Lifeboat Foundation

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post I explain two more mistakes in physics. The first is 55 years old, and should have been caught long ago.

Bondi, in his 1957 paper “Negative mass in General Relativity”, had suggested that mass could be negative and there are surprising results from this possibility. I quote,

“… the positive body will attract the negative one (since all bodies are attracted by it), while the negative body will repel the positive body (since all bodies are repelled by it). If the motion is confined to the line of centers, then one would expect the pair to move off with uniform acceleration …”

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2e)” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post on technological feasibility, I point to some more mistakes in physics, so that we are aware of the type of mistakes we are making. This I hope will facilitate the changes required of our understanding of the physics of the Universe and thereby speed up the discovery of new physics required for interstellar travel.

The scientific community recognizes two alternative models for force. Note I use the term recognizes because that is how science progresses. This is necessarily different from the concept how Nature operates or Nature’s method of operation. Nature has a method of operating that is consistent with all Nature’s phenomena, known and unknown.

If we are willing to admit, that we don’t know all of Nature’s phenomena — our knowledge is incomplete — then it is only logical that our recognition of Nature’s method of operation is always incomplete. Therefore, scientists propose theories on Nature’s methods, and as science progresses we revise our theories. This leads to the inference that our theories can never be the exact presentation of Nature’s methods, because our knowledge is incomplete. However, we can come close but we can never be sure ‘we got it’.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2d)” »

I want to start a project of better visualization of the problems we face. We ask children to visualize in school but we all could use it. In the common economic discussions trillion dollar budgets and a million dollars are discussed interchangeability shows lack of visualization. The West is heading for currency collapse but austerity measures in Greece just add to unemployment not debt reduction, why is this so hard to visualize?

One clear way to shore up the US economy is to end foreign bases and end the embargo of Cuba. Boycotts hurt both sides, the Cuban economy is smaller so it hurts them more. The US economy is shaky so at some point embargo’s may be the straw that makes us fall apart.

Continue reading “Visualizing the World and its Dangers” »

Note: The below is exclusively about the United States of America, yet the theme is international.

Each time an extreme weather event takes place humanity is reminded again that basic preparation for an off-grid experience did not take place across large swaths of an affected population. Ironically, it does not begin to take place, publicly and en masse, after the event.

Saving humanity will have a lot to do with teaching a kid to build a fire, in the near term. More esoteric “preservers” and “shields” have their place, but “Scout” knowledge can produce immediate quantitative and qualitative improvements in humanity’s survival capabilities, fast.

After weather-induced disasters, our tendency is toward construction of physical things – better towers, more resilient dams, improved architecture. Seldom do we do anything to improve ourselves. Thousands remain helpless and dependent in the face of the Hurricane “Sandy” aftermath.

Continue reading “Is Failure to Prepare Our Silent Existential Event?” »

It was on a long-haul flight many months ago that I recalled a visit to the National Air and Space Museum [1] to a fellow passenger whom I struck up conversation with. Asking if I could recommend somewhere to visit in Washington DC, I recounted how I had spent an entire day amazing at the collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft on my only visit to that city fifteen years or so previous as a young adult — and as always a kid at heart.

Seeing the sheer scale of the F-1 engine for the Saturn 5 rocket first hand, stepping inside an Apollo command module identical to those used during the Apollo program, not to mention seeing full life-size replicas of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, an Apollo Lunar Module and for some reason what seemed most surreal to me… the Viking 1 Lander. This was enchantment.

However, for all the amazement that such a museum can provide, it is also a saddening reminder that what once was the forefront of human ambition and endeavor has now been largely resigned to history. NASA budgets are cut annually [2] whilst military expenditure takes ever more precedence. A planned six percent budget decrease in 2013 is the equivalent savings to three hours of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Instead of reaching to explore outer-space we are encouraged to get excited about the equivalent billions [3] invested on science exploring the subatomic inner-space world. Meanwhile, we tend to forget that the ambitions of space exploration are not just to satisfy some wide-eyed childhood yearning to explore, but the serious and sobering prospect of needing to ensure that we as a species can eventually colonize to other worlds and ensure we are not counting down the days to our extinction on an ever-more-precarious planetary solitude.

In the face of such indifference, such concepts of lifeboats have become marginalized to what is perceived to be a realm solely for loons and dreamers, or ‘space cadets’ as we used to call them back in the days of school. The trillion dollar question really is what it takes to redirect all that military investment into science & exploration instead. It is down to credibility. Governments shy away from investing public funds when there is a lack of credibility.

Continue reading “Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: No Lifeboats Please” »

Humans have questioned death, and have searched for immortality since they first became conscious of the finiteness of life. Many modern humans are now confident (or at least hopeful) that it may be possible to achieve immortality, perhaps by using technological advances. This is a myth. It is against the laws of physics (think of entropy) for anyone to become immortal, so it will not happen.

