turned out to be rubbish. One wonders if a later article would be about how Duke got scammed.

18: This might indicate that China got real big and powerful in the late 20th century, but then collapsed. Perhaps that’s where much of the southern hemisphere population boom came from… hundreds of millions of Chinese immigrants into, say, sub-Saharan Africa. That would be fun to explore.

20: Apparently Drew went nowhere.

22: Hydroponic gardening is a big deal. Again, the environment seems to have gone down the crapper.

Discuss!

 Posted by at 7:11 pm
Jul 062019
 

It’s time to play “compare the headline with the content!”

Headline:

NASA asteroid DANGER: A 2,700 MEGATON asteroid might hit Earth this October

Content:

There is a small chance – about one in 11,000,000 – Asteroid FT3 will crash into us in the next three months.

The odds of impact translate into a 0.0000092% chance of cataclysm or a 99.9999908% chance the asteroid will miss Earth.

This merits “DANGER” I guess. By that measure, I guess I’m at risk of my books getting picked up by a publisher AND of becoming every bits as popular and rich as J.K. Rowling.   Which I guess means I’m also at risk of eventually posting tweets like “No, really, Nyarlathotep was gay the whole time!”

All that said, asteroid 2007 FT3  seems an interesting prospect. Obviously an Earth-crosser, it is a not inconsiderable chunk of stuff at 340 meters in diameter with a mass of 5.5e+10 kg. There are several very good reasons to go pay it a visit:

  1. Pure science
  2. Mining, either for preliminary experiments or actual practice
  3. Nuke it. Use it as a testing ground for Orion-style propulsive pulse units. This could be for pure science, to test the pulse units, to see how asteroids structurally respond, to see how efficiently the pulse mechanically couples to the target, to actually blast it into flinders for further science. Or it could be for practical purpose, for diverting the asteroid into high Earth or Lunar orbit, or perhaps for plowing it directly into a lunar impact. Why would anyone do the latter? Because it’s awesome, that’s why.

 

Date
(yyyy-mm-dd.dd)
Distance
(rEarth)
Width
(rEarth)
Sigma
Impact
Sigma
LOV
Stretch
LOV
(rEarth)
Impact
Probability
Impact
Energy
(Mt)
Palermo
Scale
Torino
Scale
2019-10-03.93 65.92 4.67e+1 1.390 -0.52688 3.75e+4 9.2e-8 2.670e+03 -3.17 0
2024-10-02.85 52.12 4.74e+1 1.079 -0.82761 5.48e+4 7.5e-8 2.724e+03 -3.73 0
2025-10-03.64 134.19 4.71e+1 2.826 -0.34668 5.39e+4 3.2e-9 2.637e+03 -5.16 0
2029-10-02.90 125.36 4.56e+1 2.727 -1.03451 1.21e+6 1.2e-10 2.762e+03 -6.74 0
2030-10-03.62 36.39 4.77e+1 0.742 -0.60895 6.54e+4 9.9e-8 2.685e+03 -3.87 0
2030-10-03.69 65.61 4.61e+1 1.403 -0.52780 3.66e+6 9.4e-10 2.670e+03 -5.89 0
2030-10-03.69 64.55 4.74e+1 1.341 -0.53047 9.10e+5 4.0e-9 2.671e+03 -5.27 0
2031-10-04.25 166.23 4.73e+1 3.491 -0.25267 6.72e+4 3.2e-10 2.618e+03 -6.40 0
2034-10-03.10 143.27 5.24e+1 2.715 -1.07823 2.94e+4 4.3e-9 2.768e+03 -5.33 0
2034-10-03.12 136.19 4.12e+1 3.279 -1.05902 4.80e+4 6.2e-10 2.766e+03 -6.18 0
 Posted by at 12:39 pm
Jul 052019
 

Stepped out this evening to go for a walk and found this feller next to my shop. A juvenile hawk, it didn’t seem to be in a hurry to wander off. Some neighbors and I stood around looking at it like… well, like people standing around looking at a hawk. As this was well after the Department of Wildlife had closed for the night (and the weekend), we got lucky in waving down a passing state trooper. Who, as it turns out, was a former wildlife warden and was about as nonchalant as you could hope. He simply and easily bundled it in a thick blanket and took it off to a bird rehab place, as it was too young to fly back up to where it should have been.

I knew something was up about 20 minutes earlier. There were a bunch of birds chirping their damnfool heads off all day… and they suddenly got *real* quiet. At the same time, Speedbump was in a back window and suddenly went buggo, running from window to window.

 Posted by at 10:19 pm