Let me clarify what I mean. The term ‘immortal’ literally means someone who never dies, i.e. lives forever. But ‘forever’ means really forever, more than 50 trillion years, until the end of time. In the foreseeable future (the future which is relevant to us alive today) this is just plain nonsense. If the term is nonsense, then it should not be used. Better terms may be ‘longevity’, or ‘extreme lifespan’ which means to live for many years, without stipulating a number. Extreme longevity, or extreme life extension is not immortality. One may be able to live for 1000 years, and then still die. Another suitable term could be ‘indefinite lifespan’ which is the absence of a sustained increase of mortality as a function of age (i.e. it is the absence of death due to aging). These terms denote something feasible, something that can be achieved with the use of near-term future technology.

Another legitimate term to use is ‘Human Biological Immortality’. This is a strict term used in biology to refer to the decrease of the rate of cellular mortality as a function of age. It is, in other words, similar to the term ‘indefinite lifespan’. Here the emphasis is on indefinite, and not on infinite.

I believe that certain humans will be able to live indefinitely (50 years, 500 years, no a priori limit) and that this will happen after a combination of natural evolutionary events (https://acrobat.com/#d=MAgyT1rkdwono-lQL6thBQ) enhanced and accelerated by science and technology (http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/03/04/indefinite-lifespans-a-n…l-brain/). Death by aging will be abolished, and people will only die from accidents, illnesses etc. We will still be mortal.

Continue reading “The importance of using the correct terms” »

Recently I attended the AIAA Rocky Mountain Region’s First Annual Technical Symposium, October 26, 2012. Link to Symposium Photos, here. Link to Symposium Presentations, here.

I must congratulate many of the presenters, our youth, our next generation leaders, for thinking outside the box. And I congratulate their supervisors, advisors and team members for facilitating a supportive environment that nurtures outside the box thinking.

Here is why. Several remarkable papers were presented. For example, Tom Joslyn (Lt. Col, PhD) presented “Use of Liquid Droplet Stream Momentum Transfer for Lunar and Interplanetary Missions”. By using liquid droplets to conserve and transfer momentum between the momentum storage spacecraft and the lunar landing spacecraft, one could reduce the LEO mass from 200,000 kg to 24,500 kg. The presentation wasn’t about theory. It was about the how such a concept would be Engineering Feasible. The type of liquids required, and the ejection and capture systems required. That is impressive.

Second, “Cockpit of the Future” by the Capstone Team. They presented many new concepts like Palm Piloteer, haptic feedback suits, wrap around displays and seat designs.

Continue reading “Our Youth, Thinking Outside the Box” »

I was about to discuss the third of three concepts, but thought a look back would be appropriate at this time. In my earlier post I had shown that the photon/particle wave function could not be part of the photon/particle as this would violate the empirical Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations and therefore, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. The wave function is only the photon/particle’s disturbance of the spacetime it is in, and therefore explains why photons/particles have wave properties. They don’t. They disturb spacetime like a pebble dropped into a pond. The pond’s ripples are not the pebble.

In the recent findings, Dr. Alberto Peruzzo, University of Bristol (UK) the lead author of the paper and quoting “The measurement apparatus detected strong nonlocality, which certified that the photon behaved simultaneously as a wave and a particle in our experiment, … This represents a strong refutation of models in which the photon is either a wave or a particle.” This is a very important finding and another step in the progress of science towards a better understanding of our Universe.

Those of you who have been following my blog posts will recognize that this is empirical validation using single structure test that shows that both wave and particle properties occur together. What is required next, to be empirically rigorous, is to either confirm or deny that this wave function is a spacetime disturbance. For that we require a dual structure test.

If this wave function is a spacetime disturbance, then Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is upheld, and we would require a major rethink of quantum physics or the physics of elementary particles. If this wave function is a not spacetime disturbance but part of the particle structure, then there is an empirical exception to the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation and we would require a rethink of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2c) . . . continued” »

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post I discuss the second of three concepts, that if implemented should speed up the rate of innovation and discovery so that we can achieve interstellar travel within a time frame of decades, not centuries. Okay, I must remind you that this will probably upset some physicists.

One of the findings of my 12-year study was that gravitational acceleration was independent of the internal structure of a particle, therefore, the elegantly simple formula, g=τc², for gravitational acceleration. This raised the question, what is the internal structure of a particle? For ‘normal’ matter, the Standard Model suggests that protons and neutrons consist of quarks, or other mass based particles. Electrons and photons are thought to be elementary.

I had a thought, a test for mass as the gravitational source. If ionized matter showed the same gravitational acceleration effects as non-ionized matter, then one could conclude that mass is the source of gravitational acceleration, not quark interaction; because the different ionizations would have different electron mass but the same quark interaction. This would be a difficult test to do correctly because the electric field effects are much greater than gravitational effects.

Continue reading “The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (2c)” »